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Text
cited: The Country of the Pointed Firs and
Other Stories. New York: Signet, 2000.
“The
Return”
Relationship
between narrator and coast town of Dunnet
Landing: like the return of a “lover”
Dunnet imagery:
“securely wedged,” “tree-nailed,” “attaching”
The village
inseparable from “its surroundings”: “dark
woods” and sea (“knowing eyes”)
Mixture of
“remoteness” and “center of civilization” (1)
Greeted by
“crowd of spectators”: reference to “younger
portion” is a bit misleading: most characters in
book are old (2)
“Mrs.
Todd”
Confusion of
time: “Later”: then, “at first”
Problem: “lack
of seclusion.” Why? Unclear: Mrs. Todd “lover of
herbs,” a “very large person” —her position in
garden conveyed by smell (3)
Ø
Later
explained: narrator is a writer whose “literary
employments” disrupted by job as Mrs. Todd’s
shopkeeper (6)
“Mrs.
Todd: Herbal Medicine”
Mysterious:
“dim sense and remembrance of something in the
forgotten past”; “sacred and mystic rites”
Ø
Theme of time:
Mrs. Todd never forgets her first thwarted love:
“feelin’s comes back when you think you’ve done
with ‘em”—like spring (7)
Ø
Image of Mrs.
Todd as “sibyl” at center of braided rug
Mrs. Todd’s
complex relationship with village doctor:
traditional vs. modern medicine (4)
“The
Schoolhouse”
Narrator rents
schoolhouse as writing office
Ø
Abandoned for
summer—children absent from book
Ø
Spirit of
reflection: narrator reflects before renting
(9); sheep reflects at window
Ø
Book learning
associated with schoolhouse contrasts with oral
tradition: “the school in which my landlady had
strengthened her natural gift” (8)
Ø
Mrs. Todd
visits: association of plants and people (10)
“At
the Schoolhouse Window”
Funeral
procession: death, old age
Schoolhouse
window: writer’s vantage point: “I could
recognize most of the mourners as they went
their solemn way” (11)
Contrast
between “great sea,” “great landscape,” “song
sparrows” and tiny mourners (12)
Captain
Littlepage: tree-bent (12)
Ø
Comparisons
between plants/people:
“Grown trees act that way sometimes, same’s
folks” (see 93-94); “There’s a great many such
strayaway folks, just as there is plants” (see
103-104)
Narrator feels
alienated by funeral—”did not really belong” to
D.L.—sentences “failed to catch these lovely
summer cadences” (13)
“Captain Littlepage”
Capt.
Littlepage a visitor to schoolhouse, takes the
seat of scholar—over 80 years old
Quotes from
Paradise Lost—is a reader of great
literature (“little page” is ironic?)—see 22
His comment on
Dunnet Landing: “In that handful of houses they
fancy that they comprehend the universe” (16)
(both ironic and true)
Littlepage sees
“change for the worse” in town
“Captain
Littlepage: His narrative”
Narrator is
skeptical: “I began to find this unexpected
narrative a little dull” (17): at end of story
says, “Sit down, sir” (24)
Littlepage’s
interest: “great narratives” (28)—in contrast to
the narrator’s commonplace stories
Second-hand
narrative, told to Littlepage by Scotchman,
Gaffett
Ø
A great town
occupied by ghost-like people, “neither living
nor dead” (23): commentary on Dunnet Landing?
Captain
Littlepage in “The Great Expedition”
Another view of
Captain Littlepage, now behind window, looking
“as if the world were a great mistake and he had
nobody with whom to speak his own language or
find companionship” (89)
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