cl315 3
"If poison, arson, sex narcotics, knives have not yet ruined us and stitched their quick, loud patterns on the canvas of our lives, it is because our souls are still too sick
"To the reader" from Charles Baudelaire, Flower of Evil don't be a hypocrite pay attention to the us/we creates a bond with the reader. 'We' won't be duped
"Once upon a time," she began, "all the birds were invited to feast in the sky. They were very happy and began to prepare for the great day. They painted their bodies with red camwood and drew beautiful patterns on them with uli."
1001 nights is one of Achebe's favorite books, and this tale is reminiscent of a frame tale.
"Sometimes, too, as Eve was created from a rib of Adam, a woman would be born during my sleep from some strain in the position of my thighs. Conceived from the pleasure I was on the point of consummating, she it was, I imagined, who offered me that pleasure."
2nd quote from Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' , are children sexual...Marcel Proust the author is gay. Marcel Proust the character dreams sexually of women. blurring the lines between fiction and reality. homoerotic characters, "Albertine" Proust is recounting a wet dream. eww
"These shifting and confused gusts of memory never lasted for more than a few seconds;"
3rd quote, is memory a breeze or a photograph? recollections are imperfect and prone to change
Seven years was a long time to be away from one's clan. A man's place was not always there, waiting for him. As soon as he left, someone else rose and filled it. The clan was like a lizard; if it lost its tail it soon grew another. Umuofia had indeed changed during the seven years Okonkwo had been in exile. The church had come and led many astray. Not only the low-born and the outcast but sometimes a worthy man had joined it There were many men and women in Umuofia who did not feel as strongly as Okonkwo about the new dispensation. The white man had indeed brought a lunatic religion, but he had also built a trading store and for the first time palm-oil and kernel became things of great price, and much money flowed into Umuofia.
Achebe calls the white man that, like POC are referred to by their skin tones and derivatives. Practicing reverse racism, role reversal. He also is questioning the cost of globalization. Benefits and drawbacks.
The Commissioner went away, taking three or four of the soldiers with him. In the many years in which he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa he had learned a number of things. One of them was that a District Commissioner must never attend to such undignified details as cutting a hanged man from the tree. Such attention would give the natives a poor opinion of him. In the book which he planned to write he would stress that point. As he walked back to the court he thought about that book. Every day brought him some new material. The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
Achebe is being solidly op-ed in the last paragraph. Note the smug attitude of the invading army. Without the detail depicted in Achebe's story, the narrative of Africa would be imperfect, would be that depicted in the colonizers books, books of Montaigne, that wouldn't have the truth of life before. Achebe's stories humanize the African people.
""In all fictional works, each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses one and eliminates the others; in the fiction of Ts'ui Pen, he chooses-- simultaneously--all of them. He creates, in this way, diverse futures, diverse times which themselves also proliferate and for. Here, then, is the explanation of the novel's contradictions. Fang, let us say, has a secret, a stranger calls at his door, Fang resolves to kill him. Naturally, there are several possible outcomes: Fang can kill the intruder, the intruder can kill Fang, they both can escape, they both can die, and so forth. In the work of Ts'ui Pen, all possible outcomes occur""
Albert is speaking to Tsun about his grandfather's novel. The novel is huge and impossible to read, unless it is understood as a manual. Albert asks Tsun to unplug and to consider all of the realities. This is foreshadowing he and Tsun's own interactions. Giving birth to the possibility of choosing where you are in space and in time.
""This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke, off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time. We do not exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist, and not I; in others I, and not you; in others, both of us. In the present one, which a favorable fate has granted me, you have arrived at my house; in another, while crossing the garden, you found me dead; in still another, I utter these same words, but I am a mistake, a ghost"
Albert speaks to Tsun, right before the denouement. He knows the reason that Tsun is there, to kill him.
""Before unearthing this letter, I had questioned myself about the ways in which a book can be infinite. I could think of nothing other than a cyclic volume, a circular one. A book whose last page is identical with the first, a book which had the possibility of continuing indefinitely.""
Albert to Tsun. He is talking about the possibility of an infinite book, and his own progression of thought.
"Well, but I'm confounded...Surely, Minnie, you know better! A strange young man... Stop! I'll tell him--Minnie!--Miss Marsh!--I don't know though. There's something queer in her cloak as it blows. Oh, but it's untrue, it's indecent... look how he bends as they reach the gateway. She finds her ticket. What's the joke? Off they go, down the road, side by side... Well, my world's done for! What do I stand on? What do I know? That's not Minnie. There never was Moggridge. Who am I? Life's bare as bone."
At the conclusion of the journey, the narrator's story has been undone, when reality sets back in. The real Minnie's life reasserts itself, more powerful than the imagination.
As soon as the six men were locked up, court messengers went into Umuofia to tell the people that their leaders would not be released unless they paid a fine of two hundred and fifty bags of cowries. "Unless you pay the fine immediately," said their head-man, "we will take your leaders to Umuru before the big white man, and hang them."
British colonial government style, skimming off the top.
"The rest is unreal, insignificant. Madden broke in, arrested me. I have been condemned to the gallows. I have won out abominably; I have communicated to Berlin the secret name of the city they must attack. They bombed it yesterday; I read it in the same papers that offered to England the mystery of the learned Sinologist Stephen Albert who was murdered by a stranger, one Yu Tsun. The Chief had deciphered this mystery. He knew my problem was to indicate (through the uproar of the war) the city called Albert, and that I had found no other means to do so than to kill a man of that name. He does not know (no one can know) my innumerable contrition and weariness."
Coincidence is what unlocked his great grandfather's secret. He chose the man at random. Randomly the man knew a secret of his family's, a great mystery. That mystery also held the reason that the two men were intertwined. Connections, Fractals, Ripples.
"If we leave our gods and follow your god, " asked another man, "who will protect us from the anger of our neglected gods and ancestors?" "Your gods are not alive and cannot do you any harm," replied the white man. "They are pieces of wood and stone." When this was interpreted to the men of Mbanta they broke into derisive laughter. These men must be mad, they said to themselves. How else could they say that Ani and Amadiora were harmless? And Idemili and Ogwugwu too? And some of them began to go away. Then the missionaries burst into song. It was one of those gay and rollicking tunes of evangelism which had the power of plucking at silent and dusty chords in the heart of an Ibo man. The interpreter explained each verse to the audience, some of whom now stood enthralled. It was a story of brothers who lived in darkness and in fear, ignorant of the love of God. It told of one sheep out on the hills, away from the gates of God and from the tender shepherd's care.
Compare the reasoning of the missionaries to that of Montaigne, comparison to cultural elitism. The power of song, making the body of the man an instrument, the vibration felt internally by the music. A heart that hasn't vibrated much, hasn't been satisfied.
"And indeed Lisaveta Ivanovna was a most unfortunate creature. As Dante says: 'You shall learn the salt taste of another's bread, and the hard path up and down his stairs', and who better to know the bitterness of dependence than the poor ward of a well-born old lady?"
Countess Ushakova, the real person who the Countess is based on→ in traditional Russian culture the matriarch is powerful based on age → babushka the all powerful. Lisaveta is part of the cycle of the marriage market, young girls are bartered, men have the power, then the grandmas money creates power imbalances → The bitterness of dependence. The ... are to avoid using real names and beings sued for libel.
""A labyrinth of symbols," he corrected. "An invisible labyrinth of time. To me, a barbarous Englishman, has been entrusted the revelation of this diaphanous mystery.""
Dr. Steven Albert says this to Dr. Yu Tsun, regarding Tsun's great grandfather's opus. He is saying that labyrinths are spatial AND temporal. They take up both time and space. The paths of a labyrinth are 4 dimensional paths; for Albert this map can be read using the accompanying book.
"It's BOREDOM. Tears have glued its eyes together. You know it well, my Reader. This obscene beast chain smokes yawning for the guillotine--you--hypocrite Reader--my double--my brother!"
Ennui = boredom From 'To the Reader' by Baudelaire the ultimate boredom, the flaneur of the time, a dandy with money and no occupation. a restless generation.
But the war that now threatened was a just war. Even the enemy clan knew that.
Even the enemy decides whether to fight in this culture, there are no preemptive strikes. It is dependent on land and justice, how they make decisions.
There was a small bush behind Okonkwo's compound. The only opening into this bush from the compound was a little round hole in the red-earth wall through which fowls went in and out in their endless search for food. The hold would not let a man through. It was to this bush that Obierika led the Commissioner and his men. They skirted round the compound, keeping close to the wall. The only sound they made was with their feet as they crushed dry leaves. Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo's body was dangling, and they stopped dead.
Feel the texture of the scene, dying in shame. Things fall apart.
"I lit a cigarette. I took a drag on the harsh, strong smoke, before spinning in the chair, balancing on one of the rear legs."
From Eyes of a Blue Dog, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Opening line
"For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say to myself: "I'm falling asleep." And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would make as if to put away the book which I imagined was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had gone on thinking, while I was asleep, about what I had just been reading, but these thoughts had taken a rather peculiar turn;"
From Marcel Proust's 'In search of Lost Time' 1st quote, can't tell whether you are awake or asleep, the zone between waking and sleeping. Ordinary shared state, lucid dreaming... am I myself, or am I one of the characters I have read, proust is asking. Proust the speaker vs Proust the author
The night was impenetrably dark... The world was silent except for the shrill cry of insects, which was part of the night, and the sound of wooden mortar and pestle as Nwayieke pounded her foo-foo. Nwayieke lived four compounds away and she was notorious for her late cooking. Every woman in the neighborhood knew the sound of Nwayieke's mortar and pestle. It was also part of the night. Low voices, broken now and again by singing reached Okonkwo from his wives' huts as each woman and her children told folk stories. Ekwefi and her daughter Ezinma, sat on a mat on the floor. It was Ekwefi's turn to tell a story.
From Part II of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart: Achebe is using this whole passage to effectively immerse the reader into the environment of Nigeria. We are sensing the tension, hearing the sounds. The closeness between the different huts, and how each person is aware of the other, the closeness of tribal life.
"I am a graveyard that the moon abhors: guilty qualms, the worms burrow and nest"
From Spleen LXXIX(79) Spleen- traditional anatomy bile produced by spleen, bilious, chemical imbalance
"My cat seeks out a litter on the stones, Her mangy body turning without rest. An ancient poet's soul in monotones Whines in the rain-spouts like a chilblained ghost"
From poem 'Spleen LXXVIIIX(78)' by Baudelaire, Flowers of Evil. This poem references the Queen of Spades, maybe not in mention to Pushkin, but is about a dull and wet time in life, being so confined that even objects remark upon it.
"Life is a hospital, where every patient is obsessed by the desire of changing beds...anywhere! Just so it is out of the world!"
From the poem "Anywhere out of the World" poetry and prose are closely related, Baudelaire felt poetry was too constraining. grass is greener on the other side. lonely. the companion he creates is his soul. where would you, my inner self, be most happy? no where can I be happy. Baudelaire is very negative, effortful negativity
"Languorous Asia, burning Africa, And a far world, defunct almost, absent, Within your aromatic forest stay! As other souls on music drift away, Mine, o my love! still floats upon your scent
From, "Her hair" by Baudelaire scent of shampoo, calls back colonial era, political overtones what does materialist culture involve?
Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.
He scares little kids, a bully. But at his root his own problem is being afraid. He causes that emotion which propels him. The novel depicts polygamy, abusive, hardfisted frightening character.
"I am a cowardly man. I say it now, now that I have carried to its end a plan whose perilous nature no one can deny. I know its execution was terrible. I didn't do it for Germany, no. I care nothing for a barbarous country which imposed upon me the abjection of being a spy. Besides, I know of a man from England--a modest man-- who for me is no less great than Goethe. I talked with him for scarcely an hour, but during that hour he was Goethe...I did it because I sensed that the Chief somehow feared people of my race."
Here Tsun is providing his motive for becoming a spy to an unknown interrogator. He is a classic modern anti hero, not a person of braun and romantic tension, but a nobody. He commits treason because he can't bear that german culture could subjugate his own. In Tsun's eyes, the Germans are the barbarians. He does it to prove something to himself and to other Germans about his own culture. Reverse colonialism.
"Hilda's the sister-in-law. Hilda? Hilda? Hilda Marsh--Hilda the blooming, the full bosomed, the matronly. Hilda stands at the door as the cab draws up, holding a coin."
Here the narrator is working through the character development. She is about halfway through her trip, naming characters, giving them shape. She imagines a sister-in-law and an antagonistic relationship between the woman on the train car and her imaginary sister-in-law.
"Hermann started; indeed, instead of an ace, before him lay the queen of spades. He could not believe his eyes, could not understand how he could have slipped up."
Hermann had been visited by the ghost of the old woman, having made her promises, she tells him the cards, but they are not right. Although Hermann trusted her, a woman he for all intents and purposes killed, she misled him. He is ruined, his money all gone.
"If your heart has ever known the feeling of love,' he said, 'if you remember its ecstasies, if you ever smiled at the wailing of your new-born son, if ever any human feeling has run through your breast, I entreat you by the feelings of a wife, a lover, a mother, by everything that is sacred in life, not to deny my request! Reveal your secret to me! What is it to you...? Perhaps it is bound up with some dreadful sin, with the loss of eternal bliss, with some contract made with the devil... Consider; you are old; you have not long to live-- I am prepared to take your sins on my own soul. Only reveal to me your secret. Realize that the happiness of a man is in your hands, that not only I, but my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren will bless your memory and will revere it as something sacred..."
Hermann makes an emotional appeal to the Countess, after bursting out of hiding and startling her. He is armed and she is undressed and old.
"The Countess began to undress before the looking-glass. Her rose bedecked cap was unfastened; her powdered wig was removed from her grey, closely-cropped hair. Pins fell in showers around her. Her yellow dress, embroidered with silver, fell at her swollen feet. Hermann witnessed all the loathsome mysteries of her dress; at last the Countess stood in her dressing gown and night-cap; in this attire, more suitable to her old age, she seemed less hideous and revolting."
Hermann observes the Countess' night-time rituals. He sees her without her artifices, and feels that stripped bare to her true self, out of the public eye, she is finally something genuine.
The arrival of the missionaries had caused a considerable stir in the village of Mbanta.
Hilarious understatement about a pivotal moment by Achebe.
"Have I read you right? But the human face--the human face at the top of the fullest sheet of print holds more, withholds more. Now, eyes open, she looks out; and in the human eye--how d'you define it?--there's a break--a division--so that when you've grasped the stem the butterfly's off--the moth that hangs in the evening over the yellow flower"
Human faces keep their content, have stories to tell, are more full than words.
"I do not know the answer," Okonkwo replied. "Then listen to me," he said and cleared his throat. "It's true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother's hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme."
In this gendered society, the power of the female.
"What do you want here?" "The white man whose power you know too well has ordered this meeting to stop." In a flash Okonkwo drew his machete. The messenger crouched to avoid the blow. It was useless. Okonkwo's machete descended twice and the man's head lay beside his uniformed body.
Irreversible third murder, 3rd mistake. Okonkwo has violated the colonizer's rules.
That was many years ago, twenty years or more, and during this time Okonkwo's fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan
Okonkwo means fish. This simile helps you to interact with a new culture. The names of the characters all are meaningful; each name has a phrase. What is your concept of important naming. Achebe takes English to a distinctly Nigerian place. Global english concept.
The only course open to Okonkwo was to flee from the clan. It was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must flee from the land. The crime was of two kinds, male and female. Okonkwo had committed the female, because it had been inadvertent. He could return to the clan after seven years.
Okonkwo's irreparable acts of murder are 1) intentional death (male) 2) accidental death (female) and 3)intentional death (male) see the balance that Achebe is creating. It is not allowed to turn against one of your own. Doing something bad intentionally is male, the worst one. Female crimes are bad, but accidentally so.
"Such an expression of unhappiness was enough by itself to make one's eyes slide above the paper's edge to the poor woman's face--insignificant without that look, almost a symbol of human destiny with it."
Opening line of An Unwritten Novel, by Virginia Woolf, spoken by the Narrator/speaker. The narrator has been reading...she is amused to transform, to mimic into something.
"On page 22 of Liddell Hart's 'History of World War I' you will read that an attack against the Serre-Montauban line by thirteen British divisions (supported by 1,400 artillery pieces), planned for the 24th of July, 1916, had to be postponed until the morning of the 29th. The torrential rains, Captain Liddell Hart comments, caused this delay, an insignificant one, to be sure"
Opening paragraph of The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges, put forth as a note from the editor. Quotes an actual history of WWI. Shows the disparity between the actual and the reported.
Only a week ago a man had contradicted him at a kindred meeting which they held to discuss the next ancestral feast. Without looking at the man Okonkwo had said: "This meeting is for men." The man who had contradicted him had no titles. That was why he had called him a woman. Okonkwo knew how to kill a man's spirit. Everybody at the kindred meeting took sides with Osugo when Okonkwo called him a woman. The oldest man present said sternly that those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble. Okonkwo said he was sorry for what he had said, and the meeting continued.
Someone comes to your aid. The feeling of tribal fairness and justice. Okonkwo is a slave to machismo, to gender roles.
"St-Germain reflected, 'I could let you have this sum,' he said, 'but I know that you would not be at peace while in my debt, and I have no wish to bring fresh troubles upon your head. There is another solution--you can win back the money.' 'But, my dear Count,' my grandmother replied, 'I tell you--we have no money at all.' 'In this case money is not essential,' St-Germain replied. 'Be good enough to hear me out.' 'And at this point he revealed to her the secret for which any one of us here would give a very great deal...' The young gamblers listened with still great attention."
St Germain family is known for being vampires. The Countess speaking to a magician type character named St. Germain, trying to find a way to avoid the ruin she has caused by gambling. Very much the quality of a young princess seeking out help from a dark and spooky witch. Context: beginning of the story, Tomsky to group playing cards
Although he had felt uneasy at first, he was not afraid now. Okonkwo walked behind him. He could hardly imagine that Okonkwo was not his real father. He had never been fond of his real father, and at the end of three years he had become very distant indeed. But his mother and his three-year-old sister... of course she would not be three now, but six. Would he recognize her now? She must have grown quite big. How his mother would weep for joy, and thank Okonkwo for having looked after him so well and for bringing him back. She would want to hear everything that had happened to him in all these years. Could he remember them all? He would tell her about Nwoye and his mother, and about the locusts... Then quite suddenly a thought came upon him His mother might be dead. He tried in vain to force the thought out of his mind. Then he tried to settle the matter the way he used to settle such matters when he was a little boy. He still remembered the song. He sang it in his mind, and walked to its beat. If the song ended on his right foot, his mother was alive. If it ended on his left, she was dead. No, not dead, but ill. It ended on the right. She was alive and well.
Stream of consciousness from Ikemefuna, while he is walking to be 'taken back to his village' in reality killed. Because Okonkwo is with him, and he trusts him, he feels at east. Ikemefuna is wondering what it will be like to rejoin his village, he is wondering about his mother, if she even is still alive. What has changed since he has been gone. A character, a friend of Okonkwo's, had approached him to tell him not to participate in the murder of Ikemefuna, but he does anyway. He betrayed the trust, his first irreparable mistake.
"Dead!" she said. "And I didn't know it. We were maids of honour together, and when we were presented, the Empress..."
The Countess doesn't care to know the truth of her friends' deaths, or their lives even. She is more concerned with her memories, her part in their lives; when she finds out an old friend has died, she is callous. The news was brought to her by Tomsky while talking to Lisaveta. This shows her inherent selfishness.
"Did he die?" asked Ezinma. "No," replied Ekwefi. "His shell broke into pieces. But there was a great medicine man in the neighborhood. Tortoise's wife sent for him and he gathered all the bits of shell and stuck them together. That is why Tortoise's shell is not smooth."
The Tortoise names himself All of You. Recall Ekwefi's own defiant and pointless naming ritual and the power of positive language, the message branding behind naming in this culture. The broken shell is a symbol of misbehavior. The wife's role in saving the Tortoise.
And so the neighboring clans who naturally knew of these things fear Umuofia, and would not go to war against it without first trying a peaceful settlement. And in fairness to Umuofia it should be recorded that it never went to war unless its case was clear and just...
The barbarians judiciously decide when to engage in warfare.
One of the men behind him cleared his throat. Ikemefuna looked back, and the man growled at him to go on and not stand looking back. The way he said it sent cold fear down Ikemefuna's back. His hands trembled vaguely on the black pot he carried. Why had Okonkwo withdrawn to the rear? Ikemefuna felt his legs melting under him. And he was afraid to look back. As the man who had cleared his throat drew up and raised his machete, Okonkwo looked away. he heard the blow. The pot fell and broke in the sand. He heard Ikemefuna cry, "My father, they have killed me!" as he ran towards him. Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak.
The entire plot hinges on this scene between Okonkwo and Ikemefuna. Okonkwo swore to protect him, but instead he kills him to demonstrate his strength and hide the ever present fear he feels.
That was not luck. At the most one could say that his chi or personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed. And not only his chi but his clan too, because it judged a man by the work of this hands. That was why Okonkwo had been chosen by the nine villages to carry a message of war to their enemies unless they agreed to give up a young man and a virgin to atone for the murder of Udo's wife. And such was the deep fear that their enemies had for Umuofia that they treated Okonkwo like a king and brought him a virgin who was given to Udo as wife, and the lad Ikemefuna.
The harmony of chi, the balance that exists. Human treaties are the exchanged prisoners, serving to create new attitudes through cultural emissaries. Stronger than paper, bound by blood. Chi-the reason for success.
But there was a young lad who had been captivated. His name was Nwoye, Okonkwo's first son. It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow. The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul--the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul. The words of the hymn were like the drops of frozen rain dry palate of the panting earth. Nwoye's callow mind was greatly puzzled.
The imagery of a dry and hungry Earth greedily taking in the water.
"In his heart there echoed something like the voice of conscience, but it grew silent, and his heart once more turned to stone."
The narrator about Hermann, as Hermann waits in the Countess' bedroom. Hermann is not a moral man, he is a man with a purpose. In Petersburg, it is normal to be stone. A city of illusions. He lurks in the Countess' room, waiting for fate. He almost has an attack of conscience.
"As if she heard me, she looked up, shifted slightly in her seat and sighed. She seemed to apologize and at the same time to say to me, 'If only you knew!' Then she look at life again. 'But I do know,' I answered silently, glancing at the Times for manners' sake."
The narrator creates a narrative for the woman sitting across from her. She imagines her to be sad, then apologetic, then to have a secret. In real life, she eyeballs the paper, as to not appear rude, but really she's staring. The paper she is reading is marking the day of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the largest peace treaty, ending WWI. Woolf is asking why the war story is more important, more valuable than the smaller stories. They don't count in some people's eyes because of their gender, class. Woolf is turning that around.
"The enormous stability of the fabric; the spine tough as whalebone, straight as oak tree; the ribs radiating branches; the flesh taut tarpaulin; the red hollows; the suck and regurgitation of the heart; while from above meat falls in brown cubes and beer gushes to be churned to blood again--and so we reach the eyes."
The narrator describes a man's form, but in a way that calls back the paper's headline. This is an image of the battlefield. The tautness of the jacket on his frame, seeing inside James Moggridge's body, a visceral image of the character.
"I have my choice of crimes...Vows broken? Not Minnie's!...She lingers--past six. Still by running she can reach home."
The narrator has given her protagonist a name, and some action. She imagines her to have done something wrong, so crime to propel the story. Play god with the lives of characters.
"Oh, I beg your pardon! Yes, this is Eastbourne. I'll reach it down for you. Let me try the handle.' [But Minnie, though we keep up pretenses, I've read you right--I'm with you now]"
The narrator interjects her own story. She is returning to reality and speculating about her depiction
"Life's what you see in people's eyes; life's what they learn, and, having learnt it, never though they seek to hide it, cease to be aware of--what? That life's like that, it seems. Five faces opposite--five mature faces--and the knowledge in each face. Strange though, how people want to conceal it!"
The narrator is sitting in a train car, watching the people across from her. There is the subtle tension of a great many people in a small place. Everything is being made up by her except the most concrete details.
"Chekalinsky shuffled the cards afresh; play went on as usual."
The narrator observing the crowded casino, where after a man's life has been irrevocably destroyed, the talk picks up and things are back to normal. Petersburg is an unfeeling place, a place that will love you on its face until it doesn't.
"The words have meaning; might have been spoken by the old man with whiskers--no,no, he didn't really speak; but everything has meaning--placards leaning against doorways-- names above shop-windows--red fruit in baskets--women's heads in the hairdresser's--"
The narrator sees the world as legible, as a thing waiting to be connected, disparate events that are revealing of plot and character. She paints with words.
"Grey is the landscape; dim as ashes; the water murmurs and moves. If I fall on my knees, if I go through the ritual, the ancient antics, it's you, unknown figures, you I adore; If I open my arms, it's you I embrace, you I draw to me--adorable world!"
The narrator, now the author too, delights in the ordinary, the ability to tap into something else, the endless possibility of imagination. The concluding line of the story.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre// The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
The opening poem from Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart: Poem by W.B. Yeats. Irish, he also wrote in the language of power and subjugation--English--The falcon is a trained bird, controlled. This poem is about power dynamics.
"Nobody cried; tears would have been une affectation. The Countess was so old that her death could have surprised nobody, and her relatives had long considered her as having outlived herself."
The passage is again demonstrative of the lack of genuine feeling in Petersburg. The old woman was so old, she deserved to die. Not the beloved grandmother, her life was resented almost. This is the narrator at the funeral of the Countess.
"Pure luck!' said one of the guests. 'A fairy-tale,' observed Hermann."
The reaction from the gambling men at Tomsky's table, in response to his story of how his grandmother mastered 3 cards and won her fortune. This story worms its way into Hermann's brain, and becomes his undoing.
"Her lips pursed as if to spit venom at the word; pursed they remained. All she did was to take her glove and rub hard at a spot on the windowpane. She rubbed as if she would rub something out for ever--some stain, some indelible contamination."
The real person that the narrator is observing performs some repetitive action. The narrator attributes this action to be full of meaning, of some perceived sin. She is using hyperbole to construct a background story, to pass the time.
"Your chi is very much awake, my friend. And how is my daughter, Ezinma?" "She has been very well for some time now. Perhaps she has come to stay." "I think she has. How old is she now?" "She is about ten years old." "I think she will stay. They usually stay if they do not die before the age of six." "I pray she stays," said Ekwefi with a heavy sigh.
The tribe is concerned for children, as very few live. Here the priestess Chielo talks to Ekwefi about her only child who has survived. Ekwefi had 10 children and all died. To stay means to survive, what does it take to be a woman, the survive. There is balance in the tribe, the counsel of Elders are men, but the Oracle is a female.
"Oh well, listen then. You must know that about sixty years ago my grandmother went to Paris, where she made something of a hit. People used to chase after her to catch a glimpse of La venus moscovite; Richelieu paid court to her and my grandmother vouches that..."
This opening to the story has a very fairy tale feel to it, a magical quality where dreams come true for a lucky princes. Tomsky is telling this story to the group of men at his card table, including Hermann. Context: beginning of the story, Tomsky to group playing cards (plus Hermann)
"The story of the three cards had made a strong impression on his imagination, and he could think of nothing else all night. 'What if the old Countess should reveal her secret to me?' he thought the following evening as he wandered through the streets of Petersburg. 'What if she should tell me the names of those three winning cards? Why not try my luck... ? Become introduced to her, try to win her favour, perhaps become her lover...? But all that demands time, and she's eighty-seven, she might die in a week, in two days... ! And the story itself... ? Can one really believe it.... ? No! Economy, moderation, and industry; these are my three winning cards, these will treble my capital, increase it sevenfold, and earn for me ease and independence."
This passage is filled with clues about the three cards. 3, sevenfold, treble. Pushkin plays with Hermann's desires. Hermann is talking to himself, having been very intrigued by the tale of the three cards, he desires nothing more than to be fabulously wealthy.
"Infatuation, sadism, lust, avarice possess our souls and drain the body's force; we spoon feed our adorable remorse, like whores or beggars nourishing their lice
This segment is from the poem "To the Reader" by Charles Baudelaire, from the Flowers of Evil, a collection You are the lowest of the low, your struggle is in vain. we have been peddled lies, and bought them. i like that you aren't falling for the lies, the platitudes from the elites, see the modern world
"Hermann's a German; he's cautious--that's all," Tomsky observed. "But if there's one person I can't understand, it's my grandmother, the Countess Anna Fedotovna."
Tomsky says this while playing faro with a group of men. This is the opening tale that really sets off events in the story. Queen of Spades, Alexander Pushkin
"From this broken state I passed into an almost abject felicity. I told myself that the duel had already begun and that I had won the first encounter by frustrating, even if for forty minutes, even if by a stroke of fate, the attack of my adversary. I argued that this slightest of victories foreshadowed a total victory. I argued (no less fallaciously) that my cowardly felicity proved that I was a man capable of carrying out the adventure successfully."
Tsun has just narrowly missed Captain Richard Madden on a train platform. He is in the suburbs headed to his destination. His narrow escape causes him to feel elated about his prospects of escape, causes him to think about what it would be like to be a hero, to win. He is just on the run however, and the odds are very much not in his favor.
" Very quickly I understood that that was impossible. The instructions to turn always to the left reminded me that such was the common procedure for discovering the central point of certain labyrinths."
Tsun is lost in the suburbs, during his chase. He thinks of it as a maze and the typical advice for exiting a labyrinth is to always turn left. He repeats the same action causing the solution to come forth. Tsun thinks of the 4 different gardens, 1) the actual 2) the past 3) a fictional place 4) a miniature garden
""The future already exists""
Tsun to Albert. Where you stand in time, but also your fate is sealed. Tsun and Albert know that for this path, there is only one destination.
""...and I hung up the receiver.""
Tsun's first line in the story and the opening of the confession. The ...indicates that part of it has been redacted. Note the quotations.
"Before the sun set on that day, I would encounter the same fate."
Tsun's own destiny has been put in place by the events that have happened to his fellow spy, Viktor Runeberg, who was caught by Captain Richard Madden. He calls and the phone is answered by the wrong person, indicating that his time, the height of his destiny, is drawing near.
Can you tell me, Okonkwo, why it is that one of the commonest names we give our children is Nneka, or 'Mother is Supreme'?
Uchendu, Okonkwo's uncle, says this to Okonkwo at a feast after Okonkwo has been moping about.
"How many die in every novel that's written?"
What are the ethics of killing fictional characters?
When Unoka died he had taken no title at all and he was heavily in debt. Any wonder then that his own son Okonkwo was ashamed of him? Fortunately, among these people a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father.
Why is Okonkwo such a tough guy? Achebe lays it out, Okonkwo was driven by himself, no one else nor cultural expectation. This sentence is contrasting the hereditary nature of British and American cultures. A person in those places with a father like Unoka would not have been able to be successful, he is juxtaposing them.
Ekwefi had suffered a good deal in her life. She had borne ten children and nine of them had died in infancy, usually before the age of three. As she buried one child after another her sorrow gave way to despair and then to grim resignation. The birth of her children, which should be a woman's crowning glory, became for Ekwefi mere physical agony devoid of promise. The naming ceremony after seven market weeks became an empty ritual. Her deepening despair found expression in the names she gave her children. One of them was a pathetic cry, Onwumbiko--Death, I implore you." But death took no notice; Onwumbiko died in his fifteenth month. The next child was a girl, Ozoemena--"May it not happen again." She died in her eleventh month, and two others after her. Ekwefi became defiant and called her next child Onwuma--"Death may please himself." And he did.
Within the traditional society, Achebe is writing and thinking about the role of women, their unique power and defiance in terrible circumstances. She uses language via names to console and comfort in tragedy. There is an ongoing connection between woman and language and peaceful solutions. Think of the women's stories.
"You old witch!' he said, clenching his teeth. "I'll force you to answer...." With these words he drew a pistol from his pocket. At the sight of the pistol, the Countess, for the second time, exhibited signs of strong emotion. She shook her head and raising her hand as though to shield herself from the shot, she rolled over on her back and remained motionless."
Without having fired a shot, Hermann has killed the Countess.
"Lisaveta Ivanova is bringing up a poor relative"
after the death of the Countess, Lisaveta made a strategic match, to increase her prospects. She is continuing the marriage market.
"Sometimes I think I'm made of metal." She was silent for an instant. The position of her hands over the flame varied slightly. I said: "Sometimes, in other dreams, I've thought you were only a little bronze statue in the corner of some museum. Maybe that's why you're cold."
because someone thinks you are is why you feel that way.
"Hermann was the son of a Russianized German, from whom he had inherited a small amount of money"
class distinctions. Hermann is a spendthrift as he tries to work himself up the food chain of imperial Russia. He wants to be rich. The narrator observes this about Hermann as a character introduction of sorts.
""In every one," I pronounced, not without a tremble to my voice, "I am grateful to you and revere you for your re-creation of the garden of Ts'ui Pen." "Not in all, " he murmured with a smile. "Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures. In one of them I am your enemy.""
continuation of previous statements. Albert knows that the path has many forks and the purpose of Tsun's visit.
"And so I promised myself that in the dining-room, as they began to eat and drink and as I felt the hour approach, I would put beforehand into this kiss, which was bound to be so brief and furtive, everything that my own efforts could muster, would carefully choose in advance the exact spot on her cheek where I would imprint it, and would so prepare my thoughts as to be able, thanks to these mental preliminaries, to consecrate the whole of the minute Mamma would grant me to the sensation of her cheek against my lips, as a painter who can have his subject for short sittings only prepares his palette, and from what he remembers and from rough notes does in advance everything which he possibly can do in the sitter's absence."
equivalent of a great work of art, the preparation that young Proust does to ensure the perfection of the moment. how we pass the time.
"And my father, who was less scrupulous than my grandmother or my mother in observing the letter of a treaty, went on: 'Yes; run along; off to bed.'"
father as the archetypal villain.
"Remember, my love, the time you saw That beautiful morning in June: By a bend in the path a carcass reclined On a bed sown with pebbles and stones; Her legs were spread out like a lecherous *****, Sweating out poisonous fumes, Who opened in slick invitational style Her stinking and festering womb. The sun on this rottenness focused its rays to cook the cadaver till done, and render to Nature a hundredfold gift Of all she's united in one. "
from "The Carcass" by Baudelaire. This is written in the carpe diem style of poetry now we are young and beautiful, do it to me while you are hot new take on this 30 year old genre temperature, feeling and smell. Note the texture of the poem
"Ah then, oh my beauty, explain to the worms Who cherish your body so fine, That I am the keeper for corpses of love Of the form, and the essence divine!"
from the Carcass, possession of lover "My child, my sister, dream How sweet all things would seem Were we in that kind land to live together,
"An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin"
from whence do memories come?
"The following statement, dictated, reread and signed by Dr. Yu Tsun, former professor of English at the Hochschule at Tsingtao, throws and unsuspected light over the whole affair. The first two pages of the document are missing"
further statement from Editor. Providing a preface to the coming confession from Tsun.
"Someone had indeed had the happy idea of giving me, to distract me on evenings when I seemed abnormally wretched, a magic lantern, which used to be set on top of my lamp while we waited for dinner-time to come"
magic lanterns are artificial, but when you look at it, it either projects or you look into it. does memory capture or project. magic lantern gives impression of movement and color. This passage is again alluding to Proust's illness
"But of late I have been increasingly able to catch, if I listen attentively, the sound of the sobs which I had the strength to control in my father's presence, and which broke out only when I found myself alone with Mamma. In reality their echo has never ceased;"
memory of hurts continues to echo through him. the impact of events that seems relatively benign to an adult carries depth and meaning that is unexpected for a child.
"My sole consolation when I went upstairs for the night was that Mamma would come in and kiss me after I was in bed. But this good night lasted for so short a time, she went down again so soon, that the moment in which I heard her climb the stairs, and then caught the sound of her garden dress of blue muslin, from which hung little tassels of plaited straw, rustling along the double-doored corridor, was for me a moment of the utmost pain; for it heralded the moment which was bound to follow it, when she would have left me and gone downstairs again."
scathing criticism of social archetypes. in order to feel you must have loss. Proust feels the loss of his mother after kissing. are children small and sad. is he making this up, or do we underrate what kids see and notice. Father of Proust as an obstruction to his desire. what would we be like if we didn't have our memories? the moment that Proust derives such pleasure from, his mother's goodnight kiss, is painful at the same time it brings pleasure, while experiencing the good he is fearful at the inevitable loss of her, as she returns downstairs. the misery of a small child at being separated from your parents, being isolated. depressed kid, he remembers the sensation vividly, the sound of her approach. his world is narrow but accentuated in its confines.
"I am the one that comes into your dreams every night and tells you: "The eyes of a blue dog.'"
the narrator needs the woman, no erotic satisfaction, just an acknowledgement of self, she comes because he is lonely
"And on rainy days// They gathered// Often;
this quotation appears at the very beginning of the story, and would have been in French originally. It is a narrative insert, concerning the leisure class, the focus of the Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin
