Janine, I will not get to the new text tonight I'm afraid. There was a bit to respond to. Perhaps later.
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Originally Posted by
Dark Muse
While the narrator does not directly pass judgement and his own ethics can be questioned, there is a very specific reason why a narrator is used within this story and why the letter falls into his pocession more or less. Between Alfred and Maggie he is the only one that knows what it truly says, not matter what the others may susepct or think.
D-M, your insights have been outstanding. Yes, of course. The narrator is the only one who knows the full scope of the letter. Perhaps this is why he laughs at the end.
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The only way the story could be told from a completely amoral way would be to simply have some unknown non-exisitent 3rd person, view of Maggie and Alfred, but the story is looked through the eyes of another preson active wihtin the story. This does sort of invite the readers into thier private lives.
Except if the narrator is unethical himself.
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Rather than viewing the story form a more distant stance of a 3rd person narration. In a way the narrator can be seen as creating a more interactive role betwene reader and the characters, as we can see the letter through is eyes, and also see the way he reinterpts the letter later.
Yes, we are fixed to the narrator's set of morals. But what are they? Like I just said above, he may not have our morals. Afterall, doesn't he side with Alfred?
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Originally Posted by
Sapphire
I did not notice this so much last time, but doesn't it strike you that the mother has such a small part in it all?! I mean, if Maggie is so close with the parents - couldn't it be she might confine a bit in the mother (but then again, maybe she did)? The older women is left out a bit. She's there, but she could just as well not have been there.
There's lots we don't notice the first time. We pick up so much more in these back and forths. To be honest I barely registered the mother. Here's the extent of the mother:
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''E's got th' monkey on 'is back ower this letter job,' said the father secretly to me. 'Mother, 'er knows nowt about it. Lot o' tom-foolery, isn't it?
Ay! What's good o' makkin' a peck o' trouble over what's far enough off, an' ned niver come no nigher. No--not a smite o' use. That's what I tell 'er. 'Er should ta'e no notice on't. Ty, what can y' expect.'
The mother came in again, and the talk became general. Maggie flashed her eyes at me from time to time, complacent and satisfied, moving among the men. I paid her little compliments, which she did not seem to hear. She attended to me with a kind of sinister, witch-like graciousness, her dark head ducked between her shoulders, at once humble and powerful. She was happy as a child attending to her father-in-law and to me. But there was something ominous between her eyebrows, as if a dark moth were settled there--and something ominous in her bent, hulking bearing.
The father seems to support the son's deviousness, the fooling around with the French girls doesn't seem to bother him. And he keeps the secret from his wife. Very patriarchal and very Lawrence. What caught my eye here was Maggie's flashing "her eyes" at the narrator. Have we talked about the flirting between Maggie and the narrator? Isn't her frustration from getting a sexual response from the narrator the reason for that "dark moth" between her eyebrows? She's happy as a child "attending her father-in-law" and the narrator, but suddenly the darkness, a result I take from getting a sexual response.
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Except for the Father mentioning her to the narrator as not knowing a thing about it: "Mother, 'er knows nowt about it.". (See post #2930 and #2936).
Maybe it is important for the mother to be there, because it brings a little more flavour to the relationship between Maggie and the Father?
I would think it serves as a contrast to Maggie.
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Originally Posted by
jinjang
We forgive old people more easily than others, especially those who feel completely in line with everything and everyone around them. I am sorry for lingering on why Maggie being flushed and handsome. I wonder now whether Lawrence understood women well, if indeed he is implying Maggie and Alfred had sex the night before. Women usually do not consent to have sex if there is a fight going on between the couple. Women usually shun men out until the problem resolves or until the men make it up somehow.
I don't know if they had sex, but the father makes a quip as to having sex. Or they should have and didn't, which would be signifcant contrast between the generations.
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I am wondering about why the mother is gloomy. Is she gloomy because she is excluded from the event around her or because the father flirts with Maggie or he cares too much of Maggie and ignores his wife? I have seen some old couple’s indifference towards to each other, living side by side but not connecting with each other at all. I so wish to know more about the mother. Lawrence left her out with the intention to vex us more.
If the father is Lawrence's ideal man, the mother is the ideal woman, suffering and absorbing the male dominance. She accepts the father, though not necessarily happy about it, which contrasts with Maggie and her husband's infidelities.
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My interpretation: Joey is a teddy bear or a pet or a minor comfort and so forgettable, even though the peacock symbolizes the manhood as an undercurrent of the story. Joey does not satisfy completely her emotional needs. She is absorbed in her puzzlement over the letter because of the dishonesty of Alfred and the narrator while she can still smell fish deep down.
Agree, Joey cannot satisfy her needs (that is an important point), and let's hope she doesn't try with him. :lol:
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I simply think that Alfred is mapping out the situation and see if there is a room for him to go near Maggie or to make up with Maggie somehow. But he keeps seeing the bird in the way and so he withdraws temporarily, though he may be thinking of getting rid of the bird when Maggie is not around. He went out only temporarily and hasn’t given up yet.
Yes, I think so. The bird is preventing him from taking his proper place as the male of the family.
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I believe women are impossible even for Lawrence to figure out sometimes. He could almost figure her out but not quite and Maggie or women in general remains mystery to the author.
If there is ever a male writer who seems to get inside women, it's Lawrence. I've heard it from so many women how he understands them. Ask janine. ;)
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Maggie loves Alfred, despite his unfaithfulness: I said this because there were parts where she said she wrote a lot of loving letters to Alfred. Even if she does not love him as much anymore, her thoughts are occupied by Alfred and her relationship with him.
Now the narrator is gone and the cloud returns to the house and their skirmishing lives will continue until I do not know what. The narrator is still puzzled by Maggie. Impenetrable women!
Good points.
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Originally Posted by
Quark
Yeah, I agree that the mother does have a role, however slight it might be. If for no other reason, she's there to be a double or opposite to the father.
Like I said above, I think she contrasts Maggie more, but yes there are all sorts of contrasts going on.
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The story is filled with doubles and opposites. The story has two spouses who each have two lovers (if we're counting the peacock). It has two birds. Two colors are dominant through most of the story (either blue and yellow or white and black). It seems natural that there would be two parents who mirror each other in some way, yet are opposites. The father and mother mirror each other in their parental roles, but act in the story as opposites.
Exactly. Lawrence is always using doubles and opposites. I think one critic refered to Lawrence as having a binary view of the world: male/female, light/dark, mind/passion, earth/sky, and so on. He is always after a dialectic.
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The father creates a sense of intimacy as he exposes everyone's secrets, but the mother creates distance by enforcing domesticity. She's always (at least in the three or four times she's mentioned) doing some chore or putting a stop to some revealing dialogue.
Yes she is, and this is another example of how the feminists critics absolutely hate Lawrence. The older generation present an ideal in this story for Lawrence and see how the mother is delegated. Now perhaps you can see where I was coming from when I suggested that Maggie and the post war women have altered the social norms of England.
