Second Best, by D. H. Lawrence

 Summary and analysis

Another summary

NOTES ABOUT THE STORY
Second Best is a story abut dualities, beginning by the title. Two rabbits, two sisters, two suitors, two dead moles. And everyone of these pairs are, in a certain way, opposites. One rabbit is wild and the other tame. Jimmy Barrass is an urban gentleman, with university education and Tom Smedley, a country lad, full of energy. Two dead moles, one by Anne’s hands, in a burst of anger, and the other, victim of Frances, killed by premeditation. Anne, a teenager country girl, is sensible; Frances, twenty-one and living in the city, is whimsical.

In the opening scene, the two sisters are sitting and talking on the grass in a field, and the nature is in full blossom. Anne is a beautiful plump girl, wise and practical. Frances is a student in Liverpool. They have just arrived from the city.

Anne, although several years younger, has the common sense of a mother.

While she is pulling a kernel out of its shell is she disclosing a secret?—, he talks to Frances about Tom.  She tells her that he has given her a wild rabbit, and yet she has already a tame rabbit. Here perhaps the narrator alludes to her innocence (the tame rabbit), and to the loss of it (the wild one).

Anne was hoping that Tom took her to a Feast, but instead he invited a servant from the rectory. Anne is angry and the narrator now mentions plants with thorns, as thistles, gorse, stubble…
Then a mole appears. At the beginning  both sisters see it as a beautiful creature. Anne catches the mole and plays with it. It’s blind, as love is —is it a symbol of Cupid? Frances tells her to kill the animal —it's a pest, but, for the moment, Anne doesn’t have the courage to do it. She wants to put it in her pocket, but you can’t imprison love and the mole revolts —love has no sense, it’s wild.

After that, Frances tells her that Jimmy Barrass, her would-be-fiancé, has comitted to another girl. Then the mole bits Anne; she bleeds and now does kill the mole: she has lost her innocence.
They cross a bridge and come to a field that shows all the summer splendour. Tom is mowing there. The air is full of intense smells.
They greet the vigorous country lad, well build and full of energy. And immediately, because he needs a woman, he fells in love with Frances —she wears a white dress, like a bride. Tom wonders is she would have the courage to kill a mole —to kill her romantic love.
Now it’s Frances turn, she has to make a decision —she also needs a man, and this new love has to be sensible. The next day she takes him a dead mole —she has killed definitively the love she felt for Jimmy, and offers herself, free of all constraints, to Tom.

QUESTIONS
-Killing animals. What has to be the human ethics about it? Is it ethically right? Always, or according to the case, to the species…?
-It appears that for Lawrence, being plump make you closer to nature. Do you think that our physical constitution has some influence in our character?
-Country people have a different way to see nature from city people. What can you tell about these differences?

VOCABULARY
turf, brimming, wilful, budding, kernel, fret her fat over, thistles, gorse, fallow, fidget, swaddled, crab-apples, stooks, moudiwarp, your rag out, cross, jawing about, winsome

The Fly, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Maria A. Feijóo

This story takes place in a very brief time-lapse, at the end of a meeting between two friends. They both are old men, but very different from each other. Nevertheless, they have an important thing in common, as we will learn later in the narrative.
The first character introduced is Mr Woodifield. He is the youngest, although due to his poor health we could think he is the oldest: he has had a stroke, and his life and mental abilities have been affected. He is now retired, and we know that he is married and has at least two daughters, as we are told that they only allow him to go to the City alone on Tuesdays.
One of those Tuesdays, he goes to “the boss’s” office. This character has no other name in the story. We can suppose he really has been Mr Woodifield’s boss. He is five years older than him, but remains very vigorous and active. He also offers the perfect image of social success: he is proud of his house, of his money and of his position. He treats his employees in an authoritarian way, but he seems to have a real esteem for Mr Woodifield. Anyway, there is something that he does not want to talk about: a photography of a young officer that stands on his table.
At the end of their meeting, “the boss” offers Mr Woodifield a glass of an expensive whisky - he insists on that - in the awareness that he usually is not allowed to drink. Maybe due to the alcohol, Mr Woodifield brings out just the only thing “the boss” does not want to hear about. He explains that his daughters have been in Belgium, visiting the grave of their brother, Reggie, and that they also had a look at a nearby grave, the grave of “the boss’s” son, the young officer in the picture. This is what they have in common: both had lost their sons during the war.
After a few banalities, Mr Woodifield leaves his friend’s office. As he remains alone, “the boss” commands his clerk to be let alone for a half an hour. He is very affected and wants to weep. His unique son was the meaning of his whole life: he wanted him to inherit his business, his house, all what he built with so much effort.
But, surprisingly, he is not able to cry as he did at the beginning of his loss. He goes on thinking how great his son was, but six years have passed, and even looking at the photography he cannot really feel again the pain he was intended to feel.
Suddenly, his attention is drawn to his ink pot, where a fly is desperately trying to survive. In what seems a compassionate gesture, he saves the fly from dying by taking the poor animal out of the ink and dropping it on a blotting-paper. He observes the way the fly removes the ink from his body, and suddenly he takes more ink and drop it on the fly. Once more, the little insect removes the ink accurately, driven by its survival instinct. A second and a third time, the boss repeats the cruel gesture, and twice more the fly repeats his laborious task, each time with less energy. The boss continues observing and even talking to the fly, until it dies.
At that moment, the boss throws the exhausted body of the insect into the waste-paper basket. He has a very weird feeling that frightens him, but he calls his clerk and asks him to bring some blotting-paper. And when he tries to remember what was worrying him before, he could not remember. He could not remember anything at all.

 MY OPINION

This short story is very interesting because there are plenty of possible interpretations. The fly can be held as a powerful representation of the nonsense of the war, where young people lose their lives in an absurd way under the command of powerful people. It is also a vivid image of how difficult it sometimes becomes to struggle for life when we have been hurt by destiny. The two human characters are another image of the poor control we may have upon our lives. “The boss” is an especially rich character due to the contrast between his image of a powerful man, able to control his and the other’s life, and his very childish behaviour with the fly as well as his poor emotional ability to face and manage pain.

QUESTIONS

-How has your life changed since you are retired? Or how do you think it’ll be changed?

-Do retired people feel they are a nuisance for other people? In what sense?

-Let’s talk about cemeteries. Are they beautiful places to walk around? Do you know any curious cemetery? Do you go and visit your relatives’ graves?

-Do you think it’s correct to take away things from a hotel? (I mean: shampoo bottles, combs, toothbrushes…) Do you usually do it?

-When you travel, what do you remember best? (People usually tell anecdotes.)

-What kind of crier are you? Do you cry watching films? Are you ashamed of crying? (Kundera kitsch)

-According to your opinion, why do /don’t children go on with their parents’ trade?

-What do you think it’s the meaning of the fly in the story?

-Why did he torture the fly? Is it an instance of the banality of evil?

-Magic numbers; three times the man flooded the fly with ink, and at the third time it died. What do you think of ritual numbers? Do you have one? Why did you choose it?

-“But such a grinding feeling of wretchedness seized him that he felt positively frightened.” Why?

-At the end, he didn’t remember something, like the old man at the beginning. What does the writer tell us about this for?

 

VOCABULARY

snug, pram, City, at the helm, wistfully, muffler, treacle, on his last pins, tamper, rolling in his chaps, nutty, yer, saw ... out, cubby, spring chair, learning the ropes, man jack, tackle, look sharp 

Conversation about The Fly (listen to the audio)

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Sunday Afternoon, by Elisabet Bowen

Elisabeth Bowen at the Wikipedia: here

 The BLITZ. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4104942

 
Elisabeth Bowen was an Irish-born author, but she did her literary activities within a cultural club in London called The Bloomsbury Group, which had its headquarters in the neighbourhood of the British Museum and whose most famous members were the writer Virginia Woolf and the economist John M. Keynes (whose main idea was that the government had to intervene in the economy to correct the bad effects of the capitalism).

But Bowen isn’t very known here: in Catalan you aren’t going to find any translation, and there are only some of this books in Spanish. If you want to find her works in the library, click here.

The short story that we’re reading is a bit autobiographic, because she was born in Dublin and, although she went to live in England, she used to spend her holidays in Ireland where she had an estate and a house, and because during the World War II she worked in London for a Ministry that monitored the Irish neutrality.

Sunday Afternoon is the typical story in where it seems that nothing happens; but the thing is that what happens is about feelings, and this is harder to see and understand; so, I think that the story, although its language isn’t difficult, needs a slow pace and more than one reading.

SOME VOCABULARY YOU'LL HAVE TO CHECK

lawn, drawing, fanlight, twiddle, diversion, nonchalantly, preposterous, at any rate, pert, relinquish, ruthlessness, askance, last quarter (Mrs Versey beauty), besought (beseech), spell

PERHAPS THESE QUESTIONS WILL HELP YOU TO UNDERSTAND DE TEXT.

Who was Mrs Versey and what was her relationship with Henry?
Why, in your opinion, does Ria think that Maria wants to go to London?
What is the relationship between Maria and Mrs Versey?
Why does Ronald Cuffe think Henry is a bit cynic?
Why do you think Maria looked at her wristwatch several times?
How do you know that Mrs Versey is a very rich woman?
Why does he call her “Miranda”? (Maybe the 'Miranda' in Shakespeare's The Tempest?)
What’s the “new number chained to your wrist”?

HAVE A LOOK AT THESE SENTENCES/PHRASES AND COMMENT THEM

“But nothing dreadful: we are already feeling a little sad”.
“The late May Sunday blazed, but was not warm.”
“The coldness had been admitted by none of the seven people.”
“They continued to master the coldness.”
“He was to tell a little, but not much.”
“… the aesthetic of living that he had got from them.”
“’Are the things there as shocking there as they say... or the are more shocking?’, he went on, with distaste.”
“The girl... seemed to belong to everyone there.”
“This outrage... will not have literature.”
“Their position was, he saw, more difficult than his own.”
“Screen of lilac/Another cold puff came through the lilac.”
“You had lost everything. But that cannot be true!”
“You live with nothing, for ever. Can you really feel that that is life?”
“This little bit of destruction was watched by the older people with fascination.”
“’They are frightened someone would miss the bus and come back.’”
“’How weak you are!’” (said Maria)
“I can drive a car.” (said Maria)
“We shall be nothing but brutes.”
“You are only inside their spell.”
“The trouble with you is, you’re half old.”

POSSIBLE TOPICS TO DEBATE:

-Gap between generations (you can see three in the story)
-Wars and desertion
-When can/must you be a pacifist?

The Ring, by Isak Dinesen

Karen Blixen: http://www.karenblixen.com/

Isak Dinesen was the pseudonym of Karen Blixen. Most people remember her because she was the heroine of Out of Africa, but Karen's life and character have very little to do with the role acted by Meryl Streep.

The Danish author Karen Blixen (1885) belonged to an aristocratic family. She was grown up by some aunts obsessed by being nobles. She fell in love with a distant cousin of hers, but he rejected her and then she got married to his twin brother, a baron, with whom she sent to Kenya. The marriage was a disaster, and he transmitted the syphilis to her. He was also very bad at bussines, and she had to take care of their coffee plantation. At last, they went bankrupt, and she came back to Denmark, where she started to write.

Hemingway said she deserved the Nobel Prize more than himself.

Another very famous work of hers is Babette's Feast, also adapted to a film.

TRY TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS WHILE YOU READ

Was theirs a balanced marriage?

How do we know that they were happy?

What was the difference of character between them?

Where did they go in a lovely July morning?

Why does she think "What a baby he is! I'm a hundred years older than he?"

What happened to some of the English lambs?

What crimes did the thief commit?

What were Lise's feelings about the thief?

Why was she happy when she was alone?

Why did she go into the shrubbery?

Who did she find in the shelter?

What did the man do with the knife? What does it symbolize?

She dropped her handkerchief: What is the meaning of that? And of giving her ring?

And why did he kick the ring away?

What do you thing is the meaning of "the blade was much worn - it went in?

Why does she think "All is over"?

Was she in love with her husband? How do you know?

 

 

WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS: TRY TO LOOK THEM UP

aka

had set on their purpose for ten years 

haughty

jesting

raillery

no stone in his bride's path

haymaking

drifted

frock

ram

stock

sheepfold

gruesome

whimper

shrank

swallows

gambolling

moist

took him in one simple glance

alcove

at bay

asunder

TOPICS TO DISCUSS

Why do some women take a male pseudonym to write?

What do you think of positive discrimination?

What is for you the difference between sex and genre?

SAYINGS, IDEAS AND OTHER THOUGHTS BY ISAK DINESEN

The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.

It is a good thing to be a great sinner. Or should human beings allow Christ to have died on the Cross for the sake of our petty lies and our paltry whorings. 

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them. 

All the sorrows of life are bearable if only

we can convert them into a story. 

Truth, like time, is an idea arising from, and dependent upon, human intercourse. 

People work much in order to secure the future; I gave my mind much work and trouble, trying to secure the past. 

If a man can devote himself undisturbed to the work which is on his mind, he can, as far I have observed, completely ignore his surroundings--they disappear for him; he can sit in filth and disorder, draught and cold, and be completely happy. For most women it is insufferable to sit in a room if the color scheme displeases them. 

From my journeys in southern Europe I have gained the impression that in our time the Virgin Mary is the only heavenly creature who is really beloved by millions. But I believe these millions would be uncomprehending and perhaps even offended if I were to tell them that the Virgin Mary had made a significant discovery, solved difficult mathematical problems, or masterfully organized and administered an association of housewives in Nazareth.