Claire's Poem discusses sins, what not to do. They are the beautiful, the ideal while we are the ugly, the nonideal. We commit sins by not being beautiful.
They are the damned. This distances us from them, "not us here, them, they over there"
They are the damned. This a realization, an embodiment of what it means to be damned.
We can't draw the line between beautiful/nonbeautiful. They/we are never specified; we are all beautiful/nonbeautiful. There is no line drawn within ourselves therefore the lines can't be drawn in others.
The poem is a metacommentary, commenting on poetry and the book itself.
Carlene is living for while Kiki is living with. However, Kiki realizes she's been living for Howard after talking with Carlene.
Iam Forster - On Beauty is an homage to Iam Forster and his works - Howard's End (place, not person)
Victorian England (1890-1940?): It's all about propriety, what society thinks a person should do is what people strive to do. They live by codes and morals. For example, sexual references are repressed. Breast and thigh meat in chicken becomes white and dark meat; ankles are hidden and high-waistlines are the height of fashion. Anything different, abnormal should be avoided at all costs.
On Beauty moves the story to urban, contemporary England and adds the race factor. In the end of Howard's End, both families live "happily ever after", defying all notions of Victorian England - is it the same in On Beauty?
Voice - What kind of voice? How does one have subjectivity? Power?
I think Claire's wrong and right in a way. Carl does have a voice but he doesn't know the language; someone, Zora, should teach him the language so he can speak for himself rather than have someone speak for him. "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime."
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