Beginner A, Post 4, 'Themed Free Post'

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- Word Count: 150 words

As usual, I will leave you a sample,

Mobilizing the object of study, Hemingway’s “The Sun also rises”

The following work attempts to look for an intertextual dialogue to occur between TS Eliot’s “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock”, Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” and Hemingway’s “The Sun also rises”. For this to be achieved, several passages from both the poem and the novels have been selected in order to find a point of convergence concerning one paramount topic, the one of the ‘solitude in the quotidian’.

As a mode of beginning, the topic that may follow up: ‘the solitude in the quotidian’, portrayed in Fitzgerald’s and Eliot’s passages it is now reversed to the coming across of ‘company in the quotidian’. It is in the following lines of Hemingway’s novel that one may find such development of such topic “We stayed five days at Burguete and had good fishing. The nights were cold and the days were hot, and there was always a breeze even in the heat of the day.” (Hemingway, 66)

In the lines above, the voice of narration in Hemingway’s novel is presenting the interaction with the quotidian in a positive outlook. The passage of time is told as a natural, and there is no a tedious tone. There is no an accountancy of days and nights, but an accounting for pleasant experiences in the quotidian. To have “a good fishing” can be accounted for a pleasant and satisfactory experience found in the quotidian.

“The nights”, the narrator continues, “were hot and the days were hot” (Hemingway, 66) as if the feeling of time was accompanied with sensory experiences as well. The quotidian is experienced here, in a full cognitive and sensory experience. Therefore, there is no solitude in the narration. The narrative voice proceeds by telling the tale of two beings in conjunction with nature in a passing of days and nights.

Furthermore, the narrator provides a further observation on this delightful quotidian bliss, “and there was always a breeze in the heat of the day” (Hemingway, 66). As noted in the previous passages from Fitzgerald’s work, there is a handful of rich details in the construction of sensory experiences on the part of the narrator. “The breeze” and “the heat of the day” can be seen as two opposites for a sensory experience. A breeze which is found on a hot day is what the quotidian has to offer, a relief for the weather inclemency.

The narrator, in other words, finds consolation in the encounter with the quotidian. There is a balance of the elements of nature which are providing the narrator with the sensation of soothing certainty. There is a further ecstasy on the aforementioned sensory experience, “It was hot enough so that it felt good to wade in a cold stream, and the sun dried you when you came out and sat on the bank.” (Hemingway, 66)

In the above lines, one may also come to the realization that the performance of a sunny walk is also a matter of finding sensory pleasure. The narrator furthers his experience into the explanation and analysis of the balance of elements in nature. By wading “in a cold stream”, the voice finds physical comfort. A paradise on earth then arises to provide delightful observation. The construction of the quotidian is now reversed, not in an accountancy task, but ultimately, into a meaningful and satisfactory understanding.

References

·         Eliot, T. S., and Frank Kermode. The Wasteland and Other Poems. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin, 1998. Print.

·         Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print.

·         Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 1996. Print.