Free indirect discourse? Is Mrs. Mooney saying that it's good for business that Polly is there? Or is this a sarcastic, annoyed comment on young men?

Seems the opposite of her mother in her looks: soft, delicate, and light - perhaps her characters says something about youth/its potential to become bitter over time and through hardship?

Interesting that she's married ("Mrs."?) but is still defined here as her father's daughter...also the "butcher" part makes me think already that she's a little cold and maybe intimidating because of a butcher's job?

Maybe I'm trying way too hard to look for references to the church, but one of the things I remember from Art Hum is the reoccurrence of the usage of light to symbolize understanding, especially from God/in cathedrals. I wonder if "the houses had grown sombre" shows how when others aren't looking or outside of the context of the church, people can be serious and honest..

Another commentary on the hypocrisy/backwardness of the church and its antiquated traditions and thoughts? I wonder if "old useless papers" is a reference to the numerous texts of the church.

Possible pun perhaps to comment on the church's hypocrisy/oppression/lack of addressing anything honestly? There's a lot of teachings/recordings of Jesus doing things that have to do with eye in the Bible (look at the plank in your own eye, healing of blind men, if your eye sins, tear it out, etc).

Funny that Cotter alluded to the narrator being a child, but when he wants to think of happy things, he thinks of Christmas (which I associate with kids getting presents, Santa Claus, etc, so I think of it as a child's holiday)

Is Old Cotter just really that slow and scatterbrained that he has to "arrange" his opinion? What does "arranging" your opinion mean? Trying to make it as appealing as possible for someone else? Trying to actually come up with what you think about? Although I think it's vague for a reason, however you interpret this says a lot more about you than about the narrator I think, who has clearly already made up their mind about Old Cotter.

Interesting that while the aunt said "not good", Cotter said "bad" again...he seems to not be consistent with having strong opinions...

Super interesting how Joyce complicates the narrator's perspective on..death? The man's words? "It" sounds like it's some kind of elusive power/force in the first part of the sentence, but then "I longed to be nearer to it" makes it sound almost like a friend or even a lover, and finally the last part of the sentence makes "it" seem like an artist.

My grandma used to grow these in our backyard, and I grew up anticipating their bloom, only to see them shrivel up and brown a couple weeks later...for the plant to stay alive, they must be vigorously pruned and cut back regularly...so this choice of flowers, I think, is pretty apt for the themes of youth/entering society/the fear of age.

With the "lifted" way that the Leila and Laura are transported, this seems a rather weak grasp for the chaos/crowdedness of their travel...I think this phrase shows how Leila is out of touch with her literal experience, doesn't take ownership or responsibility for what happens ("lifted" implies a third party who lifts), and yet still experiences things even though her grip (ha) on reality is weak.

Yet another phrase that has to do with the complicated relationship between internal/external? The comparison of the shoes to birds that "chase each other" seems to be the opposite of what we saw in the car - here, Leila is project her sense of freedom that she experiences internally to interpret and give meaning to things she sees externally.

A genius use of a phrase - describes Leila's physical separation and location from the rest of the group, but also her emotional/internal separation from her external experience! Also gives me slight Cinderella complex vibes..

One idea I've thought of while reading all these Mansfield short stories is tracking the imaginary and the real: all of her characters live in a world where they feel stuck or imprisoned and seem to imagine a different world (or at least imagine being out of the world they live in).

An incredibly genius way of describing pastries instead of saying something like "unique, masterfully made, but a little melty". I take from this that the pastries (perhaps like the place that the characters are in and the world in which the girl inhabits) represent some kind of glamorous, overwhelming, but ultimately shallow and meaningless escape.

I think it's pretty amazing how Mansfield uses this motif to illustrate the carelessness/lack of responsibility of Mrs. Raddick - it'd be interesting to see if she does this for other ways. Character-development seems like a really hard thing to track/write a program for because every character has different traits and isn't just described by adjectives.

This description really helped envision the woman because of the order of clothing in closest to the body to the most external. I think it'd be really interesting to see how orders of things affect our understanding/ability to imagine.

This word “extravagant” keeps coming up in Jose’s and Mrs. Sheridan’s scolding of Laura, and I’m starting to wonder if it meant the same thing in the historical context of 1922 as it does now…

I’m imaging the sound/volume/rhythm of this, and I think it’d be really interesting as to how authors write sound. I remembering reading in The Moonstone a lot of Sergeant Cuff singing “The Last Rose of Summer”, but I don’t remember any individual notes being written…this says a lot about Laura and the effect it has on her and the attention she’s paying to the music maybe?

This sentence, paired with what she just said about the workmen, tells me that she actually does feel them..she just doesn’t realize that she does in her feelings of superiority/objectification over/of the workmen (or “feel” to her actually means “suffer”, in which case, I think that dismissal of the true meaning of a word says something about her character)

This kind of language is so ambiguous - is Laura talking to herself? to us? to the workmen? to God or some being? How do measure thoughts vs. breaking the fourth wall or changes in “literal” thoughts or dialogue that has a clear, preconceived audience vs. stream of consciousness?

Combined with Miss Clack, Godfrey Ablewhite’s story now seems to be some kind of commentary on hypocrisy in the church..obviously his name also reeks of some kind of purity (able/white, the color of innocence), as does Miss Clack’s when hers is thought of as more of an annoying, explicit expression of her self-righteousness.

“Prophetic discovery” here seems to imply the Biblical/religious/transcendent nature that Robinson Crusoe has to Betteredge...having seen Betteredge use the book to seek wisdom and comfort, is the author trying to make a commentary about religion or at least the things we become religious towards?

I find it so interesting that these are excerpts of Jennings’ journal rather than written accounts to share with the family like everyone else’s..it seems to speak to Jennings’ level of self-awareness, as if he knows that his own account will be subjective, but he tries to give the most honest version of his side.

It’s funny how each narrative really reflects not the events that character witnesses objectively, but instead the lens in which the character views the world. I thought Betteredge a prideful, bitter old servant, but Franklin seems to think him a thoughtful, gracious friend.

Funny (but also extremely sad) how Franklin talks about traveling in “the East” in general, but then says here that he is traveling back to”his own country”. It implies that “the East” is all one country or at least that specificities when it comes to everything foreign to him isn’t important.

Already I can sense the lack of self-awareness that Franklin has in his position/privilege in life...he doesn’t have the side notes/commentaries of our other two narrators, showing us that he doesn’t feel the need to prove himself because he takes his place in life for granted.

“Their respectable English friend” (with the repetition of the phrase later) implies that “Oriental” people can’t be respectable on their own or that somehow they’re thought of as not respectable until proving themselves to be some kind of exception. The characters from India seemed to be treated even worse and thought of as savage or ill-intentioned. Attitudes towards the foreign (including how Betteredge sees the countries that Mr. Franklin studied in) in this book seem to be colonial in that they’re objectifying, antagonistic, and dehumanizing.

Miss Clack frustrates me already. On one hand, she seems to be aware of how prideful she is (“Christian humility conquered sinful pride”), but at the same time, she also seems prideful about being self-aware of her pride - “thanks to my early training” seems self-congratulatory and even “Christian humility” has an air of self-righteousness, as if she wants to remind herself/us that she’s superior because of her humility.

This made me laugh because I feel like Collins is just making fun of self-righteous of Christianity with such a ridiculous statement like this. If someone is concerned with the whole of their stockings being “spotless”, they clearly care a LOT about their appearance (which shows them as somewhat vain and maybe hypocritical in the case of the comparison to Christianity because the stockings are an article of clothing that no one really pays attention to). Also, Miss Clack’s comment about stockings “ready to put on a moment’s notice” suggests that it’s both expected and normal to take off your faith, so faith is just something that you put on to maybe look nice or be presentable in front of others?

Miss Clack seems to include a lot of these little (almost breaking the fourth wall type) commentaries…ultimately, they annoy me, but I think they’re probably important to show how she feels she must constantly justify herself and confirm her good intentions/character. Other examples include “in a tone of Christian interest” or this one “as all serious people know”, which I guess aren’t particularly intentionally objective, which is why they come across as her needing to prove herself in some way.

This is the third time that Sergeant Cuff is saying “Wait a little” to Betteredge. This phrase, although creating an aura of mystery/suspense, reminds me of the request at the beginning of the novel to the family to suspend judgment until the story is over (and thus maybe is a reminder to the reader?). However, the phrase is also kind of funny to me because at this point, “wait[ing] a little” to the audience really has the opposite effect, despite the suspense the phrase creates: instead of putting down the book and literally waiting, we actually want to keep reading. This makes me think that there might be an interesting way to measure suspense in literature (this one being some kind of technique through reverse psychology?)

I looked up a recording of “The Last Rose of Summer”, and the rose in the lyrics/story of the song seem to fit Rosanna (who obviously has “rose” in her name)...the story is about the last rose of summer that has survived all the other roses that have died and faded. Ultimately though, the narrator decides to kill it because it seems so sad that the rose is the last one, saying in the last stanza that they would choose a quick death than to be like the friendless, lonely rose. Could this be parallel to Rosanna being the rose and somehow the narrator being Betteredge/Lady Verinder breaking her off into being with people she doesn’t fit in with as some twisted Christian act in the name of helping the poor?

(Similar to what Meredith said earlier, I think?) This is the second time this chapter that Betteredge has referred to Lady Verinder as “so good” to do something. What’s his relationship with her supposed to be? Equally mysterious? Somewhere between love, respect, attracted, and reverent? Their dynamic seems to me to be some kind of commentary on gender roles/dynamics as he worships her, is her most trusted/special servant, yet is her servant/employee whom she refers to by his first name.

When the narrator switches into first-person in this new sentence, I wonder if it’s really Collins speaking - especially when he mentions “the gentlemen who make a business and a living out of writing books”; Is this a stream of consciousness (similar to Woolf?)? Can it be measured quantifiably? To me, streams of consciousness, while sometimes inarguably clear, always have something to do with the readers and how they view themselves, a factor that seems so subjective and wildly varying from person to person.

In a mystery that I presume will highlight a person as the main detective, I find it kind of convenient that the moon-god (a god) has to be taken care of, transported, and worshipped in order to survive. To me that might show how the novel of the mystery is used to highlight humans’ intellect in place of a more traditional, humble stance relative to gods/religion/deities. This is also supported by the activity of all the people of different religion, but not the gods themselves (except in places where they are moved).

Interesting how Collins describes smell here - with a visual of an experience that probably most of us have seen (although this one is pretty specific in just how bad the smell must be because dogs have a better sense of smell than we do, so if we find it bad, they must find it torturous). This made me wonder if there’s a quantifiable way to understand how scents are described in writing!

This seems the perfect way to set up a novel that has questionable or vague circumstances - have the narrator ask a third-party (the family) to suspend judgement and in doing so, asking the audience to suspend judgement while also making them more aware of their gift of objectivity by being removed as not knowing the characters yet.