Tag: Commonplace

Commonplace-Book Entry: “The Postmaster” by Sir Rabindranath Tagore, How Close the Narrator Relates to Ratan

“The master said: ‘You need not be anxious about my going away, Ratan; I shall tell my successor to look after you.’ These words were kindly meant, no doubt: but inscrutable are the ways of a woman’s heart! Ratan had borne many a scolding from her master without complaint, but these kind words she could not bear.”

Tagore, Rabindranath. “The Postmaster.” Mashi and Other Stories, Macmillan and Co. Limited, 1918, page 167.

I think that this quote shows how the narrator relates to Ratan, since it seems to both relate to her distantly and closely in these sentences. The narrator expresses Ratan’s feelings to the audience first in a way that is distant from her and tells these emotions in a more general way, as the narrator speaks of women’s hearts instead of just Ratan’s heart. Especially  using the word “woman” makes this feel as if the narrator is not just referring to Ratan, and this also makes the narration feel even more distant from her, as she is being buried beneath the generalization of all women in the world, since Ratan is usually referred to as “girl” throughout this story as opposed to “woman”. However, the narrator then relates more closely to Ratan’s individual feelings, referring to her personal experience with the postmaster and how she had taken his words in the past in comparison to how the change in his words when telling her that she should not worry since he will tell his successor to look after Ratan after he leaves, makes her feel in this moment. Therefore, I think that the narrator’s relation to Ratan does not get too close to her personal thoughts and feelings, since sometimes the narrator decides to make judgments on Ratan’s emotions based on what the narrator knows or thinks they know of other people generally, and brings about these judgments first to the audience’s mind before even beginning to focus on Ratan as an individual. 

“The Postmaster” by Sir Rabindranath Tagore Commonplace-Book Entry: A Narrator Who Knows and Sympathizes with Ratan

“After a while Ratan rose, and went off to the kitchen to prepare the meal; but she was not so quick about it as on other days. Many new things to think of had entered her little brain. When the postmaster had finished his supper, the girl suddenly asked him: ‘Dada, will you take me to your home ?’

The postmaster laughed. ‘What an idea !’ said he; but he did not think it necessary to explain to the girl wherein lay the absurdity.

That whole night, in her waking and in her dreams, the postmaster’s laughing reply haunted her ‘What an idea !’”

Tagore, Sir Rabindranath. “The Postmaster.” Mashi and other stories, Macmillan and Co., 1918, page 166-167

This passage shows that the narrator knows about all of Rattan’s actions throughout the story, as well as her inner thoughts that she has, since it describes what she does both around the postmaster and by herself, as well as when there are a lot of thoughts swarming her mind and what she even dreams about, so this suggests that the narrator of “The Postmaster” is not the postmaster or any other character in the book that may be observing Ratan’s actions, but a third person narrator that is not part of the story and whom has access to the actions and consciousness of both of the main characters of this story, which are Ratan and the postmaster. The only person in the story that could have access to all of Ratan’s actions and thoughts would be Ratan herself, but the narrator does not use the word “I” when talking about Ratan nor use her language throughout the whole story, and since Ratan would not be able to know all of the postmaster’s actions and thoughts as well, which is also shown in this passage when the narrator says that the postmaster did not feel the need to explain how odd Ratan’s request to him was. It is also implied that the narrator may be older than Ratan and/or has sympathy for what she goes through, since it refers to her and her brain as “little,” which could mean that the narrator views Ratan as a young girl who is not done growing yet, but also sees her as a nice girl since referring to her as “little” multiple times could show that the narrator cares about Ratan in some way, or that the narrator thinks that the amount of thoughts going on in Ratan’s head might be too much for her to handle and would easily overwhelm her.

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston Commonplace-Book Entry: Janie’s Social Context of Not Fitting In While Growing Up

“‘Us lived dere havin’ fun till de chillun at school got to teasin’ me ’bout livin’ in de white folks’ back-yard. Dere wuz uh knotty head gal name Mayrella dat useter git mad every time she look at me. Mis’ Washburn useter dress me up in all de clothes her gran’chillun didn’t need no mo’ which still wuz better’n whut de rest uh de colored chillun had. And then she useter put hair ribbon on mah head fuh me tuh wear. Dat useter rile Mayrella uh lot. So she would pick at me all de time and put some others up tuh do de same. They’d push me ’way from de ring plays and make out they couldn’t play wid nobody dat lived on premises. Den they’d tell me not to be takin’ on over mah looks ’cause they mama told ’em ’bout de hound dawgs huntin’ mah papa all night long. ’Bout Mr. Washburn and de sheriff puttin’ de bloodhounds on de trail tuh ketch mah papa for whut he done tuh mah mama. Dey didn’t tell about how he wuz seen tryin’ tuh git in touch wid mah mama later on so he could marry her. Naw, dey didn’t talk dat part of it atall. Dey made it sound real bad so as tuh crumple mah feathers. None of ’em didn’t even remember whut his name wuz, but dey all knowed de bloodhound part by heart. Nanny didn’t love tuh see me wid mah head hung down, so she figgered it would be mo’ better fuh me if us had uh house. She got de land and everything and then Mis’ Washburn helped out uh whole heap wid things.’”

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006, page 9-10.

This passage shows that Janie does not quite fit in with the white people around her, nor the black people either. She always thought that she was white when she was little, because she grew up in similar circumstances as them and used to play with them. However, in the passage above, it can be seen that some white children like Mayrella began to get jealous that a black girl wore nice clothes and accessories like white girls did, such as more expensive dresses and ribbons to wear in her hair that Janie received from Miss Washburn, and started to make fun of her a lot. Janie also does not seem to fit in with the rest of the black children, either, because she did not live in the same neighborhood or circumstances as they did, since she was able to wear nicer clothes than they could, and did not have to work hard like them to get what she had in life, because her grandma and Miss Washburn were able to help her live a more luxurious and relaxing life than most other black families were able to, by buying a nice house in a nice neighborhood for her to live in. So in the social context of being able to relate to others, Janie does not seem to fully belong in the white crowd or fully belong in the black crowd, since she does not have the same experience as either of them, which might have made her feel like an outcast while growing up. This could explain why Janie seems to connect more with nature than other people later on in the book.

Commonplace-Book Entry: “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie’s Social Context in a New Town

“Janie soon began to feel the impact of awe and envy against her sensibilities. The wife of the Mayor was not just another woman as she had supposed. She slept with authority and so she was part of it in the town mind. She couldn’t get but so close to most of them in spirit.”

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006, page 46.

In this text, it shows how much Janie does not understand about the social contexts of being a woman seen as part of authority and is starting to realize what the effects of that are among other people in the town. By stating that she thought of a Mayor’s wife as any other woman, this means that Janie must not have been close to any higher up people or have been around people who would know or talk about any higher up or upper class people, or even those of authority. Or perhaps, because she was raised around white families and children, she was able to be around only other higher class people, without being exposed to the other classes of people very often, so she would only be exposed to the relationships, talks, and judgement of those that she was raised around, and most likely, she was never seen as above any of those people because of her race, but rather she would be seen as an equal in her case, especially because she said that she did not feel any different than the white children. However, now that she is living among those of her own race and is the wife of Joe, who has proclaimed himself as this new town’s mayor, Janie is seeing for the first time the effects of being treated as higher than those around her. So, perhaps within Janie’s social context where she grew up in a tight circle of people and feeling like she was equal with everybody, either because she was never exposed to those of higher authority or because she was only around and apart of higher class people, is why she never expected the wife of a mayor to be treated differently than any other woman. She is now living with different people in a different place than she was always used to, so I feel that it would be understandable that Janie would not feel as close to them in spirit already, but with her being introduced into the town as the wife of a man who tries to take authority over the town right away, who also doesn’t allow her to make big speeches, I feel that this is also what is making it harder for Janie to socially connect with any of the other women in town. 

“The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett Commonplace-Book Entry: Doing the Right Thing

“‘Listen. When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it. Then it happens we were in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it. It’s bad all around — bad for that one organization, bad for every detective everywhere.Third, I’m a detective and expecting me to run criminals down and then let them go free is like asking a dog to catch a rabbit and let it go. It can be done, all right, and sometimes it is done, but it’s not the natural thing. The only way I could have let you go was by letting Gutman and Cairo and the kid go. That’s–’” 

Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1929, 1930, page 213-214.

In this passage, Samuel Spade is talking to Brigid O’Shaughnessy after he revealed that he would turn her in to the police when he realized that she was the one who killed his former partner, Miles Archer. By saying that he should do something about his partner being killed, even if he did not like Miles very much while he was alive, Samuel Spade also reveals in this scene that he has rules that he likes to stick by, which I feel like he has not spoken about during the whole novel until this very moment. Throughout the whole book, it seems that Sam would be willing to lie, cheat, and steal for his own goals and to gain the upper hand, so it would not have surprised me if he let at least one of the criminals go, or even if he allowed them all to be free so that he would get some of the millions of money that the criminals could have shared with him if they successfully got away and sold the Maltese Falcon. However, by turning in all of the criminals for their wrongdoing, and saying that he was doing so for the sake of his murdered business partner, even if he was not so great of a person, my expectations for Samuel Spade’s actions were exceeded, and shows me that he does actually care about doing the thing that he feels is right to do, though it seems he only puts that under consideration during certain situations he finds himself in.

Commonplace-Book Entry: “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett, Spade’s Moral Code

“‘He came up here with his mouth watering, though you’d have sense enough to know I’d been stringing Gutman.’”

Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1930, page 216.

Here, Spade reveals that he was just pretending to go along with Gutman’s plans in exchange for a cut of the money he would get from the falcon, however, as he says here, Spade was actually going to hand them all in to the police, and this likely would have happened exactly as planned if they hadn’t gotten a fake bird and tried to escape. However, this was revealed at the very end of the book, and due to Spade’s shown greediness with money, as well as his insistence on the others of his plan to leave out details to the police, which he would often tell his employees to do, I feel that the audience would expect him to let the criminals get away as long as he would get the money he was promised. He does eventually end up calling the police and tells them about all the details of the criminals and their plan to get the real falcon, despite their offer to still let him help for the money, which could be proof of Spade following his moral code as a detective. Also, in this quote, Spade is saying that Tom Polhaus would know that he would only be pretending to go along with Gutman’s plans, which implies that perhaps in the past, he had kept facts about cases from him or went along with the plans of other criminals, but only to turn them into the police and reveal all of the details of the crime, showing that he stays true to the job he has to do, as a true detective would do. This shows that even though he may lie, joke, keep secrets from the police, and help criminals in some situations, that Spade does always follow his moral code as a detective to turn in all criminals to the police, despite their proposals or promises or emotions that he could be tempted by.

“As I Lay Dying” by William Faulkner Commonplace-Book Entry: How Vernon Tull Describes Addie Bundren’s Funeral

“They had laid her in it reversed. Cash made it clock-shape, like this ⚰ with every joint and seam bevelled and scrubbed with the plane, tight as a drum and neat as a sewing basket, and they had laid her in it head to foot so it wouldn’t crush her dress. It was her wedding dress and it had a flare-out bottom, and they had laid her head to foot in it so the dress could spread out, and they had made her a veil out of a mosquito bar so the auger holes in her face wouldn’t show.”

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Vintage International, 1990, page 88.

I found that this passage has interesting language, because instead of describing the coffin with words, Vernon Tull uses a picture of the shape in the middle of his sentence, which is the only time this has happened in the book so far. I wonder if this is because he can’t find the words in his mind at this time, and so pictures how it looks in his mind, or is imagining himself drawing the shape that he means to describe with his hands. His similies also are unique to me, too, since I never heard someone comparing something tight to a drum, or something neat to a sewing basket, even in this book. Finally, Vernon Tull refers to different specific parts of what Addie Bundren is wearing, and what their purposes were for as she laid in her coffin, which I think could imply that he is very knowledgeable about and familiar with why people decide to dress their dead relatives a certain way for their funerals, which could mean that he is experienced in being involved with setting up funerals. Perhaps this is why the Bundrens trust Vernon Tull with helping out during Addie Bundren’s funeral so much.

Commonplace-Book Entry: “As I Lay Dying” by William Faulkner, The Language of Dewey Dell’s Nightmare

 

“When I used to sleep with Vardaman I had a nightmare once I thought I was awake but I couldn’t see and couldn’t feel I couldn’t feel the bed under me and I couldn’t think what I was I couldn’t think of my name I couldn’t even think I am a girl I couldn’t even think I nor even think I want to wake up nor remember what was opposite to awake so I could do that I knew that something was passing but I couldn’t even think of time then all of a sudden I knew that something was it was wind blowing over me it was like the wind came and blew me back from where it was I was not blowing the room and Vardaman asleep and all of them back under me again and going on like a piece of cool silk dragging across my naked legs”

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Vintage International, 1990, page 121-122.

I thought that this passage in the text was interesting, due to both its language and structure in which it is written. Here Dewey Dell starts to suddenly think of a nightmare she had while sleeping beside Vardaman after thinking of when Vardaman took a knife and chopped up a fish and then thinking of taking the knife and killing Darl with it. It feels as though this is a random thought or memory at first, but I feel that perhaps she is reminded of this because she is experiencing similar existential thoughts and feelings after the death of her mother. Another thing about this passage is that it is written in italics, as though it is a different kind of thought or a different part of her is interrupting her previous thoughts with this memory, or perhaps, this thought strikes her more deeply or is more important than her other thoughts. It is also written as one long sentence with no punctuation or periods, so while I read it, it felt like an intense rush of thoughts or a memory, which I thought was more like a stream of consciousness than is written for other characters in this text, such as Darl, but it still is written as though Dewey Dell is talking to somebody else. 

Woolf, “Mrs. Dalloway.” Topic: Connections

“Mr. Fletcher, retired, of the Treasury, Mrs. Gorham, widow of the famous K.C., approached Him simply, and having done their praying, leant back, enjoyed the music (the organ pealed sweetly), and saw Miss Kilman at the end of the row, praying, praying, and, being still on the threshold of their underworld, thought of her sympathetically as a soul haunting the same territory; a soul cut out of immaterial substance; not a woman, a soul” (Woolf 130-1).

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2005.

Connection between church-goers, physically in the same space, spiritually in two separate spaces (with Him, threshold of underworld), relationship is viewed similarly between different parties

“Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf Commonplace-Book Entry: Wishing For How Things Were Before The War

“‘That is all,’ she repeated, pausing for a moment at the window of a glove shop where, before the War, you could buy almost perfect gloves. And her old Uncle William used to say a lady is known by her shoes and her gloves. He had turned on his bed one morning in the middle of the War. He had said, ‘I have had enough.’ Gloves and shoes; she had a passion for gloves; but her own daughter, her Elizabeth, cared not a straw for either of them.’’

In this passage, Mrs. Dalloway is reminiscing about times before the War, when her Uncle Williams taught her about gloves and shoes. Perhaps her Uncle taking her to good glove shops inspired her liking for gloves that she still has today, but now it seems like she is comparing that passion that her and her Uncle had shared together with the kind of bond that she has with her own daughter, Elizabeth, which seems like not a very strong one, since they do not seem to care about a lot of the same things. Maybe this passage is about how wars can negatively affect the world, since Mrs. Dalloway implies that this glove store she is looking at does not make their gloves as perfectly as they used to, or it could also be about how she wishes to be as close with her daughter as she used to be with Uncle William.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Harcourt, Inc., 1925, page 11.

Commonplace-Book Entry: “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf, The Effects of Decisions in the Past

“Now of course, thought Clarissa, he’s enchanting! perfectly enchanting! Now I remember how impossible it was ever to make up my mind–and why did I make up my mind–not to marry him? she wondered, that awful summer?”

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Harcourt, Inc, 1925, page 40.

Looking at Peter Walsh now, Clarissa starts to think of decisions that she has made in the past and tries to remember how she came upon those decisions. She does this because as she is reflecting on her life now, she realizes that she has become unhappy with it and by looking on these decisions in the past and thinking of different paths that she could have chosen, such as wondering why she hadn’t chosen to marry Peter Walsh instead of Richard Dalloway, she thinks that by taking those different paths, her life could have been different than how it is now and perhaps she would have been more happy during this point in her life.

Joyce, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”, Art and Artistry Within Prose

“The phrase and the day and the scene harmonised in a chord.
Words. Was it their colours? He allowed them to glow and fade, hue
after hue: sunrise gold, the russet and green of apple orchards, azure
of waves, the greyfringed fleece of clouds. No, it was not their
colours: it was the poise and balance of the period itself. Did he then
love the rhythmic rise and fall of words better than their associations
of legend and colour? Or was it that, being as weak of sight as he was
shy of mind, he drew less pleasure from the reflection of the glowing
sensible world through the prism of language many coloured and
richly storied than from the contemplation of an inner world of
individual emotions mirrored perfectly in a lucid supple periodic
prose?” (Joyce 140).

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Oxford University Press, 2000.

In his religious devotion, Stephen still focuses on artistry and the imagery behind each word of a phrase. From a single phrase he reads, Stephen extrapolates its meaning and how it serves to create a world within its reader’s imagination.

 

Joyce, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Topic: Art and Artistry

“Was it a quaint device opening a page of some medieval book of prophecies and symbols, a hawklike man flying sunward above the sea, a prophecy of the end he had been born to serve and had been following through the mists of childhood and boyhood, a symbol of the artist forging anew in his workshop out of the sluggish matter of the earth a new soaring impalpable imperishable being?” (Joyce 142).

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Oxford University Press, 2000.

I’m unsure if the prophecy is calling for him to go to the church or to pursue his art, Stephen seems to think about it in terms of the artist creating art in either scenario

“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce Commonplace-Book Entry: Childhood Magic of Christmas Decorations

“There were coloured lanterns in the hall of his father’s house and ropes of green branches. There were holly and ivy round the pierglass and holly and ivy, green and red, twined round the chandeliers. There were red holly and green ivy round the old portraits on the walls. Holly and ivy for him and for Christmas. Lovely…”

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Oxford University Press Inc., 2000, page 16.

I do not know if this passage in particular is from a dream or from a scenario that Stephen is wishfully thinking about in his head based on past experiences, but it seems so magical and exciting as a child to come home for the first day of winter break and seeing your house already decorated for the holidays. By Stephen focusing on the holly and ivy that are put up around certain areas of the house, it made me realize that part of what makes the holidays so special is seeing the house decorated in the same way that it always is, with the same decorations in the same spots that they are always put up, which gives everyone such a unique, but shared sense of familiarity, since each family’s way of decorating is different, but it is always one of the first signs that the holidays are approaching. Stephen’s way of describing the holly and ivy around his family’s house, with their specific placements, colors, and calling them lovely gives me the sense that he likes to observe and pay attention to little details, and also thinks that the little, simple things in life are beautiful, which I think are good traits for a child who is going to become an artist to have.

Commonplace-Book Entry: “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce, Childhood Innocence

“He felt the touch of the prefect’s fingers as they had steadied his hand and at first he had thought he was going to shake hands with him because the fingers were soft and firm: but then in an instant he had heard the swish of the soutane sleeve and the crash.”

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Oxford University Press Inc., 2000, page 43.

I thought that it was interesting that Stephen thought that Father Dolan was going to do something nice and polite in his gesture even though he had just seen what he had done to Fleming previously and knew that he was going to get hit as well. This makes me think that Stephen seems to always perceive adults in his life as kind, and I feel that this is perhaps because, at least up to this age, that every adult seems to have treated him kindly, such as those in his family, or maybe his soft, firm hands reminds him of someone that was kind to him, such as his father. Maybe this is also because of his childhood innocence, as he is a very timid child who seems to think more fondly of adults like his mother over his peers, who he tends to judge.

“The Middle Years” by Henry James Commonplace-Book Entry: Prediction of Future Apprentice

“Chance had brought the weary man of letters face to face with the greatest admirer in the new generation whom it was supposable he possessed. The admirer, in truth, was mystifying, so rare a case was it to find a bristling young doctor–he looked like a German physiologist–enamoured of literary form. It was an accident, but happier than most accidents, so that Dencombe, exhilarated as well as confounded, spent half an hour in making his visitor talk while he kept himself quiet.”

James, Henry. “The Middle Years.” Henry James: Complete Stories 1892-1898, The Library of America, 1996, page 342.

Tone change in Dencombe from reminiscent and sorrowful to pleasantly surprised and appreciative. It seems as though meeting Doctor Hugh, a smart and young admirer of Dencombe’s artistic touch in literature, was a rare, fateful occurrence to Dencombe, which seems to make him truly happy and forget his mournful attitude that his old age has given him about life. Perhaps when Dencombe reveals his true identity to Doctor Hugh, he could solve his problem of not having enough time left to create more books using his refined talent, by training Doctor Hugh to become his successor in creating artful stories for him, so that his legacy as an author can still live on through Doctor Hugh, whom Dencombe also seems to admire in return.

Commonplace-Book Entry: “The Middle Years” by Henry James, Unfinished Dream

“‘Yes, it’s what passes.’ Poor Dencombe was barely audible, but he had marked with the words the virtual end of his first and only chance.”

James, Henry. “The Middle Years.” Henry James: Complete Stories 1892-1898, The Library of America, 1996, page 355.

This story ends on a more sad and thoughtful note, as neither Doctor Hugh nor Dencombe, himself, were able to give Dencombe his dream of another chance at life, and without explanation as to what the other characters, such as Doctor Hugh, did after Dencombe passed. I feel that this deviates from the traditional endings of stories where they are happy and every loose end is tied together nicely. I suppose that this ending is meant to reflect complex, realistic endings in life where people die and some of their hopes and dreams are left unfinished while those they know and love still have to continue living without them, surrounded by their unfinished projects.