Lord Singleworth

’s Secret Essay, Research Paper

email: mto395@lulu.acns.nwu.edutitle: Lord Singleworth’s Secret”People are not yet clean so far they are merely perfumed” Lord SingleworthThis story takes place in Venice, Italy. The story starts out with questions that have two possible solutions. We also see this at the end of story when Lord Singleworth gives the two delegates the run around as to the answer of the bet. From the questions asked in the first paragraph, we know that Lord Singleworth is a distinguished member of society. He is a rich, intelligent, and an aeronautic scientist who apparently is not too fond of Venice. Throughout the entire story, he contrasts between the beauty of the city with something that is vile. For example, he describes the beautiful architecture of many buildings in the city. Then he talks about how stagnant the water is below the city. The author is also not fond of the Venetian people. Throughout the story, he says they gossip and speculate upon what he is doing in the balloon. He also talks about how the people “accept an interpretation which is seemingly so unreliable,” that it reaches “the ultimate limits of local popularity.” It even reached the public speaker Sir Toni di Bona. Norwid describes this person as a harlequin, who has a lisp, and is overweight. He even labels him a clown who makes upper class Venitians laugh by using lower class humor, which is yet another conflict between cleanliness and dirtiness. He knows about the speculations of the people in Venice regarding Lord Singleworth and his experiments, and chooses to defend him. I believe Grazia defends Lord Singleworth only to make money because at the end of his performance wealthy ladies had their servants give money to the speaker. The story is told in the first person point of view. Although the person’s name never appears in the story, it is a third delegate. The first delegate is Count Antonio della Brenta. He believes Lord Singleworth is up to some mischief whenever he goes up in the balloon. The other character is Signor di San Luca who is a physician. He believes that Lord Singleworth goes up in the balloon only to get fresh air. This is yet another mention of how the Venetian water smells so foul that it makes people sick. Both Count Antonio della Brenta and Signor di San Luca made a bet as to what Lord Singleworth actually does in the air. Then the three of them ask to see Lord Singleworth to find out the answer. The next day Lord Singleworth responds by saying that the city with all it’s fancy structures is built upon a “system of latrines.” He further goes on and says that the hierarchy “must degrade a multitude of people, making them creatures without a sense of smell or any social grace .” Here is yet another conflict between the hierarchy and the lower class. Lord Singleworth continues talking about the uncleanliness of a lady dumping out her garbage from an apartment window. According to Lord Singleworth if she were to dump out her garbage from his balloon way up in the air, she would not contribute to the uncleanliness of the city because at a higher elevation there is only cleanliness and that waste would disappear.

Lord Singleworth continues by inadvertently saying that the speaker Toni di Bona Grazia is responsible for spreading the rumors about his balloon and the falling piece of paper from the sky. This accusation may be true because Toni di Bona Grazia needs rumors so that he can profit from speeches defending Lord Singleworth. Overall this story leaves the reader frustrated. Norwid begins his prose with several questions to which he does not answer, and leaves us hanging in the end. This is the type of story in which the setting is the most essential. There are many contrasts between the two social classes and the beautiful city built directly over a sewer system. This story is symbolic with many social, political and philosophical elements. The size of the story is definitely kept to a minimum since there are many unanswered questions about some of the details. However, Norwid seems to obtain his desired effect by talking about the Venetian society and the conflicts within it. The title of the story still keeps the reader in suspense since some of the details are unanswered. It also lets the audience know that the story focuses upon the events in one man’s life. The climax of the story is when the three delegates finally confront Lord Singleworth with their conflicting opinions about his conduct while he is up in the balloon. One delegate believes he is doing experiments. Whereas, the other delegate feels he is up there for the sole purpose of getting fresh air to aid digestion. Overall, the plot is weak and solely focuses upon discovering what Lord Singleworth actually does in his balloon. Lord Singleworth partially answers this question by saying at higher elevations the air is fresher and cleaner, but at the same time he also takes his assistant with him who probably does conduct experiments. Therefore, there never really is a resolution to the balloon dilemma and the reader is uncertain as to the real cause of Lord Singleworth’s behavior and the reasoning behind it.