ISFJ 9w1 Characters

Margaret is a sweet and compassionate woman, but very stuck in her ways and apprehensive about anything that is unusual or unlike her father had it. She is traditional in her thinking, because she knows what she values in life—the idea of being a wife and mother, of being useful and supportive in that way. She has a deep fondness for scripture, her home at the parish, and their small community of which she is a part. She wants to keep on the traditions that sustained her in her younger years, and is excited but also apprehensive about taking over the local play (just like her father used to do it). She also has such strong memories of her father, it’s hard for her to move past them and overcome his abusive nature. It makes her insecure for a long time. She is constantly trying to please her husband and her father and other people, but also asserts her own feelings easily—even at one point telling Thomas that she cannot abide his sniffing any longer. She turns to Dorcas for advice upon most matters and confides in her whenever there is trouble in her marriage or with her thinking. Margaret has a sudden need to understand things whenever she gets anxious – such as demanding to know what love actually IS. It’s not a feeling, so what is it?? She is not super inventive on her own, but does believe in a few local superstitions and turns to Queenie for assistance when she doesn’t know what to do. She shows inferior Ne insecurities and apprehension on the day before her marriage, in fearing that Thomas might fall out of love with her and that they will not be happy together (which causes her to break out in a rash and only increases her anxiety).

Enneagram: 9w1

Margaret felt deeply resentful at her brother leaving her to care for their father, because she saw him as a bully and felt “beaten down” by him, yet she never tried to assert herself or leave. It’s hard for her to take up any space in her marriage or tell Thomas what she wants from him. She is eager hand out her father’s possessions shortly after his death (and not realizing that they are unwanted by the local parishioners). She pushes Thomas into proposing in gentle ways, but is frustrated at his constant delays, because she can’t see any reason to wait to marry him. She happily takes care of Laura’s baby sister and insists upon helping in the fields when the children fall sick with measles (and she pushes her husband to do the same). She is eager to be loved, eager to be a wife, eager to be a mother. But she is also focused on being appropriate—she hastens to reassure the squire’s wife that the local play may have “strong language and violence,” since she would “not want you to be offended.” Whenever anyone chastises her, she becomes hard on herself, reprimanding herself for being unkind, uncharitable, or not being more supportive of her husband. She rarely shows her anger, but does reject her brother’s return to Candleford for a long time, and even ruins his work on a path between there and Lark Rise out of spite, then feels remorseful for it later on.