Interesting point

Posted by Patrick on January 22, 1998 at 16:45:54:

In response to Manners makyth man, written by Helen on January 21, 1998 at 15:50:02

Helen:
- think of the gentle, rolling fields at Pemberley: not wild and untamed, nor over-cultivated, giving an air of naturalness but in fact the product of many hours of careful gardening. In this sense, one could almost take Pemberley, in Darbyshire, as a midpoint again - between the wildness of the Lakes (which Elizabeth never reaches) and the social constraints of the South of England.

Patrick:
An interesting point, Helen. But to what extent might this view reflect primarily your searching for support for a point of view? What I mean is that the balance is once again in your perception. You could just as easily speak of the wildness of the South of England in which capitalism was growing unfettered, or the wildness of the South of England in which violent crime and violent justice were common, and of the gentleness of the Lake District in which life was slow, and in any village everyone knew everyone else and lived as people had lived for centuries, without industrial upheaval. So, wildness and constraint are in the eye of the beholder.

Of course, the same can be said for my own point of view - that I see a particular word in a sentence as being more important than the sentence, for example, which is the same kind of picking out of a piece of evidence as if picking a seashell up from the shore. My point, I suppose (being in a philosophical mood this afternoon) is that the texts are rich and many different reactions to them are possible. It is interesting to see how different they can be.

Cheers,

Patrick

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