it’s not a homework from school, officer, it’s just a discussion about references and metaphors and symantics…
hello there again, as usual, i’ve stuffed my bag with qustions, now i’m gonna throw them at you, hoping your level is so high that none of them will go over your head which is what happened with me, they all went over passing like… stop talking and get right to it ( just an attempt hide my lack of similes )….
1 – in this passage :
” They were so far from the sea. A hundred miles away, Mrs. Swithin said; no, perhaps a hundred and fifty. “But they do say,” she continued, “one can hear the waves on a still night. After a storm, they say, you can hear a wave break. . . . I like that story,” she reflected. “Hearing the waves in the middle
of the night he saddled a horse and rode to the sea. Who was it, Bart, who rode to the sea?”
my question is as hers, who rode to the sea? in other words, what’s it taht she’s referring to?
2 – just after that ”
“You can’t expect it brought to your door in a pail of water,” said Mrs. Swithin, “as I remember when we were children, living in a house by the sea. Lobsters, fresh from the lobster pots”
“you can’t expect” as in you wouldn’t expect, right? i know maybe it’s an easy and stupid question to ask, i’m not native, that’s my plea.
3 – the fish arived in this passage :
“The fish had been delivered, Mitchell’s boy, holding them in a crook of his
arm, jumped off his motor bike. There was no feeding the pony with lumps
of sugar at the kitchen door”
feeding a pony at the kitchen door?!!! is there a pony outside the kitchen? really? i remmeber my granny used to tell us about the goat that they had at the door of her room inside the house, that was in old times, so i assume this is like that, right?
4 – in this passage :
” Mrs. Sands held them to her nose. The cat rubbed itself this way, that way against the table legs, against her legs. She would save a slice for Sunny–his drawing-room name Sung-Yen had undergone a
kitchen change into Sunny”
is there really names that go by the place, i know names that change by the people around you, like formal and informal, nichnames and petnames, but don’t know about names that change according to place, and what’s the drawing-room exactly? and why does that name sounds chinese?
5 – ” The Master (his **drawing-room name**; in the kitchen they called him Bartie would bring gentlemen sometimes to see the larder–often when cook wasn’t **dressed** Not to see the hams that hung from hooks, or the butter on **a blue slate**”
so that’s old bart, he has a drawing-room name also? and what that says after ” wasn’t dressed”? “wasn’t dressed” as in “naked” or as in “no apron”
also, what’s a butter on a blue slate? i looked “slate” up, it’s a ” fine-grained grey, green, or bluish-purple metamorphic rock easily split into smooth, flat plates” and from my wikipedia research it’s used in roofing, electric switchboards and relay controls for large electric motors, laboratory bench tops, billiard table tops, whetstone, black boards, writing slates, tombstones…
so when it comes to butter, is it used as a board to put butter on or something?
6 – in this passage :
” then Mrs. Sands took an egg from the brown basket full of eggs; some with yellow fluff sticking to the shells; then a pinch of flour to coat those semi-transparent **slips**; and a crust from the great earthenware crock full of crusts. Then, returning to the kitchen, she made those quick movements at the oven, cinder raking, stoking, **damping**, which sent **strange** echoes through the house
1 – a long, narrow strip of a thin material such as wood 2 – a small piece of paper, typically a form for writing on or one giving printed information.
also, she’s cooking on a hearth? so she’s stoking and damping fire, they’re opposites, right? stoking vs damping?
also, strange echoes, in what sense? because i think” usual” is a more fitting adjective, because she’s cooking everyday so what’s the meaning of strange there?
7 – in this passage :
” Trixie was not a name that suited, as Sands did, the thin, acid woman, red-haired, sharp and clean”
here is acid and sharp synonyms, or is **”sharp”** here means smart?
8 – in this passage :
“while Sands heard the clock tick; saw the cat; noted
a fly buzz; and registered, as her lips showed, a grudge she mustn’t speak
**against** people making work in the kitchen while they had a high old time hanging roses in the barn”
“against” is puzzling, i thought she’s thinking that it’s unfair that she and lucy are working hard to cook meals whilst the young men and girls are having a fun time doing an easy task( hanging roses ), if that is indeed what’s meant by it, then that would make the right order of the sentence is :
a grudge she musn’t speak against people having a high old time hanging roses in the barn while people making work in the kitchen”
am i right or a heretic for doubting the great author virginia woolf?
special thanks to my friend “tolkienfan2759” for helping understand the novel by answering each of these posts, it shows utmost interest and love for the novel, thank you.
also : i side note, i laughed so hard on this passage :
“Trixie was not a name that suited, as Sands did, the thin, acid woman, redhaired, sharp and clean, who never dashed off masterpieces, it was true; but then never dropped hairpins in the soup. “What in the name of Thunder?” Bart had said, raising a hairpin in his spoon, in the old days, fifteen years ago, before Sands came, in the time of Jessie Pook”
old bartie yelling ” what in the name of thunder? ” is hilarious in my imagination.
by SaidNadir2021
1 Comment
2 – no, “you can’t expect” means that someone has unreasonable expectations.
3 – No, people would feed a pony or horse that was outside the kitchen, if a visitor had delivered something to the kitchen or left a horse there for some other reason (perhaps that’s where the hitching-post is). I this case I don’t think there’s actually a pony there; it’s a comment about how modern delivery by motorcycle is.
4 and 5 – it used to be very common for Asian immigrants to Anglicize their name (either by their own choice or because they were required to by their school or workplace), even in the 1990s. The name sounds Chinese because it was.
In England, and to a lesser degree the English colonies, there was a very big distinction in levels of formality between the “gentleman’s” areas and the servants’ areas. So Bartie and Sunny are sort of nicknames, but if they’re servants those might actually be the names that they prefer, with The Master and Sung-Yen being names they use in the “formal” areas of the house just for the sake of decorum.
I don’t know whether the “slate” would be literally made of the kind of rock that is also called slate, but yes, the implication is that the butter is on a thin slab of rock or stone.
6 – from context I expect she is coating thin slices of some kind of food in flour. “Slips” is an unusual way to say it though. Stoking and damping are opposites, yes,
7 – “sharp” could mean “smart” or that she is always dressed and groomed impeccably – not a hair out of place, all her clothes creased and perfect, etc.
8 – “working” and “making work” mean different things in English. The kitchen staff are *working*; the people hanging roses are *making work* for the kitchen staff to do.