الضائعة

The Lost girl is an excellent work and a thorough study of life; almost a guide on how to live it. Its focal character Alvina Houghton is tossed into the uncertain sea of youth. Like most young people, she is lost, and has no clue on how to direct her steps in the world. Money does not grow on trees, and love can be as painful as it is often sweet and thrilling. So we follow her progress closely, and witness the growth in her character as she searches the depth of her soul in the quest of her true self.In its treatment of marriage, the novel depicts the everlasting shadow of sadness and discontent cast upon the lives of mismatched couples like James Houghton and his wife. The latter had become an invalid, and was confined to her room for years on account of the growing disappointment with her matrimonial life. Alvina, the fruit of that unhappy conventional union, seems to be aware of the dangers of commitment when love and passion are lacking. Accordingly, she defies the rigid norms of her day, and only marries for love in spite of her community's prejudice and judgement.The book is an excellent study of the cultural and sociological circumstances of the day by dint of its use of binary opposition between nature and industry, old traditions and new ideas, human touch and artificiality. In one particular scene, Mr. May advocates the beauty of stage performances while Alvina explains to him that the audience was no longer interested in such spectacles, and was now contented with picture movies instead. In a way, the technological development, as depicted in the novel, had only led to people's estrangement from one another, and their alienation from life itself.Otherness and alienation are both of them central themes in the novel. The former concept is developed by virtue of the foreign travelling performers who represent ideas and ideals unheard of in England, and consequently looked upon with suspicion and uneasiness. Even among the same group, Max and Louis, who were originally from Switzerland, could not live in harmony with the Italian Ciccio. The young men were alienated from one another on account of the growing tension of enmity between their countries shortly before the war.Alvina can be read as an absurdist character who recognizes the futility of Man's position in the world, the meaninglessness of suffering, and the acuteness of the pain resulting from separation and death. In spite of all that, however, she finds in the journey itself enough motivation and enjoyment to go on with her life.Although the title of the book is The Lost Girl, Alvina ends up finding her true self and discovering the things that made her genuinely happy including the connections which she really needed. It was only by losing herself that she found happiness, by taking a dive into the unknown and the mysterious and by living her life according to her own ideals instead of following the societal code of the day.