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sincerelybluevase · 7 years

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Sunday Symbolism: Turnadette and Hands, Part 2

I’ve decided to make this post into three parts instead of two, because there is just a lot to talk about. I’ll be speaking about season 3 and 4 in this post, and then about seasons 5 and 6 in the third and final part.

Season 3 and 4 are a bit different when we compare it to the second season with regard to hands. This is to be expected: after all, Shelagh and Patrick are married now, and no longer a nun and a doctor feeling things they should not be feeling. I’ve noted every instance in which there’s hand-holding or another important thing regarding hands. We’re going to see that it is often Patrick who reaches out for Shelagh to comfort her (showing us Patrick is usually the one to instigate physical contact), even though there are exceptions. Let’s go!

The first instance of handholding takes place in the 2014 Christmas Special. When Patrick and Shelagh are discussing some of the details of their wedding, Patrick is holding her hand and almost toying with it, lightly tapping it to punctuate his words (he talks about the wedding bouquet he has ordered). He also draws patterns on the back of her hand. It is a small moment that shows the beginning of their physical intimacy (Shelagh’s body language, for instance, is still a bit distant; she leans back rather than towards her husband).

The next moment in which hands play an important role also takes place in CS2014: after Timothy has been hospitalised with a serious bout of polio, Shelagh returns to the hospital to support her stepson and her husband. She takes Patrick’s hand and kisses it. This scene is meaningful because of several things: 1) it directly echoes the way Patrick kisses Shelagh’s hand, but 2)this time, it is Shelagh who does the kissing. She is the one to initiate this physical intimacy, showing her affection and understanding for her future husband’s pain. I think it also shows us that she will be the strong one, now, and that it’s OK for Patrick to lean on her and draw strength from her.

Of course, there’s also the hand holding during the wedding, which again shows affection and love.

What CS2014 and Season 2 have done, is establishing hand-holding as the ‘standard’ physical way of the Turners to show their love and affection for each other. Season 3 and 4 continue to add to this idea and develop it further. We will see that these two mainly hold hands in emotional times, whether these are happy or sad.

In S03X01, there’s the case of the baby’s nightdress. Shelagh is sewing a nightdress for a baby. When Patrick thinks this is Shelagh’s way of telling him some good news, he immediately offers her his hand to show her how happy he is. Shelagh hesitates, takes his hand, then tells him there’s no good news yet. They then stroke each other’s hands during the rest of the conversation.

If S03X01 gave us a case of happy hand-holding, S03X03 gives us a sad one: Shelagh has surgery to discover why she has stopped menstruating and why she is not conceiving. The cause: the TB scarred her pelvic organs, rendering her infertile. It is Patrick who tells Shelagh this bad news. He takes her hand whilst doing it, to show her his love for her and that she is not alone.

Patrick does not always reach out to comfort his wife, though; there are instances in which he takes her hand because he needs to draw comfort from her, rather than give it. S03X04 shows us this: When they’re talking about Alec’s death, Patrick reaches out and firmly grasps Shelagh’s hand. I think he needs her support. This is not just a case of Patrick needing Shelagh’s strength; the topic turns to Shelagh’s infertility, and since Patrick is already holding her hand, he can now caress it and show her that he shares her pain. It is an instance of both drawing comfort from and giving comfort to the other.

Not all hand-related scenes these two seasons relate to stroking and holding, though. In S03X05, there’s the infamous finger-wagging. Shelagh chastises Patrick for leaving Timothy to his own devices. She worries about his physical condition, and speaks harshly. Patrick then wags his finger at her and tells her that she shouldn’t be so hard on him or on herself, and that she should try not to smother Timothy. This scene has been discussed A LOT in the fandom, but I’ll still give my two cents. Now, the finger-wagging is authoritarian, and I don’t feel it is something Patrick should do to his wife. However, he has been living with his son alone for quite a while, and is not entirely used to having a fellow adult (in Season 5, we see him wagging his finger when he gets angry at Timothy, which leads me to believe that it is something he does quite a lot in arguments). It shows the audience that the Turners love each other, but they also have work to do. They’ve only been married a couple of months and didn’t live together prior to that. It is only logical that they’re going to make mistakes, and that includes going about the way they argue.

I think it is important to note that, from here on, there’s a bit of a gap in the hand-holding. Sure, these two hold hands in S03X06 when they’re talking about the possibility of a baby (both hands, in fact, showing us just how intensely they feel about this topic), but between that, the disastrous interview, and their reconciliation, there is no hand-holding. This is logical; these two are becoming more and more distant during this period, which is reflected in the way they behave around each other physically. It is therefore logical that the next instance of hand-holding takes place in S03X08: Shelagh grabs Patrick’s hand when he tells her he’s sorry. She reaches out to him. Again, this is important, because we’ve seen that in 9/10 cases, it is Patrick who initiates this type of contact. Shelagh has been trying to get close to her husband again the entire episode, only for Patrick to refute her. Here, he accepts her hand. He lets his wife get close to him, which is exactly what is needed for their reconciliation to be successful. After they’ve both apologised for what happened and promised to do better in the future, Patrick kisses Shelagh’s hand again. This underlines yet again how emotionally charged this conversation was, and echoes earlier scenes of hand-kissing in which Patrick also made promises (the engagement).

To show us that, yes the Turners really are better and stronger after what they’ve just gone through, we have a second instance of hands+Turners in this episode. When Shelagh is picking out a new song for the choir, Patrick reaches out to her, envelopes her in his arms, and they dance. Things are better than they were before: not only is Patrick back to instigating physical and emotional proximity, Shelagh also embraces this. This is the first scene in which we see them in such an intimate way (he holding her close, his hand splayed on her back….)

I’d say we can establish how emotional a conversation/event is for the Turners based on how they go about their hands:

Holding one hand> holding two hands> hand kisses.

A combination of one of these means extra emotion, of course.

Season 4 continues very much in the same vein for the first few episodes. In S04X01, Shelagh tells Patrick she misses working. It shows us that these two are now communicating properly. Also, because it is a somewhat difficult topic for Shelagh, there is hand-holding.

Luckily, Season 4 also gives us a bit of happy-hands. S04X04 shows us that Patrick is proud of his darling wife (she has successfully delivered a baby, even though she hasn’t done such a thing in over a year), and shows it by offering her his hand, then pulling her close and kissing her hand and cradling it over his heart.

S04X05 is a Turner-heavy episode, and yet another breakthrough in the Turner marriage. Hand-wise, it starts out as we would expect: Shelagh and Patrick hold hands for comfort. This happens when Patrick feels the emotional impact of having to take a baby away from its parents, even though he believes it to be the right thing (the baby has suffered several broken bones, and he suspects that the parents have brutally abused the child). We do not stick to this familiar pattern, though. Patrick discovers he has made a mistake in taking the baby away from its parents (it suffers from a rare condition that causes broken bones). On top of that, he is also clearly overworked, and gets close to a nervous breakdown. When Shelagh suspects something is wrong, she reaches out for Patrick. He tries to avoid physical contact. I think he does this because he would have to acknowledge that something is wrong if he lets his wife comfort him, and he doesn’t want to do that. Shelagh is no fool, though, and forces him to take a break (the tremor in Patrick’s hands are also clear indicators that there’s definitely something wrong with the poor man). Luckily, the Turners emerge stronger from this incident. This time, we do not have reconciliation through a kiss on the hand, though. Instead, we get a hug and a proper kiss (yay! Physical intimacy progress!) Some things change (Patrick realises it is alright to ask support from his wife; Shelagh goes back to work,) but some things remain the same. The way they show love for each other, particularly, continues to be through hand-holding, though this episode has started a pattern of kisses, too.

The last instance of Season 4 happens in S04X07: when there’s a fire in the maternity home, Patrick naturally is concerned about his wife. They’re not the types for lots of public signs of affection, but he does take her hand and squeezes it to show her that he is relieved she is alright.

After they’ve discovered the baby mix-up, they’re also holding hands. This fits the previously established muster of hand-holding when discussing difficult and/or emotional topics.

Well, that’s all for this week, guys! Next week, I’ll discuss Season 5 and 6, so stay tuned for that!

#sunday symbolism #turnadette #call the midwife #call the midwife symbolism

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