Author Question: Why might the author have decided to name one of the girls Triolet (aFrench verse form covered in ... (Read 261 times)

TFauchery · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

Why might the author have decided to name one of the girls Triolet (aFrench verse form covered in the poetry section of this book)? What does that choice of name suggest about the character of Triolet?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

How old are the two boys in the story? How old is the narrator as he tellsthe story? How might the passage of time influence the way he remembers and relates the events?

What will be an ideal response?

ecabral0 · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Triolet is herself a living embodiment of poetry. Its a verse form, she says, in explanation of her name: Like me (par. 95), and then, I am a poem, or I am a pattern, or a race of people whose world was swallowed by the sea (par. 99). Everything about her is suggestive of poetry. Her profile reminds Enn of the half-masks used in his school production of the classical verse tragedy Antigone by Sophocles (par. 97), and he says that five years later I would have thought of the Pre-Raphaelites, of Jane Morris and Lizzie Siddall, the wives and models of the poet-artists William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In the manner of the ancient epics, the history of her race is preserved by being given form and pattern in her; and this knowledge, which would otherwise have been irrecoverably lost, is then passed on to others, who, having experienced it, are changed in subtle, unnoticeable, but indelible ways.

Answer to Question 2

Early on, we are told that It was eight in the evening, not that early if you arent yet sixteen, and we werent. Not quite (par. 17). Later, the point is made even more precisely: But I was only fifteen then (par. 97). In the storys fourth paragraph, Enn tells us that Ive not seen Vic for thirty years; thus, we know all along that at the time of the narration he is at least forty-five, and possibly even older, since we dont know how much time elapsed between the night of the party and the last time the two boys were together. Then, near the end of the story, we are given the very interesting detail that This all happened thirty years ago (par. 124), with its hint that the events of that night, and the two boys very different reactions to those events, might have been responsible for the severing of their friendship.

The rest of that paragraph directly addresses the question of how the passage of time might have affected the narrators recollections: I have forgotten much, and I will forget more, and in the end I will forget everything; yet, if I have any certainty of life beyond death, it is all wrapped up not in psalms or hymns, but in this one thing alone: I cannot believe that I will ever forget that moment, or forget the expression on Stellas face as she watched Vic hurrying away from her. Even in death I shall remember that. His comment that I have forgotten much refers presumably to his entire life experience, because he seems to have virtually total recall of the events of the evening of the party, even though the interval of thirty years may have given him a little more perspective on the awkwardness, hesitancy, and bewilderment that marked his youth.