The Hidden Hand Prompt

I must say I feel this is the toughest prompt because there are so many different aspect of The Hidden Hand that could be discussed. This novel was, although very confusing at times, very enjoyable over all. I enjoyed the writing style of the author, Southworth, very much mainly because of the way everything was described. Objects, places, and people were described in such in depth detail that I could picture everything in my head as a read along. From the beginning to the end the pages oozed of colors and faces and in my opinion was the reason for me, I was able to understand the text more thus making this novel such a quick read. I also couldn't help but pick up on the way people were talked about or referred to because it is much different than how we do it today.

Everytime a new place or person is encountered, an elaborate desciption of each is given. When describing Hurricane Hall and the surrounding area, I was given the image of an old eerie area, one filled with mystery and deceit. It caused me to expect the unexpected in the coming pages and allowed me to infer that the man who resides in Hurricane Hall certainly must be a brash one. When describing the area the author says, "When storms and floods were high the loud roaring of the wind through the wild mountain gorges and the terrific raging of the torrent over its rocky course gave to this savage locality its ill-omended names of Devil's Hoof, Devil's Run, and Hurricane Hall." With such fascinating names and such an intense location I couldn't have imagined a better way for the author to begin the story. Because of the old fashioned english presented throughout the text, it is descriptions like these that allowed me to fully understand what is going on better. When first giving a description of Old Hurricane, the author almost took up a full page. It is because of this description I was able to understand his character better and why he spoke in the way that he did.

Another aspect of the authors writing that I couldn't stop picking up on was the names some characters, mainly Old Hurricane, used when referring to another character. It seems these names were used much more frequently than actual names. I found this really interesting because today we rarely describe a person to their face; we usually just call them by name. On the first day that Old Hurrican unknowingly encounters Captiola, he calls her: an "impertitent monkey", a "micellaneous assortment of variegated pieces", and a "ridiculous little ape". This is just one instance of Old Hurrican doing this for he often calls Wool "obseqious". However I noticed that these names that Old Hurricane seemed to create he usually used only on women or those of a lower class than himself, such as his slaves. When he encounters Herbert Greyson he does not use any of these condescending names when speaking to him. When dealing with these names it shows a similarity between Old Hurricane and Capitola because she refers to him as the "old lion". Another insance of using these descriptions instead of actual names comes when Herbert and Ira Warfield are discussing Mrs. Rocke and her son Traverse, the refer to she as the "noble woman", "poor widow", or "struggling mother" and they refer to he as "youth", "boy", "young Traverse", and "Herbert's friend". It is this disregard of their actual names we know that eventually leads to a huge misunderstanding and even bigger dispute. In today's world you will rarely see a person go to another and say "Hey how are you noble woman?". You will most likely here them say "Hey how are you", followed by a name. I am not quite sure why the author chose description to be much more important than actual names but I found this extremely interesting because it is just so different from how we are today. In our previous novels as well this isnatnce didn't occur very frequently except if they were referring to a "poor child".

I know my thoughts my be a bit scatterbrained and I apologize for that and I know there are many other aspects of this novel that could be described, such as a similarities between Ira Warfield and Captiola, or Capitola's relationship to Ellen and Gerty, however to me these are what got my attention the most. They are what kept me intuned with the novel and caused me to want to read on.