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Mosquitoes (novel)Mosquitoes is a satiric novel by the American author William Faulkner. The book was first published in 1927 by the New York-based publishing house Boni & Liveright and is the author's second novel. Sources conflict regarding whether Faulkner wrote Mosquitoes during his time living in Paris, beginning in 1925 or in Pascagoula, Mississippi in the summer of 1926. It is, however, widely agreed upon that not only its setting, but also its content clearly reference Faulkner's personal involvement in the New Orleans creative community where he spent time before moving to France.

The city of New Orleans and a yacht on Lake Pontchartrain are the two primary settings for the novel. Beginning and ending in the city, the story follows a diverse cast of artists, aesthetes, and adolescents as they embark on a four-day excursion aboard the motorized yacht, the Nausikaa, owned by a wealthy patron of the arts.

The novel is organized into six sections: a prologue which introduces the characters, four body sections each of which documents a day of the yacht trip hour-by-hour, and an epilogue which returns the characters, changed or unchanged, to their lives off the boat.

Plot
Prologue
Mosquitoes opens in the apartment of one of the story's main characters, a reserved and dedicated sculptor named Gordon. Ernest Talliaferro, a friend of the artist, joins him in the apartment, watching intently as the Gordon chisels away at a sculpture. Talliaferro engages the sculptor in a largely one-sided 'conversation' about his abilities with women. The artist works around the chatty Talliaferro, indifferently agreeing with every claim and question, yet declines the offer to attend an evidently aforementioned boat trip hosted by the wealthy Mrs. Maurier.

Leaving the apartment to get a bottle of milk for Gordon, he meets Mrs. Maurier, the hostess of the upcoming yachting trip, who is accompanied by her niece, Pat. A quick return to Gordon's apartment follows where Mrs. Maurier personally extends the offer for him to join the yachting excursion. Though Gordon maintains a distant and uninterested aura, it becomes evident through the stream-of-consciousness passages that follow that he is at odds with himself over his sudden attraction to Pat that changes his mind about the trip.

When Talliaferro takes leave of Gordon and the women, his path through the city and the paths of other characters that diverge in his wake serve to introduce the multifaceted New Orleans artistic community around which the plot focuses. At a dinner that follows, Talliaferro's visit with Gordon, the conversations about art that ensue as well as the sexual tensions that are hinted at in the interactions of Talliaferro, Julius Kaufmann, and Dawson Fairchild set the stage for the interactions and themes that come to typify rest of the novel.

The First Day
The second section opens as Mrs. Maurier welcomes all her guests onto the Nausikaa. The cast of characters in attendance is diverse and is typologically split into artists, non-artists, and youths. Though it, at first provides a chronological foundation to the activities that Mrs. Maurier has planned for her guests, it becomes evident that her guests, especially the men, are uncontrollable and more interested in drinking whisky in their rooms while gossiping about women and discussing art, than in participating in any activity she offers. The first day on the yacht concludes with a minor cliffhanger when Mr. Talliaferro makes it known that he has his sights set on one of the women on the ship, but only speaks her name behind closed doors.

The Second Day
During the second day the activities on the boat take an even further backseat to the development of the characters and their interactions with one another. Similar conversations among the men over drinks continue, but the second day of the trip becomes largely defined by interactions between pairs of characters that result in misguided sexual tension that is fostered between them. Mrs. Jameson's advances on Pete, for instance, go unnoticed or unreciprocated by the young man. Similarly, Mr. Talliaferro's interest in Jenny grows, though as is always the case with him, he is not able to realize any relationship with the girl. Mrs. Maurier shares in the disappointment of unrequited love as she watches all of the men on the boat fawn over Jenny and Pat. These two subjects of male gaze share their own brief sexually charged interaction as they lay together in the room they share. The only openly reciprocal feelings that seem to develop over the course of the day are between Pat and the nervous steward, David West, who she goes to meet for a midnight swim after her intimate encounter with Jenny. Two scenes diametrically opposed conclude the chapter as David West and Pat return in youthful joy from a midnight swim off of the now marooned boat, while Mrs. Maurer lies in bed sobbing in her loneliness.

The Third Day
The third day on the yacht begins as Pat and David decide to leave the boat and elope to the town of Mandeville. The chapter cuts back and forth between the characters on the boat and Pat and David as they make their way through a seemingly endless swamp to their intended destination. The sexual advances and artistic discussion continue among characters on the boat. The most notable change in this chapter is the dominant role Mrs. Wiseman comes to play both in her sexual exploits and in her display of intelligence. Mrs. Wiseman's interest in Jenny is evident in her ever-present gaze upon the girl. Prior to this chapter, conversations on the merits of artistic production took place almost exclusively among the male passengers of the boat, but now, following her revealed gaze upon Jenny, Mrs. Wiseman holds a strong place in a debate between Fairchild, Julius, and Mark Frost. Mrs. Maurier too is present, but her idealistic thoughts on the "art of Life" are hardly heard.

Eventually growing tired of talking, sitting, and eating, the passengers on the boat join together to try to pull the boat from where it is marooned. Their struggle to release the boat is mirrored by the Pat and David's struggle for survival as they continue to trudge, dehydrated through the swamp. Failing to free the boat, the characters return to the yacht and the brief reprieve from explorations of sexuality and art ends. These main themes return quickly as Mrs. Wiseman kisses Jenny and the rest of the men return to drinking and talking. Pat and David soon return and everything returns to normal by the end of the day.

The Fourth Day
The fourth day opens and David is gone again in pursuit of a better job. The excitement of the third day has vanished. The boat still stranded and no one knows where Gordon has gone. Eventually the same man who brought back Pat and David also brings Gordon back and everyone is once again accounted for. With David out of the way, Gordon is finally given a chance to explore his attraction to Pat that brought him on the boating trip in the first place. They get in an argument that ends in an unusual manner with him spanking her like a child. Thereafter however, she lies in his arms and they get to know one another. The tugboat comes and frees the marooned yacht and everyone, including Gordon, spends the evening dancing. Mr. Talliaferro fall victim to a trick by Fairchild and Julius that leads him into a room which he thinks is Jenny's room but is in fact the room of Mrs. Maurier, to whom he is now apparently engaged.

Epilogue
The epilogue follows the Nausikaa's passengers onto land and back into their individual lives, tying up many loose ends. Jenny and Pete return to their families. Major Ayers attends a meeting to propose an invention of digestive salts that continually mentions throughout the story. Mark Frost and Mrs. Jameson, the two unimaginative artists, find love in each other and begin a relationship. Gordon, Julius, and Fairchild have one last discussion of art and Gordon reveals that he has shifted from working with marble to clay and has molded from it a likeness Mrs. Maurier, much departed from his prior artistic obsession with representing the young female nude that he worked on in the beginning of the book. In the last section, Mr. Talliaferro visits Fairchild, distressed again by his ineptitude with women. After returning home, Talliaferro comes to what he thinks is a revelation regarding how he can be more successful with women. The novel ends as he tries to call Fairchild, but on the other end is only the operator, who says sarcastically "You tell 'em, big boy; treat 'em rough."

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