Grief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  When I got to the hospital, he was in a bed in the emergency room, his eyes closed. Mom and Lori were standing next to him. “It’s just the machines keeping him alive at his point,” Mom said. I knew Dad would have hated that, spending his final moments in a hospital hooked up to machines. He’d have wanted to be out in the wild somewhere. He always said that when he died, we should put him on a mountaintop and let the buzzards and coyotes tear his body apart. I had this crazy urge to scoop him up in my arms and charge through the doors—to check out Rex Walls–style one last time. Instead, I took his hand. It was warm and heavy. An hour later, they turned the machines off. • • • In the months that followed, I found myself always wanting to be somewhere other than where I was. If I was at work, I’d wish I were at home. If I was in the apartment, I couldn’t wait to get out of it. If a taxi I had hailed was stuck in traffic for over a minute, I got out and walked. I felt best when I was on the move, going someplace rather than being there. I took up ice-skating. I rose early in the morning and made my way through the quiet, dawn-lit streets to the rink, where I laced up my skates so tightly my feet throbbed. I welcomed the numbing cold and even the jolt of my falls on the hard, wet ice. The fast-paced, repetitive maneuvers distracted me, and sometimes I went back at night to skate again, returning home only when it was late and I was exhausted. It took me a while to realize that just being on the move wasn’t enough; that I needed to reconsider everything. • • • A year after Dad died, I left Eric. He was a good man, but not the right one for me. And Park Avenue was not where I belonged. I took a small apartment on the West Side. It had neither a doorman nor a fireplace, but there were large windows that flooded the rooms with light, and parquet floors and a small foyer, just like that first apartment Lori and I had found in the Bronx. It felt right. I went ice-skating less often, and when my skates were stolen, I never replaced them. My compulsion to be always on the move began to fade. But I liked to go for long walks at night. I often walked west toward the river. The city lights obscured the stars, but on clear nights, I could see Venus on the horizon, up over the dark water, glowing steadily. V [image "Images" file=Image00012.jpg] THANKSGIVING I WAS STANDING ON the platform with my second husband, John.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  That is the sum of it. So on his deathbed he sent for Emily, and for Palamon, and whispered to them his dying words. ‘The woeful spirit in my heart cannot begin to tell my grief to you, sweet lady, whom I love most. I am about to die. Now that my life is over I bequeath to you above all others, lady, the service of my spirit. What is this woe? What are the pains so strong that I have suffered for you? And for so long? What is this death that comes for me? Alas, Emily, from whom I must depart for ever! You are the queen of my heart, my wife, my sweetheart, and the ender of my life. What is this life? What do men know of it? We are in love and then we are in the cold grave; there we lie alone, without any company. Farewell my sweet enemy, my Emily! Yet before I leave you take me softly in your arms, for love of God, and listen to what I say. My dear cousin, Palamon, is with us. For a long time there was strife and anger between us. We fought each other for the right to claim you. But I pray to Jupiter now to give me the power to portray him properly; to depict, that is to say, his truth and honour; to celebrate his wisdom and humility; to applaud his nobility of character; to describe his noble lineage, and his devotion to all the knightly virtues. He is a servant, too, in the cause of love. So by the great gods I recommend him to you, Emily, to be your lover and your husband. There is no one on earth more worthy. He will serve you for the rest of his life. If you do decide to marry, do not forget this gentle man.’ At this point the speech of Arcite began to fail. The cold of death had travelled from his feet to his chest; his limbs grew weak and pale from loss of vital strength. Only his intellect remained. But that, too, was dimmed when his heart grew feeble and felt the approach of death. His eyes began to close, and his breath was weak. Yet still he gazed at Emily. His last words were ‘Have pity, Emily!’ And then his soul changed house. I do not know where it travelled. I have never been to that distant country. I am not a theologian. I can say nothing. And why should I repeat the speculations of those who profess to know? There is nothing about souls in the volume where I found this old story. Arcite is dead. That is all I can tell you. May his god, Mars, guide his spirit. And what of those left in life? Emily shrieked. Palamon howled. Theseus led his sister-in-law, swooning, from the deathbed. There is no point spending more time recounting how her night and morning were spent in tears.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  there will be many flatterers and time-servers in your retinues; they will please you more than those who tell the truth, but take care. Read Ecclesiastes. There may be treachery at court. So Chanticleer stood up on tiptoe, stretched his neck, and closed his eyes before beginning his song. That was the moment that the fox jumped from the cabbage patch and seized the cock by the throat; then he ran off into the wood, with no one in pursuit. Destiny cannot be averted. Fate will have its way - if only Chanticleer had not flown down from his perch, if only Pertelote had taken her husband’s dream more seriously. All this happened on a Friday, by the way. It is well known to be an unlucky day. Oh Venus, goddess of love, this cock was your most fervent devotee. He did everything in his power to serve you. He did it all for pleasure, not to fill the world with more birds. How can you allow him to die? I wish that I had the eloquence of Geoffrey of Vinsauf, who wrote a famous elegy when his sovereign, Richard of the Lion Heart, was killed by an arrow. Why do I not have the words, and the learning, to lament this woeful Friday? Why cannot I express my grief for the demise of the cock? In the hen-run itself there was such a wail of sorrow, louder than the plaint the ladies of Troy made when their city was taken. The poor birds made more noise than Hecuba, on seeing the death of her husband at the hands of Pyrrhus. When Chanticleer was taken off, they screamed. And what of Pertelote? She was beside herself. She was frantic with grief, in more agony than the wife of Hasdrubal, who was killed as Carthage was destroyed in flame. She was so full of torment and of rage that she hopped on to a bonfire and burned herself to death. Unhappy birds! You cried as much as the wives of Rome when Nero burned down the city. They watched their husbands perish in the flames. They were guiltless of any crime, but they were condemned to death. Let me return to the story. When the poor widow and her two daughters heard the crying and confusion of the hens, they rushed into the yard. They were just in time to see the fox racing back to the wood with Chanticleer in his grip. So they called out: ‘Harrow! Harrow! The fox! The fox! Havoc! Havoc!’ They ran after him, and they were joined in the pursuit by the whole village. There was Talbot and Garland and Malkyn, still with her distaff in her hand. The dog, Colin, sprinted beside them with his tail up. The cows and the calves, even the pigs, were roused by all the shouting and all the barking. They were all running as if their hearts would break.

• From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

  Hence, Kristeva concludes that “poetic language would be for its questionable subject-in-process the equivalent of incest.” 8 The breaking of Symbolic language against its own founding law or, equivalently, the emergence of rupture into language from within its own interior instinctuality, is not merely the outburst of libidinal heterogeneity into language; it also signifies the somatic state of dependency on the maternal body prior to the individuation of the ego. Poetic language thus always indicates a return to the maternal terrain, where the maternal signifies both libidinal dependency and the heterogeneity of drives. In “Motherhood According to Bellini,” Kristeva suggests that, because the maternal body signifies the loss of coherent and discrete identity, poetic language verges on psychosis. And in the case of a woman’s semiotic expressions in language, the return to the maternal signifies a prediscursive homosexuality that Kristeva also clearly associates with psychosis. Although Kristeva concedes that poetic language is sustained culturally through its participation in the Symbolic and, hence, in the norms of linguistic communicability, she fails to allow that homosexuality is capable of the same nonpsychotic social expression. The key to Kristeva’s view of the psychotic nature of homosexuality is to be understood, I would suggest, in her acceptance of the structuralist assumption that heterosexuality is coextensive with the founding of the Symbolic. Hence, the cathexis of homosexual desire can be achieved, according to Kristeva, only through displacements that are sanctioned within the Symbolic, such as poetic language or the act of giving birth: By giving birth, the women enters into contact with her mother; she becomes, she is her own mother; they are the same continuity differentiating itself. She thus actualizes the homosexual facet of motherhood, through which a woman is simultaneously closer to her instinctual memory, more open to her psychosis, and consequently, more negatory of the social, symbolic bond. 9 According to Kristeva, the act of giving birth does not successfully reestablish that continuous relation prior to individuation because the infant invariably suffers the prohibition on incest and is separated off as a discrete identity. In the case of the mother’s separation from the girl-child, the result is melancholy for both, for the separation is never fully completed. As opposed to grief or mourning, in which separation is recognized and the libido attached to the original object is successfully displaced onto a new substitute object, melancholy designates a failure to grieve in which the loss is simply internalized and, in that sense, refused. Instead of a negative attachment to the body, the maternal body is internalized as a negation, so that the girl’s identity becomes itself a kind of loss, a characteristic privation or lack. The alleged psychosis of homosexuality, then, consists in its thorough break with the paternal law and with the grounding of the female “ego,” tenuous though it may be, in the melancholic response to separation from the maternal body.

• From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

  The prohibitive function of the ego ideal thus works to inhibit or, indeed, repress the expression of desire for that parent, but also founds an interior “space” in which that love can be preserved. Because the solution to the Oedipal dilemma can be either “positive” or “negative,” the prohibition of the opposite-sexed parent can either lead to an identification with the sex of the parent lost or a refusal of that identification and, consequently, a deflection of heterosexual desire. As a set of sanctions and taboos, the ego ideal regulates and determines masculine and feminine identification. Because identifications substitute for object relations, and identifications are the consequence of loss, gender identification is a kind of melancholia in which the sex of the prohibited object is internalized as a prohibition. This prohibition sanctions and regulates discrete gendered identity and the law of heterosexual desire. The resolution of the Oedipal complex affects gender identification through not only the incest taboo, but, prior to that, the taboo against homosexuality. The result is that one identifies with the same-sexed object of love, thereby internalizing both the aim and object of the homosexual cathexis. The identifications consequent to melancholia are modes of preserving unresolved object relations, and in the case of same-sexed gender identification, the unresolved object relations are invariably homosexual. Indeed, the stricter and more stable the gender affinity, the less resolved the original loss, so that rigid gender boundaries inevitably work to conceal the loss of an original love that, unacknowledged, fails to be resolved. But clearly not all gender identification is based on the successful implementation of the taboo against homosexuality. If feminine and masculine dispositions are the result of the effective internalization of that taboo, and if the melancholic answer to the loss of the same-sexed object is to incorporate and, indeed, to become that object through the construction of the ego ideal, then gender identity appears primarily to be the internalization of a prohibition that proves to be formative of identity. Further, this identity is constructed and maintained by the consistent application of this taboo, not only in the stylization of the body in compliance with discrete categories of sex, but in the production and “disposition” of sexual desire. The language of disposition moves from a verb formation (to be disposed) into a noun formation, whereupon it becomes congealed (to have dispositions); the language of “dispositions” thus arrives as a false foundationalism, the results of affectivity being formed or “fixed” through the effects of the prohibition. As a consequence, dispositions are not the primary sexual facts of the psyche, but produced effects of a law imposed by culture and by the complicitous and transvaluating acts of the ego ideal. In melancholia, the loved object is lost through a variety of means: separation, death, or the breaking of an emotional tie. In the Oedipal situation, however, the loss is dictated by a prohibition attended by a set of punishments.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Before last night - how could there have been anything? - before last night, there was only talk and - kisses.’ Before last night ... Before last night I had been glad, beloved, content, secure: before last night I had known myself so full of love and desire I thought I should die of it! At Kitty’s words I saw that the pain of my love was not a tenth, not a hundredth, not a thousandth part of the pain I should suffer, at her hands, now. I opened my eyes. Kitty herself looked ill and frightened. I said, ‘And the - kisses: when did they start?’ But even as I asked it, I guessed the answer: ‘That night, at Deacon’s ...’ She hesitated - then nodded; and I saw it all again, and understood it all: the awkwardness, the silences, the letters. I had pitied Walter - pitied him! When all the time it had been I who was the fool; when all the time they had been meeting, whispering together, caressing ... The thought was a torment to me. Walter was our friend - mine, as well as hers. I knew he loved her, but - he seemed so old, so uncle-ish, still. Could she ever, really, have brought herself to want to lie with him? It was as if I had caught her in bed with my own father! I began, once more, to weep. ‘How could you?’ I said through my tears: I sounded like a stage husband in some penny gaff. ‘How could you?’ Beneath the blankets I felt her squirm. ‘I didn’t like to do it!’ she said miserably. ‘At times I could hardly bear it -’ ‘I thought you loved me! You said that you loved me!’ ‘I do love you! I do, I do!’ ‘You said there was nothing you wanted, but me! You said we would be together, for ever!’ ‘I never said -’ ‘You let me think it! You made me think it! You said, so many times, how glad you were. Why couldn’t we have gone on, as we were ... ?’ ‘You know why! It is all right, that sort of thing, when you are girls. But as we got older ... We’re not a couple of scullery-maids, to do as we please and have no one notice it. We are known; we are looked at -’ ‘I don’t want to be known, then, if it means losing you! I don’t want to be looked at, if not by you, Kitty ...’ She pressed my hand. ‘But I do,’ she said. ‘I do. And so long as I am looked at, I cannot bear also to be - laughed at; or hated; or scorned, as a -’ ‘As a tom!’ ‘Yes!’ ‘But, we could be careful -’ ‘We should never be careful enough!

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Death, who collects his tithes from high and low alike, could not be thwarted. Within a year of their return to England Aella was taken out of this world. Constance mourned him bitterly, of course. May God keep his soul safe! Then, after his burial she decided to go back to Rome. On her return she found her friends and family safe and in good health. Now, at last, she felt that her adventures had come to an end. When she came into the presence of her father she kneeled before him and wept. Constance, of tender heart, sent up her orisons of praise to God a hundred thousand times. And so they lived in virtue and in charity. They were never parted, except by death itself. And so farewell to you all. My story has come to an end. May Jesus Christ bring us joy after woe, and save us all on the last day. God preserve you, my fellow pilgrims. Heere endeth the tale of the Man of Lawe The Epilogue to the Man of Law’s Tale Harry Bailey, our Host, stood up on his stirrups, and congratulated the Man of Law. ‘That was a fine story,’ he said. ‘Very worthwhile. Don’t you all agree?’ And then he turned to the parish priest. ‘Father,’ he said, ‘for the love of God tell us a story. You promised. I know well enough that learned men can be good storytellers. You know enough, for God’s sake.’ The Parson reproved him. ‘Bless us all. Why is this man blaspheming in front of us? Never take the name of God in vain.’ ‘Oh John Wyclif, have you come among us?’ our Host replied. ‘I smell a Lollard in the wind. I predict, fellow pilgrims, that before too long the priest will deliver a long sermon. That is what Lollards love to do.’ ‘On my father’s soul, he will not.’ The Shipman rode up to our Host. ‘He is not going to preach. We won’t allow it. This is not the place to teach the gospel. We all believe in God. We don’t need the doctrines of Holy Mother Church interpreted or evaluated or revised. He will be sowing weeds in healthy ground. I’ll tell you what, Harry. I will give you a good story. It will ring out loud and clear. It won’t be full of philosophical terms, or learned quibbles. I don’t have enough Latin for that -’ ‘Excuse me.’ It was the good Wife of Bath, looking very majestic on her palfrey. ‘Surely I take precedence over this seaman? It is a sad day when a good woman is refused her due. Come now, Mr Bailey. Do let me speak. I have a lot to say.’ Then, without waiting for his assent, she began her story. [image file=images/ackr_9781101155639_oeb_006_r1.jpg] The Wife of Bath’s Prologue The prologe of the Wives Tale of Bathe

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  the front porch. Inside were three rooms, each about ten feet by ten feet, facing onto the front porch. The house had no bathroom, but underneath it, behind one of the cinder- block pillars, was a closet-sized room with a toilet on a cement floor. The toilet wasn’t hooked up to any sewer or septic system. It just sat atop a hole about six feet deep. There was no running water indoors. A water spigot rose a few inches above the ground near the toilet, so you could get a bucket and tote water upstairs. While the house was wired for electricity, Dad confessed that we could not at the moment afford to have it turned on. On the upside, Dad said, the house had cost only a thousand dollars, and the owner had waived the down payment. We were supposed to pay him fifty dollars a month. If we could make the payments on time, we’d own the place outright in under two years. “Hard to believe that one day this will all be ours,” said Lori. She was developing what Mom called a bit of a sarcastic streak. “Count your blessings,” Mom said. “There are people in Ethiopia who would kill for a place like this.” She pointed out that the house did have some attractive features. For example, in the living room was a cast-iron potbellied coal stove for heating and cooking. It was big and handsome, with heavy bear-claw feet, and she was certain it was valuable, if you took it to a place where people appreciated antiques. But since the house had no chimney, the stovepipe vented out a back window. Someone had replaced the glass in the upper part of the window with plywood, and wrapped tinfoil around the opening to keep the coal smoke from leaking into the room. The tinfoil had not done its job too well, and the ceiling was black with soot. Someone— probably the same someone—had also made the mistake of trying to clean the ceiling in a few spots, but had ended up only smudging and smearing the soot, creating whitish patches that made you realize how black the rest of the ceiling was. “The house itself isn’t much,” Dad apologized, “but we won’t be living in it long.” The important thing, the reason he and Mom had decided to acquire this particular piece of property, was that it came with plenty of land to build our new house. He planned to get to work on it right away. He intended to follow the blueprints for the Glass Castle, but he had to do some serious reconfiguring and increase the size of the solar cells to take into account that since we were on the north face of the mountain, and enclosed by hills on both sides, we’d hardly ever get any sun.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  23 AFTER NATHAN DIED nothing was the same. She felt more like an outsider in her family than she ever had. Tawny sat stony-faced in the living room. “His suffering has ended,” she repeated over and over, like a mantra. “He’s with the Lord now.” Her father lay on Nathan’s bed, shutting her out, leaving her alone with her feelings, alone with her grief. “Come back to the Vineyard with me,” Caitlin said. Vix shook her head. “It’s just for a week, just until Labor Day. It’d be good for you.” As much as Vix wanted to see Bru, have him hold her, comfort her, she felt guilty for making love while Nathan lay dying. And it crossed her mind that this could be her punishment for enjoying sex, for defying her mother. She tried to push those thoughts away. What kind of god would punish her by taking Nathan’s life just because she was having sex with someone she loved? “I can’t leave my family,” she told Caitlin. “Not now.” Only weeks ago Vix had been convinced her friendship with Caitlin was over. How childish that seemed to her now. If a friend is someone you can depend on when life gets tough, then Caitlin was her friend, traveling home with her, holding her hand at the funeral, even staying behind at the house afterward to clean up the kitchen once those who had come to pay their respects had left. She started a letter to Bru, but the words wouldn’t come. So she asked Caitlin to give him her message. “Tell him about Nathan and explain ...” “Why you couldn’t come back?” “Yes ... and also ...” “That you miss him?” Vix nodded. “What about love ... should I tell him you love him?”

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  A month or so later I had the opportunity to write a three-minute essay for a radio show on anything I wanted, and I asked Brice’s parents if it would feel like an invasion of privacy if I wrote about their son. They said no, just the opposite. So I sat down with my index cards, and I looked through the one-inch picture frame, and started writing: Sam saw his first dead person last month. Two friends of ours had a baby who died, and we went to spend the morning with them and the body of their son. He was five months old and weighed eight pounds, down from the ten he weighed at birth. He wore a white baptismal gown, and lay in a big basket on top of his crib, covered with flower petals from the waist down, white as a rose. There were flowers and shrines everywhere, statues of the Buddha and pictures of his Holiness the Dalai Lama (because his mother is a Buddhist) and of Jesus (because his father is a Christian). Brice looked like a small, concerned angel from someplace snowy. None of us, including Sam, could take our eyes off him. He looked like God . “You what?” my relatives asked when I mentioned this. “You took Sam to see what?” as in, What will you take him to see next? Brain surgery? I couldn’t explain why I thought it was right, except that I was taught to be terrified of sickness and death (especially early death and also, ironically, aging) and I believe this greatly compromised my life. Of course I want better for Sam . Lots of my friends have died of cancer and AIDS. But Brice was the first dead person Sam ever saw. Sam didn’t seem scared. Maybe it was because Brice looked so beautiful in death. He was an old pro at it: he had died during delivery and was resuscitated seven minutes later, and so was born a second time, but it turned out that he had been gone too long. His eyes were deep gray, and always open, and he never cried or, for that matter, smiled, or even blinked . Brice’s mother’s Buddhist friends called him Cloud Boy because he was suspended between heaven and earth, not quite here, not quite there. His father’s Christian friends did much of the cooking. Everyone held him and rocked him. Sam and I spent a lot of time reading to him, mostly Dr. Seuss . “He’s a good baby,” Sam assured Brice’s parents one day.

• From St. Augustine's Confessions (2004)

  Lecture Ten Book IV—The Problem of Friendship Scope: While Augustine is engaged in studies and a rather carefree life, a dear friend dies. Augustine was puzzled and even put off by the friend’s baptism just before he died. Most of all, Augustine became severely depressed and morose, avoiding places where he used to meet his friend. At the time, Augustine thought that he was mourning for his friend, but by the time he writes the Confessions, he realizes the selfishness of his grief. He was mourning, not his friend’s fate, but his own loss; this is another manifestation of the selfishness he was born with, a selfishness nurtured by teachers and parents. Augustine realizes both the goodness of friendship and how it can become another manifestation of concern for self rather than a genuine union of two souls. Toward the end of Book IV, Augustine describes his encounter with the writings of Aristotle and reports that this experience failed to move him forward in his journey toward God. Outline I. Augustine reminds readers of how his career and personal life are developing as he undertakes a quest for wisdom. A. He has become a professional teacher of rhetoric. As he looks back at his early adulthood, he sees himself as a seller of eloquence and argumentation. B. Augustine took a mistress. 1. He makes clear that he was faithful to her. 2. He considers what a great difference there is between the relationship one has with a mistress and with a wife. II. Augustine even briefly is interested in astrology. In seeking immediate “solutions” to the complex questions he is now asking, he dabbles in astrology because it certainly offers simple answers to complex questions, such as why people do bad things—because it is in the stars. III. Augustine developed a strong friendship with an unnamed young man. A. This relationship was much closer to a true friendship than his teen friends with whom he stole pears. 30 ©2004 The Teaching Company.

• From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

  The conceptualization of bisexuality in terms of dispositions, feminine and masculine, which have heterosexual aims as their intentional correlates, suggests that for Freud bisexuality is the coincidence of two heterosexual desires within a single psyche. The masculine disposition is, in effect, never oriented toward the father as an object of sexual love, and neither is the feminine disposition oriented toward the mother (the young girl may be so oriented, but this is before she has renounced that “masculine” side of her dispositional nature). In repudiating the mother as an object of sexual love, the girl of necessity repudiates her masculinity and, paradoxically, “fixes” her femininity as a consequence. Hence, within Freud’s thesis of primary bisexuality, there is no homosexuality, and only opposites attract. But what is the proof Freud gives us for the existence of such dispositions? If there is no way to distinguish between the femininity acquired through internalizations and that which is strictly dispositional, then what is to preclude the conclusion that all gender-specific affinities are the consequence of internalizations? On what basis are dispositional sexualities and identities ascribed to individuals, and what meaning can we give to “femininity” and “masculinity” at the outset? Taking the problematic of internalization as a point of departure, let us consider the status of internalized identifications in the formation of gender and, secondarily, the relation between an internalized gender affinity and the self-punishing melancholia of internalized identifications. In “Mourning and Melancholia,” Freud interprets the self-critical attitudes of the melancholic to be the result of the internalization of a lost object of love. Precisely because that object is lost, even though the relationship remains ambivalent and unresolved, the object is “brought inside” the ego where the quarrel magically resumes as an interior dialogue between two parts of the psyche. In “Mourning and Melancholia,” the lost object is set up within the ego as a critical voice or agency, and the anger originally felt for the object is reversed so that the internalized object now berates the ego: If one listens patiently to the many and various self-accusations of the melancholic, one cannot in the end avoid the impression that often the most violent of them are hardly applicable to the patient himself, but that with insignificant modifications they do fit someone else, some person whom the patient loves, has loved or ought to love.... the self-reproaches are reproaches against a loved object which have been shifted onto the patient’s own ego. (169) The melancholic refuses the loss of the object, and internalization becomes a strategy of magically resuscitating the lost object, not only because the loss is painful, but because the ambivalence felt toward the object requires that the object be retained until differences are settled. In this early essay, Freud understands grief to be the withdrawal of libidinal cathexis from the object and the successful transferral of that cathexis onto a fresh object.

• From St. Augustine's Confessions (2004)

  Scope: This lecture focuses on one of the most famous sections in the Confessions, a section that is also full of surprises. To set the scene of his mother’s death, Augustine tells the story of her life. Because attitudes toward women have changed a great deal since the time of Augustine, his description of her life opens up a window on the world of late antiquity, especially in terms of domestic life. We learn something of the relations between men and women during this time, as well as some of the circumstances that were unique to Monica, including the fact that she was “addicted” to wine in her youth. But Augustine carefully crafts this narrative to prepare the reader for the scenes surrounding her death. Of particular importance is the meditation that Augustine and his mother share immediately before her death on the joys of heaven. This passage is often seen as one of the key texts in the history of Christian mysticism in the West and is, therefore, worth a close look. Augustine’s reaction to his mother’s death is also important: Because it takes place after his conversion and baptism, it provides an interesting and important contrast with the death of his friend that we discussed in Book IV and shows how Augustine has carefully shaped the narrative so that events play off each other. Outline I. The death of Augustine’s mother, Monica, is one of the most famous sections of the Confessions, but it is also a section that is full of surprises. II. To prepare us for her death, Augustine fills in some of the details of her life, details that were not given to us earlier in the narrative. A. We learn the rather surprising story of her “fondness” for wine in her youth. 1. This becomes yet another way for Augustine to talk about addiction to a vice. 2. Monica fell into this vice despite the strong warning of one of her servants. ©2004 The Teaching Company. 55

• From St. Augustine's Confessions (2004)

  A. Because it is an attempt to describe the infinite, it is a particularly important document in the history of the Christian mystical tradition. B. It is one of the most beautiful passages in the Confessions. 1. The entire description consists of one long sentence. 2. In the attempt to go beyond language, the images are, paradoxically, physical ones. 3. The passage describes the process of going beyond itself by not thinking of itself. 4. It is an important discussion of the nature of time and timelessness and, therefore, prepares us for the more extended discussion of memory and time in Books X and XI. IV. After this meditation, Monica tells her son that she is ready for death. A. She had previously wanted to be buried alongside her husband. B. Now she realizes that this is unimportant. V. Augustine describes his reaction to her death. A. He doesn’t cry, but he describes his own pain at her death by explaining how close he has become to her. B. Augustine wishes us to compare his response to her death to his response to the death of his friend, earlier in the Confessions. Suggested Readings: Cooper, chapter 9. TeSelle, pp. 59–89. Questions to Consider: 1. What are some of the most surprising aspects of the life of Augustine’s mother, as described in Book IX? 2. How do the stories of Augustine’s father and mother remind us of the gap between domestic life in Augustine’s time and in our own? 3. How does Augustine use the death of his mother to illustrate his own spiritual life at this point in his life? ©2004 The Teaching Company. 57 Lecture Nineteen Book X—Augustine the Bishop

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  The only faces I saw were those of Mrs Best, and Mary - the little skivvy who had opened the door to me, who changed my pot and brought me coal and water, and who I sometimes sent on errands to buy me cigarettes and food. Her expression as she handed me my packages showed me how strange I had become; but to her fear and her wonder alike, I was indifferent. I was indifferent to everything except my own grief - and this I indulged with a strange and horrible passion. I believe I barely washed in all those weeks - and certainly I did not change my dress, for I had no other. Very early on I gave off wearing my false chignon, too, and let my hair straggle greasily about my ears. I smoked, endlessly - my fingers grew brown, from the nail to the knuckle; but I ate hardly at all. For all that I liked to watch the carcases being towed about at Smithfield, the thought of meat upon my tongue made me nauseous, and I had stomach for none but the blandest of foods. Like a woman quickening with child I developed a curious appetite: I longed only for sweet, white bread. I gave Mary shilling after shilling, and sent her to Camden Town and Whitechapel, Limehouse and Soho, for bagels, brioches and flat Greek loaves, and buns from the Chinese bakeries. These I would eat dipped in mugs of tea, which I brewed, ferociously strong, in a pot on the hearth, and sweetened with condensed milk. It was the drink I had used to make for Kitty, in our first days together at the Canterbury Palace. The taste of it was like the taste of her; and a comfort, and a frightful torment, all at once. The weeks, for all my carelessness to their passing, passed by anyway. There is little to say about them, except that they were dreadful. The tenant in the room above my own moved out, and was replaced by a poor couple with a baby: the baby was colicky, and cried in the night. Mrs Best’s son found a sweetheart, and brought her to the house: she was given tea and sandwiches in the downstairs parlour; she sang songs, while someone played on the piano. Mary broke a window with a broom, and shrieked - then shrieked again when Mrs Best rolled up her sleeve and slapped her. Such were the sounds I caught, in my grim chamber. They might have solaced me, except that I was beyond solace. They only kept me mindful of the things - all the ordinary things! the smack of a kiss, the lilt of a voice lifted in pleasure or anger - that I had left behind me.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  favor no me des un sermón sobre cómo estoy escapando, tambaleándome, dejando que otros controlen lo que siento... Toma mis hombros, hablando firmemente. —Corre —me dice rotundamente—. Corre lejos. Solo vete, llama si necesitas algo, ¿está bien? Asiento, agradecida de que entienda. —¿Puedes decirle a Cam que no se preocupe? Estoy bien y la llamaré. —¿No vas a ir a verla? Las lágrimas amenazan y rodeo a Shel y me muevo fuera de su alcance, saliendo del cuarto de licores. —No puedo. Si pienso demasiado o miro su rostro, me acobardaré. Pike me dijo una vez que “empezara algo con energía y éxito”. Estoy segura que no se refería a esto, pero así lo haré. Jordan Hadley no deja su trabajo. No entra en un auto destartalado y poco fiable y sale a la carretera sin ningún lugar adonde ir. Y, ciertamente, está demasiado asustada para alguna vez estar sola. Si pienso, no lo haré. Me iré. No hay vuelta atrás. Tal vez regrese mañana, al día siguiente o la semana próxima, pero mientras más tiempo mantenga mi pie en el acelerador, más lejos estaré de quién era. Me detengo en el bar y recojo mi suéter que había puesto en un taburete. —Sé que duele —dice Shel, viniendo detrás de mí—. Eras feliz. —Estaré bien. —Engancho el suéter por encima de mi bolso, evitando sus ojos—. No fue mi primero. —Sí, lo fue. Me detengo y la miro, los nudos en mi estómago se tensan. —No tienes que decir nada, pero lo sabes... —continúa—, no sentiste esto con Cole, ni con Jay, ni con nadie más. Miro hacia otro lado de nuevo, mordiendo la comisura de mi boca para mantener mis sentimientos bajo control. Lo superaré. Y muy pronto, cada recuerdo se desvanecerá, todas sus palabras y cómo se sintió cada toque. Todo se desvanecerá. —Pero déjame decirte algo, chica —continúa, hablando en voz baja y discreta por los pocos clientes del lugar—. Lo que sientes por él o por cualquier otra persona no es lo que necesitas. Esto... —toca mi pecho sobre mi corazón—, lo que estás sintiendo ahora mismo, es lo mejor que te puede suceder. Porque cuando todos los pedazos de tu corazón comiencen a volver a estar juntos y lo harán, serán más fuertes. Y es mucho más difícil para que alguien los despedace. —Aparta mi cabello detrás de mi oreja de la manera en que siempre lo hace—. Así que puedes estar segura que cuando alguien finalmente lo haga, habrá trabajado por ello. No necesitamos comida para sobrevivir en esta vida tanto como necesitamos que nuestros corazones se rompan al menos una vez. Pero la mejor parte es que la primera ruptura siempre es la peor. Nunca más se sentirá así de mal de nuevo. Y por eso, estoy contenta. Pero también me hace preguntarme... si mi corazón nunca volverá a romperse tanto, entonces ¿amaré a alguien como amaba a Pike Lawson?

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  In such cases women feel more sorrow than I can relate; when their husbands are taken from them they are consumed in grief, or become so sick that they must surely die. The people of Athens, too, were distraught. Infinite were the tears of old and young, lamenting the fate of Arcite. The death of Hector himself, when his fresh corpse was carried back into Troy, could not have caused more sorrow. There was nothing but pity and grief. The women scratched their cheeks, and rent their hair, in mourning. ‘Why did you die?’ one of them cried out. ‘You had gold enough. And you had Emily.’ There was only one man who could comfort Theseus himself. His old father, Aegaeus, had seen the vicissitudes of the world and had witnessed the sudden changes from joy to woe, from woe to happiness. ‘There is no man who has died on earth without having first lived. And so there is no one alive who will not at some point die. This world is nothing but a thoroughfare of woe, down which we all pass as pilgrims -’ ‘So are we all here.’ The Franklin had interrupted the Knight’s tale. ‘The whole world is an inn,’ our Host said. ‘And the end of the journey is always the same.’ ‘God give us grace and a good death.’ This was the Reeve, crossing himself. ‘Amen to that,’ the Knight replied. And then he continued with his story. As Aegaeus told Theseus, death is an end to every worldly disappointment. He said much more in a similar vein, and in the same way he encouraged the people of Athens to take heart. So Theseus was comforted by his words, and busied himself in finding the best place for the tomb of Arcite to be raised in honour of the fallen knight. He finally came to the conclusion that the most appropriate site would be the wooded grove in which Palamon and Arcite had fought their duel for the hand of Emily. In this place, ever green and ever fresh, Arcite had professed his love and uttered his heart’s complaints. So in this grove, where all the fires of love had been kindled, Theseus would light the fire of Arcite’s funeral pyre. Fire would put out fire. So he commanded that his men cut down the ancient oaks and lay them in a row; then he ordered that the trees should be piled up so that they might burn more easily. His officers swiftly obeyed his commands. Then Theseus bid them to prepare a bier, which he covered with the richest cloth of gold that he possessed. He dressed the body of Arcite in the same

• From St. Augustine's Confessions (2004)

  A. Because it is an attempt to describe the infinite, it is a particularly important document in the history of the Christian mystical tradition. B. It is one of the most beautiful passages in the Confessions. 1. The entire description consists of one long sentence. 2. In the attempt to go beyond language, the images are, paradoxically, physical ones. 3. The passage describes the process of going beyond itself by not thinking of itself. 4. It is an important discussion of the nature of time and timelessness and, therefore, prepares us for the more extended discussion of memory and time in Books X and XI. IV. After this meditation, Monica tells her son that she is ready for death. A. She had previously wanted to be buried alongside her husband. B. Now she realizes that this is unimportant. V. Augustine describes his reaction to her death. A. He doesn’t cry, but he describes his own pain at her death by explaining how close he has become to her. B. Augustine wishes us to compare his response to her death to his response to the death of his friend, earlier in the Confessions. Suggested Readings: Cooper, chapter 9. TeSelle, pp. 59–89. Questions to Consider: 1. What are some of the most surprising aspects of the life of Augustine’s mother, as described in Book IX? 2. How do the stories of Augustine’s father and mother remind us of the gap between domestic life in Augustine’s time and in our own? 3. How does Augustine use the death of his mother to illustrate his own spiritual life at this point in his life? ©2004 The Teaching Company. 57

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  They could not live in a waste. The ground itself was pale; unvisited by the sun, it seemed alarmed by the glare of the sudden light. The funeral pyre had first been laid with straw, covered by dry sticks and tree trunks hewn apart; then green boughs and spices were placed upon them. Cloth of gold and precious stones were added to the pile, followed by garlands of flowers and myrrh and sweet-smelling incense. Then Arcite was laid upon this rich bed, his body surrounded by treasure. Emily, according to custom, laid the flaming torch to the pyre; but she swooned as the fire flared up. She soon recovered but I cannot tell you what she said, or felt, because I do not know. HOLY DREAD. SORROW. EMPTINESS. Now the fire was burning strongly, the mourners cast in their jewels. Some of the warriors threw on to the flames their swords and spears. Others tore off their robes and flung them on the pyre. In fulfilment of the ritual the principal mourners threw in their cups of wine and milk and blood, so that the roar of the flames grew ever louder. The Athenian warriors, in a great throng and crying out in strong voices, rode three times around the pyre with their spears raised into the air. Hail and farewell! Three times, too, the women set up their lamentation. When the body of Arcite was reduced to white ashes, Emily was escorted back to the palace. A wake was held there, lasting all that night. The Athenians performed their funeral games, with wrestling matches (the naked contestants glistening with oil) and other sports. When their play was done, they returned to their homes in the city. So now I will come to the point, and make an end to my long story. After a period of years, when by general consent the time of mourning was passed and the last tear shed for Arcite, Theseus called a parliament in Athens to deliberate upon certain matters of state - on treaties and alliances, that kind of thing. One debate concerned the allegiance of Thebes to Athens, according to the old agreement, and so Theseus summoned Palamon to attend the meeting. Palamon was not aware of the matter under discussion, but he came in due haste; he was still wearing the clothes of mourning for his dead comrade. When Palamon had taken his seat, Theseus called for Emily. The assembly was hushed and expectant, waiting for Theseus to speak. He stood before his throne and, before he said anything, he looked around at the company with an observant eye. Then he sighed and, with a serious countenance, began to speak. ‘It was the first mover of the universe, the first cause of being, who created the great chain of love. He had a high purpose and a strong intent; he knew what he was doing, and what he meant.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  any bread for us? I am so hungry that I cannot sleep. I wish that I could sleep for ever. Then I would never be hungry! Please give me bread!’ So the poor child grew weaker and weaker each day. Eventually he climbed into his father’s lap and whispered to him, ‘Farewell, Father. I must go now.’ The little boy kissed him on the cheek, laid down his head, and died. When Ugolino saw that his son was dead he gnawed his arms with grief, lamenting the faithlessness of Fortune. ‘I am bound upon the wheel,’ he said. His two surviving children were convinced that he was gnawing on his flesh out of hunger rather than grief. The eldest of them implored him. ‘Father,’ he said, ‘do not eat your own flesh. Eat us, instead. You gave us life. You have the right to take it from us. Our flesh is yours.’ Within a day or two, both of the little boys were dead. In his despair Ugolino also laid down and died. So ended the life of the mighty count of Pisa, drawn down into grief from high estate. If you wish to read more about this tragedy, you will find it in the pages of the great poet of Italy known as Dante. He has written a detailed account of the last days of Ugolino. His words will live for ever. Nero The emperor Nero was as great a fiend as any that dwells in hell. Yet, as Suetonius tells us in his Lives of the Caesars, he was the master of the world, from east to west and from north to south. His robes were of the purest white silk, and were covered with fine jewels. He delighted in diamonds and in sapphires. He was prouder, and more pompous, than any emperor before; he was more fastidious than a maid, and would never wear the same robes twice. He used to fish in the Tiber with nets of gold. His caprices were turned into laws. His lusts were always satisfied. Dame Fortune smiled upon him. He burned Rome to ashes for his entertainment. He killed all of the senators of that city just to hear how they groaned in their death throes. He killed his brother, and slept with his own sister. He made sad work of his mother, too. He cut open her womb so that he could view the place where he was conceived. That is how little he thought of her. He did not cry at the sight of her ravaged body. He merely observed that she had once been a fine-looking woman. How could he judge of her beauty, when she lay dead before him? Then he called for wine, and drank off a draught. He showed no sign of remorse. When strength is united with cruelty, there breed monstrous offspring. In his youth Nero had a teacher who tutored him in literature and morals.