JereNYC, you make some very good points here. This is what I think Hammerstein was going for: The audience falls in love with Nellie over the course of Act I, and we are meant to be shocked when her racism comes to the fore at the end of the act. But, in the Act II scene with Cable and Emile, after "Honey Bun," we can hear from what little she says to Emile on the subject that Nellie is terribly conflicted about her racism, and she really stumbles when she tries to explain it it. ("This is born in me.") When she learns very late in the show that Emile has put himself in mortal danger to go on that mission with Cable, and then when she learns that Cable has been killed, all of that is more than enough to bring her quickly to the realization of how foolish and nonsensical her racist feelings are ("What piffle! What a pinhead I was!")
BY THE WAY, there is a huge complication here. It has often been pointed out that Nellie's shocked reaction to learning about Emile's children and their dead mother is not only because the children are half-Polynesian, but because Emile has not previously told her that he has any children at all. He has already proposed to her WITHOUT HAVING TOLD HER that he has two children living with him. Many people rightly consider this a major flaw in the book, especially in terms of how the audience is supposed to feel about Emile. And the thing is, I think it could have been fixed or at least finessed by not having Emile actually propose to Nellie ("Will you marry me?") before he tells her about his children.
P.S. I realize that the word "pinhead" is now rightly considered offensive, I'm just quoting the libretto as written :-) |
