What Does Rimer Mean?
I was thinking today abut Eva and perusing my lines and a thought occurred to me. The word “Rimer” is not actually a word in the English language. Most of us have just assumed that the title of our play “The Rimers of Eldritch” simply means “The Rhymers of Eldritch.” But what if this isn’t so? If Lanford Wilson had wanted “Rimers” to mean “Rhymers” why would he misspell the word and cause us so much confusion? So I propose a new meaning for the word “Rimer” and here’s my explanation. Consider Eva’s lines (pages 50 and 51)
“That’s it, hoarfrost is rime. And it covers everything. Every little blade of grass and every tree and houses and everything. Like it’s been dipped in water and than in sugar….. It’s better than ice storms or anything like that. And everything is sparkling white and so clean when the sun comes up it nearly blinds you and it’s rare. It doesn’t happen every year. And that’s what I’d like to do. What I’d like to be. I have a book with a picture of Jack Frost painting rime on a window pane with a paintbrush….. I’m way over the tree tops, just over the tree tops, just brushing against the tree tops, and I fly right over them, just brush them with my arms out. Over the whole town like an airplane. Spreading the salt frost in the autumn.”
In this dialogue Eva is sharing with Robert what she wants to do and what he wants to be. And what is that? I believe that Eva she wants to be a “Rimer.” She wants to wake up early every morning in the winter and in the autumn and take flight over all of Eldritch. She wants to spread salt frost/hoarfrost/rime (they are all the same thing) over the whole town. Like the Sandman or Jack Frost, Eva dreams that she can create magic, and paint rime on trees and houses and everything and leave behind her a picture of sparkling white. A “Rimer” is Eva’s made up word for what she wants to be! Remember that Eva’s imagination is the only place where she can escape her disability and be whatever she chooses. In this context the word “Rimer” is such an enchanting and beautiful word that it can only exist in a cripple girl’s imagination. Now reconsider the play title “The Rimers of Eldritch” and it’s new meaning. By calling them Rimers, Lanford Wilson is describing the citizens or Eldritch as the most beautiful and magic of people. This is a frightening juxtaposition given that they epitomise the very opposite. I hope I’ve made sense. Any thoughts?
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
I like this. However ‘rimer’ is in the Oxford English Dictionary and it’s an archaic spelling of ‘rhymer’ and means just that. I think Wilson is having 50c each way and playing with both words.
Link it with the meaning of ‘eldritch’ (also archaic) meaning ‘elvish, weird’ and you get a very interesting mix of meaning.
I wonder whether ‘riming’ in the sense of putting ice over everyrthing and making it beautiful is Eva’s way of wanting to make Eldritch and its people better than they are?
It’s a very interesting look on things. It’s very poetic, and i believe that is what Lanford Wilson was thinking… 50c each way, yes… Great thought, very interesting… Hmm… That’s all i have to say, let me ponder on it longer.
I thought ‘Rimer’ meant ‘Storyteller’. So they were ‘The storytellers of weird magic’.
Yep that too. Storyteller, poets … spinners of yarns!
I just love the word play I think that the idea that Eva is a ‘Rimer’ is fantastic. Also if Eldritch means ‘elvish and wierd’ then think of the word play if Eva is a ‘Rimer’ and the town is some form of old wierd elvish town…. Or maybe I watching to much lord of the rings. Anyway thats my 2c
rime. And it covers everything. Every little blade of grass and every tree and houses and everything. Like it’s been dipped in water and than in sugar
And everything is sparkling white and so clean when the sun comes up it nearly blinds you and it’s rare. It doesn’t happen every year
FOR ME- he has explained it, the people of Eldritch are ‘rimers’, in their town they cover everything! They know everything about everybody, and they want the town the way they like it- clean. Christian. Everything moving in the same direction or not at all. The people of Eldritch have been dipped in water and then in sugar, the outside is sugar, but we all know what’s really inside. Of course there is a connection with the word Rhymer though, it is however a tainted version of the word.
It’s all very interesting, I never really understood it before now, or had really thought about it. My reading of the ‘rhymers’ idea is that these people move in circles (the Skelly-Glenna Ann and the Walter-Patsy connections), the same things happen year after year, generation after generation, so much it is almost like a story being passed down from parents to children, the same old bigotries, same old religous beliefs. So they are storytellers, but in the most destructive way, and they are the storyellers of Eldritch, because its this passing down that makes the town what it is, that creates it as this horrible place. I also really like the ‘rimers’ idea, both work, I think it’s probably supposed to work on two levels, open to interpretation.
He has probably ment to do exactly what we are doing now- use the word in such a way that the longer you try and understand its meaning the more possibilities you can come up with. Like a “How deep does the rabbit hole go?” kinda thing.
If you are right then I believe that Lanford Willson is making a comment on the people of eldritch. Eva describes teh frost as beautiful and perhaps from the outside there is something charming about eldritch, but the people who inhabit eldrich suck the life out of the place, they freeze what life is still there, suffocating it. thats how i’d take it.