The Figure In The Carpet Sparknotes

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The figure in the carpet sparknotes.

I had done a few things and earned a few pence p. 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. The figure in the carpet has become a short hand or idiom for the key to understanding a writer s work. 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.

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. 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.

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. 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. 357 declares the narrator in the opening line. Start your 48 hour free trial to unlock this the figure in the carpet study guide and get instant access to the following.

The puzzling message of figure in the carpet at the beginning of the figure in the carpet the main character considers the criticism of literature to be a career something he does for money. 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. Summary the narrator a writer prides himself on his astute review of hugh vereker s latest novel. 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.