Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

kkazan's picture

What have I done?

 As I was finishing my final project, I noticed I had done something rather odd. It seemed that I somehow found common ground between the three James siblings. It may be that the common ground was that I was writing for them, but I did base all of my own text off of their own. I think that even if the siblings did not get along, or always agree, they shared common thoughts and ideals, possibly because of the influence of their father or just because they were raised together. But it made me think of the dynamics in a different way. I think that we got so caught up in William's disapproval in Alice's life that we never stopped to look and see if there was a common thread through all of their writing. 

In The Portrait of a Lady, there are quotes that seem as if Henry were speaking of his sister. Fore example he writes, "The real offense, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all. "Don't mind anything any one tell you about any one else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself."" It seems to me that much of Isabel's character is based off of Alice herself, living outside society's rules and following her own passions and desires, are things both women did. I found that connection interesting and even more odd that I was not aware of that while reading the book. Maybe it take me longer than normal to process these things.

This was just one of the similarities I found between the siblings writing, and of course the more shocking ones are the connection between Alice and William, but my project has more on that. It just reminded me of what MissArcher2 and I looked into in our final performance. How much does a parent shape their child's mind, and really, how much do we shape our peers mind? An interesting thought for other times. 

Reply

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
13 + 3 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.