Hello, one and all! I hope that spring break is finding you well. For those of you in Jason’s class, you may be happy to know that the statement “No woman has ever won best director” has ended, as Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker. I am personally unhappy that Morgan Freeman was denied best actor yet again, but that is neither here nor there.
I decided to delay this typing for Monday, partially because I wanted to get other projects done first, and partially because it made sense to put exactly one week between our meetings. As we discussed in the last class, this blog will be about my thoughts on Ruth Hall and Roman numerals.
First, the numerals. I will be numbering my thoughts with them to use as examples, but I thought I should explain what I know first. I hope I do it well enough to be understood by everybody who does not know numerals already. Most of us know the first two or three characters: I, V, and X. I is single, V is five, and X is ten. From what I have seen, no character is ever repeated more than three times in a row for any number, so there are characters for every fifth change. The first six numbers can be demonstrated by the Star Wars films. Episode I=1, II=2, III=3, IV=4, V=5, and VI=6.
As I said, these change with every fifth character. So 4-8 focus on the V. IV is 1 before 5, or 4. VIII is three after 5, or 8. IX is then 1 before 10, or 9, and XIII is three after 10, or 13. Since characters can repeat next to each other up to three times, XX is 20, and XXX is 30.
For numbers below the main character, the last non-5 number is used. (It makes sense; five before ten is five, and fifty before one-hundred is fifty, so VX or LC would be redundant.) So one before ten is IX, and ten before fifty is XL. The most confusing number in our book is XLIX. That is, ten before fifty-nine, or forty-nine.
Once you know these numbers, going up isn’t too hard. I don’t know if there is a numeral for 500, but 100-C, and 1000=M. So we started this class in MMX, and many of us signed up for it in MMIX. I was born in 1985, which is expressed as MCMLXXXV.
Hopefully, that should give you a “working knowledge” of the way these things work. Now, on to my Ruth Hall points.
I. Time. The timeframe of Ruth Hall was hard for me to follow. Consequently, her age was a bit of a question for me. I assumed she got married at a normal age for the time, around 16. It sounded like her first daughter, Daisy, was about 8 when she died, and assuming she was conceived on Ruth’s wedding night, that would place Ruth around 25 at the time. I don’t recall the other daughters being mentioned before Daisy died, so I assume they were born afterward. But I never really caught their ages for the rest of the book, anyway. All I know is that they are old enough to walk about by themselves, which I want to say puts them around 5 and 8. Again, guessing Ruth wasn’t pregnant when Daisy died, that would make her about 34 at the end of the story. Does that sound right to anyone else? Does anyone know the exact ages?
II. We mentioned how Harry is barely a character. He does almost nothing when he is alive, and dies early in. I thought of him more as a developmental character than a full character. By this I mean he was more an image people could look to than an actual person. In this, he was very similar to the character St. Aubert in Anne Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho, which many of us read last semester. St. Aubert also dies fairly early in the novel, but his presence allows Emily to grow and develop as a character. He isn’t so much defined as a character as he allows other characters to be defined by their interactions with him.
III. I have a fairly unpopular opinion for a Lit major. That is, I really dislike Jane Austen. (Much safer to say in a blog; you will read this before throwing things at me.) But thinking back on this book made me tweak my opinion a bit. I was reminded of a story a friend told me. The story goes that there was a debate in Parliament about the merits of Shakespeare, and a man stood up to comment. “What’s so great about his work? It’s just famous sayings strung together!” While few in the assembly disputed this claim, a few pointed out that these were mostly sayings he invented or popularized. This was how I came to like Ruth Hall. When I first read it, a lot of the story felt predictable and formulaic. But then it occurred to me that this was probably an original story at the time, and others have copied it.
IV. In the spirit of language, I have a word for the day: nepotism. Derived from the Latin “nepos” for “nephew,” this word describes promotions given to friends or relatives regardless of merit. I wondered how much this word was used derogatorily at the time, and if Hyacinth would have had to fear people accusing him of it if he printed his sister’s works. I understand that people in the story (and probably reality) felt distaste for his treatment of his sister, but what would have been the backlash if he had printed her works himself, and then announced that they were related later?
V. I had one thought I think may be worth a paper, and I want to ask everyone’s opinion on it. I have read a number of books from the Antebellum period, which celebrate the country and deprecate the city. Does the way the city is used to bring success- but not happiness- to Ruth make this an example of the style?
VI. I don’t remember whether we brought this up in class, but the comment on piety as Ruth heard church bells as she waited for the wedding was strange to me. There is almost no mention of religion in the book, and I have to wonder if that was a commentary on her faith.
VII. Finally, I wanted to respond to the comment that most women were unlikeable in this story. To those who feel this, I say most people were unlikeable. While Harry was good, remember argument II. Ruth has a male admirer, but this mostly gives the story more of a happy ending. And while there are male and female fans in the letters, they matter so little that they are practically asexual.
Well, those are my thoughts for now. I encourage discussion, so leave a comment, prove me wrong, do as you will. This is your participation for the week. ;) And remember, we need to have an idea for our final paper for the next class period.
