Poetry

In  Song of Solomon , names play a really crucial role in shaping the narrative. There are few characters that have a name that don't have some deeper significance to them. One of the characters that we briefly touched on in reading this book was Circe. She's pretty clearly named after the character Circe from the Odyssey. I thought I'd expand on this connection a little more on this blogpost.          According the Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew landed on Circe’s island and were met by Circe and a couple of wolves. The wolves draw an immediate connection to Circe from Song of Solomon ’s dogs. In the Odyssey, Circe invites members his crew into her palace and gives them a feast of wonderful foods that they all enjoy. However, unbeknownst to the crew, the food was laced with a magic potion Circe created that turned all of the crew members that ate the food into pigs. There was one member of the crew who thought that the fre...

            In Wide Sargasso Sea, it’s easy to see Daniel Cosway as an antagonist who plants the seeds that ultimately destroy any possibility of a stable relationship between Antoinette and Rochester. Cosway’s letter is what confirms Rochester’s fears about some secret being kept from him and drives him to act coldly towards Antionette. The series of events that follows is what leads to Antionette getting taken to England and eventually taking her own life. In a sense, all of that might have been avoided if Daniel just hadn’t sent that letter.             While Daniel claims in his letter that he is writing to Rochester out of a sense of duty as a Christian, it’s clear that his reasoning for writing has far more depth than this. He seems incredibly spiteful when writing to Rochester and when Rochester meets him in person, it’s pretty clear just how bitter of a pe...

I think one of the most interesting relationships in The Stranger is that between Raymond and Meursault. Right from when they meet, their dynamic is interesting, with Raymond basically just asking Meursault to help him write a letter to his mistress so that she is tricked into coming back to Raymond and he can take his revenge on her. Raymond serves as a really good foil for Meursault. At the beginning of The Stranger , one might think Meursault is cold and heartless for smoking and drinking coffee at the vigil for his mother. It’s even worse that Meursault then goes to the beach, meets a woman, takes her on a date, then has sex with her within days of finding out about his mother’s death. When the character of Raymond is introduced, this complicates things. While Meursault’s actions are definitely insensitive, they aren’t inherently wrong. It’s just that it’s kind of weird for someone to be so nonchalant about their mother’s death. The same can’t be said about Raymond. I...