Phantom Thoughts pt. 2
Dec. 6th, 2018 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zellephantomquotes from the de Mattos translation, as usual (whyy does my local library not have any others??)
{"Pooh!" said one of them, who had more or less kept her head. "You see the ghost everywhere!"
And it was true. For several months, there had been nothing discussed at the Opera but this ghost in dress-clothes who stalked about the building, from top to bottom, like a shadow, who spoke to nobody, to whom nobody dared speak and who vanished as soon as he was seen, no one knowing how or where. As became a real ghost, he made no noise in walking. People began by laughing and making fun of this specter dressed like a man of fashion or an undertaker; but the ghost legend soon swelled to enormous proportions among the corps de ballet. All the girls pretended to have met this supernatural being more or less often. And those who laughed the loudest were not the most at ease. When he did not show himself, he betrayed his presence or his passing by accident, comic or serious, for which the general superstition held him responsible. Had any one met with a fall, or suffered a practical joke at the hands of one of the other girls, or lost a powderpuff, it was at once the fault of the ghost, of the Opera ghost.}
Who is this sensible ballet girl? (since little Jammes and Meg have already been introduced, we can reasonably assume it isn't either of them) Does she believe in the Ghost at all? Or has she played along with the Ghost pretending just to fit in with the others? Is she popular, or does she only have a trusted friend or two?
Is the Phantom basically a meme in the Opera House? Hear me out- the whole 'blaming the Ghost on minor misfortunes that he might not have even caused' sounds kind of like the whole Thanks Obama meme, doesn't it? I mean, "people began by laughing" and then the whole thing "[swelling] to enormous proportions" even sounds like the way a meme travels.
Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this.. (Not that I'm going to stop.)
{"Pooh!" said one of them, who had more or less kept her head. "You see the ghost everywhere!"
And it was true. For several months, there had been nothing discussed at the Opera but this ghost in dress-clothes who stalked about the building, from top to bottom, like a shadow, who spoke to nobody, to whom nobody dared speak and who vanished as soon as he was seen, no one knowing how or where. As became a real ghost, he made no noise in walking. People began by laughing and making fun of this specter dressed like a man of fashion or an undertaker; but the ghost legend soon swelled to enormous proportions among the corps de ballet. All the girls pretended to have met this supernatural being more or less often. And those who laughed the loudest were not the most at ease. When he did not show himself, he betrayed his presence or his passing by accident, comic or serious, for which the general superstition held him responsible. Had any one met with a fall, or suffered a practical joke at the hands of one of the other girls, or lost a powderpuff, it was at once the fault of the ghost, of the Opera ghost.}
Who is this sensible ballet girl? (since little Jammes and Meg have already been introduced, we can reasonably assume it isn't either of them) Does she believe in the Ghost at all? Or has she played along with the Ghost pretending just to fit in with the others? Is she popular, or does she only have a trusted friend or two?
Is the Phantom basically a meme in the Opera House? Hear me out- the whole 'blaming the Ghost on minor misfortunes that he might not have even caused' sounds kind of like the whole Thanks Obama meme, doesn't it? I mean, "people began by laughing" and then the whole thing "[swelling] to enormous proportions" even sounds like the way a meme travels.
Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this.. (Not that I'm going to stop.)
