Theme "The Tenth of January" (Sept/13)

Use your journal entry to explain or describe an element of fiction (See ch 4 in Gardner's Writing about Literature)-- plot, character, point of view, setting, theme, symbol, and style in the story, "The Tenth of January" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. For example. you could identify a symbol and explain its potential meanings; explain a figure of speech and its significance in the tale; note the presence of irony and how it shapes your reading; try to distinguish the narrator and point of view of the selection and how that affects the text.


I was very intrigued by the theme of this story because I found a bit dark for this time period but, the more I read the story the more I realized the problem being faced is similar to something that is still faced today. The feeling of loving someone and them not loving you back is a feeling that lasts today and apparently can be seen as far back as the beginning of the United States and possibly even farther.  When this story began it's theme seemed to be a love story between Sene and Dick, "she is to be married this winter." Although, as this story seems to unfold and develop I feel as if a somber tone of revenge seeps out maybe not directly from the lines in the text but you can feel it if you read between the lines and take a step in Sene's shoes.  Once Sene finds her best friend Del and her fiancé speaking by the river bank and night you automatically feel the pain that Sene feels but it's more then that, you feel the author was wanting to seek revenge for Sene.  How could Del do this to her friend? At the moment Sene approaches Del the words seem to explain a sadness or jealousy but for me I saw revenge upon her "a fierce contempt for her pink-and-white, and tears and eyelashes and attitudes, come up her; then a sudden sickening jealousy that turned her faint where she sat."  As more of the story unfolds even if Sene wants to tell Dick she cannot marry him or that she want Del to have him if she wants, you get this sense that Sene is happy and has come to terms with the fact that Dick will never love her in the way she would like, I still feel a sense of revenge coming from Sene.  She is angry that God has given Del everything she wants but yet, Sene is faced with scars she is ashamed of, and now she cannot even have the life of her life fully. The morning of the mills collapse I finally felt a feeling of forgiveness, forgiveness of Del for loving her fiance and a forgive of Dick for betraying in such a way. She succumbs to the true love of Del and Dick and tells Del to be rescued from the rubble "go, Del, and tell him I sent you with my dear love, and that it's all right." To me, I feel like this story completes 3 distinct tones love, revenge and forgiveness. You see a love story completely unfold between the pages of this book and really become empathetic toward Sene.  I agree that author developed this story in a very exquisite way, she completes the love story and all 3 tones she entered into the story.  In the end, you feel as if Sene as received her revenge, just in a very different way then you would have foreshadowed it to end in the beginning.