Month: January 2022

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Week Four: Killing Convention in Bombal’s “The Shrouded Woman”

    “The Shrouded Woman,” for all its experiments in structure and style, is perhaps most notable for its show of just how far perspective can go by providing the most unorthodox viewpoint: that of a body in a coffin, briefly suspended between life and death. The piece is comprised of social commentary, including but not limited to the woman’s role in the home, effects of social ostracism and living as the “other” in society. By its finale, in showing death as the great equalizer through the protagonist, mirrored is the breaking down of literary convention–and in this same fell swoop, unequal power structures—found in Bombal’s idiosyncratic writing. 

    Starting off with the reanimation of a dead woman, there is a grim element to the tale which extends far past the grisly nature of the scene. Flashbacks provide clues as to her pitiful lot in old age, including a myriad of “anxieties” and “sorrows” (pg. 157). In death, she is finally at peace from these demons; in this brief limbo, she appears to welcome the admiration of onlookers.

    The funeral home has made her presentable. As a result, the people have not decided to attend to Ana María in the final days of failing health and sickly physique, where they might be needed, but for ogling when she is made beautiful again. The cruel irony of the situation is that this sudden uptick in popularity is only made possible in death. With the benefit of fiction, Bombal shows how the societal view of women is not so different—that all the value is placed on the appearance, and little for the soul within.

    Similar is the focus on friends and past loves in the context of the “end.” There is a meditation which transcends not just the situation Ana María has been placed in by odd fortune, but life as a whole when viewed as an ethereal spectator. When we live from day to day, we are creatures of the present; we rarely think forwards, but are almost always considering lessons of the past to inform our each and every decision. It takes until inaction—in this case, coming in the ultimate form of lifelessness itself—to think on what every choice means for the grand scheme of life.

    At one point, Ana María asks herself, “[m]ust we die in order to know certain things?” (pg. 176). The answer is surely meant to be rhetorical in the context of the story. For when considering the effects of social rejection and living as an outsider, Bombal proves that its effects are felt after death, old wounds ostensibly healed after the individual has passed. Literary convention is not spared from this fate, and in the writing of Bombal appears to undergo the same treatment—a modernist enlightenment, therefore, is only realized when rules are metaphorically dead and buried.

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Week Three: A Surrealist Renaissance in Louis Aragon’s “Paris Peasant”

    Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant, at first glance, presents a deceiving title. On the surface it rings true: the main character is a middle class Parisian, a wanderer who is afforded the luxury to observe social institutions, characters and machinations, rarely without comment. Yet when peeling back the many layered onion that is the surrealist novel, I am left with the question of why the title is not in the plural form, “Paris Peasants,” for upon closer observation I see the work as not so much an expression of the plight of the individual against mass society, but rather the shared struggle of Parisians who all experience, paradoxically, that which can be described as a collectivised struggle brought on by economic and social boundaries.  

    To begin, we must examine surrealism. As a movement it began in the early 1920s, focusing on an awakening of the unconscious through unlikely images. (In this sense, their effect is not unlike the metaphysical conceits of the Romantic poets). Its effects bled into art and literature, creating a genre divorced from any known convention. This explains the main character’s observations—as well as his general connection and telepathy—towards each character of Paris. With every visit, an aura of haunting pervades his patronage of every locale. At times, the descriptions veer into stream of consciousness, before drifting off into nothingness. Evidenced by this unique approach is a focus on constructing the setting through characters in a collective, rather than the individual man or woman present forging their own path. Also revealed through the paradox—that being a lack of plot despite such dense prose—is a tale which appears to cover everything from mythology to philosophy, nonsensical or otherwise.

    The latter messaging comes in the hidden messages readers can discern. Beginning on page 25 and continuing for some time, a series of posters describes the financial hardships faced by characters across Paris; on page 48, pessimism is described as the “[s]ense of the useless” by the narrator. These two events appear to connect as an appeal to all Parisians to question their surroundings and to rise up against the normalcy which binds them. There is an anarchistic zeal to rival 1789, only it is not political in this century; whether in reaction to economic or social norms, there is a creative renaissance which is employed through surrealism, spearheaded by the common citizen. It is just as well the revolutions do not see their fruition. They are simply a plea, a suggestion on the part of the peasant, for in the eyes of the surrealists, even the lowest in the society of Paris have a say in governance.

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Week Two: Lost Time in Proust’s “Combray”

Marcel Proust is an author who, despite the age of his works, portrays with great creativity the ever-present human condition–it is for this reason that his writing remains relevant. In his story “Combray,” readers are taken on a lucid journey not unlike a dream. The subjects ranging from childhood innocence to loves lost are made unique through the poetic devices of the metaphor and simile; although heightened, vague themes at first glance, they are grounded through a clever use of setting and character. It is in this unique fashion, of juggling the macro and the micro, that the perspectives of child and adult are interlocked.

Part I introduces itself as a deliberately hard work to follow. A clear attitude of drifting through life on the part of the narrator is more than apparent, yet less clear is the root cause of his insomnia-driven delirium. The flashbacks help flesh out this clash of emotions. Indeed, these are the heart of the story, told in a light which can only be summarized, by contrast to the dreary present, as vicarious living. This present plot is little more than a man trying to fall asleep early. As a result, the experimental structure lends itself to a man reliving the past which has led him to this moment, and the future he so desperately wishes to fulfil. In the purest sense, the past creates the story, and without it, there is nothing more to tell. 

In “Combray,” setting complements character. Familial memories, often traumatic ones, are always told through the childhood haze of innocence, stated with the jaded tone of the adult. Relating the grief of his aunt to the splendour of church architecture, there is a subconscious connection drawn between death and faith, a possible foreshadowing of struggles to come in the journey out of adolescence. Additionally, with the main character losing himself in books, he is detached from his surroundings; he is made the spectator rather than the participant, and so there is an irony to his recollections–while undoubtedly descriptive and filled with subtle observations, the easiest way to tell a story is omitted in favour of detailing these surroundings. 

As a whole, the story borders on a kind of stream-of-consciousness writing à la Joyce. There is very little plot on the surface, with a plodding pace and a careful description of detail and emotion taking precedence over the petty squabbles of everyday life. Consequently, the setting compliments the character not strictly in the way it is presented, but how the character of the narrator views his surroundings through the confluence–as well as novel symbiosis–of childlike innocence and adult experience. At times, they blended together in such a way that I was left questioning which perspective was being shown where.

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Week One: Introduction

My name is Sam Wallace. I was born in North York, Ontario, but moved to what my parents affectionately refer to as the “wild west” long before my earliest memories. In school, I always wanted to major in English. I wrote a short story in second grade which my teacher went on to include in her dissertation paper, and a more recent writing, a swashbuckling novel about the Golden Age of Piracy, remains an ongoing project of mine–one which I hope to have published in the near future. Beyond these personal pursuits, yet no less complementary when put together, it is courtesy of a love of literature and all things artistic which has led me to taking this course on the Romance World.

It has been said that the best job is the one that does not feel like work at all. I share this same approach to reading, and it is for this reason I have chosen to take this course with an expansive works list. I am receptive to learning about different approaches to writing and the novel perspectives which accompany them. After all, there is no way to improve without first studying those who came before. Because of this, as well as a lack of knowledge of works from the Romance World, I hope to enrich my understanding of literature through a new lens, implementing these strategies in my own writing and striving towards literary excellence.

Right away, the format of this course appears refreshing. I enjoy the idea of cataloguing my thoughts on my own website as opposed to embarking on the tired old routine of Canvas. There is an individualistic element to the exercise. Looking through the reading list once more, I’m excited to see where this course takes me in collecting my thoughts and learning from both the authors and what myself–as well as my classmates–take away from their works. The course website, wherein all our responses are archived, serves this academic goal.

One cannot claim to know what the future holds, but through the benefit of hindsight, I like to think the past has the power to influence what comes next. If one knows that they are skilled in a field, and take the necessary steps to better themselves often enough in said field, such actions can only be seen as time well spent. Through taking Romance Studies and taking in new perspectives, I hope to better my understanding of literature and the world at large. Only then might the future offer something special.

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