"The Temple"

"The Temple" by Joyce Carol Oates is a story about a woman (narrarator) who seems to be all alone in her home and is hearing mysterious sounds over and over. The sounds are of a faint "mewing" cry followed by tedious scratching sounds of claws or something being raked by nails. At first the woman questioned if the noise was coming from inside the house but after listening carefully she presumed that it was occurring from outside. She had no choice but to confront the matter and trace the sound to its origin. It turned out that the sound was coming from her mother's old garden of thirty years. So she went into the garage grabbed a pair of gloves, a shovel, a spade and a rake and started to dig. Suddenly as she began to dig the plaintive mewing sounded! "Yes. Yes I'm here," she whispered to the mewing. "I'm here, now." She dug and spaded as fast as she could making the hole bigger by the minute. Then she struck something solid and dropped to her knees and lifted to what it seemed like was a human skull out of the moist dirt? Yet, the skull was smaller then an average persons, which could only mean that it was the skull of a child. Continuing to dig for several more hours the woman discovered no more than a dozen or so random bones. In tribute to the skeleton the woman wrapped up the remains in a five-foot runner of antique velvet cloth and carried the remains up into her bedroom.
The main parts of the story take place halfway down on page 347 and carry on to the end on page 348. Which is where the narrator finds out the truth behind the mewing and crying she had once desired to know. This part adds to the mood of the story. Even though she acts as if she did not know where the skeleton came from or whom it might of been. It seems as if she may have had a relationship with the skeleton at one point or another and may have been familiar with what had happened to the child. For no one must see. No one must know. "I am here, I will always be here," she promised. As if the child was crying out to her so she could free the child's remains and possibly the soul. No longer would she hear the scratching and crying of the child for the fingers and remains were removed and properly arranged into the shape of a human being. The child and narrator could now both are at peace since the skeleton was free and the woman was free of a child's cries. In the end, she gives the skeleton a proper home in her bedroom as it would become a "secret temple" and promises to never leave the skeletons side until death.

"The Yellow Wallpaper"

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story about a woman who is living in a rest home for the summer so she can recover from her illness. The doctors, which happen to be her husband and her brother, both claim that she only has temporary depression. She is not allowed to work and is stuck upstairs in the house in a room with yellow wallpaper. This wallpaper is falling apart and worn badly and the woman becomes increasingly obsessed with is, seemingly leading her to have a mental breakdown and true mental problems.

The setting used in this story plays a great role in the mood created by reading it. The story takes place in a rundown room in an old house. The wallpaper in the room is old and falling apart and has even been faded by the sunlight. The house that they are in is "quite three miles from the village". The narrator states that the house is surrounded by hedges and walls and gates. There is also a garden with trees and grape vines and the narrator says that there are broken down greenhouses around the property. This setting sets the story up to be a frightening story about a woman who has gone mad. It gives the house, and the story, a sense of eeriness. The reader gets the feeling that the house is isolated from civilization and surrounded by nature and small greenhouses and guest houses that have been neglected. The fact that she has psychological problems would not make this story frightening or even at least creepy. Without this setting it would be just a psychological thriller. The setting is what makes the story gothic. Also, the isolation could be one of the reasons the woman's condition got worse as the story progressed. She could be developing mental problems because she is isolated from society and surrounded by nature and really only interacts with her husband most of the time. The setting plays a very important role in setting the mood for this story.

Joyce Carol Oates "The Temple"

In Joyce Carol Oates' short story, "The Temple," the narrator is haunted by "mewing" and scratching sounds that are outside of her home. At first, she suspected the noise to be from a small animal, but started to investigate because the sound disrupted her sleep, from March through May. The sound came from her old garden. Her solution? She dug up where the horrible cries came from. While digging, she tried to comfort whatever was awaiting. For example, she states, " Yes. Yes. I'm here,"and the "mewing" sound stops. Alas, she discovered a skull of a small unknown child. She called it a days work after she found a dozen more bones that completed the unknown body. Once her mission was done, she felt she gave the corpse peace. To honor the skeleton, the narrator wraps the body up in velvet (color of royalty) and pieces the bones together in it's human shape. The temple, where the bones were assembled, is a secret because only the woman knows and promises to "always be there" for the skeleton.
The most important passage starts on the fourth paragraph, page 347, and ends on the second paragraph, page 348. It occurs partly in the middle, almost close to the end. These paragraphs play a big role in the story because now the reader knows what caused all the distress to the narrator. Which was a skeleton of an unknown child. This event adds to the mood of the story because the woman felt a close bond with the skull even though she had no idea who it was and why it was there, "..eyes of an eerie transparency. A kind of knowledge passed between her and these eyes yet she did not know." I believe the theme of the story was she released the trapped skeleton, and gave the dead child attention it deserved decades ago. The fingers are now free from scratching or clawing for escape. "Forever, the finger bones would be at peace." Which also caused the woman some peace herself because she will not hear the "mewing" sounds anymore.
In the end, where she forms the "secret temple" for the body, was the cherry on top. She did her major part by freeing the bones, but then she honors the body, and promises to never leave it's side.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman in her story The Yellow Wallpaper uses a first-person point of view. This basically makes the story what it is. You see what she going through in a series of journal entries. Her husband doesn't approve of her writing, so she does them in secret to express how she is feeling. Obviously she can't really talk to anyone about what she is writing or her husband would probably sent her away in the belief that she wasn't getting any better. In any other point of view the story wouldn't have been as affective. The only thing we would be getting from another narrator was that she was in a depression. Through the journal entries we see her mind progressing in these thoughts of the wallpaper. With her speaking directly it makes you feel a range of emotions, in the beginning you almost feel bad that he husband is keeping her locked up and treating her this way. Towards the end though it almost makes you see why obviously this women is seriously ill and with the story being in first-person, it gives you an intense, intimate ride through this woman's mind.

The Temple close reading

The seventh paragraph of the story plays a significant role in the overall story. It is on page 347. It shows how the woman begins her obsession over what it is she is looking for. She displays so much of an obsession that she begins to talk to whatever it is she is looking for and begins to dig frantically.

The woman also displays how she believes that she is coming to the rescue. She is obviously alone and very lonely and in need of some type of companionship. This is displayed when she describes how she wants nobody to see what she is up to. It reflects on human nature because humans are always out to help other humans. This is shown when she whispers "Yes, yes I am here". It also shows that she wants nobody what she is doing because she whispers this.

She is so obsessed with this thing that she performs actions that she would not normally perform. This is evident when Oates writes ,"it was a pity she'd rarely used gardening implements in all of her fifty years". It shows that she is so determined to find out what is summoning her that she exercises behavior that she normally does not display. The extensive labor that she does, so much to the point where she is "grunting", shows her determination. When she finally uncovers the bones and takes them to her room, it shows why she had worked so extensively for something she obviously believed in to the point where she nearly worshipped the bones. Also, when she talks to what she is trying to uncover, it shows a form of prayer. Later in the story she builds a shrine to the bones in which she was praying to.

This paragraph of the story shows the obsession of this woman to discover the unkown and sets up the rest of the story by showing how extensively she worked to solve the mystery of the sounds. People become obsessed by the unknown and the seventh paragraph displays that obsession in the bones she wrapped in an antique velvet cloth. The obsession later leads her to create a shrine. The fact that she whispers to the bones shows that she does in fact have neighbors, but she lives alone and wants a companion.

-Quote the Ravin

Narrative Convention for "The Yellow Wallpaper"

"The Yellow Wallpaper", written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about a woman who is mentally sick, but her husband, also her physician, does not believe her. She is taken away to a summer house for three months in order to overcome whatever illness she has. She is forced to stay in a bedroom with old, yellow wallpaper. In the beginning of the story, she does not like the wallpaper and calls it "dull" (89). By the end of the story, she is completely crazy and is creeping around the bedroom thinking she is the woman who came out of the wallpaper.

The story is written in first-person narrative. The woman is telling the story through the jouranl entries she writes when her husband is not around. I think the first-person point of view is very effective in this story. If Gilman would have used third-person narrative, the story would not have been ass effective. First-person narrative allows the reader to follow the woman's thought process and go through the experience of insanity with the woman. It also allows the reader to gain a better understanding of the character and get inside her head. Instead of having a different narrator tell us what is going on, Gilman shows the reader that the woman is going psychotic by showing the reader her thought process and how it changes throughout the story. Gilman uses the journal entry style to show the audience how the woman's mind is changing over the time period that she is at the summer house. Instead of being told that she has something mentally wrong with her, the reader is being shown exactly what is going through her mind.

"The Yellow Wallpaper"

The short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The narrator and her husband move into a house for the summer and because she has “temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency” she is confined to the upstairs bedroom. While alone with nothing to do she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper. On page 93 the narrator realizes her obsession, “I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper.” She starts imagining that there are women trapped in the wallpaper bringing herself deeper and deeper into a psychotic state of mind, and eventually coming to believe that she is one of them.

Gilman wrote this story as if it was being told from the point of view of the main character and written as a series of journal entries. By choosing to write in the method of first person, she allowed the audience to gain a better sense of that character. If this story was told from any other character’s perspective we would not understand what this character was going through, how she was feeling, and we would not get to experience her fall into psychosis. On page 100 she actually believes she can “save” one of the women in the wallpaper, “I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.”

Also, since Gilman decided to write the story as if it’s journal entries by the main character we are able to track what changes in the character’s state of mind. In the beginning of the story the main character describes her and her husband as “mere ordinary people” and the audience can infer that the husband, John, had brought her there to get better. As the audience reads on, the journal entries the main character is writing becomes more and more about the wallpaper and her theory about the women in the yellow wallpaper.

"Little Things" by Raymond Carver

The story “Little Things” by Raymond Carver is short but eventful story. The story opens up with a man packing his suitcase filled with clothes with a woman then screaming in the background. Obviously a married couple that had just recently got into a very heated argument, the woman curses and screams at her husband to leave. Before the husband leaves, the argument turns to who will keep the child. As the couple bickers to each other, the baby gets caught in the middle and is being pulled back and forth by the mother and the father.

Since this story is short with paragraphs ranging from two to three sentences it is hard to pick a paragraph in particular that makes the story what it is. Although, on page 345 where the narrator starts with”The kitchen window gave no light…etc” I think plays a significant role. This small paragraph is in the middle of the story but it sets the mood for just how serious this argument really is. It develops the theme or marital problems in marriages and relationships in general. Even though there are not a lot of details, the imagery is very intense. Picturing darkness, which we see a lot in gothic literature, and the struggle between the infant is something that is not difficult to picture.

The ending of the story leaves much to be desired. One could assume that the baby was “ripped” which would settle the argument since the baby wouldn’t be alive, but that sounds a little bit grotesque. The baby could have fallen onto the kitchen floor and badly injured itself and maybe the couple would realize they were tearing their family apart by arguing. Of course it would be easier to assume that either the mother or father had taken the baby and there was a happy ending. However, I do not think that is what the author was intending to do. The author leaves much to be desired at the end which makes it more intriguing then the first couple lines of the story, “Son of a bitch!” (Carver 344).

Little Things

When reading Little Things by Raymond Carver it is very short, but to the point. In the beginning of the story Carver talks about the snow and how it melts and turns dirty and dark. The first time reading it I did not think anything of this, but when reading it a second time I wondered if he used the weather and snow to symbolize what was going to happen in the story. The snow is said to be pure, and we can conclude that there marriage once had been this pure thing. Then it says that the snow started to melt and turn dirty. This I thought showed a foreshadowing on there relationship turning dark.
We are brought into the story with the man packing up his suitcase and the woman standing at the door yelling at him. We are left wondering what had happened? We can conclude that he had cheated on her by the comment she made to him, "You can't even look at me in the face, can you" (344). We can conclude that he is to ashamed because he got caught. Then the story sort of has a turn of events from the dispute between them to a dispute on who should get the child. In a way I think the woman triggered this event because she took the photo of the baby from the room in front of him. This then led to the dispute they had in the kitchen over their baby boy. From the descriptions in the book, we can conclude that there was a lot of movement and yelling throughout the kitchen since they were knocking things down and the baby was clear evidence because it was crying and upset.
Then at the end, when they both are pulling on the baby, we are left with the same effect as in the beginning of the story. What happened? We are left with the decision of did the man get the baby because he pulled harder than the woman, or did they end up splitting the baby in half. Which in terms they both got what they wanted.
This is what I got from the story in general, but when researching Carver, he wrote this story in the 80's which from that time to present marital disputes were common. He also witnessed this with his own parents in that his father was an alcoholic and abused and fought with his mother. So this could also conclude why he would write the story like this, with a mystery beginning and end, because he is referencing to a dispute his parents had. Only hearing the yelling and fighting, never the beginning or the conclusion of their fights.

Cite Used
http://www.whitman.edu/english/carver/biography1.html

Close Reading of Raymond Carver's "Little Things"

It's hard to say that only one paragraph is rather significant. I feel that there are several small parts that give significance to the story. Even the title itself seems to hint at something rather important. I think the whole story revolves around the concept of small things. At the beginning of the story, a husband and wife are having an argument and the husband is getting ready to leave. It doesn't say what they are arguing about, but it seems like its been going on for a while and they have had enough of each other. Going with my idea of the concept of small things, I feel that the argument could have arose from some miniscule problem. Usually when a couple fights for a long time, the smallest things can set them off.

Another thing they argue about is a picture of the baby. Here is another small item that is focused on that would seem unworthy of fighting for in normal circumstances. Finally the fight escalates to the most precious of small things, the baby. I could understand that the custody of the baby would be an important issue to address, but to go and disregard its cries of pain because you are caught up in your "bloodlust" of hate for your partner seems almost inhuman and inhumane.

I feel that the story seeks to show the frailty of the little things in life and how they can be destroyed or damaged in an instance. Also how the littlest of things can change life for us forever.

"Little Things" Raymond Carver Close Reading

Close Reading of “Little Things” By: Raymond Carver

This was a very short but interesting story to read in my opinion. It had a definite point to get across and I think it did that well. The point was that divorce or separation among parents can bring harm to those who are close to both parties in this case the baby. Because both parents were selfish and greedy about the custody of the baby, they fought and struggled for him. Ending up with both having a piece of the baby, he was split in half because of the fighting.

From the beginning of this story I had an eerie feel coming inside because of the way that the author describes the dirty snow melting and how ugly everything looked. This set up a mood within me that was repelling and an overall feeling of not wanted to read on. I was thinking if the road is that disgusting what is the story going to be like. As the story went on I got what the point was and what the author was trying to get across.

What got that point across for me was when the author stops the action to describe the lighting. That was very important for me anyway. It was a major foreshadowing and set up mood of dark and dreary at that point. Setting mood in this story helps the reader feel and relate to it. Most authors do not do a good enough job describing the feel or the overall mood but this one I did.

"Time and Again"

In the short story Time and Again, written by Breece Pancake, the narrator is a farmer whose work is to plow and salt the roads. This short story is different from the others because he seems to be a person who lives a dark and cold life. The irony of this is that the setting in this story takes place at night where it is cold enough for snow and ice to fall. An example of this is when he talks about his son. The narrator tells the reader how his wife passed away a few years ago, and once she died, his son ran away from home. He says that he leaves the lights on when he comes home. The light represents the only good thing in his life, which is his son. The problem with this is it has been years since he has seen his son, and the reader would most likely come to the agreement that the chances of his son coming back are very slim.

Another example of this is how the narrator talks about how he is going to stop working, and he will watch his hogs grow old and die. He says that he is getting too old to work, and that he is always tired. The problem here is that the narrator has never even seen the person he works with, who is Mr. Weeks. The setting of the story sets the mood of the story for the reader, and one can’t help but feel bad for the narrator of the short story.

"In the Icebound Hothouse"

In the first two paragraphs of “In the Icebound Hothouse” a lot is established. It introduces characters, setting, and the mood. The narrator is writing about the possibility of witnessing a possible murder, suicide, or accident. He has become mute after witnessing what happened, so because he is a poet they, at the detention house, ask him to write. In the first paragraph the narrator is in a detention house. The story is being told from his point of view. By hearing his story the reader is able to see what he sees, and the way his mind works. Another character that was introduced was the victim, a dead naked girl. He described her as his key to the hothouse, which he had never been able to get into. The nurseryman is also mentioned. He is described as the sullen caretaker of the hothouse.

The setting has been established as winter. The hothouse is encased in ice, including the doors and windows. It appears to be on some kind of school or college campus, because he mentions the biology lab. The mood of the story is dark and mysterious. He makes a lot of emphasis about the ice that is surrounding the hothouse. There is a dead body in the hothouse and no one seems to know what has happened to her. What the witness experienced was so upsetting to him, that he lost his ability to speak.

Overall, this introduction to the story has a great deal of focus around the setting and mood. From the first few sentences, the reader knows something bad has happened, and they’re about to get his side of the story.

"Time and Again"

Breece D’J Pancake’s story, “Time and Again” is a short story about a man who kills people and feeds them to his hogs. It takes place in the Appalachian region, in winter months, where there’s a lot more woods and trees then there are people. Pancake had the narrator talk in somewhat of a vague way so if the reader didn’t read carefully, they might not even pick up on the subtle clues of the story. At first I didn’t even catch on to what was going on in the story until I did some research online about it. “I told him not to go and look, that the hog’s just squeal when they are happy but he went and looked. Then he ran off someplace.” Later in the book the old man told a hitchhiker that it was when his wife died that his boy ran off. These subtle clues came together to give the reader a better idea of what was going on. He also seems to have flashbacks where he counts how many people he killed when he was in France, back in his army days, but because of the first person point of view the old man does not come out and say, “I have flashbacks.” If it was written in third person the writing style would be straight to the point and the narrator would have to tell the readers when flashbacks were occurring. The point of view is crucial in determining the tone of the story. I believe that Pancake made the right decisions writing this story. I also believe that the story is best told the way it was, in first person, because this way the old man can give small hints and only reveal certain information at certain times.

Sites I used

http://papercuts.blog.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/breece-dj-pancake-at-55/

http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/read/pov1.html

In the Icebound Hothouse

Within the reading of the Icebound Hothouse by William Goyen I found some important information that may help the reader understand what the writer feels at a certain point. In my opinion, the second paragraph on page 242 is one of the most important of the whole short story. This paragraph sums up what is going on and helps gives the reader an insight of what is going to become explained of events that have already happened. The second paragraph tells us, the readers, that the passage is from a "suspicious witness" who is housed in a Detention House. The "witness" shows how much there is to question of what is going on and how unclear his own thought process is about a certain incident. What we do find out is that there were no other live witnesses other then this single man. The only person who knew what was going on in the first place was the naked women who fell from, as the book states, "a high window from the biology lab". The woman holds so much mystery through out this story, there was no reason why she was happening to fall through the greenhouse roof or what the man in the Nurseryman had in common with her. To the "suspicious witness" she was the one who opened the way to letting him into the hothouse. Even from the beginning of the story we find out that this was loitering around the hothouse. The hothouse seems to be some type of lure to the man and his only crime was that he wanted to get in the hothouse. The man finally gets his way in to what seems to be the forbidden hothouse through the woman falling and creating an entrance for the man.
Even with this paragraph the writer sees how his mind set changes from what it once was a "...like a custard at simmer" to what it is now giving him quick fast thoughts. He admits to these problems being the symptoms of his head problems.

William Goyen "In the Icebound hothouse"

In William Goyen’s “In the Icebound Hothouse,” I felt as though one paragraph showed a good overview of what the main characters outlook on life was. It is fairly early on in this short story in the second paragraph on page 244. In this section the main character is talking about why the worker in the greenhouse might not let him in from the cold. He speculates that it may be because the worker is angry or sad because one of his beautiful plants has died. This seems to agitate the narrator and it even seems to make his angry. “Does he not know has he not heard that all flowering things fade and die? Does he not know?... Living among the green (the most perishable color), was he not accustomed to daily yellowing (leaf) and graying (frond); all things die. (244)” I feel that this very short excerpt truly encompasses what this protagonist feels. Because of his failing poetry he feels that he is becoming one of these many things that just seem to whither up and die. This is why he has become so fascinated with the greenhouse. He sees it as a symbol of his heyday as a poet; it represents all of the beautiful emotions that he was able to express through his poetry. Now he is stuck on the outside where it is cold and barren because he has no outlet through which to express his feelings. This is why he obsesses about the greenhouse and gaining entry to it. When he realizes this he feels angered that others do not see the world as he does. He becomes angry at the gardener because he is working in this world of beauty and does not even realize it. Instead of appreciating it, the gardener comes drunk to work and stumbles through his tasks without even seeing how lucky he truly is. This makes the main character angry because he realizes that he made the same mistake with his life. Instead of enjoying the time in which he was creating poetry that he loved and was proud of, he let it pass him by with out really appreciating it.
What seems to be lost to the narrator is that he has been creating beautiful poetry throughout his whole recreation of this story. Every line seems to be a part of a poem that flows together flawlessly with the rest of the story. This fact is still lost to him in the end of the story because his bleak outlook has not changed. If he could look and see that he still has the ability to pursue his passion that he loves, then he would not feel as though he need to get into the greenhouse so desperately. Instead, he would see the world around him not as cold and barren, but as warm and full of life. If he could do this, then his time of depression will be over and his life will be headed in a different direction. He would not have to take meaningless jobs at schools, his life would again have meaning to him.

The Lovely House

After reading The Lovely House by Shirley Jackson, I decided that on page 207, paragraph two was important. I believe this because it showed us early that Margaret is afraid of the house. This is a great impact because it shows us that Margaret is the type of character who is nervous, and is terrified of the house. It establishes a mood of terror. In the paragraph it shows us that in the rest of book, if you were to not read it, that everytime Margaret's name is mentioned inside the house that she will be in a situation of fear. This is significant because it outlines the view of other characters that will be introduced in the story and shows us how all the characters are connected using the theme of terror and fear.
There were no new characters introduced in the paragraph. The same characters who were introduced earlier and the main characters, Carla and Margaret are the only two mentioned in the paragraph. The theme of fear was introduced. An example of this is at the beginning of the paragraph when they mentioned that Margaret was "frightened" by the room. There were no major issues resolved. The paragraph was short but had a significant importance because it gave us an image of how to look at Margaret and Carla for the rest of the story.
The passage is introduced early in the story. As stated before it introduces the theme of "fear" into the household. After reading this story several times, it just seems to me that the importance of this paragraph is significant and outlines the rest of the story.

Makenzie Atherton Lovely House

After reading "The Lovely House" I felt the strong need to read it over again. It is true that it is a very slow read and it is hard to grasp the idea or moral of the story because it just runs at a constant slow pace. This is a very hard story to analyze closely because of that pace, however, I do feel I found two paragraphs that I can describe.

The first is the description of the tiled Margaret. I do not know if it is just me, but I do not fully know the reason why that was even in the story. The only part of the story it meant something was when it was missing a tile because the house is aging. I Did not get the reason for the Older Margaret either or the significance of the tile words with Margaret. Unless she is was it going to be in the future.

I do believe that the clues that the author gives us about Paul being a ghost are quite obvious. The daughter is constantly saying why is Margaret always going off by her self. And the Older Margaret seems to want him to leave as soon as possible. Also the captain states that he does not want to leave Margaret alone at the ball, when she thinks she is with Paul.

"The Lovely House" by Shirley Jackson

What i really enjoyed about "The Lovely House" is that the more closely that I read the more you discovered about the story. If someone were to quickly page through this story they would only see an innocent relationship between Margaret and Carla Montague a friend from school. Carla invites Margaret to spend the summer with her family which also is perfectly acceptable. As the story starts to progress you receive subtle hints that something may not be as cut and dry as it seems. During the first couple pages while Carla is beginning the first of many tours of the Montague house, Margaret is particularly interested in the tower that over looks the house. However, Carla quickly changes the subject and continues discussing the next room in the tour. Which added to my suspicion about the Montagues that something just wasn't quite right. After the tour is over and Carla and Margaret are dressed for dinner they met Carla's mother Mrs Montague who continues the never ending tour of the house. Mrs. Montague shows Margaret the room with the tiles which I found really interesting. Within the tile rooms laid a picture of a girls face with blue chip eyes that read "Here was Margaret, Who died for love". Which i found a eerie coincidence that the girl in the floor just so happened to share the name of the Montague's new guest. With Carla's brothers impending arrival I could only speculate at this point that maybe there was a significance to that picture in the title room. When Carla's brother arrives and you are introduced to the Captain and Paul. Margaret takes a liking to Paul and Carla spends much of her time with the captain. When the story really begins to get interesting is when Margaret asks Paul about the tower that Carla quickly neglected during their tour. Paul tells Margaret that there is a Great Great maybe even Great Aunt that lives up in the tower to avoid Mrs. Montague's tapestries. Margaret for the next few days contemplates going up into the tower but hesitates until early on morning she grows the courage to scale the stairs to the top of the tower where she plans to meet this Great Aunt. The Old Lady invites Margaret to sit down in her room where she reveals that her name is also Margaret. Coincidence? I think not. On the top of Carla's brother the Old Lady is very mysterious in saying "He should have come and gone sooner, then we'd have it all behind us" and a few moments later saying that " It will be very lonely here after he has gone." The Old Lady stumbles and Margaret grabs her by the hand. When their hands touch by almost an act of the super natural Margaret hears voices saying "All is lost", "I will always remember you". Then Margaret leaves the tower with an even more eerie taste in her mouth. The end of the summer is nearing and the Montague family throws a large ball where Carla, Margaret, the Captain, and Paul are all attending. During the ball the Old Lady visits the party and begins to catch up with Paul. During Paul and the old lady's conversation they discuss how they both have aged even though Paul is significantly older than the old lady. After the ball has ended the time before Paul and the captain departure is slowly approaching. The whole family is sitting in the house together when the captain starts to point out how the house has aged over the years and what needs repair. Margaret and Paul leave to go the tile room where they discuss the wearing of the house. Paul offended says that "Don't you think I'd know my own house? I care for it constantly, even when they forget; without this house I could not exist..". Then Paul says goodbye to Margaret and she hears voices similar to the ones she heard in the tower saying "All is lost". After saying goodbye, Margaret returns to the rest of the family to say goodbye to the captain. At this point Margaret realizes that the captain is actually Carla's brother and Paul is left to her imagination. Margaret makes a comment about the end of her visit which is ignored by the entire family. This gives me the feeling that Margaret may never be leaving the house. My theory is that Margaret was lured to this house by almost an act of destiny and that the "Margaret who died for love", young Margaret and the Old Lady are all the same person. Past. Present. and Future. The second time reading through the story i realized the subtle hints that Paul is indeed a ghost. Whenever Paul and Margaret wander off together Carla comments about how odd it is that Margaret is always wondering off. Also when the Old Lady enters the Ball and starts talking about old times and how they have both aged despite how much younger Paul is. Makes me think that maybe Paul has stopped aging a long time ago. That Paul and The Old Lady (Margaret) have been haunting this house for a very long time together.

Jamie, gothlit g group 1 "The Lovely House"

Shirley Jackson's "The Lovely House" is quite an interesting story choice to focus close reading on. As hard as I tried to spot specific full paragraphs that advance the story, or introduce mood, purpose, or atmosphere, I could not do it. Instances of hints and foreshadowing can be found fragmented all over the story. Being a veteran horror movie fan alone helped me draw the conclusion before I even read the story that this was absolutely not going to be a "lovely house". It reminded me of a movie that came out several years ago called The Others. But that is best left for another essay.
In the very beginning of the story we are intoduced to the elements of ambiguity and mystery, both of which pretty much remain the central gears that make this tale's clock tick. Jackson is very stingy with details, only giving them to us when the story absolutely requires it. First we meet Margaret, her friend Carla, and the titular house. A simple enough beginning. It is her friend Carla's house, and it exceeds in both structural and natural beauty. But slowly layers are peeled off of this seemingly simple and harmless exterior. After re-reading it, I noticed a strange obsession with fauns. Before entering the house, Margaret pats the head of a warm (??!!) faun made of stone. Later in the story we are presented with fauns again, both as gold sculptures and in paintings. The first major instance of the ghostly nature of this house are it's tapestries. Enormous, intricate, and pretty much all over the place. There is a tower, which is home for a grandmother-aunt-great aunt who cannot stand the tapestries. There are strange, seemingly pointless rooms, such as the painted room, the mirror room, and the tiled room. However, the eerie detail of the tiles gives us another big hint that this house (and story) may hold a few darker surprises for us. The tiles are laid out to spell "Here was Margaret, who died for love". Strange way to phrase something, I think. "Here was", rather than "Here lies".
All of these are very unique and vague details, peeling away layers and leading us to believe something is quite amiss with the lovely house. A strange amount of fuss is made reguarding the return of Carla's brother Paul and his friend the Captain, and much mystery surrounds the tower Margaret is so curious about. She gives in to temptation one morning and climbs the tower, only to discover the elderly resident is also named Margaret. The elderly Margaret refers to the outside world as her own special tapestries, and harsh winds begin to blow into the room from open windows and Margaret can hear voices saying "Goodbye" and "all is lost". It is at this point that I, definitely, would leave the lovely house. Even if that meant I missed out on leftovers of the funny fish and spicy wine. But Margaret remains, pairing off with Carla, Paul, and the Captain to explore the woods and river.
There was a ball where Margaret and Carla danced with everyone and had a wonderful time. The elderly Margaret made an appearance, and seemed to know Paul somehow. Quite well. And more layers are peeled. Then came a revelation I had not noticed before. While Paul and the Cap were saying their goodbyes, Margaret wondered who Paul was. The story ends with Mrs. Montague including Carla and Margaret into one of her tapestries. Looking back, I noticed several parts of the story where Paul may not have even been there. Was Paul a ghost, or was Margaret slightly insane? Ugh, those layers. Or maybe it was the weird fish and spicy wine.
This is quite long and I am writing it all a bit out of sequence, and leaving out many details as well. To be perfectly honest, even though I liked the story, I had trouble putting all the pieces together. Was Paul a ghost? Perhaps, somehow, all the people in the tapestries were dead, haunting the lovely house since their essences had been immortalized on the tapestries. And the old woman remained alive and aging naturally because she intentionally stayed away from them. Honestly, I had trouble making sense of the story. Even after I re-read it. But it does make me want to read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting.