HISTORICAL APPROACH

THE TEMPEST, SHAKESPEARE &

LA VIDA ES SUEO, CALDERON DE LA BARCA
C.L. overlaps with other disciplines. It is not only about comparing 2 texts. There isnt
any literary phenomenon isolated. Its all connected. But the writers who have survived
the time have their uniqueness. But not all their Works came from their own: there are
social / historical reasons The tempest is not the typicall play studied by Shakespeare.
After Quijote, La vida es sueo is the second most studied piece of Spanish literary
work. They have a huge international recognition. Both texts almost coincide in time.
They coexisted for 16 years.
Historical period: The renaissance (broader term) for both terms. Education was in the
hands of church and nobility, but starts being more available to the low classes. Social
change, discoveries are made affecting the fields of cosmology, medicine (anatomy),
geography, philosophy (antropocentrical vision of the world, humanism) this brings to
the division of the church. The Roman Christian Church and the England Church. These
changes are all connected.
- The tempest: Elisabethan Period (her reign was reaching the end, and another
reign was beginning to arouse).
- Barroc in Calderon de la Barca.
Socially speaking cities become bigger, and empoverishes the country side (rural world
= traditional values). This entails changes in the ways of thinking. Cities provide a more
individualistic way of living (goes together with isolation and freedom), promote the
industry.
-

Shakespeare started working in the Theatre as part of Elizabeths companies.

The Queen could control all the plays. The English figure of censureship did not
disappear until 1968. But writers had strategies to criticise the power and escape
from it. England was very fond of the Theatre, those in power promoted and
paid for it. Writers were aware as being a tool of national propaganda and
glorifying the English Nation. Shakespeare is an icon of the English World. He
was between the Catolithism and Anglianism (he had to be very careful not to
sound too Catholic so as to avoid seem disloyal to the Queen).

Calderon de la Barca: Felip IV loses power. (Paralellism in the life of

Shakespeare when the Tempest was being written). In Spain there was also the
sense of control, placed on the church. But Felipe IV also liked theatre. There
are similar political circumstances that partly explain the splendorous writings.
We have to think in Catolithism.

Personal details: Shakespeare left his family for a period of time. Prosperos last words
are attributed to the thoughts of Shakespeare (he was just to abandon his period of
writing with competence and retiring to his quiet familiar life). Calderon Barca belongs
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to the Golden Period, he became a Priest for some years. Convetions shared between the
Golden Age and the Elizabethean Area.
Connection between the 2 plays:
- Starts in Media Rest.
- Theme of revenge: comes from the classical world. Rosaura vs Astolfo (for stoling
her honour) and Prospero vs Antonio (usurped Prosperos dukedom.
- Forgiveness. Theres a lack of revenge at the end. Segismundo forgives his father,
and Prospero forgives his brother. Forgiveness as a Cristian value, but is more
emphasized in Life is a dream (Basilio is at the feed of his son).
- (Christianity, and the reform of Anglican Church in England.
- Segismundo is imprisoned by his father Basilio = Prospero also hides the truth of
Miranda. Segismundo is both Miranda (could be the prince) and Caliban (treated
like a beast). Abusing power of fathers above children. Both plays reflect a change
of dynasty and historical movement. (New order coming on the real lives of the
writers).
- Prospero confines Caliban in a rock, Basilio confines Segismundo in a tower.
- Profecy of the starts (astrology) = magical books of Prospero. Science still has to go
a long way before it gets rid of the superstitions. Basilio still believes in the magic.
- Mental confusion of Segismundo as a result of the manipulation of his life. All the
characters of the ship in Tempest are also manipulated, as well as Miranda. Use of
drugs in both plays (drug to make Segismundo asleep, and alcohol in the Tempest).
- Cousins: Astolfo and Estrella.
- Both rulers tried to reform destiny (Basilio imprisons the son who would
overthrown him, Prospero brings his usurpers).
- Restoration of power in both plays with the marriages. Comedies end with a
marriage (we celebrate life). None of these plays are tragedies (ends well).
- Culture vs Nature. Reflected in the use of two different spaces:
o Dungeon / Island: nature, wildness, darkness, ignorance
o Palace / Italy: culture, civilization, order, light, nurture.
The Renaissance journey consist on the man feeling he goes from a state of nature
towards a state of culture.
- World of appearances: unveiling identities, as the same way as the renaissance is
about discovering new places, a new way of thinking is confusing at the
beginning and restored at the end.
- Not knowing the family truth: Clotaldo and Rosaura, Miranda and Prospero.
- Comedian: Trintino and Sebastian (scene were they think he is a fish) and Clarin (La
vida es sueo)
- Prospero (duke of Milan - Shakespeare) and Basilio (king of Poland Calderon) try
to make invincible through the practice of magical arts. Their attitude implies moral
and political corruption.
THE TEMPEST
Power, represented in 3 types
-

Political problem: solved by forgiving his brother.

Patriarcal power: men dominate women. Solved by Mirandas wedding. Miranda

does not have free will, she is the object of his father. Prospero is a manipulator.
Miranda is seen as a Belle dame Sans Merci, the feminine is idealized. She has a
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platonic relationship with Fernindando (its not a passionate kive, it can also be
considered an instrument to Prospero to recover his power).
-

Colonizer: solved by leaving the island. Colonization is the explotation of

Europeans in the name of civilization. Caliban is described as a monster (but he
helped Prospero to discover the island). Emblem of post-colonializm: Caliban has
learned how to curse him with his words. However, we cannot say Shakespeare was
racist, its ambivalent. We can see the humanism of Caliband and his bad ideas to
kill Prospero. Prospero is afraid of Calibean rasping his daughter, and attributes him
sexual elements.

Conflict between classes. The master of the ship is never named outright, the term
master is linked with social status.

With The Tempest, Shakespeare turns to fantasy and magic as a way to explore romantic
love, sibling hatred, and fraternal love. Topics: attempts to overthrow a king, nature
versus nurture and innocence. Historical and Cultural Context: threat of the Black Death
(diminishing), overcrowded, poor sanitation and too poverty. England became a center
of trade, the rich afford to escape the congestion of the city. Rural families fled to the
larger cities, nostalgia for the loss of country life. Poetry recalling the tranquility of
rustic life. Masque (4th act) was a regular form of court entertainment to glorify the
monarch and recapture the past. Structure of The Tempest (3 units: time, place, action).
Five-act:
o 1: nature of Antonio's betrayal of Prospero, and it explains how Prospero and
Miranda came to live on the island. Violent storm = Prospero's power.
o 2: Complication, conspiracy to murder Alonso.
o 3: Climax, turning point and crisis. Young lovers assert their love, conspiracy
to murder Prospero, and he confronts his enemies at the ghostly banquet.
o 4: Falling Action, beginning of the play's resolution. The romance between
Ferdinand and Miranda is celebrated with a masque, and Prospero deals with
the conspiracy to murder him by punishing Caliban, Stefano, and Trinculo.
o 5: the Catastrophe, conclusin and plans for a wedding. Prospero is
victorious, Ferdinand meets with his father, and Caliban regrets his plotting.
Themes
- Illusion of Justice: unjust act = usurpation of Prosperos throne by his brother.
Subjective justice = one character controls the fate of the others. Prosperos idea of
justice is hypocritical: furious with his brother for taking his power, but enslaves
Ariel and Caliban to achieve his ends. As the play progresses, it becomes involved
with the art, and Prosperos mirrors the role of an author creating a story (surrogate
for Shakespeare) = Prosperos sense of justice seems sympathetic. Happy endings
are possible because of the creativity of artists.
- Distinguishing Men from Monsters: Ferdinand is the third man Miranda sees.
But Caliban is rarely considered to be a human. His devilish nature can never be
overcome by nurture, according to Prospero. 2 points of views: depends on whether
it views Caliban as inherently brutish, or as made brutish by oppression. Trinculos
speech upon first seeing Caliban blurs the distinction between men and monster.
- Ruling a Colony: infinite possibility to its inhabitants, unrealized potential.
Prospero: ideal place to school his daughter. Sycorax: worked her magic. Caliban:
slave, laments that he had been his own king. Gonzalo imagines a utopian society on
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the island, over which he would rule. Many representatives of colonialists, but only
representative of colonized: Caliban. Caliban wants to kill one colonial master
(Prospero) but then sets up another (Stephano). Urge to rule and to be ruled are
interrelated.
Masters and Servants: explicitly or implicitly relationship. The play explores the
master-servant. Opening scene, the servant (the Boatswain) is angry toward his
masters (noblemen). From then on, master-servant relationships like these
dominate the play from contrasting angles: positive relationship between Prospero
and Ariel, negative relationship between Prospero and Caliban.
Water and Drowning: The Mariners enter wet. Mirandas fear for the lives of the
sailors in the wild waters causes her to weep. Alonso after thinking his son is dead
wants to drown.
Mysterious Noises: in the isle: tempestuous noise, Ariels music, wedding masque.
The Tempest: suffering Prospero endured, and which he wants to inflict on others.
All of those shipwrecked are put at the mercy of the sea, just as Prospero and his
infant daughter were twelve years ago, when some loyal friends helped them out to
sea in a ragged little boat. Prospero must make his enemies suffer as he has suffered
so that they will learn from their suffering, as he has from his. The tempest is also a
symbol of Prosperos magic, and of the frightening, potentially malevolent side of
his power.
Game of Chess: capture the king. Prospero has caught the kingAlonsoand
reprimanded him for his treachery. Prospero married Alonsos son to his own
daughter without the kings knowledge. Caught up in their game, Miranda and
Ferdinand do not notice the others staring at them, so they talk about love and faith.
Prosperos Books: Like the tempest, Prosperos symbol of power. Prosperos
dangerous desire to withdraw from the world. His devotion to study made him lose
his kingdom.

Characters
-

Prospero: sympathetic character as he was wronged by his usurping brother, but his
absolute power make him difficult to like. Repeated insistence that Miranda pay
attention (his story is boring her). The pursuit of knowledge gets him into trouble:
by neglecting everyday matters when he was duke, he gave his brother a chance to
rise up against him. Defensively autocratic with Ariel (promise to relieve him of his
duties early if he performs them willingly, but then gets infuriated). Unpleasant with
Ferdinand (leading him to his daughter and then enslaving him). Voice similar to
Shakespeare (likens himself to a playwright). Mentions a great globe, = Globe
Theatre, he controls events like a director or a playwright. When Prospero gives up
his magic, the play will end, and the audience will return to real life. He becomes
more kind in the final of the play: love for Miranda, forgiveness of his enemies,
happy ending.

Miranda: 15. Gente, compassionate, relatively passive. She does not choose her
husband. While she sleeps, Prospero sends Ariel to fetch Ferdinand, and arranges
things. She talks with Ferdinand about her virginity and the pleasures of the
marriage bed. But following Prosperos desire, she will remain virgin until the
wedding. In the final scene she is playing chess with Ferdinand. 2 moments of
strength where does not seem nave: when she and Prospero converse with Caliban,
Miranda responds with vehemence accusing Caliban of trying to violate her (willing
to speak up for herself about her sexuality), and her marriage proposal to Ferdinand.
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Insists on their marriage. Miranda declares her sexual independence, using a

metaphor that suggests erection and pregnancy (the bigger bulk trying to hide
itself).
Caliban: "natural man", illustrates the ideas about the social hierarchy of the
Renaissance: rigid hierarchy of God, king, man, woman, beast. Order was based on
physiological characteristics, emotional stability and ability to reason. Child of the
witch Sycorax, monster: between man and fish, deformed. Prospero taught him
about God. His attack on Miranda that resulted in his enslavement. Caliban sees the
attempted rape of Miranda as a natural behavior = fill the isle with Calibans: natural
urge of reproduction (+ animal, - human: not reasonable of social constraints).
Anagram for cannibal: Elizabethan meaning of someone who is a savage.
Descriptions of Trinculo and Stefano's are unreliable (frightened by the storm, and
drunk). Questions what is natural and what is unnatural: rape Miranda and kill
Prospero = attempts to survive, not acceptable among civilized. Prospero and
Caliban: master and victim / Prospero controla Caliban for the traditional vision to
subdue a beast. Caliban's final speech shows he has learned some human valuable
lessons. Symbol of the native cultures occupied and suppressed by European
colonial societies. prose passages = lower social rank. Caliban speaks prose when he
is conspiring with Stefano and Trinculo, but when Caliban speaks of the beauty of
the island, he speaks in verse.
o = Prosperos, whose brother usurped his dukedom. Calibans desire for
sovereignty of the island = lust for power that led Antonio to overthrow
Prospero. Caliban and Prospero have different narratives to explain their
current relationship. Caliban sees Prospero as purely oppressive while
Prospero claims that he has cared for and educated Caliban. Selfknowledge for Caliban is not empowering. It is only a constant reminder of
how he is different from Miranda and Prospero and how they have changed
him from what he was. Calibans only hope for an identity separate from
the invasors is to use what they have given him against them.
o Caliban (terrenal, disobedient) vs Ariel (airy spirit, obedient).
o Ferdinand: both of them carry a stick. Have interest in untying Mirandas
virgin knot. (Ferdinand - marry vs Caliban rape).
Ariel: spirit of the air who, because he refused to serve the witch, Sycorax, was
imprisoned in a tree until rescued by Prospero. Although he wants his freedom in
exchange, approaches his tasks with enthusiasm. Ariel's obedience is a symbol of
Prospero's humanity, because he humanizes the action that Prospero takes against
his old adversaries. His obedience to Prospero contrasts to Caliban's disobedience.

Ferdinand: son of the king of Naples. Falls in love with Miranda, respects and
loves her and his father.

Antinio: Prospero's younger brother, motivated by envy, fraudulent duke of Milan.

Wants to murder his brother. Frightened when confronted with the spirits and later
Prospero, but reveals no sign of remorse.

Alonso: king of Naples. Overjoyed to find Ferdinand still alive (good and loving
father). When confronted with his responsibility, he is repentant for the pain he
caused Prospero. Accepts Miranda as his daughter and apologizes to her = good and
just king.

compromise and balance. Prospero must spend twelve years on an island in order to
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regain his dukedom; Alonso must seem to lose his son in order to be forgiven for his
treachery; Ariel must serve Prospero in order to be set free; and Ferdinand must suffer
Prosperos feigned wrath in order to reap true joy from his love for Miranda. This latter
compromise is the subject of this passage from Act III, scene i, and we see the desire for
balance expressed in the structure of Ferdinands speech. His waiting for Miranda
mirrors Prosperos waiting for reconciliation with his enemies, and it is probably
Ferdinands balanced outlook that makes him such a sympathetic character, even though
we actually see or hear very little of him on-stage.
LA VIDA ES SUEO
Philip was a defender of Gods true faith. He sent troop to England in order to eliminate
this Protestant menace, but they lose. Philip IIs only son, the sickly Charles, became
increasingly unstable. Philip imprisoned his crazed son in a tower, where he would die
soon after. This fact became part of the countrys consciousness, reflected in Calderns
play. Submission to Gods will did not prevent the exercise of human free will. This
idea matched the Catholic principle of justi cation, the belief that people could win their
salvation through good deeds and faith. With his trusted minister olivares, Philip IV set
out to reform both the morality espoused by his father, and his bloated government.
olivares himself embarked on a personal quest for morality; it is rumoured that he
commissioned Caldern to write LIFE IS A DREAM, the central ideas of which support
the new philosophical code: at the heart of Calderns play is Segismundo, half man,
half beast, whose journey sees him conquer his indulgences to follow a righteous path.
The Golden Age in Spain: political decline and cultural zenith. Poetic style : long
soliloquies, feelings expressed through reference to natural world. Sanctity of social
order: exemplified in Astolfos willingness to accept Rosaura as his wife when he finds
out that she is from a noble family; that is also why Segismundo, at the end of the play,
punishes the rebel soldier who, although loyal to him was disloyal to the reigning king.
The honour code: accepted principles of living: your name, reputation including the
sexual one were held in incredibly high esteem. The code appears to transcend
religion or the law. For example, if a wife was suspected of having an affair, her
husband could take action. Basilio strips his son Segismundo of his honour, and without
honour there is no life, until a life has been avenged, it cannot be a life at all; Rosaura
follows Astolfo to Poland to avenge his abandonment of her.
Translation: sueno means both dream and sleep in Spanish: we are
dreaming/sleeping until we are awake, i.e. enlightened. Also a Catholic idea: life as a
transitory illusion (rehearsal) on the path to the next life. Conflict between free will and
fate. Takes place in Poland, avoiding direct comparison with the Spanish royal family
and his homeland.
Characters:

Rosaura: Segismundos guide, leading him to his nal spiritual awakening. She is
the rst character whom we meet in the play when, disguised as a man, she is thrown
from her horse and discovers Segismundos hidden prison. She has ventured into
Poland and is heading for the court, where she intends to take vengeance on Astolfo,
who promised to marry her and subsequently abandoned her. Segismundo and
Rosaura are catalysts for their own discoveries. There is a gaping hole in
Segismundos soul and then he sees Rosaura. They are key to each others
enlightenment; they are the light for each other. When she arrives at court, she takes
on the name of Astrea, the goddess of chastity and justice.

Clarin: servant of Rosaura. He represents the character type of the Clown. Clarion
consistently breaks the fourth wall, addressing the audience and puncturing the
bubble of the importance of the play. His name is analogous to a medieval trumpet
called a clarion, that has a high pitched tone.

Segismundo: bound with chains and dressed in animal pelts, which serve as a
strong visual metaphor for his reduction to the status of a caged animal. The play
charts his journey from man/beast to perfect prince. He is the only character who
learns the paradoxical nature of vision. He learns to see himself in order to see
others, and learns to practice self-control in order to lead the kingdom of Poland.
The first time he wakes up and is told of his noble birth and, full of anger at this
betrayal by his father, behaves violently, killing a guard and attempting rape. Rebels
who oppose the king free Segismundo. Segismundo and the rebels defeat Basilios
army. However, Segismundo again questions if he is in reality or in a dream, but
even in a dream we have to behave well because God is God and forgives the king.
He learns the importance of acting well in dreams. When an uprising frees him and
allows him to march victorious in his fathers place, Segismundo is careful no to act
tyrannically a second time. He dispenses justice, speaks rationally, resists his sexual
inclinations in restoring Rosauras honour through marriage to Astolfo, marries
Estrella for the good of his country, and seems the model of prudence and
discretion...Segismundo is able to minimize the importance of what happens to him
in this mundane dream-life in preparation for the reality which is the after-life. His
behaviour then exempli es a Christianized Roman philosophical outlook

Clotaldo: Segismundos abusive jailer. She recognizes Rosaura as her daughter for
a sword. He has to balance his role as undisclosed father, defending the honour of
his child, reminding loyal to Basilio.

Astolfo, Duke of Muscovy: he has travelled from Muscovy and his beloved
territories at the bequest of his uncle, Basilio, King of Poland, so that he might be
betrothed to his cousin Estrella. This marriage would unite the kingdom and enable
both Astolfo and Estrella to inherit the Polish crown as king and queen. In order to
align himself romantically with Estrella, Astolfo has broken his bond to Rosaura,
who pursues him from Muscovy to Poland in order to restore her honour.
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Estrella: princess. She has travelled from abroad to take up the Polish throne by
making an alliance with Astolfo. Estrella is worrry of Astolfos love for her; he
wears the portrait of another woman (Rosaura) around his neck, so Estrella decides
to reject Astolfos proposal.

Basilio, King of Poland: he controls events through intellectual mastery, and

drawing on astrology to read fate written in the stars. He says his son died. By doing
this, he disregards the issue of human will, as can be seen in his decision to raise his
son in isolation. This enforces a division between man and nature, with Segismundo
emerging into adulthood more beast than man. but Basilio reveals to his court
(including his nephew Astolfo, and niece Estrella) that his son is alive. They should
be the future kings, but concede to Basilios wish that his son should be given a
chance.

YELLOW WALLPAPER, GILMAN & THE HORLA, MAUPASSANT

Existencial dylema: who am I? is this good or bad? Revaluation of reality: what is
more real Italy or the Island? What is more real the dream or the life? we are made
from the same material of dreams. This world depends on Man, the world is efimeral =
like a dream.
Romanticism: individuality is very important. Renaissance gives birth to it: text start
being signed (before Renaissance we gave anonymous writers). As a consequence of
nationalism, sense of identity. French Revolution = ideas of freedom, collectivity.
Nature is very important: projection of the writer to the natural world. Dark, chaotic,
wild nature expresses better the sense of Romantics. Extremes. Magical elements often
appear: woods. Romantics look to the Middle Ages: darkness, mystery, looking for the
origins of ones nations (origin of European nations). Compatarists use the dichotomy of
classicism (order, structure) and romanticism (effect of the moment, shocking), used in
anachronic terms.
Naturalism: showing the negative side of reality. Interested in objective, the truth about
the world (not so much about one self). Creating a sense of reality that you can believe
to be authentic. Social criticism. Connected with the industrial revolution: philosophy of
positivism = cannot believe anything unless it can be proof. It is an exaggeration of
empirism. Assocated with France (Zola, while in Spain Galdos). Attracted by the life of
citizens: poor, workers, middle class. Cold vision of society.
Written at the end of XIXth. Texts are more probably naturalistic because of the time
written. But theyre written under a Romantic point of view. Madness = common topic.
Stylistic coincidence = diary = subjectivity, individuality. The writer is individualistic,
but gives a explanation for everyone. Genre = fantasy. Everything is presented as
logical, but then appear details that distance the story from reality. Writers of fantasy:
Gogol in Russia, Becquer in Spain, Maupassant France, Alan Poe America, Merce
Rodoreda Catalunya, Borges and Cortazar South America.
Influenced by Freuds theories: psychoanalysis and our unconscious. He had revisions
in the end of 20th C about the sexism in his works. He also had an important fear of
death, that condicioned his theories. He changed the way of thinking about ourselves.
Combination in light (certainty) and darkness (uncertainty) = being free also supposes
you have the uncertainty of chosing (Am I doing right?). Freud says that theres a part
of you that you cannot control, and it controls your actions.
Three blows in the history of humanity: 1) Discovering that the Earth is not the centre
of the Univers. 2) Darwin: you do not come from God, you are an animal evolution of
monkey. 3) You cannot control a very important part of yourself. These stories can be
read in historical context.
YELLOW WALLPAPER
Gothic fiction. Gilman = personal experience with postpartum depression. A woman
who has a mental illness but cannot heal due to her husbands lack of belief. The story
appears to take place during a time period where women were oppressed = Feminist
criticism.
Connection between a womans subordination in the home and her subordination in a
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doctor/patient relationship is clearJohn is, after all, the narrators husband and doctor.
Gilman implies that both forms of authority can be easily abused, even when the
husband or doctor means to help.
Examining the aspect of dialogue through the male perspective. The male show the
perspective through dialogue. He strongly believes that his wife is being overly
dramatic and that nothing is wrong. The Narrator also falls victim to oppression through
derogatory names on behalf of her husband. little goose, the husband treats his wife
like a child and speaks to her as such. He degrades his wife. 2 different sides of women:
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conformist: women are subservient to men, this is made clear when the Narrator
says, I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I
am a comparative burden already! (Gilman). The Narrator feels that she is a
burden to her husband because she dislikes the wallpaper and keeps complaining
about it
Inconformist, towards the end: Ive got out at last and Ive pulled off most of
the paper, so you cant put me back. Narrator felt trapped with her family and
finally managed to speak up and act on behalf of herself.

Symbolism: yellow wallpaper = imprisonment, the Narrator asks to remove the

wallpaper but isnt allowed. It becomes bars!, and the woman behind it. The
Narrators obsession with the wallpaper increases because she wanted to change it but
wasnt allowed. She has become the woman in the wallpaper trapped behind the bars.
Struggle that women had to go through in order to be heard. The wallpaper represents
the structure of family, medicine, and tradition in which the narrator (and many women)
are trapped.
SYMBOLISM
Myself: myself and John, the narrator intensifies her positioning in her sentence
and society; she is not even on par with ordinary people like John'
Queer: strange and peculiar, associated with homosexuality to recognize
same-sex desire as repressed, not absent, in normative heterosexuality It connotes a
certain consciousness of repression.
One: the repetition of one creates a echo of anonymity, the social speech codes of
decorous rationality, a sense of conventional acquiescence .
Sickness: the breaking free, even if only in the hallucination of madness . Result of
her alienation from the role society expects her to play, then her insistence that she is
ill is an evasion of that reality. This insanity madness is a metaphor for feminine
anger.
Physicians: narrators husband and brother = power that men possess over women.
They can prescribe what they may or may not do, diagnose
Writing: spatial indication of the narrators own fragmented sense of self. Allowed
an artistic sensibility, but nstead of being freed by this potentially liberating
confrontation, she is destroyed, and driven to madness. Its her only opportunity to
use her own discourse.
Mary: The nanny represents the spiritual and maternal perfection which the
narrator so lacks.
Wall-paper: her repressed other or suppressed self. The desire which haunts her
socially conforming self: forbidden, lawless. The paper she writes on is dead,
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forbidden paper . . . She creates it and it creates her. As her obsession grows, the
sub-pattern of the wallpaper becomes clearer.
Jennie: husbands sibling, conjugal collaborator and rival upon the wallpaper.
John: rigid, predictable, and sexist.
I: positive change in self-presentation when her actions dramatically compromise
her sanity = emerging sense of self and conviction, connotes power, expresses the
rebellious thoughts.
Pattern: contrast between the rigidly mannered and socially acceptable behavior of
her husband and her increasing dissatisfaction with such behavior. Its energy and
fertility are anarchic, originality that have no place in the wifely ideal by patriarchal
ideology
Daylight: masculine order and domestic routine.
Yellow Smell: synaesthetic disorientation = confused
Tearing the paper: break free from the forms that confine her, free her from male
repression, destruction of the other self.
Jane: her name in the third person, conflict between the heroines two selves,
subconscious signs of resentment towards her roles of wife and mother
The Narrator paradox: as she loses touch with the outer world, she comes to a
greater understanding of the inner reality of her life.

During her final split from reality, the narrator says, Ive got out at last, in spite of you
and Jane. Who is this Jane? Some critics claim Jane is a misprint for Jennie, the
sister-in-law. It is more likely, however, that Jane is the name of the unnamed narrator,
who has been a stranger to herself and her jailers. Now she is horribly free of the
constraints of her marriage, her society, and her own efforts to repress her mind.
John: not wholly evil. He is trying to help her, not make her worse. Combined authority
of the narrators husband and doctor, thinks that he knows whats best for his wife that
he disregards her opinion. His dry, clinical rationality renders him uniquely unsuited to
understand his imaginative wife. He does not intend to harm her, but his ignorance
about what she really needs ultimately proves dangerous. John knows his wife only
superficially. He sees the outer pattern but misses the trapped, struggling woman
inside. By treating her as a case or a wife and not as a person with a will of her
own, he helps destroy her, which is the last thing he wants. John faints in shock and
goes unrecognized by his wife, who calls him that man and complains about having to
creep over him.
Subordination of Women within the marriage with its rigid distinction between the
domestic functions of the female and the active work of the male. Women remained
second-class citizens. This gender division kept women in a childish state of ignorance
and preventing their development. Johns assumption of his own superior wisdom and
maturity leads him to misjudge and dominate his wife, all in the name of helping. The
narrator has no say in even the smallest details of life, and she retreats into her obsessive
fantasy, the only place she can retain some control and exercise the power of her mind.
Self - Expression: The mental and physical constraints = drive her insane. She is forced
to hide her anxieties and fears to preserve the faade of a happy marriage and to make it
seem as though she is winning the fight against her depression. Intolerable aspect of her
treatment = compulsory silence and the resting cure.
11

Irony: John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.One expects no
such thing. I am glad my case is not serious, at a point when it is clear that she is
concerned that her case is very serious indeed. Dramatic irony: the narrator assumes
that Jennie shares her interest in the wallpaper, while Jennie is only now noticing the
source of the yellow stains on their clothing. Situational irony refers to moments when a
characters actions have the opposite of their intended effect. The narrators fate
develops. She insight power by losing self-control and reason.
Diary: Had the story from an objective, third-person point of view, without revealing
the narrators thoughts, the social and political symbolism of the story would have been
obscured. Gives the story an intense intimacy and immediacy, especially in those
moments when the narrative is interrupted by the approach of John or Jennie.
Was written ahead of his time: compromised the values of society. First it was
considered a gothic story. Positive start: description of the beautiful house. Strange:
women were not supposed to have thoughts of her own, the house is her (house-wife).
Resemblance of the houses: big gardens, labyrinth (mind) = were the transformations of
natures by men (like a game) during the renaissance, but then imitated our brain
structure. The house is also a projection of patriarchal dominance (choses the bedroom).
She is not even the housekeeper, she is the patient (and the sister) who is being looked
after by her sister in low. She is the other baby = she is supposed to eat, and rest. She
sleeps in a room that was a nursery before.
Naturalism: if theres madness in the family, the sons will be mad. The house
(environment) determines your mental health. The bed cannot be moved. Trying to
explain rationalistically things that cannot be explained (obsession with the paper). She
feels protected with the wall: theres 1 woman / plenty of women are in the wall / she
comes from the wall. Post-part depression paranoia
Romantic: she is traped in herself. Its a ghost story. She is unconsciously aware that
other women are suffering. Yellow = optimism, colour of death = decadence (fruit, dead
bodies). Its the first sign of lack of health.
The ones who creep are the babies and the animals. At the end of the story, there is a
humiliation of the woman. We can also compare it with the image of the women
cleaning the floor. On the other hand, the men do not usually faint, as it happens to the
husband. Both (man and woman) must be liberated. Her path is a circular one around
the house. When the man is in the middle of the path, she has to creep over him. Its a
disturbing image of victory, this madness not only cientific but also socially.
HORLA
It starts very optimistic day. It starts describing the nature, landscape = romantic. At first
he feels always sick: temperature, changes of mood, insomnia. (Maybe the beginning is
euphoric = ups and downs). For him works changing his location and going to walk (at
the beginning). At the end, the believe of the illness is physical (came from the ship
Brazilian). Then is invisible = there is something else with him. The monk said him that
wind cannot be seen, but you can feel its effect. Then, he starts feeling that milk and
water is being taken, a rose, the book, the mirror, broken glasses. These things happen
12

while he sleeps and in front of his eyes.

In between a doctor hypnotises his cousin, and this makes him realize that he is also
behaving under the control of something else. This invisible being is also inside of him,
and governs his own life: he cannot do what he wants. It is a superior entity that is
above human beings. He tries to kill the creature by burning the house, with the tragic
consequence of killing his servants. The thing hasnt disappeared, so he must commit
suicide.
The use of a first-person narrator is a highly effective means of intensifying the storys
horror. The reader becomes a helpless witness to the onset of the narrators madness (or
perhaps to his visitation by a supernatural being). By first establishing the narrator as a
sympathetic figure and then involving the reader in his tragedy, the ending is horrific.
This is particularly important because the deaths of several innocent victims could all
too easily have repelled Maupassants readers.
Horla is a pseudo-Portuguese to describe the supernatural being that haunts him.
Although derived from the French expressions hors de lui (outside of himself) or hors
l (outside there), horla also suggests the words horreur (horror), horrible
(horrible), and hurler (to howl). The result is to imply that the level of terror in the
story cannot be expressed by ordinary words.
Man vs Being. This being can be an illness. The being is inside the man. Suicide is a
romantic element: scape and freedom (right to decide about your life). Suicide = being
depressive (illness), or coward (you do not face the life). So by associating it with an
illness we think it is under control, and we can explain it. If it werent a result of an
illness, it is disturbing. If you analyse the diary as a kind of madness = naturalistic.
Bipolar symptom - Mild depression severe depression - Psychosis (believes in the
being) extreme schizophrenia (kill himself).
Naturalistic framework:
- Brazilian ship = is the other the one who brings the illness = colonialism.
- Hypnoses = medical explanation.
- Mesmer = doctor, energy in the body.
Romanticism framework:
- Name of the monster (Horla)
- Vampire (doesnt reflect on the mirror). Duality of the human being Darwin
theory: the one who is stronger will survive. He is not strong enough.
- Legends of the monk: two goats (one strong and one weak). A part that is
willingly recognized and another that we are afraid to accept.
Everything has two sides, full of images of duality. Duality in the landscape: Mont Saint
Michael (the tied goes up and covers the hill, and the goes down). Methaphor: what you
see and what you cannot see. Asks for the true essence of human beings. How free we
are in fact? Are we conditioned by the environment? He thinks that the places (his house
gothic) control his feelings. The house is himself = his psychy, his mind. He is better
when he is outside because he is in contact with people. His solitude creates mental
illness. In the 2 stories we have hyper-sensitive people.
1. Language of semantic fields - Locate the words which generate a sense of
- Horla:
o Strangeness: I am in a strange condition, night is a threat. being that is
crushing me and suffocating me. Stories of the monk: billygoat with a
13

mans face, and a nanny-goat with a womans face

o Suffering: Ive been a little feverish, I feel unwell, I feel sad. I have a
fever, a terrible fever, or rather a feverish nervous exhaustion, which
makes my soul as sick as my body. Knife in his lung, who canot breathe.
o Gloomy: How profound this mystery of the Invisible is. Flowers flying
alone. Pages of the book turning alone.
o Oxymorons or contradictions. Why are they used? He is happy, goes to
have a walk and returns disheartened. / everything we see without
looking at it
Yellow wallpaper
o Strangeness: there is something strange about the house.
o Suffering: I am sick, nervous depression, hysterical tendency, I take
pains to control myself. She cannot be with the baby, and feels nervous. I
cry at nothing and at all times.
o Gloomy: A haunted house, horrid paper. I am getting afraid of John, he
looks queer, and Jennie also has an inexplicable look. She has seen them
looking at the paper.
o Oxymorons or contradictions. My husband laughs at me, but one expects
that on marriage. I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my wall-paper.

2. Style: both narrators are delved into a choking spiral: how is the spiral of the
mind reproduced in the stories?
- Horla: I closed my eyes and I began to spin on one heel, very quick. Diary,
constantly talks about his illness, his sensations. He looks around him. Feeling
of being followed. Fear. Self-centered (I would think myself crazy, absolutely
crazy, if I werent aware of my condition)
- Yellow wallpaper: John says she shouldnt think about her condition, when she
does so, she feels bad. She constantly talks about it. Reflexin about writing: she
shouldnt but she feels relieved. At the end she keeps getting around the Wall
going upon her husband.
3. Levels of Otherness: think of it as a: metaphysical duality // gender alterity //
racial/ethnic alterity // moral divisin (good/evil)? How do the stories change
if we give different value to its Others?
- Horla: The other with his mouth over mine, was drinking in my life through my
lips. The other drinks his wter and milk. invisible thing? This unknowable
thing. leap of a rebellious animal who is about to disembowel his tamer, I
crossed my room to seize him, strangle him, kill him!... he wants to dominate
him and frighten him like a dog.
Other = Metaphysical duality: invisible part. Gender alterity: woman (vampire).
Racial: stranger. Moral: bad.
4. Value of Other cultures (Brazil in Maupassant, England in Gilman):
- Horla: superb Brazilian three-master, all white, admirably clean and gleami. A
rather curious piece of news has reached us from Rio de Janeiro. A madness, an
epidemic of madness, like the contagious dementias that attacked the population
of Europe in the Middle Ages, is raging now in the province of Sao Paulo. The
inhabitants are possessed by invisible beings, sorts of vampires, which feed on
their life while they sleep. It is he, the Horla, who is haunting me, making me
think these mad thoughts! He is inside me, he is becoming my soul; I will kill
14

him!
Yellow wallpaper: the village is like an English place full of hedges and walls
and gates that separate small houses.

5. Inheritance vs environment and nature vs nurture. References to condition

and inheriting, connotations (Romanticism vs Realism). Compare them to
the effects that the environment / landscape / light / social relations
- Horla: I am cured. And Ive had a delightful excursin to Mont Saint-Michel.
Speaks with a monk. twenty-four hours in Paris have sufficed to restore my
composure. The theatre completed my cure. Solitude is indeed dangerous for a
working intelligence. We need to have around us people who think and speak.
When we are alone for a long time, we people the void with phantoms.
everything depends on places and environments. To believe in the supernatural
on the Ile de la Grenouillere would be the height of folly ... but on top of Mont
Saint-Michel? Or in India? We are appallingly subject to the in!uence of our
surroundings. I went to sit down near my open window in order to cool my
forehead and my thoughts in the calm night breeze, there was no moon.
- Yellow Wallpaper: she goes to walk around the garden, sits under the roses.
Relations: her husband and his sister.
6. What role does furniture play in Gilmans story (function of the furniture in
the bedroom)? She wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses.
But the husband prefered sleeping upstairs: big, airy room, the whole floor nearly,
with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first
and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for
little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. Full of a paper like school
boys: great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach. Great
heavy, immovable bed (all what it was in the room). Obsession with the smell of the
paper, related with the color: yellow smell.
7. Role of the natural elements.
- Horla: night hid a terrible threat for me, fear of sleep and of my bed. I wait for
sleep like someone waiting for the executioner, frightened for no reason,
stupidly, because of the profound solitude. He feels like being followed. The
narrator thinks about his condition under the sun, but she feels the need of going
back home.
- Yellow wallpaper: in a moonlight evening she says to her husband that there is
something misterious, but he doesnt believe her. Depending on the light you can
see some subpatterns or not on the Wall. She looks the moonlight in the Wallpaper, and saw a figure behind the paper moving. In moonlight, you can see a
woman behind bars. During daylight the woman of the Wall creeps outside.when
she creeps at daylight, she locks the door. I don't want to go outside, there you
have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow
8. Shakespeare and Caldern: metaphor of life as a stage. In Maupassant and
Gilman we have the same metaphor but the characters do not realize they are
like actors in a dream, but rather like spectators in anightmare: what
has changed? this evolution from a historical perspective?
- Horla: Hypnotism, we are not actors, we are passive, we cannot chose what to
do. the sense of control, is asleep, while the imaginative faculty is awake and at
15

work. . I have lost all strength, all courage, all self-control, even all power to put
my will in motion. I can no longer want anything; but someone wants for me;
and I obey: he goes to the garden to pick strawberries and eat them. wanted to
say, To the train station! but I shoutednot said, but shoutedin such a loud
voice that a passersby turned around, Home,.
Yellow wallpaper: she is looking all the time at the Wall, she does Little action
(almost none), she is an spectator. She doesnt sleep during the night as the paper
shows more things.

9. Ren Descartes and the Western rational discourse, and Sigmund Freud and
his influence on literature.
- Horla Rationalism: search of evidences, he puts a product in his mouth so as to
see if he is the one that drinks the wter at night. Hyptnotism doctor (Freud
analysied hypnotism and psychoanalysis).
- Yellow wallpaper: Rationalism, her husnamd and brother are physicians. He
only checks she is better physically (more appetite, color of the face). Only
believe in science. Try to discover the pattern beyond the yellow wallpaper.
10. Metaphoricity of houses and vertical and horizontal lines: Gaston Bachelards
The Poetics of Space. Interrogation into the meaning of spaces. Interior domestic
space: various rooms and types of furniture. Here, personal experience reaches its
epitome, initial universe, asserting that "all really inhabited space bears the essence
of the notion of home". House is the manifestation of the soul. Poetry is the innocent
consciousness, preceding conscious thought. Imagination augments the values of
reality. Poetry is directed both inwards and outwards = inside and outside. House:
made from memories and experiences, its different parts arouse different sensations
bringing a unit. Home objects are charged with mental experience. Topoanlysis:
psychological studying of the sites of our intimate lives. The house is the most
intimate space = understanding the house helps to understand the soul (inner mental
space). Transcend description in order to grasp the essential qualities of space. In a
new house, we remember experiences of prior homes = all homes trace back to the
house of childhood. Attic: rationality, metaphor for clarity of mind. Basement:
darkness, subterranean and irrationality. Both this sites appear in our dreams.
11. Madwoman in the attic and see its connections with The Yellow Wallpaper:
examine the notion that women writers of the 19th Century were confined in their
writing to make their female characters either embody the "angel" or the "monster."
This struggle stemmed from male writers' tendencies to categorize female characters
as either pure, angelic women or rebellious, unkempt madwomen. Women writers
must "kill the aesthetic ideal through which they themselves have been 'killed' into
art. While it may be easy to construe that feminist writers embody the
"madwoman" or "monster," importance of killing off both figures because neither
are accurate representations of women or of women writers. Female writers should
strive for definition beyond this dichotomy, whose options are limited by a
patriarchal point of view. They also explore the way women were inhibited in their
writing by what they called the Anxiety of Authorship the lack of legitimating
role-models for the 19thC woman writer. They identified as the literary palimpsest
or double-voiced text, so that surface designs conceal or obscure deeper, less
socially acceptable levels of meaning.

16

17

THEMATIC APPROACH
The previous section was historical comparative literatura. Epistemological
prosprective: what happened in Calderon adn Shakespeares time? We could also had
considered Asian influence that had the authors of the renaissance.
French school is more classic, and more concerned with historical context and
similarities between authors. American is more Cosmopolitan (and not so centred in
themselves as French do). Thematic is more american.
Sarah Orne (famous in her time) James Joyce (he has always been considered done of
the best writters of the 20th C). James Joyces Ulyssises was first published in the
United States because of the Publisher and poet Ezra Pound. He introdussed the text
illegaly (it was forbidden in Europe). It was a scandal because it has open references to
sexuality.
They both are stories of growth (change in a physical sense) but it goes alongside with
the evolution. The accident or experience combined with the dynamic process of aging
makes you become more mature. Different faces of life: childhood, adolescent,
audlthood: (youth, early middle-age, middle midle-age, later middle-age), later life
(early old age, older old age). Aging is culturally determined, but there are topics that
can be considered universal (we all age).
The changing from one to another goes with transformation = turning point. Some
accident can make you accelerating or delaying it to another face of age. Turning point
are also shown in actions that you do. Because of the involvement in you in some action
can be transformative for you.
Stories of initiation: have to do with some kind of rituals. This term was first used with
antrophologies to understand how different tribes marked the growing process. Rites of
passage. This was later used by other fields: psychology, literatura. Growth has created
a genre in novel, a German term is used: Bildungsroman example: Great expectations,
To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Aire.
Adolescence is the introduction to adulthood. It depends on the country: graduation,
celebration of the 18 = secular rites of passage. Communion is the first ritual, then
comes the confirmation = religious rites of passage. Adolescence is an invention of the
20th C, it has to do with wealth countries = social system protects you from working. In
this stories we have private and symbolic rites of passage. But they also have social
cultural value.
Different types of growth: vertical (heron), horizontal (Araby).

18

ARABY, JOYCE & A WHITE HERON, JEWETT

ARABY
Historical context: James Joyce was born into a middle-class, Catholic family in
Dublin. His family move to an impoverished area. Ulysses (1922), which maps the
Dublin wanderings of its protagonist in a single day, stream-of-consciousness prose
style. The political scene hopeful, as Ireland sought independence from Great Britain.
The nationalist Parnell reinvigorated Irish politics: anti-English views and support of
land ownership for farmers. After Parnells death, Ireland underwent a dramatic cultural
revival. Irish citizens struggled to define what it meant to be Irish, reinvigorate Irish
language and culture and gave the Irish a greater sense of pride in their identity.
Parnells death, dashed all hopes of Irish independence and unity. Ireland splintered into
Protestants and Catholics, Conservatives and Nationalists. Joyces writing taps into
political and religious matters. Dubliners: detailed portraits of life. Joyce focuses on
children and adults who skirt the middle class (housemaids, office clerks, music
teachers, students). Events may not appear profound, the characters intensely personal
and often tragic revelations certainly are. characters and events that were alarmingly
similar to real people and places
Narrator: experience of love moves him from placid youth to frustrated loneliness as
he explores the threshold between childhood and adulthood. He yearns to experience
new places and things, but he also grapples with the conflict between everyday life and
the promise of love. He wants to see himself as an adult, so he dismisses his distracting
schoolwork as childs play and expresses his intense emotions in dramatic, romantic
gestures. His inability to pursue what he desires traps him in a childs world. His
dilemma suggests the hope of youth stymied by the unavoidable realities of Dublin life.
First-person point-of-view, or perspective, in not the young protagonist but the grownup version of the boy who recounts it. A young boy would never have the wisdom or
vocabulary to say "I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity."
SYMBOLS:
1 Araby: suggests escape. 19th Century European mind, the Islamic lands and the
Middle East symbolized decadence, exotic delights, escapism, and a luxurious
sensuality. The boy's erotic desires for the girl become joined to his fantasies about
the Orientalist bazaar. He dreams of buying her a suitably romantic gift.
2 Routine: The most consistent consequences of following mundane routines are
loneliness and unrequited love. The young boy wants to go to the bazaar to buy a
gift for the girl he loves, but he is late because his uncle becomes mired in the
routine of his workday.
3 Paralysis: The boy halts in the middle of the dark bazaar, knowing that he will
never escape the tedious delays of Dublin and attain love. Evoke death in life as they
show characters in a state of inaction and numbness.
4 Religin: metaphor for dedication that dwindles. The presence of religious
references suggests that religion traps Dubliners into thinking about their lives after
death.
5 Windows: anticipation of events. Narrator watches from his window for the
appearance of Mangans sister. The suspense for these young boys centers in that
space separating the interior from the exterior life. Threshold between domestic and
19

outside world, through them the characters observe their own lives and the lives of
others.
Immaturity: the narrators immaturity is evident in both his inflated expectations
concerning the girls love and his dashed hopes at the bazaar. He makes a transition
in the story from his childish ideals to the realities of adult life. As the boy is
becoming a man, the bazaar becomes emblematic for the difficulty of the adult
world, in which the boy proves unable to navigate
Frustration: as universal, the narrator is nameless, the girl is always Mangans
sister. The girl cannot be possessed because of the compromis of the material gift,
in which lies the destruction of the dream. I saw myself as a creature driven and
derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."
Structure of a journey: in search of something precious, the Araby, but the journey
is in vain. Story of initiation, marking the rites of passage from the Edenic domain
of home to the uncertain terrain of adult life.

Summary: Description of the Dublin street. He thinks about the priest who died in the
house before his family moved in and the games that he and his friends played in the
street. Mangans sister often comes to the front of their house to call the brother, a
moment that the narrator savors. Narrator and Mangans sister talk little, but she is
always in his thoughts, he fears he will never gather the courage to speak with the girl.
Mangans sister asks the narrator if he plans to go to Araby bazaar, she cannot attend
and the narrator offers to bring her something from there. This brings the narrator into a
period of eager, restless waiting and fidgety tension in anticipation of the bazaar. He
cannot focus in school, lessons are tedious. Narrators uncle arrives late and the boy is
impatient. The uncle gives him some money, would distract him reciting a poem but he
leaves. When he arrives at the bazaar it is starting to close. With no purchase for
Mangans sister, the narrator stands angrily in the deserted bazaar as the lights go out.
Setting: Urban (poor neighbourhood of Dublin). All of it is dark: houses are
claustrophobic, oppressive. A boy is awakened his love by an older girl. Older child =
fascination, they are from other planets. Psychology of the child. Fascination = he
always oberseves her, details of how she is dressed, her hair, glow of her skin (looked
with the contrast of light). There is no light in the dark street of Dublin, the only light is
the sweaty skin of the boys playing.
What is very important for the boy is forgiven for the uncle. The visits make it
postponed and by the time he gets on the train (almost 10) he is alone there. Its dark
there as well (it is closing), he does not see the magic he had imagined. In the final
conversation he is not only isolated as a child. He cannot understand the conversation =
they speak with pronouns and in a different accent.
Transformation: in the very end of the story that leads to: anger, frustration and
disappointment. Negative introduction into maturity: maybe magic does not exist. There
is no devision at the end, the epiphany is discovering that there is no adventure. He read
romantic books of the library, and he becomes a knight (wants to get the bracelet for his
princess).

20

A WHITE HERON
Context : Jewetts writing was the Victorian era, progressive outlook of the US. Most
significant was the American Civil War 1861 to 1865. The Northern Union fought with
a desire to abolish slavery. Jewetts style: carrying a social, political, academic and
literary connotations.
- Regionalist writer: interested in features of the physical landscape, but they are
not nature writers = They focus on the relationship between that world and
human consciousness.
- Idealistic and pantheistic Romantic era. However, her characters are not totally
subsumed by their natural environment. Sylvia may choose the secret of the
heron over pleasing the handsome hunter, but she is only nine: womanly
experiences are still a little time away.
Summary: Sylvia, a shy nine-year-old, is bringing home the milk cow when she meets
a young ornithologist who is hunting birds for his collection. He goes with her to her
grandmothers house. Her grandmother, Mrs. Tilley, has rescued Sylvia from a crowded
city where she was harassed by a great red-faced boy. Thats why she is first afraid of
the hunter. The handsome hunter is friendly and sociable, he offers money for
information about where is the white heron. He spends a day with Sylvia looking for the
herons nest, during which Sylvia comes to find him increasingly attractive. On the
second morning, Sylvia climbs a pine to see the heron nest. Shifts in verb tense and
point of view creates an intimate unity between the narrator, the reader, and Sylvia
herself to share Sylvias mystical union with nature. When she returns to the farm,
however, Sylvia will not reveal the location of the nest.
SYMBOLS
1. Outsiders: Sylvia has come from the town but is subsumed in to country life
2. Gray: Sylvia has shining gray eyes and watches the hawks with gray feathers
as soft as moths as she climbs the great pine tree. Gray as a colour is symbolic
of Sylvias blurring between the world of innocence white, and the world of
experience black. The gray eyes of Sylvia also closely identify her to the birds
with their gray feathers as soft as moths and further bind her to the natural world.
3. Magic of the Woods: marshes surrounding the tallest pine tree in the forest. Sylvia
has been warned by her grandmother about the sunshine yellow and hot and the mud
that could pull her under. When Sylvia climbs the tree, magical things start to
happen: the trunk starts to lengthen. Sylvia, too, is transformed by the experience,
her face looking like a "pale star". Anthropomorphism used in describing the tree.
Sylvia is at one with her environment, and though the tree challenges her, it supports
her too.
THEMES
1

Nature vs Society: Sylvia is initially tempted by the money and the hunter's knife
gift, but cannot be bought with his money. Her life with the birds is much more
valuable. She is happy of having left the town, and has no desire to go back.
Different dialect = lack of understanding. In the country we have the happiness,
respects the nature (not kills the birds), morally good / town: violent world (gun,
harassed), unhappiness, dark side, morally bad. Above the tree you can see the light
21

= light of knowledge.
Innocence vs Experience: Sylvia is initially repulsed, then bewitched by the
handsome stranger who offers money for the location of the herons nest. She
initially wants to please, but when communing with the birds in the high pine tree
she realises that she will keep their secret. She will forego the adventure in to the
world of womanly desires to remain a child of nature.
3 Personal values vs emotional needs: making an ethical decision causes pain.
Sylvia cannot give herons life away and makes an ethical decision consistent with
her values, even though she is filled with sadness that lingers long after the hunter
goes away.
4. Moral and Social Education: reminds the reader of the value of nature and its
fragility, at a time when conservation to protect endangered species was not
featuring large on the social agenda.
2

Initiation story: Sylvia gains a greater awareness of herself and the world. Through a
difficult experience, innocence is lost as truth is revealed and knowledge is acquired.
After climbing the tree Sylvia experiences the beauty of the natural world, and sees it
with new eyes. The difficulty and danger of her journey (climbing the tree) indicate the
depth of her desire to please the hunter. When she climbs down from the pine, however,
she has changed.
Cynical tone: Sylvia contemplates what she has lost in not helping the young man, she
could have served and followed him and loved him as a dog does. Dog =
unconditional obedience rather than a balanced relationship and domesticity, which does
not fit with the wild natural spirit we see in Sylvia.
Process of maturity
-

Country: girl (Sylvy happy easy-going girl of 9 years old in a country, not in her
home). Contrast between of spaces. Similar Little Red Ridding Hood, and Heidi.
She is more vulnerable (she goes alone in the forest with no one who protects
her). Lots of fairy tales start with a orphan and are the victims of stepparents.
o But there is an obvious historical reasons for that (in 18th C the stories
were recopilated).
o Narrative reasons: you can isolate the character from the others. It
prepares the theme of growth.
She is very happy in the forest, theres a symbiosis between her and the cows
and her and the birds.

A hunter is introduced in a mysterious way. He is announced with the sound of a

whistle (it explains what he is doing with the birds = he kills them). He interrups
the routines of the country world, and also the routines of the house. The
mystery that he was at the beginning changes, it grows a certain familiarity: she
discovers the possibility of love through him. The man that Sylvia had feared
becomes now a friend. The grandmother says that Sylvia resemblers her uncle.
Indirect portrayal of the hunter: after hearing that the grandmother has lost 4
children, he does not react = lack of empathy.

Search to the forest with a clear motivation (finding the nest of the heron). She
follows him to the forest because:
22

o Of her fascination she has with him. = Subjective motivation.

o The promise of receiving money. Even though they are poor, they put the
man up and give him dinner. = Objective motivation.
Whispered tones = sense of intimacy:
o They had a practical reason: not disturbing the birds.
o Romantic scene: awakens the womans emotions in Sylvia
o This is a game for the girl
o Hunter wants to gain intimacy so as that the girl reveals the secret
She receives a knife: related to adventure stories (more of boys). Sylvia is happy
because she is not treated as a child (you would never give a knife to a child).
The hunter is trying to buy the girls interest; he understands her psychology.
Hunter wears a gun, first it frightens her, but now is seen as:
o Symbol of progress (comes from the town) vs violence (kills birds)
o Symbol of adulthood and manhood (which starts to feel interested)
-

Starts to climb alone the tree. This is the moment of initiation and transition and
the transformation is true for her at this moment. It is a central passage in the
story. It is the highest and the oldest tree = it is unique, it is the last of its
generation. She knows that if she climbs it she will be able to see everythings
(the nest and the ocean). Related to the tree of knowledge = paradise where she
is free (Adam and Eve). We know that there will be consequences and risks in
knowing more: aware of other realities and difficulties, you may be confronted
with difficult choices. She shares intimacy with the white heron looking at the
ocean = epiphany (moment of enlightment and vision). When she goes down of
the tree has made a decision.
o She wont be rich
o She will lose the stranger > companion = she will stay alone lonely
country child. Being lonely and alone is the result of her decision. She
refuses not only the man, but also the world (the town) which the hunter
represents.

Types of growth:
o Psychological (making her own decisions)
o Feminist (she refuses to give herself to the man, she prefers her freedom)
o Ethical: she stays faithful to her principles of protecting the birds and the
nature. And all this for a bird? Its also for herself, and her vision of
goodness.
Omniscient narrator, towards the end the voice changes and is like a moralise = she will
not love the man as a dog.

23

1. Bildungsroman or novel:
-

Search for meaning by the protagonist (usually single person), inexperienced at

the beginning.
Incident that pushes the protagonist in the journey (usually a emotional loss).
The journey will not be easy. The hero will be tested, and he will fight.
Epiphany, or flashing momento. This lucidity changes them as a person. They
learn what it takes to be a grown up in the real world.
The hero will eventually find his place in society by accepting its values and
rules.
The ending isn't necessarily about closure. We often do not know what's going to
happen to the hro, but he is equipped with the maturity and knowledge.

2. Types of ending in initiation stories (effects of the rite of passage and subsequent
epiphany, different degree of attention that the narrator devotes to their ending.
- Araby: anger, frustration and disappointment. Negative introduction into
maturity: maybe magic does not exist. The epiphany is discovering that there is
no adventure
3. Writers biographies and writing styles (how did they shape their different approach to
and development of the initiation story?)
4. New England (US) and Ireland at the time when the stories were written. Metaphorical
value of setting
5. Importance of the woods (and the natural world) in the North-American tradition. How
the setting for Jewett (light-darkness dichotomy) is tinged with cultural attributes.
6. White heron as a symbol itself:
- Why a and not the in the title? A is indefinite. Whatever heron would
have had the same effect to Sylvia than this one. It is not putting emphasis on the
bird itself, but on the Young girl.
- social value of herons at the time of Jewetts story: what were they hunted
for? In the 19th century herons were hunted because people used their
wonderful feathers to decorate their hats. In Sarah Orne Jewetts short story the
white heron can therefore come to stand for values such as purity, grace,
majesty, and elegance.
- connotations to Sylvias decision? symbolic link between the white heron and
her own virginity
- What is the heron doing at the top of the tree? Connect this with sexual
symbols of Jewetts story. The tree-climbing experience might then be regarded
as an allegory of sexual initiation. The gun is a phallic symbol. he gun frightens
Sylvia at first, but she stops fearing it around the time that she starts to develop
her little crush. The Sharp dry twigs scattered their talons: pain of the lost of
virginity
- Are there any correspondences between the protagonist of the story and the
heron she looks for? Herons are patient (wait for food to come near), Sylvia is
also patient to wait for a glimpse of the herons nest. Herons prefer living in
solitary places, as Sylvia. Heron is also a symbol of the girls sexuality, Heron
would be his an open place (32). In the story, the narrator tells us that Sylvia
24

saw the heron in a spot where the sunshine always seemed strangely yellow and
hot. . . and where it is possible to sink in the soft black mud underneath and
never be heard of more (Jewett 232). Church asserts this place is, the vagina,
the bird, the clitoris and that Sylvia ha
7. Jewetts allegorical narrative in contrast with Joyces ironic realism: how do these styles
fit the worlds they depict?
8. Symbols from different perspectives:
- psychological (realistic construction of a childs growth)
- socio-historical
- specificity of gender
- philosophical or poetic (only in Jewett)
9. Joyces urban setting: domestic, local and national space. How are they connected with
each other and what role do they play in the initiation theme? What space does
Araby represent?
10. Think of this possible play-on-words: Araby / Orient / Orientation / Disorientation
11. How present is the Christian tradition in both stories? How is it re-shaped?. Is
there salvation at the end of the stories? What is the difference? How do you
account for it?
- White heron: keeping the herons nest as a secret, Sylvia is practicing the
Christian value of wisdom gained through silent reflection. A White heron is an
image of eternal struggle of good Christs battle against the devil.
- Araby: All the details of his oppressive space are transformed into mystic effects
(he has developed his own religion = prays with the hands pulled together).
Religion is everywhere: the girl cannot go to the bazar because she has to go to
the religious school. Araby, Joyce presents the church from two perspectives:
that of the young narratorwho is a practicing Catholic, as Joyce was in his
youthand that of the irreligious adult author. The following sentences from the
second paragraph exhibit this double perspective musty air and the useless
papers to suggest that the church was an outdated institution with effete rules
and doctrines. Like the priest, it would die. Religious institutions are
constraining: when the Christian Brothers School set the boys free. imagined
that I bore my chalice safely through chalice is a very holy symbolism within the
church and with Joyces using the chalice in this sentence symbolizes that he
may be comparing her to a sacred symbol as well.. he harp, being an instrument
associated with religious rituals, illustrate that the boys is linking his admiration
for the girl with spiritual worship.
12. Other initiation stories: Martha, Martha.

25

HOW I FINALLY LOST MY HEART, LESSING & PSYCHOLOGY, MANSFIELD

HOW I FINALLY LOST MY HEART
-

Narrators personal voice. Is not the language of the heart but of the head.
Anonymous woman in mid-life
Style: sophisticated, analytical, cynical = manifestation of her conscious denial of
the pain of disappointed love.
Characters emotions: detachment from her own grief. The narrators self-scrutiny
reveals her lack of connection, the emptiness, the pain of repeated loss and
undiminished hope that He might turn out to be the one. She cannot feel deeply
about anything. After encountering her two serious loves on the same day, her
conventional behavior patterns, including her habitual return to the search for
serious love represented by the date with C, crumble under a torrent of new selfawareness.

Metaphor of the heart in the hand:

1 Ironic literalization of the clich of losing ones heart or approaching another
with ones heart in ones hand.
2 Surreal representation of her moment of psychic upheaval, her revolution in
attitude toward love, which leads to a new state of freedom.
3 Encounter with her own inner being
4 Her conscious self (her narrative voice) confronts her unconscious.
5 Her live heart becomes a stylized gift of love to herself and her entry into a new
personal realm of freedom.

Loves are not ends but rather way stations. She recounts an experience in which she
makes herself, her actions, and her feelings visible to herself. In giving her heart
away, she does not die but is reborn in acceptance from her own disappointments in
love.
She distinguishes between the affairs / entanglements / marriages, however
numerous, that dont really count and serious loves. She points out that not only
she, but also most people today, fly from lover to lover, ever seeking serious love.
Acerbically, she observes, We are all entirely in agreement that we are in the right
to taste, test, sip and sample a thousand people on our way to the real one.
Although she carries the scars of many loves, she has never lost her heart.

Pere Calders: the desert. A man has his life in the hand, and so as to protect it, he
wraps his hand with a scarf.
The hope is much darker than in the other story. The possibility of hope is inexistend in
the end. There is more movement, more dynamic characters and evolution about what
the woman thinkgs about love. She starts with a review of her two bad experience. She
talks about a structure of things, mathematical language (A, B, C). she talks about
detached way, more objective. First she has hope in the letter C: the one is waiting for
her = ironic illusion to the magazines. Form of the quest as a narrative structure = like
a narrative novel, but not wants to find a treauser but a man. IT is an ironic postmodern
story (tone) but realistic (life of a woman). We have a big surprise it becomes a fantasy:
26

she has the heart in her hands. Very comic = sorry I have to hung up. The main
preoccupation now is how to get rid of the heart.
She is afraid of showing her feelings, being hurt Doris lessing laughts at the
construction of being in love (picture of a heart = it is not nice). If you look at a real
heart is quite impressive. Love is not like that, love is dangerous, is full of blood, you
will suffer a lot if you base your existence on love. She deconstructs the deconstruction
of love. She becomes an antiheroin who does not want to found love, but whants to get
rid of it. She stops going to work, she curls the curtains (darkenss), she examines
herself. Doris Lessing pushes the imagery to the limit: oberseves herself by looking at
her heart.
She looks a women with high hheel shoes (sex in the city = heroine of the city)
contradiction of having to wear high heels to feel confident. She is middle age (40). She
is living a moment when she has to make a decision (why does she wants to spend the
rest of her life). The woman with high heels met two birds (pidgeons) as if their wanted
to kill her (compared with 2 bullets). Ironic use: the woman finally escapes from the
monogamy. The protagonist wants to escape from this feeling of finding a man.
Goes to the subway (descent to the hell). She finds a woman talking about an infidelity
(using the image of a golden cigarette cage). 2 metallic images that appear towards the
end = golden cigarret, and a jewelry with a silver heart. Tradition of giving presents for
love, with inscriptions in the Hollywood films wich reveals infidelities. Plays with
clichs. She project herself in the mad woman and gives her heart. Is this a solidary act
or selfish? The conclusion of selfishness wins. Individualism of modernity.
At the end, the woman goes back to the surface of the city and feeling relieved without
having a heart. It is not a happy ending: she will have no heart. Dehumanization of the
individual who prefers not to suffer on exchange of anything. She will not suffer
anymore, but she will be happy? Dont we depend on death to value life? Irony: how I
finally lost my heart. Finally = you have been waiting for it for a long time.
PSYCHOLOGY
Attraction between two older artists, culminating in a moment of potential, a moment
which, because of their agonizing self-consciousness, they miss. This story shows both
minds, but readers are left with the woman and with another characteristically
unexpected psychological twist. An older female acquaintance brings her flowers
violets again. This spontaneous gift revitalizes the woman, and with renewed hope she
begins an intense letter to the man who has left her.
Structure vs Imagery
Psychology = psychological examination of a relationship. We know both what they say
and what they think, and also why they dont say what they think. Fear: if they put their
relationship further they can lose what they have as friendship. It compares it with two
cities (image of modernity), it is a modern relationship. They are mentally compatible.
But its ironic because they spend all the time together without saying what they really
think. Its time to have their results. There should be another stage of their relationship.
Its a platonic relationship that contrasts with the age they have (30) at the beginning of
the 20th C was like to be 45 nowadays.
When he says he loves the head of the estatue he breaks the tabu of speaking about the
family projects. They are both cowards. She considers herself modern, but in fact waits
for him to take the first step. But when he takes a little step, she refuses and gets angry.
27

Light and darkness, fire (passion = projection of their sexual desire), tea-pot with two
birds painted in it (symbol of monogamy). She has the domestic fantasy of them as a
couple (both of them in the sofa curled). This domestic space becomes a prison when
they do not know how to defend on it.
This love is platonic = the cave (idealized world) they are not going for the real world
outside their little cage (of birds) or cave (human studio). Even if the topics are
superficial they are discussing the future of a psychological novel = of course, we have
to understand ourself in our complex society. Characters are talking about themselves,
and as writers, they should be able to read each other.
What Is said and what is thought = text and subtext. When you are an actor you should
know how to read the subtext. Mandsfiled show us the two levels = theres the voice of
the characters and their thoughts (subtext = more of hers, but also his). We dont
normally see the subtext in a narrative text, but this narrative is more psychological.
We can be both rational and irrational in love. We think a lot about whats love, but we
end up following our emotions.
Lady appears with a bunch of flowers = violets, colour associated with mourning
(associated with resurrection and death). The love that was believed to be death is
resurrected. The lady is a virgin = importance of sexual. She does not want to end as the
old woman. She starts writing in a romantic way (writing letters). She starts with the
same words of the lady = she is inspired with her, but has problems of authenticity.
How is the studio presented? How bodies behave? Think about the tabus avoided.
Contained passion.
Their passion is submitted to analyses and for this reason it doesnt work. Fear about
getting hurt, failing very modern perspective of love. But its also because of the age
of the protagonist and the experience that they already have. Its pessimistic, but ends
positive: the whole thing will start again, but maybe their psycho will never end. She is
really attach to her study and her things, but if you want to create a family the studio
would not be the best place to live in it. Modernist view: individual.Contradictions
between what they say / think / feel
It crashes between what we expect from a love story. Associations with love: princess
(fairy tales childhood). Our first ideas of love start to be constructed when we are very
young: they have always a happy ending (reassuring you as a child). Prince rescues
princesses, the girls are waiting for their princes to come. Nowadays we try to have a
more igualitarian visions, the boy is always portrayed as more active. Tragedy of
Romeo and Juliet = true love until death, it goes beyond any kind of difficulties.
Until the 21th C. literature was the first source to represent love. Poetry until
Romanticism: idealized (Dame sants Merci) in Trobadore = female figure is passive,
and receives the poems of a man. 16th C, Mystic poems (Santa Maria de Jesus) was
conditioned as their religious status. Romanticism is portrayed as a passioned, out of
control love. Romantic novels imply that love can entail dangers. In the contemporary
world, literature is not the main source. The texts that are more consumed: important
sexual component (Lilith = sexually active female), eternity (vampires are immortal).
Not associated in a pure way such as in Romeo and Juliet, but more depredatory point
of view. Sex is what sells better = Doris Lessing, it was important relationship or not.
Popular films continue to show us romantic approaches: romantic comedy (young
people and mostly female as target audience). They must have a happy ending.
Magazines are consumed mostly by women: celebrities, gossip (older women),
28

fashion but there are certain ideas of love portrayed. In Psychology we have the
influence of magazines. Also in commercials we can find ideas of love.
Our ideas of love coexist in the popular texts and culture we consume, that influence us.
If we look at the personal ideas, we can find personal experience and experience of your
families, friends it depends on place, time, setting, texts we are exposed. Love is an
emotion, but is not expressed and understood universally. Love is also a construction,
and these stories present love as a construction, not something that happens naturally
FOURTH SESSION (MANSFIELD / LESSING) FOLLOW-UP
Suggestions for your complementary study
Re-read both stories as love stories and observe how the theme is presented and
developed in both of them.
Underline those lines from both stories in which aspects of the analysis are reflected
Complete your notes with more information about:
o Theories on love as a theme in the humanities: for instance, the construction of
love in (Western / modern / capitalist) culture (history); the importance of love
in the shaping of an adult identity (psychology); the connection between love
and self-knowledge (philosophy); the representation of love in the history of
literature
o Katherine Mansfield, Doris Lessing, and their importance in:
twentieth-century literature
English fiction
Short-story creation
The shaping of the modern free woman (as a woman and as a writer,
as a continuation of former women writers of the previous century)
and their vision of love relationships and their complexities
Check autobiographical details of both writers that throw light on the
stories: for example, the importance of brothers, death as both threat
and interruption of joy (check on Mansfields illness and also the
importance of Wars as tragic interruptions of life in both of them);
unconventional love/sexual relationships and their connection to
freedom (from social conventions and from oneself)
Consider/think about the following questions:
o The poetic logics of love in both stories.
a) Consider the symbolic value and the narrative function of the following
symbols in both stories in their representation of LOVE:
_ The heart (and having the heart in ones hand)
_ The body (displayed and hidden bodies): parts of the body that are
stressed out (or remain hidden), and re-presentations of the body in
the game of seduction in both stories the artificialization of the Self.
_ The City how does it condition the search for/experience of love?
_ References to light and darkness (observe the correspondence
between changes of light and emotion in the two stories)
_ Flowers
_ Birds (what do they represent?)
_ The notion of the dream and its polysemic function in both stories in
connection with love
b) Consider the construction of the lovers themselves (what type of love do
they represent/deconstruct?):
c) What features of romantic love are found, re-presented, underlined,
29

undermined in both stories? Where are they in the text? Consider at

least the following key words, which very often are opposite binaries (and
look for their corresponding semantic fields): happiness and agony;
freedom and imprisonment; desire; spiritual union; knowledge of the Self
or annihilation of the Self?; source of power/disempowerment;
hope/disappointment; re-birth/loss; selfishness versus generosity;
childrens world versus adult world; innocence versus wisdom; mortality
versus eternity and/or the ephemeral versus the permanent;
transformation; absurdity/silliness versus significance How do they
change as the stories unfold?
o Stylistic aspects in the re-creation of love in both stories.
a) Think about the way in which these two writers use different genres and literary
traditions to explore the theme of love. Consider at least the following:
The Romantic tradition (the importance of emotions and subjectivity, the
irrational over the rational, fantasy and reality)
The subversion of popular narratives and their treatment of love in Doris
Lessings story (notice her ironic imitation of womens magazine style, which has
given rise to popular fictions of apparently emancipated women in the big city who
are nevertheless trapped by a traditional and/or romantic search for love as Carrie
in Sex in the City or the protagonist of Ally McBeal)
Ambivalent use of poetry and (folk) songs as archetypal love-genres
Their different use of the angle of vision to construct their portraits of love
b) Consider the possible connections you can establish between these writers
unique styles and those of other writers:
a. Mansfield and: D.H. Lawrence (who created his famous Gudrun in Women
in Love after her check their biographies); Virginia Woolf (who created
Mrs Dalloway somehow thanks to Mansfield); the playwright and shortstory
writer Antn Chekhov, whom she regarded as her master
Lessing and: Joyce (notice her development of Joyces inner monologue to
give us the impression we are actually listening to her (rational) heart
speaking; anti-heroic use of humour typical of the Jewish tradition (in
fiction and films); Sergi Pmies (in his collection of stories La bicicleta
esttica, there is a tale on the end of melancholy that could be connected
with How I Finally Lost My Heart).
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
In one of his popular science books, Eduardo Punset says that happiness is normally
found in the waiting room to the actual happiness-chamber. What do these two
stories tell us about the importance of love for human beings and especially of the
constant search for love?
These are possible readings for you if you would like to explore other texts on love as
main theme:
o Anton Chekhovs Lady with Lapdog (adapted for the stage by Brian Friel as
The Yalta Game) and The Darling (Mansfield admired Chekhov and
considered him her master)
o D.H. Lawrences Women in Love (where Gudrun is a fictionalised version of
Katherine Mansfield)
o Edith Whartons The Age of Innocence (on doomed love, as in Mansfield)
and The Other Two (more connected to Lessing through the notion of
expartners)
30

o Carson McCullers The Ballad of the Sad Caf (Mansfield was a huge influence
on this great American writer)
o Helen Hanffs 84, Charing Cross Road (a cult novel based on a real story that
was adapted into a film and a play connected to Henrys love for books =
love for life = love for love and this famous London street)
o Charles Baxters Feast of Love (contemporary novel with clear links to
McCullers classic it has a fine film adaptation)
These are possible films you may want to check which have direct connections with
some (or many) elements of Mansfields story and their deconstruction in Lessing:
o Max Ophuls La ronde (1950), a delightful and extremely modern film
adaptation of Arthur Schnitzlers play that presents love (and especially sexual
desire) as a childish, unreliable and irresistible force, and which had a major
influence on European cinema.
o Leo McCareys An Affair to Remember (in which two strangers meet on a
cruise, and elements of romantic comedy are gradually transformed into
melodrama; a cigarette case also appears as object of (un)faithful love, as in
Lessings story)
o Christopher Hamptons Carrington
o Jane Campions Bright Star (see trailer in Recursos)
o Martin Scorseses The Age of Innocence (see trailer in Recursos)
o Richard Linklaters Before Sunrise (see the second part of the films first
sequence in Recursos)
o Richard Curtis Love, Actually
Check a song-link (Only A Womans Heart) and three video links (Before Sunrise,
The
Age of Innocence and Wizard of Ozz) and and read the texts I have added under
Revisa les propietats (first you have to click on Accions for each link).
Read W.H. Audens poem O Tell Me the Truth About Love

31

THE CATHEDRAL, CARVER & THE BLIND MAN, LAWRENCE

Of all five human senses, touch is the most powerful. Lawrence. Connected with
modernism: 20th C. Like Virginia Wolf (between 2 centuries). He depicts the 2 worlds:
working and middle class. He married a woman older than him (she was already
married and had children). Her woman was German, and lived in England: problems
beause it was World War. They must live in friends houses. He had to struggle with
deseases which affected his lungs. Died at 45 of tuberculosis.
R. Carver: american. Coming from a working class. Struggling with studing (couldnt
pay), and diseases. He was addicted to alcohol. Difficult personal live. Lawrence is one
of his big influences. One of his most important Works was ban for 40 years because of
the explicit treatment of love in it. Ladys Shatorlish lover.
THE CATHEDRAL
The narrator says that his wifes blind friend, whose wife has just died, is spending the
night at their house. The mans blindness unsettles him. The wife met the blind man ten
years ago when she worked for him as a reader. The blind man touched her face and she
wrote a poem about it. His wife married her childhood sweetheart who was an officer.
Unhappy with her life, she tried to commit suicide taking pills, but she survived. She
kept in touch with the blind man. The narrator suggests taking the blind man bowling,
the wife reminds him that his wife just died (not appropiate). The narrator asks whether
Beulah was Negro, and his wife gets angry, she died from cancer. The narrator thinks
how awful it must have been for Beulah to know that her husband could never look at
her.
The wife picks up the blind man at the train station. She laughs and talks with the blind
man. They all sit in the living room. The narrator asks what side of the train he sat on,
and Robert says he sat on the right. The narrator wishes Robert would wear black
glasses because his eyes look weird. He didnt think blind smoke. After dinner, they go
back to the living room to drink. The wife and Robert talk about their past. When
Robert asks the narrator questions, he makes short responses. He turns on the TV,
irritating his wife.
The wife goes upstairs to change clothes. The narrator and Robert smoke and the wife
joins. She falls asleep between them. Robert stays up with the narrator to talk, he likes
the company, he and his wife never go to bed at the same time. Robert asks the narrator
to describe a cathedral. The narrator has many difficulties. The narrator doesnt believe
in anything: he cant describe a cathedral because they are meaningless for him. Robert
ask him to draw one, he puts his hand over the narrators one, following the movement
of the pen. Robert tells the narrator to close his eyes and keep drawing. Soon Robert
tells him to open his eyes and see what hes drawn, but the narrator doesnt. He feels
like hes nowhere. With his eyes still closed, he says the drawing is really something.
CHARACTERS:
1 The Narrator: Lack of insight and self-awareness that makes him blinder than
Robert. Difficulty understanding peoples feelings that lie beneath the surface. He
doesnt care whether this visit is important to his wife or what role Robert played in
helping her through her suicide attempt and divorce. He expects to hear her tell
32

Robert about her dear husband. Everything he does seems designed to annoy and
anger her. Drawing a cathedral with Robert with his eyes closed lets him look inside
and understand the greater meaning. The narrator assumes that he is more capable of
making his own wife happy than Robert simply because he can see. He isnt aware
of the difference between seeing and understanding. He never admits aloud his
jealousy of Robert based on the blind man's past relationship with his wife. They
talked of things that had happened to them". He thinks Beulah must have been
unhappy because she was deprived physical compliments, the only possessiveness
the narrator shows over his wife is sexual: robe.
Robert compassionate man who listens to others, which helps him to see them
better than he could do with his eyes. He is the person the narrators wife turned to
when she needed to talk. We never learn what Robert says on the tapes which
suggests that the act of listening was more important than responding. His wife has
recently died. The effect this interaction has on the narrator is almost mystical.
Greek mythology: the blind are wise because they 'see' some greater truth because
they are not blinded by the limitations of the physical world. They transcend the
physical.
Narrators Wife - A nameless woman. She has kept in touch with Robert since
they met ten years ago, exchanging audiotapes. Before she married the narrator,
shed been married to a military officer and was so unhappy that tried to kill herself.

MOTIFS:
1 Drinking: The physical act gives the story rhythm. Before every action someone
prepares a drink or sips. When the wife tries to kill herself drinks a bottle of gin.
Before the narrator begins listening to one of Roberts tapes, he makes drinks.
During the evening, the three of them drink constantly. Dreamy tone.
2 The Cathedral: that they draw together represents true sight: ability to see beyond
the surface. When the drawing is finished, the narrator keeps his eyes shut, yet what
he sees is greater than anything hes ever seen with his eyes open. He felt
weightless, placeless = hes reached an epiphany. A cathedral offers a place for the
religious to find solace, the drawing opens a door into a deeper world, where he can
see beyond the visible. function as a place for community: the building exists
through the dedication of generations of people. Robert listens quietly at the
narrator, and encourages him to continue = gentleness of a priest or a confessor,
someone who is devoting himself to your spiritual benefit for the moment. Religious
elements: to talk about something secret that we have inside.
3 Audiotapes: understanding and empathy that has nothing to do with sight. When
the narrator hears Roberts tape, he says it sounds like harmless chitchat, not
realizing that this sort of intimate communication is exactly what his own marriage
lacks. Substitutes for the real thing. Even though the tapes might seem closer to
something real than the movies, neither one comes anywhere near the real thing.
Hand-to-hand contact is the best.
STYLE:
1
2

Dirty
realism:1980s, writing about
middle-class
characters:
disappointments and harsh realities of their ordinary lives. Simple
language, direct descriptions of ordinary people and events.
Nihilism: alienation or anomie (feeling of being only half alive, trapped in
meaningless jobs, not being able to love, not seeing any higher meaning to
life. the narrator does not believe in religion or anything else.
33

3
4

Minimalism: The narrator concludes with the ambiguous understatement:

Its really something.
Zero ending: doesnt tie up the story, stops abruptly. Narrators final
words, Its really something, reveal him to be the same inarticulate man
as always. Optimism: until this moment, the narrator has been bitter and
sarcastic, but has now gained a deeper understanding of his life. The
narrator sees a new world start to crack open.
First-person voice of the story. The narration is arguably one of Carver's
most vivid. The narrator is forthcoming with his listener, both in terms of
what he shares (his insecurities are myriad) but also through the personal
qualities he reveals. He's crude and he's mean, but he's also glib. There's a
wicked humor in the way he talks. While he certainly is detached from
himself at the beginning, he is unusually talkative and clever for a Carver
narrator. It's a voice worth reading aloud, especially when one notices that
the glibness is noticeably absent from the final pages. This absence delivers
as powerfully as anything else how shaken and affected the narrator is by
this experience. Not a very skillful storyteller either, putting his narrative
together crudely, with rough transitions and defensive interruptions. For
example, when he refers to his wifes childhood sweetheart, he breaks in,
Why should he have a name? These reveal the narrators jealous
insecurity.
Setting: days when the switch from black and white to color television was
in its early stages, and cassette tapes. Middle-class home in New York, a
single evening. Realism: show regular people living their lives,
postmodernism interrogates reality. Postmodernism is a response to the
events of World War II: the magnitude of these catastrophes caused many
artists and philosophers to question all their previously held assumptions,
including ideas of what is real and what is imaginary. It resists moralizing
or instructing: drugs and alcohol in the story.
Minimalism: giving the reader a minimum of information, he or she will
be able to figure out what's underneath. Doesn't depend on lots of details or
extravagant touches, but rather on the ordinary details of everyday life.
Realism.

THEMES
1 Versions of reality: unstable nature. The narrator's reality (his vision of Robert) is
based on images from the movies, his wife's descriptions, and Robert's voice on
tape. When the narrator meets Robert, the reality changes and continues to change
throughout the night.
2 Language and communication: trouble when expressing ourselves and
understanding. Miscommunication and difficulty of expression usually happen when
we're trying to say important things. If we get creative, and try to stand in each
other's shoes, there is hope for clear communication. The narrator doesnt have the
words to describe what he sees: he couldnt describe a cathedral even if his life
depended on it because he doesnt understand it.
3 Transformation: during a single night. Common: sober > intoxicated, sleeping >
waking, hungry > full. All the characters will experience dramatic change, and even
renewed vision. Positive transformation through creative communication.
4 Marriage: Married couple with problems and a recent widower.
5 Alcohol and drugs: postmodern elements = resist value judgments. Presents
34

positive and negative aspects of drinking and marijuana use. For the narrator,
drinking and smoking are habits that contribute to his dissatisfaction. But they break
the ice between Robert and the narrator and lead to the cathedral-drawing.
Dissatisfaction: The narrator probably loves his wife, but that the marriage is not
happy. His movement from dissatisfaction to satisfaction is pronounced as the story
is told through his eyes. The ending doesn't guarantee lasting satisfaction, but offers
hope of happiness and connections to others through creativity and broad visin.
Looking vs Seeing: looking is related to physical vision, but seeing requires a
deeper engagement. The narrator is fully capable of looking, as he is not blind
assumes hes superior to Robert. He thinks Roberts blindness makes him unable to
make a woman happy. The narrator thinks the ability to see is everything and puts
no effort into seeing beyond the surface, thats why he doesnt really know his wife.
Robert sees on a deeper level, he understands the narrators wife deeply because he
truly listens.
Art as Insight: Finding insight and meaning in their experiences through:
a Poetry: wife writes a couple of poems every year, the narrator admits he
does not understand them.
b Drawing: The narrator draws a picture of a cathedral with Robert. Robert,
too, gleans insight from it since he shares the narrators awakening.
c Storytelling. Narrators act of retelling the story of his epiphany helps him
make sense of his newfound understanding.

In the other story the disability is sexual: unkown sexuality of Bertie, it discloses his
own blindness of himself.Here we have another deficiency: he is insensitive, lack of
empathy. You need to be able to put yourself in the place of other people. You can be
emphatic with strangers. You need to be open minded, you have to imagine the
situation.
Problematic voice: he is a rude, ignorant. You can see it trhough the way he treates the
blind man. He expresses his disgust to the blind man. Offensive remarks: in which side
of the train were you travelling? His offensiveness comes from his ignorance. He has an
empty life: same routines, addicted to drugs (smoke), alcohol, cannabis. Very passive
life (way of watching TV). His wife has other interests, but he doesnt bother to
understand them. Ignorant social prejudice. He finds threatened, its all about
insecurities.
Similar strcuture: posible triangle, intimacy between a blind and a friend, encounter
after many years, husband feeling as an outsider, possibility of having the 2 men alone:
in the stable vs her sleeping in the same room. Awakening:
- Lawrence: cat in the middle of the horses
- Drink and smoke (relax the atmosphere), TV, cathedrals (stand for religious world,
spiritual world. Something meaningless if you dont know the history, ori f you
dont understand it. His problema is that he doesnt appreciate life beyond what is
obvious. When he has to explain it, he suffers a momento of transformation, he is
aware of his difficulties: when he has to explain things, his lack of educations is
obvious. Closeness by the blind. He gains empathy, closeness, knowledge about
himself and about his capacities in which he had never thought before. The wife has
a room in which she paints and Works. When he is asked to draw a catedral, he runs
excitedly towards the wife room: he enters to the realm of creativity that only
belonged to the wife. Ignorance to his own potencial and skills. Drawing a catedral
35

= gives a momento of spiritaulity. In the TV there is also a procesin: skeletons and

devils. We have them in the Easter festivities. Devils awake a sense of mistery.
Devils stand for his own drugs, his insecurities, what dont let you develop as you
could do. At the end of the story, the men gets rid of his levels. He comes closer to
something that was higher than him.
THE BLIND MAN
Summary: Two men who are not very fond of one another and opposites are brought
together by their affection for the same woman. Isabel = 30, wife of Maurice Pervin and
friend of Bertie Reid. While fighting in Flanders during World War I, Maurice is blinded
and sustains a disfiguring facial scar. He also has episodes of major depression. Maurice
and Isabel have become socially isolated. Their first child died, Isabel is pregnant again.
Bertie is a bachelor and barrister. The three of them enjoy dinner together. When Bertie
and Isabel are talking after dinner, Maurice excuses himself, he seems uncomfortable
and retires to the darkness of the stable. It is not until Bertie goes out to look for him,
that Maurice confronts his emotions. When Bertie goes out to check on him, he finds
Maurice in the barn. The blind man asks Bertie for permission to touch him. With one
hand, Maurice examines him. He then asks Bertie to touch his eyes and scar. The
experience is a revelation for both men. Maurice suddenly understands the splendor of
friendship while Bertie realizes how much he fears intimacy.
THEMES:
1

Darkness:
a Blindness of Maurice: received at war in Flanders Doesnt symbolize the bad
and the evil, he gains much more out of it and loses a lot less. (love and
intimacy of his wife Isabel, advantages in his other senses such as hearing)
b Dark of night. Isabel cannot handle the dark when she goes in search for
Maurice since she could neither see nor hear a thing. Bertie only witnessed
this dark for a brief period but was still rather shocked and scared of it.

Intimacy: The 3 main characters display intimacy in different ways whether that is
the presence, lack of it or inability to handle it.
a Maurice is able to function like any other human being. He cares not of the
dark but of the strong relationship that develops with Isabel. However he is
infuriated by his weakness: Maurice desperately depends on Isabel. Without
her his life would be pointless, empty and dark
b Isabel was fully intimate with Maurice, at times his darkness and depression
would eat away at her until she wanted the intimacy no more; she rather have
her life be snatched away and free of the burden of Maurice.
c Bertie: has never reached the level of intimacy with anyone, is unable to bear
it as Maurice touches his face with the passion of a friend. Maurice is happy
to finally be friends with Bertie while Bertie on the other hand wishes to free
himself from him. He is unready for it and cannot handle the intimacy.

Misoginy: stereotype of women's pregenancy, the scene of the reflection in a mirror,

a sense of possession burden.
Homosexuality: Maurice and Bertiess relationship / Symbols of sexuality: stable,
shaking hands, pulping sweet roots, stroking of the gray cat.

36

Dualities
a Dark/light; blood/mind; animal/insect
b Moisture/dry; sensuality/intellect
c Sun/moon; man/woman; male autonomy/community
CHARACTERS
1

Maurice: Post-trauma syndrome (depression), isolation and intimacy. undergoes a

transformation, ending with wholeness they did not possess before when he touches
Berties face. This friendship was the missing element in his life. Isabel feels for him
a relationship that does not feels for Bertie: possess him-

Bertie: fear of intimacy. The feeling is not mutual with Maurice. He writes a letter:
provocation, regretable. It is important how she reacts: its important for her,
reawaking of her friendship. Maurice accepts = he is more tolerant. Maurice felt
threatened for Bertie, but now he has changed. Contrast = he should feel more
threatened now, because . Bertie is not in love with Isabel in fact, whenever some
women tries to gain intimacy, he rejects them and dispises them. Bertie has an active
social life. He is ironic but fragile phisically. There was an emptiness on him, that is
only filled at the end, after he has been touched with another man. Maybe he is
homosexual = he always rejected women. he was like a mollusk whose Shell is
broken = he is unprotected.

Isabel: starts with Isabels listening for two sounds and ends with her receiving the
two men, seeing one fulfilled and one defeated. Plays the role of connecting the two
men. Is between them. Post-trauma syndrome (depression), isolation and intimacy.
At the end she is the outsider: she sees that Bertie has a strange face. She is now the
outsider because she caanot understand what has happened between the 2 men.
Couple: Tragedy of having lost a first baby and of blindness: they have created a
kind of strenghth between them. They used to have a social life, but no more. They
have been married for 5 years. The last year they are not social any more. They
friends have not disappeared yet = she tries to get in contact with them when she
feels under the eather. They do not feel comfortable when they meet: they cannot be
themselves. They friends now look shadow to them. They have changed.

SYMBOLISM:
-

light (house, where Isabel feels comfortable. Isabels domain, civilization:

prepares tea. Maurice is the outsider. Domesticity, social constructed behaviour)
and darkness (outside, night. Maurice domain. Wilderness, personal uncivilization, does not follow the rules of the society. Horses)
House / upper-class / what you see / conscious / social forms of living is infront
of the stable / workers / what you dont want to see / sub-conscious / natural
forms of living.
cat: associated with Maurice, lingers while the moment of intimacy with the
other man. Literary associated with witches. Associated with moments of magic
and spell = hypnotic moment for Berty. Its a female cat. In this moment of
recognition Bery is treated like a woman (as the cat), discovery of a feminine
side in him.
touch: cat / flower / final between men
37

flower bowl
Horses: stand for sexual instinct and force, darkness. Maurice = strong body
with long and strong legs. Bery feels daunted with this sexuality.

STRUCTURE:
1. Beginning = background. Combination of moods: they are mostly happy (extremely
happy). But some days they have the opposite mood: depression, unsure about the
couple. She thinks about a baby because of the effect this can have on him, the father.
Complex psychology for the characters. They are dynamic: volatile, change a lot. Isabel
is divided into 2 worlds: outside the car of the friend who will come / the footsteps from
her husband inside the house. Dusky atmosphere: wet. The world into the house is much
more warm.
2. He goes to the farm. He has found pleasure in going there. Tasks that they did not use
to do before. She is afraid went she goes at the farm. The man is comfortable in the
stable, but Isabel is not: she is outside of her element. She is afraid of the animals inside
of the stable. She is very pregnant, and does not want to get hurt.
3. The friend arrives. He feels like a child that doesnt know what the others are talking
about. Triangle. Maurice is the outsider. The 2 men behave politely. Maurice feels
excluded and returns to the farm. When she is with other people, she sees her husband
as more a disabilited man, whereas were they are alone she does not feel it so much.
4. Moment of sincerity between the 2 friends. I suppose everyone has its deficiencies.
- Berie could make reference to his problems with women: he is expected to be married
or engaged in his social status.
- He considers blindness as a disability and handicap, as it is normally considered
socially. He tries to extend the problem to other fears and disabilities (to be polite).
Isabel talks about her own fears. And then thinks about Maurice and is concerned
because he is not already come back. Maurice as a very good friend of hers, he offers to
go and look for Maurice.
5. Contact between the 2 men. Maurice wants to know what thinks Isabel of him. Only
we have 2 elements of the triangle, and not the third can you know about more things.
We cannot never see the truth completely for our own: we have black spots that cannot
be seen. Moment of intimacy between the 2 men = unexpected. Bertie is terrified with
the contact. Maurice is happy because he feels he now has a friend. Opposite reactions.
Bertie is not sincere when he talks (he does not feel what he says). Maurice knows more
(I thout you were taller) curious = he did not realize it when they saw face in face.
Maybe Bertie is attracted with men.
Theme: stories of discovery. Bertie discovers his sexuality. Bertie is the truly blind man:
he didnt realize he was homosexual. Now he is terrified having discovered the truth.
Maurice, to his new knowledge is allowed to break social values (touch a man face).
The blind man: generic name, both of them are blind. Bertie first says: I suppose we
are all deficient in some way, but by the end of the story he understands blindness as a
source o knowledge. Maurice says: now we know who we are = 3 levels: now I know
how you are / you are not as tall as I expected / I know something about you.
38

All the story is created realistically. We are also blind at the beginning of the
appearances. We are conditioned by other stories about triangles.
Countries that once belong to British Empire = post colonial texts. Alice Munro: 2013
Nobel Price. Breaks the role of novel and poetry Nobel Price. Canidian literatura. Anita
Dessai: Indian literatura (dauther of German woman and Indian man).

39

Re-read both stories by focusing on their presentation of ageing and death as central
themes.
Underline those lines from both stories in which aspects of the analysis are reflected.
Complete your notes with more information about:
o Allegorical uses of blindness in literature
o Other stories of discovery you can think of
o D.H. Lawrence and Raymond Carver, and their importance in:
contemporary literature
English and American fiction
Short-story creation
Modernism
Postmodernism
Consider/think about the following questions:
How is sexuality connected with blindness in Lawrences story? And education in
the case of Carvers?
Is there a moment of epiphany you can detect in the two stories?
Compare the structure of both stories and find the similarities and differences.
What kind of narrator do these two stories have? How does the narrator help
develop the theme?
Think of the main symbols in the two stories and reflect on their different value in
stories with different themes.

40

THE BEAR CAME OVER THE MOUNTAIN, MUNRO & PIDGEONS

AT DAYBREAK, DESAI
Stories of aging: accumulation of love, Discovery, growth. Process of growing older,
associated with the second half of life. Its universal, but is socially and culturally
conditioned. Everyone ages more and more differently nowadays than in the past.
Related to scientific discoveries, related to the sistems of well fair states (including
pensions, healthy system that guarantees our long life). Revolution in a demographic
change. In some societies old sector is bigger than the younger ones. There are aging
citizens that have received education, and want to be active culturally until the end of
their lives = market that is aware of it, and produces films and books adequated to them.
Our society is youth-oriented, we are afraid of aging.
Advertisement of old people (only for medicines, danacols). Steryotypes: man
playing cards and grumping. Women cooking and cotillear. Agezim = discrimination to
the older people. Middle age is the least critizizes: they have the power and can critizise
the others. The problem now is when they lose their job, and start to feel old very soon,
old in a negative meaning (vulnerable). Two ways of seing aging: decadenve (negative
prespective) and success (very modern one).
THE BEAR CAME OVER THE MOUNTAIN
Evolution of love through the plot
45 years marriage. Under the aging. Marriage that goes through different stages of life:
1 Young Age: Vigorous, passion, desire, excitement. Newness = differences in
backgrounds. Fiona likes to play jokes. Grant is fascinated with Fiona, he never
wanted to be away from her, he things She had the spark of life. Fun is used by
Fiona to picture her marriage = association with excitement. Grant shouted =
eagerness and zeal.
2 Middle Age: Empty Love. Real marriage life isnt all about fun. Time erodes their
passion. Grant comes in touch with waves of other women, feels dissatisfaction and
looks for passion outside the marriage. grass at the other side of the mountain is
always greener. When Grant is enjoying himself, Fionas mother is dying. Even
though he has never been away from her for a single night, their psychological
distance is widening. Fiona feels exhausted and longs for a new life.
3 Retiring Age: Companionate Love. Grant saves his marriage in time taking an early
retirement. They move to the countryside: there is no more diversion for Grant.
Their love is steady = company. They go skiing together, make trips, and watch TV
together. They have developed a spiritual connection. sexual desire is no longer an
important part of their life (10 minutes)
4 Old Age: Grants Realization, but Fionas degenerative disease breaks the serenity of
their life. During Fionas first month in Medowlake, no visit is allowed. Grant is
reminded of his deep affection for Fiona (longest month). He is worried, and phones
there every day. The house harbors their liveliest intimacies. Guilt from the past
tortures Grant while hes alone = nightmare: a student who he had an affair with
commits suicide. There are young women all in black robes mourning. In the dream,
Fiona is untroubled and tries to consol Grant. Fiona has always remained loyal,
41

her chastity makes Grant more shameful. He is determined to make up for his past
and take good care of Fiona.
Old age: Grants Redemption. Efforts to look after Fiona. Buys flowers for Fiona
(never done before). Fiona doesnt seem to recognize him, and has struck a
relationship with another resident = Aubrey. Grant first thinks she is playing a joke.
He keeps visiting her everyday. He feels an intense jealousy. Grants actions
resemble those of a young boy at the early stage of love. He decides to reduce the
number of visits: he feels like an outsider and he realices he upsets her wife. After
Aubrey leaves, Grant tries to cheer her patiently as she doesnt forget Aubrey. He
reads her books about love. Grant visits Aubreys wife = Marian to convince her to
take Aubrey back to Medowlake. He only wishes Fiona well = greatest sacrifice.
First Marian disagrees: too much effort / wont do any good to Aubrey (not a
cheerful excursin). Through a romantic connection with Marian, Grant brings
Aubrey back. Fiona has renewed affection for Grant.

Change of 2 paragraphs = 50 years. Their entire marriage had been dispensed

unceremoniously. Flashbacks to Grant's infidelities or to Fiona's earliest signs of
memory loss.
Characters:
1 Grant: professor, a scholar of Anglo-Saxon and Nordic literatura. philanderer
2 Fiona: hospital administrator. In their old age, Fiona begins to develop signs of
serious dementia, and Grant has her placed in a local nursing home, Meadowlake.
Her mother was a powerful Icelandic woman. 70 years. She pushes the decisin of
going to a health centre. The father was an important cardiologist. She does not
know for sure that Grant had love affairs with other women, but she may suspect
about them: people refuse him, an open scandal happened. Supposed to be
rebellious: inheriting the left wing of her mother, and the feminism point of view.
Very funny and humorous. Very strong: I suppose the centre will be like a hotel.
Maybe is she lying just for fun, or maybe like a revenge. Grant is receiving what he
deserves.
3 Aubrey: has something of the beauty of a powerful, discouraged, elderly horse. Was
only a temporary resident, and has a younger wife
4 Marian: Aubreys wife. First she doesnt want to let Aubrey visit Fiona so as not to
upset him. She sends phone messages to Grand to go dancing together.
The story is beautiful in the irony of its symmetriesthe philanderer who unexpectedly
loses his loyal wife to the love of another man, and then returns to his old erotic ways in
order to secure his wifes own continuing infidelity. But two additional elements, both
characteristic of Munros careful art, make it a great story. First, there is Munros
astounding lack of sentimentalitythe clear-eyed, utterly unillusioned, bleakly subtle
description of the nursing home, its inmates, and its staff.
The second very Munro-ish element is the formal freedom of the story, which compacts
a lot of life into a short space, and moves backwards and forwards over a great deal of
terrain. Strikingly, the story begins with two paragraphs, subsequently abandoned, about
Fiona and Grant as young people, before they were even married, and then vaults
silently over fifty years to begin the narrative of Fionas elderly mental decline. These
two first paragraphs are beautifully full of energy and joy and hope; they capture with
extraordinary economy the happiness of youth, a happiness largely absent from the rest
of the story.
42

Throughout her work, Munro is daring in this waydaring with the truth, and daring in
her formal choices. At the level of the sentence, her stories proceed within the grammar
of conventional realism; but at the formal level, her work invents its own grammar,
which is why her stories strike many readers as closer to novellas than to any idea of
the conventional well-made short story. And notice, too, in that opening passage, how
gently funny and slyly indirect Munro is: the impressive cardiologist who is subservient
at home, happy to listen to strange tirades with an absent-minded smile; a household
that is mysteriously full of different people, coming and going, all of them delivering.
Absense of kids: no consolation in the glimpse of a younger generation's possibilities,
no catharsis through a child or grandchild coming to grips with Fiona's
institutionalization, no redemption through the passing on of memory.
led to expect the bear who is engaged in a quest to come up against a number of
qualifying ordeals, to reveal his heroic stature during a confrontation with a villainous
character and to complete his journey satisfactorily with the discovery of the object he is
looking for. = defeats all our expectations of heroicity
The world that the bear discovers is just as ordinary as the one he has just left. He goes
on the other side of the mountain and discovers the other side of the mountain.
Expression is reduced to tautology, and tautology is fraught with rhetorical power. It
reinforces and guarantees the ideology we live by: boys will be boys. The other side of
the mountain is the other side of the mountain. The assertion is extremely sensible at the
same time as it refrains from conveying meaning. It confirms the real world, the
existence of which is clearly posited: the other side of the mountain exists and the bear
has been able to find its location which is to be accepted as part and parcel of the real
world, but this real world is simultaneously questioned because it is reduced to a selfparodic play on words. The bear indulges in an anthropomorphic quest which reveals its
self-referential dimension because instead of killing the serpent or marrying the kings
daughter, it comes up against the other side of the mountain that is to say a selfreflexive textual construction which is the result of the constraints of a particular fiction
or self-parodic verse.
In addition to indirect, witty and self-denigrating allusions to childrens fictions, Munro
also multiplies self-parodic similes which make it possible to erase the difference
between the world of children and the world of senior citizens. When Fiona catches a
cold, shortly after being accepted in the nursing home, the nurse called Kristy reassures
Grant using a tell-tale comparison: Like when your kids start school, Kristy said.
Theres a whole bunch of new germs theyre exposed to, and for a while they just catch
everything (281). The nursing-home pensioners could not be more eloquently equated
with children and the pragmatic nurse more eloquently ironized for her flat and
unintentional put-down.
Once familiarized with her new life in the institution, Fiona starts developing a social
network through playing cards with some of the inmates and she makes a comparison
with her life at college: I can remember being like that for a while at college. My
friends and I would cut class and sit in the common room and smoke and play like
cutthroats (289). Grants response to Fionas simile is particularly remarkable because
it reintegrates the young card players activity into the world of childrens fiction:
Wreathed in smoke, Fiona and Phoebe and those others, rapt as witches (289).
Through the play of similes, Munro blurs the frontiers between the world of childhood
and the world of pensioners, the world of ordinary existence and the world of fabulous
43

creatures. She allows her characters, and her readers, to go down the rabbit-hole and
through the looking-glass as she erases the difference between one side of the mountain
and the other.
12
. Fiona is compared with her dogs: The dogs long legs and silky hair, their narrow,
gentle, intransigent faces made a fine match for her when she took them out for walks
(278). Grant undergoes the same metamorphosis: And Grant himself, [] might have
seemed to some people to have been picked up on another of Fionas eccentric whims,
and groomed and tended and favored (278). Aubrey, the man Fiona attaches herself to
in the nursing home is compared with a horse: He had something of the beauty of a
powerful, discouraged, elderly horse (290). The inmates are said to be happy as
clams in their new life in the nursing home (280). Fionas outfits, in typical Munrovian
fashion, are elaborately described and the one with which she leaves home is markedly
suggestive of the bird and animal kingdom: she has a fur-collared ski jacket, a turtlenecked sweater, and fawn slacks (275).
13
Paying with words: Shallowlake, Shillylake, Sillylake. Sillylake it is (279). As
demonstrated by Freud, puns are transgressions which create pleasure and the function
of the present play on words is certainly to reduce, through playful amusement and
scorn, the dramatic intensity and trauma linked with confinement in the institution. It
also fictionalizes the place; it inscribes it in a nonsensical enumeration, that is to say in
fictional language, at the same time as in reality, further erasing the boundaries between
the two realms and the experiences of the fictional bear and the real Fiona.
14
By choosing Nonsense verse for her title Munro draws attention to the opposition
between sense and non-sense and by destabilizing the boundaries between fiction and
real life, between senior citizens and infants, between people and animals, Munro
implicitly paves the way for a more radical equivocation, that is to say the blurring of
difference between sanity and dementia, between those who are on one side of the
mountain and those who are on the other. She performs this [t]umble of [r]eason
(Heble) or radical blurring in a very subtle and ambiguous way, through Grants
disbelief at his wifes disease and through the impossibility of pinpointing the exact
nature of the intermittent degeneration that Fiona seems to be afflicted with. The
sentences expressing Grants perplexity abound: It was hard to figure out (277).
Shes always been a bit like this (277). In his utter incredulity, Grant even goes as far
as imagining that Fiona is indulging in some sort of charade and plays a game with him.
He resorts to hypothetical sentences and extended modal verbs:
Or was playing a game that she hopes he would catch on to. (277)
He could not decide. She could have been playing a joke. It would not be unlike her.
She had given herself away by that little pretense at the end, talking to him as if she
thought perhaps he was a new resident.
If that was what she was pretending. If it was a pretence. (291)
15
The inversion of values that is characteristic of Nonsense is fully displayed in Grants
itinerary who, from the beginning, manifests symptoms which, strikingly enough,
mirror Fionas loss of memory. Munro embeds into the depiction of his actions a series
of apparently innocent anecdotes which pave the way for a subtle elimination of the
frontier between Grants sanity and Fionas dementia. For instance, we find Grant
could not remember now (278); Or it might have been after her mother died (278).
When he visits Aubreys wife, Marian, he cannot find the proper word to describe the
44

swooping curtains she has decorated her windows with. More importantly, he himself
uses the term unhinged to describe his behaviour: Every once in a while it came to
him how foolish and pathetic and perhaps unhinged he must look, trailing around after
Fiona and Aubrey
Because of her degenerative disease, once Fiona is on her own at Meadowlake, she
forgets Grant, the husband she has lived with for nearly fifty years, and falls in love
with another inmate whose stay in the institution is only temporary. After this man,
called Aubrey, who is afflicted with paralysis, is removed from the institution by his
own wife, Marian, Fiona falls into severe depression and Grant shows himself capable
of the greatest sacrifice. Because he loves his wife with the utmost selflessness, he
sacrifices his honour and his pride in order to arrange for Aubrey to return to the nursing
home and live close to Fiona. He ambiguously rescues his wife by making possible her
lovers return to her. This uncanny act of love is made even curiouser by an additional
twist in the plot, at the end of the story. When the lover is about to be reunited to the
forgetful wife by the selfless husband, Fiona temporarily regains her sanity, recognizes
her husband, and suggests returning to their old farmhouse together, thus ruining the
sacrificial gesture her husband had engineered.
Symbols:
1
2

3
4

5
6
7
8

Mountain: his life of Fiona. The other side (the other side of Fiona)
Fionas skin smell: of the stems of cut flowers left too long in their wter:
decomposition and rottenness, corruption which is repeatedly suggested through the
simile linked to Fionas depiction and the heady odors wafted through the windows
of her bedroom and which implicitly reverberates on Grant. The offering that Grant
makes to his wife in the shape of a paralysed lover destined to comfort her is the
result of a shady deal that he has engineered with the mans wife. Grant has
probably offered himself and his sexual services to Marian, in ironic sacrifice, in
order to make her accept her husbands return to Meadowlake.
Title: Folk song. The bear goes over the mountain, and what he sees when he gets
there is the other side of the mountain. The bear is Grant.
Reparation of language: reparation of the self. Trait from the childhood to find the
correct irregular form of the verb to forsake: and forsook me. Forsooken me.
Forsaken. Different levels of reading in this last line. Lapsus lingue in the most
important verb in the sentence. Maybe she is telling her man: you could have
abandoned me for one of your affairs, or now that Ive been with Aubrey. She
plays with her dementia to her own purpose.
Home centre: ironically becomes her renovation space. Subversion. True love is
manifested there: rebirth of love between Grant and Fiona. From both sides of their
infidelities.
House: becomes a lonely house. Lights come and go. Its Fionas mind. Its
becoming emptied, projection of Fionas mind.
Sonw: whiteness. Notions of pure love. Its covered, you do not see whats behind.
You cannot see whats really in Fionas mind. Now Grand is rediscovering Fiona
through her illness.
Canda: country looking to his own identity. Like Fiona: she has been the woman of
X. now she will bring her own identity.

Breaking steryotypes:
45

Romantic love: Grant feels jealous. Irony: he had been unfaithful to her, and feels
the 3d one when he is being the perfect man. He takes flowers to her. Fiona is like
the romantic, melodramatic heroine. Aubrey is like the gentleman.
Sexuality: 10 minutes before going to sleep between Grant and Fiona. And between
Grant and Marian. Evaluating the body of Marian and realizing that no old women
age at the same rhythm.

PIDGEONS AT DAYBREAK
Biography of Anita Desai: German mother and an Indian, lived in New Delhi. English
= literary language, the first he was taught at school. Literature was recited rather than
read and (remains the tradition) in India. Her style is less conservative than Indian
literature has been in the past. She is not widely read in India. Focuses on personal
struggles and problems of contemporary life that her Indian characters must cope with.
Her primary goal is to discover the huge truth hidden beneath the small visible portion
of reality. She portrays India vividly: cultural and social changes, power of family and
society, attention to the trials of women.
Summary
- Domestic situation: Otima reads from the newspaper and he isnt really
considerated with her.
- Turning point: that there will be a planned power outage that night. Basu
responds with an asthmatic attack, fearing the hot night to come with no electric
fan to move the air.
- Otima decides to sleep outside on the terrace, but Basu is no more comfortable
on the roof. This implies calling a neighbour. The man is very anxious and
makes the situation worse. They used to sleep there, but stopped for a long time.
- He spends the night groaning. She massages him so as to make him feel better
after some thime. He remembers bringing his grandson up to see the collectors
pigeons on the neighbor's rooftops and says his grandson's name like a prayer.
- At daybreak, Otima discovers the electricity is back on. She wants to help him
down so he can sleep in his own bed. He refuses saying it is cooler now and
wants to be alone.
- At the end he lays gazing at the pigeons on the sky. He may die: he asks to be
alone, he responds gently. His mouth hang open. The gaze up. The beautiful
ending = contrast with the rest. Last Word = disappeared.
Themes:
1 Gender roles: woman do all the housework (cooking, cleaning, taking care of the
husband) and men sit down (moans, groans, orders her what to do).
2 Cultural base = Mrs Basu puts up with her husband because to her this is normal.
Everyday routines: eating, reading, napping and drinking tea.
Characters:
1
2

Amul Basu: suffers from a multitude of physical and emotional problems: asthma,
depression, and failing eyesight. He ridicules and snaps at his wife because of his
losing battle against time, illness, and death
Otima Basu: loving, understanding, but exhausted caregiver. She nurses him and
46

humors him because she has loved him for so long. committed and obedient lady as
Otima is, she never harbors any grudge or any complain against her husband
Setting: India in modern times.
Symbolism:
1 Pigeons: emblems of peace and liberation. At the time of daybreak, the pigeons like
other bird flutter in the air feeling free liberated and happy. His soul flying away
when he dies.
2 House: is like a prison. He is a prison for himself: his body, his lungs, his asma. His
house is a space of broken things (fan) is a sign of his own body and decline.
3 The terrace is not bound to his biology, it is not his body, is his spirit.
Signs:
4 Routinne of reading the newspapers: traditional image of older people = routine,
+ physical difficulties (the man cannot read for himself). They are still part of the
world, and are still connected.
5 Spectaxles: on the one hand: body deteriiorment, active attitude towards life.
More traditional, more steryotipical elders. They belong to a poor social class. Couple
traditional: she takes her of the man. He is not friendly: its her duty to take care of him,
he does not need to thank her for that.
Re-read both stories by focusing on their presentation of ageing and death as central
themes.
Underline those lines from both stories in which aspects of the analysis are reflected.
Complete your notes with more information about:
o The discourse of ageing: the work of scholars like Margaret Morganroth
Gullette, Mike Hepworth or Kathleen M. Woodward are paramount to
understand the importance of this theme and its various developments in the
humanities today.
o Alice Munro and Anita Desai, and their importance in:
contemporary literature
English fiction
Short-story creation
Postcolonial literatures
Feminist discourse
Consider/think about the following questions:
o Variations on the theme of ageing:
_ Old age and ultimate wisdom think of Mr Basus final epiphany on
the terrace at the end of Desais story. He seems to be experiencing a
vision of the sublime as he looks at the pigeons flying in the morning
sky. In the Kantian sense, the sublime can only be experienced when
one is detached enough from what is being observed. In the light of
this concept, what could the end of the story be revealing about old
age? Does this concept work to understand Munros story as well?
_ Old age and sexual desire what does Munros story say about
sexuality in old age? Is there any passage in the story in which they are
undermined?
o The poetic logics of ageing in both stories
_ Symbolic correspondence between the characters process of ageing
and the sense of movement/a journey that is depicted in the stories
47

_ Symbolic correspondence between houses and bodies think of the

binary empty/full with regard to the correspondence between the
characters in the two stories, and their presence or absence in their
houses. In what other way can we continue the empty/full metaphor
in connection to the characters ageing bodies themselves?
_ Symbolic correspondence between countries and the characters inner
worlds Explore the connection between the complex image of India
that is given by Desai and Mr and Mrs Basus characterizations. How
does that India work as a metaphor for their mature and old age? By
the same token, think about Canadas constant search for identity as a
country (as reflected in Canadian literature), its lack of memory as a
new nation and its overshadowed existence near its powerful
neighbour. Can we understand it as a metaphorical setting for Fiona
(or Grant) in Munros story, too?
_ Pigeons find out more about the mating habits of these birds. How
does this information contribute to their symbolic value in Desais
story?
o Stylistic aspects in the re-creation of ageing in both stories.
_ Both stories are written in a realistic style with powerful symbols.
Considering the readings we have done so far, we inevitably think of
James Joyces Araby. Why do you think Desai and Munro have
chosen this style? How does it contribute to the construction of the
theme?
_ Look at the construction of time and temporality in both stories.
_ What role does humour play in both narratives? How does it interact
with the main topic?

48

TRANSLATING, ADAPTATIVE APPROACH

1

Historical approach. La vida es sueo, the tempest. Understand better the

present.

Thematic approach. 4 different cases. Analyse the common themes. Themes that
can be considered universal, you tend to favor universality (travel through time
and places). At the same time we recognize different treatments about them.
Universality is conflictive. There has to be something like links, but not
sameness. Universality means an invention. Egocentric term = explain what
happens to our culture. If happens to many places but not in our country, we
refuse its universal. 2 text that deconstruct the idea of love (Lessing dismantles
it, reinforces the paradoxical meaning of the romantic love). We can see other
dimensions of the same theme.
- Growth (between fairy tales, environmentalist, political)
- Love
- Discovery (through an apparent leitmotiv = blindness). Blindness is a
metaphor that enables us to understand the theme.
- Aging. Deconstructs aging notions of aging. When you have your life settled
down, and all you have to do is waiting for death. Love, last minute
discoveries.

Shakespeare: very famous during his live. 18 th C wasnt the favourite one. Romantics
recover him. Reception studies involve statistics combination of literature and
sociology.
Adding the interpretations of other authors, re-interpreted by other authors.
Source

Translation

Better

Can be very good. Trans = going beyond,

not the same.

The original

Betrayal (tradutore, traditore). The

translator
cannot
be
completely
objective: an objection has to be made
for the sake of the text. Betray the author
so as to be faithful to the text.

Technical difficulties, depending on the

genre, (poetry)
Phrases and words with connotation

Makes it understandable

2 poles in translation:
- yes, translation exists: our tradition is based on this assumption. The books
of the bibles are translation of translations. If we dont believe that
translation is possible, or culture is meaningless.
- No, nothing can be translated: because whenever there is translation there is
always some change. Because a language is created trhough some code. The
original is always better.
We always wants to know what came first, what the original author wrote.
49

Some people dont value some languages (doesnt have political value).
Judgement of this is a very good translation: they havent read the original. For a
translation to be good the translator has to be invisible. The + invisible he or she is, the
better the translation will be. Many obstacles that the translators find.
MISS JULIE, STRINDBERG & AFTER MISS JULIE, MARBA
MISS JULIE
August Strindberg: 1849, Sweden. Miss Julie (1888), preface = nineteenth century
naturalism. 2 demands: unflinching realism, content (references to menstruation,
blasphemy, lust, and bodily functions); staging (elimination of footlights and makeup);
and time (unbroken ninety-minute episode). Expressionist devices: allusions to mystical
forces, symbology and ritualized dance, the backdrop of the pagan festival. Censored
for its shocking content, Miss Julie struggles across sex and class lines. Misogynist,
portray Miss Julie as a monster. Renovated the european Theatre nad revolutioned it:
Ibsen (Norway) influenced Bernard Shaw, Chekhov (Russian) influenced Mansfield.
Strindberg: Beckett, Osborne, Harold Pinter, Eugene ONeill, Tennesse Willams. Real
theatre has to be in small places, where actors can give their talent to the service of the
text, and not to the service of entrertainment of big masses (superficial).
Themes
Degenerate Woman: Miss Julie, "weak and degenerate brain." Jean comments on
Julie's crazy behavior. Miss Julie, naturalist case study of a sick woman. Focus on
psychology and Julie's pathologies: hysteria and feminine masochism. Hysteria
(illness when a woman refused to accept her sexual desires and did not become a
sexual object), Strindberg attributes Julie's problems to a mother who believes in the
equality of the sexes and hates men. He also blames an initially absent father. Julie
tries to train her fianc with a riding whip and fantasizing about the annihilation of
the male sex = sadism. Masochism feminine: Julie proposes suicide, Jean could
never plan to kill himself = difference between sexes (men are not masochistic).
Julie confesses her desire to fall, and her flirtation with Jean supposedly ruins her
own fault. She ends up submitting to Jean (who stands in the final scene, for Julie's
father, the Count). Portrayed through Julies dirty sleeves.
Class and Gender Conflict: Julie is Jean's superior in class / Jean is Julie's superior
in morality (Julie is degenerate) and is a man. It submits both characters to the
authority of the Count, father and master. Power reversals along class and gender.
Julie desires to fall from her social position, Jean wants a better social status by
sleeping with Julie. When he discovers she is poor, he abandons his plans. By
sleeping with Jean, Julie degrades herself and places beneath Jean's level. The power
shifts when Julie reasserts her superior class, mocking Jean's family line. Darwinist
notions of evolutionary hierarchy, "the weaker repeats the words of the stronger."
Jean and Julie borrow from each other when they talk about the vision of the hotel
or the sheriff. Julie's fundamental submissive to the Count. Julies mother is not
from an aristochrat class: premonition of a tragic ending.
Misoginy: simultaneous idealization and degradation of woman = opposite
impulses. Jean worships and scorns Miss Julie, describes her as crude and beautiful.
When he was a child, he sees Julie going to the roses and falls in love, but then she
raises her skirt to go to the toilet and feels revulsion. Misogyny: women characters
50

are also misogynist; Christine attributes Julie's wild behavior to her menstrual cycle.
Julies mother's feminist ideas are portrayed as abhorrent. Miss Julie and the
Countess are models of the hysteric, hysteria was thought to be a female disease
(failure to become a sexual object for a man).
Hypnotism: stands for the authority of the Count. Effects of his power: ringing of
the bell, speaking tube, direction of characters' action. Miss Julie asks Jean to
hypnotize her, because she lacks the will to commit suicide. Jean lacks the will to
command her, so he pretends that the Count gives him an order. The magical power
of Julie's father, sends her to death. Count's power exerts a hypnotic effect on Jean:
the trappings of the Count's authority (his boots, the bell) reduce Jean to paralysis.
Hypnotism could be the social expectations that conditions
The pantomime and ballet: pantomimes function as pauses in action. Christine
cleans the kitchen, curls her hair, and hums a tune; Jean scribbles a few calculations.
Injections of the banal are typical of the naturalistic theater.

Symbols:
Dream: Julie wants to touch the ground and go down into it. Whereas Jean climbs a
tree and wants to reach a branch. Personal dreams: Julie wants to be as normal
people (even if that envolves being dirty: doing a sacrifice, her statues, her honour,
her virginity). For Jean, Julie is the branch that will bring him where he wants to be.
It looks as if Jean discovers the branch at this time. After it seems that the dream is
maybe a lie, it could be invented.
Dog: Diana, Julie's dog, who is pregnant by the gatekeeper's mongrel. Julie wants
the dog to miscarriege the baby. The miscarriage would represent her own death.
Diana's name is a joke = Diana is the goddess of virgins. The dog has coupled with a
mongrel, just as her sex-hungry mistress does not care about the class of the man
she wants to seduce.
Bird: Serena the canary, who Jean decapitates after deciding that Miss Julie cannot
take the bird with them on their journey. Story of Saint John the Baptist, who was
decapitated = allegory of a castration by a conspiracy of women. Julie restores the
biblical story in her fantasy, imagining Jean (French for "John") and his "entire sex"
swimming in blood. Foreshadowing: julie would be killed with a razor. Symbol of
innocence (cannot defend itself when being killed = as Miss Julie) and freedom.
Decapitation of the bird = Christine's mention of the execution of Saint John the
Baptist. The execution of the female bird stands for her female mistress, reversing
the gender roles of the Saint John story. Julie screams when Jean kills the bird,
making her identification with it. Symbolic castration of a woman who had an
inappropriately masculine. Salome demanded the head of Saint John on a platter.
Freud saw decapitation as a symbol of castration. Jean (French for "John") is the
would-be victim of Julie. The decapitation of the bird reverses the terms of the story.
Counts books: remember the presence of the count. Symbolic level of the religious
books.
Crop: phallic symbol. In the stable, her fianc breaks it, and breaks Julie's
masculine power. At the end Julie abuses herself rather than others.
Setting: Count's house in Sweden, Midsummer night, 1880s. Sant Joan, night where
everything is posible. Enables the crossing of social boundaries, and rebellion against
moral structure.

51

Characters:
Jean: 30. At the end is more trapped than ever. He is conditioned by a lie and a
secret. Maybe he has been of love all his life of Julie. Maybe he feels hypnotised
this night that she pays attention to him. Starts being the prey, ends being the hunter,
but a forced hunter (he is ordered by Julie). Julie calls him Joseph: reference to the
story of Potiphar's wife, who attempted to seduce a young slave and cried rape when
he refused her.
Julie:25. Initially portraied through gossip. Jean introduces her as a woman who
dreams of dominating men, subjecting them to her sadistic will. Contradictions. She
is a romantic character, believes people can love each other no matter their social
situation, but maybe she knew what would happen and she is preparing her social
suicide from the start. She has recently broke the engagement with her fiance.
Maybe her flirting with Jean is just to forget everything and prepare her end. She
could maybe not be completely believe. Starts being the hunter, ends being the prey.
As a child, she learnt how to hunt: she takes the initiative to flirt with Jean. At the
beginning of the play Julie is the hunter and Jean the prey.
Julies mum: rejected patriarcal ideas (marries, submission, gender roles). She
asked him not to marry her. She wanted to be her husbands lover. They teach her
daughter to be like a boy. Julies mum subverts the roles. The way they organize the
world is subverted (she imposes her idea) the organization of the farm is a disaster.
Combination: medical explanation (woman who is not mentally OK) + social
explanation (she wants to escape from social rules).
Christine: cook, 35. She is engaged to Jean.
Summary: Christine is in the kitchen preparing a food for make the pregnant dog
(Diana) miscarriage the baby. Jean arrives and says he saw how Julie abused of her
exboyfriend training him to jump over her riding whip as she beat him. Jean saw the
abuse. Jean thinks the man fundamentally good, if not rich. The Countess went whith
the horses and had her sleeves were filthy, but Jean finds her beautifyl. Julie invites Jean
to dance, but he promised it to Christine, and warns her against the dangers of local
gossip. Julie says that rank does not matter this evening. Christine and Jean are flirting
when Julie enters, while Julie makes an unpleasant comment. She orders Jean to take off
the working clothes. Jean speaks in French.Christine falls asleep. Miss Julie invites and
orders Jean to have a beer. She makes him Kiss her foot. Jean insists to stop flirtating,
but Julie feigns innocence, protesting that Christine is with them and tries to wake the
cook. Jean asks her to stop, as he knows Christine is exhausted. She wants to pick lilacs
with him. Then she explains the dream (climbing down), while Jean has dreamed to
climb up a tree. A real romance could build between them, they could complement each
other, as their dreams do. Jean gets a speck of dust in his eye, and Julie remove it with
her handkerchief. Jean warns her again, and Julie mocks him for imagining himself as a
Don Juan or Joseph. Jean kisses Julie, and she slaps him. Then Julie asks if he has ever
been in love. He replies that once he loved her.
Jean recounts with exagerated pain a childhood memory of Miss Julie. He saw the
Garden of Eden (of Julie) and found a way to the "Tree of Life". Julie says, "All boys
steal apples." When he heart noises, he ran and fall unto the dirt, there he saw Julie. He
went to church to see Miss Julie once more and then die. Miss Julie is moved by his
story. The servants approach singing a song, Jean says they talk about them. However,
miss Julie is convinced that they love her. The servants ballet and destruction of the
kitchen parallels the disruption the off- stage events will cause. Jean and Julie retire
52

offstage, and have sex, hidden from view. Jean wants to leave to Italy and avoid rumors,
they could set up a hotel. Julie begs Jean to declare his love for her, but Jean cannot love
her in the house (presence of the Count). Julie reveals that she is penniless. After a brief
pause, Jean announces that the plans are off. He is unsympathetic and insults her. When
Julie insults him, he can retort that whatever he is, she is worse, for she has slept with
the man she insults. He says he lied with the story only to win her. Then he changes his
mind again. Julie wants to explain him her past, but Jean warns her against confessing
her secrets.
Her mother became ill, and a mysterious fire burned the house (mother), her father
borrow money from a friend of hers (lover) to rebuild the farm. Discovering the
Countess's revenge, the Count attempted to suicide. Julie hated all men, she got engaged
only for enslaving his man until she got bored. Jean mocks her with the truth: Julie's
fianc rejected her. Contrast: first wants to kill him, then they plan to flee again and die
together (but Jean doenst want to die). Jean suggests he might refuse her hand: he has
better ancestors. He tells her she is sick while Julie begs him to help her, tell her what to
do, she doesnt want to leave alone. Christine reminds Jean to go to church, the sermon
is about John the Baptist. Christine is more disgusted than jealous when knowing Jean
spent the night with Julie. She decides not to remain in the house any longer. She wants
Jean to find another job, but he doesnt want to sacrifice himself for a family. The Count
arrives and the sun rises (end of Midsummer's Eve). Julie enters with a small birdcage
dressed for leaving. Jean insists that she must leave the canary, but she prefers to kill it.
Angry, she exclaims she wants to see Jean's head on a chopping block and his entire sex
swimming in blood. Julie will tell her dad that he has robbed them. Christine cant
respect her mistress anymore and leaves, telling the stable boy to stop any departures.
Julie wants to commit suicide with the razor. The count returns. Julie asks Jean to help
her commiting suicide to save her honor and name by hypnotizing her. Shared suicide
(is not aceptable in the religious world. Its perverse to use John to do this).
Genre: modern tragedy.
Classic tragedy: it has a death in the end. They have a fate and cannot run away
from it although they try. Their lives are dummed from the beginning. Tragic
characters are set apart the society, they are against the Gods. Classic hroes do
more than they are allowed: hubris (excessive pride, think you are like a God, that
you can move the strings of your fate).
- Modern tragedy: Julie does not clearly go against the Gods. She doesnt want to
subvert a religious idea, she is subverting social roles and rules. Going with a
servant makes her look almost as a prostitute. Its a total sin. And the same for John:
having a social affair witht the daughter of the boss, its a suicide if its known. This
is close to the naturalism: she is predetermined by her family history (mum takes
fire to the house, his father tried to commit suicide), idea of destiny.
Different levels of social ledder: Christin is lower, she has to be more moderate in her
behaviour (+ woman). 3 characters, 2 kinds of oppositions: masculine-femenine /
aristocracy-working. Julie wants to be independent but cant. Christine is more free
because nothing is expected to her (to be a model of morality), but seeks morality to be
accepted. Aristochrats have social respect, they dont need morality. People expect
monarquy to be moral, when in fact they dont need to be so. Middle clases are gaining
power. John is caught up in the dilema of being moral he has a refine taste which
Julie doesnt have (theatre, wine, speaks French), he is a self-taught man because he
53

wants to go out. Christine strategic religin, justifies her own modest position (the last
will have Access to heaven). John is not going to church. (Biblical reference: camel to
go trough the bible). Julie is totally alone, doesnt have friendship (tell me you love me
= insecurity of not being valued for what she is.) she wants to be loved, but not adored.
Loved as an equal. Maybe John loves Julie, but his obsession to go higher is more
important.
Connection between morality and religin. Julie apparently doesnt need morality. Julie
wants to make to seem she likes simple thinks to make her see stronger. She has the idea
that people like her. But servants show they like her, but its not a genuine affection. She
is naive: maybe its not a pure naivity (conviction she wants to have) and John explains
the reality. The play starts with Jahn and Christine gossiping about her. Julie needs to
feel she is loved.
AFTER MISS JULIE
Patrick Marba: rewrites miss julie. Is more direct and explicit. Through Miss Julie you
understand it with the loss of honour. Now there are explicit allusions of the sex, and it
is clearer. Changes:
Setting: years after the WW2. Its not in Sweden (as the original) is in England, July
1945. Today, readers need clearer and sharper scenes, we are not so used to long
explanations and more to visuals. He is from England and creates a play from the
London people. Mid-summer night does not have the same connotations in England
than the Swedes. Night of the British Labour Partys: where gave a landslide victory
over Winston Churchill and the Conservatives. This was a magic night for the British:
sense of hope and big celebration. Theres a sign of change. Julie belongs to the world
that is brought to an end. Julie cannot live in this world, she is a bird that must be killed.
The new world has to be in the hands of Jeans and not Julies. Churchill was adored by
the English, he was a figure of excessive respect (as Jean has to the count) = submissive
adoration. Marba enfasizes the political tones, and make it closer to the English public.
But things dont change from one day to the other (characters are still trapped in their
social class). The situation for women is still the same. The names are still the same
(John, closer to don John and John the Baptiste). The dog Diana.
Language: Its not a translation, is an adaptation. He can play more with the language:
different ways of speaking between characters (Cockney in John and Christine and
standard in Julie). You cannot make the difference between (you and vost) in English
but yes in Swedish. Shorter dialogues.
Goes further: Christine brings the razor to John. It is as if Christine prepares the death
of Julie = makes the triangle more dramatic. Miss Julie makes John wear the counts
boots.
Title: you said, After you, Miss Julie mentioned in the cue for the hypnotist in the
fair.
Christine. Here she is more important, because she actually sees Jean and Julie
together. It is more complex, Christine is dangerous, she could speak. They show more
clearly their affection. In the original play Jean jokes about the perfect wife Christine
54

would be to whatever husband she marries (maybe not him). In this case they are clearly
engaged.
Adaptation to a film Miss Julie: sexual tensin (present in the plays = accurate). The
actress seems willing to traspass borders (romantic heroine). Paleness (almost ill,
paleness of aristocracy not in contact with the sun). This adaptation is set in Ireland,
where the mid-summer night makes sense. Social stratification where aristocrats are a
minority = tragedy more miningful. You can see things imposible to see in a theatre:
Woods, wilderness inside the characters. When characters go out the house they are
free, whereas the house is hunted by all the rules. The forest connects with the dreams
(coming down or up the trees). Presence of a long staircase (difference of social levels).
Different angle (countershot) andtherefore a different meaning. We have the dog,
whereas you cannot have a real dog at the stage. The dog during the film the dog
moarns = more tragic. It underlines the luxury of the place: enormous kitchen. Through
its expansin gives us an idea of social class. Many silences to explain John, Christine
and Julies isolations. The director is Swedish as well as Stringberg = more connected.
Whereas Marba can go further: he is aware that the style has been changed, but did so to
make it better.
Different connections between cinema and text:
Make the process of adaptation invisible:
- Adaptation is not always about the same genre of the text (adaptation of a poem).
Most poems cannot be adapted into films. Epic poetry allows this, because there is a
story and a lot of action (Beowolf).
- Typical adaptation: canonic adaptations (based on a novel considered a classic).
Pride and prejudice. In this case it emphasizes the humour (more comercial, it sells
better), emphasizes the femenin carcter. Canon = cultural agreement, marked by
secondary school curricula.
- Relationship between a character and a real person. A writer who becomes a
character (can have a biopic, or a famous character who is put inside the film:
Woody Allen, with Hemingway).
- Films of short story (The bear come over the mountain)
- Adaptation of plays. Many Shakespearan canon.
- Spaces become very important. The same with the body and voices of the characters
Play with the idea of adapting
- Three different layers. Twins who are adapters. They have different styles but look
the same. Who is the original? Theres no original. The story they are adapting. The
story they adapt becomes real.
Non narrative cinema. Tree of life (combines non narrative with narrative). Not so
commercial, not produced in the cinema. Peter Greenaway plays with superimposed
images, Prosperous Books (lots of music). Cinema with fool documentary films En
construccin, images of people on the street.

55

MRS DALLOWAY, WOOLF & THE HOURS, CUNNINGHAM

MRS DALLOWAY
Woolf grew up in an upper-middle-class, socially active, literary family in Victorian
London. She was educated at home, becoming a voracious reader of the books in her
fathers extensive library. Tragedy first afflicted the family when Woolfs mother died in
1895, then hit again two years later, when her half-sister died. Woolf experienced her
first bout of mental illness after her mothers death, and she suffered from mania and
severe depression for the rest of her life. The Bloomsbury group, as Woolf and her
friends came to be called, disregarded the constricting taboos of the Victorian era, they
talked about religion, sex, and homosexuality. She married with a member of the
Bloomsbury group. They founded Hogarth Press, which published Sigmund Freud,
Katherine Mansfield (friends, convinced her to write Dalloway. She also inspired a
character of DH Lawrence). This book, which focuses on commonplace tasks, such as
shopping, throwing a party, and eating dinner, showed that no act was too ordinary for a
writers attention. Interior thoughts of characters with little pause: stream of
consciousness. More often characters do not communicate. Characters perceive lifes
pattern through a sudden shock, a moment of being. As England entered a second
world war, and at the onset of another breakdown she feared would be permanent,
Woolf placed a large stone in her pocket to weigh herself down and drowned herself in
the River Ouse.
Modern aspects: stream of consciousness (reproduce the characters thoughts). We are
shown a fragment of characters, not all of them (but through the important fragment you
can recreate his whole life). Creates the sense of reality through the characters that
move. Its done from the inside of someone = subjective character. When you
emphasize subjectivity, reality can be questioned: it depends on who is observing
reality. Writing is deeply psychological. Was influenced by post-impressionists (Cezane,
Van Gogh). The strokes are more outstanding than the actual painting, you are attracted
by the small details = fragmentary writing.
Characters
Elizabeth - Clarissa and Richards only child, 17. Passive. Not a fan of parties or
clothes, she spends many time praying with her history teacher, the religious Miss
Kilman.
Doris Kilman - history teacher, German ancestry.
Evelyn - Hughs wife. Suffers from an internal ailment and is in nursing homes..
Hugh - Clarissas old friend. Impeccable Englishman, perfectly dressed. Makes
Clarissa feel young and insecure.
Clarissa Dalloway: struggles to balance her internal life with the external world.
Superficial world: fine fashion, parties, and high society, but wants to search of
deeper meaning. She is concerned with appearances and keeps herself tightly
composed, seldom sharing her feelings with anyone. Doubts if she should have
married Richard instead of Peter. Feels invisible, doesnt like to be seen as the
woman of her husband. No matter how uneasy she feels in her own life, she hides it
so that others feel comfortable.
Septimus: veteran of WWI, suffers from shell shock and has mental disorder. His
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doctor has ordered Lucrezia, his wife, to make Septimus notice things outside
himself, but Septimus has removed himself from the physical world. He talks to his
dead friend.
Peter Walsh: ambivalence: he cannot decide what he feels. Even when he gathers
his anger toward Clarissa and tells her about his new love, he cannot sustain the
anger and ends up weeping. Peter is like a storm, thundering and crashing,
unpredictable even to himself. Insecure, very critical of other characters: detests
Clarissas bourgeois lifestyle, but blames Richard for it.
Sally Seton: long ago, Sally and Clarissa plotted to reform the world together. Now,
however, both are married, a fate they once considered a catastrophe. Both yielded
to the forces of English society to some degree. Clarissa remembers when Sally
kissed her on the lips and offered her a flower. Society would never have allowed
that love to flourish, since women of Clarissas class were expected to marry and
become society wives.
Richard Dalloway: simple, hardworking, sensible husband, builds a stable life for
Clarissa. considers tradition of prime importance, rather than passion or open
communication. Richard has no association with nature, which underscores his
pedestrian personality.

Themes
Disillusionment with the British Empire Throughout the 19th C, the British
Empire seemed invincible, it became the largest empire. WWI was a violent change:
English were vulnerable on their own land. Many young men were injured and
killed, many English citizens lost their faith in the empire after the war. Inhabitants
are lost in this modern, industrial society. People seek meaning in the passing car,
thinking it may carry the queen or official. They want to believe that meaning still
exists in tradition and in the figureheads of England. But Septimus has lost faith.
Communication vs. Privacy: difficult balance. Clarissa in particular struggles to
open the pathway for communication and throws parties in an attempt to draw
people together. Combination symbolized by the doors and windows. Characters
interrupt others significant moments of communication. Peter interrupts Clarissas
revelatory moment with Sally at Bourton, so womens intimacy cannot continue.
Fear of Death: appear constantly beneath the surface of everyday life. At the
morning, Clarissa remembers a moment in her youth when she suspected a terrible
event. She repeats a line from Shakespeares Cymbeline: Fear no more the heat o
the sun / Nor the furious winters rages. Funeral song that celebrates death as a
comfort after a difficult life. Septimus considers suicide.
Symbols
Time: imparts order to the fluid thoughts, memories, and encounters. Big Ben
sounds out the hour = the passage of time, and the awareness of eventual death, is
always palpable. As characters age they evaluate how they have spent their lives.
Once the hour chimesthe sound disappears indicating how ephemeral time is. Woolf
almost named her book The Hours.
Shakespeare: poetry in general suggest the possibility of finding comfort in art, and
the survival of the soul. At the florist, she reads some lines from a Shakespeare play,
Cymbeline = death should be embraced as a release from the constraints of life.
Since Clarissa fears death, these lines suggest that an alternative, hopeful way of
addressing the prospect of death exists.
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Trees and Flowers: color, variety, and beauty suggest feeling and emotion. The
characters who are comfortable with flowers (Clarissa), have different personalities
than who not (Richard). Clarissa thinks souls survive in trees after death, for
Septimus cutting down a tree is a murder.
Waves and Water: wash over events and thoughts = possibility of extinction or
death. While Clarissa mends her party dress, she thinks about the cycle of waves.
Fluid narrative structure.
The Prime Minister: Englands old values and hierarchical social system, which
are in decline. When Peter insults Clarissa and suggest she will sell out, he says she
will marry a prime minister.
Weapons: Peter plays with his pocketknife = reveals Peters defensiveness. He is
armed with the knife, while Clarissa has her sewing scissors. Their weapons make
them equal competitors. P Phallic symbols, hinting at sexuality and power. Peter
cannot define his identity = fidgeting with the knife suggests how uncomfortable he
is with his masculinity.

Style: free indirect discourse. 3d p. Few quotation marks to indicate dialogue, to ensure
that the divide between characters interior and exterior selves remains fluid. We can
evaluate characters from external and internal perspectives. Woolf reveals mood and
character through complex syntax. The rush and movement of London are reflected in
galloping sentences that go on for line after line in a kind of ecstasy. These sentences
also reflect Clarissas carcter and her ability to enjoy life: they forge quickly. Simple
phrases often appear in the flow of poetic language like exclamations, such as when
young Maisie Johnson encounters the strange-seeming Smiths and wants to cry
Horror! horror!
Summary: Clarissa buys flowers for the party she is hosting that evening. She
remembers the summer when she was 18, standing at the window, feeling as if
something awful might happen. She can know people by instinct. She meets her old
friend Hugh and talk about his wife, Evelyn, who suffers from an internal ailment. She
remembers how her old friend Peter disliked Hugh. She thinks affectionately of Peter,
who once asked her to marry him but refused. Clarissa feels anger that Peter did not
accomplish any of his dreams. She does not do things for themselves, but in order to
affect other peoples opinions. She wonders if her daughter is falling in love with Miss
Kilman, but Richard says is temporal. A car backfires while Clarissa is in the flower
shop, the car inspires feelings of patriotism.
Septimus believes he is responsible for the traffic congestion. Lucrezia, or Rezia, his
young Italian wife, is embarrassed by his odd manner and frightened, since Septimus
threatened to kill himself. They go to Regents Park, he believes he is connected to trees
and that trees must not be cut down. People see writing letters in the sky TOFFEE.
Septimus believes someone is trying to communicate with him in a coded language.
Rezia cannot stand to see him so broken and she walks to the fountain, but she feels her
devotion to her husband and returns to him. A young woman thinks they are a strange
couple.
Clarissa enters her home. She is upset to learn that Richard has been invited to lunch at
Lady Brutons house without her. Clarissa has slept alone since she was ill with
influenza but is happy to be solitary. She does not feel passionate about Richard and
believes she has failed him in this regard. She feels sexual attraction to women and
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thinks she was in love with her friend Sally Seton (wild, cigarette-smoking, rebel).
Under Sallys influence, Clarissa began to read Plato and Shelley. For Clarissa, her kiss
was a religious experience. Peter Walsh interrupted the young women on the terrace, as
thoughts of him now interrupt Clarissas recollection of Sally. Clarissa always wanted
Peters good opinion, and she wonders what he will think of her now. Clarissa mends
the green dress for the night. She is sensitive, generous and grateful to her servants.
Peter surprises Clarissa with an unexpected visit. Peter plays with his pocketknife, as he
always did, and feels irritated with Clarissa for the kind of conservative life shes
chosen to live (shes been wasting time with parties and society). Peter is in town to
arrange a divorce for his young fiance, Daisy, who lives in India and has two children.
Clarissa feels like a frivolous chatterbox around Peter. Moved by his memories and
made sensitive by the sheer struggle of living, Peter bursts into tears. To comfort him,
Clarissa takes his hand and kisses him. She wonders briefly to herself whether she
would have been happier if she had married Peter instead of Richard. Peter asks Clarissa
if she is happy, but Elizabeth enters the room before she can answer. As Peter leaves,
Clarissa calls after him, Remember my party to-night!
THE HOURS Palimpsest: text that contents texts. It contains the persona of Woolf and
her novel.
Characters
- Virginia: based on the biography. She struggles with her mental health and is
conscious of it. When Virginia lies at the bottom of the river, she is aware of her
surroundings to every detail. She focuses on writing as a way of channeling her
energy productively. Incredibly sensitive to the world around her and receptive to
small details. Her sensitivity makes her a great writer, but she also is subject to
incredibly strong emotions. Tendency to not eat when she wants to work =
separation between mind and body. She wishes not to have to eat, since it disrupts
her process of writing. Leonard enables her to write, reversing the stereotype of the
artists wife who forces her husband to take a break to eat. Leonards a caretaker
(functions both as father and husband).
- Clarissa Vaughn: based on Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway. Enjoys the day-to-day details
of life, but has profound doubts. She has strong feelings of nostalgia for her love
affair with Richard.
- Laura Brown: roles of wife and mother at a young age. Laura feels surprised by the
direction her life has taken. In high school, her husband, Dan, was popular while she
was a shy bookworm. Dan became a war hero, and when he returned to California
he married Laura and they had a child. She thinks that she should be happy, because
her husband is kind, her son loves her, and they live in a nice home. Laura feels that
something is wrong with her but tries to convince herself that she is normal. She
seeks comfort in books, specifically Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway. Through
reading, she can step out of her life and critically examine her own experiences.
- Richard Brown - Novelist and poet, a gay man dying from AIDS. Clarissas best
friends from college and lover. He is the adult son of Laura Brown.
- Sally - Clarissas live-in lover of 18 years.
- Louis: friend from Richard and Clarissa. Richards ex-lover.
- Julia - Clarissas daughter, 19. Julia is boyish and independent. Though straight,
her friendship with lesbian activist Mary Krull has caused her to shave her head and
wear combat boots. She is not as close with her mother as Clarissa would like.
- Evan - Walters boyfriend. Evan has HIV but has responded well to the drugs he
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takes.
Themes
- The Human Fascination With Mortality: suicide as a way of escaping the
problems they face. Virginia, Clarissa, and Laura are incredibly sensitive and
perceptive to the world. Virginia eventually ends her own life. The perceived
immortality of movie stars and great writers, particularly the way their memory will
outlast the memories of those that have lived less public lives, fascinates her.
- Constraint of Societal Roles: women try to define their lives within the social roles
without sacrificing their identities. Clarissa lives with her female lover, she has a
stable and familiar routine. Virginia is eccentric = mad writer. She cannot manage
her servant Nelly. Laura married Dan out of a sense of obligation, she feels its her
duty to serve as a wife and mother to the men returning from battle. She looks
around wondering whether her house and child fulfill her desires.
- Ordinary Life More Interesting Than Art: Reveals the thoughts through their
small encounters with everyday experiences. Clarissa has a profound experience or
revelation while walking on the street: perception of the world as meaningful. Laura
channels her restricted creativity into the domestic act of baking.
Symbols and motives
Water: threat, beginning with Virginia Woolfs drowning. Boundary space in which
the characters can observe their lives from a distance and understand their situations
with greater clarity. At the moment of drowning she transcends her body and sees
the world with profound lucidity. Soon after this scene, Clarissa Dalloway steps out
of her house into the New York morning, she compares going out into the day to
entering a swimming pool. Her everyday life comforts and preserves her as if she
were underwater, but the darker ramifications of the prologue imply that Clarissa is
drowning in her own existence = she runs the risk of being sucked down and
consumed like Virginia.
Domestic Objects: precise, simple description vividly depicts the various locations
of the novel, conveying a sense of place vital to our imaginings of the three
characters worlds The domestic life of each character carries significance: Virginia
feels frustrated by her life in the suburbs and wants to return to the city. Clarissa
loves her apartment and her life, but feels ambivalent about the choices she has
made. Richies blue pajamas, Lauras yellow kitchen, the white night-table in the
attic bedroom at Wellfleet where Clarissa places her book. These colors correspond
to the moods and tones of the scenes, and they emphasize the specificity of the
objects.
Flowers: subject of the famous opening of Mrs. Dalloway and appear throughout
the The Hours as tools to brighten moments of charged emotional intensity. Clarissa
wants to buy flowers (as the original).
Lauras Cake: for Dan to fulfill her role as a mother, cook, and housewife.
Summary:
Introduction:1941, Virginia left her house early with 2 letters (for her husband,
Leonard, and her sister Vanessa). She walks toward the river, she feels her life is a
failure = she is not a true writer, only a gifted crazy person. She picks a large stone
and notices its beauty. When she steps into the wter, she feels sorry for the people
she leaves. But if she returns, they will never let her free. When Leonard finds the
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note he goes to the river, but doesnt find her. Virginia rests on the pilings of a
bridge. A boy puts a stick in the water and watches it. Therere many
soldiers.Though Virginia ends her life, she still feels as if she is participating in the
world around her. Her inability to stop seeing the patterns and beauty of the stone,
even when she is about to use it to kill herself, demonstrates that Virginia is a person
who takes great notice of her environment.
Mrs Dalloway: Clarissa (52) wants to buy flowers. She leaves her lover, Sally,
cleaning the bathroom. She remembers her lover Richard when she was 18, who
called her Mrs. Dalloway. Richard is a writer, suffers from AIDS. She hosts a
party that evening in honor of Richards award. Clarissa loves the city, she meets
Walter Hardy. Walters lover Evan has recovered on his new HIV drugs, Clarissa
invites Walter and Evan to the party. Richard doesnt like Walter. Memory of a
branch tapping against a window (childhood vacation). Before entering the flower
shop, Clarissa notices that a movie production is filming on the street and sees
Meryl Streep.
Mrs Woolf: Virginia wakes up, having dreamed of a beginning of her book. Suburb
of London in 1923. As she enters the bathroom, she refuses to look in the mirror,
afraid that she might catch sight of a shadow behind her (mental disorder). This fear
cripples her ability to write, and she wants to get a lot of writing. Virginia avoids
going to the kitchen so as not to see Nelly, afraid that he will put her in a bad mood.
Leonard makes her promise she will eat lunch, he is aware that her books will be
read for years. Virginia wants to move back to London, she hates being so far from
the city. She resolves to eat lunch, although she sees not eating as a drug that gives
her clarity of mind.
Laura Brown. Los Angeles, 1949. She reads Woolfs novel in bed. She feels guilty
for not being with her husband (his birthday), she should fix breakfast for Dan and
their son Richie. She can stay in bed because she is pregnant. When Dan came back
from the war, he could have had any girl but chose Laura, even though she was
older. Laura thinks she may be brilliant in the same way as Woolf. She wonders if
all women think the same. Feeling irritated by their husband and son makes her
wonder whats wrong with her. Dan has made breakfast and bought roses
Connections:
Plot:
- 21th C. Clarissa goes to buy flowers for a party that she host at her house on that
day
- Bisexuality of the characters: Sally and Clarissa, Louis and Richard but Clarissa was
with Richard and Sally was with Louis?).
- Connection between suicide (of Woolf) and depression (in Laura Brown). Laura
reads the story 10 years after Virginia had commited suicide.
- Explosion. Car: queen and the king returned to the palace, national feeling of peace.
In the Hours the people of the car is Merly Streep (actress) shooting a film in the
streets of NY.
- Sadow of the 1st WW in Woolf. Shadow of 2nf W.W in the husbands of Laura, it is
a soldier coming from the 2nd WW.
- Old friendship: and what the passage of time does to this friendship. They also were
old relationships: paths which could have been followed, and as they werent, there
are still open possibilities.
- Marriage. The original Ms Dalloway is married with a politician.
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Reflection upon the body and not being seen vs contrast of feminine characters
(everyone looks at Queen and Merly Streep). Invisibility of the age (as they are not
young any more, no one pays attention to them). But then they can become
observers.
Being in love with the city. In the Hours: Woolf regrets living in the countryside as a
rest to her depression, she loved living in London. Laura lives in the suburbs of Los
Angeles. Clarissa lives in the middle of NY and loves it. Women enjoy living in big
cities, being part of it and observing the cities. Cities are palimpsest of human lives.

Formal:
- Apply the condensation of the short stories. It longs 1 day, the party is host to the
same day at night.
- Insertion of passages of Woolf
- Correspondance of names but in different funcions.
- Imitation of Woolfs writing style: exclamations. Very long sentences (Cunningham
doesnt take so far as Woolf). Observation of small details. Repetition of motives
(flowers). Domestic elements (houses).
Characters.: Virginia Woolf struggles to write Mrs. Dalloway, Laura Brown finds
solace by reading Mrs. Dalloway, and Clarissa Vaughn shares the same experiences and
perceptions as Mrs. Dalloway.
- Mrs Dalloway in Woolf: conventional wife in the external ways. Non conventional
wife because of her bisexuality. The conventional and superficial thoughts mixed
with profound thoughts (if people see they are grown older). Clarissa does not like
to lose her surname and be named after her husband. Virginia is also named after her
husband. Laura has lost her polish surname. Idea that women are invisible in society.
Clarissa and Ms Dalloway are not ignorant people, profound thoughts.
- Woolf and Laura: both intellectual and depressive. They read or write a lot. They are
not physically and mentally in good conditions.
- Clarrissa and Dalloway: live is never enough, because they are never in the first role
of the social life. They are the invisible hostesses.
- Daughter: teeneagers, closed.
- Richard, son of Laura is the famous ill poet.
- Biography Virginia Woolf
Film:
- First we have death of Virginia (as the Hours novel). Literary death = Orphilia of
Shakespeare dies in the river.
- Women they are presented through the partners. Miss (surname of the man)
- They belong to the house. Recurrence of the bed, the flowers (colourful, beautiful).
Flowers are for someone else. Aparent life successful: no one has anything to
complain (Woolf great author, Laura has a son, Clarissa has a loving partner).
- Flowers will be spoiled with the time, and the women also. Passage of time:
recurrence of clocks. Everyday clock time (tick tack) marks the rhythms of the day,
the quotidian.
- Mirror: Clarissa looks heself at the mirror. Laura doesnt go up, but hears the sounds
of the kitchen: feels guilty (he is doing it for me). Woolf avoids looking at her at the
mirror.

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SEVENTH SESSION FOLLOW-UP

Translation and/as Comparative Literature
Re-read your classnotes again, and do some more research on one or more of the
following translation theories/issues:
o The relationship between Comparative Literature (as umbrelladiscipline)
and Translation Studies (as a branch of Comparative
Literature and as a discipline in its own right)
o The myth of translation as betrayal of the original vs the myth of the
original itself
o Translation as manipulation of the text / as re-creation of the text
o Binary interpretations of translation (i.e. source vs target, original vs
translation) vs pluralist interpretations (interaction of texts, texts and
languages- in a literary dialogue)
o The connection between (literary) language, (literary) culture and
(literary) translation
Consider the sociocultural and political meanings that are ascribed to both
languages and dialects, and how these underlie certain translations and versions
of a source. For example, why do comic Shakespearean lines tend to be
translated in Northern-Western varieties of Catalan in Catalan versions of
Shakespeare? (See, for example, Ramon Madaulas Valencian accent for the
comic moments of his Kent in Llus Pasquals version of King Lear) Or, for the
same effect, Catalan with an Andalusian accent is used? (See, for example, Julio
Manrique and his Edgar in the same theatrical production)
If you are interested in the political/socio-cultural meanings attached to certain
languages, especially as promoted from a belief in linguistic (and cultural)
hierarchy , I recommend you to read Brian Friels play Translations, a classic of
Irish drama and also a tragic-comic account of the challenges (and dangers) of
translation when enacted in scenarios of inequality or situations of (colonial)
domination.
Complete your information about the poets we have looked at in this section of
the unit and do some research of the translation work and reception they have
received.
Go through the poems from the second selection especially those we did not
cover in class- and study the possibilities of translation they would have. What
challenges do you predict? How do you think could be solved? Where do you
see some room for creativity?
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Watch this programme on and with Luis Alberto de
Cuenca, one of the most important of contemporary Spanish poets, and also a
philologist and translator. http://www.rtve.es/television/20130602/luis-albertocuencapoeta-filologo-traductor/673983.shtml. You can also read the article by
Martin Boyd that has been uploaded in Recursos, or read Javier Calvos latest
essay, El fantasma en el libro, which is also referred to in Recursos.

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