on The Whistle
by Eudora Welty
Approaching the story
Must try not to judge it by how
sad or happy it is. Reading literature
not only enlarges our sympathy but also creates a kind of joy out of sorrow. You might want to look at the study of the
way listening to sad music helps us[i]. And Aristotle had something to say on this in
his essay on tragedy.
Narrative Point of View
Welty keeps herself well out of
the scene. At the beginning she simply
describes the moon, the shack, the people without giving any thoughts of her
own. Their cold and poverty, as it
were, ‘speak for themselves’.
It’s quite a while
before we get any thoughts of the characters, and then only Sara’s. First her tiredness and coldness, then her dream-like
thoughts of spring, part longing for next spring, part memories of others. This memory allows us, the readers, to get
some idea of the work they do, and we hear about Mr Perkins who ‘owned their
farm now’. And that implies that they’d
had to sell up to survive and go on as tenants. This gives us some ‘back-story’, that is information about their
circumstances before the events in he story began.
Imagery
The moon is continually mentioned as an image of coldness, both
physical and social. There’s a coldness
in the way they’re treated by society, and a kind of co-operative coolness
between the two of them. They don’t
cuddle up together to get a bit warm.
The fire flickers in the background weakly, and eventually goes out,
and then another fire is created by Jason’s burning the furniture.
Cold is a basis for the description of their postures, their
anxieties, a threat to them, and also to the tomato crop on which they depend
and for which they sacrifice covers and clothes. The cold sinks into them ‘like the teeth of
a trap’.
Characters
The cold and whoever’s let this
all happen seem to be ‘characters’. But
the main characters are sparsely drawn, and we only have the thoughts, and few
of those, of Sara. Though, of course, it’s Jason who acts, and passionately.
Narrative Form
Most of the story’s taken up with
a description of their problem, which has also become their routine way of life. There is the wider problem of being so cold
and poor (and exploited), and the immediate problem of how to get warm now, and
Jason’s ‘solution’ to that problem.
Jason’s act seems both inspired and reckless and possibly suicidal. What does it express?
[i]
What do nostalgia, peacefulness,
tenderness, transcendence, and wonder all have in common? They're all healthy,
feel-good emotions. “For many individuals, listening to sad music can
actually lead to beneficial emotional effects,” the researchers, led by psychologist Liila Taruffi,
report. “Music-evoked
sadness can be appreciated not only as an aesthetic, abstract reward, but [it]
also plays a role in well-being, by providing consolation as well as regulating
negative moods and emotions.”
The study also revealed that a
high number of participants reported listening to sad music in situations of
emotional distress or when they’re feeling lonely, so it could be a form of
self-medication. “For most of the people, the engagement with sad music in
everyday life is correlated with its potential to regulate negative moods and
emotions, as well as to provide consolation,” the researchers add.
These findings appear to have
some connection to previous research into sad music that suggests listening to
it changes the chemistry in our brains to help us get over our grief. According to David Huron, a professor of music at Ohio
University in the US, listening to sad music likely causes a spike in the hormone prolactin in the brain.
"Prolactin is the chemical that is used to help curb grief because
it's also released during basic human activities - like when we eat, when women
ovulate or breastfeed and (perhaps most importantly) when we have sex,” says David Taylor Sloan at Mic.com. "So sad
music actually activates a chemical that tones down your grief - suggesting
that being sad (and listening to sad music to get there) has deep evolutionary
benefits. - http://www.sciencealert.com/why-listening-to-sad-songs-is-good-for-you
No comments:
Post a Comment