Individual Reading chapters 41-50

After a mounth, the narrator meets Strickland and he is not glad to share Charles' presence beside him. However, Charles invites the teller up to his apartment where they have been talking about Strcickland's attitude to Mrs Blanche. Charles explains that she was his desire, a desire to paint nudity and when he has finished with the picture, he left her. then, Stricland wants to present his pictures before the narrator. The narrator looks forward to it, since Strickland never lets anyone else see his work. Strickland tells him where to stand and to be quiet and then sets painting after painting on the easel. He leaves each one on the easel for a few minutes, and the teller can see that in six years, Strickland has made about thirty paintings. The narrator is disappointed, because he has been expecting something really special. Instead, he finds Strickland's style clumsy and awkward, and he does not like the paintings. He does, however, sense something powerful struggling to come out. The teller suggests that perhaps painting is not the way to express the ideas and feelings that Strickland is trying to convey. The teller does not even once consider buying one of the paintings. Stricland's picture are of unusual style that makes the narrator think of his true essence. Then Stricland disappears and goes to Tahiti leaving the narrator with many questions. One of the leading questions which the teller tries to understand is why Stricland began painting. Then, there are some events described in the story, the life in Tahiti. In the fisrt days of being in Tahiti the narrator acquaitances with a Capitan Nicolas to know something about Stricland. Captain Nichols describes to the narrator how he met Strickland. In Marseilles, Nichols first sees Strickland at a homeless shelter, where both men are staying for the week. Later, Nichols runs into him again and takes him to a soup kitchen for breakfast. The two vagabonds get odd jobs when they can, but often go hungry, and when they are lucky they can spend the night in abandoned or parked vehicles. After several months they start staying at the home of Tough Bill, an old sailor who books sailors jobs on ships coming through, in exchange for their first paycheck. Tough Bill gives Strickland traveling papers so he can leave the country. Nichols describes the South Sea islands to Strickland, who decides that this is the route to the painting paradise he has been seeking.