3005WSP09

I found Nathanial Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables" a difficult read. I have never been a fan of Hawthorne, but through class discussions I have a new appreciation for his ability to use literary devices to tell a story within a story. Many classical authors use literary devices to represent their characters, but Hawthorne's use of light and dark and the use of the house provided me with an understanding that I missed the first time I read this novel. Although I found the ending to be inappropriate and out of sequence with where the novel seemed to be going, Hawthorne does have an interesting ability in how he can tell a story.
I also found it interesting how Hawthorne used the narrator. As much as I felt the narrator was removed from the story as he was tellilng it, he still felt completely entwined as a pivotal character at times. Honestly, I think it may have been interesting if the narrator would have turned out to be a real character in the novel or if it would have turned out to be the house telling the story. It would have made a much greater impact on the story and could have provided a more powerful ending.

Posted by dole0025 at 4:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reading the works of Edgar Allen Poe can be challenging. He has a tendency to be very wordy. But I found as I read his works they are unbelivably haunting and there is an amazing dark quality that make them somewhat captivating. In "Ligeia" he discusses the past so that it sets up what happens in the future and why it is so haunting. "The House of Usher" is a great short story that provides some great historical irony. I think that Poe could have been an early Stephen King type. The ability to conjure up these dark and haunting stories is a great quaility. Be it that Poe may have used/abused drugs in order to come up with these concepts or his mental health may have been questionable, the man had a great talent. While some may not understand or appreciate this, it is what sets readers and critics apart in their idea of what is a classically relevant piece of literature.

Posted by dole0025 at 4:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why do people feel uncomfortable discussing slavery? As we attempted to discuss this issue in class it seems that many of the uncomfortable feelings surrounding this discussion result from our own insecurities that stem from racism. As we read narratives by Douglass and Jacobs we are reminded of the separation of race. It was the white people who were persecuting the black people. Because of the color of skin people were separate into classes, making the whites the superiors. As we've read other accounts of settlement in the United States this is a common theme. The Europeans felt superior to the Native Americans. This idea obviously carried itself into the twentieth century and led to the civil rights movement.
We as students in the twenty-first century are becoming more removed from these major historical events. This should make it easier to discuss things like slavery without feeling insecure. But as we move further away time wise society has also added the pressure of political correctness. This making it even more difficult due to the fear of not wanting to say anything offensive, since everyone seems to have a different comfort level and a different idea of what they deem as politically correct. Therefore, I don't know if slavery or other historical events will ever be able to be discussed as indepth as some would like at an undergraduate level.

Posted by dole0025 at 3:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although analysis has shifted towards discussing the narrator of Bartelby, The Scrivener, there is still much mystery surrounding the character of Bartelby and what he represents in the story. Bartelby’s famous phrase, “I would prefer not to” is a problematic one, in that it does not explicitly state Bartelby’s intentions. It is merely a preference which neither denies or confirms his actual willingness to complete a task. A choice, on the other hand, is something completely different. If Bartelby had said, I will not, he would have been making a choice. There are some distinctions, I feel, that must be established in order to understand the difference between a choice and a preference.

When one makes a choice, they are making a definite decision as what they do or do not want to do, see, experience, etc. A choice is much more expressive of one’s personality than a preference, in that a preference is an expression of what one would do, whereas a choice concerns what they will do. Bartelby’s preference, from that perspective, is problematic in that he would rather not do a task assigned to him, but that does not mean that he will not do it. His employer is unable, it seems, to understand this. When Bartelby says to him, “I would prefer not to”, the employer interprets Bartelby’s preference as an expression of his will rather than a mere preference. This illustrates a confusion as to what the will truly is, and how it relates to the decisions we make.

One of the prominent interpretations of Bartelby, The Scrivener is that it is a critique of western capitalism. The narrator represents a participant of the doctrine. He is used to expressions of the will which will allow him to earn profit or not. Bartelby’s preference to not accomplish his task puts the narrator in an awkward position, because capitalism seems to operate on expressions of the will rather than preference. The preference represents, in a sense, idealism. It is an expression of what we would do. Along with what we would do are several disclaimers. Often it is said that I would do X if it weren’t for Y, or something along those lines. In the case of Bartelby, he uses preference to show that he would prefer not to do this task. Were he to express his will he would be making a definite decision as to whether or not he wants to participate in the construct of capitalism, which he, like everyone else in society, obviously cannot do without great sacrifice. That being said, Bartelby’s preference, it seems, represents the part of society which does not subscribe to the capitalist mindset, yet lives within a world which runs on capitalist principles. It is an expression of hope for a different world in which one does not have to accomplish tasks to earn money to pay the bills, support a family, etc. It is, perhaps, a wish for change which, like Bartelby, is vague and unclear.

Posted by marsh367 at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our introduction to slave narratives began with reading works by Fredrick Douglass. Douglass was a former black slave who experienced the horrors of slavery. Moving on.... Then we read Harriet Jacobs who was another former black slave who experienced the horrors of slavery as well. Their writings vividly illustrated the horrors of slavery and made us question how our country ever let that happen. After reading Douglass and Jacobs, we read excerpts from the most popular book of the 19th century: "Uncle Tom's Cabin." "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a white woman. What?

I am interested to know why a historical fiction novel written by a white woman was more influential and popular than the nonfictional accounts of slavery written by Douglass and Jacobs. I mean, yes it is good that the popularity of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" enraged abolitionists and that it is credited with starting the Civil War that did end slavery, but why is it that Stowe's fictional work takes precedence over Douglass and Jacob's nonfiction?

I think that we as humans, for some reason unknown to me, are able empathize easier with fictional characters than real people. Take for example Douglass as himself in his works, and Uncle Tom. As readers now, who do we all feel that we know better? Sadly I admit that Uncle Tom is a more memorable character than Douglass in their respective works. At the time of the Civil War, did people feel more inclined to fight for Uncle Tom than they did Douglass? I feel that it creates a very awkward question regarding race and motives.

I guess I can rephrase my thoughts in the question:

Would you rather read:
a) Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
b) Anne Frank's Diary

Maybe we read fiction in order to deny the harsh realities of life. Reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin," we as the readers know that none of these characters exist. However, reading Douglass or Jacobs we know that it happened and therefore it has a different emotion impact on us.

Posted by byrne115 at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think the biggest issue with Rowlandson's writings that wasn't examined too carefully is that the whole piece was written in retrospect. Think about all the time Mary Rowlandson had after her release to think about and mull over her experiences with the Natives. It seems that this time was used mostly to craft the most negative, incendiary portrayal of the Natives. I think that what Rowlandson's piece ends up being is half propaganda and half memoir. To be fair, it is a very easy to understand piece and I think that Rowlandson is rather good at making her story available to all who want to read it by writing it in such simple prose. The book did become a best seller in its time. The piece works as propaganda because it does advance a view of the natives held by the Puritan church. The introduction credits Rowlandson with being a good Christian and relying on God for salvation. The introduction also introduces the idea that the Natives are devilish, etc etc. As a memoir it is good because she explains the events rather well but it is her reflections on her experiences that make it a very successful memoir. Clearly, the entire piece is very well thought out and crafted in that way since it was written in retrospect.

Posted by byrne115 at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I disagree with the post stating that "Self-Reliance" would have been an interesting place for the self help movement to start. The whole notion of self help goes against the whole idea put forth in the essay "Self Reliance." The whole idea of "Self Reliance" is that you should rely on yourself. At the beginning of the essay there is a quote that says, "Ne te quaesiveris extra, that means, "do not look outside yourself." Although self help is called "self help," really what it is are other people deemed "experts" writing step by step guides on how to make yourself feel better/less inadequate. I think that "Self Reliance" is more of a call for individuals to find motivation within themselves to do great things. What those great things are? Emerson doesn't know, only you do. I feel that Emerson doesn't think of his works as guides, but rather calls to action. For example "The Poet" doesn't instruct on how to write a pretty poem, but rather to find some inspiration in the world to write a pretty poem.

Ben Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanack" is a self help guide because it seems that Franklin writes with the motive to help people through step by step guides.

Posted by byrne115 at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"It is troubling that many of the problems and issues women faced in 1837 we are still struggling with. One of the things that really kind of irritates me is that she seems to say that the way women dress and what they find fun are the equivalent to asking to be treated unequally. If a woman takes an interest in fashion then she is asking to be not taken seriously? Really? That is almost like saying women who dress provocatively deserve to be sexually assaulted. Men have had equal and sometimes greater interests in clothing and fashion throughout history and nobody took them less seriously. I think she is identifying the wrong contributing factors and coming to some very distressing conclusions. I would instead ask why it is that men aren’t taught general housekeeping. This is a cultural problem not one that a woman can solve by dressing more plainly and by discouraging flattery. The problem is rooted in centuries of mistreatment that goes back before recorded history. I think the greater sin is to feel one must change the core of themselves in order to be accepted by the opposite sex. She is asking everything of women and nothing of men."

I would disagree. In fact, it seems to me to be a fundamental misunderstanding of Grimke’s message. What she asks for is a compromise, a middle ground. In her letter, “Man Equally Guilty with Woman in the Fall”, Grimke alludes that society is at fault for a lot of the problems women have. What I think she is trying to get at is that women’s roles have been decided for them by men, and in order to remove the men from power, women need to re-envision their role in society, because the men obviously won’t do it for them. She is not out to ask women to sacrifice the little influence they have in society, but to change their influence so that the roles previously assigned to them by a male dominated society no longer thrust women into a position where they are nothing more than an object whose purpose is to serve man. It may be a mistake to ask women to let go of their interest in fashion; however, Grimke believes that a complete and total change is necessary for women to achieve the goal of social equality with men, and like Descartes said, “One should destroy the old city of the mind [in order to] build a new one.”

Posted by marsh367 at 9:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Devin presents an interesting case for Clifford as a heroic character. I would like to disagree for several reasons, most of which are founded in an opposing interpretation of what it means to be a hero.

Clifford wants, it seems, to be a hero according to the examples Devin presents in his argument. “He wants to live life and be free of the rigid, lifeless house.” The issue present in this statement is the use of the term want. Clifford wants to be a hero, however, his personality seems to contradict the definition of a hero in that a hero does, and does not want to do something. A hero may be reluctant to accept the challenges laid out for them; however, he or she eventually realizes their destiny and then seeks to achieve it. For example, we can turn to the film Star Wars for an example of the reluctant hero. Han Solo claims that he is simply involved in the affairs of Luke and Leia for the money. However, in the end, Solo realizes in the end, when receiving awards, thanks, and praise for his heroic actions that although his motives were wrong, he seeks to do the right thing (helping the rebellion) for the sake of fighting against that which is morally wrong. Clifford does not accomplish such a goal. Once he and Hepzibah leave the house, a moral triumph for the two, he returns to his former self upon exiting the house. He cannot escape it, and is unable recognize his call to greatness.

Yet another example of Cliffords inability to answer the hero’s call is on the train. Devin is right to say that “the businessmen on the train don’t see what Clifford sees”. However, soon after Clifford’s soliloquy comes to an end, he is once again overcome with a feeling of tiredness. His heroic moment fades because he is unable to escape himself.

One might say that a hero constantly struggles with him/herself. This I do agree with, however, it seems that Clifford is unable to be heroic because he cannot overcome his own motivations. A hero comes to terms with their own problems and transcends them. In the case of a hero such as Spiderman, Peter Parker recognizes that his original motivations were to fight to avenge the death of his uncle, which he then overcomes, recognizing that “with great power comes great responsibility”. He then fights for the sake of fighting against those who represent that which is wrong. Clifford, on the other hand, seems to fight for the sake of his own survival, rather than for the sake of those who surround him, such as Hepzibah, who dedicated her life to him and Phoebe, who cares for him deeply.

Posted by marsh367 at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Emily Dickinson has provided many mysterious to the literary critic. Ignored in her time, she spent a lot of her life secluded from the public. Dickinson has been mythologized as a recluse who hated light, and she loved her sister’s husband. There has been only one confirmed daguerreotype of her, along with a recently discovered (and controversial) photograph.
Her work was published and consumed after she died, leaving editor’s a tough challenge to try and provide the best volume and edition to the public. Dickinson’s use of the dashes proves difficult for editors trying to transfer her work into print. Many Dickinson fanatics feel the only way to really read her poems would be to read the hand-written poems themselves. I had a teacher in high school who wouldn’t teach Dickinson because she believed we need to read her hand-written pages rather than a loose translation of her writing.
Now, what is the point of this blog post? A discussion of Dickinson can provide an interesting discussion of literary fidelity. Translations have always fascinated me, because it seems so wrong. If not done by the author, the work becomes infected with another’s words. Poetry is the most affected by this unfortunate transformation. For instance, the poems included at the end of the novel Dr. Zhivago aren’t good. Okay maybe that’s harsh, but they don’t have any rhythm, rhyme, flow, proper stresses, &c. They fail to stand on their own (at least in English), and become the equivalent of the special features on a DVD.
While Dr. Zhivago’s poems are translated across language, Dickinson’s only have to be translated from the hand to type. But they still create a narrow gap between the author’s intention and the author’s printed work. Should we regard her journals as “better” than the translated printed word, or should we take the printed word as is? I think Whitman can be lumped in here—he too provides a challenge to readers and critics since he was a constant editor, publishing some six to nine editions of Leaves of Grass. Which one is the definitive version? I own the 8th edition, published in 1889. Harold Bloom seems to prefer the first edition of Leaves of Grass. One of my professors has a compilation of every edition. Which one should I read?

For more information about the recently discovered photograph, check out http://www.common-place.org/vol-04/no-02/gura/

Posted by dayxx169 at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is interesting to stack these two narratives against each other. They use Bible verses to try and contextualize their plight and provide them with hope. They are captives that hope to be freed from their bonds. There are some interesting contrasts between the two pieces. One is the treatment they received from their captors. Mary Rowlandson was basically a domestic for the Native Americans she was owned by. She worked mostly for women and never wrote as if she was an object of sexual desire. Harriet Jacobs was a slave of white owners and was the object of sexual desire. The most striking difference is that When Mary Rowlandson is freed she has a home and husband to go back to. She has a life and it comes with some consistency. Harriet Jacobs has nothing to return to. She is on her own. She has no life to resume. She has a life to start. That comes with an enormous amount of uncertainty and fear. Mary Rowlandson was ransomed and returned. Nobody is coming after her. Everyone in her community knows and trusts her. Harriet Jacobs lives in fear of capture and retribution. Also, even though she is in the north, she is not trusted and accepted into the community. The after the release parts of these narratives are really what sets them apart.

Posted by kelli022 at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The House of Usher and the House of Seven Gables have many similarities. Both of these structures are ominous. They are towering mansions of doom, despair and dread. Their inhabitants are ill either physically, emotionally, or both. They both belong to a specific family. The House of Usher belongs to the Ushers. It always has. The same is true of the House of Seven Gables. It has always belonged to the Pyncheon family. Both structures are old and decaying. Both reflect the mood of their inhabitants. Both have been intimately involved in the death of a character. There are a few differences though. The House of Usher seems to have taken on qualities and features of a human being. It is described relating many of its architecture and landscape to the features of a human face and body. The House of Seven Gables isn’t personified this way. At the end of the story, the House of Usher collapses and is washed away by the tarn. The House of Seven Gables stills stands at the end of the story and in fact the historic house still stands today. The house of Usher had a hand in the deaths of Roderick and Madeline. They are the long time residents of the house. Jaffrey Pyncheon dies in the House of Seven Gables, but he does not live in this dwelling, but the two are connected none the less. The biggest difference between the two stories is that Usher’s ending is sad and terrible and Seven Gables ending is happy. The Ushers couldn’t escape their house, but the Pyncheons could.

Posted by kelli022 at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Self reliance by Emerson would have been an interesting starting point for the self help movement. He loads a bunch of meaningful advice on the reader, the most important I feel is that people should be unique and be non-conformists. The non-conformist advice pretty much insures that very few self-help authors have ever taken it. Every self help book whether it is for dieting or relationships has steps. These steps get you from point A to point B and so on. You have to complete a step in the process in order to learn the next part of the process. There is little room for free thought. Self help allows you to have break throughs, but they are preprogrammed into the text. The ideas you are coming up with are anticipated not original. Emerson wanted people to think about the world in ways that other people didn’t. The exchange of these ideas would lead to more ideas. It was important to him that people shared what they were thinking. To remain silent was to deprive the rest of the world an idea. An idea that could lead you or someone else into greatness and advance the society as a whole.

Posted by kelli022 at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In response to our previous class discussion regarding why Stowe is viewed as a renowned author. As we outlined in class, there are various factors which influence our idea of why a book or an author becomes a classic. Obviously what makes us different as readers is what we like to read and what we deem as a "great" novel. As to why "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is viewed as a great novel is debatable. The rationale could be that because the novel was written by a former female slave, which was commendable for the time. I believe that the novel itself has become what it is due to the impact that it had on society at the time of publication. It was written for middle-class women, making an impact emotionally by focusing on the relationship of mother and son and the potential separation due to the selling of slaves. The book, although fiction, helped to draw attention the harsh reality of slavery by aiming at a part of the population who were most often overlooked. This helped the book to mark its place in history.

Posted by dole0025 at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Writers have always been interested in writing about the process of writing. Whether it’s Paul Auster’s destruction of a character in City of Glass, Bulgakov’s depiction of an author in Master and Margarita, or Nicholson Baker’s entire catalog. “Bartleby, the Scrivener” is no different. I see the narrator as a writer who attempts to make sense of his surroundings through narration.
He opens the story by boasting about the stories he could tell about other co-workers,
at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental souls might weep.” But, the story about Bartleby needs to be told because he “was a scrivener the strangest I ever saw or heard of.” Already, the narrator is marketing his story to the assumed reader.
There are times when the narrator makes it apparent that there are certain elements to the story that need to be mentioned. At one explicit point he writes, “it is fit I make some mention of myself, my employés, my business, my chambers, and general surroundings; because some such description is indispensable to an adequate understanding of the chief character about to be presented.” While this line may be dismissed as a typical set-up to a story, I think it sets up more than just the plot. All of these lines point to a self-reflexive quality to the text, but they also set up the narrator—who is a primary character in the novel—as someone who tells stories.
The narrator treats his staff like characters in a story. He gives them demeaning nicknames, points to their odd mechanical nature, and ascribes rigid characteristics to them. He notes the use of the word ‘prefer’ with his workers, making another aspect of the story wholly apparent. Adding to this, the work that they do is writing itself.
Ultimately, this is just one way to read a multi-faceted story that offers a new reading every time.

Posted by dayxx169 at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know it has been a long time since we thought about “The House of Seven Gables” and I just can seem to not think about it in relation to other readings we have done. I think we shouldn’t judge Clifford harshly for his love of the beautiful and his selfishness. Maybe this is self preservation and a way to combat the Pyncheon curse. Judge Pyncheon had mentioned that when Clifford was a boy all the stories he would make up about the objects in the house lit up the dark corners. I think Clifford could have been like Phoebe if he had been framed and sent to jail for a crime that didn’t even actually happen. Yet we judge Clifford harshly in part because the narrator tells us not to. Yet we have reverence and compassion for people like Henry David Thoreau.
I went into Walden excited and certain that I would find enlightenment. After all these are the things he is known for: A great thinker and writer. A little background information later and I can’t help but find him more than a little bit selfish. He has barely any expenses. He lives on his friend’s property. He dines at the homes of nearby friends and family. His mother does his laundry. But we should not judge him because what he wrote was important. I think that is bull. He had none of the responsibilities of other men his age. He had none of the challenges or stresses. He did not really need to do anything. He is touting an existence that is not universally attainable. I feel a little bit disillusioned and feel like everything I read by him needs to be read with a grain of salt.

Posted by kelli022 at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is troubling that many of the problems and issues women faced in 1837 we are still struggling with. One of the things that really kind of irritates me is that she seems to say that the way women dress and what they find fun are the equivalent to asking to be treated unequally. If a woman takes an interest in fashion then she is asking to be not taken seriously? Really? That is almost like saying women who dress provocatively deserve to be sexually assaulted. Men have had equal and sometimes greater interests in clothing and fashion throughout history and nobody took them less seriously. I think she is identifying the wrong contributing factors and coming to some very distressing conclusions. I would instead ask why it is that men aren’t taught general housekeeping. This is a cultural problem not one that a woman can solve by dressing more plainly and by discouraging flattery. The problem is rooted in centuries of mistreatment that goes back before recorded history. I think the greater sin is to feel one must change the core of themselves in order to be accepted by the opposite sex. She is asking everything of women and nothing of men.

Posted by kelli022 at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I also find striking similarities between what Grimke wrote then and what we are experiencing today in American culture. I think it's important to keep in mind the depth and history behind gender roles in the U.S. before concluding that "[Grimke's] writing may as well have been published yesterday." Taking the history of European thought into consideration, the life of American culture is but a scratch on the surface compared to the thousands of years it took to develop culture in Europe. America was originally Europe's newest appendage; the shadow of a cash cow with a relatively short life expectancy. I agree that we, as a society, have come a long way in breaking with European norms we disagreed wtih, but within the discourses of politics and sociology, our "revolutions" can just as easily be seen as further responses to our European fathers.
The amount of time it has taken to revise the Constitution in favor of women has been about two-hundred years (give-or-take), but that's only through the eyes of Americans alone. Throughout history, women have been striving for equality and representation which has been denied them by arguable differences between male and female physical makeup. Some places, such as early Greece or ancient Mesoamerica, have seen more female success than others (early European, Italian societies). Change takes time, and in the case of the kingdom of England, it has, so far, taken over a thousand years.
I don't disagree with the fact that American women are getting closer and closer to our dreams of gender equality with every passing day. I just think it's important to point out, through all this talk of the "feminist movement," that these ideas of equality are not new, and the accomplishments we've achieved in America have already been seen. I think Grimke, in a sense, realized the nature of her argument, and made sure to speak plainly to American citizens in the wake of European domination with examples of feasable goals to fight for and religious allusions that her women would understand. She knew the time it would take to reach her ideal society. She probably felt the same pricks of excitement, being published as a woman which just years before was impossible, as we feel today, with her text in our lap as we sit upon the 19th amendment.

Posted by wils0990 at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When reading any personal narrative, it is important to note both the history of the author's point of view as well as his or her sense of individuality. In the instance of Mary Rowlandson, I'm sure her place within white society had an affect on all she thought and wrote. But I don't think it's fair to rule out her unique and personal experience with the natives. Whether or not the culture she knew thought highly of Native Americans is only part of the issue at hand. Take, for example, her terrifying descriptions of the "monsterous" natives. These descriptions could be reflections of what she was taught as a child, what she heard or witnessed as an adult, or the honest truth that was revealed to her as a captive. Her narrative can be speculated upon for ages as to its original inspiration, but I believe that when reading narratives, the most important thing one can do as a reader is trust the author. Dig in to reason and history later, take the author's experience into account first.

Posted by wils0990 at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think it's hard to assume that Melville's story about Bartleby is about capitalism alone. The nature of capitalism is and always has been inherent in the American system since its beginnings. The statement "all men are created equal" undoubtedly refers to economic equality within the capitalist context. The ways in which Melville's characters execute daily routine and habit speak mainly to their role within the American capitalist system. I don't believe Melville would have written "Bartleby" as an outline to daily American life, and I don't believe the work would be so celebrated to this day if he had. Bartleby represents the American intellect - the educated citizen with the knowledge of his or her place in an inescapable system. Melville's other characters (without much of an identity) show not a lack of intellect, but acceptance of their place in society. Anyone reading "Bartleby" was educated, at least in letters. Melville meant for the educated to reflect upon their condition and make a decision. Would you rather be Bartleby, mentally and emotionally constricted to a system within which no true happiness can be found? Or would you be content to live, supported and amused, within rose-scented shackles representative of your understanding, not ignorance?

Posted by wils0990 at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First of all, I'd like to say that I loved your comparison of Clifford to Lenny, it's definitely easy to see the similarities between the two (and I love that story). I also agree that Hawthorne inserted Clifford into his novel to show the real the beauty in life. By using a character who is obsessed with the beautiful Phoebe, the beauty of the garden after Phoebe and Holgrave bring it back to life, and the beauty of life itself, Hawthorne forces the reader to notice that beauty. However, in another way, Hawthorne is also drawing attention to the ugliness of life as well, mainly in the form of Hebzibah, whom Clifford can't even look at because of the vicious scowl that mars Hepzibah's features. Yet we are also told that Hepzibah is not the same as her hard looking outside, and that on the inside, she is a tender woman who is kind and caring despite her appearance. By doing that, it seems like Hawthorne is not only drawing attention to the external beauties of life, but also the internal ones that are not always seen the way they are meant to be.

Posted by besaw004 at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I completely agree with Alana and Ian that his writing is difficult to get past. He's very wordy and overly flourishing with his sentences, like he's almost trying to impress the readers of his skills. And I agree that though details are definitely useful and backgrounds are most definitely needed, he puts so much detail and background in that it gets boring.

I don't completely agree though with the idea that he was doing something new in his time. If we go back and look at the majority of the readings we've done for this class, it seems that people in his time were very into long and overly detailed paragraphs and sentences. However, I think what was new about his writing was the fact that he was using it in fiction stories. Stowe and Douglass's novels were very "fiction" oriented with enough detail that it didn't overcloud the story, while Poe's writing style in his stories seemed to take more after writers such as Emerson and Thoreau, putting detail over plot. In my opinion, it was like he was trying to take fiction to a more scholarly level, but merely proceeded in overdoing it.

However, his ideas to me are very interesting and I like that he was writing such morbid stories in a time when it didn't seem like something people would be very open to. I feel like if he would tone down his writing style into a more fiction genre one, it would make him even more famous than he is now.

Posted by besaw004 at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I agree completely with Ian's opinion of Poe's writing. I often found myself rereading a paragraph several times before I was finally able to comprehend what I had just read. His over the top writing made comprehending the ideas he was trying to convey difficult.

On the other hand I did like the plots in his writing. Both stories we read for class were beyond creepy. His other works that I've read, including "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" fit right in with this style as well. His technique of leaving the climax until the very end of the story helped build the suspense. I found it interesting, yet slightly annoying, that "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" were very similar when it came to the climax. Both Ligeia and Madeline come back from the dead, although Ligeia's return is welcomed and Madeline's return is horrifying. Having a similar style to your writing gives a writer a reputation to be known by, but having the climax be so similar seems almost like cheating to me and left me disappointed as a reader.

Posted by kurzx004 at 5:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the end of this blob posting Sean said "Rowlandson gives us no reason to dismiss her claims or to question her objectivity as a narrator, as which she suggests that there is validity in calling the natives brutal savages". And I have to disagree with this comment. Although Mary Rowlandson was held captive and did not receive the greatest treatment at times, people still need to question her objectivity as a narrator. Mary Rawlandson was the complete opposite of the Native Americans. When the puritans started setteling down they never bothered to get to know the Natives they just assumed things. And that is just what Rowlandson does she assumes. She doesn't get their religion (so she thinks that they are godless heathens because of it), she sees what they eat and says that they are barbaric. Her job as a narrator is a one-sided view (a very narrow view). She does not realize that she is actually getting some praise for her work all she does is whine and complain. This narrative should be questioned because there are so many things that could have happend to it. Rowlandson only gave her side of things and didn't elaborate on other things and also there is a very high chance that this narrative was changed by some of the puritan elders at that point in time. So once again we should not completely believe every word said by Mary Rowlandson is this captivity narrative but instead take it with a grain of salt.

Posted by feijo002 at 6:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I agree with Derek that the point of Bartleby "preferring" not to do something is Melville's way of critiquing capitalism. Bartleby is expressing that he wouldn't like to do what is being asked of him but that he will if his employer forces him to. This turns the statement around on the narrator, giving him a choice to make him do what he wants or let him be. The narrator's choice makes him either the bad guy or the good guy, and though the narrator chooses to be the "good" employer by not forcing him to do what he asks, Melville implies that many employers at this time would have been the "bad" guy by not caring what their employers "prefered" to do and forcing them to do what they wanted; thus, the critique of capitalism.

Posted by besaw004 at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I agree with the comments made on this post and I actually did think that Hawthorne was trying to tell us something about life by using Holgrave and Clifford to show the beauty in everyday life. When I started to read the book and Hawthorne starts to describe Clifford as someone that loved beautiful things I immeately thought of the book Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. The reason that this book came to mind wasbecause the character of Lenny, like Clifford, had an obsession for beautiful soft things but the main difference between the too is that Lenny had a pervasive form of mental retardation and he could not process more than a child. Clifford on the other hand seemed to be more on the slow side and he had a child-like side to him although some find it that he was mentally retarted there are a lot of things in the book that are linked to him not being mentally retarted and one of those is the fact that he was quite aware of his environment and the people around him (most people with mental retardation are not always aware of their actions). Going back to talking about the beauty in things I personally think that Pheobe had a lot of do with Hawthorne's point in trying to have people see the beauty in things because she was someone that cause people like Clifford and Holgrave to open up.

Posted by feijo002 at 5:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To be frank, I'm not so sure if I understand why Poe is such a celebrated author. His genre is interesting, and the tales he writes are..interesting as well. What kills me is his style, I can't get around it! Another class I'm taking right now is Intermediate Fiction Writing. We study a lot of craft issues and I have been applying a lot of what I've learned in that class to this class. I had read two Poe stories before the readings for this class: The Telltale Heart and Man of the Crowd. I take issue with Poe for two reasons: one, his structure, and two, his writing style.

I think that Poe's structure, at least in Ligeia and House of Usher, are immensely back-loaded. Yes, we the readers do need background information to understand the whole story, but it seems to me that the stories are all background information up until the last two paragraphs when there is some grand, but disappointing climax. In terms of character development, I think he does a good job, but well developed characters mean nothing to me if they're not doing something interesting. I feel like in the two piece we read there is no meat.

Poe's sentences are...painful to read. So wordy, so many commas. I feel like you need some sort of training to effectively read Poe aloud to other people. I've always been a fan of what I like to call "efficient sentences." More is less. Poe, in my eyes, is not an efficient writer. They're long and I get lost in them.

Perhaps Poe is celebrated now because we realize that he was doing something completely new/different/innovative in his time.

Posted by byrne115 at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When reading literature, I am constantly asking: what is the purpose? Here they were, the Puritans, running around New England with their fundamentalist views causing trouble. That was then, today is 2009. How do we feel about them? The other day during my usual browsing of The New Yorker website (www.newyorker.com), I came across a humor piece entitled "Confessions of a Pilgrim Shopaholic." I read the piece and laughed as I imagined Mary Rowlandson trying to decide which dull, black dress she should wear. (The piece can be found here: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/03/16/090316sh_shouts_rudnick). It seems to me that for the most part, the Puritans have evaporated into the oblivion of the past. They seem to be an obscure group of people who wore hats with buckles on them and dined with the likes of Squanto and other cheery Natives, all the while demonizing them in their "literature." We take from them our national tradition of Thanksgiving in November, but what remains of Puritan/Pilgrim society in our society today? I suppose Fred Phelps is a modern day Jonathan Edwards, as it seems most other Christian fundamentalists are. As a child we were taught this romanticized version of a group of persecuted people who came over in the Mayflower, settled at Plymouth Rock, and ate dinner with the Natives one day. As I've grown up and read more about the Puritans/Pilgrims, I've realized I do not care much for them. I view them as an ignorant group of people who used "the will of God" as their excuse for everything.

For as much as I do not care for them, I can't help but feel a bit sorry that the Puritans/Pilgrims, in my eyes, have been belittled to a group of people I laugh about while reading a New Yorker humor piece. They did seem to have a rich culture in their own right, but I see no lasting impressions that they have left on our society.

Posted by byrne115 at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I would like to focus on the idea of the house acting as a character, or rather, a general force, in the story. The house obviously has a certain amount of influence over those who come within its boundaries, clearly seen by its inhabitants and the foreboding feeling and the hallucination that the narrator has when he comes within proximity of the house. Roderick and Madeline have obviously been under the house's influence for an extended amount of time, attributing to their approaching insanity and maladies that they have. However, the most powerful example of the control the house has over its occupants is seen in the change in the narrator throughout the tale. When he first arrives he can feel the house's power, but he is not yet under its influence and even makes some headway into bringing Roderick back to reality. However, when Madeline "dies" and the narrator loses the unstable grip he had acquired over Roderick, the houses influence starts to creep into him as well, evidenced by the night when he couldn't get to sleep because he was hearing noises. At the end of the tale, when Madeline breaks out of her coffin and the tomb and Roderick dies of shock, the narrator flees from the house, and without any more occupants to maintain control over, it tumbles to the ground.

Posted by besaw004 at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In Bartleby, the Scrivener, Melville gives us a very odd character to deal with. He is a quick worker, lives in the office, and prefers not to do things. The things Bartleby prefers not to do seem odd to us. Sure he's not getting paid to overlook his copies, but it seems like common practice. I think his prefererence of avoiding tasks is best suited for reading this text as a comment on capitalism. With Bartleby preferring not to do a task it makes him less insubordinate, but also shows that he dislikes what his employer is wanting him to do. This preference grows on Nippers who wants to be paid for his extra work after he sees that Bartleby can avoid doing it. I still can figure why he prefers not to leave the office or quit, but it could be read that bosses at the time might have been firing people unjustly and that is what Bartleby is against. I think that the narrator has a just reason to fire Bartleby and his creepiness though.

Posted by woot0019 at 8:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although I have not read Cunt I have read similar books around the topic of women's rights. I find it extremely sad that to this day women still don't have the same treatment as men. One of the things that always bothered me was the fact that it took women so long to get the right to vote and even then people didn't consider those votes to measure up against the opinions of men. Even in the past election one of the things that I heard way too often was the fact that more women turned out to vote (which is great) however many announcers kept questioning whether they knew what was going on or if they just wanted to vote because Hilary Clinton was running (and this takes it back to the federalist and anti-federalist topics that we talked about earlier in the semester). One of the comments made by Margo that really shows how things have shaped up in today's society was when she said, "women still aren't being paid an equal wage for equal work". A common saying that tends to float around in certain professions is "it's a mens club". While I was growing up I heard way too much about this because my mom is in computer/software enginnering and she said that she was one of 3 girls in a class of 200 when she was in college and now that she has been in this field for 20 years she still notices that some people still treat her differently because she is a woman. One would think that in a society were everything has gotten to be so cut-throat and were the companies are failing that things would have changed and that all people would get equal opportunities.

Now on to the topic of rape, which I wont talk much about because it's a sticky subject but I feel that it needs to be talked about. About a year ago I took a psychology class called human sexuality and one of the big topics that we talked about was rape. And while rape is a serious criminal offense people should know that men not just women are rape victims. And yes most rape cases occur to women but a lot of the unspoken cases are men and something that we talked about in that class is that a lot of men think that they cant be considered raped (by women any way) if they achieve an erection and that is untrue. The ability to achieve an erection is a physiological response not a consenting response and many get this confused and I felt the need to clear it up because even though I am a woman I still find rape to be a horrible thing no matter the sex of the person that was victomized (and that's all i wanted to say about rape because the reading made me think about it).

Posted by feijo002 at 7:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A topic that has been bothering me for over a day now is the idea of incest within the fall of the house of usher. And the more I think about it the more I start to think about Freudian theories. One Freud's theories that would work quite nicely with this story is the Oedipa Complex (not quite the same as the Oedipus Complex). The Oedipa complex focuses on women's jealousy of men and according to Freud this is something that starts at a very young age in life and it continues until adulthood. In simpler terms this really focuses on penis envy because many believed that men were higher up than women in life because of the fact that they had a penis and according to Freud women were jealous of this and in some cases would even kill to get what they wanted. The way that this can be tied into the story could be by saying that the sister was overcome with jealousy to the extent that she started to develop disorders and in sensing this the brother became fearful for what his sister might do to him. So he decided to barry her alive so that he would have to deal with it. A freudian twist to the end of the story could be that she was so overcome with jealousy and hate after being burried by her brother that she decided to come back and kill him. Although I am a psych major and I think that Freud was on to some things I seriously don't think that the Oedipa complex was one of them but after trying to figure out the incest question this was the one thing that came to mind especially because the Oedipa complex is fairly destructive just like Poe's story.

Posted by feijo002 at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is substantive literature? Why are certain texts ushered into the canon while others are barred entrance? Why are some works continually referenced and returned to, regardless of history or context?

These are some of the questions Jonathan Franzen tries to answer in his essay, “Why Bother?” I think Franzen, despite his cantankerous whines, hits a key point when he cites an interview he had with Shirley Brice Heath, a linguistic anthropologist and English professor at Stanford. She says “a defining feature of ‘substantive works of fiction’ is unpredictability.” In other words, “The language of literary works gives forth something different with each reading.” Therefore, substantive works of fiction contain an inherent ambiguity.

This unpredictability is what Poe (In “Ligeia”) misquotes Bacon as writing, “There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.” Poe focused on “strangeness” in his stories. “Strangeness” and “unpredictability” fall under the category of depth. I think both of these qualities points to a depth in the works that avoid a simplistic reading (for example, in Soviet literature, nearly every character is a thinly disguised Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, or others—and this takes away a lot of what they are doing in their novels).
Although I’ve read a small section of Uncle Tom’s Cabin—and it seems unfair to judge from a tiny glimpse—I think UTC isn’t “unpredictable” or “strange.” It seems very straight forward and tied into its time. All of the Quakers say “thee,” Legree is evil, and Tom is good. Characters are characters, plot is plot, and slavery is bad; these were what I discerned from the reading.

If UTC isn’t substantive literature, then what is? To keep the examples local to class, “Bartleby, The Scrivener” is substantive. There is an ambiguous quality to the text that has critics stumped as to what Bartleby is. Is it a critique of capitalism? Is Bartleby a stand-in for Melville? Is this a story about the production of writing? Is Bartleby representing Melville’s homosexuality, &c. This blog post may glide over many important issues (emotion in literature), but I hopefully post it to inspire debate about the canon of literature and to shine a light on one of my favorite writers, Jonathan Franzen.

Posted by dayxx169 at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was pleasantly surprised by Melville's writing in this story. After reading Moby Dick, I found the story interesting but his writing style quite boring. In this story however, I was quite drawn in and often amused by his descriptions. The characters Turkey and Nippers were especially humorous in their varying behaviors according to the time of day. We discussed in class today that the narrator was disrespectful in his naming of them in this way, but I did not interpret it that way at all. Instead I took them to be fun nicknames one would give a friend. He never seemed to look down on them in my opinion, but respected the work they did when they were each respectively in a pleasant mood. He even called them these names to their face, and I feel if they were degrading to these men that they would have spoken up about it.

I found the narrator's character quite interesting. His constant desire to help Bartleby reflects society's constant need to help those less fortunate than them. It was never quite clear whether he genuinely wanted to help Bartleby out or if he wanted to help him simply to have a clear conscience and feel better about himself. It kept me interested in the story, always hoping I would find out the answer.

Posted by kurzx004 at 5:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the things that struck me immediately when reading Grimke was the relevance to issues women are still having today. Her writing may as well have been published yesterday. Women are still underpaid compared to men in many cases where they hold the same position. Women are still unable to hold religious positions that men are only allowed to hold, especially in the Catholic Church. Despite this, I think women have come farther in some areas than even Grimke expected. She discussed how she wished women would have the right to pursue their intellectual interests and not be looked down on for spending less time on household affairs. She mentioned that she wanted husbands to encourage their wives to learn, even if it came at the expense of having a less extravagant dinner. Nowadays, it is common for husbands and wives to split dinner duty. Some men even choose to be stay at home dads while their wives work. So women have surpassed even Grimke's hopes that they would get some support from their husbands, and instead women get full support. It's almost strange now to hear of a woman choosing to be a stay at home mom.

Posted by kurzx004 at 5:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After reading LIgea and THe Fall of the House of Usher, i becamed slightly torubled with one matter concerning Poe's writing. We talked about this in class a little, but not in depth. And it troubles me mainly because Poe's writing itself does nothing to clear the matter up. In Ligea the narrator openly admits to opium usage and admits to suffering from delusional experiences, and the narrator in Usher claims that Usher has been known to use before, not to mention the extensive description of his fragile mental state. SO taking these into acount. Why does Poe provide us with such problematic characters? How are we to read USher, looking at his motivation to bury his sister alive. How are we supposed to read Ligea insofar as his experience with LIgea's returning spirit goes? How real is the experience?

Posted by ferso002 at 9:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I'm reading this book called Cunt (by Inga Muscio) for a different class, and I was really struck by the similarities between that book and Grimké's writing. With a little more cussing and pop culture references instead of Biblical quotes, I feel that both letters would fit very well in Cunt. Both talk about how popular culture tries to brain wash women away from education. Both talk about trying to focus women's energy on producing/consuming in ways that will help lift up other women (Grimké talks about sewing circles to fund women's education instead of ministers; Muscio discusses her "cunt-lovin' economic agenda" which most involves buying products that you know are going to support companies run by women or women artist etc) Both discuss rape in graphic detail, and more interestingly both talk about how while it is a man's job to respect women and not rape them, it is a woman's responsibility to have the backs of all other women at all times, even if they don't know them, don't like them, or harbor stupid ideas about racial superiority.

What gets me is that their messages are so similar, despite the fact that these two texts were published 165 years apart (Cunt was first published in 2002 and the stuff we read by Grimké is from 1837). On the one hand, it's comforting to see people from way back in the day thinking the same way that I think now. On the other hand, it's disturbing that it's 150 years later and women still aren't being paid an equal wage for equal work, for example. Don't even get me started on the rape stuff.

Posted by Margo Robmann at 7:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I feel that Melville is being very tricky with his writing in Bartleby; moreso with the character of the Lawyer (/the Narrator. He's never given a formal name) than with Bartleby, who seems to be a straight up crazy person.

See, the story is told from the point of view of the Lawyer, and he's a pretty friendly guy. Melville let's us know that he's definitely concerned about what people think of him. The reason the Lawyer moves his office is because he's worried about what other people think of Bartleby after he's gone catatonic. He's also more concerned about what people will think of him if he is linked to Bartleby in the papers. I distrusted the genuineness of his offers of shelter to Bartleby after he's taken to the banisters

What I think is really questionable is the way that the Lawyer treats his employees. He wants us to think that he's an awesome boss; makes a big point of how he puts up with their eccentricities and calls them by their nicknames. He wants to be perceived as one of those man-of-the-people-type bosses. The problem is that to be a man-of-the-people you have to acknowledge that your workers are, in fact, actual people. I don't see the Lawyer doing this at all.

He treats his employees like animals, like pets. Calling them by their rather childish nicknames (My grandmother actually had a dog named Nippers) instead of their real names is the first thing that is wrong. It makes them seems like children, or little yipping dogs, and not real people. Turkey is supposed to be the same age as the Lawyer, but the fact that they might be equals is overlooked entirely.

His humoring of their negative traits also rubs off funny. By the tone of voice he uses, you can tell that the Lawyer wants readers to admire him for his patience and kindness. But with people, you try to work through problems. You address them. You have meetings. You don't let them slack off and go crazy for half the day. That's something you tolerate in pets 'cos their so darn cute.

Posted by Margo Robmann at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since reading Grimke's letters, I happened to note a similarity to the criticism of ministers found also in our reading of Anne Hutchinson's trial. Grimke's argument differs from Hutchinson's, but their general distaste for male control of the church is clear. Where Hutchinson fought to set the realm of ministry straight in terms of religious rite and practice, Grimke highlighted their neglect of Christian morality including justice for both women and blacks. Both writers mentioned the importance of the assembly of women for religious purposes, and both clearly emphasized the women's equal right to interpret scripture. The conclusion to Grimke's letters admits the responsibility of women to accept their guilt for "the fall" of mankind, but in noting this responsibility, she levels the gender playing-field. According to Grimke, both men and women require total participation in the affairs of the church to satisfy their debt to God. Ministers of the Christian Church were meant to lead members in the right direction, and though that "direction" was and will be disputed as times and people change, Hutchinson and Grimke collectively argued that the role of the minister was to lead, not to command.

Posted by wils0990 at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I found Grimke's mention of the plight of black women as well as that of white women in the 19th century very interesting. As a class, we have discussed other black testimonies to the inescapable victimization of female slaves, but none moved me quite as much as this one. The way the passage was written suggests that white women's knowledge of their duty to deliver women from positions of greater suffering is more important than their duty to liberate themselves. In such a white society, I have to wonder how her argument must have been received by other white feminists.

Posted by wils0990 at 6:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)