English 429A - Close Reading
Close reading of Melanctha, paragraphs on p. 96-97, Norton Critical edition
Jeff initially never imagined himself with a girl like Melanctha, “he had never believed that she was any good... and heard something about how she wandered,” he “certainly never did think” that he would find Melanctha “so sweet.” Eventually however, their relationship develops and it is not long before Jeff finds out about Melanctha’s promiscuous past where she was “free in [her] ways” and “had done things so bad.” Over time their relationship recovers and the couple are in a particularly good place when summer comes around.
This three paragraph passage in Melanctha accounts for one of the highest points in Melanctha’s and Jeff relationship. The passage emphasizes Jeff’s newly realized “strong, right feeling[s]” for Melanctha and the world around him. The passage builds the idea that Jeff has shifted away from “always thinking,” to becoming more in tune with his emotions and “always now being so good with [Melanctha] in his feeling.” Paying careful attention to what the characters are actually feeling, this passage suggests a greater theme for the novel. This underlying theme is that what a person thinks and how a person feels may not be in complete cohesion.…show more content… It seems that the author is really trying to drive home the point that talking about what each other is thinking and over analyzing what they are doing is the root cause of their relationship problems. This idea is further strengthened by the lack of dialog in the text. It appears that when things are good between Melanctha and Jeff they focus more on “what it [is] each one [is] always feeling” and not “thinking anything in words about what [they are] always
