VLVL2 (15): The Last Sentence

[Tim Strzechowski]

The last sentence:  "It was Desmond, none other, the spit and image of his grandmother Chloe, roughened by the miles, face full of blue-jay feathers, smiling out of his eyes, wagging his tail, thinking he must be home."


"spit and image"/"spitting image"(Phrase Origins)

   These phrases mean "exact likeness".  "Spitting image" is first recorded in 1901; "spit and image" is a bit older (from the late 19th century), which seems to refute the explanation "splitting image" (two split halves of the same tree).  An older British
expression is "He's the very spit of his father", which Eric Partridge, in his _Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English_ (Routledge, 1950) traces back to 1400:  "He's ... as like these as th'hads't spit him."  Other languages have similar expressions; e.g., the French say _C'est son pere tout crache_ = "He is his father completely spat."  Alternative explanations are "so alike that even the spit out of their mouths is the same"; "speaking likeness"; and a corruption of "spirit".

http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifsptndmgspttngmg.shtml


Recall as well that Desmond was at the first chapter, being victimized by the blue jays who were stealing his food (p. 4).

Retribution?  "Divine justice" that was part of the Emerson quotation?

" 'Secret retributions are always restoring the level, when disturbed, of the divine justice.  It is impossible to tilt the beam.  All the tyrants and proprietors and monopolists of the world in vain set their shoulders to heave the bar.  Settles forever more the ponderous equator to its line, and man and mote, and star and sun, must range to it, or be pulverized by the recoil' " (369).

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