Lyn’s MODL 5304 page

As I read this book I felt like someone was showing me pictures, one image after another.  Instead of a plot or narrative I was reading images, scenes that were someone’s experience.  Juan speaking to Eduviges which is interrupted by memories of things his mother said to him is an example of this.  The action is photos rather than events. Instead of writing a narrative with a plot Rulfo only paints pictures.  The succession of these scenes is the text, the story.  For example, to recount the death of Miguel, the reader is not told he dies, but is shown the funeral scene. (p.29)

            The scenes were vivid and bizarre at the same time.  I could not get past this and was not able to unravel the themes of novel.  However once Dr. Ruiz suggested solitude as one of the themes and explained the title change and its purpose of focusing on the solitude of Juan it made sense.  I remembered a passage at the beginning of the story of Comala.  It was relevant because it suggested activity (of everywhere else) vs. abandon and solitude (of Comala).   On p. 7, it says:

It was the hour of the day when in every little village children comes out to play in the streets, filling the afternoon with their cries.  The time when dark walls still reflect pale yellow sunlight.           

       At least that was what I had seen in Sayula, just yesterday at this hour.  I’d seen the still air shattered by the flight of doves flapping their wings as if pulling themselves free of the day.  They swooped and plummeted above the tile rooftops, while the children’s screams whirled and seemed to turn blue in the dusk sky.           

      Now here I was in this hushed town.  I could hear my footsteps on the cobbled paving stones.  Hollow footsteps, echoing against walls stained red by the setting sun. 

Here Rulfo shows us Juan’s experience on seeing Comala for the first time and contrasting it with Sayula.  The Sayula vocabulary denotes activity, doves swooping and plummeting, and children playing.  This is in contrast to Comala’s inactivity, solitude, children screams vs. silence, whirled vs. still.   Outside Comala (2^nd paragraph) whirling, swooped, plummeted, flapping, shattered, cries.   Comala (3^rd para) is hushed, hollow, echoing.  The phrase hushed town is interesting.  Hushed is an action imposed, done from the outside.  Someone or something hushes something else.  I was intrigued by the phrases in this section, ‘screams whirled’, ‘hollow footsteps’, ‘air shattered’, and my favorite which is on p. 46 ‘echoes of shadows’.    

            These expressions were mentioned by Dr. Ruiz who remarked that strong concise expressions are part of the structure.  Although the passage is short, the vocabulary and the imaginary of this passage announce the theme of solitude, Juan’s solitude

Another example of the powerful imagery is on page 24.  It’s the image of Pedro’s (I think) mother tells him of his father’s death.   The light, sky and this woman in pain are fused together in this photo which is his memory.  I think this novel is also about how we experience things and store memories.   As I was reading this novel, I understood nothing, yet it was the most enjoyable text I have read this semester.

Darkness is a constant theme, often used in the sparse conversation of the text.  Mother Pegg died not of disease or ailment, but of darkness.  Hamm refused to give her oil for lamp, thus keeping her in darkness. The irony now is Hamm is blind and is now in darkness.  Hamm and Clov live as in a hole in the world, a world that’s grey and the light is fading, continually fading.  Their room is also grey. 

            Light and darkness signify their personal existence, or lack of meaningful existence.  At the beginning Clov is upset that “light is dying”.  But self-centered
Hamm feels sorry for himself and shifts attention to his light, which he thinks is worse.  “Take at look at me and then come back and tell me what you think of your light.” p.12

            Later in the text, Hamm seems to be waiting on night, as he has Clov look out the windows, and wonders out loud if night has fallen, staying that the sun should be sinking. 
       Hamm recounts a narrative that has a poor beggar come to him begging for bread for his child.  The darkening begins at this point.  He remarks that it was a “glorious bright day”, but already the sun was sinking down into the …down among the dead”. p. 51.  He later admits that at this point he does not think he will be in the world much longer.

            Nagg then talks about Hamm’s childhood.  When Hamm was a child and frightened of the dark, he wanted comfort from his father.  But Nagg says that Hamm the child did not really want him to listen, and his hope is that Hamm will cry out of the darkness and really want him to listen, and he will “be his only hope”.

            After talking about happiness,
Hamm suddenly wants to feel the light on his face.  He has Clov take him to the window, but there is no light. 
          Hamm cries out for the darkness to come, which is the end.  “Let it end! with a bang! of darkness” p. 77.  And in his poem at the end he cries for night, for a chance to cry in darkness.

            In the “game” of Clov and Hamm’s interdependence, there is no meaning in their existence, no sincerity in the acts.  They live to die.  Clov stares at the wall, in other words, he fills his life with insignificant and less than meaningful acts.  He is passive, a fatalist and an “unauthentic” person.  He wants order so much, that he refuses to make his own choices and spends his days following orders of
Hamm.  Conversely, Hamm has to be center, but he only sees the world through Clov’s eyes.  Both avoid their own personal existence through their interdependent relationship.  Clov objects several times to the “game”.  He does not want to look out of the glass when he looks out the window at the world.  But Hamm always insists.  Clov always obeys, however he does so grudgingly.  When Clov refuses to play any longer, Hamm just puts his handkerchief over his eyes, his “old stancher”.  To stanch is to stop the flow of blood.  His handkerchief stops the bleeding, or life, returning him to his dreams of forests, where he can make love, go into the woods, run, and see the sky. (p. 8). 

            Their evolution from living their life to waiting for death with days filled with meaningless, insignificant acts and relationships is expressed in the darkness metaphor.  The importance is shown in the repetition of the metaphor in this minimalist language of Beckett.  I’m sure there are plenty of deeper meaning for darkness in this text and look forward to reading other ideas.