- Jul 2022
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icla2022.jonreeve.com icla2022.jonreeve.com
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My head was as red as a lobster; but, in other respects, I was as nicely dressed for the ceremonies of the evening as a man need be.
What's the role of self-deprecating humor in this novel, especially on the part of Betteredge the 'house-steward' narrator/character? So far, no other narrators/characters self consciously make fun of themselves, although Betteredge will describe the silliness or odd behavior of other characters. Which ones are not "clownish" and why? And how do these descriptions affect readers' judgements about various characters' reliability about the information and observations they offer?
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Thanks be to Heaven, we have arrived at the eve of the birthday at last! You will own, I think, that I have got you over the ground this time, without much loitering by the way. Cheer up! I’ll ease you with another new chapter here–and, what is more, that chapter shall take you straight into the thick of the story.
Often a chapter ends with a rhetorical and formulaic address to the reader, now doubt a feature of older British fiction. This one is a bit humorous. What can Python tell us about these passages' typical length and how they create rhythm, "intonation," and simulated interaction in a chapter ? How is this rhetorical address now repurposed to get readers interested in the new genre of detective fiction? is the reader somehow changing into one of the characters?
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wicked Colonel
I think this phrase describing the Colonel will be important throughout the novel. I do we write code to trace this collocation "wicked Colonel"?
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superstitio
I think that "superstition" is a keyword in The Moonstone. How do I write code to track each sentence/phrase in which "superstition" appears?
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“We have certain events to relate,” Mr. Franklin proceeded; “and we have certain persons concerned in those events who are capable of relating them. Starting from these plain facts, the idea is that we should all write the story of the Moonstone in turn–as far as our own personal experience extends, and no farther. We must begin by showing how the Diamond first fell into the hands of my uncle Herncastle, when he was serving in India fifty years since. This prefatory narrative I have already got by me in the form of an old family paper, which relates the necessary particulars on the authority of an eye-witness. The next thing to do is to tell how the Diamond found its way into my aunt’s house in Yorkshire, two years ago, and how it came to be lost in little more than twelve hours afterwards. Nobody knows as much as you do, Betteredge, about what went on in the house at that time. So you must take the pen in hand, and start the story.”
Mr. Franklin suggests that more first- and third-person narrators i.e., characters in the story, be included to tell the tale about the Diamond and its disappearance. But how reliable is the evidence that each one has to offer? This is probably at the heart of this detective story.
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irst Period The Loss of the Diamond (1848) The events related by Gabriel Betteredge, house-steward in the service of Julia, Lady Verinder.
Change of first-person narrator lo lower class 'house-steward.' Is he more or less reliable as a narrator compared to the first upper class one?
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Extracted from a Family Paper
This phrase indicates that Moonstone is probably an epistolary novel, a type of genre that presents the story as a compilation of letters, diary entries, or in Moonstone 'family paper' as opposed to the direct narration of a single narrator. Here are links to information about epistolary novels from Oregon State University and Wikipedia. https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-epistolary-novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistolary_novel
Tags
- coding for keywords
- genre: epistolary novel
- first-person narrator and issues of reliability of reporting
- rhetorical addresses to the reader
- coding for collocations
- reliability of more first- and third person narrators; the begiiining of the detective story?
- humor and narrator/character reliability
Annotators
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