- the Doctor's "paramarital twinings" with both,
- the stand-in father figure that Taurus becomes,
- the reconciliation of Mom and Dad,
- who gets the say in the "books vs. baseball" parenting debate,
So have at it.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The Dutchess, Taurus, and The Progenitor
Simons' relationships with the above three concern the great most of Edisto, as does:
So have at it.
So have at it.
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I think this fits in this thread, kind of...
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the passage where Simons leaves the faculty party and escapes to Theenie's cabin to read WPA stories pasted to the walls.
"There was always a new story to read, it seems, or even if you thought you had read one obefore, a new way to imagine the Negro reading it first, and so it became a new kind of story...But anyway, you could always read and reread, changing your opinion about the Negro and so changing the stories and their effect now." (74-75)
To me, this was the essence of the whole book. Our current experiences, perspectives, new relationships, whatever all influence the way we see events in our past. Significant events can have very different meanings to us when we view them through a different lens. I got the impression that we were reading "Edisto" as if it were Simons diary at the moment: he gave us his current, 12-years-old interpretation of the situation between his parents and Taurus. He might not understand what's going on fully, but the passage above where he reads the WPA stories shows me that later on he's going to have the ability to put the experience into context. In fact, he does so later on, in talking about the Duchess:
"So don't get down on your mother if she's drunk a lot, promiscuous, imperious, or anything. Because you might be wrong, you might not see the good soldier marching all along down in the trenches, for you. And you might be an igno, after all." (170)