The Figure In The Carpet Sparknotes

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The figure in the carpet sparknotes.

Although lerner doesn t mention it the title of his very short introductory chapter looking for the figure in the carpet is i assume beholden to the wonderful short story the figure in the carpet by henry james who understood a great deal about authorial intention and the pitfalls of interpretation. The figure in the carpet has become a short hand or idiom for the key to understanding a writer s work. Summary the narrator a writer prides himself on his astute review of hugh vereker s latest novel. I had done a few things and earned a few pence p.

The puzzling message of figure in the carpet at the beginning of the figure in the carpet the main character considers the criticism of literature to be a career something he does for money. You ll also get. Unlock this study guide now. The figure in the carpet henry james 1843 1916 the story ostensibly concerns a young literary critics who greatly admirs the writer hugh vereker.

But when he meets the author in person at a social event vereker tells him that whilst the review is intelligent he has missed the hidden underlying issue which informs all of his writing. The figure in the carpet. Vereker dismisses his efforts explaining that all critics have missed my little point the particular thing i ve written my books most for the thing for the critic to find my secret like a complex figure in a persian carpet. It is told in the first person.

And yet the story in which the idiom was born henry james s 1896 tale the figure in the carpet refuses to open itself up to easy interpretations or analysis. 357 declares the narrator in the opening line. A short summary in the tale a nameless first person narrator undertakes in the absence of his friend and fellow critic george corvick the task of reviewing the latest. In a gesture of compensation one supposes vereker confides to the narrator that his fictions are all linked by a single idea or scheme that no critic has ever noticed but that is the very secret.