Consistent with the reoccurring Christian/Catholic references throughout the stories

It's interesting to see how these women are displayed to be uniform: steaming hands, petticoats, blouses, red steaming arms -- almost stereotypical

This is an oddly specific way to describe Maria, and might set up for something unexpected to happen down the line

hyphenation seems to be more occurrent in this text: 'music-hall', 'water-jug', 'looking-glass'

Or said another way: less than 13 minutes has passed since she noticed the bells weren't ringing

It's telling that the mother repeatedly compares the situation surrounding the affair/daughter's relationship as a game or challenge -- a win or lose situation.

Fun usage of alliteration here -- and with colors too, like some of the other texts we read from Mansfield

Earlier, Joyce connected "death" with going to a better place (i.e. Heaven, God), whereas now it seems to be leading to the opposite (Devil). What's more interesting is that the earlier texts were around recounting the life of the deceased and now, it's around the impact on the survivors.

Interesting to see this nickname being used as a final desperation; this seems to be the first (and only) usage of the nickname.

"It was that chalice he broke" was referenced in The Sisters -- this seems to be a powerful symbol through throughout the Dubliners texts.

Drawing a social graph between the characters of Joyce's universe would be interesting as they all seem to be connected

Noticed this usage again when describing another character the young narrator encounters. It seems as if this is a common theme -- young boy encountering strange older men.

Interesting to see how the narrator refers to Cotter as "Old Cotter" vs. other characters referring to him as "Mr. Cotter" It matches the relatively younger characterstic.

As mentioned by a couple other annotations, it seems as if Joyce might be providing some commentary around the scandals against the Church -- which seems to line up with the time this was published (20th century)

This seems to be an allusion to something larger -- it seems intentionally vague, as to get the reader to explore why things could be weird.

Mansfield seems to enjoy using references to other living creatures (i.e. spider, mouse, bulldog) to put the human characters in perspective.

It just came to my attention that almost all of these short stories was centered around family dynamic -- whether it was from a child or the parent

Seems like Mansfield is hinting at an inflection point. If this is anything like Marriage A la Mode, this likely means something depressing for the familiy

Baby owls in the moonlight seem to be her comfort zone -- the place where she feels most at home

This feels like it could have come right out of 'The Young Girl'. -- especially with the reference to Heaven(ly)

'Pang' is not the most common word, but I noticed this also in Marriage a la Mode

This is almost like she was initiated into the elite bourgeois -- abandoning her old life and adopting new mannerisms.

A reference back to the 'affair' at the beginning of the text.

Another reference to the luxury of the train. Sequentially: First-class smoker (alone), old train (w/ Isabel), and First-class smoker again.

Previously boarding a first-class smoker, William will now embark on this horrid old train

The narrator seems to really want the readers to see that the marriage was a mess -- especially with the repetitive usage of superlatives and extreme qualifiers!

William seems to associate his emotions to freshness. Here with his wife, Isabel, and earlier with the 'fresh pang of dissapointment'

Could this word be foreshadowing to something larger (i.e. an actual affair) in the future?

Seems to be a rather humorous comparison to compare a person to a bunch of edible objects

A reoccurring reference seems to be labeling types of creatures/archetypes: the youth, gamblers (with claws), beasts, etc.

This sets up the the subsequent descriptions to tie back to that of a gambler -- ancient yet extravagantly dressed

Another notable choice with respect to the girls being portrayed as cats earlier (who then consume fish).

'Little' used to such a holy sacrament seems like a very intentional choice. it makes it feel very inappropriate or unorthodox.

Seems as if Mansfield references death frequently in her short stories

Interesting juxtaposition between these two girls as black cats, and this small helpless mouse

Blue seems to be one of the more (if not most) used colors in this text. This use-case is especially interesting, given that in American english, grass is usually described as green. I know at least in certain asian languages (i.e. Korean, Japanese), green and blue are used interchangeably

Lilies is an interesting choice of flowers (and likely intentional) as they are often associated with death and used for funerals https://www.teleflora.com/funeral-sympathy-collection/funeral-flowers-meaning#:~:text=Lilies,faith%2Dbased%20or%20religious%20service.

This word has only been used 2x total in the entire novel -- a near hapax! I wonder what other (near) hapaxes exist -- though its easy to do now via nltk.

Interesting to see this old-school way of writing ;today; -- though it likely makes sense given the timing of the novel. I realized there is literally no usage of "today" while 45 instances of to-day.

'Hindoo' as the noun (as opposed to Indians, Jugglers, etc) have been rarely used in the text until the end. It was used earlier when describing the legend and dropped in frequency.

The public vs private comparison seemed to be a consistent theme throughout the text -- for varying narrators

This portion of the text seems to have much less dialogue in comparison to the prior narratives (by nature of this being extracted from a journal). It would be interesting to explore how the variance (i.e. .vocab) of words is dependent on the number of dialogues (or speakers) present in a section.

This seems like a reference back to the "horrible smelling" paint and the induced drug-like state

This may not be intentional, but I am keeping in mind that this is all a narrative from Franklins POV -- which makes it rather difficult to believe a truly accurate recollection of a letter as verbose as it was. Unless the letter was on hand while this narrative was written, it feels like there could be a bunch of lost details.

It's fascinating to think that a simple letter (albeit met with a suicide) could make Franklin second guess his own well-being and ability to live a normal life. This would be the equivalent to a character "finding out that everything was a lie".

It would be interesting to compare Betteredge's dialogue with Franklin in Franklin's narrative vs. in Betteredge's narrative and vice versa. This could show:

1. how consistent Collins is, or
2. how the characters view themselves vs. how the other characters view them

Betteredge made it clear with his obsession with Crusoe in The First Narrative. It's entertaining to see how obvious it is from an outsider's perspective as well -- in this case from Franklin.

An interesting exercise would be to examine and compare .concordance("Oriental") vs .concordance("Indian"). While they were often used to describe the same group of people, it seems as if they weren't used 100% synonymously

Indians in. plural form (including jugglers) seem to only ever be reference to a trio. So far -- and most likely for the rest of the novel -- Indians are always in group of 3 (as it ties to the ancient story) or in singular form.

It seems as if Collins like to explicitly emphasize the background of the narrators and fit them under stereotypes. We saw this with Clack and Christianity, and now Bruff with law.

Clack seems to be rather defensive. She seems to recognize that an outsider can see her as irreverent, yet seems to fight against that view -- as if she is in denial

It seems like Collins is really trying to portray Clack as devout. This devoutness pervades throughout her reactions thus far and seems to form a heavy bias in her observations.

It would most certainly seem as if running a nltk.generate() on Clack's narrative would show a bunch of pious vocabulary

This is the first(?) time Betteredge is using the Italian/German/French descriptors in conjunction with English via "-Englishman". This contrasts his earlier descriptions that included English as a distinct trait (i.e. "He had his French side, and his German side, and his Italian side–the original English foundation showing through")

This is an interesting conjecture as Rosanna is quite literally a servant/maid by occupation, and similarly, she is potentially a servant of the crime.

Once again, Betteredge paints a very descriptive picture of a newly-introduced character. When Betteredge did this previously with Rachel's introduction, he completely contrasted his early descriptions, later down the line. This could very well be a similar introduction that gets refuted.

Is Betteredge suggesting drug usage here? It seems as if he is correlating this whiff to the unpleasant smell from the paint?

[for discussion] What is the meaning of this juxtaposition?

The author seems to like writing these isolated short-sentences to switch.between the dates.

This word has been used many times in correspondence with the "unknown" and mysterious out-of-sight land.

It's interesting that Betteredge calls out the reader directly -- almost trying to win over the reader's side. It alludes to a decision that will eventually be met with regret in hindsight, yet justifiable at the time

Could this be related to the cursed dagger and/or the dreams of Vishnu from the beginning of the text?

I appreciate the use of this private/public juxtaposition to dramatize the subsequent "storming". It really sets the tone.