One woman, Chris, asks another woman, Joelle, for advice about personal relationships. The conversation reaches a dramatic point when a choice has to be made. Then we notice what happens during a pause in the dialogue:
"They tramped on. The wind loudened, the sea ramped. Clouds in the east lifted their wall higher, startlingly fast. Wrack blew off them, to scud across indigo heaven.
"Chris hunched shoulders against a gathering chill." (pp. 198-109)
Pathetic fallacy: nature does everything that it can to underline the impasse of the conversation -
wind does not whisper or caress but loudens;
sea does not touch the shore gently but ramps;
clouds lift a wall, a barrier;
they raise it fast;
they raise it startlingly fast;
wrack scuds;
it scuds across what otherwise would have been a peaceful heaven;
chill gathers;
the woman who seeks advice hunches her shoulders against this gathering chill.
Everything indicates that personal relationships will remain problematic. A problem-solving conversation would have been accompanied by very different weather!
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Also, IIRC, Joelle would not, IMO, be quite the right person to seek out for that kind of advice.
Ad astra! Sean
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