{"id":411,"date":"2015-02-11T22:14:10","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T03:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=411"},"modified":"2015-02-11T22:14:10","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T03:14:10","slug":"let-it-go-let-it-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2015\/02\/11\/let-it-go-let-it-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Let it go, let it go!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cShe was free. Is that you flying over the fields with the wind under your wing? Why didn\u2019t I trust you?\u00a0 Am I any better than Elgin? Now you\u2019ve made fools of us both and sprung away. The snare didn\u2019t close on you. \u00a0It closed on us\u201d<\/em> (172).<\/p>\n

This passage is particularly interesting for several reasons.\u00a0 Throughout the course of the novel, the narrator has made use of many different pronouns, such as he, she, her, and you.\u00a0 Beforehand, the \u201cyou\u201d was seemingly used to address the reader but, in this passage, the narrator is referring to Louise.\u00a0 In addition, there are two different metaphors of Louise as a bird and then as a rabbit or other small critter.\u00a0 A significant aspect of this quote is that the narrator draws a comparison between him\/her self and Elgin, who has been presented as a damaging character incompatible with Louise, given her wildness and exotic aura. \u00a0Given the comparison between the narrator and Elgin, the narrator hints that he\/she and Louise may be incompatible with one another as well.\u00a0 Another significant aspect is that the narrator implies that Louise is free of him\/her and Elgin, so the narrator may admit that his\/her relationship with Louise may not have ultimately been healthy.<\/p>\n

This passage again hints at how the narrator is envious of Louise\u2019s autonomy.\u00a0 Louise does not stay with Elgin, who could heal and support her, even after the narrator leaves. Louise also does not seek out the narrator until the very end of the novel, thus leaving the narrator to fret and worry for months. \u00a0The narrator also spends a lot of time reflecting on and remembering past lovers and relationships, hinting that he or she feels trapped by these memories, for they can elicit feelings of regret, sadness, and even self-hatred, such as on page eighty-three, where the narrator says \u201cI air my scruples now but it didn\u2019t stop me at the time. I do despise myself for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

This book could be broken up into different sections; initially, the narrator talks about his or her past relationship with Bathsheba, which then led to him or her dating Jacqueline, who seemed like a \u201csafe\u201d alternative.\u00a0 The narrator then meets Louise, but the two are hardly spent time together when the narrator leaves and spends the rest of the novel regretting that decision and missing Louise.\u00a0 The narrator implies that he or she is a fool, while Louise is \u201cfree.\u201d As was mentioned before, Louise could be free from several things: life, an unhappy marriage with Elgin, her disease, society, or the narrator.\u00a0 The narrator, however, is not really free from anything; he\/she spends much of the novel reminiscing about old flames yet does not disclose many personal details.\u00a0 Thus, the narrator chooses to define him\/her self by these past relationships.\u00a0 In a way, letting go of these relationships implies a loss of self and identity for the narrator.\u00a0 This explains why the narrator continues to pine over Louise despite the lack of contact and the probability that Louise has passed away.\u00a0 \u00a0Because the narrator continues to be attached to Louise and the past lovers, one could say that the narrator is a fool.\u00a0 Earlier in the novel, the narrator referenced some \u201cfriends\u201d who stated that the narrator was foolish for becoming involved with a married woman again.\u00a0 To conclude, this passage reflects how Louise is a very autonomous character, a quality which the narrator envies as he\/she is entrapped in a cycle of love and love lost.\u00a0\"445409-desire3\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cShe was free. Is that you flying over the fields with the wind under your wing? Why didn\u2019t I trust you?\u00a0 Am I any better than Elgin? Now you\u2019ve made fools of us both and sprung away. The snare didn\u2019t close on you. \u00a0It closed on us\u201d (172). This passage is particularly interesting for several … Continue reading Let it go, let it go!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93618],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}