Hurriedly then she began to set the table. As she unfolded the white linen and let it billow over the fine mahogany table, she would look once more at the large water mark she never set the table or passed through the dining room without looking at it. Like a lighthouse keeper drawn to his window to gaze once again at the sea, or a prisoner automatically searching out the sun as he steps into his yard for his hour of exercise, Ruth looked for the water mark several times during the day. She knew it was there, would always be there, but she needed to confirm its presence. Like the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner, she regarded it as a mooring, a checkpoint, some stable visual object that assured her that the world was still there; that this was life and not a dream. That she was alive somewhere, inside, which acknowledged to be true only because a thing she knew intimately was out there, outside herself. p11
In this passage Ruth is trying to cover up the water mark, the one blemish on the table. Although the lives of the Deads appear to be normal, and desirable, there are certain small details that make them not as attractive. At this point in her life Ruth is floating through life and is unhappy. She doesn't communicate with her husband Macon and is treated poorly, and they haven't been intimate in 20 years. The things that she once sought comfort in, her father and breast feeding her son, she now no longer can.
What is the significance of the lighthouse keeper and the prisoner? What do they have in common?
Why does Ruth need to connect with the water spot to keep a hold on reality?
The basis of a reality is in having something invariant and unchanging that speaks no dialogue about a person's humanity. The sea, the sun, and the watermark all regard all people equally and are always there. But if the lighthouse keeper found the sea gone one night, or the prisoner saw a day where the sun neither rose, set nor shone, and if Ruth found the watermark on the table gone one day, they would all question their existence and the reality which they thought to be living in.
ReplyDeleteFrosty your first sentence is a bit questionable, I don't really agree in your "speaks no dialogue" statement.
ReplyDeleteI read the passage to be not about big-picture existentialism, but rather the issue more current to the novel. It is definitely a parallel to the reasoning for Milkman's name, a past blemish, which though covered by the fact that no one remembers the reason, it is still there. This is a reference to skin color in itself. Much like being born colored, milkman's name, as well as the even involving his mother, negatively affects how people (whites) view him, though he had no control over what his mother made him do. It is a statement that social class is nothing more than being dealt a good or bad hand of cards, and that it obviously in no way reflects a person's character.