SOURCE: "Another Way of Looking at a Blackbird," in Research Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2, June, 1971, pp. 152-54.

In the following essay, Ramsey analyzes the role of the blackbird in "The Japanese Quince, " concluding that "the reader is left with the pathos of life missed, life here understood as dark, mysterious, dangerous, not quite proper. "

Laurence Perrine's brief analysis of John Galsworthy's "The Japanese Quince" seems to have begun and ended all consideration of that very short story. In Perrine's view, the two characters, Mr. Nilson and Mr. Tandram, "are clearly meant to be representative of a social class," the ordered and measured life style of the British upper crust as it is reflected in several images, especially the cuckoo clock [Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 1970]. The quince tree itself is "a radiant symbol for beauty, joy, life, growth, freedom, ecstasy" [Perrine, assisted by Margaret Morton Blum, Instructor's Manual for...