The Figure In The Carpet Sparknotes

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The figure in the carpet sparknotes.

The figure in the carpet plot summary an un named literary critic feels he has successfully reviewed the latest work of hugh vereker a distinguished novelist. I had done a few things and earned a few pence p. 357 declares the narrator in the opening line. The narrator whose name is never revealed meets his favorite author and becomes obsessed with discovering the secret meaning or intention of all the author s works.

A short summary in the tale a nameless first person narrator undertakes in the absence of his friend and fellow critic george corvick the task of reviewing the latest. You ll also get. Summary the narrator a writer prides himself on his astute review of hugh vereker s latest novel. Vereker dismisses his efforts explaining that all critics have missed my little point the particular thing i ve written my books most for the thing for the critic to find my secret like a complex figure in a persian carpet.

The figure in the carpet is a short story sometimes considered a novella by american writer henry james first published in 1896. The figure in the carpet henry james 1843 1916 the story ostensibly concerns a young literary critics who greatly admirs the writer hugh vereker. Although lerner doesn t mention it the title of his very short introductory chapter looking for the figure in the carpet is i assume beholden to the wonderful short story the figure in the carpet by henry james who understood a great deal about authorial intention and the pitfalls of interpretation. And yet the story in which the idiom was born henry james s 1896 tale the figure in the carpet refuses to open itself up to easy interpretations or analysis.

In a gesture of compensation one supposes vereker confides to the narrator that his fictions are all linked by a single idea or scheme that no critic has ever noticed but that is the very secret. The figure in the carpet. But when he meets the author in person at a social event vereker tells him that whilst the review is intelligent he has missed the hidden underlying issue which informs all of his writing. It is told in the first person.