Parallellallellagram

As I mentioned in class today what I found most interesting about the end is how often it made me think of the end of several of the other stories that we’ve read for the class.

Notably The Blithdale Romance and Transcendental Wild Oats.

In my mind there were a lot of different character parallels, and different ending parallels, and parallels that of course are more reminders and not exact replicas of the scenarios we’ve read.

I was very reminded of The Blithdale Romance when Zenobia and Pricilla and their man friend go to town at the same time as Coverdale, specifically when Coverdale is observing their secret group through the window and speculating their purposes, much like Theron as he follows Father Forbes and Celia go to New York together. And of course to further parallel this scene both Coverdale and Theron confront the secretive party, and both with very ill reception, as they have both becomes outsiders to these intimate groups.

Also, not only this scenario I see parallels between Zenobia and Celia, they both are intelligent, exotic: Celia with her flowers in her hat, and Zenobia with the flowers in her hair, and of course beyond the flowers their looks are very unique. Though in the end it seems parallels can be draw between Zenobia and Theron, when they both go quite crazy, and obviously would have been an even further parallel had the author ended with Theron’s suicide— but still, for both these characters to reach almost the same point in “betrayal” and then out casting from the party they admired most!

Also, as I mentioned I saw a lot of parallels to the end of the Transcendental Wild Oats, to the end of Theron Ware. Abel and Theron both reach this pathetic state, which as the reader we imagine no return from, but in actuality are then pushed on their way by the two strong women in their lives. Of course Abel does come to his “finding Jesus” moment, but we never actually see the recovery of Theron, so I can’t make any parallels there.   

But an even cuter Parallelism