An interesting observation I made this week near the end of Chapter 30 of \u201cA Dream in Polar Fog\u201d by Yuri Rytkheu, occurs shortly after a ship hits the shoreline and John\u2019s mother Mary MacLennan arrives to bring John home. In this scene, John returns back to his late daughter\u2019s grave amidst an ongoing back-and-forth where his mother Mary attempts to convince John to \u201cgo pack,\u201d and \u201cnot stay\u201d in Enmyn \u201cfor a moment longer\u201d (30). While debating about his impending decision\u2014to stay with his wife Pyl\u2019mau and his children, or to return to the shoreline of Lake Ontario\u2014 John makes the visit to Tynevirineu-Mary MacLennan\u2019s grave. This visit functions as a very symbolic conquest to the Far Cape right before John\u2019s impending decision the following day, mostly because right after visiting his daughter\u2019s tomb (which is expeceted to have been constructed with stone), John \u201cseems to turn to stone\u201d (30)!<\/p>\n
There is little clarification by the narrator as to what exactly this phrase entails, but with all future conversations between himself and Mary MacLennan, John seems to be very mechanical in his delivery: \u201cJohn nods wordlessly,\u201d \u201c\u2019Yes,\u2019 John quietly manages\u201d (30). It is almost as if the connection between John\u2019s mother and John\u2019s daughter is materialized when John visits his daughter\u2019s tomb. This materialization amounts in the form of John\u2019s sad and stony one-word responses to his mother. I find it interesting to examine these scenes not only literally, but also figuratively with respect to certain images such as the tombstone that houses John\u2019s daughter. Perhaps, a greater symbolic connection is at play here: not only between the John\u2019s mother and John\u2019s daughter (who both share the same name), but also between John\u2019s daughter\u2019s current state (within stone), John\u2019s subsequent demeanor (turned to stone), and the delivery of future interactions with his own mother (stony and cold). Does anyone else find a similar interaction between symbolic and literal subjects within this piece? Please let me know what you think!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An interesting observation I made this week near the end of Chapter 30 of \u201cA Dream in Polar Fog\u201d by Yuri Rytkheu, occurs shortly after a ship hits the shoreline and John\u2019s mother Mary MacLennan arrives to bring John home. In this scene, John returns back to his late daughter\u2019s grave amidst an ongoing back-and-forth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature-culture-russia","tag-a-dream-in-polar-fog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}