- Behind the Singer Tower
Behind the Singer Tower is a short story by
Willa Cather . It was first published in "Collier's " in May 1912 [Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, University of Nebraska Press; Rev Ed edition, 1 Nov 1970, page 54] .Plot summary
The Mont Blanc Hotel, a luxurious hotel in
New York City gets set on fire, thus killing many prominent figures. This prompts the narrator to think back to the time a similar thing had happened, only to poor people. Caesarino, a poor worker, had died in a fire as his family was coming fromIschia to visit him. This led the narrator to sue the building manager, Stanley Merryweather. Both men are now well known to dislike each other. The narrator reflects that Caesarino might have been better off on his native island, but he was lured by the New York idea...Characters
*the narrator, a journalist.
*Fred Hallet, an engineer.
*Johnson, a journalist.
*A lawyer from the District Attorney's office.
*Zablowski, aJewish doctor from theRockefeller Institute .
*Graziani, atenor .
*Stanley Merryweather.
*Fanny Reizenstein, Stanley Merryweather's wife.
*Caesarino, anItalian American builder.Allusions to other works
There are allusions to
Sandro Botticelli , and theSong of Songs .Allusions to actual history
It has been argued that the story might have been prompted by the
Windsor Hotel fire of March 17, 1899 [Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, University of Nebraska Press; Rev Ed edition, 1 Nov 1970, 'Introduction' by Mildred R. Bennett, page xli] .Literary significance and criticism
It has been suggested that the story was influenced by
Gustave Flaubert 's "Salammbô" andJoseph Conrad 's "Heart of Darkness " [Haller, Evelyn, "'Behind the Singer Tower': Willa Cather and Flaubert.", "Modern Fiction Studies, 1990, 36:39-54] .References
External links
* [http://libtextcenter.unl.edu/examples/servlet/transform/tamino/Library/cather?&_xmlsrc=http://libtextcenter.unl.edu/cather/writings/cat.ss045/cat.ss045.xml&_xslsrc=http://libtextcenter.unl.edu/cather/xslt/cather_ss.xsl Full text]
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