Introduction to the Literary Studies P: Griselda Beacon

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Section One: Time does not bring relief , by Edna St. Vincent Millay This is a petrarchan or Italian sonnet, so divided into an octave and a sestet. The manner is which it is written is informal, it uses colloquial language establishing an intimate relationship with the reader, a kind of confession. The rhyme pattern is abbaabba cdeecd. The voice begins with a sorrowful lament (Time does not bring relief), immediately followed by a reproachful accusation (you all have lied, who told me time would ease me of my pain!) that gives vent to a desperate evocation of the lost love. Parallelism is used to express a desolation that does not recede, a feeling that is always present (I miss him/I want him). The use of visual images, all conveying a sense of sorrow, loss and dissapearence (weeping, shrinking, melt, smoke) sets the mood of the octave, a hopeless and gloomy atmosphere which frames the voices feelings. The adversative conjunction But introduces the contrast between a nature, a world, that follows a pattern of life and gentle dissapearence, and her stubborn love which resists time (But last years bitter loving must remain). The voice sounds rebellious here must remain- , and the use of this adjective bitter- suggests that it is not death but abandonment, the reason for the expressed feelings . The reader feels that the voice does not treasure the lost love remembrance, but rather would be liberated if freed of it. Other devices used are enjambment and caesura (There are a hundred places where I fear/to go - -so with his memory they brim !); the first one for the sake of the rhyme scheme and the second one, because that pause like a sigh- introduces the voices explanation which, again, is a lament. The sestet ends with an irony: the poet goes to a place where his love has never been, anticipating the relief she will feel because of the absence of memories. But the very act of thinking about this lack of memories, triggers the remembrance, so the conscious effort to forget leads her to remember. This poem is related in theme to Christina Rossettis Remember and Shakespeares Sonnet 71. The three of them speak of the loss of love. But in these last two, the clear reason for the parting is death, and the voice is that of the dead lover speaking to the loved one left behind. In St. Vincent Millays poem, the loss could have been caused by death but as said previously- it also may have been abandonment its motivation, since the tone is not sweet and lyrical as in the other two poems, but desperate and oppressive, willing to be freed

Introduction to the Literary Studies P: Griselda Beacon

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of the chains of a bitter loving, and frustrated with the failure. The voice also differs here, because the one who speaks is the one who stayed, either alive or loving the gone lover. Section 2: Suppose Columbus, by Charles Suhor This is a shape or concrete- poem, which means that its shape somehow follows the topic presented. In this case, the author offers a supposition: that Columbus had been wrong about the earth being round. The consequence of that misjudgement would have been disaster, the fall of the ships into the abyss, one by one, until the end of Columbus himself. The shape of the poem mirrors this hypothetical proposition, as the stanzas get larger while approaching the limit of the flat earth, and then shorter when every ship has fallen and that is the end of the expedition. The syntax, which is against the cannonical order, to the point of being

ungrammatical, conveys the authors intention to turn History upside down, changing with the opening supposition- the course of modern era. It also suggests how difficult it is to consider a story History - different from what we have been told: we accept a pattern and follow it generally without question, so it takes a great effort as in this case the effort to derive some meaning when syntax is so altered - to consider an alternative, which at first sight we find ridiculous. Cohesion is achieved partly from the shape of the poem, and also from the use of the names of the ships repeated as a static point, around which the rest of the poem develops. From a Post- Colonial perspective, this poem opens a door to consider the effects of the alternative presented . The failure of the expedition and the death of Columbus would have meant a huge difference in the lives of American natives, their development wouldnt have been stopped or interfered by an alien civilization, they wouldnt have suffered the intrusion of a strange and arrogant culture. This reflection about the would-have-been possibility, also stimulates a critical vision concerning the real History and its consequences.. Section 3: Woolfs short story The new Dress, is related through a stream of consciousness narrative, in which the author creates the impression that the reader is eavesdropping on the flow of conscious experience in Mabels mind, gaining intimate access to her private thoughts and so witnessing her suffering and increasing sense of inadequacy. 2

Introduction to the Literary Studies P: Griselda Beacon

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One of the characteristics of this technique is the use of very long sentences, without pause, as in the beginning of the story: Mabel had her first very serious suspicion up to the moment in which Mabel registers that she is thinking : No, it was not RIGHT. The presence of the mirror operates as an objective correlative, an object that triggers Mabels emotions whenever it appears, which is periodically through the story:

Mabel had her first very serious suspicion that something was wrong as she took her cloak off and Mrs. Barnet, while handing her the mirror ; she went straight to the far end of the room, to a shaded corner where a looking-glass hung and looked; But she dared not look in the glass. This device is functional to the stream of consciousness, for the emotions caused in this case by the mirror, are the stuff of which Mabel thoughts are made. The stream of consciousness also allows movement in the scene, which occurs only in Mabels mind. As she thinks -and shares her thoughts- different places appear ( her own house, Miss Milan s hot, stuffy, sordid, little workroom , reading the other night in bed, down by the sea on the sand by the sun) while the place in the story does not change and is always the room where the party takes place. Section 4: 6.- The role of the weather and the nature in characterization: weather and nature are used within a literary convention the pathetic fallacy- which assumes that the natural events reflect and accompany human events. In The Fall of the House of Usher by E. A. Poe, , there are examples of the using of this device: During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in heavens; lurid tarn; ghastly tree stems. So. nature in this story is in accordance with the sickening impression the feelings- the visitor experiences. Also in The Story of an Hour, when Mrs. Mallard enters her room, after receiving the news of her husbands death, the weather -being an anticlimax to her pretended feelings surprises the reader and is a hint to the twist the story presents later: She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

Introduction to the Literary Studies P: Griselda Beacon

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Section 5: Point of view, says Ann Charters1, refers to the way in which the story is told. It is the authors choice to construct the story using a first-person or a third person narrator. In the case of James The Turn of the Screw, the story begins with a first- person narrator: she introduces the story, and is the one who makes the exact transcription of the manuscript the governess had left Douglas, and Douglas had sent her the narrator- before his death. So hers is the hand, but she is only an instrument. The point of view of the story, is that of the governess; its her word and her assessment of every situation what we receive as readers, and we have to interact exclusively with her version of the story. Nobody inside the text questions her about the real existence of the ghosts of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint; no other character speculates about her relationship with Miles; the text does not provide other voices about the governess mental condition. Therefore, every doubt concerning the governess version, enters the domain of intertextuality and although there are many hints in the text the governess background; her platonic love for the master, her ambiguous relationship with the boy the fact that the point of view is only hers, - because this was the authors choiceindeterminacy that, as Iser
2

creates ample zones of

expresses, are to be filled by the reader in a process of

interaction between the implicit and the explicit, between revelation and concealment. Section 6: The test, by Angela Gibbs From a post colonial perspective, the theme of this story is racism. Situated in the United States of America, the first indication we have about Marian being black is the

dialogue she has with her employer, Mrs. Ericson, at the beginning of the story: It`s probably better to have someone a little older than you, Mrs. Ericson said as Marian slipped into the drivers seat beside herYes, Maam, Marian said in her soft unaccented voice. They probably do like it better if a white person shows up with you. What Mrs. Ericson says in response to this, is also a prologue to the attitude she will assume during the story ( Oh, I dont think its that, Mrs Ericson began, and subsided after a
1 2

Charters, Ann, The Short Story and Its Writer, 3 ed. Boston, 1991.Iser, Wolfgang, Interaction between Text and Reader, in Leitch, Vincent B. Gral Ed. (2001), The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York, Norton&Co.

rd

Introduction to the Literary Studies P: Griselda Beacon

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glance to the girls set profile). The impression we readers get, is that she perfectly knows how things are, and prefers to turn a blind eye on the fact of discrimination, probably considering disgusting for a lady to openly speak about this matter, to recognize that this exists. Her thoughts, while Marian drives, reveal that she is also a racist. Even though she shows affection for Marian, she obviously finds her functional for her role of servitude because she is black (Mrs. Ericson watched her dark, competent hands and wondered for the thousandth time how the house had ever managed to get along without her, or how she had lived through those earlier years when her household had been presided over by a series of slatternly white girls who had considered housework demeaning and the care of children an added insult). As a reader, I cant avoid the feeling that even Mrs. Ericsons affection is similar to that which she would feel for a very efficient washing- machine. She expresses confidence in Marians ability to drive the car ( You drive beautifully, Marian) and also tries to encourage her to focus on the present and forget her previous failure. Marian shows that she is conscious of having been unfairly treated ( I dont remember doing all the things the inspector marked on my blank ) , and when she recognizes the Inspector who flunked her, she turns to Mrs. Ericson, showing for the first time- her

anxiety (Oh, Mrs. Ericson) and finding only a patronizing Now, Marian . So, Mrs. Ericson knows that Marian is nervous and she has the opportunity to back her up when the inspector invites her to go with them. Additionally, the nickname the inspector gives Marian, and his blatant disregard of her opinion (Mandy and I dont mind company) are sure indications of his abusive attitude to her. In spite of this, Mrs. Ericson gives a lame excuse and in stepping aside, she implicitly gives her permission to what is about to happen. The inspector represents the white society of the time; feeling superior and in command, he starts a cruel set of questions and comments in which he expresses his assumptions about Marian; because of her sex and skin color, she is expected to have loose morals, a lot of children, to be illiterate and a southerner. Marion endures every horrible word, and tries to avoid the hideous stratagem the inspector sets to trick her or perhaps just to have fun humiliating her-, hiding her anger and frustration, because she knows that there is no other option if she wants to reach her goal. It is only when the inspector makes fun of her being able to read, that her self-control begins to slip (I got my college degree last year, Marian said. Her voice was not quite steady). And , 5

Introduction to the Literary Studies P: Griselda Beacon

Take Home TERM Test St.: Mara Alejandra Amui Azize

finally when the inspector laughs at her college degree, she is unable to restrain herself any longer and the inspector gets what he has been earning for from the beginning . As Marian insults him, she also realizes that in a millisecond she has failed the test, and that the inspector s power has won.