The narrator has various lovers and past relationships. I do not feel as though she is regretful in telling her past; I think she is very self aware and is trying to share her stories to the two men to impact them and help them understand the meaning of life. She shares the most important stories and the ones that had the most impact on her life; the ones that truly showed how she was and how she had such intimate relationships with every man. In the same sense, when she is talking to these men, she is reminiscing. She always had intimate relationships, not only was she sexually involved but she was completely emotionally involved as well. She loved every man in a different way than the other. In the section An Old Women’s Hermitage she quoted, “He was of low rank and wasn’t good-looking, but his writing, even in his very first letter, sent me into another world…before I knew it I was beginning to suffer and yearn for him, too” (595). In the section Mistress of a Domain Lord, she quotes, “He was tender to me, and enjoyed our lovemaking. But things didn’t work out…He was still young, but in bed he just couldn’t do anything anymore…Those old men didn’t know the first thing about love, but they made the decisions. I was dismissed and sent all the way back to my parents” (599). Her love is strong in each story however, each lover is worst/more unfortunate than the last. In her search from love it seemed as though the men were too interested in the sexual part and not enough in the loving part. But she still stuck around she did not abandon any of them or leave them. She does not think of any consequences. She states, “I just followed my desires wherever they went-and I ruined myself” (page 596). She is in search of purity and love when she is on top of the mountain and sees all the faces of her lovers. She is woken up from this dream-like stake that she has been in all her life and realizes there is more things in the world than finding a lover. Which in a sense was her own journey all along. She was in search for love and the perfect lover (which was her ‘dream’) and she was awoken when she realized that there was so much more too life. I feel as though she gained her independence throughout this journey.
-Kelly Kay
To some extent I agree with your perspective. The narrator isn’t regretful at all for her past. Yet, when she looks back at it, she’s shocked. The narrator wouldn’t be where she is without her past journey. The different sexual encounters she has had in the past define the woman that she is. The narrator has realized her faults and has accepted them. Now, she wants to share her blissful state of mind with these two men. Kelly explains how once the narrator is on top of the mountain, she is woken from her dream-like state. This was a very symbolic moment for the narrator, because she confronts reality and realizes there’s more to life than finding love. Her journey consisted of many highs and low, but in the end she did succeed in her journey. Narrator has accepted her fate and becomes liberated.
I love the point that you make about how she is reminiscing her past and is shocked to find out that she had such a dramatic and unforgettable experience. The experiences of her past allow her to see the new aspects of herself that she’s never known before, so yes, I agree with the inner journey through reminisce. Also, I feel like she is reflecting on the story as she is telling it. She’s reflecting on how each man doesn’t love her as much as she loves them, or maybe how each of them wanted her body more than her heart. Even though in class, I said that she had succeeded in her inner journey, your post made me rethink that perhaps she isn’t done with the journey. Perhaps each time that she thinks back to all the memories of her with different men, she learns something new about herself that she must try to accept. It’s just like how every time we reread a story, we get something new out of it.