Story
Old Kaspar has finished his work and is sitting in the sun in front of the cottage, watching his little granddaughter at play. Peterkin, his grandson, has been rolling a hard round object he found near the stream. He brings it to the old man, who explains " 'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he (line 17–18). He admits that he often finds them while ploughing in the garden (line 22–18). The children anticipate a story—"And little Wilhelmine looks up/with wonder-waiting eyes" (ln 26–27). Kaspar explains to the children the story of the battle, that the Duke of Marlborough routed the French, although he admits he never understood the reason for the war himself.
He also mentions that his father had a cottage by the rivulet—"My father lived at Blenheim then"—where Peterkin found the skull. The soldiers burned it to the ground, and his father and mother had fled, with their child. The following verse refers to a childing mother, or a mother with child (ln 45–46) and many of them died with their newborns, possibly alluding to his own mother.
Thousands of corpses lay rotting in the fields, but he shrugs it off, as part of the cost of war (ln 53—54). Wilhelmine says it was a wicked thing, but he contradicts her, no, he says, it was a great victory.
Read more about this topic: After Blenheim
Famous quotes containing the word story:
“From the beginning, the placement of [Clarence] Thomas on the high court was seen as a political end justifying almost any means. The full story of his confirmation raises questions not only about who lied and why, but, more important, about what happens when politics becomes total war and the truth—and those who tell it—are merely unfortunate sacrifices on the way to winning.”
—Jane Mayer, U.S. journalist, and Jill Abramson b. 1954, U.S. journalist. Strange Justice, p. 8, Houghton Mifflin (1994)
“The story of Americans is the story of arrested metamorphoses. Those who achieve success come to a halt and accept themselves as they are. Those who fail become resigned and accept themselves as they are.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)
“Its idea of “production value” is spending a million dollars dressing up a story that any good writer would throw away. Its vision of the rewarding movie is a vehicle for some glamour-puss with two expressions and eighteen changes of costume, or for some male idol of the muddled millions with a permanent hangover, six worn-out acting tricks, the build of a lifeguard, and the mentality of a chicken-strangler.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)