Looking past the face of a story

The narrator in “A Double Life” seems to be the author Karolina Pavlova. The narrator shows readers what she thinks of truth and falsehood in the story. She uses words and tones in order to convey the message that she wants to give to the readers. In order to understand more of what the narrator means, a closer look into the story is useful. She uses plenty of ways to show this message of the hate for the lies and the love of the truth. These ways range from vivid dreams to the display of emptiness inside of people.

She uses reality to show the readers what she believes of falsehoods. She shows the readers that she thinks that people just put on appears, by writing in the book the quote, “…to judge by the expressions, the smiles, and glances of the people talking, it was extremely lively…” This shows the readers that she thinks that people will put on these lies in order to make the appearance of what the people want to show. The people in the story use a lot of time and money to think about this. The narrator shows that she has a very negative view on this idea of focusing on appearances by showing the preparations before the wedding of Cecily and Dmitry. The mothers spend a lot of time talking about what clothes and jewels that Cecily should wear. By all this work that is done to make the appearance, it is not hard to see that this is a good way to make the world seem like a great place for the people in the story to live in when in reality the world is much worse. She shows, on multiple accounts, the mothers of the children in high society just wanted to go along with whatever looks the best. The narrator believes that with all the focus on appearances, there is little chance for people to get away from this way of life. Since children, generally learn from their parents, if the parents put all this work into this idea of appearances then so will the children.

In reading the book, it is easy to show that thinking in these ways shows a type of naivety. The narrator knows that some people know how to use this system to their benefit. One example the narrator shows this view is that Madame Valitsky convinces Anna Sergeevna to talk to Vera Vladimirovna about marrying Dmitry. In the story, the narrator even says while Anna Sergeevna is getting Vera to agree, “But the mother of Price Vector was herself saying this. It was impossible for Vera Vladimirovan to contradict her in this.” With this quote, the narrator shows that this way of keeping appearances led the easy forcing of the marriage. She really drives this point home of keeping appearances by stating, “But it was impossible to make inquiries about the name of the man to whom she had agreed to give her daughter.” This just shows that even while there was still time to change what she had done, she keeps up with appearances instead and marries her daughter off while still not even knowing to who. She does come to find out the error of her ways afterwards, but it is too late by then.

The narrator also shows readers that she believes that people just go through many rituals just because they want to show the correct appearance. The narrator says, in the beginning after the man passed away, that the people are talking in order just because they think that is what they are supposed to be doing. In addition, the narrator uses another scene to show that she dislikes the lies in the world. In the story, a poet comes over and recites a poem for the group that is there. The poem seems to be good, but the people there seem to want more than just some good poetry. One of them says that, “we demand action.” This shows that while they talk about action, they really do not do any action themselves. The narrator uses this point as an irony. That point that the narrator shows is that she hates the false appearances that these people with the poet are putting on.

In addition, the marriage is a type of ritual that the narrator puts bad tones on. The narrator does not like the idea of the expected woman to get married to a man that she most likely does not love and that they will live happily ever after. The narrator wrote that while at the beginning Cecily liked the idea of getting married, she started to reconsider the idea. By the time the wedding happened, she almost regretted the choice. With the narrator stating the scene in this way, it is easy to see that she does not like this type of ritual, because of the tone that the narrator writes in. The narrator writes that she suffered, “senseless fear, a perplexing nervousness.” This tone is very dark in reference to the marriage. In addition, she looks very pale at her wedding and she is having many second thoughts about leaving her home and going to live with Dmitry. With the ways that the narrator expresses the wedding, she shows that she does not like the mentally behind the wedding.

            While the narrator is very negative about the way falsehood is given, she shows that she wants the readers to come to understand the truths that she put in the story. She uses Cecily’s dreams in order to show truths that she has made in the story. One of these truths that the narrator states many times in the dreams is that the Cecily is a victim of the world of lies. Sometimes in the dreams, Cecily is seeking someone. This someone could show that she is searching for the truth in the world that she will never find. In this way, the narrator shows that she thinks that people might never really know the truth, but could be searching for it. The narrator states, “Dreams are more necessary than worldly gifts.” The dreams in the story are like the truth. Then the narrator says that the dreams are better than anything of this world, such as appearance. In the dreams, the mystery voice says that, “not knowing loss” someone can still feel like they miss something. This quote is used to show that the narrator thinks that while most people are ignoring this truth, the truth is still lost in people’s lives. This is sort of like a hunger that people cannot describe.

            In addition, the narrator shows that even when people learn about these truths that they tend to forget. Like with Cecily, she learns the truths during the nights, but quickly forgets them during the day. This shows that the narrator is critical of the people who might understand the truth, but refuse to go after it. Only when the truth would help Cecily, before the wedding, does she start to recall some of the facts that she learned during the night. A way to tell this is she repeats, “So, go as you are bid, Defenseless and alone…” This says that she is starting to recall some of what happened to her in her dreams. This is the result of having a sense of what is to come in the future. The way that the narrator displays these scenes shows that the narrator wants the readers to think about trying to understand the truth before it is too late.

            The narrator also thinks that the lies hinder the people in the world. One way to show this is the narrator repeatedly states that people living in a prison are surrounded by their lies. She states that Cecily is, “That prisoner of society’s world.” By using the term prisoner, it shows that she is in a type of prison. My using this reference to a prison, the narrator wants to show that she believes the falsehoods that people use are like a prison that keeps people down. Being inside a prison is definably not a way to live. As Cecily’s life in the real world improves she accepts the falsehoods of the world more. As she agrees with the world more, her dreams become much worse. When her life was not that great, her dreams were, “a rich and moonlit garden.” Then as the wedding gets closer, which is suppose to means that her life is improving, the dreams start to take a dark turn. The dreams later use phases like, “drift in the fog of life,” and “hollow depths of the sea rumbling.” With the words that the narrator uses, she shows that the more people accept the falsehoods in the world the more the truth wants to be seen. The harsher scenes could be the truth wanting Cecily to understand. In a way, this does work with Cecily remembering some of the dreams later in the story.

The narrator dislikes the world’s use of falsehoods, and wants to reach out and grab the truth.  She lets her ideas come out in order to show the readers that she only wants the truth to be important in people’s lives.