Robb_K wrote:You are very perceptive noticing that his bitterness towards his recent wife may have been the cause of Daisy's violent actions towards Donald, and Scrooge's maltreatment of Goldie. I had never considered that.
You just suggest the golden apples story yourself. I didn't think of that one. But now you mention it, there might be some pattern of woman-unfriendly stories up to 1952. Could Barks's time with third wife Garé have meant a nicer, warmer Barks? Is there a connection?
In Donald Ault's book 'Carl Barks Conversations', Barks remembers that his second wife Clara threw comic book work out of the window. Something which remminds me of a scene in the story about Gladstone's first dime. (WDC 140) There a young married couple is quarreling, and the woman throws the dinner out of the window.
Glittering Goldie is an iron heartless woman, as Barks shows her. She's as cold as ice. Despite her later sympathy for charity. Her charity ironically is another big difference with stingy Scrooge. As if to emphasize how divided Scrooge and Goldie are. As if Scrooge was honest in the past, and the the situation has turned around, making Goldie the person who learns how to live a good life.
Goldie might just be faking her sympathy for Scrooge, knowing it's her last chance. There's much distance between Barks's Goldie and Scrooge. The way I get it, Goldie had a profession in seducing men for payment, like a prostitute, as can be seen in the flashback. People who think this is love, should learn what love is.