Notes - in the car office /

          Afternoon. You stopped at McD' and brought your lunch to Rose Hill. You are sitting in the shade to the right of Whitaker's mausoleum. Carol is reading a special 2017 Money investment magazine. You are enjoying the quiet, very light breeze with a temperature of eighty degrees. Last night you watch an early "Midsomer Murders" on Netflix then read spiral notebook three and found a couple of pages to mark. Once to bed some soul searching, as it is commonly called. You found a notebook passage where you had talked to your sister-in-law, Mary Lou, about Romela and she came to the conclusion that Romela was a "writing persona". You had forgot that very simple explanation but find that is the best description. Sometimes Romela signed herself 'Romela and Rex', her male friend/counterpart. Both were concerned for your well-being and helped you write Spice with encouragements and suggestions. Other than that there were a couple of reminders on how you had misunderstood an earlier sharing goal with a rabbi you did not know personally. You were perplexed earlier in 1987 when you came to believe that what you were writing at the time was for a religious person you did not know. You sent him documents without leaving your name or address. Finally, after seven months you left your name and address and were sent a letter telling you to stop sending the material which you did. You told Fritz and he suggested you send an apology which you did. No more from the rabbi and there were no repercussions. Before you sent the material you were unsure who did the writing. You didn't feel possessed by either a good or a bad angel (this was always a concern) and you were as honest as you are in this encounters-in-mind blog. You sent the material to the rabbi because you were unsure who was doing this 'secret' writing and felt it was better to err on the side of a good angel and send it feeling that the rabbi, a religious man, would know. -- The point is that he felt you were sincere and there was nothing in your public file to suggest you were a 'crackpot' of sorts. -- You came to this conclusion because he never followed up personally and decided to let it be. Your personal lesson was that you followed your heart at the time -- it was an existential decision to share the material with someone else because you, your personality, character, you heartansoulanmind had no choice but to send the material that was, you felt, written by 'another spirit within your own'. With these spiral notebooks in 1988 you immediately shared with Fritz M. and then with Bob P. and felt the better for it. You trusted them to tell you if you were going 'over the edge' so to speak. This was all going on as you carried on your everyday life with Carol, Kim as well as with the rest of family and friends. You considered your writing to still be experimental no matter who the writing persona character in your head was. Take a break. Carol is waking from a short nap. - Amorella

** **

Literary Devices

Definition and Examples of Literary Terms - Persona

Definition of Persona

The term persona has been derived from a Latin word “persona” that means the mask of an actor, and is therefore etymologically linked to the dramatis personae which refers to the list of characters and cast in a play or a drama.  It is also known as a theatrical mask. It can be defined in a literary work as a voice or an assumed role of a character that represents the thoughts of a writer or a specific person the writer wants to present as his mouthpiece. Most of the time, the dramatis personae are identified with the writers though sometimes a persona can be a character or an unknown narrator. Examples of persona are found not only in dramas but in poems and novels, too. Examples of persona in Literature

Example #1

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument 
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

(The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot)

These are the initial fifteen lines of the poem Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The speaker is a persona of T. S. Eliot that he wants to present before the world though the poet himself is not suffering from the same mental conflict. 

Example #2

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands….
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read……
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

(My Last Duchess by Robert Browning)

This poem is a dramatic monologue  (uses persona). The poet mainly communicates about the shocking appearance of the “duke” character. In this stanza the persona is discussing the painting as the monologue opens. Through simple technique the poet describes the superficiality of the duke’s character though it seems to be the voice of the poet put into the mouth of the duke.

Example #3

An excerpt from “The Old Man and Sea”

“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone
eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky…….
The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat…..”

The first paragraph of this book sounds as if Hemingway himself is Santiago. Through the characterization of Santiago, Hemingway is expressing his belief in the struggle against unconquerable natural forces of the world. However, it is up to the persona (Santiago) to determine whether he wants to change his luck or not.

Example #4

An excerpt from “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad

“Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration…., and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, ‘When I grow up I will go there…… Well, I haven’t been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour’s off…. well, we won’t talk about that.…..”

Marlow is probably one of the most famous persona examples in novels. In this novel, Marlow is used as Conrad’s mouthpiece. In this extract, Conrad is telling us through Marlow about his own visit to the Congo and his experiences of sailing to distant places and his boyhood ambition of sailing. Hence, Marlow is used as a persona in this novel.

Function of Persona

The speaker of a dramatic monologue is also known as a persona. Such a monologue is presented without commentary or analysis. However, emphasis is laid on subjective qualities and finally left up to the audience to interpret it. In literature, authors use persona to express their ideas, beliefs and voices they are not able to express freely due to some restrictions or that they cannot put into words otherwise. Persona is also sometimes a role a person or a character assumes in public or in the society he lives in.

Selected and edited from https:// literary devices dot net

** **

       1419 hours. I remember James Bond was supposedly Ian Fleming's persona because he could not 'kill' someone sleeping in a bunk in a practice military exercise outside of Toronto while working as the aide to William Stephenson head of the SIS or M-6 during W.W. II. Bond was someone Fleming was not; a 007. I suppose I was like Fleming in that as an agnostic by nature I could not write (sincerely/honestly) about one of my favorite subjects (strangely): angels. At the time I had not developed my personal concept of a 'heartansoulanmind'. Today, she is my spiritual persona. (1428)

       I agree with your above paragraph. You provide a reasonable explanation in context. This fits within your struggle to deal with spiritual matters in your life. It is a core of your conflict with having had (in your heartansoulanmind) the actual metaphysical experience which is this exercise for this research assignment you have taken on. This background is relevant. - Amorella

       1444 hours. What this shows me is that so far is that my chances were most negligible for actually being confronted by a real Angel of G-D. I easily accept this as fact.

       You stopped writing and took a break to walk off 14 calories according to your watch, two minutes or so to walk one cemetery block twice. Before lunch you gave in and took a pain pill, not half. Sharp unannounced pains in hip and lower back region all morning. You lay flat most of that time. Thankfully that after twenty minutes the pill worked. I am angry at myself for throwing out about sixty outdated pills (as Dr. M. told me to do) after he gave me twelve new ones. They might have still helped if I had doubled the dosage. At least Dr. M. gave me a few more a couple of weeks ago. This is the first of that batch I have taken and I have a few from the first batch a couple months ago. Carol is taking a short ten minute walk because she forgot her walking shoes.

       Later, you had Papa John's pizza for supper, watched NBC and ABC news and a couple of 'buy property' programs on "HGTV". The pain pill has worn off and the sharper pains have returned. The trash goes out tonight. You are ready to sleep into Monday morning daylight. Post. - Amorella

       2057 hours. I think there are not going to be many phototexts of the spiral notebooks to place in postings. Even the two I already placed may not be relative enough for this "angel in the room" focus. It only lasted two or three minutes. I need to read what I wrote about it the first time and a couple of later times. The metaphysics was a lifetime but the actual physics not so much. Tomorrow I will add the couple of pages of related phototext.