Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Presented by: Joe Kingsriter
And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary
gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it
was heavy-cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in
waiting on the saintly presence-nobles of great power all of them; but,
most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone a terrible
grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabulous
mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, passed in
and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered in every
vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill which had worked
them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had
ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown
faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh,
was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed
out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles
and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood
and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum
of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the
smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no
offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription
on the baker’s shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock
of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that
was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting
chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every
farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant
drops of oil.
What inference can you make based on the knowledge given in the passage?
From what this passage beautifully displays, the town of Saint Antoine, and other subsequent towns are doing very poor in this day and age. Through the painted picture made graciously by Charles Dickens in this passage, it is easy to infer the situation of this mid to lower class. In fact, just a paragraph before I believe it talks about the lively hood that goes about the town, only for a few moments, as a bottle of wine splashes on the streets and all the towns people go to scoop it up in their hands. This moment served as a break from their ungodly starvation.
Having released his noble bosom
of its burden, he would have modestly withdrawn himself, but that the
wigged gentleman with the papers before him, sitting not far from Mr.
Lorry, begged to ask him a few questions. The wigged gentleman sitting
opposite, still looking at the ceiling of the court.
Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation.
What did he live upon? His property. Where was his property?
He didn’t precisely remember where it was. What was it? No business
of anybody’s. Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant
relation. Very distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly
not. Never in a debtors’ prison? Didn’t see what that had to do with
it. Never in a debtors’ prison?—Come, once again. Never? Yes. How
many times? Two or three times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession?
Gentleman. Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently?
No. Ever kicked downstairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick on
the top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. Kicked
on that occasion for cheating at dice? Something to that effect was said
by the intoxicated liar who committed the assault, but it was not true.
Swear it was not true? Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? Never.
Ever live by play? Not more than other gentlemen do. Ever borrow
money of the prisoner? Yes. Ever pay him? No. Was not this intimacy
with the prisoner, in reality a very slight one, forced upon the prisoner
in coaches, inns, and packets? No. Sure he saw the prisoner with these
lists? Certain. Knew no more about the lists? No. Had not procured
them himself, for instance? No. Expect to get anything by this evidence?
No. Not in regular government pay and employment, to lay traps? Oh
dear no. Or to do anything? Oh dear no. Swear that? Over and over
again. No motives but motives of sheer patriotism? None whatever.
Is the way the book is written (structure) add ot subtract to the main message of the book?
Response:
I believe that the way in which the book is written greatly adds to its story, but it could have a side effect. Like I've seen earlier in this book, Charles Dickens doesn't seem to have a fear of gargantuan sentences or going away from the conventional writing style a bit. This is where I can see a side effect. Now it may have been do to my tiredness at certain times, but I have found myself re-reading sentences multiple times. Whether the reason being that It is quite alot to take in or the sudden lack of the usual, conventual writing style. This passage is a wonderful example of the latter of those two. I actually re-read a page or two once I realized that my suspicions were correct, and the text I was reading was a dialogue. If you look at that passage you'll notice that there are no quotations. I believe this was not just Dickens trying to conserve space, but it was, in just the structure of the writing, describing the monotone and snappy nature of the trial with the witness.
Already, the mender of roads had penetrated into
the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting himself
in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and what portended
the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on
horseback, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle (double-laden
though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of the German
ballad of Leonora?
It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the
chateau.
The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had
added the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waited
through about two hundred years.
It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine
mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven home into
the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt
was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled:
“Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.”
TDQ
What is some unique wordage that the author uses and why do you think this word is chosen?
There is this unique wordage this passage uses involving masks and "Gorgons." Gorgans in the ancient, Greek myths were mystical creatures that could turn people to stone. Such creatures like "Medusa." There were three Gorgans in the myth, and the chapter frequently referred to Monsieur the Marquis as a Gorgon. Up until this point in the story I thought this description more to take on how gravely sour and old he appears. This passage gave a new meaning, and it displayed a sort of foreshadowing that I had not picked up on. The alertness of the towns people as there was news that there was one too many stone faces at the chateau and then to give the realization that the stone face that was referred to was but a gorgeous description and symbol for the body of Monsieur the Marquis (being cold, frozen in petrification, and stone like), is a tremondously awesome and soul-driven way of writing liturature. That is why these words were chosen. They give deep feeling, emotion, and an underlying power behind the rest of the passage.
Presented by: Joe Kingsriter