Woman: I know you do, but I'm so crazy you'll definitely change your mind down the road.
Man: No!
Woman: Well, you might be right, but that's really not the point. I was just trying to avoid the harshness of saying that there's more to loving than your saying that and my believing it. There's the issue of whether I can say it.
Man: Oh. I see.
Woman: Yeah.
[Man releases grip on ring in coat pocket. He begins to plan two or three years of epic dignity and grace in response to this trial. Audience suspects he won't pull it off. Audience doesn't dwell on it because Woman exits for what audience realizes is duration of play. Audience somehow doesn't return to seat after intermission.]
Posts
5 comments:
Yeah, the comment on "just right was meant for this post. Yep.
haha - that's pretty funny. It's such a well put together comment, too. Really humanizes you after one's been reading your comments elsewhere.
I was getting annoyed with that other post. This one puts the man back in the after-Charles-Bovary realm, which is the way it should be. I wonder whether the playwright was even able to write another act or whether he counted on the audience leaving early.
"Really humanizes you after one's been reading your comments elsewhere."
That's too bad. I mean, after all, it was "elsewhere" and not here that I was commenting on Der Brief über den "Humanismus". But then again, "humanism" was a word laid to rest in the conclusion of that letter, so maybe I shouldn't be too disappointed.
Speaking of things dehumanizing, why is the "after-Charles-Bovary realm" given the honor of being the "way things should be"?
I knew I should have used a different word! But how could I be myself and not throw around inarticulate compliments?
Why is the "after-Charles-Bovary realm" given the honor of being the "way things should be"?
That's a good question. It isn't the way it should be in general, but it is if we assume that the two men are similar. A man given to thinking too much ahead of himself (and I don't mean "above") can be caught in a swamp of prideful, if perceptive, anticipation in relation to other people and to his own life--even (and especially) when in the face of someone/something genuine. I think that is the situation in the former post.
But the interest of/in the woman is what is at issue in this post, I think. And the only thing that would be lost if a stronger, better man were the "Man" is the reaction of the audience, which also includes the man's own memory of the event. But, as he is, being in Bovary's line--while it is, as a description, humorously appropriate--means that he hasn't yet bitterly fallen in love with his own perception of the beautiful girl, his own ability to recognize and point out that beauty--which used to be something like innate. Maybe he is still swayed (?), as the audience certainly is, by the actual girl. (I say "swayed" rather than "in love" because love in the present tense is not precisely the issue.) If he is, there is the possibility that he will not turn out like the man in the first post.
You'll have to forgive me for these posts, though. I think they owe more to Dave Matthews and The Killers than is decent. If the influence was more Richard Wilbur, and the terms more like "I put to sea" and "haven of grasses," then there would be an actual question of "honor" and "the way things should be."
You'll have to forgive me for these posts, though. I think they owe more to Dave Matthews and The Killers than is decent. If the influence was more Richard Wilbur, and the terms more like "I put to sea" and "haven of grasses," then there would be an actual question of "honor" and "the way things should be."
I'll agree with you on that...but primarily because I think owing anything to Dave Matthews is owing too much (no problem with your debt to the Killers, though). But the posts are good, and you shouldn't stop them. There is a lot to be learned by meditating on the Bovarian precedent still alive )or even more than ever) in our lives today (mine as much as anyone's). I just can't offer it the title of an "ought", a "should be".
Post a Comment