Summer
I have to start by saying that I really like Edith Wharton. Ethan Frome is one of my favorites and Wharton is an excellent author so I was happy to hear that we would be reading Summer this semester.
Okay, moving on...
Of all Mr. Royall had said she had retained only the phrase: "He told Miss Hatchard the books were in bad shape." What did she care for the other charges against her? Malice or truth, she despised them as she despised her detractors. But that the stranger to whom she had felt herself so mysteriously drawn should have betrayed her!
I like this passage because it is so relateable. Charity is smitten with this young man and is heartbroken that he has betrayed her by tattling on her to Miss Hatchard. She isn't concerned with being fired or with the books; rather she is concerned about the fact that Lucius has betrayed her. It seems like we've all been there at one time or another. Heartbroken by a crush, a lover, a friend and nothing else seems to matter except for their betrayal. This passage certainly opens up the rest of the book and the relationship between Lucius and Charity. She is taken with him and he with her and so the romance begins.
When she came down from her room for supper he was not there; and while she waited on the porch she recalled the tone in which Mr. Royall had commenced the day before on their early start. Mr. Royall sat at her side, his chair tilted back, his broad black boots with side-elastics resting against the lower bar of the railings. His rumpled grey hair stood up above his forehead like the crest of an angry bird, and the leather-brown of his veined cheeks was blotched with red. Charity knew that those red spots were the signs of a coming explosion.
This passage was important to me because it reaffirmed that lawyer Royall will most likely be the obstacle in the romance narrative of Charity and Lucius. I had a feeling before when he told Charity that he wanted to marry her and tried to come to her room but this passage really stood out to me. This man is obviously odd, lonely, depressed, weird, etc. and Charity knows it. I think he will really stand in their way and it makes me hope that Charity will get out of there. Wharton does an excellent job of describing Royall and I personally just get an odd sense about him. I think he is really going to be a villain in this novel if he hasn't been already.
Okay, moving on...
Of all Mr. Royall had said she had retained only the phrase: "He told Miss Hatchard the books were in bad shape." What did she care for the other charges against her? Malice or truth, she despised them as she despised her detractors. But that the stranger to whom she had felt herself so mysteriously drawn should have betrayed her!
I like this passage because it is so relateable. Charity is smitten with this young man and is heartbroken that he has betrayed her by tattling on her to Miss Hatchard. She isn't concerned with being fired or with the books; rather she is concerned about the fact that Lucius has betrayed her. It seems like we've all been there at one time or another. Heartbroken by a crush, a lover, a friend and nothing else seems to matter except for their betrayal. This passage certainly opens up the rest of the book and the relationship between Lucius and Charity. She is taken with him and he with her and so the romance begins.
When she came down from her room for supper he was not there; and while she waited on the porch she recalled the tone in which Mr. Royall had commenced the day before on their early start. Mr. Royall sat at her side, his chair tilted back, his broad black boots with side-elastics resting against the lower bar of the railings. His rumpled grey hair stood up above his forehead like the crest of an angry bird, and the leather-brown of his veined cheeks was blotched with red. Charity knew that those red spots were the signs of a coming explosion.
This passage was important to me because it reaffirmed that lawyer Royall will most likely be the obstacle in the romance narrative of Charity and Lucius. I had a feeling before when he told Charity that he wanted to marry her and tried to come to her room but this passage really stood out to me. This man is obviously odd, lonely, depressed, weird, etc. and Charity knows it. I think he will really stand in their way and it makes me hope that Charity will get out of there. Wharton does an excellent job of describing Royall and I personally just get an odd sense about him. I think he is really going to be a villain in this novel if he hasn't been already.
posted by Meegan at 8:22 AM
1 Comments:
You have to admit, it's really fun to read this last part of your post after having finished the novel....
I guess I have a lot of feelings about Mr. Royall and his being the villain or being almost like Charity's savior. He obviously was the obstacle in Charity and Harney's romance narrative, but there's a whole different narrative that has to do with marriage that obviously involves all of them. I guess I thought about your comment in relation to what we discussed today in class about the multiple layers of narratives in this book. I think it's interesting that, as we mentioned even about modern romance narratives, marriage is the end of the story. In this book, the romance narrative doesn't end in marriage, but Charity's story does end there. But the marriage is also the end of the narratives of abuse and incest. As far as Mr. Royall goes... I don't know how I felt about him before. I definitely didn't hate him because, even though he acted inappropriately, I think it could have been worse and he obviously regretted it. It wasn't him saying that he hated himself more than Charity hated him; it was the narrator. I can't say I loved the guy. I dunno. Anyhow, I don't really know how to react to him at the end either. I think he is trying to do what's best for her but his motives are obviously not completely unselfish. One of the narratives I wrote down in class today was the narrative of aging, which I think is part of Mr. Royall's character, and which, in this novel, also ends in marriage. I think that the connections between all of these narratives is really what makes this story so much fun to read. That and her writing, of course....
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