“We are but skin about a wind, with muscles clenched against mortality.”

I found this quote particularly difficult to understand at first, but, when I grasped the meaning of it, I found it especially powerful. This line is said by Dr. O’Connor on page 90, and has a very deep meaning that connects to his own struggle and beliefs, as well as those of many others. The quote, on the surface, describes the fact that humans, are a coating of skin around muscles which hold it together; it is a very literal and physical description. The interesting aspect of the line is when he adds “clenched around mortality.” It shows that we are all going to die, and even though our skin, bones, and muscles hold us together and make us the people we are, nothing is forever, and all people must die eventually. His own struggles internally are connected to the lines that follow this quote. He says we “sleep in a long reproachful dust against ourselves,” and also says “we are full to the gorge with our own names for misery.” These are very powerful lines connecting to the inevitability of death and the uncertainty of the idea of oneself. O’Connor is a cross dresser who struggles with his own identity at times. He is saying we are trapped in our own identities we were given, and also struggle to find ourselves. In the end, however, he is saying everyone dies anyway, so don’t hold back and just let yourself go.

In the chapter of “Night Watch”, I found difficult and confuse sentence which is “Nora had the face of all people who love the people … Nora robbed herself for everyone; incapable of giving herself warning, she was continually turning about to find herself diminished.”(p.57) First time when I read this passage, I could not understand it right away because I had no idea about meaning of “face of all people”, “robbed herself” and “to find herself diminished”. I thought there is a misuse of words, that can be also said as defects in expression, not to understand literally. Perhaps it is a metaphorical statement, I believe, so it was harder to understand. By reading the whole chapter, however, I became increasingly able to find the meaning of this sentence. As I understood about Nora’s personality, I thought to myself; this sentence is used to describe Nora’s “sacrifice” aspect. Nora is a sort of “self-giving” character in the “Nightwood”, so that is why she knows how everybody’s face looks, and then she robbed, or sacrificed herself “for everyone”. Even though she will become weak, or her life will be diminished, Nora robbed and sacrificed herself “continually”. Therefore, this sentence has defects of expression, frankly, there is not only this sentence but also several other sentences, but if I am able to identify the whole contents of the chapter, it is possible to overcome the defect. In other words, the sentence will be make sense to me.

The part of the book I found difficult was in the beginning of the chapter “Watchman, What of the Night?” when doctor O,Conner began to explain his theories of the night. It seemed clear that he was speaking about what night meant but he kept going back and forth into references I didn’t understand. He said “Though some go into the night as a spoon breaks easy water, others go ahead foremost against a new connivance; their horns makes a dry crying, like the wings of the locust, late come to their shedding.” After attempting to figure out how this related to the night I referenced back to class discussion about the character of Doctor O’Conner. He likes to ramble a lot so I figured it didn’t have much to do with what he was actually talking about. I got a better understanding of this chapter during our class discussion when I heard everyones own analysis of the chapter.

One section of the passage that I found difficult to understand was when we were given a description of Felix and where hes from. On the top of page 10 it states “for the step of the wandering Jew is in every son. No matter where and when you meet him you feel that he has come from some place–no matter from what place he has come–some country that he has devoured rather than resided in, some secret land that he has been nourished on but cannot inherit, for the Jew seems to be everywhere from nowhere.” I had difficulty translating this because I didn’t know if it was being stereotypical of  Jews.  We are told that Felix is  Jew and that all Jews wander or devour countries. Additionally if we keep reading on it states that a few people swear to have seen him in different countries simultaneously, which could also be a stereotype that all Jews look the same. The way I translated this passage, was that Jews heavily populate this specific region of the world where Felix is and have a similar look and character for example “knowing figures”, which people categorize them. No one knows exactly where their from or where they came from because they “wander” or “devour” lots of regions.

For me , the story  did not start evolving until Doctor O’Connor came into existence. Nightwood, so far, relates to the topic of gender and sexuality. One of the instances, that I found confusing was in the beginning, when the Doctor and Felix started to conserving (pg 25). It was a gathering hosted by the Baron, where Felix was offered a drink, which he denied. The doctor response of speaking about religion in turns of a girl was very surprising. I guess, he is stating that either way, you are still indulging in an harmful act

Page 50-51, the last paragraph starting with, “She tried to think of the consequences…” ending on page 51.

This passage, while less confusing than others, still required me to reread it several times in order to even mildly understand what Djuna Barnes is saying. While reading it, I understood it at first as Robin not wanting to have a child, specifically a male child and then she goes off and talks about women she has “connected” with. The language is particularly what I have trouble with, because the sentences within Nightwood are incredibly long and I lose whatever was initially said. This passage exemplifies this, especially in the second half of it when Robin is praying. I still do not know really what she prayed for. On second glance–and with the help of the summary on the back of the book– I start to see Robin explore her sexuality and perhaps understand her prayer as asking for sexual (?) liberation from her husband and the child she was forced to bear. In this passage, she seems to start to recognize that she has always condemned men and found favor in women, “…she had come to connect with women…”(Barnes 51). I find that Barnes’ style is so particular because although the point of view is in third person, the reader still gets this “stream of consciousness” style, where the character rambles on with their thoughts. I think this is where I have difficulty, since as the reader, we aren’t allowed in the head of the characters, but we still get so much information and insight to who they are from the text. We are almost left in the perpetual state of too much information, but at the same time not enough.

In Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, on page 38 Felix begins to describe Robin when he sees her unconscious, I believe. It states, “Her flesh was the texture of plant life, and beneath it one sensed a frame, broad, porous and sleep-worn, as if sleep were a decay fishing her beneath the visible surface. About her head there was an effulgence as of phosphorus glowing about the circumference of a body of water…” When I had read this for the first time, I had no idea what he meant by the words “effulgence” or “porous”. I had started thinking why he was comparing sleep to decay fishing? What does the circumference of a body of water really mean in this passage? Is the circumference related to what we have been learning in class for the past week? To make some sort of understanding of what is going on and we he really means (to me), I had annotated, defined while looking at the context of the passage. He compares her flesh to plant life, which I think means delicate and fragile but underneath the exterior, there is some sort of strong structure. As for the comparison of sleep and decay fishing, I believe he means the state she was in? As if there was some sort of decline in her state in her sleep. Or maybe there is a deeper meaning about her state, that she is rotting inside? He then describes her head as if it was radiant, as “of phosphorus glowing” which I thought indicated her hair color and how it was shining. When we see a body of water, it is usually shiny when the sun is reflected off of it. This is how I had gone about making sense of the passage.

The passage that I selected that was difficult to understand was the passage on page 27. The reason why I selected this is that it was difficult to comprehend what the author was trying to say. As well, the language used made it confusing to understand what was going on. For example, “one night, flittering my eyes, I saw one with a red carnation in his buttonhole.” this sentence made no sense to me because it just appeared out of the blue. To me, this had no correlation to the previous sentence before it. In addition, the text was random in its word choice, for instance, it compared his bowels to a turtle. These comparisons are very abstract and not commonly compared to one another. Although, I knew that the overlining theme was supposed to be the prosses of beheading it was unclear to see this while reading. There were various topics discussed within the passage that did not relate to the message that the author was trying to portray. The way I dealt with this passage was through rereading it multiple times in order to improve my comprehension. Also, I read the text aloud which made it easier to understand because I was able to pause at the commas and properly follow the punctuations.

– Julienne Guzman

In the scene where Felix first sees Robin unconscious, he is enchanted by her beauty — so much that the author, Djuna Barnes, describes his temptations towards Robin as being cannibalistic by asserting “we feel that we could eat her, she who is eaten death returning, for only then do we put our face close to the blood on the lips of our forefathers” (41). Felix is essentially objectifying Robin to something that is “eaten” and strips her from her individuality. In the next paragraph Barnes writes: “something of this emotion came over Felix, but being racially incapable of abandon, he felt that he was looking upon a figurehead in a museum.” This sentence brings up two important themes, one of sexuality and one of race. Not only is Felix objectifying Robin here as “a figurehead in a museum,” but he is described as being “racially incapable of abandon.” This passage is difficult for me to understand because I am confused as to why he would be racially incapable of abandon? While he is an orphan, does he feel racially segregated from society as Jew? I tried to make sense of this passage by looking at it as a whole rather than focusing on the race aspect of it. As a whole, the passage continues to emphasize on Felix’s sexual desire for Robin. I tried to connect this to his “racial incapability” which could be interpreted as him being unable to express himself towards her because he is somewhat of an outsider. 

– Sheik Floradewan

The author Djuna Barnes takes her time to describe women as she reveals their sexual and psychological state. Barnes says “the woman who presents herself to the spectator as a “picture” forever arranged is, for the contemplative mind, the chiefest danger.(p41)” This is pretty hard to understand since the meaning of picture is not made clear. However, she describes woman as most dangerous in this sentence in order give a sense of women going out of control. Also the arrangement of this sentence requires a lot of connection with the use of comma. It is also critical to understand what Djuna means by “racial memory” in the sentence “such a person’s every movement will reduce to an image of a forgotten experience; a mi— rage of an eternal wedding cast on the racial memory; ” In order to make sense out of this sentence I connected it to the previous line because women who are dangerous and goes out of their comfort zone are just a mirage meaning that they do not live in the reality where women are supposed to be with husband and family. Also the line ”as insupportable a joy as would be the vision of an eland coming down an aisle of trees, chapleted with orange blossoms and bridal veil, a hoof raised in the economy of fear” helped me to create a connection between women who are dangerous and women who are in a “bridal veil.” This sort of gave me the idea that society expects to see women in a veil rather than being challenging and outgoing.

-Farzana Akther