| Feb. 23rd, 2006 @ 10:27 am Assignment 2, option 2 |
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Mr. Foster,
In reading your book, I have begun to analyze more and more the readings I've been encountering. In reading your book I've become more interested in what I'm indulging in rather than what's going to happen next. I pay more attention to the little details that I've never noticed before. I try to figure out if any of the characters or story lines seems familiar and what certain objects mean and if they are symbolic in any way. Your book has definitely enhanced more present and future reading experiences. Although it will be taking me longer to read through certain passages, trying pinpoint certain ideas than it normally does, it will be worth it in the end know that I'm getting the hang of how to really read.
I just recently read a short story called "The Girls" by Joy Williams, this story was very interesting. Some of the characters seemed to be closely related to a few of the chapters in "How to Read Literature Like a Professor." In chapter 10 "It's More Than Just Rain or Snow," you discuss the meaning of snow. "Snow is clean, stark, severe, warm, inhospitable, inviting, playful, suffocating, and filthy." Father Snow, one of the characters in the story falls in some of the same lines. He is an Episcopalian preist, whose lover just died. In the story he doesn't come off as very playful, he comes of as being very somber in the loss of his partner. He frequently is having breakdowns. I feel as though the author decided to name him Father Snow just for his total oppositeness in the sense of the word snow. He isn't being very inviting; in fact he is only really talkative to Arleen, his companion.
Arleen is a very interesting character. She goes hand in hand with chapter 14, "Yes, She's a Christ Figure, Too." Although there is no mention of wounded hands or feet, she does have a presence that is felt throughout the entire story. She has very long hair, she enjoys nature and animals. She uses humble modes of transportation, “I took a lovely long walk early this morning, I bicycled out to the moors and then I walked. It began to rain, quite hard, and then suddenly it stopped and was beautiful.” After that passage she recites something that she has read before almost how Christ would recite his parables. She also resembles a very well known image of Christ, “Arleen was on the ground at Father Ice’s feet, her head flung back, drying her hair. Father Ice was talking with his eyes shut, tears streaming down his cheeks.” She also had Clarissa or Mommy confide in her about her dreams. “‘Headaches…Palpitations…Isolated…Guilt’ and that’s a sketch of a photograph your mother showed me.” Arleen goes on to tell the girls that their mother confides in her. “Your mother thinks of her heart as a speeding car…too big, too fast, out of control, no one at the wheel. And in her head too, a speeding…further on, there are accounts of some of her dreams.” The author didn’t completely coincide with what you had to say. She took some liberty and made her Christ figure a little more ambiguous.
The girls who seemed like they were 16 and 19 years old rather than 31 and 33 years old were almost devilish. They lied to their parents; they stole lace from their mothers wedding dress for a piece of art they were working on. “These were attractive assemblages, neither morbid nor violent nor sexually repressed as was so common with these objects, but tasteful, cold and peculiar.” Everything the girls did was in unison, although they were twins, they considered themselves to be Siamese twins in the sense that they didn’t like to be separated. Both of the girls have cats. Four to be exact but two of them are dead and are kept in urns on the mantle. The cats play a major part in the story. But I’m unsure of why the author added them into the story. It seems to have some representation of the girls and how they act. Cats are very provocative in how they walk, they are slinky. The girls seem to be the same way. They are provocative. “There were always men around. Men were drawn to them, but one would not be courted without the other… Men did not mind the fact that they would not be separated. It excited them agreeably in fact.” Mr. Foster, I haven’t found anything in your book about animals and their symbolism. I don’t know where this connection goes but it’s strong. The girls and the cats play off of one another.
The parents in this story play an odd role. They aren’t that important until the very end. When the girls ask them to tell everyone the story of how Daddy proposed to Mommy and how in his conquest he actually killed someone. Although this story doesn’t seem to faze anyone as odd, the only person it seems to have upset was Father Snow. Is that because he is a priest? I’m not really sure. After this passage Arleen says something out of the ordinary to Mommy, which gets everyone upset.
“You should get rid of them.”
“The cats?” Mommy said.
“The girls,” Arleen said. “High time for them to be gone.”
“Your mother is not well, you’re killing her.”
After Arleen says that Mommy dies, it was a weird foreshadowing of what was going to happen. Arleen goes to where Clarissa (Mommy) has fallen and cradles her head. But the girls, who love Mommy, just sit there.
Why is it that Joy Williams writes about such girls? I don’t know where I’ve seen these girls before but they have to be around somewhere. The cats really play a large role in who the girls are but why? The author knew some symbol that I don’t. As for other readers they may be as lost as I am.
Mr. Foster, thank you for letting me see that there are reasons for everything. I know that there is a reason for the cats and the girls but I’m unsure of what they are, since I’m still an amateur at this “real” reading stuff.
Thank you for opening my eyes to this new world of literature. I will definitely be practicing how to read.
Stephanie Gouran |
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