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发表于 2004-2-14 22:23:47
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The Sea Change
The author, Warren Bennett in @!#$ Identity in “The Sea
> Change, argues that the point of the story is the loss of
> Phil’s masculinity when he performed feminine @!#$ acts (oral
> @!#$) with his girlfriend instead of masculine @!#$ acts.
[I would certainly like to see the evidence from the story that supports the *precise and exclusive* idea that Phil "performed feminine...acts...instead of masculine...acts," although the lines,
"I'm sorry," she said, "if you don't understand."
"I understand. That's the trouble. I understand"
would certainly allow such an interpretation - but among others; because the later remarks, like
"No," she said. "We're made up of all sorts of things. You've known that. You've used it well enough."
suggest an indefinite range of Phil's @!#$ interests, from "watching" to enthusiastic engagement with multiple @!#$ partners of either or both es. An undeniable point is that "old Phil" may well be partially responsible for his lady's turn to this @!#$ affair, but whether this occurred because Phil "performed feminine ...acts" - and how is oral @!#$ between a man and a woman to be considered exclusively "feminine"? - or by some other means remains unclear.
The
> title is one of those two cushion shots Hemingway spoke of,
> referring to the Sea Change used in Eliot’s The Wasteland
> instead of Shakespeare. He quotes this…
>
> A current under the sea
> Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
> He passed the stages of his age and youth
> Entering the whirlpool.
> …………………………
> Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
[Is this Hemingway's own observation, or is it Bennet's? Hemingway's famous/infamous remark about the relative value of the works of Conrad ( was it?)and those of Eliot suggests Hemingway referred exclusively to Shakespeare in this title.]
> In the story’s denouement, old James is the embodiment of the
> sea-changed self-image that old Phil sees reflected in the
> mirror behind the bar. The image that Phil sees is the image
> of a Paris man, an indoor man, a sunless man.
[At this point, the *text* calls Phil "the brown young man." That is what he sees in the mirror. That this should be extended to his also seeing "a Paris man, an indoor man, a sunless man" seems something of a stretch, although Phil's - what? - possible destiny to be a "James" is inarguable. At the moment, Phil is one of those served by James, the whole company of men here, and Phil's easily, "comfortably" joining them suggesting his refuge in a homoual world - just as his departing lady has done. ]
The face is as
> “white” as a white “jacket.” He is getting “fatter,” and it
> is “terrible…the way he puts it on.” Phil/James is the end
> product of disillusionment, a person who can observe a
> “handsome young couple,” watch them “break up,” and not even
> be “thinking about this.” In his feminization he will serve
> homouals and ask them to “trust” him, as a female once
> asked him, “Don’t you trust me?”
[This is an excellent point definitively linking the barman and his world with the lady and hers, and strongly emphasizing the homoual nature of the group at the bar. But...}
He may still agree that
> “Vice…is a very strange thing,” but since he no longer thinks
> about coupling – having lost his @!#$ identity and his lust –
> his one obsession or addiction will be gambling on the
> horses. He will pass the hours of his day waiting, not for a
> girl, but to find out if a “horse has won.” Sea nymphs will
> ring the knell of a man once handsome and tall
[...but this extension of the James' /Phil's image suggests that Phil is eventually to be relieved of the pain of loss of his lady; his "story" is to end happily. (Do we/does Hemingway want *that*?)
>
> There is no reference to Phil as a writer who would use his
> girlfriend's ism as the source of a story.
[No. But why should there be?]
>
> Interesting. |
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发表于 2004-2-15 20:28:04
