Resumen
Resumen de Nancy
Para quién es
Readers who love a chatty heroine, big family comedy, country house life and Victorian marriage stories, and who enjoy a narrator who laughs at herself while her heart gets ahead of her.
De qué trata este libro
Nancy is a novel by Rhoda Broughton, who died in 1920. It tells its story in the first person through a girl who is nineteen at the start and twenty at the end. She is one of six noisy, quarrelsome, loving children in a country house, and her voice is quick, funny and brutally honest about herself. Broughton gives you a marriage story that starts as a comic bargain and grows into a hard look at trust, jealousy and pride.
The book opens on a March afternoon in the schoolroom, where the Grey children are making taffy and a visitor is about to arrive. He is Sir Roger Tempest, a general home from India, an old school friend of their stern father. The children joke that he might be their rich benefactor. Nancy, who has never flirted with anyone, has plans for her family and no plans for love.
Over about fifty short chapters you follow her from the schoolroom to a wedding, a honeymoon in Dresden, a lonely house, a rival neighbor and a heavy loss. The first key point takes you back to that schoolroom, with its smells of burnt sugar and its running jokes.
En este resumen
- 1Six children and a visiting generalFree
- 2A girl's plan and a man's silence
- 3A proposal answered with a bargain
- 4Wedding, farewells and a dreary honeymoon
- 5Dresden and a touchy young neighbor
- 6Home, the bag and a leaving
- 7A lonely wife and a worrying neighbor
- 8Frank's tangle and Nancy's lie
- 9What the story is really about
- 10How the story is told
Idea clave 1 de 10
Six children and a visiting general
The story begins in the Grey family schoolroom, where six children are cooking taffy from a greasy recipe book. Nancy reads the recipe aloud while Barbara stirs, Algy grates a lemon and Bobby butters the soup plates. The Brat peels almonds, and young Tou Tou, who is twelve and all legs and ears, sits on the table and watches.
Their mother comes in with a message from their father, who wants them quiet because Sir Roger Tempest is arriving. The children decide he is a poor old Indian bore who went to school with Father. The Brat reads a newspaper tale about a man who helped an old woman with a train window and received a fortune, and the family begins to hope for a benefactor.
Nancy plans to skip dinner, but she cannot escape prayers in the justice room. There the boys misbehave behind their father's back, and Nancy catches Bobby pricking Tou Tou with a pin. In the dim light she meets the visitor's eyes, and they are not bleary at all. They are steel blue, clear and kind.
After prayers someone tears her gathers, and she calls the culprit a beast and raises her hand to strike. She finds she is about to hit the general himself. He laughs and offers to make an Irish stew, and she shakes his hand warmly because he is only an old gentleman.
The scene sets the tone of the book. It shows a house of loud affection and a father who frightens them all, and a girl who says the wrong thing at once and is liked for it.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Nancy
What is Nancy by Rhoda Broughton about?
It follows a nineteen-year-old girl from a large country family who marries her father's old friend, Sir Roger Tempest, to help her brothers and sisters. The story traces how her marriage, her jealousy and one lie change her.
Who is Sir Roger Tempest in Nancy?
He is a general of forty-seven, home from India, who comes to stay with the Grey family and becomes Nancy's friend. He is kind, honest and gentle, and he falls in love with her.
Why is the heroine called Nancy and what are the sweet Nancies?
Nancy is the heroine's own name, and the sweet Nancies are flowers that grow in her garden. She wears a wreath of them on her wedding day, so they stand for her girlhood and home.
Is Nancy a love story or a comedy?
It is both. The first chapters are a lively family comedy full of jokes and nicknames, and the later chapters turn to jealousy, misunderstanding and grief. The mix gives the book its warmth and surprise.
Is Nancy easy to read today?
Yes, in the sense that the story is told by a chatty narrator in short chapters full of quick dialogue. Scenes like the taffy making, the wall and the bag presentation are funny and clear, and the plot moves steadily.