Just so you know, we're going to spend some time this week talking about the responses you gave for Assignment #5. But I wanted to give you the next (and likely final) blog assignment for those of you who want to get a jump on things.
First, and foremost, you'll need to finish reading the novel. For the record, this should take you from Chapter XV (page 121) through the end of the novel (page 172). Once you've finished reading the novel, the next step is to answer (and post, via the comments section below) four questions. You must answer questions 1-3, and then choose one of the final three questions (4, 5 or 6) to answer as well.
DEADLINE: You must finish reading the novel and have all four responses posted by the beginning of class on Monday, November 10th.
[Answer all three of the following:]
1. Write about the examples of written correspondence (i.e. letters) in the novel. How do the characters use this form of communication? How (if at all) does it differ, in terms of style and/or content, from the way they speak to each other out loud?
2. Chapters XVI through XIX are all titled “Lying to…”, followed by the name of a character(s). How is Lucy lying to them, as a group, and individually? And ultimately, how (and why) is Lucy lying to herself?
3. What is the significance of the title of the final chapter (XX – “The End of the Middle Ages”)?
[Choose one of the following questions to answer as well:]
4. What’s your opinion of the way in which the novel ends? Appropriate? Satisfying? Satisfactory? Too easy? Explain and expand.
5. Describe the changes in Lucy Honeychurch from the beginning of the novel to the end. In what fundamental and important ways does she change, especially in terms of behavior, attitude and situation?
6. Besides Lucy, who is the most interesting and/or compelling character in the novel? Why? What about this person’s character (behavior, attitudes, etc.) do you find so intriguing?
Once everyone has posted their answers, there will be one final online assignment... maybe two. Stay tuned for more details. ; )
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1. There are two different ways that the characters seem to write to each other in the novel. First off, some of the characters write to each other as a source of gossip or to have a conversation. For example Charlotte and Lucy write to each other about George being present in Lucy’s neighborhood. In these letters, these two write back and forth the same as if they were present in the same room. The other way letters are written are as a form of business. This is shown when Lucy writes to the Miss Alans, or when Cecil writes to the Emersons. These letters are more formal with a question or matter in mind.
2. The titles of these chapters are very appropriate to the content of the novel because Lucy lies to almost everyone in the novel. Lucy is lying to George because when he states his love for her she tells him to leave, and lies to him when saying that she is in love with Cecil. She lies to Cecil by telling him that there is no other man, after breaking off the engagement. Mr. Beebe is lied to by saying that Lucy only needed to go to Greece for independence, and finally Mr. Emerson is lied to when Lucy makes his believe that she is still going to marry Cecil. All of these lies are put forward in order for Lucy to lie to herself, in order for her to refuse to believe that she really is in love with George. She doesn’t want to believe this because I think she wants to stay in her conventional world and not be placed with George on the other side of the fence which is society.
3. I think that Chapter XX is titled “The End of the Middle Ages” because this Chapter describes Lucy and George together as husband and wife and happy. These two are also discussing many different things and is different because in the middle ages women were not valued for their opinions or expected to speak out, but with George, Lucy is shown as a person equal to men.
4. I am a die hard romantic so I loved the end of this story. Showing George and Lucy together, being passionate and in love, seemed perfect to me. They kissed and discussed together while disregarding all rules of society and were equal.
1. The characters use letters as a form of communication to talk more candidly to eachother. It is much more open than their face to face conversations and tends to show their emotions more, as in the case of Lucy's last letter to Charlotte that clearly expresses how annoyed she it.
2. Lucy is constantly trying to deny the love she feels for George by lying to all these people and to herself. She is afraid of showing her feelings for George and what other people will think so she tries to run from them. In order to run, she must lie to her fiance by giving him false information as to why she is leaving him and by telling Mr. Beebe she needs to go to Greece to clear her mind because of the broken engagement.
3. "The End of the Middle Ages" signifies that Lucy is finally stepping out of the restrictions of the uptight and conservative society she was raised in. By accepting and allowing her love of George, she has broken free from the old thinking and moved forward from the mediaeval standards. Lucy is no longer seen as property to a man and is free to think and do as she pleases when she is with George.
6. I think Mr. Emerson is the most interesting character in the novel because he is the most honest and genuine person of all the characters. I like how he disturbs the society he lives in with his unconventional thinking - from not accepting religion to the equality of women to men. Mr. Emerson guides Lucy towards expressing her true feelings and helps her understand how unimportant following the guidelines of society is in regards to happiness and love.
1.) The characters use the letters to gossip about topics they can’t talk about in front of other people. For, example when Lucy and Charlotte write they usually talk about how they both dislike certain things. They are also informal with each other while in public they are formal.
2.) Chapter XVI through XIX are tiled “Lying to ….” because Lucy tells George that she does not have any feelings for him. In reality, Lucy’s feeling for George grows on the inside but she does not realizes until George points it out to Lucy. She also lies to Cecil because she was not truthful about why she is breaking the engagement with him. When Cecil asks if there was another man in her life, and she replies by saying no. This is complete lie to Cecil and herself. She also lies to her mother, Mr. Beebe, the servants, and Freddy because she never really tells them why she broke up with Cecil. She also lies to Mrs. Honeychurch because she lies about her reason to go with Miss. Alans to Athens. Lucy lies to Mr. Emerson because she lies about the trip and she is going with Cecil. In all this events, she is lying to herself about her feeling towards George.
3.) The significance of the last title is that the boundaries between with the high class and lower class are over. Lucy and George are going to marry and nobody is in their way from loving each other. Nobody cares if you fall in love with someone who isn’t in your social group.
4.) The ending of the book was appropriate because George and Lucy end up with each other. It wouldn’t have been a sad ending if Lucy never went to Mr. Emerson and talked to him, and went straight to Athens. The ending would be better if George and Lucy married each other instead of them going back to Pension and talk about Charlotte’s intensions.
1. When characters write in the novel, it is both similar and different to when they talk to each other face to face. When communicating through letters the characters speak both formally and in a business-like manner, like when Mrs. Honeychurch is writing a letter to Cecil’s mother explaining why she has rejected him for the third time at the beginning of part 2; or informally where they are more laid back and just kind of chatting with each other, like when the Miss Alans write to Lucy saying they will be traveling to Greece or the letters between Charlotte and Lucy about George.
2. In these chapters Lucy is lying to everyone because she is hiding her feelings for George and making it seem like she is completely uninterested in him. She ends up lying to herself because by nature she is trying to abide the laws that she was raised by where it would be absurd for her to like such a rude obnoxious “brute” like George. She consistently beats it into her brain that she shouldn’t be thinking of him and almost is lost in her lie when she is about to go to Greece.
3. The title of the final chapter is significant because it shows a major change in society (at least for Lucy) in the novel. All through the novel, especially when she is with Cecil, Lucy is being told what to do and what to think, which goes back to the middle ages where women didn’t have a say in many matters. But then at the end when she marries George, she has a mind of her own she is capable of making decisions for herself. So in a sense the middle ages were destroyed in Lucy’s life after she married George.
4. I liked the ending of the novel, but it seemed too simple; they go away back to Florence and become happy, but everyone else upset with Lucy and her choice. In the last couple of chapters I begin to guess how the ending was turn out and I got pretty close. Even from much earlier in the book you could tell that everyone would be upset if Lucy chose to go with George. But other the ending being predictable I would have Lucy to have received a message from Charlotte, mainly because of how George was talking to Lucy about her and how he thought she was almost happy with how it turned out.
1.) The letters in the story demonstrate a different, non-verbal, interaction between the characters that allows them to express feeling more freely. The letters between Charlotte and Lucy, (especially Lucy’s response), are best described as open or unrestrained in that they speak more how they FEEL rather than trying to uphold the rigid upper-class conversation “do’s” and “don’ts”. Lucy speaks to Charlotte in a way she would not if they were face to face, most likely due to the fact that it is easier and more comfortable for them to express themselves through a letter than through conversation.
2.) Lucy lies uncontrollably in the story through Chapters XVI and XIX to avoid the love she fails to grasp between herself and George. She lies individually to almost everyone of importance. George, she lies to by implying she has no feelings for him, clearly fighting the fact that she does. Cecil, she lies to by stating that there is no other man she loves, and at this point she becomes more conscious of the fact that she DOES love George. Mr. Beebe and Mrs. Honeychurch, she lies to by not giving the true reason for her wanting to leave to Greece. And Mr. Emerson and the remaining characters, she fails to mention the engagement break off. In this “web” of complicated lies, Lucy is lying to herself in the end, about her love to George. I must say I found this ironic, the one person the author has us believing Lucy trusts the LEAST at this point (Charlotte) is the one of the only ones we find out she is NOT lying to.
3.) The significance of the title of this chapter is obvious. Lucy starts off in the book as a “shy” and easily manipulated character, in that she has lived her life, prior to the events of the book, having others make decisions for her, such as how to dress and act in public. She slowly develops more towards an activist state of mind beginning to think for herself and make her own decisions. Although they remain warped by the comments of other such as Charlotte and George, and the obvious standards of the upper class. She eventually, after much thought, comes to the realization that this is HER decision and no ones else’s and regardless of how she will be viewed, she breaks free from the “middle ages” or past times and accepts her love for George. Also, during the medieval times women were viewed as property to men, which brings us back to George’s statements about how Cecil only wants her as a “material” and not to love her. This could illustrate how she is ending the relationship with Cecil, (being a “material” or property), otherwise known as the “Middle Ages” ;), and starting a new life with George, one in which she is loved and respected and a person.
4.) AHHH, how I have been dying to answer this question! I found the ending of the book extraordinarily predictable. Once we were presented with the kiss scene between George and Lucy, and how she “denied” him, it was obvious this was the conflict in the novel. It was only furthered by the introduction of Cecil Vyse to be Lucy’s fiancé, (the catalyst of the story), as well as Lucy remaining unconscious to her love to George, that brought Lucy and George’s love to an (almost) unachievable point. It could just be the fact that this sort of plot (The unattainable love of two characters, separated by an impassable gap, often a specific social class or group) has been used in acres of stories since, that made it so expected. I’d like to say it wasn’t but I can’t be sure. I actually thought at some points that the story might not end as it did, such as when Lucy denied George’s kiss the second time! But these events just served to heighten the conclusions effect. Overall, I enjoyed reading the book very much, and found it very humorous, I just had hoped the ending to be slightly less evident.
1. The letters seem more open and personal. The characters feel like they are allowed to show their true selves and feelings when they write a letter. It is fine for them to tell a person off in a letter because it is not a direct form of communication. Lucy describes harsh words for Miss Bartlett because she doesn’t have to see her directly after she tells her. Society in the story makes it seem as if you have to put on a show for others. You are supposed to hide your true self and feelings when you are directly speaking to somebody because that is the rule of society. However, through letters, even uptight members of the upper class can say what they want.
2. Lucy is lying to everybody because you she doesn’t tell anybody how she actually feels about George. She told Cecil that there wasn’t another man. At that point she was still confused and afraid to admit that she loved George, so she covered her feelings. Also, she didn’t want to shame her family by telling them that she loved a man from the lower class. It was against society’s rules and that is why she wouldn’t ultimately tell everybody about her love for George. She lied to Mr. Beebe because she said she wanted to go to Greece to get away from the Cecil break-up when really it was about Lucy trying to get away from George(?). Lucy is afraid to be her own person. She grew up rigidly and refuses to allow control over her own life. She wouldn’t confess her love for George because of the class system she grew up in. She told herself that she didn’t love him because she was afraid of what society would say. Thankfully, she eventually said I don’t care.
3. Lucy has finally broken away from the strict standards and rules of society. The Middle Ages was a period where everything had a class structure and everybody was set in their class. Any movement towards another class and you were considered an outlaw. She finally allows herself to admit she loves George, which is an automatic step away from an inflexible upper class. She is finally allowing herself to do what she wants and not what other people tell her to do.
4. The ending to the novel was fitting. I don’t see any other way the story could have ended without destroying the book completely. In a way, I was upset because I knew that she was going to finally be with George. There were so many different ways I knew it was going to happen. The back of the book, the movie, the Yvonnator. However, I also knew because there was no other possible ending. I would not have read the book if there was another ending because the book would never have become famous. The only other ending that could have possibly worked would be if Lucy had decided to give up on men completely and just live her life by her own standards. But this would have fallen short in completing the importance of this romantic style of story. I was happy to see that she finally got what she wanted and that she could finally see society in an equal manner.
1. Written correspendence is used in this novel as a form of gossip as well as communiacation of feelings towards a specific person. When Lucy writes to Charlotte it is with more feeling than in person, as when Charlotte writes back. Writing letters to each other is a form of being free and allowing them to write what they feel.
2. In Chapter XVI, Lucy lies to George when she tells him she is in love with Cecil and want to marry him. She is lying to herself because she does not truly love Cecil and would rather be with George. Instead she tells George to leave. In Chapter XVII, Lucy lies to Cecil when she tells him she loves no other man, she just wants to be treated like a woman rather than some "painting" or portrait he owns. Lucy is lying to herself when she tells Cecil she does not love anyone else, when she is in love with George. In Chapter XVIII, Lucy lies to Mr. Beebe, telling him she needs to go to Greece with the Allans to get away from everything at home and clear her mind. She also lies to Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy, and the Servants when Lucy tells them she does not love George. Finally, Lucy lies to Mr. Emerson when she tells him she is still engaged and getting married to Cecil.
3. In chapter XX I think "The End of Middle Ages," signifies Lucy's departure out of the uptight and strict family she was raised in, into a life she wants to live with a man she wants to love rather than someone her family wants her to love.
4. After finishing the novel, I was happy with the way it ended, however it was almost too predictable. I like a little surprise because it makes it all the more exciting, but I have always enjoyed romantic endings. Overall, I thought it was appropriate in that Lucy goes for the typical "lower class" man whom she loves, rather than the "upper class" man whom her parents wanted her to marry to keep in their conventional society.
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