Text Commentary

Text commentary

Content:

Susan Vreeland is an American authoress. Several of her books deal with the relationship between art and fiction, one of her books is "Magdalena Looking". A story about a young girl, She's 14 and she would like to paint ,because her father is a painter, but she's afraid of telling her father, She lives in Netherlands and it is 1600s so doesn't ask her father toteach her because she is afraid he will refuse, and in that times women weren't able to do that things, and that make her be afraid that she will spend her life doomed to household duties.

Structure:

The story " Magdalena Looking" have 25 paragraphs, So in the first paragraph Vreeland quickly establishes the setting of the story and give the reader a first strong impression about the maincharacter, the author start talking about the character, "Magdalena", so it tells us that she finished the clothes and after that she went to a place she love the most, the landscape, and the author introduce us the setting, and get us to know it, with the imagery, of what she see, and with this gorgeous view, she imagine how it would be if she can just paint it.

Then next 2 paragraphs talk abouther favorites places in town and what she loved to see everyday, like the any weather, after this part it comes a reveling part about the character personality, that is the wish list she have, that is related to her love with painting. So with the list of Magdalena wishes,I reveal her character, as well as give a great deal of background needed to understand the story. And with this we cananalyze that an important fact to the story is that in seventieth century and earlier it was extremely unlikely that a young women would be trained as an artist.

Then the next two paragraphs occur an important event of story, in this part the conflict start taking place in the story, the author start telling the relationship between her wishes and the conflict:

"More than all those wishes, shehad one pulsing wish, that outshone all the others. She wished to paint"

in this part of the story the author raises the tension in Magdalena's conflict with her own role in life, this conflict will move the plot or sequence of events, along, the conflict that she have, basically is that his father won't let her paint, and like I say before, It have a strong relationship with the time of thestory.

Then after this event, the action start raising up more till it get to the climax, when her father accept to paint her, and she has happy about that, but he just focused on the other things, but she don't tell anything because she is afraid, and when she saw it

" it was never her, she cried to herself, something surrounding her, that she did not make or even contribute to knowingly."She was sad that her father don't put attention to her face, just focused on other things of the painting, After this her father died, this is also a really intense part of the story, so by filling the sad events that occur between the dead of Magdalena's father and the auction, the authors inspires compassion for the main character

" Even though she asked for them, mother sold his paints andbrushes to the Guild of St Luke, It helped to pay a debt "

Then in this part the setting changed. When she moved to Amsterdam 20 years later, in 1969,in Amsterdam she meet a guy, named Nicolaes, they got married, and she didn't see the painting for twenty years, so the action starts going down, it's the falling action of the story. So Magdalena's life has changed

The next paragraph aftershe moved to Amsterdam she received an invitation to an auction, but when she went to the auction she was knock by her childhood

" Entering to the auction, she was stuck again by that keenest of childhood wishes - to make a record not only of what she saw, but how. The distance shed come from that, and not even a child to show for it! She shocked herself by asking involuntary. What had been the...