The interaction between Henrietta and Leopold exhibits aspects of the “green world” because they have conflicts in the real world in which they desire to resolve together since The House in Paris is where they interact and it becomes their “green world” for resolution of their feelings and desires. Leopold and Henrietta together suggest a new “social order” which emerges from the particular aspect of reality/identity as it is perceived throughout the novel from the present and past. I will discuss how the real world shifts in the move to and from the “green world” of the Fisher’s house which is also known as The House in Paris.
When Henrietta is eleven years old is when she arrives at the Fishers house in Paris, and this house is where she …show more content…
Leopold is seeking for his “green world” because not knowing anything about his mother for years has troubled him. After Henrietta joins him, they have lunch and play with cards. While they are busy playing cards the doorbell rings, and Miss Fisher goes to the door to see who it is. A few minutes later, she enters the room, her face looks full with regret and pity. Leopold struggles to take in the aspect of reality when he is told that his mother is not coming after all since she won’t be able to make …show more content…
Fisher, “Henrietta’s heart sank slightly: she felt like a meal being fattened up for a lion” (12). Henrietta, as a character firmly a part of the present has no history with the house, and does not appear in the “Past” section of the novel which allows there to be observation to its parasitic pull. Her journey into Mme. Fisher's bedroom allows the narrative to emphasize “Pompeian red walls [that] drank objects into their shadow” (38). The house itself, then, not only Mme. Fisher, becomes parasitic, anthropomorphized as a predator. The literal structure of its walls, its frame becomes a consumptive power, “drinking” objects. That the walls are “Pompeian” mobilizes the house's containment function. Like the inhabitants of that city frozen in time by casts of ash, the house appears as a sediment, a container of the past. And yet we can make the claim, patently, that the house simply acts as a register for time, containing and accumulating its forward flow. Henrietta and Leopold serve as two examples of children in transit who complicate this assertion. Henrietta, we are told, “had dropped down a well into something worse than the past in not being yet over” (42). Both children, then-because of their newness to the house-exemplify duration’s predatory quality. There is the implication here that like a well, the house is somehow bottomless. It becomes a separate, quarantined space which contains, it seems, a condensed form of
When Henrietta is eleven years old is when she arrives at the Fishers house in Paris, and this house is where she …show more content…
Leopold is seeking for his “green world” because not knowing anything about his mother for years has troubled him. After Henrietta joins him, they have lunch and play with cards. While they are busy playing cards the doorbell rings, and Miss Fisher goes to the door to see who it is. A few minutes later, she enters the room, her face looks full with regret and pity. Leopold struggles to take in the aspect of reality when he is told that his mother is not coming after all since she won’t be able to make …show more content…
Fisher, “Henrietta’s heart sank slightly: she felt like a meal being fattened up for a lion” (12). Henrietta, as a character firmly a part of the present has no history with the house, and does not appear in the “Past” section of the novel which allows there to be observation to its parasitic pull. Her journey into Mme. Fisher's bedroom allows the narrative to emphasize “Pompeian red walls [that] drank objects into their shadow” (38). The house itself, then, not only Mme. Fisher, becomes parasitic, anthropomorphized as a predator. The literal structure of its walls, its frame becomes a consumptive power, “drinking” objects. That the walls are “Pompeian” mobilizes the house's containment function. Like the inhabitants of that city frozen in time by casts of ash, the house appears as a sediment, a container of the past. And yet we can make the claim, patently, that the house simply acts as a register for time, containing and accumulating its forward flow. Henrietta and Leopold serve as two examples of children in transit who complicate this assertion. Henrietta, we are told, “had dropped down a well into something worse than the past in not being yet over” (42). Both children, then-because of their newness to the house-exemplify duration’s predatory quality. There is the implication here that like a well, the house is somehow bottomless. It becomes a separate, quarantined space which contains, it seems, a condensed form of