3/1 Raymond Carver - "Cathedral" and Edith Wharton - "Roman Fever"
Hello ~Everyone , I ordered The LUX series ,
I really really want to know the reason why people love this series,
So I got some synopsis from Goodreads ,
Beginnings: Obsidian & Onyx (Lux, #1-2)
Obsidian
There’s an alien next door. And with his looming height and eerie green eyes, he’s hot… until he opens his mouth. He’s infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, he marks me. Turns out he has a galaxy of enemies wanting to steal his abilities and the only way I’m getting out of this alive is by sticking close to him until my alien mojo fades. If I don’t kill him first, that is.
Onyx
Daemon’s determined to prove what he feels for me is more than a product of our bizarro connection. So I’ve sworn him off, even though he’s running more hot than cold these days. But we’ve got bigger problems. I’ve seen someone who shouldn’t be alive. And I have to tell Daemon, even though I know he’s never going to stop searching until he gets the truth. What happened to his brother? Who betrayed him? And what does the DOD want from them—from me?
So this book has lots of paranormal romance,and crazy adventure!!!
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Today is my first day to begin my serene winter vacation
Since I am really worried about my major-- Approaches to Literature,I decide to preview some texts of my next semester's class.Besides ,I really loves American and British Literature,especially contemporary novels ,as you can see ,i ordered so many books from website,and I've created an account from Goodreads,and I am spooooooo exited for reading so many books.
Here we are to have our first class
CATHEDRAL
by Raymond Carver
Cathedral Summary and Analysis of "Cathedral"
Summary
"Cathedral" is narrated by a man whose wife has invited an old friend to visit their home. The old friend, Robert, is blind, which the narrator identifies as Robert's defining characteristic. As the story begins, the narrator is troubled by the impending visit for reasons he can't quite explain, though he attributes it to Robert's disability.
As the narrator explains, Robert's wife had died recently and so he was visiting her family in Connecticut. As the narrator and his wife live nearby, Robert arranged to visit, and is on his way. The wife had worked briefly for Robert a decade before in Seattle. They have kept in touch by mailing tapes to one another, on which each narrated his or her life in detail. His wife had been living on the West coast with a man she was going to marry, and found Robert's ad seeking someone to read to him. On the last day she worked there, Robert (who the narrator continues to call "the blind man") asked to touch her face and she agreed. He ran his hands sensitively all over her face and neck, and the experience proved profound to the wife, who is an aspiring poet and has tried to memorialize his touch. She showed it to the narrator when they started dating, but he didn't care for it. He admits he might not understand poetry.
The narrator tells more of his wife's past. The man she was waiting for in Seattle had been her "childhood sweetheart," and after they married, they lived a military life as he was transferred to bases. One year after leaving Seattle, she contacted Robert, and they thereafter began to exchange the tapes on which they would tell each other their deep secrets. They continued to exchange tapes as her life as an Air Force wife got lonelier and lonelier, until she finally tried to kill herself with pills. She ended up throwing them up, but used the occasion to pursue a divorce, which was followed by her dating the narrator.
She once asked the narrator to listen to one of Robert's tapes. On it, he heard his own name spoken, a strange experience. They were interrupted by someone knocking, an interruption which pleased him.
The story jumps into its main action as the wife prepares dinner and the narrator glibly suggests taking Robert bowling. She begs him to welcome Robert and chides him for having no friends, "period." She tells him that Robert's late wife was named Beulah, which he finds bizarre. He asks her if Beulah was "a Negro," which makes her angry but also leads her to share more of Robert's past. Beulah began reading for Robert the summer after she had left, and they were soon thereafter wed. After eight years of marriage, Beulah was diagnosed with cancer and died. He feels sorry for Beulah, "a woman who could go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved." He imagines her life as miserable.
His wife leaves to fetch Robert from the depot, and he settles with a drink in front of the TV until he hears the car park and his wife's laughter. He watches from the window to see her helping Robert out of the car and down the drive. He is greatly surprised to see Robert has a full beard. He turns off the TV and finishes the drink, and then welcomes them in. His wife is "beaming" when she introduces them. They shake hands, and then she leads him to the sofa. The narrator considers making small talk, but only asks which side of the train Robert sat on. Though the wife think it a strange question, Robert answers it and says he had "nearly forgotten the sensation" of being on a train, it had been so long. The narrator sees his wife finally look at him, and he gets "the feeling she didn't like what she saw."
The narrator is impressed with how little like a stereotypical blind man (dark glasses, a cane) Robert looks. He does notice that Robert's eyes are creepy up close in various ways. The narrator offers to fix drinks and Robert says, "Bub, I'm a scotch man myself." The narrator is tickled by the use of the term "Bub" (which Robert continues to use through the story), and fixes the drinks.
They drink several rounds and talk, mostly about Robert's trip. The narrator is surprised to see Robert smoke cigarettes, since he thought the blind did not smoke. After a while, they sit to a huge dinner that the wife prepared. Before they start, the narrator offers to lead prayer, which confuses his wife, until he says, "pray the phone won't ring and the food doesn't get cold."
They eat heartily in silence, as the narrator admires Robert's proficiency with utensils and his willingness to use his fingers at times. After dinner, all are stuffed. They return to the living room with more drinks, and talk more about the past 10 years. Mostly, the narrator just listens (it's about what happened "to them," not him, he thinks), occasionally chiming in so that Robert doesn't think he's left the room. He is a bit contemptuous of how "Robert had done a little of everything…a regular blind jack-of-all-trades." Occasionally, Robert asks the narrator some questions, which he answers without much conviction.
After a while, he finally turns on the TV. His wife is annoyed, and spins it to ask Robert if he has a TV. Robert answers that he has two – one color, one black-and-white – and knows the difference. The narrator has "no opinion" on this. The wife confesses she's tired and heads upstairs to put on her robe.
They're alone for a while, which makes the narrator feel awkward. He pours them another drink and asks if Robert would like to smoke marijuana. He agrees and they smoke, Robert a bit awkwardly since he seems never to have done so before. When his wife returns, she gives the narrator a "savage look" for pulling out drugs, but Robert seems to enjoy it. They smoke for a while, until the wife tells Robert his bed is fixed upstairs and then she falls asleep on the couch. He notices her robe is open on her thigh, but doesn't bother to correct it since Robert can't see anyway.
He feels awkward again, and offers to lead Robert to bed, but Robert says he'll "stay up until you're ready to turn in," since they hadn't talked much. The narrator says he's "glad for the company," and realizes right away that he is. He confesses to the reader that he stays awake later than his wife each night, stoned, and often has dreams that frighten him.
They switch between the channels, but the only decent program is "something about the church and the Middle Ages." Robert says that works fine, since he's "always learning something" and now can be one of those times.
They are silent for a while, Robert turned with his ear to the TV, a position that disturbs the narrator a bit. The program shows medieval monks at work, and the narrator begins to explain the image to Robert. The TV shows a cathedral, and the narrator tries to describe it. Robert asks if the paintings are frescoes, but the narrator can't remember what frescoes are.
It suddenly occurs to the narrator that Robert might not know what a cathedral looks like at all. Robert knows only that they took generations to build, but doesn't really know what they look like. The narrator considers how to describe them, but can only muster simple descriptions – "They're very tall…they reach way up." He knows he's doing poorly, but Robert is encouraging and he continues trying. The narrator shares that "men wanted to be close to God" and hence built them high. After a while, Robert asks whether the narrator is at all religious. The narrator confesses, "I guess I don't believe in it. In anything." Knowing his descriptions are poor, he adds that cathedrals mean nothing to him, and are simply something on the TV.
Robert clears his throat and asks the narrator to do him a favor: find some paper and pen, and they will draw a cathedral together. He heads upstairs – his legs feeling "like they didn't have any strength in them" – and finds some supplies. They sit near one another and Robert closes his hand over that of the narrator, and tells the latter to draw.
Slowly and with little skill, he begins to sketch, Robert's hand following his own. He draws a "box that looked like a house" – "it could have been the house [he] lived in" – and continues to add onto it. Robert compliments the work and suggests the narrator never expected an experience like this one. The narrator keeps going – "I couldn't stop" – even as the TV station goes off-air. He keeps drawing, even as his wife wakes and is curious about what's happening. Robert's encouragement intensifies, and he suggests the narrator add people in the cathedral.
Robert tells the narrator to close his eyes, which he does, and then encourages him to draw that way. The narrator acquiesces, and the experience is "like nothing else in [his life up to now." After a bit, Robert tells him he thinks it's done, and suggests the narrator take a look. But he doesn’t open his eyes; he feels compelled to keep them closed. He knows he is in his house, but he doesn't feel "like he was inside anything." Robert asks him how it looks and the narrator, without opening his eyes to look, answers, "It's really something."
Initial Situation
A blind man is coming to spend the night at the narrator's house.
The narrator has issues with blind people. Not that he's ever met a blind person. But, he has seen them in the movies. In any case, he isn't looking forward to this blind man, Robert, his wife's "old friend," coming to visit . That's how "Cathedral" begins.
Conflict
The blind man has a history with the narrator's wife.
We learn that the blind man, Robert, and the narrator's wife have been corresponding for the past ten years, revealing to each other the most intimate details of their respective lives. It's obvious that the narrator is jealous of Robert. That's the conflict, and that's maybe also part of why the narrator has issues with blind people.
Complication
Robert arrives.
When Robert arrives, things are a little awkward. The narrator isn't sure what to say to Robert. The woman is sure that every word the narrator says is a veiled blind joke, even though he's actually being nice to Robert. The complication is the simple fact that three people are hoping to get along and have a good evening. Because they all have baggage, and linked histories, the situation feels complicated.
Climax
Either the dinner, the drinks, or "two fat numbers."
Actually, we could say that all three make up the climax of "Cathedral." The climax is the stage of the story where the characters emotions are at a high level. In "Cathedral," as the characters connect through what some might call hedonistic, or indulgent activities. The connection is rather fraught because of the loneliness and dissatisfaction and personal issues each of the characters is experiencing. The combination of warmth and discomfort contributes to the sense that something is going on which is bigger than it appears.
Suspense
Late night television.
The narrator's wife falls asleep, leaving the narrator and Robert alone. Will Robert and the narrator find a way to connect? And most importantly, will the narrator find a way to describe a cathedral to Robert?
Denouement
The narrator's wife wakes up; the narrator closes his eyes.
The dénouement stresses the deficiencies of eyesight. When the narrator's wife wakes up and sees Robert and the narrator drawing the cathedral, she can't process what she sees. Nothing mysterious is going on. It's obvious what they are doing. But, it's unusual – it deeply challenges her ideas about what Robert and her husband would do if they were left to their own devices. By closing his eyes, at Robert's insistence, the narrator admits that being able to see might actually be limiting his experience.
Conclusion
The narrator keeps his eyes closed.
Simple, but intense. Now that narrator has experienced seeing without his eyes, he feels free. We don't know if the feeling will last, if he'll continue his relationship with Robert, if his relationship with his wife will improve, etc. For now, the important thing is the moment, and both the complexity and the simplicity of his experience.
※glibly(acdverb) speaking or spoken in a confident way ,but without careful thought or honesty.
※chide: to speak to someone severely because they have behaved badly
=scold
=blame
=reproach
=castigate
※chime in: (phrasal verb) to interrupt or speak in a conversation ,usually to agree with that has been said.
※hedonistic: living and behaving in ways that mean you get as much pleasure out of life as possible ,according to the belief that most important thing in life is to enjoy yourself
※off-air : In radio or television, when a program goes off-air or when something happens off-air, it is not broadcast.
※muster: to produce or encourage especially an emotion or support
=collect
=rally
= assemble
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Roman Fever
by Edith Wharton
Summary
Roman Fever cover image
Two old friends, Alida Slade and Grace Ansley, are finishing lunch on the terrace of a Roman restaurant and move to the parapet, where they benignly contemplate the magnificent ruins of the Palatine and the Forum. Remarking that the scene below is the most beautiful view in the world, the two ladies agree to spend the afternoon on the terrace. Alida arranges with the waiter to permit them to stay until evening. They hear their daughters, Barbara Ansley and Jenny Slade, departing to spend the afternoon with two eligible young Italian men, and Grace remarks that the young women will probably return late, flying back by moonlight from Tarquinia. It becomes evident at this point that Grace has a closer relationship with her daughter than Alida has with Jenny because Alida did not know where the girls were going. Also, Barbara remarks a bit ruefully to Jenny as the two of them depart that they are leaving their mothers with nothing much to do.
At that point, Alida broaches the subject of emotions by asking Grace if she thinks that their daughters are as sentimental, especially about moonlight, as they once were. Grace responds that she does not know at all about the girls’ sentiments and adds that she doubts that the two mothers know much about each other either. The two women sit silently for a while, thinking about their perceptions of each other.
Alida’s perceptions of Grace are recounted as an interior monologue, which continues throughout the story, interspersed with passages of dialogue. As she reflects, she also reveals the circumstances of the years since she first met Grace. Grace had been married to Horace Ansley shortly before Alida had married Delphin Slade. Alida considered the Ansleys nullities, living exemplary but insufferably dull lives in an apartment directly across the street from the Slades in New York City. They had been superficial friends, and Alida had rather closely observed the irreproachable events of the Ansleys’ lives for a number of years before her very successful lawyer husband made a big coup in Wall Street and the Slades moved to a more fashionable Park Avenue address. She prided herself on the lively social life that she and Delphin enjoyed, and especially on her own skills as a hostess and a brilliant personality. Both women were widowed only a few months before the time of the story and have renewed their friendship in the common bond of bereavement.
Alida’s envy of Grace, despite her disparaging assessment of her, emerges in her thoughts at this time. She wonders how the Ansleys could have produced such a vivid and charming daughter, when her own Jenny seems by comparison so dull. She recalls that Grace was exquisitely lovely in her youth as well as charming in a fragile, quiet way. She reflects that she herself would probably be much more active and concerned if she had Barbara for a daughter.
Grace, for her part, has a mental image of Alida as a brilliant woman, but one who is overimpressed by her own qualities. She remembers Alida as a vivid, dashing girl, much different from her pretty but somewhat mousy daughter. She views Alida’s life as sad, full of failures and mistakes, and feels rather sorry for her. Thus, in part 1 of the story, the setting, the situation, and the attitudes of the two women are presented in a manner that suggests a placid, if superficial, friendship of many years’ standing, with both of the women secretly feeling some pity for each other’s past life.
Part 2 begins with the tolling of the five o’clock bells and the decision of the two women to remain on the terrace rather than going in to play bridge. As Grace Ansley knits, Alida Slade reflects that their own mothers must have had a worrisome task trying to keep them home safe despite the lure of the romantic evenings in Rome. Grace agrees, and Alida continues with speculations about the probability that Barbara will become engaged to the attractive, eligible young Roman pilot with whom she is spending the evening, along with Jenny and the second young man. Jenny, Alida reasons, is only a foil for Barbara’s vivacious charm, and Grace may be encouraging the companionship for that very reason. She tells Grace of her envy, stating that she cannot understand how the Ansleys had such a dynamic child while the Slades had such a quiet one. Alida recognizes in her own mind her envy, and also realizes that it began a long time ago.
As the sun sets, Alida recalls that Grace was susceptible to throat infections as a girl and was forced to be very careful about contracting Roman fever or pneumonia. Then she recalls a story of a great-aunt of Grace, who sent her sister on an errand to the Forum at night because the two sisters were in love with the same man, with the result that the unfortunate girl died of Roman fever. Alida then reveals that she used a similar method to eliminate the competition she believed existed between herself and Grace when, as young women in Rome, they both were in love with Delphin Slade. She cruelly reveals that she wrote a note to Grace imploring a rendezvous in the Colosseum by moonlight, and signed it with Delphin’s name.
Revealing her hatred further, she gloats about how she laughed that evening thinking about Grace waiting alone in the darkness outside the Colosseum, and how effective the ruse had been, for Grace had become ill and was bedridden for some weeks. Grace is at first crushed to learn that the only letter that she ever received from Delphin was a fake, but she then turns the tables on Alida by assuring her that she had not waited alone that night. Delphin had made all the arrangements and was waiting for her.
Alida’s jealousy and hatred are rekindled as she realizes that she has failed to humiliate Grace Ansley, especially when Grace states that she feels sorry for Alida because her cruel trick had so completely failed. Alida protests that she really had everything: She was Delphin’s wife for twenty-five years, and Grace has nothing but the one letter that he did not write. In the final ironic epiphany, Grace simply replies that she had Barbara. Then she moves ahead of Alida toward the stairway.
This battle of the two women for the integrity of their own status with respect to the man they both loved ends with the complete victory of the woman who has appeared to be the weak, passive creature. She moves ahead because she is now dominant. The source of Barbara’s sparkle is now revealed, and Grace is also now shown to be a woman who defied conventional morality and social restrictions to spend a night with the man she loved. Alida Slade is left only with the dismaying knowledge that she, in her attempt to be hateful and cruel, actually brought about the meeting that produced the lovely daughter she envies her friend having.
※terrace: a falt area if stone or grass outside a house, where people sit and sometimes eat
※parapet: a low wall along the edge of a roof, bridge, etc
※put your head over /above the parapet:
to be brave enough to state an opinion that might upset someone.
※aspiring: eager=would-be
※recount
※intersperse
※dashing: fearless
: marked by vigorous action
: marked by smartness especially in dress and manners
※placid: serenely free of interruption or disturbance
=easy-going
=even-tempered
=gentle
=peaceful
=quiet
※mousy: shy and nervous and having few interesting ualities
※epiphany: that you are interested ,or suddenly become conscious of ,something that is very important to you or a powerful religious experience
=inspiration
=realization
=oracle
※integrity: the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change
=honesty
=purity
=righteousness
=rectitude
( honsety and correct moral behaviour)
※ruse: a trick intended to deceive someone
※gloat: to feel or express great pleasure or satisfaction because of your own success or good luck,or someoneelse's failure or bad luck
=exult
(to express great pleasure or happiness ,especially at someone else's defeat. )
=crow【verb】
※foil: somrthing or someone that makes another's good or bad qualities more noticeable
=aetting
=checkmate
=discomfit
=balk
※bereavement: the death of a close relation or friend
※irreproachable: without fault and therefore impossible to criticize
※nullity: to make a legal agreement or decision have no legal force
※exemplary: very good and suitable to copied by other people
=admirable
=excellent
=honorable
=laudable
=sterling( conforming to the highest standard)
=meritorious
※broach: to begin a discussion of something difficult
=bring up
=hint at
=touch on ( to briefly talk or write about (something) ; to mention (something) briefly )
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Analysis:
Edith Wharton wrote “Roman Fever” in 1934 and included it in the collection The World Over (1936). In the New York Review of Books, Percy Hutchinson wrote that "Roman Fever" was “as memorable a short story as Ms. Wharton has ever done,” and “as sharp-cut as a diamond, and as hard of surface.” The plot is relatively straightforward, but the story’s structure, which buries one narrative within another, is a testament to Wharton's literary skill and her understanding of American high society. The primary narrative follows two middle-aged recent widows, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, who are meeting by chance in Rome. The women knit and reminisce about their shared history and discuss their teenaged daughters, Barbara and Jenny.
Over the course of the story, the reader learns that Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley had spent time together in Rome many years before. Wharton reveals the private thoughts of each woman at times, which is appropriate for these characters because society women would hesitate to share such intimate secrets with one another. Finally, the facade of politeness breaks down as the reminiscing focuses on one particular incident. Mrs. Slade was engaged to her late husband, Delphin, who was in turn, having an affair with Mrs. Ansley (who was single at the time). The women retread betrayals of the past, which results in a revelation that will rock their present-day lives: Barbara is actually Delphin's daughter. Thus, the story ends on a powerful and provocative note.
Armine Kotin Mortimer writes that "Roman Fever" is like the tip of an iceberg, and the massive bulk of subtext is submerged below the surface of the primary narrative. Most of the story's plot points take place in the past. Meanwhile, Wharton shrouds Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley's complicated history in simple, frank language. This is an accurate depiction of the way society women spoke to one another, and also allows Wharton to seductively dangle the truth in front of the reader until the story's final explosive exchange. By the end of "Roman Fever," the subtext has come to the surface and the reader is finally able to understand the underlying tension that exists between Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley.
Mortimer explains, “the fact that [Mrs. Ansley's affair with Delphin] is told in the second story mode has a great deal to do with our pleasure in reading ‘Roman Fever’. While the first story is staid because [it is] rule-governed and classical in design and structure, and because it has order, proportion, simplicity, and harmony, the second is feverish because it is told only in erupting elliptical fragments, apparently unintended, disguised and displaced.”
Against the backdrop of propriety and politeness, the reader must unearth the dark, sexual, jealous, and vengeful side of the story. In this way, Wharton engages the reader in the storytelling process as a voyeur as he/she unravels the writer's intent. From the beginning of the story, Mrs. Slade believes that she has the upper hand, but her control slips away as the hidden narrative begins to emerge. She pokes and pushes Mrs. Ansley, which is her way of punishing her friend for past transgressions. However, Mrs. Slade has no inkling of what she is going to unearth after toppling the emotional wall Mrs. Ansley has built around herself. Mrs. Ansley’s knitting is a symbolic defense or fortification against the bitter Mrs. Slade’s confessions and recriminations.
※backdrop: the general situation in which particular events
※voyeur: a person who gets sexual pleasure from secretly watching other people in sexual situations , or (more generally )a person who watches other people's private lives
※inkling(Adjective) when you think that something is true or likely to happen, although you are not certain
※topple: to cause to lose balance and fall down
※recrimination: arguments between people who are blaming each other
Wharton also frequently uses parallels or paired opposites to create the narrative structure of "Roman Fever." She writes about two women, each with one daughter, who have moved between America and Rome, and the past and the present, etc. Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade use their daughters as a segue to arrive at the conversation about their shared experiences in Rome. Whereas the city is now safe and romantic, it was once filled with danger and hidden but feverish sexuality. Rome itself is also marked by decadence and tragedy. Roman Fever was a deadly strain of malaria that infected many Romans when Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley were young. Wharton implies that Mrs. Slade sent Mrs. Ansley the false letter from Delphin so that Mrs. Ansley would go outside and become infected.
However, "Roman Fever" is concurrently a symbol of sexual longing. Mrs. Ansley's doctor suspected she was infected the night after she went out to meet Delphin. While she was not actually sick, she was pregnant with Delphin's love child. In the present, however, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade muse that Roman Fever is no longer a threat, so Barbara and Jenny have nothing to fear as they enjoy the sights and sounds of Rome. They are free to run about as they please and, as Mortimer writes, “are neither hampered by propriety nor troubled by romance. It is the mothers’ generation alone for whom the double structure of hiding exists.”
Edith Wharton wrote "Roman Fever" in the early 1930s, which was a time of immense political and cultural change throughout Europe. Fascist governments had begun to consolidate control in Germany and Italy. Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley are sitting on a terrace overlooking Rome's most famous historical sites, which were once sites of extreme violence and destruction. Meanwhile, Barbara and Jenny go off to Tarquinia with a couple of Fascist Italian aviators. Tarquinia was the site of Lucretia's rape and the fall of the Etruscan monarchy. Critic Abby Werlock emphasizes the historical context of "Roman Fever," writing that Wharton “poses Fascism as a real threat that looms just outside the story.”
At the end of the story, when Mrs. Ansley moves away from Mrs. Slade, she uses the phrase “Name of the Father,” which is an allusion to the Fascist obsession with patriarchy and purity. Werlock writes, “Mrs. Ansley’s feminist action of producing an illegitimate child can be seen as a politically threatening act” because she has acted outside the bounds of appropriate, government-sanctioned reproduction.
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The Scarlet Letter
Context
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. His family descended from the earliest settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; among his forebears was John Hathorne (Hawthorne added the “w” to his name when he began to write), one of the judges at the 1692 Salem witch trials. Throughout his life, Hawthorne was both fascinated and disturbed by his kinship with John Hathorne. Raised by a widowed mother, Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College in Maine, where he met two people who were to have great impact upon his life: Henry Wadsworth Long-fellow, who would later become a famous poet, and Franklin Pierce, who would later become president of the United States.
After college Hawthorne tried his hand at writing, producing historical sketches and an anonymous novel, Fanshawe, that detailed his college days rather embarrassingly. Hawthorne also held positions as an editor and as a customs surveyor during this period. His growing relationship with the intellectual circle that included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller led him to abandon his customs post for the utopian experiment at Brook Farm, a commune designed to promote economic self-sufficiency and transcendentalist principles. Transcendentalism was a religious and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century that was dedicated to the belief that divinity manifests itself everywhere, particularly in the natural world. It also advocated a personalized, direct relationship with the divine in place of formalized, structured religion. This second transcendental idea is privileged in The Scarlet Letter.
After marrying fellow transcendentalist Sophia Peabody in 1842, Hawthorne left Brook Farm and moved into the Old Manse, a home in Concord where Emerson had once lived. In 1846 he published Mosses from an Old Manse, a collection of essays and stories, many of which are about early America. Mosses from an Old Manse earned Hawthorne the attention of the literary establishment because America was trying to establish a cultural independence to complement its political independence, and Hawthorne’s collection of stories displayed both a stylistic freshness and an interest in American subject matter. Herman Melville, among others, hailed Hawthorne as the “American Shakespeare.”
In 1845 Hawthorne again went to work as a customs surveyor, this time, like the narrator of The Scarlet Letter, at a post in Salem. In 1850, after having lost the job, he published The Scarlet Letter to enthusiastic, if not widespread, acclaim. His other major novels include The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852), and The Marble Faun (1860). In 1853 Hawthorne’s college friend Franklin Pierce, for whom he had written a campaign biography and who had since become president, appointed Hawthorne a United States consul. The writer spent the next six years in Europe. He died in 1864, a few years after returning to America.
The majority of Hawthorne’s work takes America’s Puritan past as its subject, but The Scarlet Letter uses the material to greatest effect. The Puritans were a group of religious reformers who arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630s under the leadership of John Winthrop (whose death is recounted in the novel). The religious sect was known for its intolerance of dissenting ideas and lifestyles. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses the repressive, authoritarian Puritan society as an analogue for humankind in general. The Puritan setting also enables him to portray the human soul under extreme pressures. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, while unquestionably part of the Puritan society in which they live, also reflect universal experiences. Hawthorne speaks specifically to American issues, but he circumvents the aesthetic and thematic limitations that might accompany such a focus. His universality and his dramatic flair have ensured his place in the literary canon.
Plot Overview
The Scarlet Letter opens with a long preamble about how the book came to be written. The nameless narrator was the surveyor of the customhouse in Salem, Massachusetts. In the customhouse’s attic, he discovered a number of documents, among them a manuscript that was bundled with a scarlet, gold-embroidered patch of cloth in the shape of an “A.” The manuscript, the work of a past surveyor, detailed events that occurred some two hundred years before the narrator’s time. When the narrator lost his customs post, he decided to write a fictional account of the events recorded in the manuscript. The Scarlet Letter is the final product.
The story begins in seventeenth-century Boston, then a Puritan settlement. A young woman, Hester Prynne, is led from the town prison with her infant daughter, Pearl, in her arms and the scarlet letter “A” on her breast. A man in the crowd tells an elderly onlooker that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester’s husband, a scholar much older than she is, sent her ahead to America, but he never arrived in Boston. The consensus is that he has been lost at sea. While waiting for her husband, Hester has apparently had an affair, as she has given birth to a child. She will not reveal her lover’s identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her sin and her secrecy. On this day Hester is led to the town scaffold and harangued by the town fathers, but she again refuses to identify her child’s father.
※Puritan :The Puritans were a group of English Reformed Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to "purify" the Church of England from its "Catholic" practices, maintaining that the Church of England was only partially reformed
The elderly onlooker is Hester’s missing husband, who is now practicing medicine and calling himself Roger Chillingworth. He settles in Boston, intent on revenge. He reveals his true identity to no one but Hester, whom he has sworn to secrecy. Several years pass. Hester supports herself by working as a seamstress, and Pearl grows into a willful, impish child. Shunned by the community, they live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston. Community officials attempt to take Pearl away from Hester, but, with the help of Arthur Dimmesdale, a young and eloquent minister, the mother and daughter manage to stay together. Dimmesdale, however, appears to be wasting away and suffers from mysterious heart trouble, seemingly caused by psychological distress. Chillingworth attaches himself to the ailing minister and eventually moves in with him so that he can provide his patient with round-the-clock care. Chillingworth also suspects that there may be a connection between the minister’s torments and Hester’s secret, and he begins to test Dimmesdale to see what he can learn. One afternoon, while the minister sleeps, Chillingworth discovers a mark on the man’s breast (the details of which are kept from the reader), which convinces him that his suspicions are correct.
Dimmesdale’s psychological anguish deepens, and he invents new tortures for himself. In the meantime, Hester’s charitable deeds and quiet humility have earned her a reprieve from the scorn of the community. One night, when Pearl is about seven years old, she and her mother are returning home from a visit to a deathbed when they encounter Dimmesdale atop the town scaffold, trying to punish himself for his sins. Hester and Pearl join him, and the three link hands. Dimmesdale refuses Pearl’s request that he acknowledge her publicly the next day, and a meteor marks a dull red “A” in the night sky. Hester can see that the minister’s condition is worsening, and she resolves to intervene. She goes to Chillingworth and asks him to stop adding to Dimmesdale’s self-torment. Chillingworth refuses.
※reprieve:
(1)to stop or delay the punishment ,especially by death, of a prisoner
(2)to provide something with an escape from a bad situation or experience , especially to delay or stop plans to close or to end something.
※anguish: extreme unhappiness caused by physical or mental suffering
※impish: showing a child's pleasure in being playful and making trouble
※seamstress: a woman whose job is sewing and making clothes
※shun:
(1) to avoid something
(2) to ignore someone and not speak to them because you cannot accept their behavior ,beliefs ,etc.
Hester arranges an encounter with Dimmesdale in the forest because she is aware that Chillingworth has probably guessed that she plans to reveal his identity to Dimmesdale. The former lovers decide to flee to Europe, where they can live with Pearl as a family. They will take a ship sailing from Boston in four days. Both feel a sense of release, and Hester removes her scarlet letter and lets down her hair. Pearl, playing nearby, does not recognize her mother without the letter. The day before the ship is to sail, the townspeople gather for a holiday and Dimmesdale preaches his most eloquent sermon ever. Meanwhile, Hester has learned that Chillingworth knows of their plan and has booked passage on the same ship. Dimmesdale, leaving the church after his sermon, sees Hester and Pearl standing before the town scaffold. He impulsively mounts the scaffold with his lover and his daughter, and confesses publicly, exposing a scarlet letter seared into the flesh of his chest. He falls dead, as Pearl kisses him.
We're reading The Scarlet Letter and WE HAVE THOUGHTS
Frustrated in his revenge, Chillingworth dies a year later. Hester and Pearl leave Boston, and no one knows what has happened to them. Many years later, Hester returns alone, still wearing the scarlet letter, to live in her old cottage and resume her charitable work. She receives occasional letters from Pearl, who has married a European aristocrat and established a family of her own. When Hester dies, she is buried next to Dimmesdale. The two share a single tombstone, which bears a scarlet “A.”
Character List
Hester Prynne - Hester is the book’s protagonist and the wearer of the scarlet letter that gives the book its title. The letter, a patch of fabric in the shape of an “A,” signifies that Hester is an “adulterer.” As a young woman, Hester married an elderly scholar, Chillingworth, who sent her ahead to America to live but never followed her. While waiting for him, she had an affair with a Puritan minister named Dimmesdale, after which she gave birth to Pearl. Hester is passionate but also strong—she endures years of shame and scorn. She equals both her husband and her lover in her intelligence and thoughtfulness. Her alienation puts her in the position to make acute observations about her community, particularly about its treatment of women.
Pearl - Hester’s illegitimate daughter Pearl is a young girl with a moody, mischievous spirit and an ability to perceive things that others do not. For example, she quickly discerns the truth about her mother and Dimmesdale. The townspeople say that she barely seems human and spread rumors that her unknown father is actually the Devil. She is wise far beyond her years, frequently engaging in ironic play having to do with her mother’s scarlet letter.
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Roger Chillingworth - “Roger Chillingworth” is actually Hester’s husband in disguise. He is much older than she is and had sent her to America while he settled his affairs in Europe. Because he is captured by Native Americans, he arrives in Boston belatedly and finds Hester and her illegitimate child being displayed on the scaffold. He lusts for revenge, and thus decides to stay in Boston despite his wife’s betrayal and disgrace. He is a scholar and uses his knowledge to disguise himself as a doctor, intent on discovering and tormenting Hester’s anonymous lover. Chillingworth is self-absorbed and both physically and psychologically monstrous. His single-minded pursuit of retribution reveals him to be the most malevolent character in the novel.
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale - Dimmesdale is a young man who achieved fame in England as a theologian and then emigrated to America. In a moment of weakness, he and Hester became lovers. Although he will not confess it publicly, he is the father of her child. He deals with his guilt by tormenting himself physically and psychologically, developing a heart condition as a result. Dimmesdale is an intelligent and emotional man, and his sermons are thus masterpieces of eloquence and persuasiveness. His commitments to his congregation are in constant conflict with his feelings of sinfulness and need to confess.
Governor Bellingham - Governor Bellingham is a wealthy, elderly gentleman who spends much of his time consulting with the other town fathers. Despite his role as governor of a fledgling American society, he very much resembles a traditional English aristocrat. Bellingham tends to strictly adhere to the rules, but he is easily swayed by Dimmesdale’s eloquence. He remains blind to the misbehaviors taking place in his own house: his sister, Mistress Hibbins, is a witch.
Mistress Hibbins - Mistress Hibbins is a widow who lives with her brother, Governor Bellingham, in a luxurious mansion. She is commonly known to be a witch who ventures into the forest at night to ride with the “Black Man.” Her appearances at public occasions remind the reader of the hypocrisy and hidden evil in Puritan society.
Reverend Mr. John Wilson - Boston’s elder clergyman, Reverend Wilson is scholarly yet grandfatherly. He is a stereotypical Puritan father, a literary version of the stiff, starkly painted portraits of American patriarchs. Like Governor Bellingham, Wilson follows the community’s rules strictly but can be swayed by Dimmesdale’s eloquence. Unlike Dimmesdale, his junior colleague, Wilson preaches hellfire and damnation and advocates harsh punishment of sinners.
Narrator - The unnamed narrator works as the surveyor of the Salem Custom-House some two hundred years after the novel’s events take place. He discovers an old manuscript in the building’s attic that tells the story of Hester Prynne; when he loses his job, he decides to write a fictional treatment of the narrative. The narrator is a rather high-strung man, whose Puritan ancestry makes him feel guilty about his writing career. He writes because he is interested in American history and because he believes that America needs to better understand its religious and moral heritage.
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※ancestry: your ancestors who lived a long time ago, or the origin of your family.
※patriarch: a bishop in particular Eastern Christian churches.
※damnation: the act of sending someone to hell or the state of being in hell
Video SparkNotes:
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter summary
I really really want to know the reason why people love this series,
So I got some synopsis from Goodreads ,
Beginnings: Obsidian & Onyx (Lux, #1-2)
Obsidian
There’s an alien next door. And with his looming height and eerie green eyes, he’s hot… until he opens his mouth. He’s infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, he marks me. Turns out he has a galaxy of enemies wanting to steal his abilities and the only way I’m getting out of this alive is by sticking close to him until my alien mojo fades. If I don’t kill him first, that is.
Onyx
Daemon’s determined to prove what he feels for me is more than a product of our bizarro connection. So I’ve sworn him off, even though he’s running more hot than cold these days. But we’ve got bigger problems. I’ve seen someone who shouldn’t be alive. And I have to tell Daemon, even though I know he’s never going to stop searching until he gets the truth. What happened to his brother? Who betrayed him? And what does the DOD want from them—from me?
So this book has lots of paranormal romance,and crazy adventure!!!
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Today is my first day to begin my serene winter vacation
Since I am really worried about my major-- Approaches to Literature,I decide to preview some texts of my next semester's class.Besides ,I really loves American and British Literature,especially contemporary novels ,as you can see ,i ordered so many books from website,and I've created an account from Goodreads,and I am spooooooo exited for reading so many books.
Here we are to have our first class
CATHEDRAL
by Raymond Carver
 |
| Raymond Carver |
Summary
"Cathedral" is narrated by a man whose wife has invited an old friend to visit their home. The old friend, Robert, is blind, which the narrator identifies as Robert's defining characteristic. As the story begins, the narrator is troubled by the impending visit for reasons he can't quite explain, though he attributes it to Robert's disability.
As the narrator explains, Robert's wife had died recently and so he was visiting her family in Connecticut. As the narrator and his wife live nearby, Robert arranged to visit, and is on his way. The wife had worked briefly for Robert a decade before in Seattle. They have kept in touch by mailing tapes to one another, on which each narrated his or her life in detail. His wife had been living on the West coast with a man she was going to marry, and found Robert's ad seeking someone to read to him. On the last day she worked there, Robert (who the narrator continues to call "the blind man") asked to touch her face and she agreed. He ran his hands sensitively all over her face and neck, and the experience proved profound to the wife, who is an aspiring poet and has tried to memorialize his touch. She showed it to the narrator when they started dating, but he didn't care for it. He admits he might not understand poetry.
The narrator tells more of his wife's past. The man she was waiting for in Seattle had been her "childhood sweetheart," and after they married, they lived a military life as he was transferred to bases. One year after leaving Seattle, she contacted Robert, and they thereafter began to exchange the tapes on which they would tell each other their deep secrets. They continued to exchange tapes as her life as an Air Force wife got lonelier and lonelier, until she finally tried to kill herself with pills. She ended up throwing them up, but used the occasion to pursue a divorce, which was followed by her dating the narrator.
She once asked the narrator to listen to one of Robert's tapes. On it, he heard his own name spoken, a strange experience. They were interrupted by someone knocking, an interruption which pleased him.
The story jumps into its main action as the wife prepares dinner and the narrator glibly suggests taking Robert bowling. She begs him to welcome Robert and chides him for having no friends, "period." She tells him that Robert's late wife was named Beulah, which he finds bizarre. He asks her if Beulah was "a Negro," which makes her angry but also leads her to share more of Robert's past. Beulah began reading for Robert the summer after she had left, and they were soon thereafter wed. After eight years of marriage, Beulah was diagnosed with cancer and died. He feels sorry for Beulah, "a woman who could go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved." He imagines her life as miserable.
His wife leaves to fetch Robert from the depot, and he settles with a drink in front of the TV until he hears the car park and his wife's laughter. He watches from the window to see her helping Robert out of the car and down the drive. He is greatly surprised to see Robert has a full beard. He turns off the TV and finishes the drink, and then welcomes them in. His wife is "beaming" when she introduces them. They shake hands, and then she leads him to the sofa. The narrator considers making small talk, but only asks which side of the train Robert sat on. Though the wife think it a strange question, Robert answers it and says he had "nearly forgotten the sensation" of being on a train, it had been so long. The narrator sees his wife finally look at him, and he gets "the feeling she didn't like what she saw."
The narrator is impressed with how little like a stereotypical blind man (dark glasses, a cane) Robert looks. He does notice that Robert's eyes are creepy up close in various ways. The narrator offers to fix drinks and Robert says, "Bub, I'm a scotch man myself." The narrator is tickled by the use of the term "Bub" (which Robert continues to use through the story), and fixes the drinks.
They drink several rounds and talk, mostly about Robert's trip. The narrator is surprised to see Robert smoke cigarettes, since he thought the blind did not smoke. After a while, they sit to a huge dinner that the wife prepared. Before they start, the narrator offers to lead prayer, which confuses his wife, until he says, "pray the phone won't ring and the food doesn't get cold."
They eat heartily in silence, as the narrator admires Robert's proficiency with utensils and his willingness to use his fingers at times. After dinner, all are stuffed. They return to the living room with more drinks, and talk more about the past 10 years. Mostly, the narrator just listens (it's about what happened "to them," not him, he thinks), occasionally chiming in so that Robert doesn't think he's left the room. He is a bit contemptuous of how "Robert had done a little of everything…a regular blind jack-of-all-trades." Occasionally, Robert asks the narrator some questions, which he answers without much conviction.
After a while, he finally turns on the TV. His wife is annoyed, and spins it to ask Robert if he has a TV. Robert answers that he has two – one color, one black-and-white – and knows the difference. The narrator has "no opinion" on this. The wife confesses she's tired and heads upstairs to put on her robe.
They're alone for a while, which makes the narrator feel awkward. He pours them another drink and asks if Robert would like to smoke marijuana. He agrees and they smoke, Robert a bit awkwardly since he seems never to have done so before. When his wife returns, she gives the narrator a "savage look" for pulling out drugs, but Robert seems to enjoy it. They smoke for a while, until the wife tells Robert his bed is fixed upstairs and then she falls asleep on the couch. He notices her robe is open on her thigh, but doesn't bother to correct it since Robert can't see anyway.
He feels awkward again, and offers to lead Robert to bed, but Robert says he'll "stay up until you're ready to turn in," since they hadn't talked much. The narrator says he's "glad for the company," and realizes right away that he is. He confesses to the reader that he stays awake later than his wife each night, stoned, and often has dreams that frighten him.
They switch between the channels, but the only decent program is "something about the church and the Middle Ages." Robert says that works fine, since he's "always learning something" and now can be one of those times.
They are silent for a while, Robert turned with his ear to the TV, a position that disturbs the narrator a bit. The program shows medieval monks at work, and the narrator begins to explain the image to Robert. The TV shows a cathedral, and the narrator tries to describe it. Robert asks if the paintings are frescoes, but the narrator can't remember what frescoes are.
It suddenly occurs to the narrator that Robert might not know what a cathedral looks like at all. Robert knows only that they took generations to build, but doesn't really know what they look like. The narrator considers how to describe them, but can only muster simple descriptions – "They're very tall…they reach way up." He knows he's doing poorly, but Robert is encouraging and he continues trying. The narrator shares that "men wanted to be close to God" and hence built them high. After a while, Robert asks whether the narrator is at all religious. The narrator confesses, "I guess I don't believe in it. In anything." Knowing his descriptions are poor, he adds that cathedrals mean nothing to him, and are simply something on the TV.
Robert clears his throat and asks the narrator to do him a favor: find some paper and pen, and they will draw a cathedral together. He heads upstairs – his legs feeling "like they didn't have any strength in them" – and finds some supplies. They sit near one another and Robert closes his hand over that of the narrator, and tells the latter to draw.
Slowly and with little skill, he begins to sketch, Robert's hand following his own. He draws a "box that looked like a house" – "it could have been the house [he] lived in" – and continues to add onto it. Robert compliments the work and suggests the narrator never expected an experience like this one. The narrator keeps going – "I couldn't stop" – even as the TV station goes off-air. He keeps drawing, even as his wife wakes and is curious about what's happening. Robert's encouragement intensifies, and he suggests the narrator add people in the cathedral.
Robert tells the narrator to close his eyes, which he does, and then encourages him to draw that way. The narrator acquiesces, and the experience is "like nothing else in [his life up to now." After a bit, Robert tells him he thinks it's done, and suggests the narrator take a look. But he doesn’t open his eyes; he feels compelled to keep them closed. He knows he is in his house, but he doesn't feel "like he was inside anything." Robert asks him how it looks and the narrator, without opening his eyes to look, answers, "It's really something."
Initial Situation
A blind man is coming to spend the night at the narrator's house.
The narrator has issues with blind people. Not that he's ever met a blind person. But, he has seen them in the movies. In any case, he isn't looking forward to this blind man, Robert, his wife's "old friend," coming to visit . That's how "Cathedral" begins.
Conflict
The blind man has a history with the narrator's wife.
We learn that the blind man, Robert, and the narrator's wife have been corresponding for the past ten years, revealing to each other the most intimate details of their respective lives. It's obvious that the narrator is jealous of Robert. That's the conflict, and that's maybe also part of why the narrator has issues with blind people.
Complication
Robert arrives.
When Robert arrives, things are a little awkward. The narrator isn't sure what to say to Robert. The woman is sure that every word the narrator says is a veiled blind joke, even though he's actually being nice to Robert. The complication is the simple fact that three people are hoping to get along and have a good evening. Because they all have baggage, and linked histories, the situation feels complicated.
Climax
Either the dinner, the drinks, or "two fat numbers."
Actually, we could say that all three make up the climax of "Cathedral." The climax is the stage of the story where the characters emotions are at a high level. In "Cathedral," as the characters connect through what some might call hedonistic, or indulgent activities. The connection is rather fraught because of the loneliness and dissatisfaction and personal issues each of the characters is experiencing. The combination of warmth and discomfort contributes to the sense that something is going on which is bigger than it appears.
Suspense
Late night television.
The narrator's wife falls asleep, leaving the narrator and Robert alone. Will Robert and the narrator find a way to connect? And most importantly, will the narrator find a way to describe a cathedral to Robert?
Denouement
The narrator's wife wakes up; the narrator closes his eyes.
The dénouement stresses the deficiencies of eyesight. When the narrator's wife wakes up and sees Robert and the narrator drawing the cathedral, she can't process what she sees. Nothing mysterious is going on. It's obvious what they are doing. But, it's unusual – it deeply challenges her ideas about what Robert and her husband would do if they were left to their own devices. By closing his eyes, at Robert's insistence, the narrator admits that being able to see might actually be limiting his experience.
Conclusion
The narrator keeps his eyes closed.
Simple, but intense. Now that narrator has experienced seeing without his eyes, he feels free. We don't know if the feeling will last, if he'll continue his relationship with Robert, if his relationship with his wife will improve, etc. For now, the important thing is the moment, and both the complexity and the simplicity of his experience.
※glibly(acdverb) speaking or spoken in a confident way ,but without careful thought or honesty.
※chide: to speak to someone severely because they have behaved badly
=scold
=blame
=reproach
=castigate
※chime in: (phrasal verb) to interrupt or speak in a conversation ,usually to agree with that has been said.
※hedonistic: living and behaving in ways that mean you get as much pleasure out of life as possible ,according to the belief that most important thing in life is to enjoy yourself
※off-air : In radio or television, when a program goes off-air or when something happens off-air, it is not broadcast.
※muster: to produce or encourage especially an emotion or support
=collect
=rally
= assemble
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Roman Fever
by Edith Wharton
Summary
Roman Fever cover image
Two old friends, Alida Slade and Grace Ansley, are finishing lunch on the terrace of a Roman restaurant and move to the parapet, where they benignly contemplate the magnificent ruins of the Palatine and the Forum. Remarking that the scene below is the most beautiful view in the world, the two ladies agree to spend the afternoon on the terrace. Alida arranges with the waiter to permit them to stay until evening. They hear their daughters, Barbara Ansley and Jenny Slade, departing to spend the afternoon with two eligible young Italian men, and Grace remarks that the young women will probably return late, flying back by moonlight from Tarquinia. It becomes evident at this point that Grace has a closer relationship with her daughter than Alida has with Jenny because Alida did not know where the girls were going. Also, Barbara remarks a bit ruefully to Jenny as the two of them depart that they are leaving their mothers with nothing much to do.
At that point, Alida broaches the subject of emotions by asking Grace if she thinks that their daughters are as sentimental, especially about moonlight, as they once were. Grace responds that she does not know at all about the girls’ sentiments and adds that she doubts that the two mothers know much about each other either. The two women sit silently for a while, thinking about their perceptions of each other.
Alida’s perceptions of Grace are recounted as an interior monologue, which continues throughout the story, interspersed with passages of dialogue. As she reflects, she also reveals the circumstances of the years since she first met Grace. Grace had been married to Horace Ansley shortly before Alida had married Delphin Slade. Alida considered the Ansleys nullities, living exemplary but insufferably dull lives in an apartment directly across the street from the Slades in New York City. They had been superficial friends, and Alida had rather closely observed the irreproachable events of the Ansleys’ lives for a number of years before her very successful lawyer husband made a big coup in Wall Street and the Slades moved to a more fashionable Park Avenue address. She prided herself on the lively social life that she and Delphin enjoyed, and especially on her own skills as a hostess and a brilliant personality. Both women were widowed only a few months before the time of the story and have renewed their friendship in the common bond of bereavement.
Alida’s envy of Grace, despite her disparaging assessment of her, emerges in her thoughts at this time. She wonders how the Ansleys could have produced such a vivid and charming daughter, when her own Jenny seems by comparison so dull. She recalls that Grace was exquisitely lovely in her youth as well as charming in a fragile, quiet way. She reflects that she herself would probably be much more active and concerned if she had Barbara for a daughter.
Grace, for her part, has a mental image of Alida as a brilliant woman, but one who is overimpressed by her own qualities. She remembers Alida as a vivid, dashing girl, much different from her pretty but somewhat mousy daughter. She views Alida’s life as sad, full of failures and mistakes, and feels rather sorry for her. Thus, in part 1 of the story, the setting, the situation, and the attitudes of the two women are presented in a manner that suggests a placid, if superficial, friendship of many years’ standing, with both of the women secretly feeling some pity for each other’s past life.
Part 2 begins with the tolling of the five o’clock bells and the decision of the two women to remain on the terrace rather than going in to play bridge. As Grace Ansley knits, Alida Slade reflects that their own mothers must have had a worrisome task trying to keep them home safe despite the lure of the romantic evenings in Rome. Grace agrees, and Alida continues with speculations about the probability that Barbara will become engaged to the attractive, eligible young Roman pilot with whom she is spending the evening, along with Jenny and the second young man. Jenny, Alida reasons, is only a foil for Barbara’s vivacious charm, and Grace may be encouraging the companionship for that very reason. She tells Grace of her envy, stating that she cannot understand how the Ansleys had such a dynamic child while the Slades had such a quiet one. Alida recognizes in her own mind her envy, and also realizes that it began a long time ago.
As the sun sets, Alida recalls that Grace was susceptible to throat infections as a girl and was forced to be very careful about contracting Roman fever or pneumonia. Then she recalls a story of a great-aunt of Grace, who sent her sister on an errand to the Forum at night because the two sisters were in love with the same man, with the result that the unfortunate girl died of Roman fever. Alida then reveals that she used a similar method to eliminate the competition she believed existed between herself and Grace when, as young women in Rome, they both were in love with Delphin Slade. She cruelly reveals that she wrote a note to Grace imploring a rendezvous in the Colosseum by moonlight, and signed it with Delphin’s name.
Revealing her hatred further, she gloats about how she laughed that evening thinking about Grace waiting alone in the darkness outside the Colosseum, and how effective the ruse had been, for Grace had become ill and was bedridden for some weeks. Grace is at first crushed to learn that the only letter that she ever received from Delphin was a fake, but she then turns the tables on Alida by assuring her that she had not waited alone that night. Delphin had made all the arrangements and was waiting for her.
Alida’s jealousy and hatred are rekindled as she realizes that she has failed to humiliate Grace Ansley, especially when Grace states that she feels sorry for Alida because her cruel trick had so completely failed. Alida protests that she really had everything: She was Delphin’s wife for twenty-five years, and Grace has nothing but the one letter that he did not write. In the final ironic epiphany, Grace simply replies that she had Barbara. Then she moves ahead of Alida toward the stairway.
This battle of the two women for the integrity of their own status with respect to the man they both loved ends with the complete victory of the woman who has appeared to be the weak, passive creature. She moves ahead because she is now dominant. The source of Barbara’s sparkle is now revealed, and Grace is also now shown to be a woman who defied conventional morality and social restrictions to spend a night with the man she loved. Alida Slade is left only with the dismaying knowledge that she, in her attempt to be hateful and cruel, actually brought about the meeting that produced the lovely daughter she envies her friend having.
※terrace: a falt area if stone or grass outside a house, where people sit and sometimes eat
※parapet: a low wall along the edge of a roof, bridge, etc
※put your head over /above the parapet:
to be brave enough to state an opinion that might upset someone.
※aspiring: eager=would-be
※recount
※intersperse
※dashing: fearless
: marked by vigorous action
: marked by smartness especially in dress and manners
※placid: serenely free of interruption or disturbance
=easy-going
=even-tempered
=gentle
=peaceful
=quiet
※mousy: shy and nervous and having few interesting ualities
※epiphany: that you are interested ,or suddenly become conscious of ,something that is very important to you or a powerful religious experience
=inspiration
=realization
=oracle
※integrity: the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change
=honesty
=purity
=righteousness
=rectitude
( honsety and correct moral behaviour)
※ruse: a trick intended to deceive someone
※gloat: to feel or express great pleasure or satisfaction because of your own success or good luck,or someoneelse's failure or bad luck
=exult
(to express great pleasure or happiness ,especially at someone else's defeat. )
=crow【verb】
※foil: somrthing or someone that makes another's good or bad qualities more noticeable
=aetting
=checkmate
=discomfit
=balk
※bereavement: the death of a close relation or friend
※irreproachable: without fault and therefore impossible to criticize
※nullity: to make a legal agreement or decision have no legal force
※exemplary: very good and suitable to copied by other people
=admirable
=excellent
=honorable
=laudable
=sterling( conforming to the highest standard)
=meritorious
※broach: to begin a discussion of something difficult
=bring up
=hint at
=touch on ( to briefly talk or write about (something) ; to mention (something) briefly )
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Analysis:
Edith Wharton wrote “Roman Fever” in 1934 and included it in the collection The World Over (1936). In the New York Review of Books, Percy Hutchinson wrote that "Roman Fever" was “as memorable a short story as Ms. Wharton has ever done,” and “as sharp-cut as a diamond, and as hard of surface.” The plot is relatively straightforward, but the story’s structure, which buries one narrative within another, is a testament to Wharton's literary skill and her understanding of American high society. The primary narrative follows two middle-aged recent widows, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, who are meeting by chance in Rome. The women knit and reminisce about their shared history and discuss their teenaged daughters, Barbara and Jenny.
Over the course of the story, the reader learns that Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley had spent time together in Rome many years before. Wharton reveals the private thoughts of each woman at times, which is appropriate for these characters because society women would hesitate to share such intimate secrets with one another. Finally, the facade of politeness breaks down as the reminiscing focuses on one particular incident. Mrs. Slade was engaged to her late husband, Delphin, who was in turn, having an affair with Mrs. Ansley (who was single at the time). The women retread betrayals of the past, which results in a revelation that will rock their present-day lives: Barbara is actually Delphin's daughter. Thus, the story ends on a powerful and provocative note.
Armine Kotin Mortimer writes that "Roman Fever" is like the tip of an iceberg, and the massive bulk of subtext is submerged below the surface of the primary narrative. Most of the story's plot points take place in the past. Meanwhile, Wharton shrouds Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley's complicated history in simple, frank language. This is an accurate depiction of the way society women spoke to one another, and also allows Wharton to seductively dangle the truth in front of the reader until the story's final explosive exchange. By the end of "Roman Fever," the subtext has come to the surface and the reader is finally able to understand the underlying tension that exists between Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley.
Mortimer explains, “the fact that [Mrs. Ansley's affair with Delphin] is told in the second story mode has a great deal to do with our pleasure in reading ‘Roman Fever’. While the first story is staid because [it is] rule-governed and classical in design and structure, and because it has order, proportion, simplicity, and harmony, the second is feverish because it is told only in erupting elliptical fragments, apparently unintended, disguised and displaced.”
Against the backdrop of propriety and politeness, the reader must unearth the dark, sexual, jealous, and vengeful side of the story. In this way, Wharton engages the reader in the storytelling process as a voyeur as he/she unravels the writer's intent. From the beginning of the story, Mrs. Slade believes that she has the upper hand, but her control slips away as the hidden narrative begins to emerge. She pokes and pushes Mrs. Ansley, which is her way of punishing her friend for past transgressions. However, Mrs. Slade has no inkling of what she is going to unearth after toppling the emotional wall Mrs. Ansley has built around herself. Mrs. Ansley’s knitting is a symbolic defense or fortification against the bitter Mrs. Slade’s confessions and recriminations.
※backdrop: the general situation in which particular events
※voyeur: a person who gets sexual pleasure from secretly watching other people in sexual situations , or (more generally )a person who watches other people's private lives
※inkling(Adjective) when you think that something is true or likely to happen, although you are not certain
※topple: to cause to lose balance and fall down
※recrimination: arguments between people who are blaming each other
Wharton also frequently uses parallels or paired opposites to create the narrative structure of "Roman Fever." She writes about two women, each with one daughter, who have moved between America and Rome, and the past and the present, etc. Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade use their daughters as a segue to arrive at the conversation about their shared experiences in Rome. Whereas the city is now safe and romantic, it was once filled with danger and hidden but feverish sexuality. Rome itself is also marked by decadence and tragedy. Roman Fever was a deadly strain of malaria that infected many Romans when Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley were young. Wharton implies that Mrs. Slade sent Mrs. Ansley the false letter from Delphin so that Mrs. Ansley would go outside and become infected.
However, "Roman Fever" is concurrently a symbol of sexual longing. Mrs. Ansley's doctor suspected she was infected the night after she went out to meet Delphin. While she was not actually sick, she was pregnant with Delphin's love child. In the present, however, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade muse that Roman Fever is no longer a threat, so Barbara and Jenny have nothing to fear as they enjoy the sights and sounds of Rome. They are free to run about as they please and, as Mortimer writes, “are neither hampered by propriety nor troubled by romance. It is the mothers’ generation alone for whom the double structure of hiding exists.”
Edith Wharton wrote "Roman Fever" in the early 1930s, which was a time of immense political and cultural change throughout Europe. Fascist governments had begun to consolidate control in Germany and Italy. Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley are sitting on a terrace overlooking Rome's most famous historical sites, which were once sites of extreme violence and destruction. Meanwhile, Barbara and Jenny go off to Tarquinia with a couple of Fascist Italian aviators. Tarquinia was the site of Lucretia's rape and the fall of the Etruscan monarchy. Critic Abby Werlock emphasizes the historical context of "Roman Fever," writing that Wharton “poses Fascism as a real threat that looms just outside the story.”
At the end of the story, when Mrs. Ansley moves away from Mrs. Slade, she uses the phrase “Name of the Father,” which is an allusion to the Fascist obsession with patriarchy and purity. Werlock writes, “Mrs. Ansley’s feminist action of producing an illegitimate child can be seen as a politically threatening act” because she has acted outside the bounds of appropriate, government-sanctioned reproduction.
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The Scarlet Letter
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| Nathaniel Hawthorne |
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. His family descended from the earliest settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; among his forebears was John Hathorne (Hawthorne added the “w” to his name when he began to write), one of the judges at the 1692 Salem witch trials. Throughout his life, Hawthorne was both fascinated and disturbed by his kinship with John Hathorne. Raised by a widowed mother, Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College in Maine, where he met two people who were to have great impact upon his life: Henry Wadsworth Long-fellow, who would later become a famous poet, and Franklin Pierce, who would later become president of the United States.
After college Hawthorne tried his hand at writing, producing historical sketches and an anonymous novel, Fanshawe, that detailed his college days rather embarrassingly. Hawthorne also held positions as an editor and as a customs surveyor during this period. His growing relationship with the intellectual circle that included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller led him to abandon his customs post for the utopian experiment at Brook Farm, a commune designed to promote economic self-sufficiency and transcendentalist principles. Transcendentalism was a religious and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century that was dedicated to the belief that divinity manifests itself everywhere, particularly in the natural world. It also advocated a personalized, direct relationship with the divine in place of formalized, structured religion. This second transcendental idea is privileged in The Scarlet Letter.
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| Hester ,Pearl and Arthur Dimmesdale |
After marrying fellow transcendentalist Sophia Peabody in 1842, Hawthorne left Brook Farm and moved into the Old Manse, a home in Concord where Emerson had once lived. In 1846 he published Mosses from an Old Manse, a collection of essays and stories, many of which are about early America. Mosses from an Old Manse earned Hawthorne the attention of the literary establishment because America was trying to establish a cultural independence to complement its political independence, and Hawthorne’s collection of stories displayed both a stylistic freshness and an interest in American subject matter. Herman Melville, among others, hailed Hawthorne as the “American Shakespeare.”
In 1845 Hawthorne again went to work as a customs surveyor, this time, like the narrator of The Scarlet Letter, at a post in Salem. In 1850, after having lost the job, he published The Scarlet Letter to enthusiastic, if not widespread, acclaim. His other major novels include The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852), and The Marble Faun (1860). In 1853 Hawthorne’s college friend Franklin Pierce, for whom he had written a campaign biography and who had since become president, appointed Hawthorne a United States consul. The writer spent the next six years in Europe. He died in 1864, a few years after returning to America.
The majority of Hawthorne’s work takes America’s Puritan past as its subject, but The Scarlet Letter uses the material to greatest effect. The Puritans were a group of religious reformers who arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630s under the leadership of John Winthrop (whose death is recounted in the novel). The religious sect was known for its intolerance of dissenting ideas and lifestyles. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses the repressive, authoritarian Puritan society as an analogue for humankind in general. The Puritan setting also enables him to portray the human soul under extreme pressures. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, while unquestionably part of the Puritan society in which they live, also reflect universal experiences. Hawthorne speaks specifically to American issues, but he circumvents the aesthetic and thematic limitations that might accompany such a focus. His universality and his dramatic flair have ensured his place in the literary canon.
Plot Overview
The Scarlet Letter opens with a long preamble about how the book came to be written. The nameless narrator was the surveyor of the customhouse in Salem, Massachusetts. In the customhouse’s attic, he discovered a number of documents, among them a manuscript that was bundled with a scarlet, gold-embroidered patch of cloth in the shape of an “A.” The manuscript, the work of a past surveyor, detailed events that occurred some two hundred years before the narrator’s time. When the narrator lost his customs post, he decided to write a fictional account of the events recorded in the manuscript. The Scarlet Letter is the final product.
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| Pearl |
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| The Puritans |
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| Arthur Dimmesdale and his illegitimate daughter, Pearl |
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| Hester and her daughter |
※reprieve:
(1)to stop or delay the punishment ,especially by death, of a prisoner
(2)to provide something with an escape from a bad situation or experience , especially to delay or stop plans to close or to end something.
※anguish: extreme unhappiness caused by physical or mental suffering
※impish: showing a child's pleasure in being playful and making trouble
※seamstress: a woman whose job is sewing and making clothes
※shun:
(1) to avoid something
(2) to ignore someone and not speak to them because you cannot accept their behavior ,beliefs ,etc.
Hester arranges an encounter with Dimmesdale in the forest because she is aware that Chillingworth has probably guessed that she plans to reveal his identity to Dimmesdale. The former lovers decide to flee to Europe, where they can live with Pearl as a family. They will take a ship sailing from Boston in four days. Both feel a sense of release, and Hester removes her scarlet letter and lets down her hair. Pearl, playing nearby, does not recognize her mother without the letter. The day before the ship is to sail, the townspeople gather for a holiday and Dimmesdale preaches his most eloquent sermon ever. Meanwhile, Hester has learned that Chillingworth knows of their plan and has booked passage on the same ship. Dimmesdale, leaving the church after his sermon, sees Hester and Pearl standing before the town scaffold. He impulsively mounts the scaffold with his lover and his daughter, and confesses publicly, exposing a scarlet letter seared into the flesh of his chest. He falls dead, as Pearl kisses him.
We're reading The Scarlet Letter and WE HAVE THOUGHTS
Frustrated in his revenge, Chillingworth dies a year later. Hester and Pearl leave Boston, and no one knows what has happened to them. Many years later, Hester returns alone, still wearing the scarlet letter, to live in her old cottage and resume her charitable work. She receives occasional letters from Pearl, who has married a European aristocrat and established a family of her own. When Hester dies, she is buried next to Dimmesdale. The two share a single tombstone, which bears a scarlet “A.”
Character List
Hester Prynne - Hester is the book’s protagonist and the wearer of the scarlet letter that gives the book its title. The letter, a patch of fabric in the shape of an “A,” signifies that Hester is an “adulterer.” As a young woman, Hester married an elderly scholar, Chillingworth, who sent her ahead to America to live but never followed her. While waiting for him, she had an affair with a Puritan minister named Dimmesdale, after which she gave birth to Pearl. Hester is passionate but also strong—she endures years of shame and scorn. She equals both her husband and her lover in her intelligence and thoughtfulness. Her alienation puts her in the position to make acute observations about her community, particularly about its treatment of women.
Pearl - Hester’s illegitimate daughter Pearl is a young girl with a moody, mischievous spirit and an ability to perceive things that others do not. For example, she quickly discerns the truth about her mother and Dimmesdale. The townspeople say that she barely seems human and spread rumors that her unknown father is actually the Devil. She is wise far beyond her years, frequently engaging in ironic play having to do with her mother’s scarlet letter.
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Roger Chillingworth - “Roger Chillingworth” is actually Hester’s husband in disguise. He is much older than she is and had sent her to America while he settled his affairs in Europe. Because he is captured by Native Americans, he arrives in Boston belatedly and finds Hester and her illegitimate child being displayed on the scaffold. He lusts for revenge, and thus decides to stay in Boston despite his wife’s betrayal and disgrace. He is a scholar and uses his knowledge to disguise himself as a doctor, intent on discovering and tormenting Hester’s anonymous lover. Chillingworth is self-absorbed and both physically and psychologically monstrous. His single-minded pursuit of retribution reveals him to be the most malevolent character in the novel.
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale - Dimmesdale is a young man who achieved fame in England as a theologian and then emigrated to America. In a moment of weakness, he and Hester became lovers. Although he will not confess it publicly, he is the father of her child. He deals with his guilt by tormenting himself physically and psychologically, developing a heart condition as a result. Dimmesdale is an intelligent and emotional man, and his sermons are thus masterpieces of eloquence and persuasiveness. His commitments to his congregation are in constant conflict with his feelings of sinfulness and need to confess.
Governor Bellingham - Governor Bellingham is a wealthy, elderly gentleman who spends much of his time consulting with the other town fathers. Despite his role as governor of a fledgling American society, he very much resembles a traditional English aristocrat. Bellingham tends to strictly adhere to the rules, but he is easily swayed by Dimmesdale’s eloquence. He remains blind to the misbehaviors taking place in his own house: his sister, Mistress Hibbins, is a witch.
Mistress Hibbins - Mistress Hibbins is a widow who lives with her brother, Governor Bellingham, in a luxurious mansion. She is commonly known to be a witch who ventures into the forest at night to ride with the “Black Man.” Her appearances at public occasions remind the reader of the hypocrisy and hidden evil in Puritan society.
Reverend Mr. John Wilson - Boston’s elder clergyman, Reverend Wilson is scholarly yet grandfatherly. He is a stereotypical Puritan father, a literary version of the stiff, starkly painted portraits of American patriarchs. Like Governor Bellingham, Wilson follows the community’s rules strictly but can be swayed by Dimmesdale’s eloquence. Unlike Dimmesdale, his junior colleague, Wilson preaches hellfire and damnation and advocates harsh punishment of sinners.
Narrator - The unnamed narrator works as the surveyor of the Salem Custom-House some two hundred years after the novel’s events take place. He discovers an old manuscript in the building’s attic that tells the story of Hester Prynne; when he loses his job, he decides to write a fictional treatment of the narrative. The narrator is a rather high-strung man, whose Puritan ancestry makes him feel guilty about his writing career. He writes because he is interested in American history and because he believes that America needs to better understand its religious and moral heritage.
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※ancestry: your ancestors who lived a long time ago, or the origin of your family.
※patriarch: a bishop in particular Eastern Christian churches.
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| Patriarch |
※theologian: a student of theology
※congregation: an assembly of persons met for worship and religious instruction
※fledgling
=fledgling: new and without experinece
※aristocrat: a person of high social rank; a member of the aristocracy
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| aristocrat |
※discerns: to see , recognize or understand something that is not clear
※malevolent: causing or wanting to cause harm or evil
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| theologian |
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Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter summary
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