what new insights does clark get over the course of the story

What is Clark’s relationship with his aunt?

His aunt agrees. The rest of the story is their date to the Wagner concert. One of Clark’s most endearing qualities comes from his ability to identify with his aunt and to want to please her after she had done so much for him as a child. He is able to recognize her strong emotions as she returns to a world that she has long missed.

Where does Clark Clark live in the story?

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.

What is Clark Clark's role in the novel?

Clark, on the other hand, appears to serve as a mouthpiece, to a certain degree, for Cather's views on frontier life and the apparent superiority of city living. Frontier homesteading has deprived Georgiana of many things—her vitality, her youth, and her ability to appreciate art and culture.

Who is Clark in a Wagner Matinee?

Clark is the narrator of "A Wagner Matinee.". The reader does not learn his last name, only that he is the nephew of Georgiana, his maternal aunt, and her husband Howard Carpenter.

What does Clark understand at the end of a Wagner Matinee?

Summarize (In your own words) what (you) think Clark "understands" at the end of the story. He understand that Aunt Georgiana made the poor decision to elope and go live in Nebraska with her love and ended up stuck in this rural country life she did not want away from her passion of classical music.

What lesson does Clark draw from Aunt Georgiana's final statement declaring I don't want to go?

What lesson does Clark draw from Aunt Georgiana's final statement declaring, "I don't want to go!" in "A Wagner Matinee"? Clark realizes that Aunt Georgiana is not satisfied, and does not want to go back to her plain life in the country, where she had to give up her dream, to live a much simpler life.

What did Clark learn about his aunt by the end of the concert?

At the end, Aunt Georgiana told Clark that she did not want to leave. Having experienced the world of music again did not want to return to the world of cows, corn, and snakes. She had received a taste of the music and now she wanted more.

What did aunt Georgiana teach Clark?

Why did Clark have such a strong connection with Aunt Georgiana? -She taught him to speak Latin. -She gave him his first Shakespeare play.

Why does Georgiana move to Nebraska?

How did Aunt Georgiana end up in Nebraska? At age 30, an age at which most women are pressured into getting married quickly, she met a 20-year-old handsome farm boy while visiting the Green Mountains in NA. She fell in love with him and moved to Nebraska so they could start a family.

What does aunt Georgiana say at the end of the concert?

Clark decided to take her to a Wagner Matinee, and orchestra concert and she is enchanted because she has been apart from the music for a very long time, at the end of the concert Aunt Georgiana starts crying and say, “I don't want to go!” because she know that she must leave music behind and return to the silent …

How does Clark feel about his aunt Georgiana?

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 …

How do Clark and his aunt respond to the concert?

How do Clark and his aunt respond to the concert? His aunt said that she did not want leave Boston.

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: ).

Clark Character Timeline in A Wagner Matinée

The timeline below shows where the character Clark appears in A Wagner Matinée. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Who is Aibileen Clark?

Aibileen Clark. One of the novel’s three narrators, Aibileen is a wise but reserved middle-aged black maid who takes pride in knowing that she has helped raise seventeen white children in her lifetime.

What chapter does Skeeter return to Aibileen's?

(full context) Aibileen takes out a notebook and starts reading the story she wrote about raising her first... (full context) Chapter 12.

What does Minny say about Miss Hilly?

Minny says that Miss Hilly used her connections to get... (full context) While Aibileen is at work at the Leefolt’s the next day, Hilly and Miss Leefolt call Aibileen ... (full context) Miss Leefolt fires Aibileen but Hilly says it’s not worth pressing charges.

What does Aibileen tell Skeeter about Constantine leaving?

Feeling a small connection develop between them, Aibileen tells Skeeter that it’s wrong that she doesn’t know the truth about why Constantine left.... (full context) Chapter 7. It’s late October and Aibileen finds the bathroom in the carport a cold and isolating place.

What does the colored dots and icons mean in Chapter 1?

The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Chapter 1. It is August 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi and Aibileen Clark, a 53-year-old African American housemaid, narrates her experience working in white households.

When does Skeeter meet Minny and Aibileen?

Back at Aibileen’s, Skeeter brings over the whole manuscript to show Minny and Aibileen. As they look over... (full context) In mid-January, 1964, Skeeter meets with Minny and Aibileen at Aibileen’s house and tells them that Elaine Stein just called.

What does Aibileen say about Jackson?

Aibileen explains that in Jackson white families live in nice neighborhoods, but the black families have... (full context) Two days after the talk about the bathroom, Aibileen arrives at work where Mister Raleigh Leefolt (Miss Leefolt’s husband) is yelling at Miss Leefolt... (full context)

Where does Clark get his letter from?

Cather's "A Wagner Matinee" opens with the narrator, Clark, receiving a letter from Nebraska, which the reader soon learns is from Clark's Uncle Howard. The letter informs Clark that his Aunt Georgiana will be visiting him in Boston when she comes to attend to the estate of a deceased relative. Uncle Howard's letter asks Clark to meet Georgiana at the station and aid her in whatever way is necessary during her stay in Boston. Upon reading his uncle's letter, Clark recalls details of his youth spent on his aunt and uncle's farm in Nebraska . He remembers playing Aunt Georgiana's piano with fingers sore and raw from husking corn.

What does the author of A Wagner Matinee say about Nebraska?

In the following essay, Baker argues that in many of Cather's early short stories, including "A Wagner Matinee," the author portrays Nebraska "as a cultural desert, a setting antagonistic to the inherent artistic needs of the human spirit."

What is Cather's style in A Wagner Matinee?

Cather's style in "A Wagner Matinee" is characterized by the realism with which she describes the events of the story and the narrator's recollections of Nebraska. Cather does not make many generalizations or exaggerations during her narrative, nor are any aspects of the characters' lives idealized. Rather, the author exploits the details of harsh frontier life to make accessible and apparent to the reader the pain and suffering Georgiana lives with on a daily basis. Additionally, Clark's observations, while arguably condescending in tone at times, do come across as precise assessments of Georgiana's current debilitated condition. The details he chooses to convey are both stark and suggestive of Georgiana's suffering, as when Clark itemizes, for example, the deficiencies in Georgiana's physical appearance. As the story concludes, Clark comments on the dishcloths hanging on the "crook-backed ash seedlings" to dry, and the "gaunt, moulting turkeys picking up refuse about the kitchen door." Such specific details recall Clark's earlier description of his aunt's own crooked, thin posture and also serve to imply the ever-present chores that await Georgiana back home.

Who is Dominic in A Wagner Matinee?

Dominic is a novelist and a freelance writer and editor. In this essay, Dominic examines Cather's characterization of Clark and Georgiana in "A Wagner Matinee," arguing that through Clark' s often negative assessments of his aunt, Cather expresses her own views regarding the painful realities of frontier life as well as her opinions regarding the virtues and pleasures of life in a cultured society.

Is a Wagner Matinee a good story?

Despite the fact that "A Wagner Matinee" is one of Cather's earliest works of fiction of any length, the work is generally agreed to be a well-constructed story. In it, many critics find intimations of Cather's later, more accomplished style as well as early treatments of themes that Cather continued to explore throughout her many published works of fiction. The literary scholar James Woodress, in his introduction to the 1983 edition of The Troll Garden, states that "A Wagner Matinee" is "an excellent story, lean and compact." Woodress observes that Cather uses the same point of view—that of a young man—to great effect in her later novel My Ántonia. Other critics have focused instead on Cather's employment of autobiographical details in "A Wagner Matinee." David Daiches, in his 1951 book Willa Cather: A Critical Introduction, finds that Cather's usage of details drawn from her own life is subtle. Daiches notes that with a few such observations, Cather is able to contrast the isolation of the Nebraskan farm with the cultural sophistication of Boston. While Daiches contends that the structure of the story "is simple and the point rather obvious," he nevertheless identifies in the work the development of Cather's original style and emotional tone.