Nightwood, Djuna Barnes

"Love becomes the deposit of the heart, analogous in all degrees to the 'findings' in a tomb. [...] In Nora's heart lay the fossil of Robin" (61). 

Throughout Nightwood, love is a brutalization and a curse. Even the deeply-felt love between Nora and Robin becomes a stew of hate, disgust, and fear, and the depiction of the "fossilized" Robin within Nora's heart echoes the connection between love and death that is continually being referenced in the novel. Nora finds that she longs for Robin's death, feeling as though only "in death Robin would belong to her" (63). In one instance Nora comments that "we give death to a child when we give it a doll," corrupting ideas of childhood and comfort and turning the maternal instincts a doll evokes into something irrevocably sinister. There is a decomposition of order and representation in the language that mirrors the decay of relationships in the events of the narrative. Can a connection be drawn between this inescapable sense of decay and the role as outcast that the characters of the novel are forced to inhabit?  There is something about these characters that makes it impossible for them to exist within the traditional social sphere. How does this sense of "otherness" contribute to their inability to create or sustain any form of love that isn't reliant upon death, fear, or hate? How do the interactions in the novel become twisted by the elliptic identities of these characters, leading to "nothing but wrath and weeping"? (175)

The Lost Lunar Baedeker, Mina Loy

"Men's eyes            look into things
Our eyes                 look out"

One of the larger themes in Mina Loy's work is the idea of redefining and often rejecting traditional modes of thinking about gender norms. In many of her poems in this volume, she confronts a society largely hostile to woman, and challenges pre-conceived ideas surrounding woman's sexuality and basic identity. In the poem "Virgins Plus Curtains Minus Dots," Loy creates a physically gendered space to parallel such spaces in the abstract, and in doing so criticizes the oppression and the inherent "cost" of being a woman.  In this passage, she turns to the "male gaze," which often negates the value of woman in feminist writing. The difference between looking in and looking out is subtle but significant; what does "looking out" imply for the virgins of the poem as well as women as a whole? How does looking in represent a violation or a sense of power, or imply a cognizance and intellectual capacity that is lacking in the act of simply looking out? There are many instances throughout The Lost Lunar Baedeker in which Loy satirizes the idea of woman as inherently without understanding or deeper intellect. The women of this poem are hollow, empty, and unfulfilled. How is Loy combatting the accepted notions of marriage, relationships, and gender identity in this work, and specifically in this distinction between looking in and looking out?

The Ambassadors, Henry James

"Miss Gostrey had dined with him at his hotel, face to face over a small table on which the lighted candles had rose-coloured shades; and the rose-coloured shades and the small table and the soft fragrance of the lady--had anything to his mere sense ever been so soft?--were so many touches in he scarce knew what positive high picture. He had been to the theatre, even to the opera, in Boston, with Mrs. Newsome, more than once acting as her only escort; but there had been no little confronted dinner, no pink lights, no whiff of vague sweetness, as a preliminary: one of the results of which was that at present, mildly rueful, though with a sharpish accent, he actually asked himself WHY there hadn't. There was much the same difference in his impression of the noticed state of his companion, whose dress was "cut down," as he believed the term to be, in respect to shoulders and bosom, in a manner quite other than Mrs. Newsome's, and who wore round her throat a broad red velvet band with an antique jewel--he was rather complacently sure it was antique--attached to it in front" (89-90).

Strether's first impressions of Europe are decidedly visual, with a focus on appearance and its effect on perception. In this moment at the beginning of the novel, Strether is struck by Maria Gostrey's neckline and the "broad red velvet band" she wears around her neck, and is even more taken aback by his observation of something that would have previously gone unnoticed. He feels that this cognizance serves to "complicate [...] his vision," and he finds himself "given over to uncontrolled perceptions" (90). Themes of vision and perception are highlighted through the novel, and Strether's burgeoning awareness of the implications of these themes becomes central. What are we to make of the significance that James' ascribes to vision and perception, distorted or otherwise? 

The novel illuminates the complex process of judgement and evaluation through Strether's own shifts in awareness, and does so in such a way that our perceptions are similarly unbalanced by the end of the novel. Strether learns to appreciate the subtleties of observation and the significance of evaluating every person and situation carefully and without bias, but the very nature of the characters within the novel and of Paris itself makes his journey a difficult one. He wishes for a pleasingly comfortable and aesthetic understanding of the world around him, and ultimately finds that the truths he discovers are unreconcilable to that desire. Strether initially finds it difficult to see past the "surface" of things, principally his perception of Chad and his relationship with Marie, and the limitations of his perspective can be seen. He is situated in the novel as a observer, further emphasizing the significance of "seeing," yet his observations often lack perception. Just as in Paris, where "what seemed all surface one moment seemed all depth the next," Strether finds that his interactions with the people he meets in Europe are unpredictable, and his own judgement must shift throughout the novel as a consequence (68).

How does James' preoccupation with visual perception frame the narrative and Strether's experiences? What does the interplay between false or mere surface perceptions and true insight of "depth" mean for our own evaluation of the novel and its characters?

Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton

"It's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again-I don't mean Ralph, I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in them. [...] Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here-she's in the very middle of the picture" (182).

Undine echoes this statement early in the novel in regards to her father's business; "That was man's province; and what did men go 'down town' for but to bring back the spoils to their women?" (39). This theme of female victimization is an interesting perspective, yet seems at odds with Wharton's portrayal of Undine. Is she a result of this society's blatant neglect of women? She is hardly a sympathetic portrait of feminism; rather, she is defined by pure manipulation, deceit, and overwhelming vanity. Her actions stem from an all-consuming desire to be the "dominant figure of the scene" at all times, and for every failure in this vein she endeavors to be more vivacious, more striking, more influential in the sphere of society (32). Is this a direct result of being condemned to a role as a "parenthesis"? Before their marriage, Ralph Marvell certainly sees Undine as in danger of being overtaken by the petty and "cheaply fashionable" nature of New York's gentry, imagining "devouring monster Society careering up to make a mouthful of her" and vowing to save her from its clutches, but he soon falls victim to her own selfish machinations (74).

Yet Wharton is decidedly not a moralist but a commentator. Her role is not to condemn or offer solutions for society's ills but rather to observe and satirize the "paradoxes" of society, making her intentions difficult to ascertain. Does Undine represent this victimization that Bowen describes? Does Wharton mean for us to agree with Bowen and condemn American society for having created a dynamic between the sexes that allows Undine's selfish nature to flourish and indeed encourages it? Perhaps her vanity is a testament to the role she has been groomed to play: "a mere bit of flesh and blood," as Popple puts it (63).