Blog # 2 Eng 160
In the story “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro, the author describes the settings in which each character abides in a lucidly vivid manner sometimes positive and sometimes negative. The narrator who turns out to be the little girl in the story, candidly lets the audience know how she feels about her mother and her daily duties, as well as, where they take place. In addition she also describes her fathers duties and the setting where they take place. Throughout the story the narrator is describes her fathers settings in a positive manner, which leads the reader to understand how she adores him, and would nothing more than to be viewed as another son. On the other hand, the little girl is unsure of what being a girl is all about, which perhaps might be due to the mother putting the narrators needs on the back burner. I believe that the binary of outside vs. inside is described as the inside being where her mother resides and is described in a negative tone where their isn’t even time to have a conversation. On the other hand her father is outside embarking on excitement and providing a feeling of self worth to the narrator every time she is called upon to lend a hand. The binaries blaze on with mother and father, alive or dead, light and dark. The story left me thinking about these variables clashing and the narrator’s attempts to understand them.
#2. The thought of intertextuality, or as I describe it as referencing or talking about other literary pieces in the story under the microscope. The first reference I noticed as I wandered into the story “ The Boat “ by Alistair McLeod is from “The return of the native” by Thomas Hardy. Hardy speaks of a character by the name of Eustacia Vye who is described as an outcast early in the story. She ends up marrying a man, but soon into the marriage her husband becomes blind and people in the society believe she is a witch. In addition she kills her husbands mother and she herself ends up falling or maybe jumping to her rocky death on the beach below. Thus cancelling her dreams and becoming trapped in time. The second reference made in the story “The Boat” is to the story “Moby Dick” and the whale ship from the story the Nantucket. The plot of “Moby Dick” creates the illusion of an epic showdown between a vengeful captain and a mystical beast. All the men aboard the vessel have the same goal in mine, to kill the beast (whale) and are willing to follow the captains every move, except for one man. The one man named Ishmel (who is also the narrator) views the whale as a wonderful creature, a complete opposite of his fellow crewmembers and for this difference in his belief of the whale his life is sparred. The final intextual illusion comes in the form of a character by the name of Ham peggoty from the story “David Copperfield” by Charles dickens. Ham was a large man, a boat builder and lived in a converted boat on the beach. The part that seems all too fitting of Ham’s self-sacrificing character is the way he passes. Peggoty ends up giving his life while trying to save people stranded on a boat during a terrible storm. More importantly one person on the boat which he was attempting to save turns out to be the man that caused Ham a great deal of pain, his ex-wife’s new husband, talk about sacrifice.
#2. The thought of intertextuality, or as I describe it as referencing or talking about other literary pieces in the story under the microscope. The first reference I noticed as I wandered into the story “ The Boat “ by Alistair McLeod is from “The return of the native” by Thomas Hardy. Hardy speaks of a character by the name of Eustacia Vye who is described as an outcast early in the story. She ends up marrying a man, but soon into the marriage her husband becomes blind and people in the society believe she is a witch. In addition she kills her husbands mother and she herself ends up falling or maybe jumping to her rocky death on the beach below. Thus cancelling her dreams and becoming trapped in time. The second reference made in the story “The Boat” is to the story “Moby Dick” and the whale ship from the story the Nantucket. The plot of “Moby Dick” creates the illusion of an epic showdown between a vengeful captain and a mystical beast. All the men aboard the vessel have the same goal in mine, to kill the beast (whale) and are willing to follow the captains every move, except for one man. The one man named Ishmel (who is also the narrator) views the whale as a wonderful creature, a complete opposite of his fellow crewmembers and for this difference in his belief of the whale his life is sparred. The final intextual illusion comes in the form of a character by the name of Ham peggoty from the story “David Copperfield” by Charles dickens. Ham was a large man, a boat builder and lived in a converted boat on the beach. The part that seems all too fitting of Ham’s self-sacrificing character is the way he passes. Peggoty ends up giving his life while trying to save people stranded on a boat during a terrible storm. More importantly one person on the boat which he was attempting to save turns out to be the man that caused Ham a great deal of pain, his ex-wife’s new husband, talk about sacrifice.