Vanessa's Wonderland

Week 12 D.H. Lawrence

*D.H. Lawrence (wiki) (bio.) (lit.) (Academic) (grade saver)

 +tedious

* “The Piano” (text) (video) (study guide)

  +D.H. cannot cut the connection with his mother

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see

A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings

And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside

And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour

With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

* “The Rocking-Horse Winner” (wiki) (text1) (text2) (study guide)

+ paragraph 1, 2, 3 àsub conflict

 + paragraph 4 àmajor

 + Rocking-Horse

èWhat’s this?

èGoes nowhere=> can’t win

èWin?! Winner=> who?

+what’s luck?

èit’s better to be born lucky than rich

è“Now take me to where there is luck” (furious ride) 

 + “There must be more money!”

 + Luck vs. Fortune (conflict)

 + “You nerver did!” àpaul’s death

 +terms

           àDJ= Disk jockey

       àhonour(British) = honor (American)

*花凋 張愛玲 (text) (wiki) (official)à “There must be more money!”

“等爹有錢……非得有很多的錢，多得滿了出來，才肯花在女儿的學費上——女儿的大學文憑原是最狂妄的奢侈品。”

* Joyce Carol Oates (c.f. next week)