56 pages • 1 hour read
Poor Things
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Chapters 14-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary: “Bella Baxter’s Letter: Glasgow to Odessa: The Gamblers”
Content Warning: This section discusses colonial violence and non-consensual medical experimentation.
Bella addresses her diary entries to God (Godwin). The first half of this chapter is written in iambic pentameter. Bella assures Godwin and McCandless that she and Duncan are not married. After having sex all night, which Bella calls “wedding,” Duncan sleeps all day. Whenever Bella leaves Duncan alone, he grows jealous, asks who she spoke to, and accuses her of having had hundreds of lovers before him. He says that the line on her stomach means that she had a baby through a cesarean section. Bella asks Godwin if she had a baby daughter before her accident and wonders what happened to her.
She and Duncan arrive in Amsterdam. Duncan, still suspicious of Bella, starts taking anti-lethargy pills so Bella cannot go away while he sleeps. Bella teaches herself to sleep with her eyes open, so Duncan’s attempts to tire her out fail. One day, she wakes up with Duncan in a gambling parlor. She tries to convince him to go back to their hotel together, but Duncan insists on gambling and wins a lot of money, refusing to stop when she asks. Bella stops writing in iambic pentameter.
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