Anton Chekhov's "Misery" made me want to shake the characters he tried to talk with. I found them self-centered and unable to extend themselves into compassion. The editor says that the final character that listens is Iona's mare. The editor points out how they are linked in that the driver "cranes his neck" and "then the mare cranes her neck, too." The editor submits that the mare is "almost a part of Iona" and that makes her the "best possible listener" because extreme grief "can be told only to the self." I see the point, but I would like to extend another viewpoint.
The mare takes the place of and is to Iona, his wife. The mare is not a gelding or stallion. A mare if a female. She is, as the editor points out, "almost a part of Iona." She is his partner, helper, sharer of good and bad times. She seems old to me because Chekhov comments on "the angularity of her lines" and "stick-like straightness of her legs." She doesn't have the curves of youth and neither would Iona's wife who would have given birth to an adult son who drove the sleigh before his death.
Iona is kind to the mare. He shares his money and food with the mare. He is disappointed with himself that not only can't he eat well, but he doesn't have enough to give his mare oats. She must content herself with hay, and we're not told that Iona eats any supper himself.
It wasn't surprising to me that he speaks of his grief to the mare and that she answered him with her breath on his hands. They share a love and caring.
"Desiree's Baby" by Kate Chopin.
At first, I bought into Armand's proclamation that Desiree gave birth to a non-white child because she was non-white. I wondered at the prejudice and racial hate of a man that was so immersed in love for his wife. But I decided he remembered his station in life and that it was the way things were back then.
Desiree's foster mother noticed immediately that the child wasn't white. She was surprised and exclaimed, "This is not the baby!" Desiree doesn't see it, and thinks her mother is surprised about the baby's weight and size. But the foster mother loves with a true love, no matter what, and when Desiree is sent away, takes her in and says, "Come with your child."
I don't believe that Armand knew he was the cause of the non-white baby until he read the letter weeks after his wife and child are gone. In his shock at reading his mother's letter, he destroys all memories of the wife and baby he killed with his prejudice, by fire. Fire purges. Even so, the reader is left with the question of whether he can purge his own soul of not only his sin but the knowledge of his heritage.
I enjoyed this story even though my emotions were torn, shredded, and ripped apart with warmth, loathing, and compassion. Was the victim finally Armand or his wife and child? Or, perhaps, the victim was love.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
8/26/14
8/26/2014, Part One.
Some thoughts on Chapter One, An Introduction to Literature, Fifteenth Edition.
I found the book's explanations concerning Frost's and Mora's poems exciting in that I had no idea how to deconstruct poems like that using words, images, and, in fact, the space between the lines. I was captivated.
I tried to use the editor's tools for "Childcare." I could see the points made and how they fit the explanation but I am more harsh with the husband. When he gives the baby juice to drink, does this prove he loves the child, or does it show he is too lazy to touch, hold, and interact with it? He tells the truth without shame or exaggeration, 'I never get enough done.' I wonder about his feelings for his partner in that he not only doesn't spend time with the baby, but doesn't even run a dust cloth over the television screen before he plunks himself down to watch it. Even that small dusting could help her with chores. Does he love her? Basically, this poem fostered anger toward the man.
About the stories we read for today:
"Samuel"
Again, I found myself angry at the end. I believe that was the purpose of the writer. She painted an inevitable ending--death of a boy. Instead of one person being responsible, she blames all the characters: The men who sat by and remembered their youth watching the boys, the women who were afraid of being embarrassed and wanted to blame the boys' mothers, the boys themselves, and the one man who pulled the cord.
This story examines "The Other." On one hand are the daredevil boys who are really afraid of looking like wimps with the men who remember themselves as daredevil boys and therefore join the boys in the playful dance of death. "The Other" is the man whose boyhood "had been more watchful than brave." He becomes angry. Why? Does he remember other daredevil boys in his past who tormented him for being "The Other?" Is he jealous of the present daredevil boys and their antics? When the writer says he "walked in a citizenly way" to pull the cord to stop the subway, was this sarcasm directed at all "The Others" that cannot join "The Us?"
Some thoughts on Chapter One, An Introduction to Literature, Fifteenth Edition.
I found the book's explanations concerning Frost's and Mora's poems exciting in that I had no idea how to deconstruct poems like that using words, images, and, in fact, the space between the lines. I was captivated.
I tried to use the editor's tools for "Childcare." I could see the points made and how they fit the explanation but I am more harsh with the husband. When he gives the baby juice to drink, does this prove he loves the child, or does it show he is too lazy to touch, hold, and interact with it? He tells the truth without shame or exaggeration, 'I never get enough done.' I wonder about his feelings for his partner in that he not only doesn't spend time with the baby, but doesn't even run a dust cloth over the television screen before he plunks himself down to watch it. Even that small dusting could help her with chores. Does he love her? Basically, this poem fostered anger toward the man.
About the stories we read for today:
"Samuel"
Again, I found myself angry at the end. I believe that was the purpose of the writer. She painted an inevitable ending--death of a boy. Instead of one person being responsible, she blames all the characters: The men who sat by and remembered their youth watching the boys, the women who were afraid of being embarrassed and wanted to blame the boys' mothers, the boys themselves, and the one man who pulled the cord.
This story examines "The Other." On one hand are the daredevil boys who are really afraid of looking like wimps with the men who remember themselves as daredevil boys and therefore join the boys in the playful dance of death. "The Other" is the man whose boyhood "had been more watchful than brave." He becomes angry. Why? Does he remember other daredevil boys in his past who tormented him for being "The Other?" Is he jealous of the present daredevil boys and their antics? When the writer says he "walked in a citizenly way" to pull the cord to stop the subway, was this sarcasm directed at all "The Others" that cannot join "The Us?"
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