13 Matching Annotations
  1. Jul 2022
    1. My head was as red as a lobster; but, in other respects, I was as nicely dressed for the ceremonies of the evening as a man need be.

      What's the role of self-deprecating humor in this novel, especially on the part of Betteredge the 'house-steward' narrator/character? So far, no other narrators/characters self consciously make fun of themselves, although Betteredge will describe the silliness or odd behavior of other characters. Which ones are not "clownish" and why? And how do these descriptions affect readers' judgements about various characters' reliability about the information and observations they offer?

    2. irst Period The Loss of the Diamond (1848) The events related by Gabriel Betteredge, house-steward in the service of Julia, Lady Verinder.

      Change of first-person narrator lo lower class 'house-steward.' Is he more or less reliable as a narrator compared to the first upper class one?

  2. Dec 2020
  3. icla2020b.jonreeve.com icla2020b.jonreeve.com
    1. But as soon as his father-in-law was dead Mr. Mooney began to go to the devil.

      It's fun to see how Joyce uses tone in his narrative voice, knowing how cerebral he can be. Colloquialisms such as this one, or "that the young men were only passing the time away: none of them meant business" not only turn the narrator into a character, but also reveal the kind of je ne se quoi of the characters in the story itself.

    2. Perhaps they could be happy together….

      I like how the narrator (unlike in previous books we've covered), is narrating from a humble and unassuming point of view, not purporting to know the absolute truth, not blatantly taking a stance on the matter.

  4. Oct 2020
    1. He quite understood

      I wonder if he did. Laurie and Laura seem to have fundamentally disparate views about life and the value of the lives below their aristocratic class. Also, the narrator is conspicuously not objective and is leaning toward Laurie's and the the mother's side in their view. That makes me doubt assertive and seemingly objective remarks they make, as this one.

    1. I asked him if any slander had been spoken of me in Rachel’s hearing.

      Something intersting Franklin seems to be doing more than the other narrators so far is paraphrasing, so it calls into question the veracity of what he's saying. Obviously the question of the reliability of the narrator is always present even when they're directly quoting passages, but I wonder if he'll keep this up. I have a suspicion Franklin knows more than he's letting us know.

  5. Sep 2020
    1. (unless some necessity should arise for making it public) is for the information of the family only

      Interesting potential foreshadowing here. Earlier the narrator spoke about how this was meant to be addressed to his family to explain his side of a dispute between him and his cousin, something that I totally get wanting to keep in the family. So what does it mean that we're reading it? Is it implying we're on a level of intimacy of the family, that the narrator isn't being truthful about his discretion, or that something bad happened that necessitates it being public that we'll find out about?

  6. Jul 2020
    1. The date–thanks to my dear parents, no dictionary that ever was written can be more particular than I am about dates–was Friday, June 30th

      Like Betterredge, she also has a habit of keeping dates.

    2. It is my conviction, or my delusion, no matter which, that crime brings its own fatality with it. I am not only persuaded of Herncastle’s guilt; I am even fanciful enough to believe that he will live to regret it

      Interesting how he gives no credit to "fanciful" stories/ideas, but believes in his own version of Karma. Also I'd like to note the narrator's stylistic pattern in using juxtaposition. In this case, he uses it to dramatize possibility.

  7. Jul 2018
  8. course-computational-literary-analysis.netlify.com course-computational-literary-analysis.netlify.com
    1. The time, now, was twenty-three minutes past twelve. The next half hour, at most, would decide the question of whether he would, or would not, get up from his bed, and leave the room.

      He accustoms to describe everything precisely. The narrative of Jennings contains a lot of numbers, such as "twenty-three minutes past twelve","five minutes to twelve","June 24th". He honestly records what happened between June 15th to June 25th. I guess this is her occupational habit.

  9. Mar 2017
    1. I ~hould have preferred to be enveloped by speech, and carried away well beyond all possible beginnings, rather than have to begin it myself. I should have preferred to be-come aware that a nameless voice was already speaking long before me, so that I should only have needed to join in

      This narrative voice is interesting, considering the way he considers the problems of the author/narrator in the previous pages.

  10. Jan 2017
    1. Our moods

      Who is included in "We"? The narrator seems to mean "humans." I like the way this shift to second person plural shifts the reader's focus from a judging mode (of Dodo) to a self-reflective mode, because it builds puts the narrator, reader, and character in the same place. But is it also presumptuous and thus risky to depict this phenomenon as universal? The narrator uses this technique a lot, and it makes me wonder who her "ideal reader" is--who is the reader that the text constructs?

  11. Apr 2016
  12. cervantes.tamu.edu cervantes.tamu.edu
    1. me

      The "implicit narrator," not to be confused with Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the historical author of the book.