They were like the people in old photographs - we did not see them through a veil of knowledge and habit, but simply and plainly, as the were lined or scarred, as they were startled or blank. Like the dead, we could consider their histories complete, and we wondered only what had brought the to transiency, to drifting, since their lives as drifters were like pacings and broodings and skirmishing among ghosts who cannot pay their way across the Styx. However long a postscript to however short a life, it was still no part of a story. (pg. 179)
It seems to me that this passage is Ruth looking into the future if she were to become one of the "transients". She is describing the people that come into Fingerbone. They are unknown and two-dimensional, "old photographs" with no back story. She describes their lives like the pacing, brooding and skirmishing of a ghost unable to cross the Styx, saying that they lived lives of random encounters and reflection, unable to get to where they want to be. If one of them died, their history was complete, and the only questions raised after their death was what had driven them to the life of wandering. But even then the question was irrelevant, Ruth says, "However long a postscript to however short a life, it was still no part of a story", implying that although people may wonder, they didn't really care.
1. What is the importance of the reference to death and the River Styx to the town of Fingerbone?
2. What does this passage reveal about Ruth's feelings towards being a transient?
This passage suggests a sort of suicide of identity when one becomes a "transient". Transients and those lost to the lake in Fingerbone are more or less the same to the people of Fingerbone. Therefore, the only difference between the transients and the dead is that the former have not passed through the water so to speak.
ReplyDeleteThis passage reveals that to Ruth the transients are not really seen as individuals. They are seen as a collection, who nobody bothers to figure out the true story about. People only wonder what brought them to Fingerbone, but nobody actually takes the time to figure it out. When they are gone nobody will remember them. She knows that now being a transient, she will move from place to place and nobody will see her for who she is, just another transient, and that when she is gone nobody will care or look into it.
ReplyDeleteThis passage shows that Ruth believes that to truly live she must follow Sylvie's path and break away from society and escape Fingerbone to become like these transients. She is ready to reach her transiency but to do this she must escape Fingerbone. She must cross over the River Styx as this signals that once she reaches this point she views her life as ending and she will start her life of reflection and remembrance.
ReplyDeleteI think the reference to Styx from Greek myth here is to allude that the transient life might not be the solution to loss that we all have to suffer. Souls that can not cross the river of Styx will wander forever without any purposes and they cant stop and cant rest. People who died but could the river of Styx can finally rest in peace but people who wanders can never. I consider this metaphor to be an allusion that transient life can be worse than death, you don't have any aims for fulfill and you don't know when you can stop, can rest.
ReplyDeleteRuth sees the life of a transient as another option to her that she had not considered before. As discussed in section there are two main ideas of housekeeping in the book and neither one is really suggested as being the best, rather they are both options that one must choose. Ruth is discovering that there is another option as shown to her by Sylvie. She ascknowledges that there is a certain amount of "knowledge and habit" associated with our daily lives and that once this is taken away we see things more clearly--we see what our lives are, despite the order we tried to assign to them. We attempt to take a messy thing, life, and make it orderly so that we can better understand it. But in the end we still end up drifting without any real purpose or meaning because nothing goes according to our plan and we still end up losing our direction when tragic things happen. Ruth acknowledges the world of the transient in this passage and begins to realize it as an option for her own life.
ReplyDelete