Asignatura: Literatura del Siglo XX en Lengua Inglesa

Paper II
Profesora: Adelaida Vallini

Alumna: Karina Gonzalo

What is a House? So strong so square

Making a Warmth inside the Winds
We walk with lowered eyelids there
And silent go behind the blinds
Yet hearts may tap like loaded bombs
Yet brains may shrill in carpet hush
And windows fly from silent rooms
And walls break outwards with a rush
Christabel LaMotte
Chapter twelve begins with a poem written by Christabel LaMotte. In this poem and epigraph, the
poet asks herself what a house is and tries to describe it.
In the first stanza, the house is seen as a building which is strong and has a certain shape. It is
described as a place where you feel warm when there is harsh weather outside. Thus, a house
protects you because it is strong and it also gives you warmth when there are winds outside. People
living inside this house walk with lowered eyelids there and silent go behind the blinds. This
description points directly to people who feel sad in there, who just walk with their eyes half-closed,
who move about silent behind the blinds.
In the second stanza, the silence referred to in the first stanza is sharply contrasted with different
types of sounds which may be unpleasant, high, loud, quick, light or repeated. She describes sounds
with the words tap, loaded bombs and shrill. She also refers to silence again when she uses
the word hush. People living in that house sometimes have their hearts tapping like loaded
bombs and brains shrilling in carpet hush. The house is seen as a true character which is full of
life and energy, whose windows fly from silent rooms again, we have silence here and walls
break outwards with a rush.
The binary oppositions silence vs. sounds and warmth vs. harsh weather are devices that help
the poet contrast the feelings the characters have towards the house. Their feelings are complex and
contradictory. The characters may be silent and may be walking absently inside the house or they
may have strong feelings and emotions with their brains and hearts going at full speed. Here people
in the house are not only seen as rational beings but also as emotional ones.
This poem anticipates what will happen in the chapter. In this chapter, Maud and Roland are in
Richmond and a house is described, Ash sends a letter to Ellen where their house is mentioned,
Roland and Val quarrel in their house, and Ellens Journal tells us that Patience and her children
have called in, that Bertha has slipped away, that Blanche Glover has made her hysterical
appearance at Mrs. Ashs house, and that Ellen has had several splitting headaches. What has just
been summarized will be shown in detail in the following quotations. All the quotations will relate
to the atmosphere of the house, to the feelings of the inhabitants, visitors and absences. The house is
presented as another character which reveals peoples moods, states of mind, thoughts, etc.

When Maud and Roland are in Richmond (Page 210):

Every brick breathed fresh air
... so that the house lay revealed beneath its original skin
You can just see a very Victorian fireplace in there
Ashs first letter to Ellen while he is away (Page 213):
But you will be thinking I have no regret for my warm house and library and smoking jacket and
desk, and for the company of my dear wife
Roland and Val exchange heated words in their house. Maud has just called to speak to Roland and
Val puts the phone down (Page 218):
If there had been more than one bed in the flat he could have used his natural defence...
He was stiff with keeping to himself on the edge of the mattress
Ellen Ashs Journal. How Ellen feels in the house without her husband (Page 222 and 223):
The house is echoing and silent without my dear Randolph
I had hoped that Bertha would continue to be the half-invisible busy birdlike presence...
Above all, when my dear one is away, I miss our hours of quite reading to each other of an
evening
I shall shut this book and betake myself to my pillow to fortify myself for the curtain-battle and
questioning of Bertha
Patience and her children call in. Patience gives her opinion about Berthas pregnancy. Ellen
remembers an episode at her mothers house (Page 224 and 225):
And to this more or less regulated disorder are to rush Enid, George, Arthur and Dora...
How fortunate that the Master of this house is absent, for it has in the last twenty-four hours been
converted into a veritable Pandemonium.
Patience has a strong sense that it is contaminating to continue in the presence of sin...
... this did not entail cohabiting with the visible proof of the sin, unchastised
I remember one particular, poor Thyrza Collitt, running screaming from room to room and
Mamma whirling after her with upraised arm
Ellen has made up her mind about Bertha (page 226):
I must ask Bertha to go, before he returns; it is my duty
Ellens hope to have the house spick and span ready for Randolphs arrival (Page 226):
I mean to surprise him with a home newly gleaming and radiant
Ellens headaches begin (Page 227):
I felt a headache coming on, and a sense of being flustered by the sudden silence and emptiness of
my house again.
Ellen speaks to Bertha. Blanche Glover sends her first letter to Ellen. (Page 229):
She answered me not a word but stared and stared, breathing very heavily...
... all I heard was this fierce sighing or panting breath, somehow filling my little room
Among these letters was one requesting an interview with me personally in a matter of great
importance, the writer said, to me myself.

More headaches. Blanche Glover sends another letter and later on she speaks to Ellen (Page 230
and 231):
The headache seized me and I lay all day in a darkened bedroom...
Another letter from the mysterious and urgent lady. A matter of life and death, she writes... I put
the letter by, feeling too low in spirits to decide about it. The headache introduces one to a curious
twilight deathly world in which life and death seem no great matter
Worse still... and a distracted Bertha let in a strange lady who demanded to see me. I told her she
might come back when I was recovered... I took more laudanum and went back into my dark
room.
Folded in by curtains , closed in by the warmth of blankets...
My importunate visitor came and we talked some time. That matter is now I hope quite at an end
and wholly cleared up
Bertha leaves the house (Page 231):
This morning Bertha was found to be slipped away during the night, with all her possessions...
Ellen retreats to her bedroom once again (Page 231 and 232):
I lay all day in bed with the curtains open, for I became superstitiously afraid of spending so long
in a house with drawn curtains... I was motionless all day, in one position. I had a haven of
painlessness and torpor and every other twist and turn was agony. How many days do we spend
lying still, waiting for them to end... breathing and motionless. Outside, in the weather, men suffer
heat and cold and fluctuating air.