This song for me centres around the ambiguity of weather the narrator is the killer and the irony of his wife being named Joy .
gloom, that's an interesting idea i hadn't thought of the inclusion of "Red Right Hand" in the song in quite those terms before...
Girgo, I don't think that the character in Red right Hand can possibly be the same as the character in Song of Joy simply for me the character in Red Right Hand is God. the quote from Milton itself refers to the possibility of God's vengeance on the rebels.
Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Doesn't the fact that he quotes paradise lost, almost abscent-mindedly during the recounting of the tale of his children's and wife's murder clarly point to him as being the murderer? He appears to be further implicated when he claims that the killer "In my house he wrote "his red right hand" That, I'm told is from Paradise Lost".
The fact that the narrator first quotes Paradise Lost in conversation and then claims to have no knowledge of it, for me seals the case that he is the killer.
affe, I don't see any evidence of the killer suffering from a split personailty or of this song being a kind of retelling of Jekyl and Hyde.
I think this song is about a family man and doctor whose wife became depressed and he grew bored of her and in revenge (the quotation of Milton "His Red Right Hand" supports the theme of vengeanvce if you look at it in it's original context) he murdered them and took up the life of a vagrant to kill others.
GravityAlwaysWins I think that it is the latter. I think the quotation from paradise lost
Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
summarises not only the oncoming of Joy's depression but of the narrator's desire to murder his family.
This song for me centres around the ambiguity of weather the narrator is the killer and the irony of his wife being named Joy .
gloom, that's an interesting idea i hadn't thought of the inclusion of "Red Right Hand" in the song in quite those terms before...
Girgo, I don't think that the character in Red right Hand can possibly be the same as the character in Song of Joy simply for me the character in Red Right Hand is God. the quote from Milton itself refers to the possibility of God's vengeance on the rebels.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost/Book_I
Farewell, happy fields, Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Doesn't the fact that he quotes paradise lost, almost abscent-mindedly during the recounting of the tale of his children's and wife's murder clarly point to him as being the murderer? He appears to be further implicated when he claims that the killer "In my house he wrote "his red right hand" That, I'm told is from Paradise Lost".
The fact that the narrator first quotes Paradise Lost in conversation and then claims to have no knowledge of it, for me seals the case that he is the killer.
affe, I don't see any evidence of the killer suffering from a split personailty or of this song being a kind of retelling of Jekyl and Hyde.
I think this song is about a family man and doctor whose wife became depressed and he grew bored of her and in revenge (the quotation of Milton "His Red Right Hand" supports the theme of vengeanvce if you look at it in it's original context) he murdered them and took up the life of a vagrant to kill others.
GravityAlwaysWins I think that it is the latter. I think the quotation from paradise lost
Farewell, happy fields, Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
summarises not only the oncoming of Joy's depression but of the narrator's desire to murder his family.