Mysterious Kor - Key Quotes Flashcards
“She slid her hand from his sleeve, stepped to the edge of the pavement and said: ‘Mysterious Kor’”
(line of poem) “Mysterious Kor thy walls forsaken stand”
“slid her hand from his sleeve” - means of her emerging from his shadow - can gain independence through the fantasy
- escapes her reality through the imagining of Kor
- uses the poem - which she is familiar with from the past, enough that she can receite it off by heart - to recall a situation in which the surreality of a place existed in the safety of the bounds of fictional literature which she is then able to apply
- reflection of Bowen’s own literary aim
- not necessarily just about escape but actually about finding comfort through the safety of incomprehensibility
“equally brittle under the moon”
- frigidity of a city stiff with disillusionment and fear
- stale stagnation - suspended in fragility
OED: “Hard but liable to break easily; fragile, breakable” - supports the interpretation of the moon as the all-pervading propaganda myth that appears to emotionally harden the strength of those in the city but merely increases their fragility (have to maintain a facade)
- the city is existing on the brink of crisis point - relates to the idea of ‘wartime’ ie. a long delay culminating in a break or fracture
- “moon” - the Gothic symbol could be said to reuse some of the dark fantasies of the end of the 19th century - writers such as H.G. Wells were obsessed by the idea of apocalyptic future war which came to fruition in WW2
“when, starting up, she knocked a fold of the curtain, a beam like a mouse ran across her bed. A searchlight, the most powerful of all time, might have been turned full and steady upon her defended window; finding flaws in the blackout stuff, it made veins and stars”
- simile - moon takes on a fantastical quality
- implies that while Pepita might be fantasising in ‘Kor’ - Callie is also fantasising
- in the same way that the crack in the curtain allows the light to seep through, so too do the cracks in her psychology (when she allows herself to feel sadness which is seen to lie just underneath the surface of her facade) allow fantasy to break out
- for Pepita she retains her sense of self but understands the need to occupy her mind in a fantasy sphere whereas Callie has lost all sense of herself because her childish spirit is incongruous with the disillusionment of war
“if you can blow whole places out of existence, you can blow whole places into it”
- fantasy becomes a place of hope and escape
-
“He was the password, but not the answer: it was to Kôr’s finality that she turned”
- closes the story - implies that Pepita is able to allow fantasy to bleed into reality much more than Arthur is capable of - he cannot be the answer to her suffering because they will never co-exist in the fantasy
- war has caused them to take on different roles - they are now not only a girlfriend and boyfriend but a civilian and soldier
“full moonlight drenched the city and searched it”
“London looked like the moon’s capital - shallow, cratered, extinct”
- weakened, uninviting, deserted
- gloomy atmosphere with strong Gothic influences
- asyndetic listing
- “full moonlight” - tension of its potential as a spotlight as if to stage a performance, but then also the more immediate connotation of the searchlights which is a reminder of the reality of war
- “drenched the city and searched it” - if we say the light is the myth then it acts immediately as a superficial overlay but then penetrates the city
“The Germans no longer came by the full moon”
“Something more immaterial seemed to threaten, and to be keeping people at home”
- experience of war has transcended just the physical and has become more abstractly pervasive
“In that case, it would have fallen down”
“‘no, not Kor’ she said with immediate authority”
- he then goes on
“it goes on, as I remember, to prove Kor’s not really anywhere”
- strong, monosyllabic, breaks the dialogue
- the fantasy resonates much more with her because she has a stronger commitment to the fantasy
- he feels no need to engage with the fantasy - he retains some of his soldier qualities when in the civilian sphere whereas for Pepita her role as a civilian coexists with her experience of the war, meaning she has to find new means of escape that are psychological, not physical
- “not really anywhere” - definition of a utopia, ie. what is both the ideal place and a place that does not exist - what Arthur doesn’t understand it that it is about psychological escape instead of a physical escape
Callie vs. Pepita Callie: "Child of a sheltered middle-class household, she had kept physical distances all her life"
Pepita: “restlessly secretive, as self-centred, as a little half-grown black cat”
- private, immature, unworldly, socially awkward
- sibilance - increases that whispery tone
“little half-grown” - Napoleon complex, overcompensates for her insecurities with heightened mystery
Callie: “yes I was glad you had the moon”
Pepita: “there was too much of it”
Pepita: “we can’t sleep in all this moon”
Callie: “disturbing slivers of moon”
- different relationship to reality and fantasy/ emotion
- Pepita remains stubbornly realistic, self regulates her own fantastical imagination to her interaction with Arthur and regulates her own emotions
- Callie is overwhelmed by the effects of the war and thus experiences anguish in pulsating waves that penetrate the consciousness as the moonlight invades the room
- her psychology is not as strong as that of Pepita’s - Pepita is able to create a comprehensive fantasy whereas for Callie even her fantasy explodes in irrational bursts
- symbol of moon as the myth of war - romanticised image of war which Callie embraces but Pepita refuses
“like glass, the illusion shattered”
-
“house-coat”
“cocoa”
- childishness of Callie
- still wants to impress by hosting
- its incongruity makes it feel like a child’s tea party - we expect some kind of adjustment of character and when this is not satisfied then behaviours become incongruous
Pepita vs. Callie
“she (Callie) became the guardian of that ideality which for Pepita was constantly lost to view”
- could say that Callie has abided by the propaganda myth of cheer etc.
- Pepita has succumbed to cynicism and grief
“face to face with the moon”
- if the moon is both the myth of performance and also disillusionment, it is at this moment of isolation that Callie finds herself facing what is really an internalised reflection
“Indeed the moon’s power over London and the imagination had now declined”
- if this is a symbol of the myth of war then it is notable that it is after Callie has spoken to a soldier (Arthur) himself and had a palpable experience of the cynicism of war
