Remorse, Horror, Despair, and Serial Commas

"'I truly thank him. In these last moments I feel the sincerest gratitude towards those who think of me with kindness. How sweet is the affection of others to such a wretch as I am! It removes more than half my misfortune; and I feel as if I could die in peace, now that my innocence is acknowledged by you, dear lady, and your cousin'" (Frankenstein, 59).

As if I'm not already queasy at the notion of the deaths of two innocent characters, this quote hits me right in the groin. Metaphorically. Also, it's an example of dramatic irony.

In her letter to Victor, Elizabeth describes Justine's character as "clever" and "gentle" (42). In her testimony during the trial, Elizabeth describes her further as "amiable and benevolent" (56). Justine is so good natured and innocent that her ironic quote above kindles ghastly anguish in Victor.

Victor feels partly -- scratch that, entirely -- responsible for the deaths of William and Justine. He knows that "the filthy daemon to whom [he] had given life," not Justine, is William's murderer (50). Only he and the audience have this information; Justine merely knows that she is innocent and will never know that Victor's creature is guilty.

Therefore, when she expresses her gratitude toward Victor (who believes wholeheartedly in Justine's innocence), from her perspective, it's just another example of her benevolence. However, Victor and the audience know that the only reason he knows of Justine's innocence is that Victor knows his own creation murdered William. The discrepancy between Justine's perception and Victor's reality invigorates the "remorse, horror, and despair" he feels. (See how Victor uses the serial comma? Good man.)

Also, William and Justine are "the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts" (60)? "Good God," indeed.

"Wait a minute -- the cat!"

"Then the man and his wife burst wildly into the garden and for some reason (the cat, probably) the alarm set up wailing against the screams while the bleeding mass of the little boy was hacked out of the security coil with saws, wire-cutters, choppers, and they carried it -- the man, the wife, the hysterical trusted housemaid [sic] and the weeping gardener -- into the house" ("Once upon a Time," 18).

That sentence is so good that I forgive the lack of Oxford comma (which doesn't happen very often). This is my kind of story. Situational irony arguably tops my list of favorite literary devices, and there's plenty of situational irony here I can talk about. About which . . . I can talk. Here we go!

The more this family and their neighbors upped their houses' security systems, the less safe the family and the neighbors actually were. "Under cover of the electronic harpies' discourse intruders sawed the iron bars and broke into homes, taking away hi-fi equipment, television sets, cassette players [what are those?], cameras and radios, jewelry and clothing, and sometimes were hungry enough to devour everything in the refrigerator or paused audaciously to drink the whiskey in the cabinets or patio bars" (12). What gave the intruders this ability? Why, the burglar alarm systems, of course. People were so accustomed to frequent false alarms that intruders could easily break into homes during a frenzy of shrilling alarms.

Then, the family's little boy was reduced to a bleeding mass, and I'm not going to quote that part again. What was the direct cause of the boy's fate? Why, the family's new security wall, of course. Childlike curiosity led the boy into the trap intended not for him but for intruders. Here's a picture of a concentration camp fence, referenced in the story (16):

One of the more obvious situational ironies was the phrase "happily ever after" (9), which unfortunately no longer applied to the family after the story's conclusion.

Needless to say, it was THE CAT:

Serial commas: you should use them.

"I only have the one vague memory of Ruth from that early part of our lives.

I'm playing in a sandpit. There are a number of others in the sand with me, it's too crowded and we're getting irritated with each other" (Never Let Me Go, 45).

Now that I've read four chapters, I'm going to talk about Kazuo Ishiguro's style.

With the exception of dialogue, most of the narration is written in compound or complex (or both) sentences. I appreciate that, but I don't appreciate that he doesn't use the Oxford comma. That disturbs the force.¹

The tone of the book has been more conversational than I'm used to. The author isn't afraid of second person point of view, and Kathy refers to herself and the reader as "we" sometimes. It's a better way to connect with the audience, I think. Probably also for that purpose, there are a lot of dead metaphors -- "in hot water" (44), for example.

The excerpt at the beginning of this post confuses me, though. Why introduce a memory as distant and vague and then switch to the present tense? Usually the present tense makes things more tangible and real. So that's a legitimate question I have.

¹I'm seriously serious about this. Just look at the last sentence of the quote at the top of my post -- it almost looks like a comma splice. But noooo, some people just won't use a serial comma. I can sometimes understand it when the list is just of single words, but that sentence would have been ten times easier to read with the Oxford comma. I feel very strongly about this.