Irony

Whitman, as an American, has a point of view of war. In his time period there was a lot of conflicts going on and Whitman was, as the rest of the Americans, involved in it. His works have this effect reflected.

There is this part from poem 18 that I really liked:

“ Vivas to those who have fail’d!
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
And to those themselves who sank in the sea!
And to all generals that lost engagements! and all overcome heroes!
And the numberless unknown heroes, equal to the greatest heroes known. ”

First, I notice that the four ending lines start with “And”, as I said in my previous blog, this makes an emphasis to what he is saying. But as if the repetition wasn’t enough, Whitman adds an exclamation mark at the end of the four starting lines. It is a strong verse, a lot of feeling. He is making a celebration to war, almost as if critizing it. Celebrating the deaths of so many, like the politicians and generals do. The last line I love. “numberless unknown heroes, equal to the greatest heroes known.” He uses two well chosen adjectives, numberless and unknown, and then three adjectives that are quite the opposite, equal (as an specific number) greatest and known. The line is sad. The entire verse is sad. But he celebrates it, ironically.

I Failed

Walt Whitman, I researched, is American, and “the father of free verse”. His style is unique, bla, bla, bla. I read indeed the poems from his book Leaves of Grass (by the way, grass doesn’t have leaves). I wanted to get the style all by myself, without the help from Mr. Tangen. Usually I miss all the stylistic things and the real meaning behind the word choice, or sentence structure, I don’t catch the greatness of the author, writer, poet, artists, painter, etc. I just miss it, no matter how hard I read it, or how focused I am. But the times I do get it, it feels good. In Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert, I was getting the hang of it, I had started to feel Flaubert and his sentences and description, and just when I feel I pro, I have to read somebody else. But that’s good. I have to practice comparing styles (I guess). So I compared Whitman with Flaubert.

Whitman writes in first person, he is describing what he sees, what he feels, “Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.” (line 98). Flaubert writes in third person, and he describes the third person’s feeling, actions, emotions, “She found it hard, however, to think of the latter as a person, for was it not a bird, a flame, and sometimes only a breath?”

Flaubert seldom repeats a word, he is even famous because of that. Whitman, on the other hand, uses repetition as a style, he starts a series of lines in his verses with the same first, second and third word, for example,
“It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men;
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people, and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps;” (lines 104-107)

I also noted that he compares everything with nature, plants specially. He is also very, not the pejorative self centered, but the selfcenterness that is good. I accept it, I feel I failed to get Whitman, I need the class discussions.

And Again

We learned that the parrot is of great importance to Felicite. Flaubert gives importance to Loulou the way he writes about him. Almost half of Simple Soul is about the parrot, even the last sentence of the story is about the parrot. When Felicite is getting sick, deaf, blind and weak, Flaubert writes, “Only one noise penetrated her ears; the parrot’s voice.” The second part of the sentence is independent, separated by the semi colon, clearly giving much more emphasis to the parrot himself, as if the reader is to read it alone, pausing before. Noise rhymes with voice, a pretty sentence, it's nicely put together, because of its importance, not to mention that it is the last sentence of a paragraph.

Loulou the parrot’s death, is painful for Felicite, Flaubert makes the significance, giving two sentences, one after the other, a single paragraph each,

“She wept so sorely that her mistress said: ‘Why don’t you have him stuffed?’

She asked the advice of the chemist, who had always been kind to the bird.”

If, the two sentences are together and joined to the previous paragraph, it would not be as meaningful. For the second sentence, a person (the chemist) would be expected to “always been kind to” Felicite, and not the bird, but because the bird is more important than Felicite (going back to the meaningless life that she had) he has “always been kind to the bird”, and not Felicite. In the first sentence, it is surprising that the mistress cared about Felicite, through out the story, she hasn’t given a damn about her, now she does, because of the bird, again.

I like Flaubert, I’m getting every time better at understanding his style, I’m probably not an expert; But I’m not lost, which is good.

(Noticed my style?)

Tasty Writing

Free indirect style is the way you make a character as yourself and writing about it while narrating the story. Flaubert does that. There is a bit of irony and hyperbole in the story, obviously adding more to the tastiness of it. I get to see Felicite’s soul and thoughts without noticing that it is her feelings and thoughts that are being described. For example, “She hung her head. He then asked her whether she had ever thought of marrying. She replied, smilingly, that it was wrong for him to make fun of her.” (Simple Soul) So far there has been almost no quotation for Felicite, not when she is talking or thinking something. Felicite “hung her head” is describing a feeling, an action hat comes with a feeling without saying the specific emotion. Or for example, “He always came at dinner-time and brought an ugly poodle with him, whose paws soiled their furniture.” The adjective “ugly” for the dog is only because he made the furniture dirty, and Felicite doesn’t like that. This sentence could be written like this, “He always came a dinner-time and brought the ugly poodle that Felicite hated because he soiled their furniture.” But there is no need for the “Felicite hated because”, it is induced with the negative adjective and the second part of the sentence.

There is this paragraph which stood out to me, goes like this:

“When Virginia’s turn came, Felicite leaned forward to watch her, and through that imagination which springs from true affection, she at once became the child, whose face and dress became hers, whose heart beat in her bosom, and when Virginia opened her mouth and closed her lids, she did likewise and came very near fainting.”

It’s a sentence with 7 commas. Makes it as a race, like the heart beat, and the excitement mixed with anxiety. If read out loud it is tiring, as if “near fainting”. The description is perfect, the emotion, one can perfectly picture the little Felicite at the edge of the bench, and yet Flaubert doesn’t talk about the thoughts or feelings much, he simply narrates what is happening, as if it were himself.