A Lost Lady Essay Research Paper In — страница 2

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mountains, just as I dreamed my place on the Sweet Water. (p.29) [THE CAPTAIN'S LOGIC HERE IS A BIT SUSPECT; ELSEWHERE IN THIS CONVERSATION, HE GIVES HIS "PHILOSOPHY": "WHAT YOU THINK OF AND PLAN FOR DAY BY DAY, IN SPITE OF YOURSELF, SO TO SPEAK-YOU WILL GET. . . . THAT IS, UNLESS YOU ARE ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO GET NOTHING IN THIS WORLD." THE LOGIC IS SELF-CANCELING, SO HIS "PHILOSOPHY" AMOUNTS TO NOTHING. IN THE CONTEXT YOU ARE USING, CONSIDER HOW THE FIRST SENTENCE OF THE PHILOSOPHY IRONICALLY REFLECTS WHAT NIEL DOES TO HIMSELF] Niel tries to hold on to the past, as if it were a mythological dream, while around him the world changes. This philosophy is reinterpreted sarcastically by Niel in Part II, Chapter 1. After meeting Ivy Peters on the train

he thinks, “[The Ivy Peters] would drink up the mirage.” (p.90). He sees the draining of the marsh as a metaphor for the decline of the western spirit. [OF COURSE, YOUR "HE SEES' IS IMPORTANT, SINCE NIEL'S "SEEING" IS OFTEN SOMEWHAT BLIND-THERE IS SOMETHING HEROIS ABOUT THIS AGE, BUT IS IT AS HEROIC AS NIEL WOULD HAVE IT? OR THE NARRATOR, WHO IS NOT IDENTICAL WITH CATHER-SHE ORIGINALLY WROTE THIS IN THE FIRST PERSON WITH NIEL AS THE NARRATOR-THAT WAS TOO OBVIOUS, SO SHE SWITCHED TO THIRD-PERSON AND ENDED WITH A MUCH MORE SOPHISTICATED AND TRICKY NARRATIVE VOICE] The ruin of the Forresters represents the end of regional America. People such as Ivy Peters take over and become successful, forming a national society of wealth. The old world is now forever

“lost.” It can therefore be concluded that the title, A Lost Lady, is extremely universal and clever in that it envelops the three central themes of the novel.