PART 2 Modernism
The Arrival, ca. 1913. Christopher R. W. Nevinson. Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in. Tate Gallery, London.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science.”
—Albert Einstein, “What I Believe” 1105 Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY
11105105 U6P2-845482.inddU6P2-845482.indd Sec2:1105Sec2:1105 11/29/07/29/07 1:56:301:56:30 PMPM BEFORE YOU READ
Yeats’s Poetry
MEET WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
illiam Butler Yeats (yats¯ ) is universally regarded as one of the greatest poets Wof the twentieth century. Born into an Anglo-Irish Protestant family in the Dublin suburb of Sandymount, Yeats loved to read and daydream as a child, especially during his summers at his grandparents’ home in County Sligo, where he rode his pony about the scenic countryside and discovered Irish folklore and mythology. with his friend and patron, Augusta, Lady Gregory, and the playwright J. M. Synge. Yeats contributed Irish Romantic The son of a distinguished por- many of his own plays to this theater, including The trait painter, Yeats briefly studied painting but Land of Heart’s Desires. He hoped to unite Catholics turned to writing poetry in his teens. His early and Protestants in Ireland through a national litera- work was influenced by the Romantics, particularly ture that transcended religious differences. William Blake. Yeats even dressed the part of the romantic young poet, wearing a flowing tie, brown velvet jacket, and his father’s old cape and wide- “We should write out our own thoughts brimmed hat. in as nearly as possible the language we When Yeats was twenty-three, he published his first book of verse, and soon afterward a young thought them in, as though in a letter to woman named Maud Gonne arrived at his home an intimate friend.” to tell him that his poetry had moved her deeply. This meeting began Yeats’s long obses- —William Butler Yeats sion with Gonne, an actress and Irish patriot who inspired him to join the fight to free Ireland from British rule. From Romantic to Modernist In middle age, Although Gonne refused Yeats’s many marriage when Yeats reread the poems of his youth, he proposals, she haunted his imagination and became found “little but romantic convention, unconscious a central figure in his poetry. Yeats did not end his drama.” He began to write in a less romantic style pursuit of her until 1916, more than twenty years that more closely resembled natural speech. His after they had first met. He later wrote that it was poetry became less dreamlike and more energetic; a “miserable love affair” and that he might as well his imagery became more economical and his tone have been offering his heart to a statue in a museum. more conversational. “Sentimentality,” he declared, Fortunately, Yeats found contentment in 1917, “is deceiving oneself; rhetoric is deceiving other when he married Georgie Hyde-Lees. people.” Yeats received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. Yeats combined his passions for literature and for William Butler Yeats was born in 1865 and died Irish nationalism by joining the Celtic Revival, a in 1939. cultural and political movement dedicated to Irish independence and to the use of Irish folklore in lit- erature. He also presided over the Irish National Author Search For more about Theatre Society at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin William Butler Yeats, go to www.glencoe.com.
1106 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE Hulton Getty/Tony Stone Images
11106-1109106-1109 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11061106 33/7/06/7/06 44:54:19:54:19 PMPM LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW
Connecting to the Poems Reading Strategy Drawing Conclusions In these poems, Yeats reveals his thoughts and feelings About Author’s Meaning about a special place and a special person. As you Drawing conclusions is part of the process of inferring, read, think about the following questions: or making informed guesses about what an author • Where would you like to go to find peace and suggests. Because poets often suggest meaning rather renewal? than state it directly, drawing conclusions is essential to How would you describe this place of peace? constructing meaning in a poem. When you draw a • conclusion, you make a general statement that is sup- Building Background ported by evidence. Yeats’s early poems “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and “When You Are Old” are romantic, lyrical, and dream- Reading Tip: Taking Notes Use a chart like the one like. “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” was influenced by below to record conclusions you draw from the details Yeats’s reading of Walden by Henry David Thoreau, presented in the poems. a nineteenth-century American writer, who described his retreat from the city to a simple cabin by a forest Details Conclusions pond. Yeats wrote his poem after the sight of a small fountain in a shop window in London brought the The speaker plans The speaker dreams sound of Sligo’s lake water lapping back into his to build a small of a simple life close consciousness. cabin, raise bees, to nature. and plant beans. Setting Purposes for Reading
Big Idea Modernism The Modernist poets were fascinated with contrast and the tension between opposites. As you read, notice how Yeats’s early poetry reflects this characteristic.
Literary Element Rhyme Scheme The pattern that end rhymes form in a stanza or poem is known as its rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme is designated by assigning a different letter of the alpha- bet to each new rhyme. • See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R15.
Juliette Drouet, 1883. Jules Bastien-Lepage. Oil on canvas, 36 x 31 cm. Musée Victor Hugo, Paris.
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
OBJECTIVES In studying these selections, you will focus on the following: • analyzing rhyme scheme • analyzing literary periods • drawing conclusions about author’s meaning
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 1107 Musée Victor Hugo/akg-images
11106-1109106-1109 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11071107 11/10/07/10/07 10:04:3210:04:32 AMAM William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,1 1. Innisfree is an island in County Sligo. Yeats had wanted to go And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles2 made: to Innisfree since hearing of it Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, as a child. 3 And live alone in the bee-loud glade. 2. Wattles are walls made of twigs. 5 And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes 3. A glade is an open space in the forest. dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s4 wings. 4. A linnet is a small brown songbird. I will arise and go now, for always night and day 10 I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
William Butler Yeats
When you1 are old and gray and full of sleep, 1. Some critics think that the you Yeats is addressing is Maud And nodding by the fire, take down this book, Gonne, the woman he loved And slowly read, and dream of the soft look and who rejected his proposals Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; of marriage. However, this poem is actually a free 5 How many loved your moments of glad grace, translation of Pierre de Ronsard’s sonnet to his love
And loved your beauty with love false or true, Hélène (see page 460). But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,2 2. Glowing bars refers to the 10 Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled grate in front of the fireplace. And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Literary Element Rhyme Scheme Which lines rhyme in this stanza?
1108 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
11108108 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11081108 33/7/06/7/06 44:07:06:07:06 PM AFTER YOU READ
RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond Analyze and Evaluate 1. Would you like to live in Innisfree or a place like it? 5. In “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” what do you think Why or why not? Innisfree symbolizes, or represents, for the speaker? Recall and Interpret 6. In “When You Are Old,” what does the personifica- tion of love seem to suggest about the woman? 2. (a)List three details from “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” About the speaker’s love for the woman? that describe this special place. (b)What can you infer about this place from the speaker’s descrip- 7. Evaluate the speaker’s tone, or attitude toward the tion of it? subject, in “When You Are Old.” Does the speaker seem disillusioned? Why or why not? Use details 3. (a)What does the speaker hear “in the deep heart’s from the poem to support your answer. core”? (b)What do you think it means to hear something in this manner? Connect
4. (a)According to the speaker in “When You Are Old,” 8. Big Idea Modernism What contrasts does the how does his love differ from that of others? speaker suggest in these poems? (b)What might you infer about the relationship between the woman and the speaker?
LITERARY ANALYSIS READING AND VOCABULARY
Literary Element Rhyme Scheme Reading Strategy Drawing Conclusions In these poems, Yeats adopts the traditional form of About Author’s Meaning the lyric with a recurring pattern of rhyming sounds. Drawing conclusions helps you find connections 1. What is the rhyme scheme of “When You Are Old”? among the details in a poem and see the larger picture. 2. How does the rhyme help reinforce the meaning? 1. Will the speaker in “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” ever really go to Innisfree? Explain. Writing About Literature 2. In “When You Are Old,” what does the speaker want the woman to feel as she reads the poem? Compare and Contrast Poems “When You Are Old” What clues support your conclusion? is based on Pierre de Ronsard’s poem “To Hélène” (see page 460). Reread both poems and then write a brief essay in which you compare and contrast the Academic Vocabulary poems’ forms, tone, and content. Here is a word from the vocabulary list on page R82.
liberal (lib rəl) adj. generous; giving freely
Practice and Apply Is the speaker in “When You Are Old” liberal or ungenerous? Explain.
Web Activities For eFlashcards, A Lakeside Gathering. Henry Boddington. Gavin Graham Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to Gallery, London. www.glencoe.com.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 1109 Fine Art Photographic Library, London / Art Resource, NY
11106-1109106-1109 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11091109 66/27/06/27/06 2:39:052:39:05 PMPM BEFORE YOU READ Sailing to Byzantium and The Second Coming
LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW
Connecting to the Poems Reading Strategy Analyzing Figurative In “Sailing to Byzantium,” the speaker describes a time- Language: Metaphor less realm of the imagination; in “The Second Analyzing is the process of looking critically at the Coming,” the speaker utters a grim prophecy triggered separate parts of a literary work in order to understand by trends he observes in the modern world. As you the whole. When you analyze metaphors, you identify read, think about the following questions: figures of speech that make comparisons without • What place would you choose to symbolize the using the words like or as. You then consider what the kingdom of the imagination? poet achieves by using metaphors instead of literal • Are conditions in the world getting better or worse? language. Reading Tip: Identifying Metaphors As you read, Building Background record your interpretations of the metaphors in the The Byzantine Empire was the name of the eastern, or poems. Greek, division of the Roman Empire. The capital city of Byzantium was a great center of artistic activity dur- Vocabulary ing the Middle Ages. Yeats regarded Byzantium as a holy city of the imagination, a perfect blend of the artifice (ar tə fis) n. trickery; deception; practical, the spiritual, and the artistic. p. 1111 Her friendly attitude was a mere artifice. “The Second Coming” is based on Yeats’s theory that anarchy (an ər ke¯) n. a complete lack of politi- cycles of history and nature occur every two thousand cal order; chaos; p. 1113 Mobs of citizens rioted, years. During this time, one civilization evolves and storming the capitol and ushering in a state of anarchy. decays, eventually replaced by another. The title of the conviction (kən vik shən) n. a strong belief; poem alludes to the New Testament prediction of p. 1113 Is it your conviction that writing helps one Christ’s return to Earth at the end of the world, after a think better? time of terror and chaos. vex (veks) v. disturb; trouble; irritate; p. 1113 Eager to catch her train, she was vexed by the waiter’s Setting Purposes for Reading slow service. Big Idea Modernism Vocabulary Tip: Context Clues You can often fig- Yeats exerted enormous influence on the Modernist ure out the meanings of unfamiliar words by look- poets, particularly in his use of symbolism. As you ing for clues in the context, or the surrounding read, notice the symbolic richness of these poems. words and sentences.
Literary Element Structure Structure is the framework or general plan of a literary work. Structure refers to the relationship of the parts of a work to one another and to the whole piece. As you read, notice the structure of these poems. Interactive Literary Elements Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, • See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R17. go to www.glencoe.com.
OBJECTIVES In studying these selections, you will focus on the following: • analyzing figurative language and meter • analyzing literary periods • understanding the structure of poetry
1110 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
11110-1116110-1116 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11101110 11/10/07/10/07 10:09:1910:09:19 AMAM William Butler Yeats
I III That is no country for old men. The young O sages3 standing in God’s holy fire In one another’s arms, birds in the trees As in the gold mosaic of a wall, —Those dying generations—at their song, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,4 The salmon-falls,1 the mackerel-crowded 20 And be the singing-masters of my soul. seas, Consume my heart away; sick with desire 5 Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer And fastened to a dying animal long It knows not what it is; and gather me Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Into the artifice of eternity. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unaging intellect. IV 25 Once out of nature I shall never take II My bodily form from any natural thing, An aged man is but a paltry2 thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths 10 A tattered coat upon a stick, unless make Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder Of hammered gold and gold enameling sing To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;5 For every tatter in its mortal dress, 30 Or set upon a golden bough to sing Nor is there singing school but studying To lords and ladies of Byzantium Monuments of its own magnificence; Of what is past, or passing, or to come. 15 And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. 3. Sages are the wise men pictured on the walls of the churches in Byzantium. 4. Perne in a gyre means to spin around in a spiral motion. 1. Salmon-falls are the rapids in rivers that salmon swim up to Yeats associated gyres with the spinning of fate; here, the spawn. speaker asks the images on the wall to come down and spin 2. Paltry means “worthless.” him into their timeless state of being. 5. But such a form . . . awake refers to something Yeats once read about: An emperor in Byzantium had a tree made of gold and silver upon which artificial birds sat and sang.
Literary Element Structure How might the last two stanzas of this poem contrast with the first two?
Vocabulary artifice (ar tə fis) n. trickery; deception
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 1111 Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey /Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY
1111 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1111 6/27/06 2:41:13 PM The New Planet, 1921. Konstantin Fiodorvich Juon. Tempera on cardboard, 71 x 101 cm. Tretjakov Gallery, Moscow.
William Butler Yeats
1112 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE Tretjakov Gallery/Photo: akg-images
11112-1113112-1113 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11121112 33/7/06/7/06 55:06:31:06:31 PM T urning and turning in the widening gyre1 The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 5 The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; 10 Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi2 Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man,3 15 A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep4 20 Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,5 And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem6 to be born?
1. A gyre is a circular form or motion. 2. The Latin phrase Spiritus Mundi means “Spirit of the World.” Yeats believed that all people are connected through this spirit and that it constitutes the collective, inherited body of myths and symbols common to all cultures. 3. [A shape . . . man] This figure is meant to resemble the Egyptian sphinx. 4. [That twenty . . . sleep] The speaker is referring to the two-thousand- year period before the birth of Christ. 5. Rocking cradle refers to the birth of the infant Jesus. 6. Bethlehem was the birthplace of Jesus Christ.
Literary Element Structure With which image in the first part of this poem does the image of “the indignant desert birds” contrast?
Big Idea Modernism What might the “rough beast” symbolize?
Vocabulary anarchy (an ər ke¯) n. a complete lack of political order; chaos conviction (kən vik shən) n. a strong belief vex (veks) v. disturb; trouble; irritate
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 1113
1112-1113 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1113 6/27/06 2:42:02 PM AFTER YOU READ
RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond Analyze and Evaluate 1. What line or lines from the poems made the stron- 6. In “Sailing to Byzantium,” how would you describe gest impression on you? Why? the speaker’s attitude toward aging and death? Recall and Interpret 7. Evaluate the mood of “The Second Coming.” How does the speaker’s tone, or attitude toward the 2. (a)What is the country described in the first stanza subject, contribute to that mood? of “Sailing to Byzantium” like? (b)Why does the speaker travel to Byzantium? 8. Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” shortly after the end of World War I. What relationship can you see 3. (a)In lines 17–24 of “Sailing to Byzantium,” what between the devastation of war and the events does the speaker ask the sages to do? (b)Why do described in this poem? you think the speaker makes these requests? 4. (a)In “The Second Coming,” how does the speaker Connect describe the state of the world and human affairs 9. Big Idea Modernism Explain how Yeats uses in the first stanza? (b)What seems to be the speak- the notions of song and singing in a symbolic way er’s attitude toward this situation? in “Sailing to Byzantium.” 5. (a)According to the speaker, where is the “rough beast” going? (b)Why is it going there?
VISUAL LITERACY: Graphic Organizer
Organizing Details in Poetry
You can often use graphic organizers to record Group Activity Discuss the following questions details in a literary work and your ideas about them. with classmates. Refer to your graphic organizer For example, you might organize the details in “The and cite evidence from “The Second Coming” for Second Coming” in a diagram like the one below. support. Copy this organizer on a separate sheet of paper 1. Do the details in the first stanza lead you to and fill it in. conclude that the “Second Coming” is at hand? Explain. STANZA 1 DETAILS “The falcon 2. Yeats does not indicate what will result after the cannot hear “rough beast” is born in Bethlehem. What do the falconer” you imagine will happen then? ➧ 3. How will the “rough beast” differ from Christ? Suggests: STANZA 2 DETAILS “some revelation is at hand” ➧
Result?
1114 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
11110-1116110-1116 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11141114 66/27/06/27/06 2:42:512:42:51 PMPM LITERARY ANALYSIS READING AND VOCABULARY
Literary Element Structure Reading Strategy Analyzing Figurative Structure refers to the sequence of thoughts and Language: Metaphor images that work together to impart the meaning of a When you analyze metaphors, you look critically at poem. examples of this figure of speech to determine what 1. In what way is the structure of “Sailing to they contribute to the poem as a whole. Byzantium” symmetrical? 1. In “Sailing to Byzantium,” to what does the speaker 2. How would you describe the structure of “The compare “an aged man” in line 10? What does this Second Coming”? Consider the subject matter of comparison suggest? each stanza. 2. Why is the metaphor of a “dying animal” in line 22 effective? Review: Meter 3. In “The Second Coming,” what is “the ceremony of innocence” in line 6? As you learned on page 995, meter refers to a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that gives a line of poetry a predictable rhythm. In “Sailing to Vocabulary Practice Byzantium,” Yeats uses iambic pentameter, meaning Use context clues that each line of verse usually contains five feet in Practice with Context Clues to figure out the meaning of the boldfaced vocabu- which a stressed syllable follows an unstressed one. lary word in each sentence below. An octave is a stanza that consists of eight lines. 1. An ingenious artifice, her kind attitude was a Ottava rima is a stanza written in iambic pentameter clever cover. with an abababcc rhyme scheme. a. decoration b. deception c. harmony Copy a stanza from “Sailing to Byzantium.” Scan the 1. 2. Some frontier towns were in a state of anarchy meter and mark the rhyme scheme. Is the stanza until federal marshals and judges arrived. written in ottava rima? Explain. a. lawlessness b. poverty c. starvation 2. What effects do the meter and rhyme scheme 3. You must stand up for your convictions when create in “Sailing to Byzantium”? Give examples. others challenge them. a. beliefs b. plans c. excuses 4. The teacher was vexed when the blaring horns from passing cars interrupted his lecture. a. confi dent b. confused c. irritated
Academic Vocabulary
Here is a word from the vocabulary list on page R82. This word will help you think, write, and talk about the selections.
erode (i rod¯ ) v. wear away; eat into
Practice and Apply What evidence suggests that Yeats’s Romantic views eroded after World War I?
The Great Sphinx against the Great Pyramid of Cheops, Egypt.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 1115 © Paul Almasy/CORBIS
1110-1116 U6P2App-845482.indd 1115 6/27/06 2:43:17 PM WRITING AND EXTENDING GRAMMAR AND STYLE
Writing About Literature Yeats’s Language and Style Evaluate Author’s Craft Write an essay evaluating Using Conjunctions A conjunction is a word that Yeats’s use of metaphor. Support your assessment joins single words or groups of words. In his poetry, with evidence from “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “When Yeats frequently uses conjunctions to indicate relation- You Are Old,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” and “The Second ships between words and clauses. Coming.” “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,” As you draft, follow the writing guide shown below to “While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements keep your essay on track. gray, / I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
general statement about “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full Introduction figurative language of passionate intensity.” START In the first example above, the word and is a coordi- thesis: specific statement nating conjunction, or one that joins words or groups about Yeats’s use of metaphor of words of equal grammatical weight. The speaker’s arising and his going to Innisfree are equally important. Similarly, the phrases “on the roadway” and “on the pavements gray,” joined by the coordinating conjunc- Body examples of metaphors Paragraph(s) in Yeats’s poems tion or, have equal weight. The word while is a subor- dinating conjunction, or one that joins two clauses so as to make one grammatically dependent on the other. The chart below lists coordinating conjunctions, correl- restatement of thesis in different words ative conjunctions (those that work in pairs), and com- mon subordinating conjunctions.
Conclusion parting thought about Conjunctions figurative language Coordinating Correlative Subordinating
After you complete your draft, meet with a peer and or Both . . . and although when reviewer to evaluate each other’s work and to suggest but so either . . . or as where revisions. Then proofread and edit your draft for errors nor yet just as . . . so because while in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. for neither . . . nor if not only . . . but once (also) so Reading Further whether . . . or unless For more by and about Yeats, look for these collections: Activity List other examples of conjunctions in Yeats’s • Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland, edited by W. B. Yeats, poems. For each conjunction, explain in your own is a collection of Irish legends, folktales, and songs. words the relationship expressed. • William Butler Yeats: A Collection of Criticism, edited by Patrick J. Keane, provides insights into Yeats’s Revising Check poetry and life. Conjunctions With a partner, go through • Collected Poems by W. B. Yeats contains most of your essay about Yeats’s use of metaphor and note Yeats’s poetic output over his lifetime. places where you might clarify relationships by using conjunctions.
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to www.glencoe.com.
1116 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
11110-1116110-1116 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11161116 66/27/06/27/06 2:43:282:43:28 PMPM BEFORE YOU READ
Preludes
MEET T. S. ELIOT
n 1917 customers of Lloyds Bank on London’s his expectations, Queen Henrietta Street might have been sur- helping to shape Iprised to learn that the shy young American literary criticism they knew as Mr. Eliot the banker was known in lit- for years to come. erary circles as T. S. Eliot the poet. Eliot’s supervi- Unfortunately, sors at the bank knew that he wrote poetry, but they as Eliot’s repu- dismissed his writing as a curious hobby. In reality, tation grew, so poetry was far more than just a hobby to Eliot, and did his personal by the time he left the bank eight years later, he was problems. His one of the leading poets and critics of his age. wife’s illness, their financial difficulties, and “The experience of a poem is the his long work- days took a experience both of a moment and of a physical and mental toll on him, and at the age lifetime.” of thirty-three he was close to collapse. While resting for a few months in a Swiss sanatorium, —T. S. Eliot he worked on The Waste Land, a long poem about the spiritual breakdown of the modern world. It proved to be one of the most influential poems of Education and Groundbreaking Poems the twentieth century. Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Spiritual Renewal and International Missouri, to a prominent family that traced its roots Acclaim At the age of thirty-six, Eliot left Lloyds to Puritan New England. An excellent student, to become an editor at Faber & Faber, a London Eliot studied philosophy and literature at Harvard publishing house. He also continued to write, University, the Sorbonne in Paris, and Oxford composing a number of distinguished poems and University in England. While still in school, he plays. In his late thirties, Eliot became a British began writing poetry, composing such ground- citizen. Always a deeply spiritual man, Eliot was breaking poems as “Preludes” and “The Love Song also baptized into the Church of England. His of J. Alfred Prufrock.” In London, he met poet later poems, such as “Ash Wednesday” and Four Ezra Pound, who immediately recognized his Quartets, show the influence of his conversion to genius and brought Eliot’s work to the attention of Anglo-Catholicism. At the age of sixty, Eliot various publishers. Pound praised Eliot’s Modernist received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in verse and encouraged him to continue writing. London sixteen years later. At the time of his Eliot decided to stay in England. At age twenty- death, many considered Eliot the most important six, he married a British woman named Vivienne poet and critic writing in the English language. Haigh-Wood. Soon after, she became seriously ill; T. S. Eliot was born in 1888 and died in 1965. to pay for her mounting medical expenses, Eliot took on a number of jobs, including the position at Lloyds Bank. After work he wrote poetry and, to supplement his income, literary essays and Author Search For more about reviews. These articles had an impact far beyond T. S. Eliot, go to www.glencoe.com.
T. S. ELIOT 1117 Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
11117-1121117-1121 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11171117 66/27/06/27/06 2:44:152:44:15 PMPM LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW
Connecting to the Poem Reading Strategy Analyzing Style In “Preludes,” T. S. Eliot describes a city street on a Style consists of the expressive qualities that distin- winter evening and the following morning. As you read guish an author’s work, including word choice, the the poem, think about the following questions: length and arrangement of sentences, and the use of figurative language and imagery. To analyze style, look What sights, sounds, and feelings do you experience • at these qualities separately to determine the meaning while walking down a city street? of the work as a whole. Analyzing style can also reveal How do your associations with the city compare • an author’s tone and purpose in writing. with those that Eliot describes? Building Background Reading Tip: Taking Notes As you read “Preludes,” look for stylistic elements that help reveal Eliot’s atti- T. S. Eliot often built his poems around images that cap- tude toward his subject and his purpose in writing this ture the essence of a time, place, and mood, much as poem. Organize your examples in a chart like this one: good photographs do. Eliot’s poems often include allu- sions to other literary works or historical events, and they juxtapose religious imagery with trivial elements Stylistic Devices Eliot’s Attitude including popular songs, nursery rhymes, and jingles. Word Choice The impersonal connotation In music, preludes are short pieces that introduce lon- of the word “passageways” ger, more complex compositions. The poem “Preludes” hints at a negative attitude describes a city much like the St. Louis neighborhood toward the sight described. of Eliot’s childhood. To Eliot, the physical decay of a Figurative city represented a deeper moral and spiritual decay. This theme runs throughout much of his work. Language Setting Purposes for Reading Imagery
Big Idea Modernism As you read, think about how “Preludes” illustrates a sense of alienation and despair that is characteristic of Modernist poetry. Vocabulary constitute (kon stə toot¯¯¯ ´) v. make up; form; Literary Element Imagery p. 1120 An hour for lunch constituted our only Imagery consists of the word pictures that writers cre- break from the all-day seminar. ate to evoke a particular emotional response. In creat- infinitely (in fə nit le¯) adv. boundlessly; end- ing effective images, writers use sensory details, or lessly; p. 1120 The unending array of obstructions descriptions that appeal to one or more of the five made solving the puzzle infinitely complicated. senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell). As you read “Preludes,” note the images Eliot presents. Vocabulary Tip: Synonyms Words that have the • See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R9. same or nearly the same meaning are called syn- onyms. The words withered and shriveled, for example, are synonyms.
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following: • interpreting imagery • identifying characteristics of Modernist poetry • analyzing author’s style
1118 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
11117-1121117-1121 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11181118 11/10/07/10/07 10:12:4610:12:46 AMAM T. S. Eliot
The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. 5 And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps Tower Bridge, from the limited-edition portfolio London, Of withered leaves about your feet published 1909. Photogravure. Alvin Langdon Coburn. And newspapers from vacant lots; Private collection. The showers beat 10 On broken blinds and chimney-pots,1 And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. 1. Chimney-pots are pipes that And then the lighting of the lamps. protrude from chimney tops.
The morning comes to consciousness 15 Of faint stale smells of beer 2 From the sawdust-trampled street 2. Sawdust-trampled refers to the With all its muddy feet that press sawdust that many bars and To early coffee-stands. shops sprinkled on their floors to absorb dirt and spilled drinks. The sawdust has been 3 With the other masquerades carried into the streets on the 20 That time resumes, soles of people’s shoes. One thinks of all the hands 3. Here, a masquerade is a pretense or act. That are raising dingy shades 4 In a thousand furnished rooms. 4. Furnished rooms are cheap, one-room apartments that come with beds and other Reading Strategy Analyzing Style What effect does basic pieces of furniture. Eliot’s word choice have on your impression of this scene?
Literary Element Imagery To what senses do the images in lines 15–18 appeal? What emotions do these images evoke?
T. S. ELIOT 1119 Private Collection/The Stapleton Collection Bridgeman Art Library
1119-1120 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1119 6/27/06 2:47:46 PM
You tossed a blanket from the bed, 25 You lay upon your back, and waited; You dozed, and watched the night revealing The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. 30 And when all the world came back And the light crept up between the shutters And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands; 35 Sitting along the bed’s edge, where You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands.
His soul stretched tight across the skies 40 That fade behind a city block, Or trampled by insistent feet At four and five and six o’clock; And short square fingers stuffing pipes, And evening newspapers, and eyes 45 Assured of certain certainties, The conscience of a blackened street Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: 50 The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; The worlds revolve like ancient women Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
Big Idea Modernism In what sense do the words sordid and soul contrast with one another? What comment is Eliot making in lines 27–28 about contemporary life?
Vocabulary constitute (kon stə toot¯¯¯ ´) v. make up; form infinitely (in fə nit le¯) adv. boundlessly; endlessly
1120 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
1119-1120 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1120 6/27/06 2:48:05 PM AFTER YOU READ
RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond Analyze and Evaluate 1. What images in “Preludes” did you find especially 6. (a)To what does the speaker compare the revolving vivid? of the worlds? (b)In your own words, explain what this simile means. (c)How does it help sum up the Recall and Interpret main point of the poem? 2. (a)What sights, sounds, and odors are described in 7. (a)What parts of the preludes were most meaningful the first prelude? (b)What mood do these images to you? (b)What parts were most challenging to evoke? understand? In each case, explain why. 3. (a)What images are described in the second prelude? (b)What do these images have in common? Connect 4. (a)In the fourth prelude, what moves the speaker? 8. Big Idea Modernism (a)Cite examples from (b)What does this tell you about the speaker? “Preludes” that illustrate characteristics of Modernist poetry. (b)Do you like Modernist poetry, traditional 5. (a)Explain the progression of time from the first forms, or both? Support your opinion with reasons. prelude to the fourth prelude. (b)How does this progression illustrate the revolving of the worlds described in lines 53–54?
LITERARY ANALYSIS READING AND VOCABULARY
Literary Element Imagery Reading Strategy Analyzing Style In “Preludes,” Eliot creates a series of word pictures that Review the Reading Strategy notes you wrote down present a dreary view of twentieth-century urban life. while reading “Preludes.” Note how the word choices, figurative language, and structure of the poem contrib- 1. (a)To what sense do the images in lines 2–4 and line 15 appeal? To what other sense(s) might these ute to its theme. images appeal? (b)Are the images pleasant? 1. Which words from the poem convey a dreary or Explain. pessimistic attitude? 2. (a)Cite examples of images from the poem that 2. Line 13 contains no emotionally charged words, yet appeal to sight, hearing, and touch. (b)What emo- it conveys a melancholy attitude. Explain how the tions do these images evoke? placement and construction of this sentence might account for this attitude. Internet Connection What does T. S. Eliot have to do with the musical Vocabulary Practice Cats? How did his hometown of St. Louis honor him? Practice with Synonyms Identify the synonym Why did he ask to be buried in East Coker, England? for each vocabulary word listed in the first column. Using Eliot’s name as a keyword, surf the Internet to Use a dictionary or a thesaurus if you need help. answer these questions or others you may have about 1. constituted a. composed b. substituted Eliot. While you’re online, visit an Eliot chat room to discover what other students think of him or to post a 2. infinitely a. conditionally b. limitlessly question about his work. Share what you learn with your classmates.
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to www.glencoe.com.
T. S. ELIOT 1121
11117-1121117-1121 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11211121 66/28/06/28/06 9:47:069:47:06 AMAM BEFORE YOU READ
The Rocking-Horse Winner
MEET D. H. LAWRENCE
avid Herbert Lawrence local residents suspected them of helped to define modern being spies. Persecuted, they Dliterature with his care- were forced to live on the run, fully constructed, highly original, traveling throughout England and socially conscious novels and until the end of the war. short stories. Yet his attitudes During this time, Lawrence about life and writing were often published a novel called The in direct contrast to the opinions Rainbow, which was seized by held by society at the time. the police and declared obscene. Throughout his career, Turmoil and Controversy Lawrence’s work so scandalized Lawrence was born in a small min- the public that some of his books ing village near Nottingham, England, were banned. to an illiterate coal miner and a retired schoolteacher mother. As a young child, Lawrence suffered a severe attack of pneumonia from which he never fully recovered. This affliction, however, “Be still when you have nothing to say; enabled him to escape from a life of work in the when genuine passion moves you, say coal mines. Instead, he attended school on a schol- arship but was forced to abandon his education at what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.” sixteen to work as a clerk in a factory. After a —D. H. Lawrence short time, however, Lawrence again fell ill. While recuperating, he formed a close friendship with Jessie Chambers, a local farmer’s daughter. Soon Lawrence became a pupil-teacher, later earning a Writer in Exile Disgusted with England, teacher’s certificate at University College, Lawrence and his wife left for Italy in 1919 and Nottingham. Encouraged by Jessie, he also started spent the rest of their lives traveling in search of writing poetry and fiction. an ideal society—as well as a warm climate for Lawrence’s respiratory illnesses. The couple settled Lawrence’s mid-twenties were turbulent: He broke for several years in Taos, New Mexico, where with Jessie, his mother died, his first novels were Lawrence fell ill and found that he was in the late published, and he decided to give up teaching and stages of tuberculosis. They returned to Italy, and support himself solely by writing. During this time, Lawrence finished his last and most controversial Lawrence fell in love and eloped with a German novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. From Italy, Frieda woman named Frieda von Richtofen. For the next took him to France in search of a cure. During this two years, the couple traveled extensively through- time he wrote “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” as out Europe. Frieda became the prototype for many well as many other short stories. Lawrence died at of Lawrence’s best-known heroines. the age of forty-five with Frieda at his bedside. The onset of the First World War forced D. H. Lawrence was born in 1885 and died in 1930. Lawrence and his wife to return to England, where at first they settled on the south coast. Because of Frieda’s nationality and Lawrence’s Author Search For more about outspoken criticism of the war, however, many D. H. Lawrence, go to www.glencoe.com.
1122 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE Hulton Getty Picture Collection/Tony Stone Images
11122-1137122-1137 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11221122 33/7/06/7/06 55:10:19:10:19 PMPM LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW
Connecting to the Story Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Do you agree or disagree with the saying “Money can’t Characters buy happiness”? In “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” Making inferences involves making educated guesses Lawrence explores how the desire for money affects about what an author implies or suggests. Because one family. As you read, think about the following authors often do not directly state what they want questions: readers to know, making inferences is essential to con- • Would your life be better if you had more material structing meaning. In reading Lawrence’s story, you things? must examine details about the characters and then How would you define luck? infer what they believe, how they feel, and why they • act as they do. Building Background “The Rocking-Horse Winner” takes place in England in Reading Tip: Taking Notes Use a chart to record the early part of the twentieth century. At that time, your inferences about the characters in the story. social classes were quite distinct, and many people who were not born wealthy lived beyond their means in an Inferences About effort to attain the prestige of a higher social class. Details Characters This story mentions many popular horse races held in England, including the Ascot (run at Ascot Heath) and the St. Leger (held at Doncaster every September). The Turf Commission is a committee of the Jockey Club— an organization dedicated to the improvement of thor- oughbred racing. The Turf Commission operates a bank Vocabulary in which bettors can deposit money for future bets. parry (par e¯) v. to respond, as to a question or Setting Purposes for Reading argument, by warding off or diverting; p. 1127 Instead of answering directly, she parried the question Big Idea Modernism by telling an amusing story. As you read, consider how this story reflects ob stə nit le¯´ Lawrence’s concerns about society’s emphasis on obstinately ( ) adv. in a manner money. not yielding to argument, persuasion, or reason; inflexibly; p. 1129 Obstinately remaining silent, he fixed his eyes on the floor. Literary Element Foreshadowing reiterate (re¯ it ə ra¯t´) v. to say or do again; to Foreshadowing is the author’s use of hints or clues to repeat; p. 1130 I reiterated the question because prepare readers for events that will happen later in a he seemed not to hear it. story. Mood, atmosphere, events, physical objects, and even character traits can foreshadow later events. As emancipate (i man sə pa¯t´) v. to free; to liber- you read, look for examples of foreshadowing. ate; p. 1133 The governor pardoned several crimi- nals, emancipating them from prison. • See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R7. Vocabulary Tip: Analogies Analogies are compari- sons based on relationships between ideas.
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following: • understanding foreshadowing and motivation • analyzing literary periods • making inferences about characters D. H. LAWRENCE 1123
11122-1137122-1137 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11231123 11/10/07/10/07 10:17:4210:17:42 AMAM D. H. Lawrence
1124 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
1124-1135 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1124 6/27/06 3:12:36 PM There was a woman who was beautiful, who who was always very handsome and expensive in started with all the advantages, yet she had no his tastes, seemed as if he never would be able to luck. She married for love, and the love turned do anything worth doing. And the mother, who to dust. She had bonny1 children, yet she felt had a great belief in herself, did not succeed any they had been thrust upon her, and she could better, and her tastes were just as expensive. not love them. They looked at her coldly, as if And so the house came to be haunted by the they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly unspoken phrase: There must be more money! she felt she must cover up some fault in herself. There must be more money! The children could Yet what it was that she must cover up she never hear it all the time, though nobody said it aloud. knew. Nevertheless, when her children were They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive present, she always felt the centre of her heart go and splendid toys filled the nursery. Behind the hard. This troubled her, and in her manner she shining modern rocking-horse, behind the smart was all the more gentle and anxious for her chil- doll’s house, a voice would start whispering: dren, as if she loved them very much. Only she “There must be more money! There must be herself knew that at the centre of her heart was a more money!” And the children would stop play- hard little place that could not feel love, no, not ing, to listen for a moment. They would look for anybody. Everybody else said of her: “She is into each other’s eyes, to see if they had all such a good mother. She adores her children.” heard. And each one saw in the eyes of the other Only she herself, and her children themselves, knew two that they too had heard. “There must be it was not so. They read it in each other’s eyes. more money! There must be more money!” There were a boy and two little girls. They It came whispering from the springs of the lived in a pleasant house, with a garden, and still-swaying rocking-horse, and even the horse, they had discreet servants, and felt themselves bending his wooden, champing head, heard it. superior to anyone in the neighbourhood. The big doll, sitting so pink and smirking in her Although they lived in style, they felt always new pram,2 could hear it quite plainly, and an anxiety in the house. There was never enough seemed to be smirking all the more self-con- money. The mother had a small income, and the sciously because of it. The foolish puppy, too, father had a small income, but not nearly enough that took the place of the teddy bear, he was for the social position which they had to keep up. looking so extraordinarily foolish for no other The father went into town to some office. But reason but that he heard the secret whisper all though he had good prospects, these prospects over the house: “There must be more money!” never materialised. There was always the grind- Yet nobody ever said it aloud. The whisper ing sense of the shortage of money, though the was everywhere, and therefore no one spoke it. style was always kept up. Just as no one ever says: “We are breathing!” in At last the mother said: “I will see if I can’t spite of the fact that breath is coming and going make something.” But she did not know where all the time. to begin. She racked her brains, and tried this “Mother,” said the boy Paul one day, “why thing and the other, but could not find anything don’t we keep a car of our own? Why do we successful. The failure made deep lines come into always use uncle’s, or else a taxi?” her face. Her children were growing up, they “Because we’re the poor members of the family,” would have to go to school. There must be more said the mother. money, there must be more money. The father, “But why are we, mother?” “Well—I suppose,” she said slowly and bitterly, “it’s because your father has no luck.” 1. Bonny means “good-looking; robust.” The boy was silent for some time. Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Characters What effect might the mother’s attitude have on 2. A pram (short for perambulator) is a baby carriage. her children? Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Big Idea Modernism What does Lawrence criticize about Characters Do the children really hear the secret whispers? middle-class life? Explain.
D. H. LAWRENCE 1125
11124-1135124-1135 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11251125 33/7/06/7/06 44:48:56:48:56 PM “Is luck money, mother?” he asked, rather “Why?” said his mother, with a sudden laugh. timidly. He stared at her. He didn’t even know why he “No, Paul. Not quite. It’s what causes you to had said it. have money.” “God told me,” he asserted, brazening4 it out. “Oh!” said Paul vaguely. “I thought when “I hope He did, dear!” she said, again with a Uncle Oscar said filthy lucker, it meant money.” laugh, but rather bitter. “Filthy lucre3 does mean money,” said the “He did, mother!” mother. “But it’s lucre, not luck.” “Excellent!” said the mother, using one of her “Oh!” said the boy. “Then what is luck, husband’s exclamations. mother?” The boy saw she did not believe him; or “It’s what causes you to have money. If you’re rather, that she paid no attention to his asser- lucky you have money. That’s why it’s better to tion. This angered him somewhere, and made be born lucky than rich. If you’re rich, you may him want to compel her attention. lose your money. But if you’re lucky, you will He went off by himself, vaguely, in a childish always get more money.” way, seeking for the clue to “luck.” Absorbed, “Oh! Will you? And is father not lucky?” taking no heed of other people, he went about “Very unlucky, I should say,” she said bitterly. with a sort of stealth, seeking inwardly for luck. The boy watched her with unsure eyes. He wanted luck, he wanted it, he wanted it. “Why?” he asked. When the two girls were playing dolls in the “I don’t know. Nobody ever knows why one nursery, he would sit on his big rocking-horse, person is lucky and another unlucky.” charging madly into space, with a frenzy that “Don’t they? Nobody at all? Does nobody made the little girls peer at him uneasily. Wildly know?” the horse careered,5 the waving dark hair of the “Perhaps God. But He never tells.” boy tossed, his eyes had a strange glare in them. “He ought to, then. And aren’t you lucky The little girls dared not speak to him. either, mother?” When he had ridden to the end of his mad “I can’t be, if I married an unlucky husband.” little journey, he climbed down and stood in “But by yourself, aren’t you?” front of his rocking-horse, staring fixedly into its “I used to think I was, before I married. Now I lowered face. Its red mouth was slightly open, its think I am very unlucky indeed.” big eye was wide and glassy-bright. “Why?” “Now!” he would silently command the snort- “Well—never mind! Perhaps I’m not really,” ing steed. “Now, take me to where there is luck! she said. Now take me!” The child looked at her to see if she meant And he would slash the horse on the neck it. But he saw, by the lines of her mouth, that with the little whip he had asked Uncle Oscar she was only trying to hide something from for. He knew the horse could take him to where him. there was luck, if only he forced it. So he would “Well, anyhow,” he said stoutly, “I’m a lucky mount again and start on his furious ride, hoping person.” at last to get there. He knew he could get there. “You’ll break your horse, Paul!” said the nurse. “He’s always riding like that! I wish he’d leave 3. Lucre (l¯¯¯oo kər) is Latin for “profit.” Here, it refers to money, off!” said his elder sister Joan. especially that gained through greed or dishonesty. But he only glared down on them in silence. Nurse gave him up. She could make nothing of Big Idea Modernism What does Lawrence imply about the mother’s values? him. Anyhow, he was growing beyond her.
Reading Strategy Making Inferences About 4. Here, brazening means “stating confidently.” Characters How might the mother’s answer influence Paul? 5. Careered means “rushed forward.”
Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Literary Element Foreshadowing What might Paul’s Characters What is Paul’s mother trying to hide? frenzied riding foreshadow?
1126 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
11124-1135124-1135 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11261126 33/7/06/7/06 55:16:19:16:19 PM One day his mother and his Uncle Oscar “Master Paul comes and asks me, so I can’t do came in when he was on one of his furious rides. more than tell him, sir,” said Bassett, his face ter- He did not speak to them. ribly serious, as if he were speaking of religious “Hallo, you young jockey! Riding a winner?” matters. said his uncle. “And does he ever put anything on a horse he “Aren’t you growing too big for a rocking- fancies?” horse? You’re not a very little boy any longer, you “Well—I don’t want to give him away—he’s a know,” said his mother. young sport, a fine sport, sir. Would you mind But Paul only gave a blue glare from his big, asking him himself? He sort of takes a pleasure in rather close-set eyes. He would speak to it, and perhaps he’d feel I was giving him away, nobody when he was in full tilt. His mother sir, if you don’t mind.” watched him with an anxious expression on Bassett was serious as a church. her face. The uncle went back to his nephew and took At last he suddenly stopped forcing his horse him off for a ride in the car. into the mechanical gallop and “Say, Paul, old man, do you slid down. ever put anything on a horse?” “Well, I got there!” he the uncle asked. announced fiercely, his blue eyes The boy watched the hand- still flaring, and his sturdy long “I only some man closely. legs straddling apart. know the “Why, do you think I oughtn’t “Where did you get to?” asked to?” he parried. his mother. winner,” “Not a bit of it! I thought per- “Where I wanted to go,” he haps you might give me a tip for flared back at her. said the the Lincoln.” “That’s right, son!” said Uncle The car sped on into the Oscar. “Don’t you stop till you boy. country, going down to Uncle get there. What’s the horse’s Oscar’s place in Hampshire. name?” “Honour bright?”8 said the nephew. “He doesn’t have a name,” said the boy. “Honour bright, son!” said the uncle. “Gets on without all right?” asked the uncle. “Well, then, Daffodil.” “Well, he has different names. He was called “Daffodil! I doubt it, sonny. What about Sansovino last week.” Mirza?” “Sansovino, eh? Won the Ascot. How did you “I only know the winner,” said the boy. “That’s know this name?” Daffodil.” “He always talks about horse-races with “Daffodil, eh?” Bassett,” said Joan. There was a pause. Daffodil was an obscure The uncle was delighted to find that his small horse comparatively. nephew was posted with all the racing news. “Uncle!” Bassett, the young gardener, who had been “Yes, son?” wounded in the left foot in the war and had got “You won’t let it go any further, will you? I his present job through Oscar Cresswell, whose promised Bassett.” batman6 he had been, was a perfect blade of the “turf.”7 He lived in the racing events, and the small boy lived with him. 8. Honour bright is an expression used to declare that one is Oscar Cresswell got it all from Bassett. speaking the truth (as in “on your honour”). Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Characters What does this detail suggest about Bassett? 6. A batman is a British army orderly, or personal attendant. 7. A blade of the “turf” is a horse-racing fan. Vocabulary Reading Strategy Making Inferences About parry (par e¯) v. to respond, as to a question or argu- Characters What are your first impressions of Uncle Oscar? ment, by warding off or diverting
D. H. LAWRENCE 1127
11124-1135124-1135 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11271127 66/27/06/27/06 3:13:233:13:23 PMPM “Bassett be damned, old man! What’s he got “Now, son,” he said, “I’m putting twenty on to do with it?” Mirza, and I’ll put five on for you on any horse “We’re partners. We’ve been partners from the you fancy. What’s your pick?” first. Uncle, he lent me my first five shillings,9 “Daffodil, uncle.” which I lost. I promised him, honour bright, it “No, not the fiver on Daffodil!” was only between me and him; only you gave me “I should if it was my own fiver,” said the child. that ten-shilling note I started winning with, so I “Good! Good! Right you are! A fiver for me thought you were lucky. You won’t let it go any and a fiver for you on Daffodil.” further, will you?” The child had never been to a race-meeting The boy gazed at his uncle from those big, before, and his eyes were blue fire. He pursed his hot, blue eyes, set rather close together. The mouth tight and watched. A Frenchman just in uncle stirred and laughed uneasily. front had put his money on Lancelot. Wild with “Right you are, son! I’ll keep your tip pri- excitement, he flayed his arms up and down, vate. Daffodil, eh? How much are you putting yelling “Lancelot! Lancelot!” in his French accent. on him?” Daffodil came in first, Lancelot second, Mirza “All except twenty pounds,”10 said the boy. third. The child, flushed and with eyes blazing, “I keep that in reserve.” was curiously serene. His uncle brought him four The uncle thought it a good joke. five-pound notes, four to one. “You keep twenty pounds in reserve, do you, “What am I to do with these?” he cried, you young romancer? What are you betting, waving them before the boy’s eyes. then?” “I suppose we’ll talk to Bassett,” said the boy. “I’m betting three hundred,” said the boy “I expect I have fifteen hundred now; and twenty gravely. “But it’s between you and me, Uncle in reserve; and this twenty.” Oscar! Honour bright?” His uncle studied him for some moments. The uncle burst into a roar of laughter. “Look here, son!” he said. “You’re not serious “It’s between you and me all right, you young about Bassett and that fifteen hundred, are you?” Nat Gould,”11 he said, laughing. “But where’s “Yes, I am. But it’s between you and me, uncle. your three hundred?” Honour bright?” “Bassett keeps it for me. We’re partners.” “Honour bright all right, son! But I must talk “You are, are you! And what is Bassett putting to Bassett.” on Daffodil?” “If you’d like to be a partner, uncle, with “He won’t go quite as high as I do, I expect. Bassett and me, we could all be partners. Only, Perhaps he’ll go a hundred and fifty.” you’d have to promise, honour bright, uncle, not “What, pennies?” laughed the uncle. to let it go beyond us three. Bassett and I are “Pounds,” said the child, with a surprised look lucky, and you must be lucky, because it was your at his uncle. “Bassett keeps a bigger reserve than ten shillings I started winning with. . . .” I do.” Uncle Oscar took both Bassett and Paul into Between wonder and amusement Uncle Oscar Richmond Park for an afternoon, and there they was silent. He pursued the matter no further, but talked. he determined to take his nephew with him to “It’s like this, you see, sir,” Bassett said. the Lincoln races. “Master Paul would get me talking about racing events, spinning yarns, you know, sir. And he was always keen on knowing if I’d made or if I’d 9. Shillings were British coins worth one twentieth of a pound. 10. Pounds are currency used in Britain. Twenty pounds in the mid-1920s would be worth about $1,000 today. Reading Strategy Making Inferences About 11. Nat Gould was a sports journalist who often wrote about Characters Why does Paul feel so peaceful? horse racing.
Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Characters Why does Paul reveal his prediction about the Characters Why does Paul not want Uncle Oscar to reveal race to Uncle Oscar? the partnership?
1128 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
1124-1135 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1128 6/27/06 3:13:37 PM Horse Race #14. Robert McIntosh.
lost. It’s about a year since, now, that I put five “Yes, sir. I made my bit.” shillings on Blush of Dawn for him: and we lost. “And my nephew?” Then the luck turned, with that ten shillings he Bassett was obstinately silent, looking at Paul. had from you: that we put on Singhalese. And “I made twelve hundred, didn’t I, Bassett? I told since that time, it’s been pretty steady, all things uncle I was putting three hundred on Daffodil.” considering. What do you say, Master Paul?” “That’s right,” said Bassett, nodding. “We’re all right when we’re sure,” said “But where’s the money?” asked the uncle. Paul. “It’s when we’re not quite sure that we “I keep it safe locked up, sir. Master Paul he go down.” can have it any minute he likes to ask for it.” “Oh, but we’re careful then,” said Bassett. “What, fifteen hundred pounds?” “But when are you sure?” smiled Uncle Oscar. “And twenty! And forty, that is, with the “It’s Master Paul, sir,” said Bassett in a secret, twenty he made on the course.” religious voice. “It’s as if he had it from heaven. “It’s amazing!” said the uncle. Like Daffodil, now, for the Lincoln. That was as “If Master Paul offers you to be partners, sir, sure as eggs.” I would, if I were you: if you’ll excuse me,” said “Did you put anything on Daffodil?” asked Bassett. Oscar Cresswell.
Vocabulary Literary Element Foreshadowing What event might obstinately (ob stə nit le¯´) adv. in a manner not yield- Bassett’s remark foreshadow? ing to argument, persuasion, or reason; inflexibly
D. H. LAWRENCE 1129 CORBIS
1124-1135 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1129 6/27/06 3:14:40 PM Oscar Cresswell thought about it. is unlucky, so I thought if I was lucky, it might “I’ll see the money,” he said. stop whispering.” They drove home again, and, sure enough, “What might stop whispering?” Bassett came round to the garden-house with fif- “Our house. I hate our house for whispering.” teen hundred pounds in notes. The twenty “What does it whisper?” pounds reserve was left with Joe Glee, in the “Why—why”—the boy fidgeted—“why, I Turf Commission deposit. don’t know. But it’s always short of money, you “You see, it’s all right, uncle, when I’m sure! know, uncle.” Then we go strong, for all we’re worth. Don’t we, “I know it, son, I know it.” Bassett?” “You know people send mother writs,12 don’t “We do that, Master Paul.” you, uncle?” “And when are you sure?” said the uncle, “I’m afraid I do,” said the uncle. laughing. “And then the house whispers, like people “Oh, well, sometimes I’m absolutely sure, like laughing at you behind your back. It’s awful, that about Daffodil,” said the boy; “and sometimes is! I thought if I was lucky——” I have an idea; and sometimes I haven’t even “You might stop it,” added the uncle. an idea, have I, Bassett? Then we’re careful, The boy watched him with big blue eyes, that because we mostly go down.” had an uncanny cold fire in them, and he said “You do, do you! And when you’re sure, like never a word. about Daffodil, what makes you sure, sonny?” “Well, then!” said the uncle. “What are we “Oh, well, I don’t know,” said the boy uneas- doing?” ily. “I’m sure, you know, uncle; that’s all.” “I shouldn’t like mother to know I was lucky,” “It’s as if he had it from heaven, sir,” Bassett said the boy. reiterated. “Why not, son?” “I should say so!” said the uncle. “She’d stop me.” But he became a partner. And when the Leger “I don’t think she would.” was coming on Paul was “sure” about Lively “Oh!”—and the boy writhed in an odd way— Spark, which was a quite inconsiderable horse. “I don’t want her to know, uncle.” The boy insisted on putting a thousand on the “All right, son! We’ll manage it without her horse, Bassett went for five hundred, and Oscar knowing.” Cresswell two hundred. Lively Spark came in They managed it very easily. Paul, at the first, and the betting had been ten to one against other’s suggestion, handed over five thousand him. Paul had made ten thousand. pounds to his uncle, who deposited it with the “You see,” he said, “I was absolutely sure of him.” family lawyer, who was then to inform Paul’s Even Oscar Cresswell had cleared two thousand. mother that a relative had put five thousand “Look here, son,” he said, “this sort of thing pounds into his hands, which sum was to be paid makes me nervous.” out a thousand pounds at a time, on the mother’s “It needn’t, uncle! Perhaps I shan’t be sure birthday, for the next five years. again for a long time.” “So she’ll have a birthday present of a thou- “But what are you going to do with your sand pounds for five successive years,” said Uncle money?” asked the uncle. Oscar. “I hope it won’t make it all the harder for “Of course,” said the boy, “I started it for her later.” mother. She said she had no luck, because father Paul’s mother had her birthday in November. The house had been “whispering” worse than
Reading Strategy Making Inferences About 12. Here, writs are legal notices demanding payment for Characters Why is Uncle Oscar nervous? outstanding bills.
Vocabulary Big Idea Modernism What does this whispering suggest reiterate (re¯ it ə rat¯ ´) v. to say or do again; to repeat about society’s values?
1130 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
1124-1135 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1130 6/27/06 3:15:26 PM 5 O’Clock Cowboy. P. J. Crook (b. 1945). Acrylic on wood, 43 x 53 cm. Private collection. Viewing the Art: How would you describe the mood of this work? How does it compare with the mood of the story?
ever lately, and, even in spite of his luck, Paul and ladies in silk and sequins for the newspaper could not bear up against it. He was very anxious advertisements. This young woman artist earned to see the effect of the birthday letter, telling his several thousand pounds a year, but Paul’s mother about the thousand pounds. mother only made several hundreds, and she was When there were no visitors, Paul now took again dissatisfied. She so wanted to be first in his meals with his parents, as he was beyond the something, and she did not succeed, even in nursery control. His mother went into town making sketches for drapery advertisements. nearly every day. She had discovered that she She was down to breakfast on the morning of had an odd knack of sketching furs and dress her birthday. Paul watched her face as she read materials, so she worked secretly in the studio of her letters. He knew the lawyer’s letter. As his a friend who was the chief “artist” for the leading mother read it, her face hardened and became drapers.13 She drew the figures of ladies in furs more expressionless. Then a cold, determined look came on her mouth. She hid the letter under a pile of others, and said not a word 13. Drapers are dealers in cloth and other dry goods. about it.
D. H. LAWRENCE 1131 Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York
11124-1135124-1135 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11311131 33/7/06/7/06 55:17:53:17:53 PM Horse Race #5. Robert McIntosh.
“Didn’t you have anything nice in the post for “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, your birthday, mother?” said Paul. laddie!” said Uncle Oscar. “Quite moderately nice,” she said, her voice “But I’m sure to know for the Grand National; cold and absent. or the Lincolnshire; or else the Derby. I’m sure to She went away to town without saying know for one of them,” said Paul. more. So Uncle Oscar signed the agreement, and But in the afternoon Uncle Oscar appeared. Paul’s mother touched the whole five thousand. He said Paul’s mother had had a long interview Then something very curious happened. The with the lawyer, asking if the whole five thou- voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a sand could not be advanced at once, as she was chorus of frogs on a spring evening. There were in debt. certain new furnishings, and Paul had a tutor. “What do you think, uncle?” said the boy. He was really going to Eton,14 his father’s “I leave it to you, son.” school, in the following autumn. There were “Oh, let her have it, then! We can get some flowers in the winter, and a blossoming of the more with the other,” said the boy. luxury Paul’s mother had been used to. And yet the voices in the house, behind the sprays of mimosa and almond-blossom, and from under Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Characters What reaction from his mother was Paul hoping for? 14. Eton is a prestigious private school in England.
1132 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE CORBIS
11124-1135124-1135 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11321132 33/7/06/7/06 55:18:05:18:05 PM the piles of iridescent cushions, simply trilled “I’ll do what you like, mother, so long as you and screamed in a sort of ecstasy: “There must don’t send me away till after the Derby,” the boy be more money! Oh-h-h; there must be more said. money. Oh, now, now-w! Now-w-w—there “Send you away from where? Just from this must be more money!—more than ever! More house?” than ever!” “Yes,” he said, gazing at her. It frightened Paul terribly. He studied away at “Why, you curious child, what makes you care his Latin and Greek with his tutor. But his about this house so much, suddenly? I never intense hours were spent with Bassett. The knew you loved it.” Grand National had gone by: he had not He gazed at her without speaking. He had a “known,” and had lost a hundred pounds. secret within a secret, something he had not Summer was at hand. He was in agony for the divulged, even to Bassett or to his Uncle Oscar. Lincoln. But even for the Lincoln he didn’t But his mother, after standing undecided and “know,” and he lost fifty pounds. He became a little bit sullen for some moments, said: wild-eyed and strange, as if something were “Very well, then! Don’t go to the seaside till going to explode in him. after the Derby, if you don’t wish it. But promise “Let it alone, son! Don’t you bother about it!” me you won’t let your nerves go to pieces. urged Uncle Oscar. But it was as if the boy Promise you won’t think so much about horse- couldn’t really hear what his uncle was saying. racing and events, as you call them!” “I’ve got to know for the Derby! I’ve got to “Oh no,” said the boy casually. “I won’t think know for the Derby!” the child reiterated, his big much about them, mother. You needn’t worry. I blue eyes blazing with a sort of madness. wouldn’t worry, mother, if I were you.” His mother noticed how overwrought he was. “If you were me and I were you,” said his “You’d better go to the seaside. Wouldn’t you mother, “I wonder what we should do!” like to go now to the seaside, instead of waiting? “But you know you needn’t worry, mother, I think you’d better,” she said, looking down at don’t you?” the boy repeated. him anxiously, her heart curiously heavy because “I should be awfully glad to know it,” she said of him. wearily. But the child lifted his uncanny blue eyes. “Oh, well, you can, you know. I mean, you “I couldn’t possibly go before the Derby, ought to know you needn’t worry,” he insisted. mother!” he said. “I couldn’t possibly!” “Ought I? Then I’ll see about it,” she said. “Why not?” she said, her voice becoming Paul’s secret of secrets was his wooden heavy when she was opposed. “Why not? You horse, that which had no name. Since he was can still go from the seaside to see the Derby emancipated from a nurse and a nursery-govern- with your Uncle Oscar, if that’s what you wish. ess, he had had his rocking-horse removed to his No need for you to wait here. Besides, I think own bedroom at the top of the house. you care too much about these races. It’s a bad “Surely you’re too big for a rocking-horse!” his sign. My family has been a gambling family, and mother had remonstrated.15 you won’t know till you grow up how much dam- “Well, you see, mother, till I can have a real age it has done. But it has done damage. I shall horse, I like to have some sort of animal about,” have to send Bassett away, and ask Uncle Oscar had been his quaint answer. not to talk racing to you, unless you promise to be reasonable about it: go away to the seaside
and forget it. You’re all nerves!” 15. Remonstrated means “objected.”
Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Characters What does this passage reveal about the Literary Element Foreshadowing What mood does this mother’s insights into her son? detail create? What might this mood foreshadow?
Vocabulary Reading Strategy Making Inferences About i man sə pat¯ ´ Characters What can you conclude about Paul’s mother? emancipate ( ) v. to free; to liberate
D. H. LAWRENCE 1133
11124-1135124-1135 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11331133 33/7/06/7/06 55:18:41:18:41 PM “Do you feel he keeps you company?” she yet not loud noise. Her heart stood still. It was a laughed. soundless noise, yet rushing and powerful. “Oh yes! He’s very good, he always keeps me Something huge, in violent, hushed motion. company, when I’m there,” said Paul. What was it? What in God’s name was it? She So the horse, rather shabby, stood in an ought to know. She felt that she knew the noise. arrested prance in the boy’s bedroom. She knew what it was. The Derby was drawing near, and the boy Yet she could not place it. She couldn’t say what grew more and more tense. He hardly heard it was. And on and on it went, like a madness. what was spoken to him, he was very frail, and Softly, frozen with anxiety and fear, she turned his eyes were really uncanny. His mother had the door handle. sudden strange seizures of uneasiness about him. The room was dark. Yet in the space near the Sometimes, for half an hour, she would feel a window, she heard and saw something plunging sudden anxiety about him that was almost to and fro. She gazed in fear and amazement. anguish. She wanted to rush to him at once, and Then suddenly she switched on the light, and know he was safe. saw her son, in his green pyjamas, madly surging Two nights before the Derby, she was at a big on the rocking-horse. The blaze of light suddenly party in town, when one of her rushes of anxiety lit him up, as he urged the wooden horse, and lit about her boy, her first-born, gripped her heart her up, as she stood, blonde, in her dress of pale till she could hardly speak. She fought with the green and crystal, in the doorway. feeling, might and main, for she believed in com- “Paul!” she cried. “Whatever are you doing?” mon sense. But it was too strong. She had to “It’s Malabar!” he screamed in a powerful, leave the dance and go downstairs to telephone strange voice. “It’s Malabar!” to the country. The children’s nursery-governess His eyes blazed at her for one was terribly surprised and startled at being rung strange and senseless second, as up in the night. he ceased urging his wooden “Are the children all right, Miss Wilmot?” horse. Then he fell with a “Oh yes, they are quite all right.” crash to the ground, and she, “Master Paul? Is he all right?” all her tormented mother- “He went to bed as right as a trivet. Shall I hood flooding upon her, run up and look at him?” rushed to gather him up. “No,” said Paul’s mother reluctantly. “No! But he was unconscious, Don’t trouble. It’s all right. Don’t sit up. We shall and unconscious he remained, be home fairly soon.” She did not want her son’s with some brain-fever. He privacy intruded upon. talked and tossed, and his “Very good,” said the governess. mother sat stonily by his side. It was about one o’clock when Paul’s mother “Malabar! It’s Malabar! and father drove up to their house. All was still. Bassett, Bassett, I know! Paul’s mother went to her room and slipped off It’s Malabar!” her white fur cloak. She had told her maid not to wait up for her. She heard her husband down- stairs, mixing a whisky and soda. And then, because of the strange anxiety at her heart, she stole upstairs to her son’s room. Noiselessly she went along the upper corridor. Was there a faint noise? What was it? She stood, with arrested muscles, outside his door, listening. There was a strange, heavy, and
Literary Element Foreshadowing What might this Literary Element Foreshadowing What feelings does this description foreshadow? description evoke? What does it suggest might happen?
1134 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE c. Wernher Krutein/Liaison International
11124-1135124-1135 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11341134 33/7/06/7/06 55:18:50:18:50 PM So the child cried, trying to get up and urge with glittering, smallish eyes at the tossing, dying the rocking-horse that gave him his inspiration. child. “What does he mean by Malabar?” asked the “Master Paul!” he whispered. “Master Paul! heart-frozen mother. Malabar came in first all right, a clean win. I did “I don’t know,” said the father stonily. as you told me. You’ve made over seventy thou- “What does he mean by Malabar?” she asked sand pounds, you have; you’ve got over eighty her brother Oscar. thousand. Malabar came in all right, Master “It’s one of the horses running for the Derby,” Paul.” was the answer. “Malabar! Malabar! Did I say Malabar, And, in spite of himself, Oscar Cresswell mother? Did I say Malabar? Do you think I’m spoke to Bassett, and himself put a thousand on lucky, mother? I knew Malabar, didn’t I? Over Malabar: at fourteen to one. eighty thousand pounds! I call that lucky, don’t The third day of the illness was critical: they you, mother? Over eighty thousand pounds! I were waiting for a change. The knew, didn’t I know I knew? boy, with his rather long, curly Malabar came in all right. If I hair, was tossing ceaselessly ride my horse till I’m sure, then I on the pillow. He neither slept tell you, Bassett, you can go as nor regained consciousness, and “It’s high as you like. Did you go for his eyes were like blue stones. all you were worth, Bassett?” His mother sat, feeling her heart Malabar! “I went a thousand on it, had gone, turned actually into a Bassett . . . Master Paul.” stone. “I never told you, mother, that In the evening, Oscar I know!” if I can ride my horse, and get Cresswell did not come, but there, then I’m absolutely sure— Bassett sent a message, saying oh, absolutely! Mother, did I could he come up for one ever tell you? I am lucky!” moment, just one moment? “No, you never did,” said his Paul’s mother was very angry at the intrusion, mother. but on second thoughts she agreed. The boy was But the boy died in the night. the same. Perhaps Bassett might bring him to And even as he lay dead, his mother heard her consciousness. brother’s voice saying to her: “My God, Hester, The gardener, a shortish fellow with a little you’re eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a brown moustache and sharp little brown eyes, poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, tiptoed into the room, touched his imaginary cap poor devil, he’s best gone out of a life where he to Paul’s mother, and stole to the bedside, staring rides his rocking-horse to find a winner.”
Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Big Idea Modernism What does this passage suggest Characters Why does the mother believe that Bassett might about love and money in modern society? be able to help Paul?
D. H. LAWRENCE 1135
11124-1135124-1135 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11351135 66/27/06/27/06 3:15:383:15:38 PMPM AFTER YOU READ
RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond Analyze and Evaluate 1. What went through your mind at the end of the 6. In your opinion, should anyone be held responsible story? for what happens to Paul? Explain. Recall and Interpret 7. This story is written almost like a fairy tale. Do you find this style effective? Why or why not? 2. (a)How does the mother feel about her children at the beginning of the story? (b)Do you think her 8. This story has an omniscient, or all-knowing, feelings for Paul change over the course of the narrator. How might the story change if it were told story? Explain. from the point of view of Paul or his mother? 3. (a)What does the house whisper? (b)Why might Connect only the children hear what the house is whispering? 9. Big Idea Modernism What effect does society’s 4. (a)How does Paul use the rocking horse to gain luck? emphasis on money have on the characters in this (b)What might the rocking horse symbolize to Paul? story? 5. (a)How does Paul arrange to give his mother his winnings? (b)What does Paul’s mother’s reaction to the gift of money reveal about her?
LITERARY ANALYSIS
Literary Element Foreshadowing Foreshadowing often helps to build suspense or “Well, anyhow,” he said stoutly, “I’m a lucky interest in a story. It makes readers predict what will person.” happen and encourages them to keep reading to see “Why?” said his mother, with a sudden laugh. if their predictions prove to be correct. He stared at her. He didn’t even know why he had said it. 1. Cite several examples of foreshadowing from the “God told me,” he asserted, brazening it out. story. What later events do these examples predict? “I hope He did, dear!” she said, again with a 2. What events does the title of the story foreshadow? laugh, but rather bitter. 1. What is Paul’s motivation for seeking luck? Review: Motivation 2. What prompts Paul to claim that God told him he As you learned on page 1046, motivation refers to a was lucky? character’s reason for acting, thinking, or feeling in a certain way. A character’s motivation may be stated directly or only implied. Partner Activity Meet with a partner to discuss what the following passage reveals about Paul’s motivation. Then answer the questions.
1136 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE Hulton Getty/Liaison Agency
11122-1137122-1137 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11361136 33/7/06/7/06 55:10:45:10:45 PMPM READING AND VOCABULARY WRITING AND EXTENDING
Reading Strategy Making Inferences About Writing About Literature Characters Analyze Character Characterization can be direct or Making inferences about the characters in a story can indirect. With direct characterization, the author states help you understand their actions and discover the facts about a character’s personality; with indirect char- author’s theme, or message about life. acterization, the author reveals a character’s personality by providing details about the character’s appearance, 1. What can you infer about Paul and the other chil- words, thoughts, and actions or by telling what other dren from their reactions to the whispering house? characters say about that character. Write a character 2. What is the theme of this story? Which character’s sketch that describes the traits that Paul or his mother statement from the story sums up the theme? exhibit in the story. First, fill in a web like the one Explain. below to help you take notes on your character.
Vocabulary Practice Narrator’s Other charac- comments ters’ comments Practice with Analogies Choose the word that best completes each analogy. Character: 1. emancipatePaul : enslave :: admire : Appearance Character Actions a. detest c. worship b. love d. esteem 2. parry : confront :: tow : a. suspend c. push Thoughts Words b. pull d. bury 3. reiterate : repeat :: examine : a. negate c. overlook After you complete your draft, meet with a peer b. inspect d. ignore reviewer to evaluate each other’s work and to suggest 4. obstinately : infl exibly :: courageously : revisions. Then proofread and edit your draft for errors a. valiantly c. timidly in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. b. indignantly d. lethargically Literature Groups Both Bassett and Uncle Oscar know about Paul’s Academic Vocabulary betting and help him to place his bets. Is it irresponsi- ble of them to let Paul continue even after he Here are two words from the vocabulary list on becomes upset about not winning? Discuss this ques- page R82. These words will help you think, tion in a small group, keeping in mind that both write, and talk about the selection. adults profit from Paul’s “luck.” Also think about Bassett’s description of Paul’s gift and Uncle Oscar’s distort (dis tort) v. to alter the natural mean- initial hesitations. Why might they keep their actions ing or shape of an object or idea secret from Paul’s mother? Discuss both sides of the sum (sum) n. an amount of money argument, citing details from the selection. Share your ideas with other groups. Practice and Apply 1. How does Paul’s mother distort the definition of luck? 2. What sum do you think would have satisfied Paul’s mother? Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to www.glencoe.com.
D. H. LAWRENCE 1137
11122-1137122-1137 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11371137 66/27/06/27/06 3:16:283:16:28 PMPM BEFORE YOU READ
Araby
MEET JAMES JOYCE
lthough James Joyce was born and grew up in Dublin, Ireland, and set all of his work Athere, he found the voice to write about the city only in exile. Leaving Dublin (the city Joyce termed “the center of paralysis”) allowed him the distance to imaginatively re-create the city in his fiction.
“Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of A Struggling Genius Moving throughout experience and to forge in the smithy Europe, Joyce spent most of his time in Trieste, Paris, Zurich, and Rome, teaching languages and of my soul the uncreated conscience of writing in his spare time. Although he was con- my race.” vinced of his own genius, Joyce’s frankness and his experiments with form made it difficult for him to —James Joyce get his writing published. When his work did get published, it was often considered scandalous and was banned by censors. As a result, Joyce earned Early Exile The oldest of ten children, Joyce was very little income from his writing until his later born into an affluent Catholic family that sank years. In addition to publishing difficulties and pov- into poverty due to his father’s heavy drinking and erty, he suffered from severe eye diseases and irresponsibility. However, Joyce did have happy endured over twenty operations—some of which memories of his father, especially from the time left him temporarily blind. they lived on North Richmond Street—the setting By the end of his life, Joyce was recognized as one of of “Araby.” Joyce’s father often walked the streets the most innovative and influential writers of the of Dublin with young James, telling stories about twentieth century. He experimented with language, the people who lived there. plot, and characterization, focusing on the inner Although Joyce received most of his education reality of his characters through the literary tech- in Catholic schools, he later rebelled against nique known as stream of consciousness. He gained Catholicism and what he felt was the stifling envi- acclaim for his autobiographical novel A Portrait of ronment of Dublin. After graduating from Dublin’s the Artist as a Young Man, as well as for his finely University College in 1902, Joyce left Dublin for crafted stories in Dubliners. A perfectionist who was Paris to seek freedom from narrow religious and devoted to his art, Joyce spent seven years writing social conventions. When his mother contracted a his masterpiece, Ulysses. Joyce’s fiction represents fatal illness, he returned to Ireland and began work- Dublin as a microcosm for all human experience. Dubliners. ing on the stories that would become James Joyce was born in 1882 and died in 1941. In 1904 he met and fell in love with Nora Barnacle, an uneducated but witty and intelligent working- class girl whom he persuaded to leave Ireland with Author Search For more about him for good. She became his lifelong companion. James Joyce, go to www.glencoe.com.
1138 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE UPI/Corbis-Bettmann
11138_1147_138_1147_ U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11381138 33/7/06/7/06 55:21:43:21:43 PMPM LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW
Connecting to the Story Reading Strategy Making and Verifying In “Araby,” a young boy embarks on a quest and Predictions comes to a startling realization. Have you ever looked When you make predictions, you make educated forward to an important event that turned out differ- guesses about what will happen later in a selection. ently from what you expected? Think about the follow- You then verify predictions by looking for textual evi- ing questions: dence that confirms their accuracy. As you read, make • How did the actual event compare with your predictions about later events and the outcome of expectations? “Araby” and verify the accuracy of your predictions. • How might anticipation of the event diminish its significance when the event finally occurs? Reading Tip: Taking Notes Use a chart like the one below to make and verify predictions as you read. Building Background Realistic and gritty, the content of Dubliners discour- Evidence for Prediction Verification aged potential publishers and printers. After myriad Prediction rejections and more than nine years after original negotiations began, a London firm finally agreed to print the book. During printing, however, parts of the manuscript were lost, and more than two hundred of Joyce’s corrections were never made. Setting Purposes for Reading Vocabulary imperturbable (im´ pər tur bə bəl) adj. not eas- Big Idea Modernism ily excited or disturbed; calm; p. 1141 The As you read “Araby,” notice how Joyce derives mean- guard was imperturbable despite the boys’ attempts ing from both traditional and innovative literary move- to goad him to anger. ments and techniques. diverge (d¯ vurj ) v. to move in different direc- tions from a common point; to branch out; Literary Element Epiphany p. 1141 When the detective asked about the thief’s An epiphany is a moment of sudden realization of the identity, the witnesses’ stories diverged. true meaning of a situation, person, or object. Joyce converge (kən vurj ) v. to come together in a was an innovator in the use of this technique and sug- common interest or conclusion; to center; gested that these glimpses offered a kind of revelation p. 1142 Revelers converge on Times Square every into a character. With an epiphany, a character has an New Year’s Eve. intuitive moment in which a simple or commonplace thing is seen in a new light that triggers a deeper insight impinge (im pinj ) v. to strike or dash; to col- into the world or the inner life of the character. As you lide; p. 1142 He felt the blast of the bass impinge read the story, look for the narrator’s epiphany. on his eardrums. a¯´ m¯e ə bil ə t¯e See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R6. amiability ( ) n. kindliness; • friendliness; p. 1142 Mrs. Lorca’s amiability made her popular in the neighborhood.
Vocabulary Tip: Antonyms Antonyms are words that Interactive Literary Elements have opposite or nearly opposite meanings. Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following: • analyzing epiphany and symbol • analyzing literary periods • making and verifying predictions
JAMES JOYCE 1139
11138_1147_138_1147_ U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11391139 11/10/07/10/07 10:27:4110:27:41 AMAM James Joyce
A Glasgow Close. Joan Eardley (1921–1963). Oil on canvas, 24 x 20 in. Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, Scotland.
1140 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow
11140-1145140-1145 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11401140 33/7/06/7/06 55:29:00:29:00 PM dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music North Richmond Street, being blind,1 was from the buckled harness. When we returned to a quiet street except at the hour when the the street, light from the kitchen windows had Christian Brothers’ School set the boys free. filled the areas. If my uncle was seen turning the An uninhabited house of two stories stood at corner we hid in the shadow until we had seen the blind end, detached from its neighbors in a him safely housed. Or if Mangan’s sister came square ground. The other houses of the street, out on the doorstep to call her brother in to his conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at tea we watched her from our shadow peer up one another with brown imperturbable faces. and down the street. We waited to see whether The former tenant of our house, a priest, had she would remain or go in and, if she remained, died in the back drawing room. Air, musty from we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan’s having been long enclosed, hung in all the steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her fig- rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen ure defined by the light from the half-opened was littered with old useless papers. Among these door. Her brother always teased her before he I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of obeyed and I stood by the railings looking at which were curled and damp: The Abbot, by her. Her dress swung as she moved her body and Walter Scott, The Devout Communicant and The the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side. Memoirs of Vidocq.2 I liked the last best because Every morning I lay on the floor in the front its leaves were yellow. The wild garden behind parlor watching her door. The blind was pulled the house contained a central apple tree and a down to within an inch of the sash so that I few straggling bushes under one of which I found could not be seen. When she came out on the the late tenant’s rusty bicycle pump. He had doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, been a very charitable priest; in his will he had seized my books and followed her. I kept her left all his money to institutions and the furni- brown figure always in my eye and, when we ture of his house to his sister. came near the point at which our ways When the short days of winter came dusk fell diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. before we had well eaten our dinners. When we This happened morning after morning. I had met in the street the houses had grown somber. never spoken to her, except for a few casual The space of sky above us was the color of ever- words, and yet her name was like a summons to changing violet and towards it the lamps of the all my foolish blood. street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air Her image accompanied me even in places the stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The when my aunt went marketing I had to go to career of our play brought us through the dark carry some of the parcels. We walked through the muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bar- the gantlet3 of the rough tribes from the cot- gaining women, amid the curses of laborers, the tages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gar- shrill litanies4 of shopboys who stood on guard by dens where odors arose from the ashpits, to the the barrels of pigs’ cheeks, the nasal chanting of street singers, who sang a come-you-all about
1. Here, blind means “dead-end.” 2. The Abbot is a historical novel; The Devout Communicant is 4. As it is used here, litany is a repetitive announcement to a religious manual; The Memoirs of Vidocq is the story of a attract customers. French detective. 3. Gantlet [or gauntlet] refers to an outdated punishment in Reading Strategy Making and Verifying Predictions which the offender was made to run between two rows of Based on the narrator’s description of Mangan’s sister, what men who struck at him with switches or weapons as he do you think his feelings for her are? passed. Here, it means “a series of challenges.”
Vocabulary Vocabulary imperturbable (im´ pər tur bə bəl) adj. not easily diverge (d¯ vurj ) v. to move in different directions excited or disturbed; calm from a common point; to branch out
JAMES JOYCE 1141
1140-1145 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1141 6/27/06 3:20:41 PM O’Donovan Rossa,5 or a ballad about the troubles While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet in our native land. These noises converged in a round and round her wrist. She could not go, she single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I said, because there would be a retreat7 that week bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. in her convent.8 Her brother and two other boys Her name sprang to my lips at moments in were fighting for their caps and I was alone at strange prayers and praises which I myself did not the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I her head towards me. The light from the lamp could not tell why) and at times a flood from my opposite our door caught the white curve of her heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, I thought little of the future. I did not know lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if side of her dress and caught the white border of a I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my con- petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease. fused adoration. But my body was like a harp and —It’s well for you, she said. her words and gestures were like fingers running —If I go, I said, I will bring you something. upon the wires. What innumerable follies laid waste my wak- One evening I went into the back drawing ing and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I room in which the priest had died. It was a dark wished to annihilate the tedious intervening rainy evening and there was no sound in the days. I chafed against the work of school. At house. Through one of the broken panes I heard night in my bedroom and by day in the class- the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine inces- room her image came between me and the page I sant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed were called to me through the silence in which below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchant- All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves ment over me. I asked for leave to go to the and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised pressed the palms of my hands together until they and hoped it was not some Freemason9 affair. I trembled, murmuring: O love! O love! many times. answered few questions in class. I watched my At last she spoke to me. When she addressed master’s face pass from amiability to sternness; he the first words to me I was so confused that I did hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not not know what to answer. She asked me was I call my wandering thoughts together. I had going to Araby.6 I forget whether I answered yes hardly any patience with the serious work of life or no. It would be a splendid bazaar, she said; she which, now that it stood between me and my would love to go. desire, seemed to me child’s play, ugly monoto- —And why can’t you? I asked. nous child’s play. On Saturday morning I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the bazaar in the evening. 5. A come-you-all is a ballad; O’Donovan Rossa was a He was fussing at the hall stand, looking for the nineteenth-century Irish nationalist. hat brush, and answered me curtly: 6. Araby was a bazaar held in 1894 in Dublin. —Yes, boy, I know. Big Idea Modernism The chalice is a religious icon—the As he was in the hall I could not go into the Holy Grail, or drinking cup of Christ for which the knights of front parlor and lie at the window. I left the the Round Table quested. How does Joyce make use of this house in bad humor and walked slowly towards traditional symbol in a modern setting?
Reading Strategy Making and Verifying Predictions Given the narrator’s attitude in the passage, what do you 7. A retreat is a group withdrawal for prayer and meditation. predict will happen concerning his “sight”? 8. Here, a convent is a school run by an order of Catholic nuns. 9. The Freemasons are part of a secret fraternity whose Vocabulary members are primarily Protestant. converge (kən vurj ) v. to come together in a common interest or conclusion; to center Vocabulary impinge (im pinj ) v. to strike or dash; to collide amiability (a¯´ me¯ ə bil ə te¯) n. kindliness, friendliness
1142 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
1140-1145 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1142 6/27/06 3:20:51 PM A Meeting, 1884. Maria Bashkirtseff. Oil on canvas, 195 x 177 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
the school. The air was pitilessly raw and already garrulous woman, a pawnbroker’s widow, who my heart misgave me. collected used stamps for some pious purpose. When I came home to dinner my uncle had I had to endure the gossip of the tea table. The not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat star- meal was prolonged beyond an hour and still ing at the clock for some time and, when its my uncle did not come. Mrs. Mercer stood up ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. to go: she was sorry she couldn’t wait any lon- I mounted the staircase and gained the upper ger, but it was after eight o’clock and she did part of the house. The high cold empty gloomy not like to be out late, as the night air was bad rooms liberated me and I went from room to for her. When she had gone I began to walk up room singing. From the front window I saw my and down the room, clenching my fists. My companions playing below in the street. Their aunt said: cries reached me weakened and indistinct and, —I’m afraid you may put off your bazaar for leaning my forehead against the cool glass, this night of Our Lord. I looked over at the dark house where she lived. At nine o’clock I heard my uncle’s latchkey in I may have stood there for an hour, seeing the hall door. I heard him talking to himself and nothing but the brown-clad figure cast by my imagination, touched discreetly by the lamp- light at the curved neck, at the hand upon the Reading Strategy Making and Verifying Predictions railings and at the border below the dress. How does the aunt’s statement undermine what Araby sym- When I came downstairs again I found bolizes for the narrator? What might her casual remark fore- Mrs. Mercer sitting at the fire. She was an old shadow for the rest of the story?
JAMES JOYCE 1143 Musee dʼOrsay/Art Resource, NY
11140-1145140-1145 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11431143 33/8/06/8/06 111:51:221:51:22 AMAM La Gare, 1991. P. J. Crook. Acrylic on canvas and wood, 116.8 x 91.4 cm. Private collection. Viewing the Art: How would you describe the atmosphere of this work? What scene does it remind you of in the story? Why?
1144 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York
11140-1145140-1145 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11441144 33/7/06/7/06 55:29:56:29:56 PM heard the hall stand rocking when it had received few people were gathered about the stalls which the weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these were still open. Before a curtain, over which the signs. When he was midway through his dinner I words Café Chantant12 were written in colored asked him to give me the money to go to the lamps, two men were counting money on a sal- bazaar. He had forgotten. ver.13 I listened to the fall of the coins. —The people are in bed and after their first sleep Remembering with difficulty why I had come I now, he said. went over to one of the stalls and examined porce- I did not smile. My aunt said to him energeti- lain vases and flowered tea sets. At the door of the cally: stall a young lady was talking and laughing with two —Can’t you give him the money and let him go? young gentlemen. I remarked their English accents You’ve kept him late enough as it is. and listened vaguely to their conversation. My uncle said he was very sorry he had forgot- —O, I never said such a thing! ten. He said he believed in the old saying: All —O, but you did! work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. He asked —O, but I didn’t! me where I was going and, when I had told him —Didn’t she say that? a second time he asked me did I know The Arab’s —Yes. I heard her. Farewell to His Steed.10 When I left the kitchen —O, there’s a . . . fib! he was about to recite the opening lines of the Observing me the young lady came over and piece to my aunt. asked me did I wish to buy anything. The tone of I held a florin11 tightly in my hand as I strode her voice was not encouraging; she seemed to down Buckingham Street towards the station. have spoken to me out of a sense of duty. I The sight of the streets thronged with buyers and looked humbly at the great jars that stood like glaring with gas recalled to me the purpose of eastern guards at either side of the dark entrance my journey. I took my seat in a third-class car- to the stall and murmured: riage of a deserted train. After an intolerable —No, thank you. delay the train moved out of the station slowly. The young lady changed the position of one of It crept onward among ruinous houses and over the vases and went back to the two young men. the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a They began to talk of the same subject. Once or crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but twice the young lady glanced at me over her the porters moved them back, saying that it was shoulder. a special train for the bazaar. I remained alone in I lingered before her stall, though I knew my the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares up beside an improvised wooden platform. I seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly passed out on to the road and saw by the lighted and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I dial of a clock that it was ten minutes to ten. In allowed the two pennies to fall against the six- front of me was a large building which displayed pence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one the magical name. end of the gallery that the light was out. The I could not find any sixpenny entrance and, upper part of the hall was now completely dark. fearing that the bazaar would be closed, I passed Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a in quickly through a turnstile, handing a shilling creature driven and derided by vanity; and my to a weary-looking man. I found myself in a big eyes burned with anguish and anger. hall girdled at half its height by a gallery. Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of
the hall was in darkness. I recognized a silence 12. Café Chantant was a popular café that provided musical like that which pervades a church after a service. entertainment. I walked into the center of the bazaar timidly. A 13. A salver is a tray commonly used to serve food and drinks.
Literary Element Epiphany What is the boy’s epiphany in the final passage of the story? How does the conversation 10. [The . . . Steed] is a sentimental poem by Caroline Norton. between the “young lady” and the “two young gentlemen” 11. A florin was a coin worth two shillings, which, at the time, help bring about the boy’s epiphany? equaled about fifty cents.
JAMES JOYCE 1145
11140-1145140-1145 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11451145 33/7/06/7/06 55:30:10:30:10 PM AFTER YOU READ
RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond Analyze and Evaluate 1. (a)What were your feelings toward the narrator at 5. Explain at least two reasons why you think Araby the end of the story? (b)Were you surprised by the becomes so important to the narrator. What might outcome? Explain. the bazaar represent to him? Recall and Interpret 6. (a)What do the narrator’s illusions and disillusions tell you about his personality? (b)Why do you think 2. (a)Describe the neighborhood in the opening the narrator buys nothing from the stall with the scene of the story. (b)What does the personifica- porcelain vases? tion of the houses in the first paragraph tell you about the people who live in the neighborhood? 7. What broader message or theme might Joyce be revealing through the story? 3. (a)At what time of day does the narrator see Mangan’s sister? When does he think of her? Connect (b)How well does the narrator know her, and upon what do his feelings seem to be based? 8. Big Idea Modernism How does Joyce connect traditional symbols and images to the modern 4. (a)What causes the narrator to be delayed in going world in “Araby”? to the bazaar? (b)Based on the uncle’s words and actions, what sort of relationship does he seem to have with his nephew?
LITERARY ANALYSIS
Literary Element Epiphany Partner Activity Meet with a partner to discuss the meaning of the religious symbols in the passage Earlier writers had used and discussed the occurrence below. Then answer the questions that follow. of a character’s sudden revelation or recognition, refer- ring to it as “the moment,” but Joyce gave the term “I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a epiphany a spiritual dimension. The name derives throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at from a Greek word denoting the manifestation of a moments in strange prayers and praises which I deity. Joyce remarked that the “something” that trig- myself did not understand. . . . I did not know whether gers an epiphany is its “soul, its whatness [that] leaps I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, to us from the vestment of its appearance.” Note how how I could tell her of my confused adoration.” the narrator’s epiphany affords him a spiritual insight 1. In Roman Catholic dogma, the chalice is the vessel into himself and the world. that holds the consecrated wine transformed by the 1. Where does the narrator’s epiphany occur in the priest into the blood of Christ. In this passage, what story and what events trigger the epiphany? does the chalice symbolize? 2. (a)What revelation does the epiphany offer the nar- 2. How does Mangan’s sister function as a symbol in rator about the world? (b)What spiritual revelation this passage? does the epiphany give the narrator about himself?
Review: Symbol As you learned on page 1078, a symbol is any object, person, place, or experience that exists on a literal level but also represents something beyond itself, on a figurative level.
1146 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
11138_1147_138_1147_ U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11461146 33/7/06/7/06 55:23:31:23:31 PMPM READING AND VOCABULARY WRITING AND EXTENDING
Reading Strategy Making and Verifying Writing About Literature Predictions Analyze Imagery The literary critic Edmund Wilson As you read the story, you made predictions about compared what happens in Joyce’s fiction to what what would happen. Look back at the chart you made goes on in the mind just before sleep: “Images or for the Reading Tip on page 1139 and verify the accu- words in the conscious mind take on an ominous racy of your predictions. Reread parts of the story that significance . . . incidents swell with meaning.” Choose give clues to the ending that you may have missed an image pattern that occurs throughout “Araby” and during your first reading. analyze how the significance of the imagery “swells” or changes as the story progresses. For example, think 1. What clues throughout the story suggest that the about the interplay between light and dark imagery, narrator might be exaggerating the significance of the role of religious imagery, or the function of the his relationship with Mangan’s sister? exotic imagery used to describe Araby. Write a brief 2. How did the narrator form his initial concept of essay in which you cite examples of the image pattern Araby as a place of mystery and delight? you have chosen from the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Show how the pattern increases in signifi- 3. How might the narrator’s daily life have led him to cance as the story progresses toward the narrator’s create romantic fantasies about Mangan’s sister and epiphany at the climax of the story. As you draft your about Araby? essay, use the following model.
Vocabulary Practice Give necessary background. In Introduction your one- or two-sentence the- Practice with Antonyms Choose the best sis, describe the image pattern you will analyze and how its antonym for each vocabulary word below. significance increases as the story progresses. 1. impinge a. collide b. separate
2. diverge a. unite b. divert Cite examples from the text. Explain how the examples 3. amiability a. kindliness b. animosity Body Paragraph(s) support your thesis. 4. imperturbable a. calm b. volatile 5. converge a. intersect b. divide Sum up your main points. Explain how the increasing sig- nificance of the imagery relates to the narrator’s epiphany and Academic Vocabulary Conclusion theme of the story.
Here is a word from the vocabulary list on After you complete your draft, meet with a peer page R82. reviewer to evaluate each other’s work and to suggest whereby (hwar¯ b¯ ) adv. by, through, or in revisions. Then proofread and edit your essay for accordance with errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Practice and Apply Literary Criticism What were the circumstances whereby the narra- tor achieved his epiphany? Critics Cleanth Brooks Jr. and Robert Penn Warren assert that the narrator of “Araby” continues to be troubled as an adult by the disparity between the real and the ideal that he recognized as a boy in the story; otherwise, his experience at the bazaar would no longer matter to him. Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to With a partner, share your opinion of this interpretation. www.glencoe.com. Support your opinion with evidence from the story.
JAMES JOYCE 1147
11138_1147_138_1147_ U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11471147 66/27/06/27/06 3:21:153:21:15 PMPM Vocabulary Workshop Word Parts
º Vocabulary Terms Understanding Unfamiliar Math and Science Terms An etymology is a word’s “I held a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham Street towards origin. You can find the the station.” origins of most words in a dictionary. —James Joyce, from “Araby”
º Test-Taking Tip Connecting to Literature The word florin in the quotation above comes from When faced with an unfa- the Latin flor- meaning “flower.” The coin was originally made in Florence and miliar word in a reading was stamped with the image of a lily. The common English words flour, flourish, passage, break it into its and Florida also come from this Latin root. parts. Then think of famil- iar words that include those parts. Examples You can figure out the meaning of many math and science terms if you know º Reading Handbook some common word parts. Study the word parts and their definitions in the chart For more about word parts below. and word origins, see Reading Handbook, p. R20. Roots Suffixes astr/o star -crat ruler auto self -escence becoming flor flower -grapher writer ge/o earth -nomy laws/knowledge eFlashcards For eFlashcards and other vocabulary activities, tele distant -metry measure go to www.glencoe.com.
Exercise Answer the following questions by combining a word part from each col- umn above. Consult a dictionary to check your answers.
OBJECTIVES 1. What word describes a branch of mathematics that deals with lines, • Use word parts to help you angles, and solids? understand math and sci- ence terms. 2. What word means “blossoming”? • Verify word meanings by 3. What do you call someone who sends long-distance messages? using a dictionary. 4. What word describes the scientific study of the objects in outer space? 5. What word describes a ruler with unlimited power?
1148 UNIT 6
11148148 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11481148 11/10/07/10/07 10:38:0310:38:03 AMAM BEFORE YOU READ
Woolf’s Works
MEET VIRGINIA WOOLF
s a child, Virginia Woolf was tutored by one of the most prominent intellectuals Aand literary critics in England—her father, Sir Leslie Stephen. Following in his footsteps, Woolf began her career as an essayist and critic. She went on, however, to write some of the most untraditional and influential novels of the early twentieth century. Her work was a deliberate attempt to break the conventions of fiction, and she challenged the way traditional novels presented This loose collection of artists and thinkers, the flow of time and individual experience. She dubbed the Bloomsbury Group, shared a passion saw life not as a neatly arranged series of events for the arts and an intense dislike of the restric- but as a process we live every day. To be faithful to tions of Victorian England. this idea, Woolf’s fiction avoids plot as we know it and instead swirls through the consciousness of The Hogarth Press The outbreak of World War I characters, revealing the essence of their lives. caused Woolf’s depression to recur, despite her pro- gression as a writer and the publication of her first novel, The Voyage Out (1915). Hoping a new artistic outlet would restore her health, she and “A woman must have money and a her husband, essayist and journalist Leonard Woolf, room of her own if she is to write set up a printing press in the basement of Hogarth House, their home. From this humble beginning fiction.” grew one of the most important publishing ven- —Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own” tures of the day—Hogarth Press. The press became a leading force in the popularization of modern, experimental literature and philosophy, publishing the writing of such important literary figures as Bloomsbury Virginia Woolf, born Adeline Katherine Mansfield and T. S. Eliot and such Virginia Stephen, was the next to youngest in a influential thinkers as Sigmund Freud. Hogarth family of four children. At the age of thirteen, her Press also published Woolf’s own novels, including mother died, a loss that plunged Woolf into a deep Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, two of her depression. Woolf periodically suffered serious most popular, respected, and experimental works. mental breakdowns for the rest of her life. After the death of her father, when she was in her early When Woolf was in her late fifties, she lost her twenties, Woolf, her brother, and her two sisters last battle with mental illness. In 1941 she drowned moved to the Bloomsbury district of London. Soon herself in the river near her home in Sussex. Yet, Woolf had made her mark as an essayist and critic her legacy lies in her innovative style as well as for the Times Literary Supplement. The home of her passion for women’s equality. Woolf and her sister Vanessa, a painter, quickly Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 and died in 1941. became a center of English intellectual activity and a salon that attracted eminent authors and thinkers, such as E. M. Forster, George Bernard Author Search For more about Shaw, and economist John Maynard Keynes. Virginia Woolf, go to www.glencoe.com.
VIRGINIA WOOLF 1149 George C. Beresford/Getty Images
11149-1164149-1164 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11491149 33/7/06/7/06 55:39:06:39:06 PMPM LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW
Connecting to the Essay Reading Strategy Analyzing Tone In this excerpt from “A Room of One’s Own,” Woolf When you analyze tone, you think critically about describes the negative effects of traditional roles on how the writer’s attitude toward a subject is conveyed women’s lives. As you read, think about the following through such elements as diction, sentence structure, questions: imagery, and figures of speech. How have the roles of women changed since • Reading Tip: Interpreting Tone As you read, pause Woolf’s time? from time to time to consider Woolf’s attitude toward How do you think society views the “ideal woman”? • the idea that women are inherently incapable of creat- What qualities is she expected to possess? ing great art. Building Background Woolf wrote the essay “A Room of One’s Own” during Vocabulary a time in which England’s woman suffrage movement u fo had won substantial victories. In 1918 the English gov- guffaw ( ) v. to laugh loudly and boister- ernment extended the right to vote to all British female ously; p. 1153 He guffawed at Marvin’s ridiculous citizens over the age of thirty. In 1928, a year before suggestion. “A Room of One’s Own” was published, the voting age thwart (thwort ) v. to prevent from doing or for women was lowered to twenty-one. Woolf was an achieving something; p. 1154 The criminal was active supporter of the suffrage movement and other able to thwart detectives for several years. women’s rights movements of the time even though hinder (hin dər) v. to make difficult the prog- many of the intellectuals she associated with scorned ress of; to hold back; p. 1154 If the drought con- the agitation for increased women’s rights. “A Room of tinues, it will hinder the growth of corn. One’s Own” is based on “Women and Fiction,” a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham and Girton col- dilemma (di lem ə) n. a situation requiring a leges, Cambridge. In these lectures, she discussed the choice between equally undesirable alternatives; educational, social, and financial disadvantages that p. 1154 When I was admitted to only the colleges I she believed had prevented women of the past from least wanted to attend, I faced the dilemma of becoming successful writers. choosing which offer to accept. Setting Purposes for Reading morbid (mor bid) adj. overly sensitive to death and decay; not cheerful or wholesome; p. 1154 Big Idea Modernism People who suffer from depression are usually Modernism represented a break with both literary and inclined toward morbid and unhappy thoughts. social traditions. As you read, examine how Woolf’s essay reflects these changes. Vocabulary Tip: Word Origins Word origins include the history and development of a word. Literary Element Argument Argument is a type of persuasive writing in which logic or reason is used to try to influence a reader’s ideas or actions. As you read Woolf’s essay, examine how she constructs her argument about the obstacles faced by women writers. Interactive Literary Elements • See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R2. Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following: • interpreting an author’s argument • understanding Modernism • analyzing tone
1150 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
11149-1164149-1164 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11501150 11/10/07/10/07 10:49:4410:49:44 AMAM Virginia Woolf
The Music Room, 30 Strandgade, 1907. Vilhelm Hammershoi. Oil on canvas. Private collection.
Here am I asking why women did not write to Professor Trevelyan1 they were married poetry in the Elizabethan age, and I am not sure whether they liked it or not before they were out how they were educated; whether they were of the nursery, at fifteen or sixteen very likely. It taught to write; whether they had sitting-rooms would have been extremely odd, even upon this to themselves; how many women had children before they were twenty-one; what, in short, they did from eight in the morning till eight at 1. Professor Trevelyan was a British historian and author who night. They had no money evidently; according often wrote about the history of England.
VIRGINIA WOOLF 1151 Christieʼs Images,Ltd.
11151-1154151-1154 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11511151 33/8/06/8/06 88:17:02:17:02 AM showing, had one of them suddenly written the his art on the boards,5 exercising his wits6 in the plays of Shakespeare, I concluded, and I thought streets, and even getting access to the palace of of that old gentleman, who is dead now, but was a the queen. Meanwhile his extraordinarily gifted bishop, I think, who declared that it was impossi- sister, let us suppose, remained at home. She was ble for any woman, past, present, or to come, to as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog7 to see have the genius of Shakespeare. He wrote to the the world as he was. But she was not sent to papers about it. He also told a lady who applied school. She had no chance of learning grammar to him for information that cats do not as a and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil. matter of fact go to heaven, though they have, She picked up a book now and then, one of her he added, souls of a sort. How much thinking brother’s perhaps, and read a few pages. But then those old gentlemen used to save one! How the her parents came in and told her to mend the borders of ignorance shrank back at their stockings or mind the stew and not moon8 about approach! Cats do not go to heaven. Women with books and papers. They would have spoken cannot write the plays of Shakespeare. sharply but kindly, for they were substantial people Be that as it may, I could not help thinking, who knew the conditions of life for a woman and as I looked at the works of Shakespeare on the loved their daughter—indeed, more likely than shelf, that the bishop was right at least in this; not she was the apple of her father’s eye. Perhaps it would have been impossible, completely and she scribbled some pages up in an apple loft on entirely, for any woman to have written the plays the sly, but was careful to hide them or set fire of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare. Let me to them. Soon, however, before she was out of imagine, since facts are so hard to come by, what her teens, she was to be betrothed9 to the son of would have happened had Shakespeare had a a neighboring wool stapler. She cried out that wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say. marriage was hateful to her, and for that she was Shakespeare himself went, very probably—his severely beaten by her father. Then he ceased to mother was an heiress—to the grammar school, scold her. He begged her instead not to hurt him, where he may have learnt Latin—Ovid, Virgil, not to shame him in this matter of her marriage. and Horace2—and the elements of grammar and He would give her a chain of beads or a fine pet- logic. He was, it is well known, a wild boy who ticoat, he said; and there were tears in his eyes. poached3 rabbits, perhaps shot a deer, and had, How could she disobey him? How could she break rather sooner than he should have done, to his heart? The force of her own gift alone drove marry a woman in the neighborhood, who bore her to it. She made up a small parcel of her him a child rather quicker than was right. That belongings, let herself down by a rope one sum- escapade4 sent him to seek his fortune in London. mer’s night and took the road to London. She He had, it seemed, a taste for the theater; he was not seventeen. The birds that sang in the began by holding horses at the stage door. Very hedge were not more musical than she was. She soon he got work in the theater, became a suc- had the quickest fancy, a gift like her brother’s, cessful actor, and lived at the hub of the universe, for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste meet ing every body, know ing every body, practicing
5. Here, on the boards means “onstage.” 2. Ovid, Virgil, and Horace were famous poets from ancient 6. As it is used here, wits means “intelligence.” Rome who were commonly studied by students. 7. Agog means “full of interest or anticipation.” 3. Here, poached means “hunted illegally.” 8. Here, moon means “to wander or pass time aimlessly.” 4. An escapade is an unconventional adventure. 9. Betrothed means “engaged to be married.”
Reading Strategy Analyzing Tone How would you char- Literary Element Argument What contrast is Woolf acterize Woolf’s tone in this passage? drawing here?
Literary Element Argument Why does Woolf tell the Reading Strategy Analyzing Tone What is the tone of story of the bishop? Why does she imagine that Shakespeare these questions? How do they demonstrate Woolf’s attitude had a sister? toward her subject?
1152 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
1151-1154 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1152 6/27/06 3:25:35 PM A Maid with a Pail in the Backyard, c. 1660/61. Pieter de Hooch. Oil on canvas, 48.2 x 42.9 cm. Private collection.
for the theater. She stood at the stage door; That, more or less, is how the story would run, she wanted to act, she said. Men laughed in her I think, if a woman in Shakespeare’s day had had face. The manager—a fat, loose-lipped man— Shakespeare’s genius. But for my part, I agree guffawed. He bellowed something about poodles with the deceased bishop, if such he was—it is dancing and women acting—no woman, he said, unthinkable that any woman in Shakespeare’s could possibly be an actress. He hinted—you can day should have had Shakespeare’s genius. For imagine what. She could get no training in her genius like Shakespeare’s is not born among craft. Could she even seek her dinner in a tavern laboring, uneducated, servile people. It was not or roam the streets at midnight? Yet her genius born in England among the Saxons and the was for fiction and lusted to feed abundantly Britons. It is not born today among the working upon the lives of men and women and the study classes. How, then, could it have been born of their ways. At last—for she was very young, among women whose work began, according to oddly like Shakespeare the poet in her face, with Professor Trevelyan, almost before they were out the same gray eyes and rounded brows—at last of the nursery, who were forced to it by their par- Nick Greene the actor-manager took pity on her; ents and held to it by all the power of law and she found herself with child by that gentleman custom? Yet genius of a sort must have existed and so—who shall measure the heat and violence among women as it must have existed among the of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in working classes. Now and again an Emily Brontë a woman’s body?—killed herself one winter’s or a Robert Burns11 blazes out and proves its night and lies buried at some crossroads where presence. But certainly it never got itself on to the omnibuses10 now stop outside the Elephant and Castle. 11. Brontë overcame the obstacle of being a woman, and Burns overcame the obstacle of being from the working 10. Omnibuses is another term for “buses.” class; both became famous writers. Vocabulary Big Idea Modernism How does this statement represent u fo guffaw ( ) v. to laugh loudly and boisterously a break with traditional beliefs?
VIRGINIA WOOLF 1153 akg-images
1151-1154 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1153 6/27/06 3:25:50 PM Interior with Sewing Woman, early 19th century. Ascribed to Fedor Petrovich Tolstoi. Oil on canvas, 42 x 46.8 cm. Tretjakov Gallery, Moscow.
at. For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty. No girl could have walked to London and stood at a stage door and forced her way into the pres- ence of actor-managers without doing herself a violence and suffering an an- guish which may have been irrational— for chastity15 may be a fetish invented by certain societies for unknown rea- paper. When, however, one reads of a witch sons—but were none the less inevitable. being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, Chastity had then, it has even now, a religious of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very importance in a woman’s life, and has so remarkable man who had a mother, then I think wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts we are on the track of a lost novelist, a sup- that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day pressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane demands courage of the rarest. To have lived a Austen,12 some Emily Brontë who dashed her free life in London in the sixteenth century brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed would have meant for a woman who was poet about the highways crazed with the torture that and playwright a nervous stress and dilemma her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture which might well have killed her. Had she sur- to guess that Anon,13 who wrote so many poems vived, whatever she had written would have without signing them, was often a woman. It was been twisted and deformed, issuing from a a woman Edward FitzGerald,14 I think, suggested strained and morbid imagination. And undoubt- who made the ballads and the folk songs, croon- edly, I thought, looking at the shelf where there ing them to her children, beguiling her spinning are no plays by women, her work would have with them, or the length of the winter’s night. gone unsigned. This may be true or it may be false—who can say?—but what is true in it, so it seemed to me, reviewing the story of Shakespeare’s sister as I 15. Chastity is the quality or state of being morally pure. had made it, is that any woman born with a Literary Element Argument How does Woolf’s argument great gift in the sixteenth century would cer- support this statement? tainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the vil- Vocabulary lage, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked thwart (thwort ) v. to prevent from doing or achieving something hinder (hin dər) v. to make difficult the progress of; 12. [Some . . . Austen] alludes to a line from Thomas Gray’s to hold back “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” which reads, dilemma (di lem ə) n. a situation requiring a choice “Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest.” between equally undesirable alternatives (See page 710.) morbid (mor bid) adj. overly sensitive to death and 13. Anon is the abbreviation for “Anonymous.” decay; not cheerful or wholesome 14. Edward FitzGerald was an English poet and translator.
1154 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE akg-images
1151-1154 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1154 6/27/06 3:26:01 PM AFTER YOU READ
RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond 5. (a)In your opinion, was Woolf’s primary purpose to inform, persuade, entertain, or disprove the views 1. What was your response to Woolf’s argument? of others? Explain. (b)Do you believe Woolf effec- Recall and Interpret tively fulfills her purpose? Why or why not? 2. (a)How does Woolf feel about the bishop’s com- 6. (a)What effect does Woolf create with the use of ments about women? (b)Summarize and explain long paragraphs? (b)How might the essay be the extended analogy in the second paragraph that affected if shorter paragraphs were used? Woolf uses to support her view. 7. (a)How do you think a sixteenth-century English- 3. (a)In the third paragraph, who is “Anon”? (b)What man might define the “ideal woman”? (b)In your point does Woolf make through the use of this opinion, are Woolf’s views still relevant today? name? Explain. Analyze and Evaluate Connect What is the main message of Woolf’s essay? 4. 8. Big Idea Modernism How does Woolf’s essay refl ect the Modernist break with tradition?
LITERARY ANALYSIS READING AND VOCABULARY
Literary Element Argument Reading Strategy Analyzing Tone An argument is an opinion supported by carefully Writers use a variety of literary elements to craft tone, chosen facts and logical reasoning. including text structure and imagery. 1. (a)Summarize Professor Trevelyan’s and the unnamed 1. At what points in the essay is Woolf sarcastic? bishop’s comments about women, as presented in 2. In your opinion, what is the overall tone of the the first paragraph. (b)What point might Woolf be essay? Support your opinion with passages and making by including the comment about cats? ideas from the selection. 2. (a)In the fourth paragraph, what fate does Woolf believe a gifted sixteenth-century woman would have suffered? (b)What evidence does Woolf offer Vocabulary Practice in support of her view? Practice with Word Origins Match each vocabu- lary word below with its etymology. Use a diction- Writing About Literature ary if necessary. 1. guffaw a. Greek root, meaning Evaluate Author’s Craft In the second paragraph, “ambiguous proposition” Woolf uses a highly original analogy, or comparison, to support her ideas about women. In a few paragraphs, 2. thwart b. Latin root, meaning analyze the analogy. In your opinion, does the analogy “diseased” effectively make Woolf’s point? Explain. 3. hinder c. Middle English root, meaning “to cross” 4. dilemma d. Old English root, meaning “in the way” 5. morbid e. Scottish origin, imitating Web Activities For eFlashcards, the sound of laughter Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to www.glencoe.com.
VIRGINIA WOOLF 1155
11149-1164149-1164 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11551155 33/7/06/7/06 55:39:32:39:32 PMPM BEFORE YOU READ from Mrs. Dalloway
LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW
Connecting to the Novel Reading Strategy Visualizing In this excerpt from Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, To visualize means to use your imagination to form the title character reflects upon events in her past. As pictures of the setting, characters, and action based on you read, think about the following questions: the details you read. By visualizing, you can put together important parts of the story and immerse Have you ever made a decision you later regretted? • yourself in the action that takes place. What did you do about the decision? Have you ever had your train of thought suddenly • Reading Tip: Asking Questions When you visualize, interrupted by your surroundings? you should ask yourself such basic questions as how Building Background does this setting, character, or object look? Who is in this scene? Where are the characters in relation to one The novel Mrs. Dalloway follows one day in the life another and their surroundings? of its title character, Clarissa Dalloway. The story takes place in June 1923, several years after the end of World War I. The reader learns about Clarissa’s former Vocabulary fiancé, Peter Walsh, whom Clarissa rejected at the age sol əm of eighteen; her husband Richard Dalloway, the man solemn ( ) adj. serious; somber; p. 1157 Clarissa chose over Peter; and Hugh Whitbread, a Once we heard the bad news, everyone’s mood childhood friend whose wife is constantly ill. Clarissa’s became solemn. interactions with these characters and her internal presumably (pri zoo¯¯¯ mə ble¯) adv. by reasonable monologue reveal a sense of regret over past decisions. assumption; p. 1159 Presumably, you have stud- The excerpt you are about to read comes from the ied for the test since it is a large part of your grade. beginning of the novel, when Clarissa takes a morning ailment (al¯ mənt) n. sickness or affliction; walk before preparing for the large party she is to host p. 1159 A doctor can prescribe medication to cure that evening. your ailment. Setting Purposes for Reading perpetual (pər pech oo¯¯¯ əl) adj. constantly Big Idea Modernism occurring; p. 1160 My sister and I cannot agree on anything; our arguments are perpetual. As you read, note how Woolf’s Modernist narrative style presents a psychoanalytic portrait of Clarissa cordial (kor jəl) adj. personable and likeable; Dalloway. p. 1161 His cordial personality showed he was warm and sincere. Literary Element Stream of Consciousness Vocabulary Tip: Synonyms Words that have the Stream of consciousness is a method of writing that same meaning are called synonyms. imitates human thought with a continuous and form- less flow of ideas, feelings, observations, and memo- ries. As you read the excerpt from Mrs. Dalloway, pay attention to how this method helps reveal insights into Clarissa Dalloway and her view of the world. • See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R17. Interactive Literary Elements Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following: • understanding stream-of-consciousness writing and description • recognizing the characteristics of the Modernist novel • analyzing the events of a literary work through visualizing
1156 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
11149-1164149-1164 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11561156 11/10/07/10/07 10:55:5110:55:51 AMAM Virginia Woolf
Piccadilly in June, 1892. Rose Maynard Barton. Watercolor on paper. Private collection.
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers gone out on to the terrace—Peter Walsh. He herself. would be back from India one of these days, June For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The or July, she forgot which, for his letters were doors would be taken off their hinges; awfully dull; it was his sayings one remembered; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpi- thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning— ness and, when millions of things had utterly fresh as if issued to children on a beach. vanished—how strange it was!—a few sayings What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had like this about cabbages. always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak She stiffened a little on the kerb,2 waiting for of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had Durtnall’s van to pass. A charming woman, burst open the French windows and plunged at Scrope Purvis thought her (knowing her as one Bourton1 into the open air. How fresh, how does know people who live next door to one in calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in Westminster); a touch of the bird about her, of the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the the jay, blue-green, light, vivacious, though she kiss of a wave, chill and sharp and yet (for a girl was over fifty, and grown very white since her of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as illness. There she perched, never seeing him, she did, standing there at the open window, that waiting to cross, very upright. something awful was about to happen; looking at For having lived in Westminster—how many the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding years now? over twenty,—one feels even in the off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa and looking until Peter Walsh said, “Musing was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an among the vegetables?”—was that it?—“I prefer indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might men to cauliflowers”—was that it? He must have be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) said it at breakfast one morning when she had before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour,
1. Bourton, also called Bourton-on-the-Water, is a village in irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the southeast Britain. air. Such fools we are, she thought, crossing
Literary Element Stream of Consciousness What brings Clarissa back to these thoughts? 2. Kerb is a variant spelling of “curb.” Vocabulary Reading Strategy Visualizing How does Woolf create sol əm solemn ( ) adj. serious; somber a visual image with this sound?
VIRGINIA WOOLF 1157 Private Collection/Chris Beetles, London, U.K.Bridgeman Art Library
1157-1161 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1157 6/27/06 3:27:18 PM the Embassy last night eating her heart out because that nice boy was killed and now the old Manor House must go to a cousin; or Lady Bexborough who opened a bazaar, they said, with the telegram in her hand, John, her favor- ite, killed; but it was over; thank Heaven—over. It was June. The King and Queen were at the Palace. And everywhere, though it was still so early, there was a beating, a stirring of galloping ponies, tapping of cricket bats; Lords, Ascot, Ranelagh6 and all the rest of it; wrapped in the soft mesh of the grey-blue morning air, which, as the day wore on, would unwind them, and set down on their lawns and pitches the bouncing ponies, whose forefeet just struck the ground and up they sprung, the whirling young men, and laughing girls in their transparent muslins who, even now, after dancing all night, were taking their absurd woolly dogs for a run; and even now, at this hour, discreet old dowagers7 were shooting out in their motor cars on errands of mystery; and the shopkeepers were fidgeting in their windows with their paste and diamonds, their lovely old sea-green brooches in eigh- teenth-century settings to tempt Americans (but one must economise, not buy things rashly for Elizabeth), and she, too, loving it as she did
The Bird’s Nest. Edward Killingworth Johnson. Private collection. with an absurd and faithful passion, being part of it, since her people were courtiers once in the Victoria Street.3 For Heaven only knows why time of the Georges,8 she, too, was going that one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, very night to kindle and illuminate; to give her building it round one, tumbling it, creating it party. But how strange on entering the Park, the every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the silence; the mist; the hum; the slow-swimming most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps happy ducks; the pouched birds waddling; and (drink their downfall) do the same; can’t be dealt who should be coming along with his back with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament4 for against the Government buildings, most appro- that very reason: they love life. In people’s eyes, priately, carrying a despatch box stamped with in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow the Royal Arms, who but Hugh Whitbread; her and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omni- old friend Hugh—the admirable Hugh! buses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some 6. Lords, Ascot, Ranelagh refers to Lord’s Cricket Ground, Ascot aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; Racecourse, and Ranelagh Gardens, each a famous site in or near London. London; this moment of June. 7. Dowagers are elderly women, usually of a high social class. For it was the middle of June. The War5 was 8. Courtiers . . . time of the Georges means that Clarissa’s over, except for some one like Mrs. Foxcroft at ancestors were attendants to the royal court of the eighteenth-century kings of England (George I, George II, and George III). 3. Victoria Street is a major street in London, with landmarks such Literary Element Stream of Consciousness What might as Big Ben, Westminster Cathedral, and Buckingham Palace. this interruption in Clarissa’s train of thought indicate about 4. Acts of Parliament are laws created by the British Parliament. her personality? 5. The War refers to World War I.
1158 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE Fine Art Photographic Library, London / Art Resource, NY
1157-1161 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1158 6/27/06 3:27:33 PM “Good-morning to you, Clarissa!” said Hugh, When his old mother wanted him to give up rather extravagantly, for they had known each shooting or to take her to Bath9 he did it, with- other as children. “Where are you off to?” out a word; he was really unselfish, and as for “I love walking in London,” said Mrs. Dalloway. saying, as Peter did, that he had no heart, no “Really it’s better than walking in the country.” brain, nothing but the manners and breeding of They had just come up—unfortunately—to see an English gentleman, that was only her dear doctors. Other people came to see pictures; go to Peter at his worst; and he could be intolerable; the opera; take their daughters out; the Whitbreads he could be impossible; but adorable to walk came “to see doctors.” Times without number with on a morning like this. Clarissa had visited Evelyn Whitbread in a nursing (June has drawn out every leaf on the trees. home. Was Evelyn ill again? Evelyn was a good The mothers of Pimlico10 gave suck to their deal out of sorts, said Hugh, intimating by a kind of young. Messages were passing from the Fleet to pout or swell of his very well-covered, manly, the Admiralty. Arlington Street and Piccadilly11 extremely handsome, perfectly upholstered body seemed to chafe the very air in the Park and lift (he was almost too well dressed always, but its leaves hotly, brilliantly, on waves of that presumably had to be, with his little job at Court) divine vitality which Clarissa loved. To dance, that his wife had some internal ailment, nothing to ride, she had adored all that.) serious, which, as an old friend, Clarissa Dalloway For they might be parted for hundreds of would quite understand without requiring him to years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter specify. Ah yes, she did of course; what a nuisance; and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would and felt very sisterly and oddly conscious at the come over her, If he were with me now what same time of her hat. Not the right hat for the would he say?—some days, some sights bring- early morning, was that it? For Hugh always made ing him back to her calmly, without the old her feel, as he bustled on, raising his hat rather bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of extravagantly and assuring her that she might be having cared for people; they came back in the a girl of eighteen, and of course he was coming to middle of St. James’s Park on a fine morning— her party to-night, Evelyn absolutely insisted, only indeed they did. But Peter—however beautiful a little late he might be after the party at the Palace the day might be, and the trees and the grass, to which he had to take one of Jim’s boys,—she and the little girl in pink—Peter never saw a always felt a little skimpy beside Hugh; school- thing of all that. He would put on his specta- girlish; but attached to him, partly from having cles, if she told him to; he would look. It was known him always, but she did think him a good the state of the world that interested him; sort in his own way, though Richard was nearly Wagner, Pope’s12 poetry, people’s characters driven mad by him, and as for Peter Walsh, he eternally, and the defects of her own soul. How had never to this day forgiven her for liking him. he scolded her! How they argued! She would She could remember scene after scene at marry a Prime Minister and stand at the top of Bourton—Peter furious; Hugh not, of course, his a staircase; the perfect hostess he called her match in any way, but still not a positive imbe- cile as Peter made out; not a mere barber’s block. 9. Bath is a popular resort town in southwestern Britain. 10. Pimlico is another name for a friarbird, and is also the name of a district in London. Reading Strategy Visualizing How do Mrs. Dalloway’s 11. Piccadilly refers to Piccadilly Circus, an intersection of five thoughts and the images she notices verify this statement? streets in a busy section of London. 12. Wagner refers to the German composer Richard Wagner Literary Element Stream of Consciousness What (1813–1883), and Pope refers to the English poet makes Clarissa think about Peter while talking to Hugh? Alexander Pope (1688–1744).
Literary Element Stream of Consciousness Why do you Vocabulary think Woolf put parentheses around this paragraph? presumably (pri zoo¯¯¯ mə ble¯) adv. by reasonable assumption Reading Strategy Visualizing How does this description ailment (al¯ mənt) n. sickness or affliction of Peter Walsh help you to understand his character?
VIRGINIA WOOLF 1159
1157-1161 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1159 6/27/06 3:27:51 PM Their Majesties’ Return from Ascot, 1925. Alfred Munnings. Oil on canvas, 148.0 x 244.5 cm. Tate Gallery, London.
(she had cried over it in her bedroom), she talked of; his whole life had been a failure. It had the makings of the perfect hostess, he said. made her angry still. So she would still find herself arguing in She had reached the Park gates. She stood for St. James’s Park, still making out that she had been a moment, looking at the omnibuses in Piccadilly. right—and she had too—not to marry him. For She would not say of any one in the world in marriage a little licence, a little independence now that they were this or were that. She felt there must be between people living together day very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. in day out in the same house; which Richard She sliced like a knife through everything; at the gave her, and she him. (Where was he this same time was outside, looking on. She had a morning for instance? Some committee, she perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, never asked what.) But with Peter everything of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she had to be shared; everything gone into. And it always had the feeling that it was very, very was intolerable, and when it came to that scene dangerous to live even one day. Not that she in the little garden by the fountain, she had to thought herself clever, or much out of the ordi- break with him or they would have been nary. How she had got through life on the few destroyed, both of them ruined, she was con- twigs of knowledge Fräulein Daniels gave them vinced; though she had borne about with her for she could not think. She knew nothing; no lan- years like an arrow sticking in her heart the grief, guage, no history; she scarcely read a book now, the anguish; and then the horror of the moment except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was when some one told her at a concert that he had absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; married a woman met on the boat going to and she would not say of Peter, she would not India!13 Never should she forget all that! Cold, say of herself, I am this, I am that. heartless, a prude, he called her. Never could Her only gift was knowing people almost by she understand how he cared. But those Indian instinct, she thought, walking on. If you put her women did presumably—silly, pretty, flimsy in a room with some one, up went her back like nincompoops. And she wasted her pity. For he a cat’s; or she purred. Devonshire House, Bath was quite happy, he assured her—perfectly happy, House, the house with the china cockatoo, she though he had never done a thing that they had seen them all lit up once; and remembered Sylvia, Fred, Sally Seton—such hosts of people;
13. India was a British colony from the mid-1700s to 1947. Vocabulary Reading Strategy Visualizing What details might Clarissa pər pech oo¯¯¯ əl have left out from this depiction? perpetual ( ) adj. constantly occurring
1160 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE Tate Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY
1157-1161 U6P2 Sel-845482.indd 1160 6/27/06 3:28:06 PM In the Park (St. James’s Park), 1912. Malcolm Drummond. Southampton City Art Gallery, Hampshire, UK.
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun Nor the furious winter’s rages.16
This late age of the world’s experi- ence had bred in them all, all men and women, a well of tears. Tears and sorrows; courage and endur- ance; a perfectly upright and stoi- cal bearing. Think, for example, of the woman she admired most, Lady Bexborough, opening the bazaar. There were Jorrocks’ Jaunts and Jollities; there were Soapy Sponge and Mrs. Asquith’s Memoirs and Big Game Shooting in Nigeria, all spread open. Ever so many books and dancing all night; and the wagons plodding there were; but none that seemed exactly right past to market; and driving home across the to take to Evelyn Whitbread in her nursing Park. She remembered once throwing a shilling home. Nothing that would serve to amuse her into the Serpentine.14 But every one remembered; and make that indescribably dried-up little what she loved was this, here, now, in front of woman look, as Clarissa came in, just for a her; the fat lady in the cab. Did it matter then, moment cordial; before they settled down for the she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street,15 usual interminable talk of women’s ailments. did it matter that she must inevitably cease How much she wanted it—that people should completely; all this must go on without her; did look pleased as she came in, Clarissa thought she resent it; or did it not become consoling to and turned and walked back towards Bond believe that death ended absolutely? but that Street, annoyed, because it was silly to have somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb other reasons for doing things. Much rather and flow of things, here, there, she survived, would she have been one of those people like Peter survived, lived in each other, she being Richard who did things for themselves, whereas, part, she was positive, of the trees at home; of she thought, waiting to cross, half the time she the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and did things not simply, not for themselves; but to pieces as it was; part of people she had never make people think this or that; perfect idiocy she met; being laid out like a mist between the knew (and now the policeman held up his hand) people she knew best, who lifted her on their for no one was ever for a second taken in. Oh if branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist, she could have had her life over again! she but it spread ever so far, her life, herself. But thought, stepping on to the pavement, could what was she dreaming as she looked into have looked even differently! Hatchards’ shop window? What was she trying to recover? What image of white dawn in the country, as she read in the book spread open: 16. “Fear no more . . . ” is a quotation from a song in Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline.
Big Idea Modernism How does this thought relate to 14. The Serpentine is a lake in Hyde Park, London. Modernist beliefs? 15. Bond Street is a street in London full of expensive shops.
Big Idea Modernism What do you think Clarissa is trying Vocabulary to “recover”? What were the Modernists trying to recover? cordial (kor jəl) adj. personable and likeable
VIRGINIA WOOLF 1161 Southampton City Art Gallery, Hampshire, UK/ Bridgeman Art Library
11157-1161157-1161 U6P2U6P2 Sel-845482.inddSel-845482.indd 11611161 33/7/06/7/06 55:54:46:54:46 PM AFTER YOU READ
RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond 5. (a)Why did Clarissa choose to marry Richard instead of Peter? (b)Why do you think this 1. What images presented in this stream-of- information is not revealed immediately? consciousness narrative were the most startling? Explain. Analyze and Evaluate Recall and Interpret 6. (a)How do you think Clarissa feels about her hus- band and daughter? (b)Why does a reader learn 2. (a)What is the setting of this excerpt? (b)How does more about a character from his or her thoughts setting affect the stream-of-consciousness narrative? and actions than from dialogue? 3. (a)Describe the sights and sounds Clarissa experi- 7. How do the last lines of the excerpt represent an ences on her morning walk. (b)What does the overall theme in Mrs. Dalloway ? reader learn about Clarissa through these images? 4. (a)What event is taking place that evening? Connect (b)How does this event, and other details from 8. Big Idea Modernism How does the narrative the novel, show Clarissa’s priorities? structure of Mrs. Dalloway differ from other stories or novels you have read?
PRIMARY SOURCE QUOTATION
Evaluating an Innovator Group Activity Discuss the following questions The following review of Mrs. Dalloway was writ- with your classmates. ten by John W. Crawford, a literary critic of 1. What does Crawford consider Woolf’s strengths Woolf’s time. It has been excerpted from the May as a writer? Refer to specific examples in Mrs. 10, 1925, edition of The New York Times. As you Dalloway that support Crawford’s idea. read the quotation, notice the groundbreaking 2. How does Clarissa Dalloway represent society, qualities that Crawford finds in Woolf’s novel. according to Crawford? Explain. 3. Do you agree with Crawford’s assessment of Mrs. Dalloway? Support your answer with “Virginia Woolf is almost alone . . . in the examples from the selection. intricate yet clear art of her composition. Clarissa’s day, the impressions she gives and receives, the memories and recognitions which stir in her, the events which are initiated remotely and engineered almost to touching distance of the impervious Clarissa, capture in a definitive matrix the drift of thought and feeling in a period, the point of view of a class, and seem almost to indicate the strength and weakness of an entire civilization.”
Virginia Woolf in a Deckchair, 1912. Vanessa Bell. Oil on board, 35.5 x 24 cm. London, Sotheby’s. Copyright 1961 Estate of Virginia Bell. Courtesy of Henrietta Garnett.
1162 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE Sothebyʼs/akg-images
11149-1164149-1164 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11621162 33/7/06/7/06 55:40:08:40:08 PMPM LITERARY ANALYSIS READING AND VOCABULARY
Literary Element Stream of Consciousness Reading Strategy Visualizing Stream of consciousness is a term originated by Visualizing provides clues about a character’s motives American psychologist William James to describe and beliefs. Through visualizing, you can put yourself human thought as a continuous flow of observation in the situation of the main characters and understand and reflection; our minds jump without apparent logic their actions. Examine how visualization reveals the and without rest from one thought to another. Stories intentions of Clarissa Dalloway by answering the using stream of consciousness as a method of narra- following questions. tion change topic suddenly and illogically in order to 1. What kind of mental image of Clarissa Dalloway imitate these shifts in thought. The author seldom did you create? speaks directly to the reader but allows characters to reveal themselves through their thoughts. Stream of 2. How does visualization help you understand the consciousness can be written in first or third person. motives and feelings of Mrs. Dalloway? 1. In what way is the excerpt from Mrs. Dalloway a stream-of-consciousness narrative? Vocabulary Practice 2. Find at least two examples of sudden shifts in the Practice with Synonyms Identify the synonym narrative that imitate the way the mind jumps from for each vocabulary word. Use a dictionary or one thought to another. a thesaurus if you need help. 3. How would this excerpt be different had it been 1. solemn a. skeptical b. somber written in first-person point of view instead of third- decently likely person point of view? 2. presumably a. b. 3. ailment a. cure b. disease Review: Description 4. perpetual a. recurring b. halting As you learned on page 967, description reveals 5. cordial a. enjoyable b. friendly details about people and places in a story and often shapes how a reader feels about events in the text. Writers can use description to develop the mood, or emotional quality, of a literary work. Description also Academic Vocabulary reveals the tone, or the attitude of the author (or nar- Here are two words from the vocabulary list on rator) toward his or her subject. page R82. Partner Activity Work with a partner to find exam- ples of description in Mrs. Dalloway. Then determine notwithstanding (not´ with stan din ) prep. what description reveals about the tone of the excerpt. despite Use a chart like the one below to take notes. forthcoming (forth ´ kum in ) adj. candid, open for discussion Description To n e Practice and Apply “How fresh, how The narrator sets a 1. Notwithstanding his absence, why does calm . . . standing peaceful tone but Clarissa Dalloway still think about Peter Walsh? there at the open also creates anticipa- 2. How forthcoming is Woolf in presenting window, that some- tion that something Clarissa’s thoughts to the reader? thing awful was awful will happen. about to happen . . .”
VIRGINIA WOOLF 1163
11149-1164149-1164 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11631163 66/27/06/27/06 3:29:103:29:10 PMPM WRITING AND EXTENDING GRAMMAR AND STYLE
Writing About Literature Woolf’s Language and Style Respond to Conflict Woolf shares the thoughts and Using Gerunds A gerund is a verb form that ends values of her main character through a rambling asso- in -ing and is used in the same ways a noun is used. ciative process. Thus, she subtly reveals the conflicts While gerunds look like verbs and the verb form called Clarissa Dalloway encounters. When internal conflict a participle, they are always either subjects or objects. is present, a struggle takes place within the mind of a Woolf uses gerunds to create imagery that is full of character who is torn between opposing feelings, details and a sense of continuing action. Consider the desires, or goals. In a few paragraphs, summarize how effect of the gerunds in the passage below: Woolf reveals the internal conflict of Clarissa Dalloway. “And everywhere, though it was still so To help you organize your summary, first organize your early, there was a beating, a stirring of thoughts in an outline. Be sure to list supporting evi- galloping ponies, tapping of cricket bats;” dence for each main idea. Don’t forget to include a Notice how gerunds in the selection contribute to the concise thesis that directly responds to your topic and images Woolf creates. Her language is both descriptive to use topic sentences. Remember to draw quotations and immediate. from the text where necessary and to explain how those quotations support your assertions. Use of Gerund Effect of Emphasis I. Introduction A. Topic of Essay “...there was a beating, Woolf shows that Clarissa a stirring of galloping Dalloway is focused on the B. Thesis Statement ponies, tapping of cricket action in the scene before Clarissa Dalloway bats” her and emphasizes the II. First Body Paragraph: continuous movement of A. Topic Sentence: State a conflict the London setting. Mrs. Dalloway encountered. B. Evidence: Provide evidence indicating that the conflict is internal. Also, note that galloping is not a gerund; it is used as C. Analysis: Explain how your evidence an adjective to describe the ponies. supports your topic sentence. Activity Scan the excerpt from Mrs. Dalloway for III. Conclusion other gerunds or gerund phrases. Determine the A. Reiterate Thesis significance of each example and the effect created B. Concluding Thought or Judgment by the use of a gerund. After you complete your draft, meet with a peer reviewer to evaluate each other’s work and to suggest Revising Check revisions. Then proofread and edit your draft for errors Gerunds Avoid overusing gerunds in your writing. If in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. used sparingly, they can create a sense of action within a scene. However, when they are overused, Performing gerunds can be distracting. Try to balance the use of gerunds with the use of verbs or other nouns. Pantomime is a kind of dramatic performance in which events are acted out onstage to a voice-over or a narrative chorus. Work in a group to act out the scene between Hugh Whitbread and Clarissa Dalloway on page 1159. Have one group member play Clarissa, another Hugh, while a third group member voices the thoughts and opinions of Clarissa. Present your scene to the class.
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to www.glencoe.com.
1164 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE
11149-1164149-1164 U6P2App-845482.inddU6P2App-845482.indd 11641164 66/27/06/27/06 3:30:533:30:53 PMPM