Omens & Superstition
Also known as: Omens & Superstition
Culture
Show in diary 799 mentions Thematic Tag: Omens & Superstition
This thematic tag collects diary paragraphs where Marie reads a sign: a broken mirror, a dog that follows her, a fortune told by a card-reader or an acquaintance, bibliomancy with an encyclopaedia, the numerology of a lover's name. Marie half-believes and half-mocks her own credulity, and the signs she notes tend to cluster around love and death.
Tagging Criteria
- Tag an omen read or feared (a broken glass, a number, an animal, a day of the week).
- Tag a fortune told, cards laid, a fortune-teller or a medium consulted.
- Tag a superstition admitted or practised: bibliomancy, counting letters of a name, a charm.
- Tag a prophecy that she quotes and then watches for fulfilment.
- Do not tag church ritual, prayer and vows (Faith & Prayer, Church Attendance).
- Do not tag a dream with no interpretation (Dreams).
- Do not tag figurative "bonne étoile" or "mauvais œil" with no belief behind it.
- Do not tag a ghost story or a play she is watching.
- The bar is that the paragraph is substantively about the theme; a passing word never qualifies. A paragraph takes at most three themes.
Common French Cues
- Nouns: un signe, un présage, un mauvais signe, la superstition, les cartes, la tireuse de cartes, la bonne aventure, le sort
- Phrases: "cela veut dire", "c'est bon signe", "signe de mort", "j'ai fait les cartes", "j'ai ouvert au hasard"
- False friends: sort as fate in general; glace broken (a mirror) versus a figurative "glace"
Notable Patterns
- Many of Marie's signs concern her future husband: the number of letters in his name, a card, a game at a party.
- Superstition and Faith & Prayer shade into each other when she bargains with God; tag Religion only if faith or prayer is actually present.
Example Paragraphs
- `042.0002` — her aunt breaks the mirror: "signe de mort ou de grand malheur"
- `080.0615` — a dog that follows her is "bon signe"; the rest of the fortune is not
- `055.1108` — counting the letters of Torlonia against Hamilton
- `056.0399` — opening an encyclopaedia at random to learn whether Pietro thinks of her