The Gossamer Years

Apparently, the opening paragraph was written after the diary itself, for there is a wistful resignation about that paragraph which is not hinted at in the book itself until the final section. It would be unlikely that she wrote the opening paragraph with its spirit of acceptance and wisdom before she wrote the diary itself, unless she were far more detached from the events of the diary than it appears. There is such an abrupt shift from the opening paragraph to the beginning of the diary itself that we are probably safe in concluding that the author did indeed write the opening paragraph afterwards, and means it to carry a certain message. The diary is an emotional document, and it is very possible that the author read her work after writing it, feared that it was in fact too emotional, too turbulent, and so she wrote the opening paragraph in an attempt to ease the impact of the diary on the reader. It seems a

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sfied longing. The old, inexhaustible sadness came back, and I went through the rites for my ancestors, but absent-mindedly" (167). The author has gone through much suffering on the way to such a weary wisdom, however. Her husband is a self-centered, philandering patriarch who has little or no compassion for the pain he causes his wife. At one point, the Prince has impregnated one of his many lovers, and the woman has given birth. The Prince is either so insensitive or outright sadistic that he passes his own house---with his wife inside---as he takes his mistress out of town. The author writes, "I myself was quite speechless and thought only that I would like to die on the spot" (42). During one of many attempts at reconciliation, the Prince writes a poem to the author, exhibiting an unbelievable self-pity in an attempt to make her feel guilty: "And when I awoke in the middle of the night,/ I found . . . not a trace of you./ . . . And where is the harem with which you have adorned me?/ You tell me I am fickle, you press me to say/ Which of my loves is the loveliest. Surely here/ is the heavy crime you speak of" (47). In other words, to this incredibly selfish man, her refusal to sleep with him is worse than his many betrayals.
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Approximate Word count = 1756
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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