Reading the first one hundred pages of this book was interesting. This book is more of a historical novel so it took me alittle more time to get into. However with reading the first one hundred pages I came across a few interesting things that grabbed my attention.For me when the book started talking about King Leopold is where I really began to get into it. one situation that caught my attention, was his marriage to Marie-Henriette. It was a marriage that was bad from the start. Even though they disliked each other they had to deal with it. On page 39 when his son died, showed how masculinity was a major factor then. He believed that royalty was meant for men only, and that was his only son. Even though they had three daughters, I was amazed at the fact that when their last daughter was born, he was so upset that it wasn't a boy that he refused to have anything to do with his wife.
Another thing I've noticed about King Leopold is how greedy he is. I was just out done when he talked Stanley into going back to the Congo after he had been deathly ill. It is clear that he is on a mission to conquer as much of Africa as he can. He is a very ambitious man, I can't wait to see how far he will get.
2 comments:
good point about the masculinity, it wasn't like female rulers would have been out of place at this point in history either. I'm sure a psyche major could tell us what complexes King Leopold suffered from. As much as he hated his daughters he still used them to his advantage, trying to marry them to all the powerful countries in Europe.
I'll say he was greedy!
If you like scandals, wait until you read about his second wife!!
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