ENGL 495 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Kate Chopin, Odysseus, John Steinbeck

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16 April, 2018
The Blackwater Lightship
- p 38, 132, 140, 155, etc -- “coldly”; adverbial tendency in the book
- Style
- Toibin says about TBL: “it’s a very simple book in which, with the exception of
one passage, there isn’t a single well-written sentence. No flourishes except in
the dialogue. The dialogue does all the work.”
- Novel highlights people making speeches, people telling stories; why use
adverbs in such a dialogic novel? Adverbs are almost like theatre directions
- This novel is particularly dialogue heavy, often monologic.
- Adverbs imply intonation, meant to guide your reading, but doesn’t always;
Hemingway quality where prose actually obscures more than it reveals
- “Coldly” becomes a family trait
- Toibin: “I tried to keep the prose as natural as possible”; closest way to get to
reality is to record the way people think
- In a novel where each character has a monologic term, is this a more democratic
style of prose? Each character gets their say, gets a couple uninterrupted pages
- Allowing individuals to speak in the first person breaks away from third
person monopoly, explanatory narrator
- Focus on women’s voices and queer men’s voices, these voices are
heard when straight men are not there dominating
- Third-person is focalised, roams from character to character; strategic use
of dialogue
- Coldness as genetic property -- Helen is called a cold person (p 210)
- Novel is about listening and hearing
- Beginning of the book, anonymous woman sings, without being asked, musicians
join in; first chapter is about listening, appropriately and at the right moment, sets
up the rest of the book and how characters do or don’t listen to each other
- A lot of characters listen inadequately
- Dialogue itself is full of twists and turns
- Characters in the novel split between listeners and talkers
- p 240-241, Lily’s husband was not a talker, but a listener; Hugh does this
too with Helen → straight men’s voices are whittled away
- Helen as a listener, opens the book by semi-consciously listening to her
kid whimper; becomes a set pattern in the novel, people who take turns
listening and take turns talking
- Party -- everyone listens to the musicians, listening is a form of attention; first
chapter is template for subsequent chapters, listening becomes form of
translation of knowledge
- p 19-20, woman does not sing if requested; everybody stops to listen, not
told much about what she sings, but her accent is from Donegal,
emphasis is not on the words but the performance
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Document Summary

The blackwater lightship p 38, 132, 140, 155, etc -- coldly ; adverbial tendency in the book. Toibin says about tbl: it"s a very simple book in which, with the exception of one passage, there isn"t a single well-written sentence. This novel is particularly dialogue heavy, often monologic. Adverbs imply intonation, meant to guide your reading, but doesn"t always; Hemingway quality where prose actually obscures more than it reveals. Toibin: i tried to keep the prose as natural as possible ; closest way to get to reality is to record the way people think. Each character gets their say, gets a couple uninterrupted pages. Allowing individuals to speak in the first person breaks away from third person monopoly, explanatory narrator. Focus on women"s voices and queer men"s voices, these voices are heard when straight men are not there dominating. Third-person is focalised, roams from character to character; strategic use of dialogue.

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