British Literature Notes

Spring 2015

Megan Woodsley-Goodman

January 12, 2015

Prompt

“In The Wanderer, the speaker is exiled from his homeland and people and is

distraught over his isolation. Discuss how he deals with his emotions. What things has he

learned by ruminating on his situation? Use textual evidence to back up your claims

about the text.”

Answer

The speaker in The Wanderer deals with being exiled in many ways. In the

beginning of the poem, he starts off by telling us that he is upset and alone while he is

being exiled

Thus spoke the Wanderer, mindful of troubles,

of cruel slaughters and the fall of dear kinsmen:

Often alone, every first light of dawn,

I have had to speak my sorrows. (6-9).

To deal with these emotions, the speaker reflects on Fate and how he is not ready

for what’s to come, “The weary mind cannot withstand wyrd,” (15). The poem then takes

a turn towards the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” aspect and the speaker

thinks about and looks back on his life before he was exiled. He comes to terms with

being upset about everything that he’s lost, and that he needs to look forward to the future

and keep moving forward. That’s where the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”

theme comes into play. As the poem goes on, the speaker talks about how he can become

a wiser person and learn from his mistakes.

A wise man must be patient,

neither too hot-hearted nor too hasty with words,

nor too weak in war nor too unwise in thoughts,

neither fearful nor fawning, nor too greedy for wealth,

never eager for boasting before he truly understands;

a man must wait, when he makes a boast,

until the brave spirit understands truly

whither the thoughts of his heart will turn.

The wise man must realize how ghostly it will be

when all the wealth of this world stands waste, (65-74).

After that, the speaker comes to terms with his exile, decides to live life the best

way he can until he passes away and sees his loved ones in Heave, “It will be well for one

who seeks mercy, consolation from the Father in heaven, where for us all stability stands”

(114-115).

Class Notes

Speakers

1- Poet (See’s the wanderer and alone walking person)

2- The Wanderer (eardstapa: literally means earth stepper)

Lines

Middle of the poem where he introduces God could have been added into the

poem in the 10th century when the poem was added to the Exeter by the Anglo-

Saxons.

Talks about in 65, the wise man needs to know what he’s doing and why he’s

doing it. “think before you do”, “think before you speak”

End of the poem there are statements of wisdom

(line 107) reflects of the ruins, he thinks how these great works have crumbled

over the series of time, and think about the people who have died, and the people

who have left where nothing is longer transient.

Comes to the conclusion in line 106, nothing really matters, everyone will die,

everything “fleets”, all that matters in what happens in the after life.

He values the heroic code, he lost his God, (gold-friend), his lord has died in

battle and has no longer have gold and sometime to guide him. Almost the lost of

the God is like this lost of his idienity. He’s searching for a new identity

Death is like his exilation

His dream of sorrow and sleep are mixed together, and starts to have hyliustions

of what his life was like before

Can’t fall asleep because he could fall out of the boat and freeze to death

Line 19: dreams of what his life used to be

Meadhole represents warmth, food, community, pleasure, and alcohol. Would’ve

been in the middle of one of these tribes. Is always used as a medifore for

community

January 15, 2015

Prompt

“Respond to some element of the required reading. Some things you may consider

writing include working through questions you have about a text by posing possible

answers, associations one text has with another, thoughts that are generated by reading,

potential links that you see between a text and its historical context, a repetitive element

of the text, etc. This entry is up to you.”

Answer

When I first started reading this, I was very surprised how quickly Cúchulainn

was to listen to the words of Cathbad. Cathbad must have been viewed and worshiped as

a god, prophet, or holy man. Cathbad had a hundred “followers” and he must have been

very respected for Cúchulainn to just “over-hear” him and then follow his every word. I

also am not sure of how I feel about Conchobor as king. He just gave out weapons, and

armor, and chariots to some boy just because the boy said Cathbad told him to (going

back to how much Conchobors word is respected). And the king just let him smash all the

armor and weapons he could until the king finally gave up his own. On Cúchulainn’s part

I think that was very smart of him because he was making sure that the materials he was

given were sturdy and suitable for battle. But I think it was very rash for the king to be so

giving to this young boy who has no training or any experience in war and combat.

The way Cúchulainn went about finding his battles was very sketchy, but ended

up proving his strength and bravery when it came to fighting and killing the three

brothers. Especially given that the brothers killed half of the people from Ulster. He’s

begging for trouble when he slingshots a rock over to their land. That just reminds me of

a child who fights with their siblings just to fight. I don’t believe that a wise warrior

would go out looking for a fight.

And at the end, I am not sure why there were swans and deer presented in this

story. Maybe it was to give them as gifts to the king, or maybe it was just to prove how

strong he was and to prove his worth.

January 20, 2015

Prompt

“Romance is often concerned with the concept of kingship/leadership and or justice.

Please focus on one of these themes in the story and identify what the text is

claiming about kingship and/or justice. Is it, for example, critiquing some element of

justice or rule? Is it valorizing some quality of kings? As always, focus on one claim and

use textual evidence to back up your statements.”

Answer

Lanval by Marie de France has a strong theme of justice. While reading Lanval I

kept thinking that de France was fighting to always uphold the principle of a fair trial.

The story starts out by describing hoe unfairly Lanval was treated by the king. He was

always over-looked and many men envied him. Lanval takes his horse out by a riverbank

and is extremely upset until two maidens come for him. They tell him that their mistress

sent them for him and she wants to see him. The maidens were the most beautiful girls

he’d ever seen. So he goes with them, and meets his soon-to-be lover. She is more

beautiful than the maidens were. And she gifts him with everything he could possibly

desire. Her only rule was, he was not allowed to tell anyone or else he would never see

him again. Once he returns to the kingdom, the queen makes a pass at him and he rejects

her. Insulted by the rejection, she calls him gay and he retaliates by telling her of his

lover and of her beauty. Even more insulted and now angry, the queen decides to lie to

the king and tell him that Lanval has tried to seduce her. The king agrees to give him a

trial, but during the trial, the court is divided and cannot decide if Lanval is guilty or

innocent. They finally agree that if Lanval can prove that he is telling the truth about his

lover and her beauty, then he will be forgiven for what he “said” to the queen. The two

maidens finally come to the courthouse and ask them that they prepare for his lover’s

arrival. Everyone can clearly see how beautiful they are, and are surprised that what

Lanval said turned out to be true. Lanval is let go and he goes with his lover and is never

seen or heard from again.

With all that happened in the story, Lanval was treated fairly at all times and what

was said to happen in certain circumstances did happen. I think that is what de France

thinks should always be the case, that justice always be served.

January 27, 2015

Prompt

Discuss the role of justice in the Miller's Tale. Think of justice beyond punishment and in

more broad terms. How is justice presented, served, who/what is responsible for its

action, and why do you think the text is presenting justice in this manner? Overall, what

sort of comment is the text making about justice?

Answer

In The Miller’s Prologue and Tale the drunken Miller interrupts the Monk who is

next in line to tell a story. The Miller decides that it is his turn to tell a story and he

begins to tell the story of a carpenter, his wife, a student, and a clerk.

The student’s name was Nicholas. He went to school at Oxford, but one day

meets a carpenter’s wife by the name of Alisoun. She is a young eighteen year old

women who is married to an old carpenter by the name of John,

This carpenter hadde wedded a newe a wif

Which that he loved more than his lif.

Of eighteteene yeer she was of age;

Jalos he was, and heeld hire narwe in cage,

For she was wilde and yong, and he was old, (113-117)

Nicholas wanted Alisoun all to himself, and after making a pass at her, which she

refused and then later on accepted, he devised a plan to get them to spend the night

together without being caught by old John. Nicholas made John believe that come the

next Monday night, God had told him there would be a flood worse than that of Noah’s,

“Now John,” quod Nicholas, “I wol nought lie,

I have yfounde in myn astrologye,

As I have looked in the moone bright,

That now a Monday next, at a quarter night,

Shal falle a rain, and that so wilde and wood,

That half so greet was nevere Noees flood.

This world,” he saide, “in lass than an hour

Shal al be dreint, so hidous is the showr

Thus shal mankind drenche and lese hir lif” (405-413)

For fear of his wife’s safety, John believed Nicholas and did what was asked of

him. The night before the flood, they hung three bathtubs from the roof of a barn and all

three slept in them that night. Once Nicholas heard that John was sound asleep, Nicholas

and Alisoun snuck away to make love in John’s bed.

But they run into trouble when the clerk, Absolon, passes by. Absolon is in love

with Alisoun. He buys her presents, gives her money, and sings to her each night, but in

the end Alisoun loves Nicholas. But that night, Absolon stops by hoping for a kiss from

Alisoun, but that is not what he gets. When he calls up to the window to receive a kiss

from Alisoun, his lips do not meet hers, but the skin of her buttocks. Enraged, Absolon

says “I shal thee quite” (638). And travels to the town and takes a hot iron from the

blacksmith. Once he returns, he calls for Alisoun again and tells her this time he had a

ring for her. Nicholas was up already because he was going to the bathroom. So he

wanders over to the window and when Absolon asks Alisoun to speak so he knows it’s

her, Nicholas farts. Disgusted and angry, Absolon presses the hot iron into Nicholas’

hind-skin and Nicholas shouts, “Help! Water! Water! Help, for Goddes herte!” (707).

Awakening in shock and thinking that the water Nicholas is screaming about is

the flood, he immediately takes the ax in his tub and cuts down his tub from the roof of

the barn, but he comes crashing down to the ground. There were many towns’ people out

watching now and John then tries to tell the story of the flood, but Alisoun and Nicholas

pretend like they have no idea what he is talking about and all the towns people laugh at

John.

The Miller raps up his story with how all the character’s turned out in the story,

“Thus swived was the carpenteres wif,

Far a his keeping and his jalousye

And Absolon hath kist her neither yë

And Nicholas is scalded in the toute:

This tale is doon, and God save al the route!” (742-746)

Justice is defined by Cambridge Dictionary as “fairness: fairness in the way which

people are dealt.” Justice was definitely served in The Miller’s Prologue and Tale. For

committing adultery, lying and deceiving the carpenter, and farting on Absolon,

Nicholas’ butt was branded with a hot iron. And for being too over protective and jealous

John falls and breaks his arm. In my own personal opinion, Absolon really did nothing

wrong except love someone who could never love him back. And then nothing really bad

happened to Alisoun, except for the fact that now all the towns people think her husband

is a crazy person.

I think that in this story, Chaucer is describing the “what goes around comes

around” phenomena. Meaning that, all the characters were served justice in crude and

embarrassing ways, just as the actions they made were crude and embarrassing.

January 29, 2015

Prompt

Compare and contrast Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich. How are they similar in

some respect and how do they differ?

Answer

In Julian of Norwich’s A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwhich,

Chapter 5 and 7, Julian seems to connect with God on a more physical level by talking

about Christ’s crucifixion in great detail. “The great drops of blood fell down fro under

the garland like pellets, seeming as it had come out of the veins. And in the coming out

they were brown red, for the blood was full thick; and in the spreading abroad they were

bright red,” (293). She talks about how devoted she is to God. “… he is to us all thing

that is good and comfortable to our help. He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us and

windeth us, halseth us and becloses us, hangeth about us for tender love that he may

never leave us.” (292). In a small hazelnut she see’s three things, “The first is that God

made it, the second that God loveth it, the third that God keepeth it.” Basically says that

God is the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover of all things in the world. It sounds like to

me that Julian is as devoted to God as anyone could ever be. She speaks about how Christ

suffered for our sins, and that He is all that is good in the world and how no one can ever

ask for anything.

In contrast, Margery Kempe speaks about God on more of an emotional level than

Julian did. In The Book of Margery Kempe, Kempe talks about her devotion to God and

the Holy Trinity in such emotional ways, that it comes across as she is mentally unstable.

But Margery also speaks of her devotion to God on a physical level as well. The lines

“She was affected by the manhood of Christ that when she saw women in Rome bearing

children in their arms, if she might learn that there were any men children, she should

then cry, roar, and weep as though she had seen Christ in his childhood” (295-296) and

“And therefore she cried many times and often when she met a seemly man and wept and

sobbed full sorely in the manhood of Christ as she went in the streets at Rome, so that

those who saw her wondered full much on her, for they knew not the cause” (296)

suggest that her devotion to God was compulsive and controlled her in an almost

mindless way.

Both women believe that they have seen Jesus Christ and believe that He is the

Lord and the Savior. Both are godly women, who lead their life in a way they believe is

acceptable by God. The biggest difference is that Margery Kempe’s way of life just

seems to be a little more extreme than that of Julian’s.

February 10, 2015

Prompt

Write on some parallel you see between the two texts, specially how Othello conforms or

rejects some element of the classical definition of tragedy

Answer

The Oxford Dictionary defines a tragedy as “a play dealing with tragic events and

having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main

character.” Aristotle believed that in order for a piece of literature to be considered a true

tragedy, it must contain six parts; plot, characters, thought, diction, melody and spectacle.

The first two acts of Othello conform to these elements of classical tragedy for many

reasons.

The plot of Othello begins in the first two acts because it introduces the “cause

and effect” train of the play. Each of the internal plots of the story between different

characters all necessarily relate to one another. Each of the internal plots are also

extremely complex. There is a web of connections between all of the characters in the

first two acts, and if we were missing one character, the entire plot would be different.

With this being said, the first two acts of Othello also comply to the “characters”

characteristic of classical tragedy because all of the characters support the plot. The

personal motivations of the plays villain, Iago, are extremely important in the “cause and

effect” train of the story. All of his intentions instigate misfortune, distress, and sorrow

for the majority of the other characters in the play.

Thought, the third of importance in Aristotle’s definition of classical tragedy, and

the fourth importance, diction, are present in the first two acts because of Iago’s

soliloquies. In his first soliloquy in scene iii, act one; he declares his hatred for Othello

because he believes that Othello has slept with Emilia, Iago’s wife. He tells the audience

then of his intentions to take all of Roderigo’s money, persuade Othello that Cassio has

slept with Desdemona, and use Othello’s own nature to bring him to his falling.

The fifth importance and sixth importance, melody and spectacle, are not apparent

in the first two acts but that doesn’t mean they will not be present in the following acts of

this play.

February 17 th 2015

A speech that I find important in Othello, is Othello’s last speech before he kills himself,

Soft you; a word or two before you go.

I have done the state some service, and they know't.

No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak

Of one that loved not wisely but too well;

Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought

Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,

Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;

And say besides, that in Aleppo once,

Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk

Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,

I took by the throat the circumcised dog,

And smote him, thus. (3705-23)

After being deceived by Iago, and killing his wife, Othello gives us his final speech. Here

he is about to be taken into custody but asks for a few moments to ask them to remember

him as the general he was before he killed his wife. He also asks them to be honest and

tell the events exactly as they’ve taken place for the future. This speech shows Othello’s

consciousness to everything that has gone on throughout this play; it also shows that he

values the way he is perceived by others.

February 26, 2015

John Donne uses many different metaphors in his Holy Sonnet 14. The poem is very

difficult to read at first read, but after rereading it many times, you begin to recognize the

meaning behind these metaphors. Donne opens his poem with the lines

“Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.” (1-4)

Here Donne is speaking to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost as the “three-personed

God.” He is asking God to enter his heart forcefully and brutally instead of with time,

patience, and grace. He wants God to enter his heart forcefully because he views himself

as an “usurped town,” he wants to let God in, but he can’t seem to wrap his mind around

the miracle that is God and faith in a higher being.

In line nine, Donne admits his love for God and how he wants to be loved my

God, but he is “betrothed unto your enemy” (line 10). In this metaphor the speaker is

saying how he is connected with Satan and the speaker continues to ask God to break that

bond so that the speaker can be with God. He says he wants all of this because he can’t be

truly happy and free unless it is God he is connected with instead of God’s enemy, and he

also can’t say no to sex unless God is the love of his life and fills that space in his life.

March 10, 2015

After reading these poems by George Herbert and Ben Jonson, Herbert’s The

Alter stood out to me the most. This poem really stood out to be because the first two

lines, “A broken A L T E R, Lord, thy servant rears, / Made of a heart, and cemented with

tears:” (lines 1-2), are so powerful. This alter is also very special than that of any other

alter. In this poem, this alter is made of untouched stone and is cemented with tears, it is

not made of steel or wood. This poem stood out to me for it’s physical structure as well.

The poem is shaped as an alter, which classifies the poem as a piece of visual poetry.

Visual poetry is defined as poetry or art in which the visual arrangement of test, images,

and symbols is important in conveying the intended effect of the work. I believe the alter

is a very special part of the Christian faith because that is where the preachers and priests

stand and speak to the congregation. The alter is the place where a man and a woman

become one through marriage in Christianity. It’s a very important symbol in the

Christian faith. Herbert capitalizes the words alter twice, and heart and sacrifice both

once. Because he was such a religious person, this gesture is used by Herbert to suggest

the importance of these words in Christianity.

March 12, 2015

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathon Swift comes off as a children’s story filled with adventure

at first, but it is so much more than that. This was one of the first novel’s ever written and

it is actually a political satire of the British government during that time period. Swift’s

use of size in this novel can compare to the king and his people. Gulliver is washed up

onto an island shore to people who stand no bigger than six inches. But to his surprise,

when he wakes up, the six-inch people have tied him to the ground and pretty much take

control of what he does until the middle of Part One. Once he awakes, he is taken by

surprise because of the bright sunlight that is shining into his eyes, and says, “I could not

sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals, who durst venture to

mount and walk on my body, while one of my hands was at liberty, without trembling at

the very sight of so prodigious a creature as I must appear to them” (1066), here he takes

notice that even though he is taken by surprise as to what is going on around him, he

understands that his confusion with the given situation is nothing compared to the fear

these Lilliputians have towards him because of his enormous and foreign size. I think this

relates to the king of England and his people because Gulliver’s size can relate to the total

control and power the king of England had at that time. The king could do whatever he

wanted, just like Gulliver could if he really wanted to. The small size of the Lilliputians

can relate to those who the king of England ruled. Each individual person in England

were small and helpless compared to that of the king, but when the people became united

and worked together, they could do anything they wanted, regardless of the king. In this

story, Swift uses the size comparison of Gulliver and the Lilliputians to show that you

must work together with your neighbor’s in order to achieve something great and make a

change.

March 24, 2015

In part II chapter VII of Gulliver’s Travels there is an altercation between Gulliver and

the king of the giants when he is telling the king of how things are back home in England.

The king is appalled by the violence that occurs in England and does not understand the

need for it. Gulliver doesn’t understand why the king feels the way he does, and offers his

gunpowder as a peace offering. The king refuses the gift, and Gulliver is surprised by his

rejection. (In relation to what was going on at the time period when Gulliver’s Travels

was written, Gulliver is England, and the giants are the colonies. The colonies refused the

gift of gunpowder from England because they did not believe gunpowder and killing

people was the right way to solve their problems.) Gulliver then comes to the conclusion

that the king is short-sided and small-minded by not being open to the ways of the

English. In general, Gulliver finds the giants to be senseless and oblivious. One thing that

stands out to Gulliver is the way the laws are kept. They are very short and simple and

“no law of that country must exceed in words the number of letters in their alphabet”

(1133). With this law, Gulliver believes that the giants have little to no understanding of

politics.

In this scene in part II chapter VII of Gulliver’s Travels, I believe that this is a

comparison between England and the colonies England was trying to conquer. Here I

believe that Swift is using Gulliver as England, and the giants as the colonies. Gulliver

thinks that his way is best and wants to persuade the giants to do everything like the

English do. The giants are looked as like the colonies because the giants are perceived as

narrow minded because of their simple views on laws, justice, and how they perceive the

laws. They only have a few rules, much like the colonies before England took over.

March 26, 2015

In section III and IV of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver faces the same obstacles as he has in

the pervious sections. He sails away and gets stranded on lands in which he is taken

advantage of and ends up wanting to go back home. Throughout this entire novel, I can’t

understand why he kept sailing away when time, after time, after time, he ended up

screwing himself over and either getting trapped, or getting in trouble with all the kings.

In part III of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver sets sail once again and is sent off his ship with

only four days worth of food and comes across a floating island in the sky. He calls up to

the inhabitants and they let down a rope for him to climb up and join them. There he runs

into more misfortunes as he observes this foreign society, just as he has before. He begins

to grow old of Laputa and travels to Lagado with Munodi. There he visits an academy

and observes their ways of intelligence. He soon wants to find a ship to go to Luggnagg,

but cannot find one so he travels to Glubbdubdrib, an island of magicians. Gulliver then

calls upon multiple people from the past to talk to, and finally goes back to Luggnagg

where he leaves for Japan and travels impersonating a Dutchman, and travels back to

England. Where he then, after this previous journeys, still decides to go back out on one

last adventure. I just don’t understand why a man, or any one for that matter, would want

to go back out after experiencing all of this.

. April 7, 2015

In John Keat’s Ode to a Nightingale, the parallel of an ode normally being sung, and the

common knowledge that a nightingale sings is clearly apparent. This parallel brings

attention towards the author’s intention of the speakers desire for freedom and

immortality. The speaker begins by stating his heartache and numbness, as if he had been

drugged, with the lines “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains/ My sense, as

though of hemlock I had drunk/ or emptied some dull opiate to the drains,” (1-3). Later

on in this first stanza he goes on to talk to a nightingale he hears singing, and he describes

his numbness to be not one of envy, but rather than of the nightingale spreading it’s

happiness too completely, “Tis not through envy of thy happy lot/ But being too happy in

thine happiness,” (5-6). Keat goes on in the second paragraph by saying that he feels as if

the nightingale is mocking him by having so much freedom and being so happy, and he

goes on to say that he needs a drink so that he can pretty much drink himself out of

reality and into a drunken state where he can allow himself to be alone with the bird,

“That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,/ And with thee fade away into the forest

dim,” (19-20). A few lines later, the theme of immortality becomes more apparent, “The

weariness, the fever, and the fret/ Here, where men sit and hear each other groan/ Where

palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs/ Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin and

dies,” (23-26). As the poem continues, the speaker describes the nightingale’s song as

immortal. He states that the song has survived many generations and has touched the

lives of many people. No matter how those people’s lives have ended, the nightingales

song continues on. Over all, the nightingale’s song offers the speaker a break from real

life, and while listening to the nightingale sing it’s song, he can forget about the time

passing, and that nothing stays young forever. Eventually, everything becomes old and

dies.

April 9, 2015

In Tennyson’s Lady of Shallot, I believe that Tennyson used this poem to describe a

person’s feelings of being confined by society and what others think. Tennyson uses

many extended metaphors in this poem, and I believe that part one and part four describe

the way that outsiders see the Lady of Shallot and that part two and three describe the

Lady of Shallot from her own point of view. I believe that the loom represents a person’s

self-consciousness, the mirror represents the life a person wishes they had, the curse (not

knowing what it is) represents what a person thinks everyone else thinks of them, the

lady herself represents an individual in a big world, the tower represents the world a

person thinks they live in, and the knight represents freedom from a person’s false

thoughts and presumptions of reality. While reading this poem, I put myself in the Lady’s

shoes for certain events that have happened in my life and I can certainly relate to this

poem when I look at it from that perspective.

April 16, 2015

I think that James Joyce’s Arby is a short story about how love can blind you from reality.

In this story, the young boy has a crush on the girl next door, nothing new there. He

thinks about her all the time, she distracts him all the time, and he constantly wishes that

he could be with her, “Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and

praises which I myself did not understand,” (1225). Then when she finally talks to him,

he is taken by surprise and wants nothing but to make her happy. She asks him if he

planned on going to the Araby, he couldn’t remember what his response to her was

because of how head over heels in love with her he was, and without knowing it agreed to

go and buy her something since she couldn’t go herself, “If I go, I said, I will bring you

something,” (1225). He is too young to go to the bazaar on his own, and needs to ask

permission from his uncle and borrow money from his uncle. His uncle was late to dinner

the night that the boy planned on going to the bazaar, but was still set on going even

though the event was almost over. So still in love with the girl, he gets on the train and

headed towards the bazaar. But once there, he sees a vase and comes to the realization

that he was blinded by love, and that he can never be with her as she was soon to be a

nun. Standing in front of the vase, he becomes angry and leaves empty handed, “… I saw

myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and

anger,” (1227).