“Cold Supper”
Book 1, chapter 18; Book 2, chapter 6
Characters
1.18 Wife, husband, mother-n-law (all unnamed)
2.6 Anna (wife), Jack (husband), their son (unnamed), Irene (jack’s mistresses)
General Subject/ Plot
1.18: Like 2nd In the Bedroom. Oppressed wife and mother leaves child home alone to escape.
2.6: Man spends day with mistress instead of family. Returns home to furious wife. Claims he was at movies.
Motifs
1.18 Alcohol, snow, “slow” child, worcestershire sauce, jesus, clothing, a cold supper, 32/21
2.6a cold supper, jesus, infidelity, lucky strikes, movies and actors, tarzan, a mother, smelling of another woman, cooking,
Notes
First cold supper with three steps like [first Small Adventure], [reminds of Dante’s steps into Purgatory but can’t recall how many those were] (chapter starts with wooden stair case and end with brick steps) with woman drinking by herself like [second Another Small Adventure.] Another mention of Paris in the first (“Evening in Paris”) .. “her sweaty dirty dress” in the second, “guinea” in the second like in the first “Brothers” (“guinea bastard truck driver”)… The second cold supper is served on a Saturday, the first probably a weekday.
In the Cold Suppers we see two different responses of a woman to her perpetually late, unfaithful husband. In the one she flees her responsibilities (or, has reached the breaking point), in the second she confronts the husband (or, has not yet reached the breaking point) –not to suggest a moral lesson is being drawn here.
“Silvercup“, question, could the guy in the second “In the Diner” be Joey? (the woman in the first cold supper is described as wearing a black dress with gold-colored threads). If You Could Only Cook is, in fact, a movie. All are from the thirties except for Tarzan (1918). “Papa Joe’s” from second “Lovers.” Cross-eyed Charlie evokes “slow” Joey. Poor Butterfly / *. Interesting how the father puts all the blame on not spending time with his son on his son: he can’t watch softball with the son because the son hates softball; he can’t go to the movies with his son because the son is afraid of movies (can you believe that!); he can’t play catch with his son because how could his son ever catch a ball with that cock-eye of his? Fanny Hurst. Faith Baldwin. (Both popular woman writers of the thirties.)
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 