Thomas Hardy's:

1. The Self-Unseeing

2. Here is the ancient floor,

3. Footworn and hollowed and thin,

4. Here was the former door

5. Where the dead feet walked in.

6. She sat here in her chair,

7. Smiling into the fire;

8. He who played stood there,

9. Bowing it higher and higher.

10. Childlike, I danced in a dream;

11. Blessings emblazoned that day;

12. Everything glowed with a gleam;

13. Yet we were looking away! 

Source 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22128567/The-Self-Unseeing-analysis

Stanza 1 

2. It is a memory, past tense. 
3. 'and' emphasized movement of people. 

Stanza 2 

5- 9 His father is dead....His mother is dead (line 6)...The people who once walked there are now dead. 
5. Merging of past and present, life is transitory, doesn't stay the same, rhythm is stressed. 
8-9 Music getting higher and higher, excitement building. 

Stanza 3

10-13. He was so wrapped up in his happiness that he didn't see the bad things coming. Although he can remember their happiness of singing and playing and time would move on, the early part of his life and memories would be tainted by the echoes of present deaths/ Contrast of life and death and well as past and present.   

Thomas Hardy's: 

1. Hap 

2. If but some vengeful god would call to me

3. From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,

      4. Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,

         5. That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"

6. Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die,

7. Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;

8. Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I

9. Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

10. But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,

11. And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?

12. --Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,

13. And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan....

14. These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown

15. Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain. 

written in 1866 

Explanation of lines 1-15: 

1. 'Hap' means chance, from 'perhaps'. 

2. Religion is the main theme in the poem, Hardy questions God's place in his life. He explores his loss of faith, which stems from the pain he has handled in his life. He imagines there is a God that enjoys our suffering, a God he refers to as 'vengeful'. (*notice how he has put God with a small 'g' why do you think he has done this?) 

3. Presents imagery of God laughing and mocking. He goes on to present opposing ideas from line 3 where he imagines God is apparently saying "'Thou suffering thing.... (-to line 4)...know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, "  as if God is taking pleasure in his pain. 

4. Note the juxtaposition and binary feelings of "sorrow" and "ecstasy", from one extreme emotion to another. 

5. In a way Hardy is looking for a reason as to why he feels pain and one explanation he imagines in this poem is a vengeful God. In this lines note the alliteration of "love's loss", as well as the whole line "That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!" The wrath and vengeance he imagines God is imbued with is emphasised in this sentence. ("love's loss" is a reference to Hardy's loss of his wife)

Stanza 2 

Line 6. In this line Hardy is resolved to cope with and "bear" the pain, he would "clench [himself], and die"- it is a list of three and it is a line which sounds as if it is has come from the bible- as if he is consoling himself or bracing himself against the pain to come. 
7. In this sentence he feels a righteous anger which he uses as a coping mechanism.   

8. He is "[h]alf- eased" or comforted by the fact that there is a power who has given him those tears. 
9. God has 'meted' or given him the tears to express his grief. 

Stanza 3 

Line 10. In this stanza he disregards all his previous exclamations and philosophies with the words "But not so."- he draws a line under all he has said and contradicts it all before expressing confusion. It is like the poem is the ramblings of a mind who has undergone a recent bereavement and is now in two minds about how to handle the grief. There is a personification of joy as it is killed or "slain", Hardy seems to be saying that if you understand joy as a person you can feel how much pain he is going through because joy is the binary emotion to pain.
11. In this line he poses a question and the image of the flower is presented as a representation of his hope, he questions: why take away his hope that was once restored? Why shrivel his hope? Why is his life like this and does God have a hand in his life? 
12. The word "Casualty" in this sentence conjures up all the ideas of emergency, accidents, death etc. Also note the alliteration and personification of "Crass Casualty", which seems to emphasise the impending, overshadowing sense of doom he feels in his life as it obstructs the "sun and rain"- which are symbols of life.     
13. "dicing time" conjures up "dice", gambling and probability of everything in life, especially the unpredictability of life, in that you can die at any moment.   
Lines 14- 15. The sonnet ends the sentiment that; just as easy as he can feel joy Hardy can equally feel pain just as easily. Pain is pilgrimage a part of life, something that is universal, that everyone must go through, in religious terms it is like "pilgrimage" that everyone must go through. (note the contrasting emotions of "Blisses" and "pain" in the same sentence, could this be the "heaven" and "hell", the "heads" or "tails", the "good" and the "bad" that features in every life?) 


Key words: God, luck, fate, chance, life + death. 

Notable characteristics of the modern novel: 

• Fragmentary form, eclectic and collaged 
• Cross genre and multi-genre 
• Addressing issues of style and form 
• Considering varieties of forms of language 
• Using stories within stories 
• Unreliable narrator 
• Variety of narrators 
• Concerned with perception and point of view 
• Questioning received ideas and the notion of 'truth' 
• Cross cultural 
• Allusive 
• Playing with- and concerned with issues to do with- time 
• Exploring- re-writing and questioning- history 
• Including some kind of social commentary or criticism 
• Looking at themes to do with memory, identity, and community 
• Open endings 
• Multiple endings 
• Making the reader work   

                                                                                                                                                                                       

What to watch Recommendation: BBC TWO's Richard II- Starring Ben Wishaw as Richard II.

A short clip of the Abdication scene: 

WHAT TO WATCH Recommendation: Theater Talk: Alan Bennett on "The History Boys"

Devil in a Blue Dress

Exploring the film and the book

The Crime Novel Goes to the Movies:

The Classical Detective Novel, the Hard-boiled Tradition and Noir

THE FILM:

(Director:-) Carl Franklin’s 

Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

Casting: Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins, Jennifer Beals as Daphne Monet and Don Cheadle as Mouse. 

Film grossed about 16 million and cost around 22 million to make (which meant that plans to film other books were dropped)

Carl Franklin took inspiration from noir films, such as The Big Sleep, but introduced African-American vernacular in terms of visuals, music and artistic references



Franklin says: “Courage leads to freedom” was the motto of the film. Thus he  sees the film as a story of a man who overcomes fear to get his piece of the American dream who navigates relations to the underworld and comes out a stronger capitalist who goes into business for himself. 

SETTING & ATMOSPHERE  

The Los Angeles Public library put out an exhibit: “Shades of Los Angeles: A Search for Visual Ethnic and Cultural History”, which displayed 500 photos of Los Angeles from the 1890’s to 1950’s:- the stills were a source for the film and depictions of streets, houses and people. (Where to find the photos: http://www.lapl.org/catalog/photo_collection_overview.html)

1940s Culture of blues, jazz and swing

Carl Franklin‘s Daphne Monet vs. Walter Mosley's Daphne Monet:

Jennifer Beals playing Daphne Monet  in  Franklin's film.  

An image that matches Mosley's description of his character- Daphne Monet. 

•In Mosley’s novel, Daphne Monet has light brown hair – almost blonde – and eyes that are green or blue depending on the way she moves her head.  To what extent is Jennifer Beals’ embodiment of Daphne a departure from the novel’s description of her? What does this representation of Monet tell us about Franklin’s rewriting of the character? What are his racial and sexual politics?

THE BOOK:-
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:- 

Walter Mosley 

Born in 1952, African-American father and Jewish-American mother.

Worked in the IT sector through the first half of the 1980’s and quit when he decided to become a full-time writer . 


Has said that Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982) inspired him to begin writing . 

Set in 1948, Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), is the first in the Easy Rawlins series: a detective series in the style of Chandler with interest in issues of race and gender . The character of Easy Rawlins is partly based on Mosley’s father who served in the army during WWII and lived in L.A. during the post-war period.  The series tells the history of the community from the post-war period in Los Angeles through the McCarthy era and civil rights and set against the backdrop of the Watts riots.  

•

GENRE:- Novel takes the structure of the classical Detective Novel, The Hard-boiled genre and the characteristics of (film) Noir.  

In the novel one mystery leads to another as secrets are uncovered. There is a strong emphasis on instinct, lack of ease and ambiguity. The social order cannot be restored.  

Q: How does the mystery under investigation serve to expose other crimes or acts of violence in the United States?

MAIN CHARACTER:- Easy Rawlins 

Depicted as a Migrant who has moved from Texas to Watts (along with many others) . 

He served in WWII and was witness to genocide and racism. He came to see himself as an American citizen during WWII and through service to his country.  

Post-War: he comes back to a segregated society and he wants his piece of the American dream, which for him means owning a house and garden (Chapter 3).

THEMES 

Race & Devil in the Blue Dress 

There is a sense that the Black American's identity is uncertain, they are not considered American and do not feel that they are. W. E. B Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk (1903) "One ever feels his twoness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

Easy on Race- 

“When he looked at me I felt a thrill of fear, but that quickly went away because I was used to white people by 1948” (9).

“It was a habit I developed in Texas when I was a boy. Sometimes, when a white man of authority would catch me off guard, I’d empty my head of everything so I was unable to say anything” (21).

“’You just tell him that the next time he better give me a note because you cain’t be lettin’ no street niggahs comin’ in yo’ place wit’ no notes!’

I was ready to leave. That little white man had convinced me that I was in the wrong place.”  (22) 

Patriarchy and race

“I mean there I was, a Negro in a rich man’s office, talking to him like we were best friends – even closer. I could tell that he didn’t have the fear or contempt that most white people showed when they dealt with me. [...] he didn’t even consider me in human terms. [...] It was the worst kind of racism. (126)

Post-War African-American Identity 

“I was surprised to see a white man walk into Joppy’s bar. […] When he looked at me I felt a thrill of fear, but that went away quickly because I was used to white people by 1948. "

"I had spent five years with white men, and women, from Africa to Italy, through Paris, and into the Fatherland itself. I ate with them and slept with them, and I killed enough blue-eyed young men to know that they were just as afraid to die as I was.” (Devil in a Blue Dress, 9)

“Those Germans wanted to kill me just as much as they wanted to kill every other foreign soldier. As a matter of fact, them shooting at me was what made me realize that I really was an American. That’s why when I was discharged, I left the South and came here to Los Angeles. Because I couldn’t live among people who didn’t know or couldn’t accept what I had become in danger and under fire in the war.” (Devil in a Blue Dress, 10)

Suspense: Looking for Daphne Monet 


The novel centres around a quest to find Daphne Monet and figuring out her identity:

•

“Daphne has a predilection for the company of Negroes. She likes jazz and pig’s feet and dark meat, if you know what I mean.” (26)

•

The quest for Daphne, leads to a wider investigation of life in America for the African Americans.  Daphne is passing for white so we also get a sense of the discrepancies between white/black life. We learn more about different kinds of justice for white/black and multiracial America. 

In a wider sense Daphane is depicted as the Femme Fatale of the Crime Genre. A femme fatale (fatal/deathly woman) is an alluring and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetypal character of literature and art. 

A femme fatale tries to achieve her hidden purpose by using feminine wiles such as beauty, charm, and sexual allure. 

In some situations, she uses lying or coercion rather than charm. 

She rejects the role of wife and mother; this transgression of societal norms leads to her destruction.

She may also be a victim, caught in a situation from which she cannot escape.

The figure represents a critique of normative ideas about women. 

Daphne Monet:
Femme fatale & Mystery of Identity

“She had light hair coming down over her bare shoulders and high cheekbones and eyes that might have been blue if the artist got it right. After starting at her for a full minute I decided that she’d be worth looking for if you could get her to smile at you that way.” (25)

“Her face was beautiful. More beautiful than the photograph. Wavy hair so light brown that you might have called it blond from a distance, and eyes that were green or blue depending on how she held her head.” (96)

Daphne as tragic mulatta

A tragic mulatta is a stereotypical fictional character that appeared in American literature during the 19th and 20th centuries. 

The "tragic mulatto" is an archetypical mixed race person (a "mulatto"), who is assumed to be sad or even suicidal because he/she fails to completely fit in the "white world" or the "black world." In the novel Mouse says about Daphne:-“She wanna be white. All them years people be tellin’ her how she light-skinned and beautiful but all the time she knows that she can’t have what white people have. So she pretend and lose it all. She can love a white man but all he can love is the white girl he think she is.”  

Like the typical tragic mulatta Daphane is depicted as the victim of the society he/she lives in, a society divided by race. They cannot be classified as one who is completely "black" or "white" so suffer identity crises and deep racial trauma.

The plot and of the tragic mulatta is a tragic one. It goes as so-  A woman who can "pass" for white attempts to do so, is accepted as white by society and falls in love with a white man. Eventually, her status as a bi-racial person is revealed and the story ends in tragedy- (either in her suicide, her death or a similar fate).

Often such stories are criticised because they are seen as appealing to a white audience rather than focusing on the history of the African-American community. Mosley uses the story of passing / crossing over to investigate black/white and other race relations and also to explore internalised racism.


To sum, the novel is about interrogating and investigating identity and race relations in Post-war America. 

                                                                                                   

FURTHER READING

W.E.B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk

              

http://www.lapl.org/catalog/photo_collection_overview.html