Christine’s attempted poisoning of Rhoda

Christine’s attempted poisoning of Rhoda is the climax of Christine Penmark’s effort to end both her own life and Rhoda Penmark’s without alerting the child to what is happening. Christine stages the sleeping pills as prescribed tablets, then sits beside Rhoda and reads to her until she falls asleep. The scene’s measured domestic routine makes the deception possible, while Christine’s final act turns her planned double death into a suicide whose consequences for Rhoda remain unresolved in this passage.

Preparation and Resolve

The attempt follows a period of conflict that Christine now believes has reached a decision. She makes a holograph will, dated August 3, 1952, leaving her jewelry and a 1912 Utrillo landscape to Monica Breedlove, returning a Modigliani drawing to her husband, Kenneth Penmark, and leaving her remaining property to Thelma Jessup, the widow of Leroy Jessup. In the will’s terms, the bequests also register the relationships Christine means to acknowledge: affection for Monica, love and a plea for forgiveness from Kenneth, and provision for Thelma. Christine locks the document in her desk and regards it as an act of atonement.

Having made the will, Christine thinks through her next steps with the practical attention she once applied to a family budget. She wants the plan carried out calmly and discreetly, and, above all, wants Rhoda neither to suffer nor to understand what is coming. The resolve is not presented as a sudden impulse: Christine considers how to act, rejects approaches she cannot bring herself to use, and tries to arrange the circumstances in advance.

She also destroys much of her private past. Christine burns the imploring letters she had written to Kenneth, disposes of their ashes, and tears up old letters and photographs she had once imagined keeping for Rhoda. The destruction follows the making of the will: one document arranges what will happen to her possessions, while the others erase personal records she had expected her daughter might someday see. Afterward she goes to bed and wakes feeling serene, though her reflection in the mirror brings home how much has happened to her.

A Deception Made to Look Ordinary

Christine’s plan depends on making the pills seem like routine treatment rather than a threat. She knows she cannot use physical violence against Rhoda, and recognizes that the child is alert to danger and likely to detect an obvious trap. She therefore takes Rhoda to a doctor, presenting her concern as a question about the girl’s poor appetite, paleness, and listlessness. The doctor finds Rhoda healthy. This examination does not supply a medical reason for the dose; it gives Christine a credible explanation to use afterward.

On the way home, Christine tells Rhoda that the doctor thinks she needs vitamin tablets and stops to buy them in the child’s presence. Later, she removes the tablets from their container and replaces them with the sleeping pills that Monica Breedlove and a doctor had prescribed for Christine’s own discomfort, but which Christine had not taken. The substitution converts an object Rhoda has watched her mother purchase into the instrument of the concealed plan.

That night Christine offers the tablets at bedtime. When Rhoda sees the number in her mother’s palm, she questions whether they are all meant to be taken at once. Christine claims that she had asked the doctor and that, because Rhoda’s condition was different, he had advised taking them together. Rhoda then asks to see the bottle. Christine gives it to her; Rhoda reads the label and checks that the tablets in her mother’s hand look identical to those remaining inside. Only after this inspection does she accept the explanation and begin taking them. The exchange shows how Christine’s deception has to accommodate Rhoda’s suspicion: the child does not simply comply, but tests the evidence available to her.

The Bedside Scene

Rhoda takes a small swallow of water after each tablet. Christine urges her to finish, assuring her that the tablets will make a difference and solve everything. The words give the dose a reassuring, therapeutic meaning, while Christine’s actual purpose remains hidden. Rhoda follows the instruction and swallows the last of the sleeping pills.

Christine then offers to read aloud. Rhoda is in the middle of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, and Christine finds the place and reads softly beside her. The familiar book and the bedtime ritual sustain the appearance of ordinary care even as Christine waits for the pills to take effect. Eventually Rhoda’s eyes close. The scene’s quietness is part of the plan: Christine has brought the danger into a setting of trust, medicine, water, and a story read by a parent.

Watching Rhoda breathe, Christine is briefly unsettled by the contrast between the child’s placid appearance and the dark instincts Christine believes she has seen in her. For a moment, Christine doubts her own judgment and wonders whether Rhoda’s actions exist only in her imagination. She then rebukes that doubt, insisting to herself that what she believes happened is real. The hesitation exposes the psychological strain beneath the elaborate calm: Christine acts on a conviction that she has to reaffirm even while looking at her sleeping daughter.

Suicide and Unresolved Outcome

Before the attempt, a letter from Kenneth tells Christine that he hopes to return around the middle of August, misses his wife and child, and longs not to have to leave them again. Christine reads it repeatedly and kisses his photograph, but continues with her plan. She tells the photograph that Rhoda will not destroy him as she believes Rhoda has destroyed her, and that Rhoda will not die publicly as Christine’s mother did. The letter and photograph place Christine’s final decision against the prospect of reunion and the family life Kenneth expects to resume; they do not persuade her to abandon the plan.

After Rhoda falls asleep, Christine kisses her forehead, unlocks her desk, and takes out her pistol. Standing before her bedroom mirror, she shoots herself. Her suicide follows the poisoning attempt, but the passage does not state whether Rhoda wakes, whether the dose proves fatal, or what happens to her afterward. That limit matters: Christine’s intention is to kill both herself and her daughter, yet the narrated outcome here confirms only Christine’s death. The episode’s central reversal lies in the contrast between the meticulous preparations intended to spare Rhoda awareness and the uncertainty left by Christine’s final act.