B3;C26
Fred doesn’t have typhoid fever, he’s just feeling the effects of growing a conscience. And Lydgate is probably over exaggerating the diagnosis so as to appear brilliant in front of Rosamond (and therefor make his name in the town). Wrench’s reputation sure will suffer.
Or maybe I’m being cynical?
B3;C25
The reason why the Garth’s are so hard-up financially is because they’re such good people. The reason why people like Mr. Featherstone have money is because they don’t give a damn what other people think of them and probably don’t care for them either.
Eliot shows us the many facets of what blindly motivates people: Fred’s desire for idleness, Dorothea’s desire for the spiritual ideal, Naumann’s art.
B3;C24
You can really feel Fred’s shame as he confesses to not having the money to pay the Garth’s back. This is compounded on how you can tell how much this will hurt the Garth’s. Just like regular middle-class people today, a financial blow like this can be near fatal. His actions effect more than his honor, which he recognizes, but pretty much runs away from out the door.
B4;C37a
I need to do a better job paying attention to the politics of the novel because I honestly have no idea what the difference between a Tory and a Liberal is – and as much as I hate politics it’s not making it easier.
This interlude with Fortunata and Feijoo is really quite beautiful in a simple sort of way. They both see the world the same but as a man he hasn’t had to suffer the same misfortunes that she has in society. He can play whereas she is seen as damaged goods. But they are kindred spirits.
“But it wasn’t easy to tell whether her terror was like that of the exalted Christian who sees the devil, or like that of the devil when he’s shown the cross.” Her almost being run over by the coach Jacinta rides in.
Art and even religion is always going on about how if everyone just loved all the time, acted from love, then the world would be perfect. But thats an ideal that is not possible in a world of rules and responsibilities and of people who might not love us back. We’re told to strive towards love but when we actually do it we’re too often ruined.
The badly decorated room “in which elegant concubinage lives,” represents the bad state of the relationship, and it being all outdated furniture adds to the gloom of it.
Moreno, who lives abroad most of the time, has a low opinion of his own country. He thinks it’s much better abroad, and they all laugh at him, but doesn’t everyone have a similar feeling about what they have? They want (covet) something else? And for sure what we have is shabby, but so is everything else so we should love our shabby cloaks.
Mauricia died or was she passed out drunk: “stiff as a board” could mean either. And with her daughter being cared for by Jacinta.
B3;C23
I can’t imagine that Fred will turn out to be nearly the horse trader he thinks himself to be. He’s already bad enough with money he has (or owes) so you can only image how bad he’ll be with money he wants. Besides, making money by buying and selling only works if you already have money and if you’re clever enough to convince people what they want to sell isn’t actually worth as much as they think.
In all the artful ways he tries to talk his way out of how badly he’s behaved, there is some truth to it. Fortunata does idolize him and he does feel responsible for her bad situation in life. It’s unfair to empathize with Fortunata alone just as it’s unfair to blame Fortunata alone. It’s complicated.
The observation here is that while men complain about the government acting poorly (illegally) they themselves act badly and unfaithfully. We always go on about how other people should act but can’t pass the same test ourselves. We judge others by their actions but ourselves by our intentions.
We have 2 women who find it almost impossible to act true to how they really feel: Fortunata is miserable being tied to her sickly husband and throws her chance at comfort away to be with Juanito. Jacinta is forced to act happy at King Alfonso’s restoration even though she’s miserable about Juanito’s unfaithfulness.
We have 2 women who find it almost impossible to act true to how they really feel: Fortunata is miserable being tied to her sickly husband and throws her chance at comfort away to be with Juanito. Jacinta is forced to act happy at King Alfonso’s restoration even though she’s miserable about Juanito’s unfaithfulness.
We have 2 women who find it almost impossible to act true to how they really feel: Fortunata is miserable being tied to her sickly husband and throws her chance at comfort away to be with Juanito. Jacinta is forced to act happy at King Alfonso’s restoration even though she’s miserable about Juanito’s unfaithfulness.
This café excursion shows how difficult it is to really change anyone’s opinion on anything. To ‘influence the masses’ is impossible because everyone believes everything differently and from their own self interests and from how they want others to see them. It’s a cross section of pseudo intellectualism.
So after all this café rhetoric, this joking around and simple philosophizing, when the blind pianist earnestly asks Juan Pablo if it’s true that when you die you’re just water for the vegetables he has a moment of humanity and tells him not to listen to the nonsense.