The Changeling: Sympathy For The Changeling

A Friendship Worth Dying For In Robin Jenkin’s The Changeling, an unlikely heroine is found in Gillian Forbes, the precocious daughter of schoolteacher Charlie Forbes. Though her mind is mature for a girl of her age, she acts contradictorily; Gillian often makes blatant queries primarily directed at the impoverished outcast Tom Curdie, who she acts abrasively and judgmentally towards upon first meeting. However, Gillian’s candid and blunt nature leads her to discover an unexpected empathy for Tom about his visibly stoic vulnerability and his tragic struggle, even when she is trying her best to detest him. Although Gillian has under-lying empathy for Tom, she chooses not to act on it for fear that it will change her outward opinion of him.

In opposition to Tom, who claims that he “used to know” [168] Peerie as an attempt to cut off one of his ties to Donaldson’s Court, Gillian, asking Peerie if Tom did “something terrible” [169] to cause Peerie’s

At first impression Gillian believes that Tom Curdie is a rotten child from the slums who will spawn “filthy thoughts” [173] in the minds of her and her family; however, it is only after seeing Tom cry after his encounter with Peerie that Gillian, expecting to find satisfaction and “triumph” [184] in Tom’s tears, finally realizes that she not only feels “sorry for” [173] Tom, but also “complicity with him.” [218] Watching Tom tear up shatters Gillian’s idea of his stoicism, and she begins to understand how truly human and vulnerable Tom is. She may have seemed the unlikely candidate of the Forbes’ family to have empathy for the changeling boy, but it is in that moment on the hiking trail when she pushes Tom away in which Gillian discerns why Tom has alienated himself from his family and friends; perhaps Gillian’s true “secret in her mind” [106] is that she yearns for the same solitude from her own family. Even though she is at first tossed aside by her father and berated for foolishly accusing Tom of theft, Gillian realizes that her “father’s grumble” [184] cannot phase her, and she develops more “pity and love for” [218] Tom than Charlie ever showed the changeling at first glance; therefore, Gillian begins “to feel tears in her eyes” [184] because she is surprised by the deep connection with Tom that