The Lady's Maid

LOVE By Jesse Stuart

The short story Love written by Jesse Stuart tells us about a minor happening somewhere on a corn farm from the point of view of one of the character – a boy or a young man, whose name isn’t given to us. The story starts with the exposition. We get acquainted with the protagonist, his father and their dog, Bob, who go to the edge of a new corn ground to plan a fence. The setting of the story is established in the exposition. It isn’t profound. We simply find ourselves on a corn field lit with bright sunlight. The main function of the setting is to strengthen the verisimilitude of the story and make it “general” so as to focus our attention on our life in general and not to distract it from the significance of the events. Then start the moments of complication. The protagonist’s father notices a squirrel, and, as squirrels do harm to the corps, he sets his dog on it. However, instead of finding a squirrel, the dog runs into a bull snake. The father commands to attack the snake. The protagonist disagrees, supporting his point of view with the argument that a bull snake is harmless. Moreover “It kills poison snakes. It kills the copperhead. It catches more mice from a field than a cat.” However, the father tells the dog to kill it. He says he hates snakes. The dog kills the snake and by doing it he slings some eggs from its body. The characters now understand that the snake had come to lay the eggs. This event makes the protagonist compare the snake with a human woman, giving birth to a child and not sparing their own lives to protect it from any threats. Next morning the protagonist and his father head to the clearing’s edge. Suddenly the protagonist notices another snake – a bull blacksnake. He realizes that it had come at night to its dead lover. This is the most crucial event of the story, emphasizing the strong parallel between the animal world and the world of people. However this time the father isn’t willing...

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Friday, May 7, 2010 “The Wind Blows” by Katherine Mansfield In Katherine Mansfield’s “The Wind Blows” Matilda wants urgently to flee her mother’s superficial, stifling world of appearances. So acute is Mansfield’s understanding of her adolescent protagonist’s need to have her inner world recognized, and so skillful is she in portraying this desire, I felt I was reading a story set in the present day, or in any day for that matter.

An autumn wind disturbs Matilda’s sleep, pulls her into a tumultuous day, and the story begins.

After getting dressed, Matilda, on route to her music lesson, tries to leave the house without having her appearance assessed by her mother, but her mother sees her: “Matilda. Matilda. Come back in im-me-diately! What on earth do you have on your head? It looks like a tea-cosy. And why have you got that mane of hair on your forehead?” (107).

A moment later, Matilda tells her mother to “go to hell” (107) and “run[s] down the road” (107). Matilda’s defiance could not be more intense, decisive, or directly portrayed.

At her music lesson, Matilda grows warmly fond of her music teacher, Mr. Bullen, a man honoring music and soul rather than appearances. Mansfield tells us that “[Matilda’s] fingers tremble so that she can’t undo the knot in the music satchel” (108). She blames the autumn wind for her unsteady hands, or, in other words, for her excitement in his comforting presence.

Later, in her bedroom, confronted with the stockings “knotted up on the quilt like a coil of snakes” (109) that her mother wants her to darn, Matilda refuses and then wonders if anyone has ever written poems “to the wind” (109), suggesting that she, unlike her mother, who is annoyed by the wind, is thrilled by its wildness; because poems emerge from one’s core, her desire to write a poem gives us the strong sense, again, that she prefers the inner world to an outer world of socks and bedrooms and hats and chores.

A minute later, she takes up an invitation from her brother, Bogey, to visit the sea; once they are outside, she says to him “ ‘This is better, isn’t it?’”(109). Down at the sea, with drops of sea water in her mouth, her hat off and “her hair blow[ing] across her mouth”(110), she spots a steamer in the harbor, and enters a reverie in which she is on the ship, departing the island forever. In these few lines, Mansfield demonstrates exquisite sympathy for the young girl’s chronic vulnerability- her need for a rich, alternate world empty of silly expectations and preoccupations is so intense, she slips into dreams.

Matilda wakes, though, and discovers “the wind—the wind” (110). She is not on the steamer; rather, she stands on the esplanade with Bogey. Ending her story with Matilda’s recognition of the wind, Mansfield gives us the sense that just as the wind never ceases, neither, perhaps, will Matilda in her need to find a place where her inner world will be recognized, where she will be recognized. The wind, throughout the story, can almost be viewed as a second Matilda; that is, Matilda and the wind have so much in common, particularly restlessness and ferocity.

Mansfield’s characterizations are detailed and nuanced:

“Shall I begin with scales,” she asks, squeezing her hands together. “I had some arpeggios, too.’ But he does not answer. She doesn’t believe he even hears…and then suddenly his fresh hand with the ring on it reaches over and opens Beethoven. “Let’s have a little of the old master,” he says. (108)

In this short sequence, Mansfield portrays Matilda’s fragility, her sensitivity to Mr. Bullen’s physical presence, and Mr. Bullen’s paternal ease with her.

Also, Mansfield does a wonderful job of showing us Matilda’s feelings: “Mr. Bullen takes her hands. His shoulder is there—just by her head. She leans on it ever so little, her cheek against the springy tweed” (108). In a few strokes of her pen, Mansfield draws Matilda’s longing to be comforted by the closest person she can find to a friend, and this longing veering into desperate, poignant action.

When I finished “The Wind Blows”, I wondered how Mansfield could have known, when she wrote this story, what I was like when I was young. She died so many decades before I was born; in fact, she died decades before my mother was born. Certain experiences must be universal to the adolescent girl: confinement of one sort or another, reverie and longing for a world in which she is understood and where she is not stifled.

Considering all of the stories Mansfield wrote in her short life, I wonder if it was her ability, along with her eye for physical detail and her musical writing, to penetrate the heart of any character without closing her eyes to what she saw and felt there, that explains why she is read today, and why I felt, at such a distance of time and geography, that I was reading a story about me.

Mansfield, Katherine. “The Wind Blows.” The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield. London: Penguin Group, 1981. 106-110.

After the Race
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search "After the Race"
Author James Joyce
Country Ireland
Language English
Genre(s) short story
Published in Dubliners
Publication type Collection
Media type Print
Publication date 1914
Preceded by ""Eveline""
Followed by ""Two Gallants""

"After the Race" is a short story by James Joyce published in his 1914 collection Dubliners.
The story [edit]

As many flashy cars drive toward Dublin, crowds gather and cheer. A race has just finished, and though the French have placed second and third after the German–Belgian team, the local sightseers loudly support them. Jimmy Doyle rides in one of the cars with his wealthy French friend, Charles Ségouin, whom he met while studying at Cambridge. Two other men ride with them as well: Ségouin’s Canadian cousin, André Rivière, and a Hungarian pianist, Villona. Driving back into Dublin, the young men rejoice about the victory, and Jimmy enjoys the prestige of the ride. He fondly thinks about his recent investment in Ségouin’s motor-company business venture, a financial backing that his father, a successful butcher, approves and supports. Jimmy savors the notoriety of being surrounded by and seen with such glamorous company, and in such a luxurious car.

Ségouin drops Jimmy and Villona off in Dublin so they can return to Jimmy’s home, where Villona is staying, to change into formal dress for dinner at Ségouin’s hotel. Jimmy’s proud parents dote on their smartly dressed and well-connected son. At the dinner, the reunited party joins an Englishman, Routh, and conversation energetically moves from music to cars to politics, under the direction of Ségouin. Jimmy, turning to Irish–English relations, rouses an angry response from Routh, but Ségouin expertly snuffs any potential for argument with a toast.

After the meal, the young men stroll through Dublin and run into another acquaintance, an American named Farley, who invites them to his yacht. The party grows merrier, and they sing a French marching song as they make their way to the harbor. Once on board, the men proceed to dance and drink as Villona plays the piano. Jimmy makes a speech that his companions loudly applaud, and then the men settle down to play cards. Drunk and giddy, Jimmy plays game after game, losing more and more money. He yearns for the playing to stop, but goes along nevertheless. A final game leaves Routh the champion. Even as the biggest loser alongside Farley, Jimmy’s spirits never dwindle. He knows he will feel remorse the next day, but assures himself of his happiness just as Villona opens the cabin door and announces that daybreak has come.
Themes [edit]

At the beginning of the story, before the characters are introduced, the cars speed through Inchicore, and the writer's own voice remarks that "through this channel of poverty and inaction the Continent sped its wealth and industry" and the Irish onlookers raise "the cheer of the gratefully oppressed".

Motor cars at the early 1900s were generally considered a luxury item, here serving as the symbol of the richer, wider world beyond the confines of backward Ireland. The protagonist Jimmy Doyle seeks to enter this wider cosmopolitan society and carve an equal place for himself, but this ends in failure: he finds himself out of his depth, becomes drunk and unable to keep track of the card game, and ends up losing heavily to the Englishman Routh whom he earlier challenged. The story can thus be seen as skeptical about the aspirations of Irish Nationalism to make an independent Ireland the equal of other countries.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 "The Lady's Maid." Katherine Mansfield.

One-minute review: Monologue. Lady’s maid devotes her entire life to her lady who appears to be helpless without her. In fact, she has gone through several ladies and laid them to rest. Yes, she almost got married, but at the last minute, as she watched her leady helplessly trying to do things for herself, she decided against marrying, gives Harry back the ring and other things, in order to stay and help her helpless lady.