"The marquis rose and went in the direction Tellmarch had pointed out to him." Well at least he's able to follow directions. That's a skill.
"He remembered that there was something at the bottom of the placard which he could not read the evening before because the letters were so small, and there was so little light." Is there something he's expecting, beyond "let's totally find this Lantenac guy and guillotine him"? We see later in the chapter that curiosity is a natural motivation, but maybe there's something else blended in with the curiosity here.
"He stopped in deep amazement" So he hadn't been expecting this?
The foliage was, as it were, soaked in light. All nature rejoices deeply in the morning.
Suddenly, the landscape became terrible.
Boom, immediate transition from natural beauty to human destruction. I guess we didn't really get that with the ocean, that was more natural terror versus human...incompetence?
Then a long paragraph of "hmm, could it be the republicans? maybe?" No actual narration about the scene in question, just mentioning similar incidents and pointedly asking if there happened to be a parallel. Maybe? Possibly? Kind of?
"The execution, if it were an execution, must have been cruel, for it was short. Like all brutal things it was soon over. The atrocity of civil warfare admits of such cruelties." Specific brutalities can be short. Wondering if there's a larger-scale point about "the violence of 1793 was, in the grand scheme of things, relatively short" or "because it took so long, it couldn't have been that brutal"?
"While the marquis, multiplying his conjectures," you know I'm a math person because I get excited about him and his conjectures--they showed up in 1.4.3 too, haha. Realistically, how many possibilities are there though? "The republicans found this farm, executed some people who didn't help them, and burned stuff down? Alternatively, something else happened." I don't feel like there are too many possibilities at play here, or maybe the narrator just really wants us to focus on one specific possibility.
I do think it's important to have this chapter where it is, with its very heavy stress on the idea that this is something the Republicans do. It's a reminder of why people are even willing to consider sticking with the Ancien Regime, and all, beyond any idealogy.
But if there's any moral aspect to it from the Marquis' side, well, it's apparently only the idea that it's fine to break your own stuff, but anyonwe else doing it is a vandal. Those are HIS people, in the sense they're the Crown's people; like his clothes are HIS clothes. HE gets to use and wreck them, him and the other Right People.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-05-08 05:05 pm (UTC)"He remembered that there was something at the bottom of the placard which he could not read the evening before because the letters were so small, and there was so little light." Is there something he's expecting, beyond "let's totally find this Lantenac guy and guillotine him"? We see later in the chapter that curiosity is a natural motivation, but maybe there's something else blended in with the curiosity here.
"He stopped in deep amazement" So he hadn't been expecting this?
The foliage was, as it were, soaked in light. All nature rejoices deeply in the morning.
Suddenly, the landscape became terrible.
Boom, immediate transition from natural beauty to human destruction. I guess we didn't really get that with the ocean, that was more natural terror versus human...incompetence?
Then a long paragraph of "hmm, could it be the republicans? maybe?" No actual narration about the scene in question, just mentioning similar incidents and pointedly asking if there happened to be a parallel. Maybe? Possibly? Kind of?
"The execution, if it were an execution, must have been cruel, for it was short. Like all brutal things it was soon over. The atrocity of civil warfare admits of such cruelties." Specific brutalities can be short. Wondering if there's a larger-scale point about "the violence of 1793 was, in the grand scheme of things, relatively short" or "because it took so long, it couldn't have been that brutal"?
"While the marquis, multiplying his conjectures," you know I'm a math person because I get excited about him and his conjectures--they showed up in 1.4.3 too, haha. Realistically, how many possibilities are there though? "The republicans found this farm, executed some people who didn't help them, and burned stuff down? Alternatively, something else happened." I don't feel like there are too many possibilities at play here, or maybe the narrator just really wants us to focus on one specific possibility.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-09 03:23 pm (UTC)But if there's any moral aspect to it from the Marquis' side, well, it's apparently only the idea that it's fine to break your own stuff, but anyonwe else doing it is a vandal. Those are HIS people, in the sense they're the Crown's people; like his clothes are HIS clothes. HE gets to use and wreck them, him and the other Right People.
...I do not like the Marquis very much.