The first impression is that the story is pretty clear, as the guy above describes, but there is one detail which I'd like to remark: she undoes the latch without any reasonable explanation.
So, my interpretation is that when the lyrics say "Poor Mary thought that she might die/When she saw the ocean for the first time", Mary feels that now that she's finally seen the sea she's ready to die and also get relieved from all her misery. That's the reason why she, in some way, "offends" Richard Slade by not letting him in and later does something that, unless you make this interpretation (that it is her will to die after she's accomplished her ambition) has no sense: to undo the latch of the door.
That's why the title is "The Kindness of Strangers", to Mary what Richard Slade did was paradoxically an act of kindness, as her death was the thing she strived for. This interpretation also turns ironical the last verses.
"The kindness of strangers" is most famously the last line of 'a streetcar named desire', where it's spoken by Blanche Dubois after being commited to an asylum by the man who raped her, causing her mental breakdown. In a song about a woman being raped and murdered, it's presumably meant with the same sense of bitter irony. The line was 'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers', implying she's also at the mercy of the unkindness of strangers.
It's the same with Mary Bellows, following her heart's desire to see the sea, and finding herself alone, she reaches out...
"The kindness of strangers" is most famously the last line of 'a streetcar named desire', where it's spoken by Blanche Dubois after being commited to an asylum by the man who raped her, causing her mental breakdown. In a song about a woman being raped and murdered, it's presumably meant with the same sense of bitter irony. The line was 'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers', implying she's also at the mercy of the unkindness of strangers.
It's the same with Mary Bellows, following her heart's desire to see the sea, and finding herself alone, she reaches out and unlatches the door in the hope that Richard Slade will enter and be kind. Clearly he wasn't.
The first impression is that the story is pretty clear, as the guy above describes, but there is one detail which I'd like to remark: she undoes the latch without any reasonable explanation.
So, my interpretation is that when the lyrics say "Poor Mary thought that she might die/When she saw the ocean for the first time", Mary feels that now that she's finally seen the sea she's ready to die and also get relieved from all her misery. That's the reason why she, in some way, "offends" Richard Slade by not letting him in and later does something that, unless you make this interpretation (that it is her will to die after she's accomplished her ambition) has no sense: to undo the latch of the door.
That's why the title is "The Kindness of Strangers", to Mary what Richard Slade did was paradoxically an act of kindness, as her death was the thing she strived for. This interpretation also turns ironical the last verses.
"The kindness of strangers" is most famously the last line of 'a streetcar named desire', where it's spoken by Blanche Dubois after being commited to an asylum by the man who raped her, causing her mental breakdown. In a song about a woman being raped and murdered, it's presumably meant with the same sense of bitter irony. The line was 'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers', implying she's also at the mercy of the unkindness of strangers. It's the same with Mary Bellows, following her heart's desire to see the sea, and finding herself alone, she reaches out...
"The kindness of strangers" is most famously the last line of 'a streetcar named desire', where it's spoken by Blanche Dubois after being commited to an asylum by the man who raped her, causing her mental breakdown. In a song about a woman being raped and murdered, it's presumably meant with the same sense of bitter irony. The line was 'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers', implying she's also at the mercy of the unkindness of strangers. It's the same with Mary Bellows, following her heart's desire to see the sea, and finding herself alone, she reaches out and unlatches the door in the hope that Richard Slade will enter and be kind. Clearly he wasn't.