The Mark on The Wall by Luciana

Hello Nat! Could you post this on the blog? Thank you!!! Happy holidays! Lu

Hello guys! I' m sorry to inform you that, somehow, I can't record any message on the discussion. Not here in SIGEN nor in my personal computer. So, unfortunately I’m going to post my opinion here this time. I hope to find a solution for this situation for the next short story!

Regarding “The Mark on the Wall”, my first impression when I read the story was that it was purely about the narrator’s stream of thoughts. As we know, the story begins when the narrator sees a mark on the wall. By trying to imagine what could have made it, she embarks herself on an almost non stopping babbling. Maybe, with the proper analysis, I could find other meanings to every thought she expressed. But for now, even thought this “stream of thoughts” is merely a literary resource used by the author, all I can say is that it is the closest she can be to the human mind. How many times we have seen or listened to something and start relating it with past experiences or with anything at all?

As far as the themes of the story, I think that the inaccuracy of thought, the notion of flimsiness and self-preservation and, also, how readily our thoughts swarm upon new objects and then leaves them there are the basic ideas the author wants to communicate. After all, without all the random thinking the story would have been rather pointless.

In my opinion, the mark on the wall it’s just the kick off for the story to develop. The narrator consciousness shows all different kinds of ideas but to me it shows particularly a conflict of closure. It seems as if she can’t finish an idea or stop her babbling. She admits this in the 6th paragraph by saying “I want to think quietly, calmly spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another (…)”. She also mentions “I wish I could hit upon a pleasant track of thought, a track indirectly reflecting credit upon myself, for those are the pleasantest thoughts”.

It is also important to point out that the “Whiteker’s Almanac” and “the Table of Precedency” are mentioned to trace a parallel with the place one has in life. Such as the order of precedence establishes who follows who in importance, the narrators says one must know how to behave and act according to the place you have in life, to know who follows who. And, in this case, she must follow Nature.

Last but not least, throughout the story the focus comes and goes from the mark on the wall, as if reminding why she was talking in the first place. It comes to my mind that the mark on the wall doesn’t really matter. The end of the story makes that quite clear. When the narrator finishes her thoughts she says “Ah! The mark on the wall! It was a snail”, she is clearly mocking us. She says “That? No big deal