In folklore, an undine is a water spirit, a mysterious, beautiful creature which can acquire a soul by marrying a mortal, but as Mrs. Spragg makes clear, she and Mr. Spragg knew nothing about water spirits when they called their child Undine.
Rather, the name was chosen for a hair waver that Undine's grandfather had invented the week of her birth ("undoolay" is "the French for crimping"). The confusion about the name suggests a great deal about Undine's role in the novel. She is mistaken a number of times for something that she is not, and at least some would claim she lacks a soul.
"Fiercely independent and yet passionately imitative," Undine is able to copy the style and manners of the social sets she wants to belong to, and she misleads her second.....
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