Sketch the character of Clark
Answers
Explanation:
Clark, the narrator of the story, lives in a boarding-house on Newbury Street in Boston, though he was born in Vermont and spent a significant part of his youth living on Georgiana and Howard’s Nebraska homestead. Clark reveres his Aunt Georgiana, who taught him Latin, Shakespeare, and most notably music, even after he had spent hard days tending the herds or husking corn for his uncle. Self-described as having been “a gangling farmer-boy … scourged with chilblains and bashfulness,” Clark seems to have been a sensitive child, not particularly suited to farm labor; he recalls that Howard spoke sharply to him on occasion, and that he was “near dead of home-sickness” for Vermont. His primary consolations on the farm were Georgiana’s company, her encouragement of his music, and her stories of concerts attended in her youth. Still a devoted nephew at the time of the story, he tries to repay his aunt for some of her kindnesses by treating her to a Wagner concert when she visits Boston. At first shocked by Georgiana’s battered appearance and timid demeanor, he briefly regrets the idea, but upon arriving at the concert hall, he realizes he has judged his aunt superficially. He is puzzled initially by Georgiana’s seeming detachment from the music, but later he is moved by her tears and realizes that her longing for music and culture persist underneath her worn-out, unsophisticated exterior.
Clark Quotes in A Wagner Matinée
The A Wagner Matinée quotes below are all either spoken by Clark or refer to Clark. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one: Civilization vs. The Frontier Theme Icon). Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Vintage edition of A Wagner Matinée published in 1992.
A Wagner Matinee Quotes
The name of my Aunt Georgiana opened before me a gulf of recollection so wide and deep that … I felt suddenly a stranger to all the present conditions of my existence, wholly ill at ease and out of place amid the familiar surroundings of my study. I became, in short, the gangling farmer-boy my aunt had known, scourged with chilblains and bashfulness, my hands cracked and sore from the corn husking.