[continued from previous message]   
      
   >> their games.   
   >   
   > It sounds like you're repeating yourself; but maybe it's worth making   
   > the same points in return. I wasn't *always* working in the garden,   
   > while my friends were always working - though that's how it seemed   
   > sometimes when I was working and they were playing - so that's how I had   
   > Bob remember it.   
   >   
   >> Was George Dance also forced to work in the garden all day/denied the   
   >> fun of playing with the other children?  I don't know.  I'm guessing   
   >> that he was, because many children had gardens that they tended every   
   >> day.  I certainly did.  I would spend an hour or so tending my garden   
   >> every morning -- along with my mother and siblings.  I loved my garden   
   >> and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  I was also allowed to play with   
   >> the local kids who would drop by on an almost daily basis.   
   >   
   > That sounds like a little flowerbed. Suffice it to say, both my father's   
   > garden and my own were produce gardens, where we grew virtually all our   
   > own vegetables. So it was a much bigger task, which took me at least a   
   > couple of hours a day (and pretty much every day when school was out);   
   > and again, like you, I could not simply drop everything and go off to   
   > play during that time. There was plenty of times though that my friends   
   > were doing work and my sister and I were the ones playing; and even more   
   > when we all had free time and could play together.   
   >   
   >> Little George's next stanza opens with the line "That room's all   
   >> changed" implying either that the garden is a room, or that he is taking   
   >> the reader on a walking tour of his childhood house.  This appears to be   
   >> another problem caused by switching the kitchen and garden stanzas'   
   >> position in the narrative.   
   >   
   > The "problem" seems to be caused by your either: (1) not realizing the   
   > speaker could have been looking "outside" through a window; or (2) your   
   > constant attempts, in your guise as literary critic, to find errors in   
   > the poem. The garden stanza is deliberately s5 (the mid stanza of the   
   > poem), for reasons I'll have to explain.   
   >   
   > There are two stanzas where the D line is a rhymes perfectly with the   
   > A-B lines; s5 and s9. The reason that the failure of the others to   
   > rhyme, as I'm sure I've explained to you before, is to subliminally   
   > reinforce the idea that Bob is having trouble completing his thoughts.   
   > Whereas in s5 and s9 he does bring his thoughts to a conclusion; in s5   
   > he realizes that (IHO) he's been deprived as a child, and in s9 he   
   > realizes that he wants to be rid of those memories.   
   >   
   >> I'm assuming that it's the living room,   
   >> although Little George neither specifies nor gives us any other clue   
   >> than that it contains a chair on which he is forbidden to sit.   
   >   
   > Actually, the room contains one chair in which Bob is allowed to sit.   
   > But, yes, it's the living room. I don't know how things were in your   
   > home, but in mine and most of the one's I've encountered, the living   
   > room was where the family sat together. (In Britain it's actually called   
   > the "sitting room").   
   >> IIRC,   
   >> George Dance stated that while he was also barred from using the living   
   >> room furniture, the parental description of boys as "filthy things" was   
   >> derived from the life of another boy that he knew.   
   >   
   > There was in fact only one place for the children to sit in my family's   
   > living room, though it was a couch (for all the children), not a   
   > separate chair.   
   >   
   >> Last stop on the tour is the bedroom.  Little George is sent there after   
   >> dinner every night where he feels as if he is trapped within a tomb --   
   >> alone and forced to pass the time quietly playing by himself.  "Each   
   >> night" at 9pm, Little George was forced to turn out the lights,   
   >   
   > Yes, I was, but "Each night" is a bit of an exaggeration; that was   
   > actually each night in which I had school (or something equally   
   > important) the next day. On weekends and in the summer, I could stay up   
   > later, and go outside after dinner until dark, and that was all free   
   > time. Once again, if I were relating an autobiography (which it looks   
   > like you've forced me to do) I'd have mentioned those exceptions, but as   
   > I was not recounting my memories but Bob's, I had him exaggerate.   
   >   
   >> and lie   
   >> face down in bed with his pajama pants pulled down and his bare behind   
   >> awaiting his father's belt.  George Dance hasn't said that this bedtime   
   >> ritual occurred on a daily basis in real life, but has intimated that   
   >> the "spankings" (which he refused to call "whippings" even though the   
   >> blows were delivered with a belt) frequently took place.   
   >   
   > Well, being "whipped" (to use your preferred term though there was no   
   > whip involved) took place too often for my liking, but I certainly   
   > wouldn't call it a "bedtime ritual" (which does make it sound like it   
   > happened on some fixed schedule irrespective of how I behaved). And Bob   
   > clearly states that that happened only "some nights".   
   >   
   >> So, pretty much the entire "flashback" portion of the poem was based on   
   >> real events from George Dance's childhood.  Some of the events may have   
   >> been slightly exaggerated, or enhanced, for dramatic purposes, and one   
   >> item was interpolated from another boy's stories about his own   
   >> childhood.   
   >   
   > No, I did not say I got the expression "boys can be such filthy things"   
   > from another boy's account to me. IIRC, it was just something I read   
   > somewhere. I did a lot of reading as a child and as a young adult, and a   
   > lot of the speakers' "memories" and other thoughts use what I've read   
   > (and simply imagined) as well as what I directly experienced.   
   >   
   >> This leaves the "modern" portions of the narrative which   
   >> frame the flashback portion.   
   >   
   > I don't think you can separate the poem like that. Bob's actions, and   
   > Bob's memories, are fully integrated - you cannot separate the memories   
   > from the fact that Bob's remembering them.   
   >   
   >> In the modern portion, it is strongly   
   >> implied (by George Dance's own explanation) that the speaker is   
   >> receiving some form of psychiatric care, and is probably residing in a   
   >> mental hospital.   
   >   
   > I thought that was an interesting touch from the beginning, though (as I   
   > made it clear in previous explanations) there is no reason to think,   
   > from the fact that Bob was in the house with permission, that he was in   
   > a mental hospital or that he was under psychiatric care. His mental   
   > state is obviously disturbed - as noted, he has difficulty staying on   
   > one subject and drawing conclusions - but I think those could follow   
   > from the situation (he's experiencing childhood memories that he'd   
   > rather not) rather than his own mental state.   
   >   
   >> He has permission to leave the grounds during the day,   
   >> and (unrealistically) to visit his childhood home that is now occupied   
   >> by another family.   
   >   
   > Yes, the idea that someone confined to a mental hospital would be given   
   > a day pass to go off on a road trip by himself is very "unrealistic" and   
   > (while I liked it being as possibility) it's not a very logical   
   > possibility. I believe you went for it because you wanted to and went on   
   > to claim that Bob broke into the house, and you had to get rid of the   
   > idea that he had permission to be there.   
   >   
   > "Grownup George" ends the poem by expressing his   
   >> wish that he would like to burn his father's house to the ground.   
   >   
   > So Bob does. It's a very dramatic ending, which could make a reader   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)