Literary Sudies Test

Introduction to the Literary Studies Take Home TERM Test P: Griselda Beacon St.: María Alejandra Amui Azize

Section One:

“Time does not bring relief…” , by Edna St. Vincent Millay

This is a petrarchan or Italian sonnet, so divided into an octave and a sestet. The

manner is which it is written is informal, it uses colloquial language establishing an intimate

relationship with the reader, a kind of confession. The rhyme pattern is abbaabba cdeecd.

The voice begins with a sorrowful lament (Time does not bring relief…), immediately

followed by a reproachful accusation (you all have lied, who told me time would ease me of my

pain!) that gives vent to a desperate evocation of the lost love. Parallelism is used to express

a desolation that does not recede, a feeling that is always present (I miss him…/I want him…).

The use of visual images, all conveying a sense of sorrow, loss and dissapearence (weeping,

shrinking, melt, smoke) sets the mood of the octave, a hopeless and gloomy atmosphere

which frames the voice’s feelings.

The adversative conjunction “But” introduces the contrast between a nature, a world,

that follows a pattern of life and gentle dissapearence, and her stubborn love which resists

time (But last year’s bitter loving must remain). The voice sounds rebellious here –must

remain- , and the use of this adjective –bitter- suggests that it is not death but abandonment,

the reason for the expressed feelings . The reader feels that the voice does not treasure the

lost love remembrance, but rather would be liberated if freed of it.

Other devices used are enjambment and caesura (There are a hundred places where I

fear/to go - -so with his memory they brim !); the first one for the sake of the rhyme scheme

and the second one, because that pause –like a sigh- introduces the voice´s explanation

which, again, is a lament. The sestet ends with an irony: the poet goes to a place where his

love has never been, anticipating the relief she will feel because of the absence of memories.

But the very act of thinking about this lack of memories, triggers the remembrance, so the

conscious effort to forget leads her to remember.

This poem is related in theme to Christina Rossetti’s Remember and Shakespeare’s

Sonnet 71. The three of them speak of the loss of love. But in these last two, the clear

reason for the parting is death, and the voice is that of the dead lover speaking to the loved

one left behind. In St. Vincent Millay’s poem, the loss could have been caused by death but -

as said previously- it also may have been abandonment its motivation, since the tone is not

sweet and lyrical as in the other two poems, but desperate and oppressive, willing to be freed

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of the chains of a “bitter” loving, and frustrated with the failure. The voice also differs here,

because the one who speaks is the one who stayed, either alive or loving the gone lover.

Section 2:

“Suppose Columbus”, by Charles Suhor

This is a shape – or concrete- poem, which means that it´s shape somehow follows the

topic presented. In this case, the author offers a supposition: that Columbus had been wrong

about the earth being round. The consequence of that misjudgement would have been

disaster, the fall of the ships into the abyss, one by one, until the end of Columbus himself. The

shape of the poem mirrors this hypothetical proposition, as the stanzas get larger while

approaching the limit of the flat earth, and then shorter when every ship has fallen and that is

the end of the expedition.

The syntax, which is against the cannonical order, to the point of being

ungrammatical, conveys the author’s intention to turn History upside down, changing –with

the opening supposition- the course of modern era. It also suggests how difficult it is to

consider a story –History - different from what we have been told: we accept a pattern and

follow it generally without question, so it takes a great effort – as in this case the effort to

derive some meaning when syntax is so altered - to consider an alternative, which at first sight

we find ridiculous.

Cohesion is achieved partly from the shape of the poem, and also from the use of the

names of the ships repeated as a static point, around which the rest of the poem develops.

From a Post- Colonial perspective, this poem opens a door to consider the effects of

the alternative presented . The failure of the expedition and the death of Columbus would

have meant a huge difference in the lives of American natives, their development wouldn’t

have been stopped or interfered by an alien civilization, they wouldn’t have suffered the

intrusion of a strange and arrogant culture. This reflection about the would-have-been

possibility, also stimulates a critical vision concerning the real History and its consequences..

Section 3:

Woolf’s short story “The new Dress”, is related through a stream of consciousness

narrative, in which the author creates the impression that the reader is eavesdropping on the

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flow of conscious experience in Mabel’s mind, gaining intimate access to her private

thoughts and so witnessing her suffering and increasing sense of inadequacy.

One of the characteristics of this technique is the use of very long sentences, without

pause, as in the beginning of the story: “Mabel had her first very serious suspicion…” up to the

moment in which Mabel registers that she is thinking : “No, it was not RIGHT”.

The presence of the mirror operates as an “objective correlative”, an object that

triggers Mabel’s emotions whenever it appears, which is periodically through the story: “

Mabel had her first very serious suspicion that something was wrong as she took her cloak off

and Mrs. Barnet, while handing her the mirror …”; “…she went straight to the far end of the

room, to a shaded corner where a looking-glass hung and looked”; “But she dared not look in

the glass”. This device is functional to the stream of consciousness, for the emotions caused

in this case by the mirror, are the stuff of which Mabel thoughts are made.

The stream of consciousness also allows movement in the scene, which occurs only

in Mabel’s mind. As she thinks -and shares her thoughts- different places appear ( her own

house,” Miss Milan’ s hot, stuffy, sordid, little workroom “, “…reading the other night in bed,

down by the sea on the sand by the sun”) while the place in the story does not change and is

always the room where the party takes place.

Section 4:

6.- The role of the weather and the nature in characterization: weather and nature

are used within a literary convention –the “pathetic fallacy”- which assumes that the natural

events reflect and accompany human events.

In “The Fall of the House of Usher” by E. A. Poe, , there are examples of the using of

this device: “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year,

when the clouds hung oppressively low in heavens…”; “ lurid tarn”; “ghastly tree stems…”. So.

nature in this story is in accordance with the sickening impression – the feelings- the visitor

experiences.

Also in “The Story of an Hour”, when Mrs. Mallard enters her room, after receiving the

news of her husband’s death, the weather -being an anticlimax to her pretended feelings –

surprises the reader and is a hint to the twist the story presents later: “She could see in the

open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.

The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares.

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The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless

sparrows were twittering in the eaves”.

Section 5:

Point of view, says Ann Charters1, refers to the way in which the story is told. It is the

author’s choice to construct the story using a first-person or a third –person narrator. In the

case of James’ “The Turn of the Screw”, the story begins with a first- person narrator: she

introduces the story, and is the one who makes the “exact” transcription of the manuscript the

governess had left Douglas, and Douglas had sent her –the narrator- before his death. So hers

is the hand, but she is only an instrument.

The point of view of the story, is that of the governess; it´s her word and her

assessment of every situation what we receive as readers, and we have to interact exclusively

with her version of the story. Nobody inside the text questions her about the real existence of

the “ghosts” of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint; no other character speculates about her

relationship with Miles; the text does not provide other voices about the governess’ mental

condition.

Therefore, every doubt concerning the governess’ version, enters the domain of

intertextuality and although there are many hints in the text –the governess’ background; her

platonic love for the master, her ambiguous relationship with the boy – the fact that the point

of view is only hers, - because this was the author’s choice- creates ample zones of

indeterminacy that, as Iser 2 expresses, are to be filled by the reader in a process of

interaction between the implicit and the explicit, between revelation and concealment.

Section 6:

The test, by Angela Gibbs

From a post – colonial perspective, the theme of this story is racism. Situated in the

United States of America, the first indication we have about Marian being black is the

dialogue she has with her employer, Mrs. Ericson, at the beginning of the story: “It`s probably

better to have someone a little older than you”, Mrs. Ericson said as Marian slipped into the

driver’s seat beside her…Yes, Ma’am, Marian said in her soft unaccented voice. “They probably

do like it better if a white person shows up with you”.1 Charters, Ann, The Short Story and Its Writer, 3rd ed. Boston, 1991.-2 Iser, Wolfgang, Interaction between Text and Reader, in Leitch, Vincent B. Gral Ed. (2001), The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York, Norton&Co.

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What Mrs. Ericson says in response to this, is also a prologue to the attitude she will

assume during the story ( “Oh, I don´t think it’s that”, Mrs Ericson began, and subsided after a

glance to the girl’s set profile”). The impression we readers get, is that she perfectly knows

how things are, and prefers to turn a blind eye on the fact of discrimination, probably

considering disgusting for a lady to openly speak about this matter, to recognize that this

exists.

Her thoughts, while Marian drives, reveal that she is also a racist. Even though she

shows affection for Marian, she obviously finds her functional for her role of servitude because

she is black (“Mrs. Ericson watched her dark, competent hands and wondered for the

thousandth time how the house had ever managed to get along without her, or how she had

lived through those earlier years when her household had been presided over by a series of

slatternly white girls who had considered housework demeaning and the care of children an

added insult”). As a reader, I can’t avoid the feeling that even Mrs. Ericson’s affection is

similar to that which she would feel for a very efficient washing- machine.

She expresses confidence in Marian’s ability to drive the car ( “You drive beautifully,

Marian”) and also tries to encourage her to focus on the present and forget her previous

failure. Marian shows that she is conscious of having been unfairly treated ( “ I don´t

remember doing all the things the inspector marked on my blank “ ) , and when she recognizes

the Inspector who flunked her, she turns to Mrs. Ericson, showing –for the first time- her

anxiety (Oh, Mrs. Ericson) and finding only a patronizing “Now, Marian” .

So, Mrs. Ericson knows that Marian is nervous and she has the opportunity to back her

up when the inspector invites her to go with them. Additionally, the nickname the inspector

gives Marian, and his blatant disregard of her opinion (“Mandy and I don’t mind company”)

are sure indications of his abusive attitude to her. In spite of this, Mrs. Ericson gives a lame

excuse and in stepping aside, she implicitly gives her permission to what is about to happen.

The inspector represents the white society of the time; feeling superior and in

command, he starts a cruel set of questions and comments in which he expresses his

assumptions about Marian; because of her sex and skin color, she is expected to have loose

morals, a lot of children, to be illiterate and a southerner.

Marion endures every horrible word, and tries to avoid the hideous stratagem the

inspector sets to trick her – or perhaps just to have fun humiliating her-, hiding her anger and

frustration, because she knows that there is no other option if she wants to reach her goal. It

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is only when the inspector makes fun of her being able to read, that her self-control begins to

slip (“I got my college degree last year, Marian said. Her voice was not quite steady”). And ,

finally when the inspector laughs at her college degree, she is unable to restrain herself any

longer and the inspector gets what he has been earning for from the beginning . As Marian

insults him, she also realizes that in a millisecond she has failed the test, and that the

inspector ‘s power has won.

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Literary Sudies Test