so sorry for being absent quite some time. so sorry too for not finishing my close reading on the portrait of a lady. it was awesome actually, but i could hardly catch up with the class, hehehe... so i decided to stop for a while and concentrate on what i had to do in the class.
and now, i'm starting another book by twain (actually after a portrait of the lady we discussed the adventures of huckleberry finn in the class, but i didn't have time to record the close reading here). hope this time i can do a bit better than the other day.
so, here comes the important points in the first chapter. actually i could've been a bit difficult for me to understand the texts, specially regarding the dense description in the first several chapters, due to the specific vocabulary used there... however, thanks to the online version that has illustrations, i could understand the text quite well:
The opening "Tell the truth--but get the trick"
--> tricky, it has the impression of telling us the truth but with a slightly different way, with a witty way? or with a misleading way?
The house description with the cat
--> very peaceful and nice house where people live in harmony with the nature, with honeysuckle and all, and the sight of the cat impresses leisure, because cat itself is known as a lazy animal...
A home without a cat [...] may be a perfect home, [...], but how can it prove title?
--> well-fed cat can prove someone's wealth?
Description of the main street
--> it's like a leisure area where rich people live, with tree trunks covered by a kind of wooden boxing.
Candy-striped pole
--> in Venice nobility here only barbershop.
tinpots-wreathed lofty pole
--> actually ugly, but funny.
About Dawson's Landing economy
--> in keeping with the leisurely sight, the town is a slow-growing one, it has a rich "slave-worked grain and pork country back of it"
York Leicester Driscoll
--> proud of his Virginian ancestry, hospitable and rather formal, keeping up his old tradition
Parade of character
--> the judge, his sister, Pembroke Howard
the judge and his sister are not happy
--> no child and "never" to be happy, told since first off
religion
--> judge free thinker, sister presbyterian, the lawyer Howard a devoted presbyterian, so they're scottish descendant
the half dog incident
--> so smart, but the locals, who are fools, think he is fool for the joke. A small joke but the locals discussed it foolishly exhaustively
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