(Untitled)
For Stephen, dreaming of Mona
Menorca, 19 April 1800
for scieppan
He had been quite unprepared for this particular blow, striking under every conceivable kind of armour, and for some minutes he could hardly bear the pain, but sat there blinking in the sun.
"Christ," he said at last. "Another day."
--Master and Commander
Why did I dream of you last ( Read more... )
Menorca, 19 April 1800
for scieppan
He had been quite unprepared for this particular blow, striking under every conceivable kind of armour, and for some minutes he could hardly bear the pain, but sat there blinking in the sun.
"Christ," he said at last. "Another day."
--Master and Commander
Why did I dream of you last ( Read more... )
Comments 16
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He makes idols of these women without really knowing their humanity. As much as he analyzes and catalogues their behavior, or hypothesizes about their motives, they remain fixed on slides under his microscope.
His pain I think is undeniably real. He doesn't know his women very well, but he loves them with a real, if misguided, love.
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I feel similarly... and it always strikes me that a lot of the pain that is expressed comes both from his perhaps misguided, passionate attachment to these women and from a personal anger/irritation about the fact that he really can never quite act on everything he feels.
Things rip him to bits and it's both the actions themselves and the fact that he repeatedly feels like a) he lost an opportunity for further affection (Dil) or b) events could have gone better if he'd only been different in some impossible way (wooing Diana. Diana leaving with Jagiello because of the whole Laura/Wray/conspiracy/espionage affair. Mona.).
Eep. I just wrote a dissertation. Sorry.
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That seems right. He's very suspicious of his motives, which keeps him from acting, which upsets him, which makes him suspicious of his motives, which...
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