Great Works of Literature II, Fall 2019 (hybrid) HTA

what does Wharton want us to consider the ways in which we do or do not know certain people in our lives? E.g. friends, lovers, and family.

While I was reading the story it made me realize that Wharton it’s giving us a message. A message that tells me the more we hide what we want things to be the more it can lead to the worst situation. For example in the story, In the beginning, Alida and Grace were not honest they try to solve things out by the way they thought it should be. As they are sitting and telling each other things that they should have done it was a moment of regret. They were afraid of losing the friendship but they didn’t realize that they lost it the moment they started lying to each other. To hold onto relationships whether it is friend, lover, or family we should be honest no matter what because regret can not fix a broken relationship.

Consider of money and the presence or lack of it–wealth and poverty–on the shape of the story and on the lives of the characters and their personalities.

In the short story The Gilded Six Bits, by author Zora Neale Hurston, wealth and poverty are clearly shown among certain characters. Missie May and her husband Joe had very little money, as mentioned in the story, “It was a Negro yard around a Negro house in a Negro settlement that looked to the payroll of the G. and G. Fertilizer works for its supports”(1).  Another character was named Otis D. Slemmons, and he was described to be a wealthy person who recently opened up an ice cream parlor in the neighborhood. The wealth of Slemmons had caused Missie May to be interested. She attempted to get some of the wealth for herself and her husband. As the story progresses, Missie May slept with Slemmons and Joe found out. Missie May plead to Joe that Slemmons offered her gold pieces. She took that opportunity to increase her family’s economic status. This incident clearly shows that Missie May betrayed her husband and caused problems in their marital status. However, in another perspective, it seems like she was just trying to help out with the family.

The Lady with the Dog- By Anton Chekhov

The significance of the two lovers meeting at Yalta, a resort town, is to show that they are both running away from their situation in their hometowns. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov is running away from his problems at home in Moscow. He’s not close to his wife and views women as inferior human beings. He doesn’t love his wife nor the experiences he has with Moscow people. He thinks the society of men is boring so he would much rather spend his time with women. He feels at ease and more like his real self whenever he is with a woman because they’re interesting and they amuse him. Similarly, Anna Sergeyevna hates her current life with her husband. They both went to Yalta in order to seek temporary relief from their situations at home and to seek comfort in another person’s arms. 

Gurov had been with many women before, “from the past he preserved memories of careless, good-natured women, who loved cheerfully and were grateful to him for the happiness he gave them, however brief it might be.” This shows that Gurov enjoys flirting and being with another woman to make them feel special as a form of entertainment for himself, and it is what he lives for. Gurov’s intentions are clear from the very beginning, he approaches Anna because of her mysteriousness. He sees her as just another woman to fulfill his interests and lust. Anna, who is married, knows that Gurov is pursuing her because this is the first time where she is alone and being followed, looked at, and spoken to from strangers because they don’t know her identity here nor do they know that she is married. It is implied that if you come to this resort town then you are seeking a companion. Even though Anna waited for her husband to come pick her up, she eventually gives up and allows Gurov to get close with her even though she knows it’s wrong. It seems as though Yalta, a resort town, is where people come to commit adultery and to forget their miserable lives back home.  

 

Gabriel is somewhat portrayed as above than the rest, he dumbs down his superior knowledge so others can “understand” him better. He tailors himself based on who he talks to in order to be admired by everyone. Although he seems like the perfect family man, his interactions with other woman end up being awkward or offensive, especially with Miss Ivor and Lily. Other characters seem dead on the inside while holding onto the past and unable to let go. Meanwhile Micheal wishes for everyone to live in the present and to not remind themselves of the past.

How does one reconcile Gurov’s apparent misogyny with his newfound of love of Anna Sergeyevna?

In the beginning of the story “The Lady with the Dog,” Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov’s character is the embodiment of a misogynist. He is a married man with 3 children but still proceed to seek affairs. He labels women as “the lower race” and always “spoke ill of women” (1). His mindset denounces women and brand women as objects that he could use to his disposal. It is also described that Gurov has a way with women, which makes it easier for him to use women for pleasure and discard them afterwards. However, the affair with Anna Sergeyevna seem to change Gurov. He, himself, believed that his affair with Sergeyevna is like the other affairs that he had before, but it was not. Gurov believes that his memories of Sergeyevna will soon dissipate and that he can continue his everyday routine, but it was the complete opposite. Soon after their affair ended, he begins to reminisce about their time together. As the days pass, his memories and desire for Sergeyevna “glowed more and more vividly” (6). As a result, Gurov travels to Sergeyevna and confesses to her. Towards the end of the story, when Gurov meets Sergeyevna again, there’s this epiphany moment where Gurov “understood clearly that for him there was in the whole world no creature so near, so precious, and so important to him; she, this little woman, in no way remarkable, lost in a provincial crowd, with a vulgar lorgnette in her hand, filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy” (7). Despite how ordinary Sergeyevna is, she’s still the apple to his eyes and he loves her nonetheless. This is a huge change from the beginning of the story from his negative and judgmental view of women to describing Sergeyevna as precious and important. Gurov started off the story seeking pleasures from women to keep his boredom at bay to trying to find a solution to be with Sergeyevna permanently.

Consider the symbolism (or various symbolisms or meanings or emotional or psychological values) of the gilded coin in the story.

According to Merriam Webster dictionary, Gilded has many definitions but the 2 that are most notable in this story are “to overlay with or as if with a thin covering of gold” and “to give an attractive but often deceptive appearance to.” To provide some background into this story, Missie May and Joe are a happily married African-american couple living in the southern US in the 1930s. Otis D. Slemmons, an African-american from the north arrives in town and meets Missie May where Missie May commits infidelity with Slemmons. The gilded coin is important because the coin was given to May by Slemmons and is a symbol of Slemmons himself. On the outside a gilded coin is supposed to be a thin covering of gold meant to reflect a royal appearance and that is what Slemmons does in the story, arriving in town flashing fancy clothes and gold. However, this was just a facade and Slemmons wasn’t a wealthy/respectable northerner but a fraud. The 2nd defitintion of gilded if reflected here, where Slemmon’s appearance was a deception. He was faking his image of wealth flashing his clothes and gold when in fact he wasn’t wealthy at all.

In “The Lady with the Dog”, Chekhov introduces Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, the main character, as a womanizer and woman killer. While married with children, Gurov considers women to be “the lower race,” and is continuously unfaithful with his wife. Before his encounter with “The Lady with the Dog,” Gurov believed that he had the ability to “allure women and dispose them in his favour,” showing that he thought he had a sort of power over the women and felt no emotional attachment to the women he was unfaithful with. However after meeting Anna Sereyevna, he realizes that he had somehow become infatuated and in love with her, completely stripping away his previous identity of being a woman killer. By travelling to her city and following her, Gurov shows that he was not a woman killer, but simply had not found the right person. The story tells us that while we can have a self-proclaimed image about ourselves, an event can occur and immediately change that self-proclaimed image, exposing our true selves.

In her short story, “The Dead”, the differences between Gabriel and his family are evident. His encounters with Miss Ivors represents the rejection of his culture and his past. I believe that “dead” in the story constitute the past as the living represent the future. Gabriel wants change in the present to depict the future because as he says times are changing and not always for the good. His interaction with Miss Ivors proves to be the gap between the past and the present. The past being Gabriel’s Irish culture and Miss Ivors view of the world and the present being Gabriel’s realization that he is tired of his culture and the past and wants to move on to the present with a new culture. When Miss Ivors calls Gabriel a “Brit”, she realizes Gabriel has terminated his relationship with his culture and has assimilated to the new culture of British controlled Ireland.

How does Joyce change your expectations as a reader throughout the story? e.g. your idea of what the story is about and what kind of story you are reading might have changed at a few points throughout the story. 

I was initially expecting a relaxed mood in the dinner party but the play ended with a sad mood. When the party was described in the beginning it was described as “a great affair, the …Never once had it fallen” showing a fun environment where we wouldn’t expect anything sad. Later on into the story, a few noticeable changes that shift the mood include the snow pouring down on them and a few characters opening up about how they live a very routine life without purpose. The characters live very mundane lives and cant escape them. Another important mood shifter was Greta opening up about mourning over an old childhood love. All these subtle and obvious changes shifted my experience of the story from light-hearted to gloomy.

Joyce depicted Gabriel as an inexpressive character/protagonist. Gabriel tends to not follow the norm of social life because he was afraid of hurting others’ feelings if he say something out of the ordinary. Other characters in Joyce’s story tend to be blunt and expressive about themselves and to others around them. In a way, all the characters in Joyce’s story have something that they believe in or grasp upon, which keeps them lingering in the past. For instance, Lily might have had disturbing/toxic past relationships, which cause her to feel indifferent about men, Gretta couldn’t forget Michael, who was her first love, and Gabriel thinks politic issues shouldn’t be mixed with literature. Thus, he was taught and raise that way. I believe Gabriel tends to be more of a considerate character compared to others because he thinks before he acts and he would say things accordingly based on the situation/event.

~ Neo