MovieChat Forums > I Capture the Castle (2003) Discussion > Confusion about the Mother's Death

Confusion about the Mother's Death

posted 12 years ago by HarlowMGM
2 replies | jump to latest

Ok it's clear the father killed the mother with a cake knife (although the scene is not fully shown) what is not clear is (a) was it an accident (b) was it deliberate but done in a fit of rage (c) did it accidentally happen with the neighbor stepped in to break up the fight (d) none of the above? It seems a bit hard to believe the father would only get six months for the incident, that he would be allowed to keep custody of the children when he clearly had rage issues, and that the kids don't seem to have that big a problem with the incident. And what is really absurd was in the end when it was revealed the mother was dying of cancer. So then it's ok to kill someone with a cake knife, they were going to die anyway? I think the incident killed any audience sympathy for the father which apparently the characters - and the author - had.

[–] talulahcarmichael 11 years ago

He didn't kill the mother. You see her when Mortmain's going into the prison, standing with Rose...and I think she had Thomas as well, I can't recall. She dies of natural causes years later, after he's out of prison again, and I think the opening scene is set after he gets out as well.

[–] danaenicole 10 years ago

Talulahcarmichael's right.

As it's explained in the book:

One afternoon when we were having tea in the garden, he had the misfortune to lose his temper with mother very noisily just as he was about to cut a piece of cake. He brandished the cake-knife at her so menacingly that an officious neighbor jumped the garden fence to intervene and got himself knocked down. Father explained in court that killing a woman with our silver cake-knife would be a long, weary business entailing sawing her to death, and he was completely exonerated of any intention of slaying mother. The whole case seems to have been quite ludicrous, with everyone but the neighbor being very funny. But father made the mistake of being funnier than the judge and, as there was no doubt whatever that he had seriously damaged the neighbor, he was sent to prison for three months.

So, basically, he only went to prison at all because he injured his neighbor.

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