The Courtship of Mr Lyon
3) The girl is presented as a beauty with an "inner light" that lands her firmly as a young virgin in need of protection. However, she is doing "chores" consequently reveals her lower social class and her place in the domestic realm of that class. This is developed in the plot when she is in London with her father. She is " plumping out" and starts to become "petulant" and superficial, in effect becoming the complete opposite to what she was in the opening paragraph.
4) The girl's father is described with an "old sheepskin coat" and therefore is associated with not having much money. This may be a reason why he so scrupulously spends the money the beast gives him in Town. This frivolous spending is the reason for Beauty's extended absence from the beast's house which leads to his sickness and the decline of his house and property. Her father is also described as having "another whisky" suggesting immorality. this is emphasised when he tries to steal the white rose from the beast, someone who had been benevolent, and tried justify the theft. This theft is the reason for Beauty's meeting the beast in the first place and so is the pivotal moment in the original development of the plot.
7) Mr Lyon's property is ostentatious and opulent with many jars made from crystal and solid gold door knockers. The house very obviously belongs to the rich and almost seems suspended in a different era to the modern world Beauty and her father live in, in their cottage. The house is described using adjectives such as "great" and "white" which would suggest a clinical, uninhabited place (especially given the lack of a human presence in the house) if not for the "warmth" given off by a large number of flowers in crystal jars in the hall. The house itself originally is impressive and intimidating by the wealth it suggests that lies within it but becomes welcoming by the presence of the flowers and the open doors. However, there is a sinister undertone to the positive descriptions of the house, mainly due to the lack of people. The fact "no living person " was in the hall makes the hall seem silent and uninhabitable, perhaps suggesting there is a secret within the hall.
11) Carter is highlighting the fluid nature of identity by flitting between the first and third person. The narrator is at once male, female and neutral. This reveals the idea of identity and its changeable temperament as it is rarely clear who the narrator is and also what gender it is, this in unaided by the parenthesis "(how amusing!)" when describing the spaniel, suggesting a presence that is other to the characters in this story.
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Wednesday 1 October 2014
Monday 22 September 2014
TBC Tasks
Task 1- Definitions
Leonine- resembling a lion/ having similar characteristics to a lion
Fugue- a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts.
- A loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.
Florid- having a red or flushed complexion
- excessively intricate or elaborate.
Task 2- Angela Carter
Born: May 7, 1940, Eastbourne
Lived in Eastbourne, Yorkshire, London, Bristol and Japan. (After leaving Japan, Carter spent many years writing at different universities such as Brown University in the U.S. the University of Adelaide in Australia, and the University of East Anglia in England)
Links to Jane Eyre: attempted to write a sequel to Jane Eyre. However, she passed away before it could be completed.
Genres used: gothic, romance, magical realism, fairy-tale, erotica, bildungsroman.
Ranking in the 50 Great Writers since 1945: 10th
Influences: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Lawrence, Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Woolf, Mansfield, Keats, Stoker and Carrol
Task 3- Research Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales
Perrault
Most famous books/works: Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), Cendrillon (Cinderella), Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots) and La Belle au bois dormant (The Sleeping Beauty)
Published in: 1697, The Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals (Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé), subtitled Tales of Mother Goose (Les Contes de ma Mère l’Oye).
Number of tales in this book: (Roughly) 8
Brothers Grimm
Published: Their first collection of folk tales, Children's and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen), was published in 1812.
How many tales published: The first volume of the first edition was published in 1812, containing 86 stories; the second volume of 70 stories followed in 1815. For the second edition, two volumes were issued in 1819 and a third in 1822, totalling 170 tales. Stories were added, and also subtracted, from one edition to the next, until the seventh held 211 tales.
Influences: German folklore, Perrault, Brentano and von Arnim.
Task 4- Baudelaire
Born: April 9, 1821
Died: August 31, 1867
Lived and worked: educated in Lyon, sent to Calcutta, India. This trip provided strong impressions of the sea, sailing, and exotic ports, that he later employed in his poetry.
Romantic differences: Baudelaire took inspiration from the urban life of Paris rather than nature. he argued that art must create beauty from even the most depraved or "non-poetic" situations. In 1869, Baudelaire collected Les Petits poémes en prose (little poems in prose).
By calling the non-metrical creations 'poems', Baudelaire was the first poet to break from the form of verse.
Romantic similarities:
Most famous: Les Fleurs du Mal, published in 1857
Themes of this: good and evil, human nature, conflict between the spiritual and the physical, religion, death, time, discipline and self-control, boredom, destiny and artistry.
Two interesting facts: He called Edgar Allen Poe a "twin soul" after having translated some of Poe's poems into French. The Ministry of the Interior banned Les Fleurs du Mal until 1949.
Task 5- The Marquis de Sade
Leonine- resembling a lion/ having similar characteristics to a lion
Fugue- a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts.
- A loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.
Rococo- denoting furniture or architecture characterized by an elaborately ornamental late baroque style of decoration prevalent in 18th-century continental Europe, with asymmetrical patterns involving motifs and scrollwork.
Minimalist- a person who advocates or practises minimalism.
Chamber Music- instrumental music played by a small ensemble, with one player to a part, the most important form being the string quartet.Florid- having a red or flushed complexion
- excessively intricate or elaborate.
Task 2- Angela Carter
Born: May 7, 1940, Eastbourne
Died: February 16, 1992, London
Lived in Eastbourne, Yorkshire, London, Bristol and Japan. (After leaving Japan, Carter spent many years writing at different universities such as Brown University in the U.S. the University of Adelaide in Australia, and the University of East Anglia in England)
Links to Jane Eyre: attempted to write a sequel to Jane Eyre. However, she passed away before it could be completed.
Genres used: gothic, romance, magical realism, fairy-tale, erotica, bildungsroman.
Ranking in the 50 Great Writers since 1945: 10th
Influences: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Lawrence, Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Woolf, Mansfield, Keats, Stoker and Carrol
Task 3- Research Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales
Perrault
Born: 12 January 1628
Died: 16 May 1703
Invented: He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales.
Published in: 1697, The Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals (Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé), subtitled Tales of Mother Goose (Les Contes de ma Mère l’Oye).
Number of tales in this book: (Roughly) 8
Brothers Grimm
Published: Their first collection of folk tales, Children's and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen), was published in 1812.
How many tales published: The first volume of the first edition was published in 1812, containing 86 stories; the second volume of 70 stories followed in 1815. For the second edition, two volumes were issued in 1819 and a third in 1822, totalling 170 tales. Stories were added, and also subtracted, from one edition to the next, until the seventh held 211 tales.
Influences: German folklore, Perrault, Brentano and von Arnim.
Task 4- Baudelaire
Born: April 9, 1821
Died: August 31, 1867
Lived and worked: educated in Lyon, sent to Calcutta, India. This trip provided strong impressions of the sea, sailing, and exotic ports, that he later employed in his poetry.
Romantic differences: Baudelaire took inspiration from the urban life of Paris rather than nature. he argued that art must create beauty from even the most depraved or "non-poetic" situations. In 1869, Baudelaire collected Les Petits poémes en prose (little poems in prose).
By calling the non-metrical creations 'poems', Baudelaire was the first poet to break from the form of verse.
Romantic similarities:
Most famous: Les Fleurs du Mal, published in 1857
Themes of this: good and evil, human nature, conflict between the spiritual and the physical, religion, death, time, discipline and self-control, boredom, destiny and artistry.
Two interesting facts: He called Edgar Allen Poe a "twin soul" after having translated some of Poe's poems into French. The Ministry of the Interior banned Les Fleurs du Mal until 1949.
Task 5- The Marquis de Sade
Wrote: Novels, short stories, plays, dialogues and political tracts He is best known for his erotic works, which combined philosophical discourse with pornography, depicting sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence, criminality and blasphemy against the Catholic Church.
Sexual perference: Sade lived a scandalous libertine existence and repeatedly procured young prostitutes as well as employees of both sexes in his castle in Lacoste. His behavior included an affair with his wife's sister, Anne-Prospère. The term sadism derives from him/ his name.
Task 6- Essential Vocab
aesthete- a person who is appreciative of and sensitive to art and beauty.
aigrette- a headdress consisting of a white egret's feather or other decoration such as a spray of gems.
avarice- extreme greed for wealth or material gain.
baroque- relating to or denoting a style of European architecture, music, and art of the 17th and 18th centuries that followed Mannerism and is characterized by ornate detail.
bier- a movable frame on which a coffin or a corpse is placed before burial or cremation or on which they are carried to the grave.
billets-doux- a love letter.
carillon- a set of bells played using a keyboard or by an automatic mechanism similar to a piano roll.
carnal- relating to physical, especially sexual, needs and activities.
catafalque- a decorated wooden framework supporting the coffin of a distinguished person during a funeral or while lying in state.
chthonic- relating to or inhabiting the underworld.
dolorous- feeling or expressing great sorrow or distress.
eldritch- weird and sinister or ghostly.
enfer (translate the French)- Hell
gourmand- a person who enjoys eating and often eats too much.
immolated- killed or offered as a sacrifice, especially by burning.
importunate- persistent, especially to the point of annoyance.
interdiction- a military term for the act of delaying, disrupting, or destroying enemy forces or supplies en route to the battle area
jinn- (in Arabian and Muslim mythology) an intelligent spirit of lower rank than the angels, able to appear in human and animal forms and to possess humans.
lisle- a fine, smooth cotton thread used especially for stockings.
loge- a private box or enclosure in a theatre.
loquacity- the quality of talking a great deal; talkativeness.
lustratory- ceremonial washing or other rite of purification.
missal- a book containing the texts used in the Catholic Mass throughout the year.
nacreous- having the lustre of mother-of-pearl
parure- a set of jewels intended to be worn together
rictus- a fixed grimace or grin.
sacerdotal- relating to or denoting a doctrine which ascribes sacrificial functions and spiritual or supernatural powers to ordained priests.
sadomasochistic- the derivation of pleasure from the infliction of physical or mental pain either on others or on oneself.
sardonic- grimly mocking or cynical.
trousseau- the clothes, linen, and other belongings collected by a bride for her marriage.
vellum- fine parchment made originally from the skin of a calf.
vicuna- a wild relative of the llama, inhabiting mountainous regions of South America and valued for its fine silky wool.
viscera- the internal organs in the main cavities of the body, especially those in the abdomen, e.g. the intestines.
voluptuary- a person devoted to or concerned with luxury and sensual pleasure.
Task 7- Magical Realism
What it is: a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.
Basic Questions
The choker is presented as being very large and ostentatious, so much so that "everyone stared... at his wedding gift", showing the significance of the jewelry. However, as the choker is "clasped" around her throat, there is a sinister undertone that could foreshadow the way in which the Marquis attempts to murder the narrator. "Clasped" also suggests strangulation which mirrors the death of the opera singer; the Marquis takes away the voice of his wives possibly in order to control them and so the use of the choker could show the control the Marquis has over the narrator during the story.
The description of "exile" in marriage could suggest the physical separation of the narrator and her childhood possessions and connections. However, it could also suggest the emotional isolation that the narrator has imposed on herself in marriage because she has associated herself with someone who cannot and does not love her; until the piano tuner is introduced, the narrator is physically and emotionally isolated from almost everything she holds dear.
The girl gains more power and confidence after she receives the keys to the mansion. The keys give her a sense of freedom and independence that she has never had before, she has been trusted by the Marquis to not use the forbidden key and that gives her a theoretical power over him because she has the potential to uncover his 'bloody chamber'.
The Duke's view of women seems to revolve around them being sexual objects and possessions to do with as he pleases. There is a blatant lack of respect for the women that extends to the objectification of them via the display of their corpses.
Developed Questions
Their first sexual encounter is described in the text as "most pornographic" with explicit descriptions of his actions. However, there is a strong reluctance on her side that shows a conflict between the knowledge of what is expected of her and her lack of experience which projects a poignant discomfort on the reader. There is an emotional isolation in the Marquis when he "approached his familiar treat with a weary appetite", suggesting that he is only going through the motions of the wedding night because it is expected of him, which makes the action both sad and almost un-sexual. The narrator is clearly conflicted as she starts to respond to the overtures against her better judgement, and his sharp curtailment of the action is an almost cruel twist which shows his need for power and control is stronger than his sexual desire."Anticipation is the greater part of pleasure".
The language used to describe the discovered painting is crude and very blunt with no attempt at subtlety. The painting symbolises the loss of a girl's virginity, with "Reproof for curiosity" being the initial excitement the narrator had for her wedding night. His statement in the following paragraph "Baby mustn't play with grownups' toys until shes learned how to handle them" is significant because it emphasises both her youth and inexperience and his control.
White, black, purple, pink, ruby. These colours, especially the purple and ruby, emulate a false royalty that comes with the Marquis' wealth, whereas the white mainly symbolises the purity the narrator has just lost. Ruby is connected with the choker used by the Marquis' ancestor in the French Revolution as a wealthy gesture against the use of the guillotine, which associates the colour with both power and blood, but also foreshadows the attempted use of the guillotine at the end of the story. The excessive use of colour in this paragraph heightens the use of senses and creates an atmosphere of strong emotions and potentially tensions. The white motif is prominent throughout the story, associated with lilies and his white flesh.
The phrase "all better to see you" derives from the fairy tale of The Little Red Riding Hood. This line is said by the wolf as he plans to eat the child. One interpretation could take this as a poorly concealed sexual innuendo. However, it could reflect the leonine part of the Marquis' person, perhaps foreshadowing the later threat of murder.
More Complex
Appearance in this story is incredibly important. Outward appearance and dress, such as the opulent choker, show the hierarchical and power structures that underpin this story. The choker is a significant example of this as it is one of the items that the Marquis puts upon the narrator. The opulence of this choker also signifies the wealth and class status each character holds, which is why the choker comes from his family wealth and not hers. Women are taught to not see and instead to 'make pretty' all manner of grotesque qualities whether they are lovely or not which causes them to override their intuitions about people and this is evident in this story when she sees attributes the beauty of "a lily" to the "waxen face". However, the facade behind this attempt to make him pretty is revealed with the association with funerals (on page 4) and the lilies that "stain you" (on page 10) which show the naive attempt at the creation of an illusion.
Basic Questions
The choker is presented as being very large and ostentatious, so much so that "everyone stared... at his wedding gift", showing the significance of the jewelry. However, as the choker is "clasped" around her throat, there is a sinister undertone that could foreshadow the way in which the Marquis attempts to murder the narrator. "Clasped" also suggests strangulation which mirrors the death of the opera singer; the Marquis takes away the voice of his wives possibly in order to control them and so the use of the choker could show the control the Marquis has over the narrator during the story.
The description of "exile" in marriage could suggest the physical separation of the narrator and her childhood possessions and connections. However, it could also suggest the emotional isolation that the narrator has imposed on herself in marriage because she has associated herself with someone who cannot and does not love her; until the piano tuner is introduced, the narrator is physically and emotionally isolated from almost everything she holds dear.
The girl gains more power and confidence after she receives the keys to the mansion. The keys give her a sense of freedom and independence that she has never had before, she has been trusted by the Marquis to not use the forbidden key and that gives her a theoretical power over him because she has the potential to uncover his 'bloody chamber'.
The Duke's view of women seems to revolve around them being sexual objects and possessions to do with as he pleases. There is a blatant lack of respect for the women that extends to the objectification of them via the display of their corpses.
Developed Questions
Their first sexual encounter is described in the text as "most pornographic" with explicit descriptions of his actions. However, there is a strong reluctance on her side that shows a conflict between the knowledge of what is expected of her and her lack of experience which projects a poignant discomfort on the reader. There is an emotional isolation in the Marquis when he "approached his familiar treat with a weary appetite", suggesting that he is only going through the motions of the wedding night because it is expected of him, which makes the action both sad and almost un-sexual. The narrator is clearly conflicted as she starts to respond to the overtures against her better judgement, and his sharp curtailment of the action is an almost cruel twist which shows his need for power and control is stronger than his sexual desire."Anticipation is the greater part of pleasure".
The language used to describe the discovered painting is crude and very blunt with no attempt at subtlety. The painting symbolises the loss of a girl's virginity, with "Reproof for curiosity" being the initial excitement the narrator had for her wedding night. His statement in the following paragraph "Baby mustn't play with grownups' toys until shes learned how to handle them" is significant because it emphasises both her youth and inexperience and his control.
White, black, purple, pink, ruby. These colours, especially the purple and ruby, emulate a false royalty that comes with the Marquis' wealth, whereas the white mainly symbolises the purity the narrator has just lost. Ruby is connected with the choker used by the Marquis' ancestor in the French Revolution as a wealthy gesture against the use of the guillotine, which associates the colour with both power and blood, but also foreshadows the attempted use of the guillotine at the end of the story. The excessive use of colour in this paragraph heightens the use of senses and creates an atmosphere of strong emotions and potentially tensions. The white motif is prominent throughout the story, associated with lilies and his white flesh.
The phrase "all better to see you" derives from the fairy tale of The Little Red Riding Hood. This line is said by the wolf as he plans to eat the child. One interpretation could take this as a poorly concealed sexual innuendo. However, it could reflect the leonine part of the Marquis' person, perhaps foreshadowing the later threat of murder.
More Complex
Appearance in this story is incredibly important. Outward appearance and dress, such as the opulent choker, show the hierarchical and power structures that underpin this story. The choker is a significant example of this as it is one of the items that the Marquis puts upon the narrator. The opulence of this choker also signifies the wealth and class status each character holds, which is why the choker comes from his family wealth and not hers. Women are taught to not see and instead to 'make pretty' all manner of grotesque qualities whether they are lovely or not which causes them to override their intuitions about people and this is evident in this story when she sees attributes the beauty of "a lily" to the "waxen face". However, the facade behind this attempt to make him pretty is revealed with the association with funerals (on page 4) and the lilies that "stain you" (on page 10) which show the naive attempt at the creation of an illusion.
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