Spring 1999
This is another of my papers for my Critical Writing class. Again, I must explain that I was none too enthused about the class and my work reflects that feeling. That english class was the winter of my discontent, or spring, as it were. Enjoy.
Details and Examples Paragraphs
"The Darling"
Olenka, Chekov's "darling," adopts different opinions at different stages in her life. Her first husband, "Kukin, who was the manager of an open-air theatre called the Tivoli," exclaimed, "one's public is ignorant, boorish. I give them the very best operetta, a dainty masque, first rate music-hall artists. . . They don't understand anything of that sort. They want a clown; what they ask for is vulgarity." Because she loves him so much, she adopts his ideas and makes his passions her own. "She used to say. . . the theatre was the chief and most important thing in Life. . . But do you suppose the public
understands that?" she used to say. "What they want is a clown." After Kukin's death, she married Vassily Andreitch Pustovalov, "the manager at Babakayev's, the timber merchant's." Again, "her husband's ideas were hers." Because she loved a man of the timber trade, "she dreamed of perfect mountains of planks and boards," and her love of the theatre died. "I have no time to go to theatres. . . we have no time for nonsense." After Pustovalov died, Olenka married a veterinary surgeon, Voloditchka. She immersed herself in her new love's work. When her husband asked her to stop talking about veterinary issues, she said, "But, Voloditchka, what am I to talk about?" As before, she loved her husband to the extent that "she repeated the veterinary surgeon's words and was of the same opinion as he about everything. Voloditchka departed with his regiment and she was alone. "And this was the worst of all, she had no opinions of any sort. . . when she had Kukin, or Pustvalov, or the veterinary surgeon, Olenka could explain everything. . . but now there was an emptiness in her brain and in her heart." Later, Voloditchka returned with his wife and child and asked for lodging. She agreed and fell in maternal love with his son. As is the pattern, she smothered the child. Olenka's views coincide with those of whom she loves.
"My Kinsman, Major Molineux"
In "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," Hawthorne includes details that vividly depict the environment in which Robin's story takes place. Firstly, the sounds that Robin hears, in the beginning, are distant and their origin is ambiguous. However, the sounds draw closer and clearer as the story progresses. Robin hears "a murmur, which swept continually along the street, yet was scarcely audible. . . it was a low, dull, dreamy sound, compounded of many voices, each of which was at too great a distance to be separately heard." Later, he is awakened by "the sound of footprints along the opposite pavement." This sound is much closer than the murmur, yet its source has not yet become visible. Later still, the "noise of shouting, which had been remotely audible, drew much nearer." Finally, "the shouts, the laughter, and the toneless bray, the antipodes of music, came onward with increasing din, till scattered individuals, and their denser bodies, began to appear. . ." Secondly, the appearance of the people is so detailed that the person's clothing and countenance seem more familiar than the actual person. "She was a dainty little figure, with a white neck, round arms, and a slender waist, at the extremity of which her scarlet petticoat jutted out over a hoop. . ." The technique of focusing on the villagers' appearance has its full effect at the end of the story. Lastly, the villagers' behavior add to Robin's almost dream-like experience. Although they are all commoners, when Robin asks about the whereabouts of Major Molineux, each villager answers briefly and continues working as if Robin didn't exist. When Robin tells the innkeeper about his lack of money, "the innkeeper turned his eyes to a written paper on the wall, which he read, or seemed to read, with occasional recurrences to the young man's figure." Each person that Robin speaks to seems to have some task to fulfill and continues to work toward completing this task regardless of Robin. Finally, in the end, Hawthorne connects the three elements of sound, appearance, and the essence of the villagers' vague ulterior motive. "Then he heard a peal of laughter. . . a woman twitched his arm, a saucy eye met his, and he saw the lady of the scarlet petticoat. A sharp, dry cachinnation appealed to his memory, and, standing on tiptoe in the crowd, with his white apron over his head, he beheld the courteous little innkeeper. . . then Robin seemed to hear the voices of the barbers, of the guests of the inn; and of all who had made sport of him that night." Throughout the story, Robin is detached from what other people are doing and even his senses leave him with no hint as to what the people are doing. The end coalesces all the elements that contributed to Robin's detachment.
"Heart of Darkness"
The deeper the ship goes into the African jungle, in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," the darker both the setting and the shipmates' morals become. "In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits." The setting is luminous in the beginning of the story. However, as the story progresses, the human nature within the shipmates regresses. "It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled. . ." The narrator states that the "snake" fascinated him "as a snake would a bird - a silly little bird." Snakes eat birds. As the boat sails down the river and the setting becomes darker and darker, he is, figuratively, eaten by the snake. This marks the regression of human conscience. "The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf. . . some, I heard, got drowned in the surf; but whether they did or not, nobody seemed particularly to care." The breakdown of the humanity and the growth of the animal within is now evident. Later in the story, the men are made so dark that "there was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances." Tragically, the darkness of the jungle, which "looked at you with a vengeful aspect," takes control of Marlow completely. "I thought his memory was like the other memories of the dead that accumulate in every man's life - a vague impress on the brain of shadows that had fallen on it in their swift and final passage." He can hardly separate his life from the darkness. And finally, in the end, he alters the statement about the offing. "The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky - seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."