She was not quite what you would call refined.
She was not quite what you would call unrefined.
She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.
-Mark Twain in Following the Equator
She was not quite what you would call unrefined.
She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.
-Mark Twain in Following the Equator
In Mark Twain’s Following the Equator, Twain uses his characteristic wit to explore the depths of racism and imperialism, specifically in India. To Twain, India is “the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his round.” His non-fiction travelogue is split up into over fifty chapters, each chapter starting with a quote from “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.” I read Pudd’nhead Wilson a few years ago and, from what I remember, race and identity are themes in that novel as well. The main characters were switched at birth; one raised a slave, the other a member of the white community. The irony in Twain’s tale is that the fake Tom is cruel and hateful towards the real Tom, who is consistently respectful of his master. Pudd’nhead’s character is an unsuccessful lawyer and the epigraphs of each chapter are also from his calendar of droll sayings. One particular epigraph, which is also in Following the Equator, harks back to Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo: “Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live.”
Serafina, widow of Rosario Delle Rose, worships her deceased husband. She grabs on to the memory of Rosario and finds it hard to live without making every moment somehow related to him. She is middle-aged and has a teenage daughter, who she refuses to let go of as well. Her daughter, Rosa, has a free spirit—she falls head over heels in love with a sailor and defies her mother, who is incapable of understanding the American way. Serafina’s character wallows in grief after her husband’s death. With the entrance of Alvaro Mangiacavello, however, she transforms into a beautiful, sexy, flirt. She is an exotic character, whose Sicilian roots are more apparent than her Louisianan. The women of her town are not her friends; they ostracize her and gossip about her late husband’s infidelity. When Serafina hears proof of her husband’s affair with the floozy Estelle Hohengarten, she finally parts with the “illusion” she has of him. For as it turns out, she has been disillusioned by her own love and belief in her husband—the smoldering Italian with a rose tattoo.
I saw the above painting hanging in a majestic stairway inside the Louvre. Tucked away in a corner, Etudes d'un perroquet ara ararauna, by Flemish still-life painter Pieter Boel, seemed out of place. I had my eyes peeled for a painting that would remind me of The Rose Tattoo, but nothing really caught my eye, until I spotted this. The unbefitting placement reminds me of Serafina in her Louisiana town. In spirit, Serafina is still in Sicily, happily married. In reality, Serafina is unlike the southern belles she makes dresses for. She is glamorously out of place. As an immigrant, she has culture and principles and a devotion to Mary, Mother of God. The three full blue and gold macaws in Boel’s painting remind me of the three outsiders: Serafina, Rosa, and Alvaro. They face an incomplete parrot, who in my mind symbolizes the presence of Rosario. While Boel most likely was sketching the same bird in three different positions, I like thinking of the four characters interacting together. Each is out of place in their world—not refined, and not unrefined—unique and majestic, each a part of the other; three Italians whose present collides with the past spirit of Rosario.
Serafina, widow of Rosario Delle Rose, worships her deceased husband. She grabs on to the memory of Rosario and finds it hard to live without making every moment somehow related to him. She is middle-aged and has a teenage daughter, who she refuses to let go of as well. Her daughter, Rosa, has a free spirit—she falls head over heels in love with a sailor and defies her mother, who is incapable of understanding the American way. Serafina’s character wallows in grief after her husband’s death. With the entrance of Alvaro Mangiacavello, however, she transforms into a beautiful, sexy, flirt. She is an exotic character, whose Sicilian roots are more apparent than her Louisianan. The women of her town are not her friends; they ostracize her and gossip about her late husband’s infidelity. When Serafina hears proof of her husband’s affair with the floozy Estelle Hohengarten, she finally parts with the “illusion” she has of him. For as it turns out, she has been disillusioned by her own love and belief in her husband—the smoldering Italian with a rose tattoo.
I saw the above painting hanging in a majestic stairway inside the Louvre. Tucked away in a corner, Etudes d'un perroquet ara ararauna, by Flemish still-life painter Pieter Boel, seemed out of place. I had my eyes peeled for a painting that would remind me of The Rose Tattoo, but nothing really caught my eye, until I spotted this. The unbefitting placement reminds me of Serafina in her Louisiana town. In spirit, Serafina is still in Sicily, happily married. In reality, Serafina is unlike the southern belles she makes dresses for. She is glamorously out of place. As an immigrant, she has culture and principles and a devotion to Mary, Mother of God. The three full blue and gold macaws in Boel’s painting remind me of the three outsiders: Serafina, Rosa, and Alvaro. They face an incomplete parrot, who in my mind symbolizes the presence of Rosario. While Boel most likely was sketching the same bird in three different positions, I like thinking of the four characters interacting together. Each is out of place in their world—not refined, and not unrefined—unique and majestic, each a part of the other; three Italians whose present collides with the past spirit of Rosario.
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