Antoinette & Rochester

Reading the second part after the first part was interesting -- I've always kind of liked stories that show you another person's view of the person whose thoughts you were just reading (which is totally Mrs. Dalloway). Rochester's critical and dismissive view of Antoinette is a little uncomfortable after reading about her childhood. Antoinette grew up very lonely, and the only person she really seemed to have a good relationship with was Christophine. She really seems to like having a good relationship with her servants, something Rochester seems to view a little suspiciously (which is the view Rochester has of basically everything in Jamaica). When Antoinette asks Christophine what to do since Rochester obviously doesn't love her, Christophine tells Antoinette to go away. "Go, go where?" Antoinette asks. "To some strange place where I shall never see him? No, I will not, then everyone, not only the servants, will laugh at me." This recalls Rochester's line, when someone tells him that Antoinette doesn't want to get married. "I did not relish going back to England in the role of rejected suitor jilted by this Creole girl. I must certainly know why."

Rochester has a problem where he keeps thinking that everyone is judging him and everyone is in on a secret -- and in a way he's right, and his suspicions are confirmed by the letter. Both Rochester and Antoinette seemed to be sort of trying to create a relationship at first. I don't think they were ever really in love, and honestly I'm not exactly sure they could have made it there, although some of the scenes kind of seemed like they could get there. I feel like the biggest thing is that Rochester had this idea of the nice English girl he was going to fall in love with. Antoinette was close enough to that that Rochester wasn't forced to give up on this idea, but far enough away that Rochester was constantly disappointed. His whole passive aggressive silent treatment really annoyed me, because he was punishing Antoinette for something that wasn't her fault & making both of them miserable in the process. Calling her Bertha felt like the worst punishment for her not telling him about her family but most of all for not being the nice English girl Rochester had in mind, the girl that Rochester saw in her once or twice (like when she tells him to taste the mountain water). I kind of liked Rochester at the beginning, when he was trying to be nice to Antoinette, but now the relationship is just cruel and sad.

Intentions

I found Meursault in The Stranger to be both an interesting and disturbing character, especially in the beginning. I like characters that don't always have the best intentions, and I think a lot of people do, judging by the popularity of TV shows with anti-heroes. They're interesting to watch but I think there's also a lot of fantasy going on, with people thinking hey if I wasn't bound by moral constraints or whatever, I could totally be that badass. What makes Meursault weird is that he... doesn't have intentions? He needs to satisfy basic human desires like hunger & comfort, etc, but other than that he just sort of hangs around and goes along with things. He does some pretty bad things, like writing that letter and obviously shooting the Arab, but they're just things he does because doing it seems to be less bother than not doing it... Raymond just asked so nicely and it was so hot out and he just doesn't want to go back and face the women... It makes it more difficult to read because I can't really trust that he has good intentions or accept that he has bad ones.

It was interesting to read the book after reading Hemingway -- I think we talked about this in class -- I kept wanting to read emotions into Meursault, especially in the first chapter. Jake had some emotions I could relate to, even if they weren't all on the surface, but Meursault was kind of in this haze. Even his desire for people to like him seemed kind of muted. It would be nice if people saw it his way, but eh, sometimes it's just too much effort. It was hard to stop reading this as a temporary numbness as a way of coping and just accept that that's the way he is.

There was this one line in the second part of the book about how seeing how much everyone hated Meursault made him want to cry, and it kind of surprised me how much sympathy I gained for Meursault from that line and the little indications of how much he didn't like the prison. He seemed happy in the first part and even mentioned it a couple of times (like at the very end where he says he was happy on the beach) but really it took him being unhappy to find something to... like? I thought Meursault was an interesting character throughout the book but he only really seemed human & relatable when his sadness & anger came out.