Seminar Notes Tuesday, July 19, 2016

a la Simeonides style:

Seminar discussion:

First few chapters

“The Period”

Read aloud: First chapter, first paragraph:

Begin with comma slices: what is he doing?

         It’s a complicated period

         How can it be “the best of times” and “the worst of times” – realism

         Duality

         The same thing can be both – not about only juxtapositions

         The best thing can come out of the worst thing – headed toward the                    self-sacrifice

         The collective as a whole

         Opening connects with Dickens does with the entire novel

He tense is past tense, but not so much unlike this time.

The period – things are settled

“Spiritual revelations” – Victorian era obsession with spiritualism.

France: Prophecy / punishment / privilege / past è present

         “making money and spending it” – the debt

England: Violence in England – mass punishment – law punishes “a wretched pilferer” with the same punishment as “an atrocious murderer.”

Last paragraph – “the roads that lay before them” – fate – as if Dickens already knows where the story is going. (introducing the motif of roads)

Not naming monarchs establishes their similarity

“small creatures” – out of this mass, we will single out a few characters, though this is a much bigger story.

Chapter 2: “The Mail”

Here’s the road that connect the two countries – beginning to make connections.

“business” – Tellson’s / Lorry / Duty / Carton / opposite of emotions / wine shop

“history” – narrative as history

“first of the persons” – Lorry introduced as the first of the persons. Typically the King

“lumbering” reference to the Woodman: a lumbering movement of history

“uphill in the mire”  - upward movement in the novel in various ways

“all so heavy” – the weight of the past

“muntiny” – revolt / brute animals

“”steaming mist” – confusion – lack of sight (seeing), and obscurity

Passengers in the coach – a novel of recognition / mystery and secrecy

EVERYONE IS SUSPICIOUS – a great deal of anxiety

By the end of the chapter, we are left with more mystery

Chapter 3: “The Night Shadows” – movement with the mail, but no real movement

Opening paragraph: What’s he doing here? Something here about human nature – seeing in a different sense. Can we know people . . . . our limits of knowing other people – a universal condition.

Death and resurrection pervades the novel – “Recalled to life”

Baldridge

171 – wish that things might be otherwise – breaking through that autonomous personality

How does Dickens try to resolve this dilemma?

171 – 172

176 / 177 – Mr. Lorry becomes part of the collective – trying to preserve the past – preservation of the individual

17 – The dream episode: the imaginary discourse – things are slowly revealed to us. “Dig – dig – dig”

Chapter 4: “The Preparation”

28 – “The best and the worst are known to you now.”

Chapter 5: “The Wine-shop”: Stories now connect

Wine – blood running down the streets

Back to the idea of “seeing” with Madame Defarge  - “and saw nothing.”

“Adultery Plot” –

85 – Lucie v. Defarge – Lucie creates the opposite of Madame Defarge. Madame of Defarge is all public. Lucie represents the private, the domestic, which becomes threatened.

92 – “misplaced paternity” – the naming becomes central

93 – visions of the past – relationship of the past – link to the past, Madame’s Defarge’s knitting.

96 – “prophetic vision”

seamstress – poor little creatures

For tomorrow: Pross / Cruncher / Chapters 7 – 9 / Nature v. nurture / Gothic?