Sybilla story
Horace Meade's new wife Sybilla is perfectly obedient and agrees to all his unconventional demands. Despite this, Horace grows uncomfortable with her and tries to poison her, but is mysteriously thwarted. Horace concludes that Sybilla knew about the poison and has made contingencies with her lawyer in case she dies, and his only choice is to keep her alive and healthy. After 10 years of marriage, Sybilla dies of natural causes. Horace learns that there was no contingency plan, and he realizes that he truly loved her in the end. Directed by: Ida Lupino. Story by: Margaret Manners, Charlotte Armstrong.
17 total · 1 choice · 7 major · 9 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| tilting at windmills | choice | Horace thought his wife was plotting against him, but that was only his perverse imagination. |
| controlling partner | major | Horace convinced himself that Sybilla was playing the role of a perfectly obedient wife as a way to establish her control over him. He took calculated measures to trick her into drinking a lethal dose of sleeping medicine to free himself of her. |
| coping with the death of a spouse | major | Horace, as narrator, told the story of how he came to lose his beloved wife to natural causes. |
| husband and wife | major | Horace felt suffocated by his wife, Sybilla, and tried to surreptitiously give her a lethal does of sleeping medicine. |
| poison murder | major | Horace hatched a plot to do away with his wife by lacing her nightly drink with a lethal dose of sleeping medicine. |
| romantic love | major | In the end, Horace came to the realization that he truly loved Sybilla. |
| spouse murder | major | Horace hatched a plot to do away with his wife by lacing her nightly drink with a lethal dose of sleeping medicine. |
| what if I met the perfect mate | major | It would seem a point of the story was that Horace married the perfect wife, and was not happy because she was somehow too perfect. Then in the end he discovered how he actually loved her, despite having plotted to murder her. |
| child unhealthily attached to a parent | minor | Horace had trouble adapting to married life presumably in part because of his past attachment to his mother. |
| invasion of privacy | minor | Horace called Sybilla out for going into his study without his permission. |