Annemily's Blog

Pilate sounds a lot like pilot.  Morrison notes this in Chapter 11. When Milkman asks Vernell, Small Boy, Calvin, Luther, and Omar if any of them have ever heard of Pilate, one of them (it’s unclear who) responds: “Ha! Sound like a newspaper headline: Pilot Dead. She do any flying?” (283).  Given that Morrison recognizes the connection between Pilate and pilot, I think she chose the name for that connection; because Pilate is a lot like a pilot. From the OED, a pilot is both “A person who flies an aircraft, balloon, spacecraft, etc.” and “A navigator, guide, or driver.” I think Pilate fills both meanings of the word in that she guides Milkman’s metaphorical flight: his journey away from Michigan.  Pilate guides the beginning of the flight because Milkman only leaves Michigan for Pennsylvania to go find her gold. Then once Milkman fails to find the gold in Pennsylvania, Pilate continues to guide Milkman. He decides to follow the path Pilate took afte...

We talked in class about whether which narrator we found more sympathetic.  Even though Rochester narrated a huge portion of the book, trying to portray himself as worthy of sympathy, I don’t sympathize with him very much at all. He has a lot more freedom to make his own choices than Antoinette does and with that freedom he ruins Antoinette’s life.  I wanted to examine Rochester’s past to see if it could help me understand the choices he makes any better.  Rochester certainly has a complicated relationship with his family. At the very beginning of part 2 as they are traveling to the honeymoon house he thinks about writing his father a letter: “I thought about the letter which should have been written to England a week ago. Dear Father…” (61). The fact that he can’t bring himself to write to his father suggests a strained relationship. When Rochester later mentally composes the letter, the bad feelings are even more clear: " Dear Father. The thirty thousand po...

Meursault sleeps a lot. When he isn’t sleeping he’s often sleepy. I think his sleepiness is a sign that even if he doesn’t narrate it or even realize it himself, he is processing a lot of complex feelings. Near the beginning of the book Meursault falls asleep on the bus: “It was probably because of all the rushing around, and on top of that the bumpy ride, the smell of gasoline, and the glare of the sky and the road, that I dozed off. I slept the whole way” (4). Then while he’s keeping the vigil he falls asleep twice: “It was pleasant; the coffee had warmed me up and the smell of flowers on the night air was coming through the open door. I think I dozed off for a while” (9). And later on: “Then I dozed off again.” (11). It makes sense that he would be tired since it’s the middle of the night but since he sleeps for the whole afternoon and most of the night it’s a little odd that he’s still tired in the morning; right after the vigil he notes “I was tired” (12). The most plausibl...

While we’ve discussed Gregor and his family a lot in class, we haven’t discussed the charwoman very much so I would like to explore her character a bit. I didn’t know what a charwoman is so I looked it up. According to the OED a charwoman is “a woman hired by the day to do odd jobs of household work.”  The thing that stood out the most to me about the charwoman was the fact that she routinely directly addressed Gregor. From page 99: “At first she used to call him over to her as well, with words that were probably meant to be friendly, such as: ‘Come along, then, my old dung-beetle!’ or ‘Look at our old dung-beetle, now!’” The only other times anyone directly addresses Gregor in the book are before anybody knows that he’s transformed and when when his sister curses him with “You! Gregor!”  It seemed weird to me that the charwoman, who may not have even been told that the insect Gregor used to be a human Gregor, treats Gregor more humanly than his family.  I do...

In class discussion we touched on the question of how much Brett really needs Jake when she telegraphs him at the end of the book. To some extent it seems like Brett wants Jake’s help but doesn’t need it. She describes herself as “RATHER IN TROUBLE” which the qualifier rather makes less urgent than it could be (242). If the situation isn’t really urgent, it’s possible Brett could solve her problems herself, without Jake’s help. Brett could just be taking advantage of how willing Jake is to immediately come to her aid. Brett has done this in the past; she probably could have gotten together with Romero without getting Jake to introduce her. But I think Brett really did need Jake. For one thing Brett needs Jake’s money. We know she’s broke at the moment because she tells Jake about Romero’s efforts to give her money: “I told him I had scads of it. He knew that was a lie.” (246).We know she thought she needed Jake to pay for her hotel at least when she sent the telegram becau...

Flowers abound in Mrs. Dalloway . Parts of the plot are flower centric. The book begins with Clarissa going to buy flowers. Later on she reflects on the unique way Sally arranges flowers and how Sally kissed her after picking a flower. Richard brings Clarissa flowers when he comes home. Flowers are also just briefly mentioned throughout the book. When Peter follows a woman to her house his thoughts about Clarissa are interrupted by “The house was one of those flat red houses with hanging flowers of vague impropriety. (…) Well, I’ve had my fun; I’ve had it, he thought, looking up at the swinging basket of pale geraniums.” (53). It’s odd that Peter focuses on the flowers at all, given that his thoughts are mostly consumed by Clarissa and the other woman but it’s also interesting that Peter notes the specific type of flower. Later Peter thinks about Sally and flowers: “Who was it who had done that? (…) Somebody who had written him a long, gushing letter quite lately about...

As we discussed Clarissa’s difficulty with finding loving relationships in class, I wondered how well the important people in her life actually know Clarissa. Peter, although he is a very important part of Clarissa’s life, doesn’t seem to really know her well. Shortly after he first sees her, Peter thinks “Here she is mending her dress; mending her dress as usual (…) here she’s been sitting all the time I’ve been in India” (40). But he is wrong, because normally a maid would mend the dress for Clarissa. More importantly, Peter thinks that Clarissa is completely occupied by domestic tasks. Clarissa has perhaps been physically occupied by domestic tasks but mentally, her life is more complicated than Peter gives her credit for. Richard doesn’t seem to know Clarissa very deeply either. As he returns from lunch with Lady Bruton he thinks: “It was a great age in which to have lived. Indeed, his own life was a miracle, let him make no mistake about it; here he was, in the prime of l...