Garbage, Not Rubbish

Hughes and Sandburg

2011-12-13T08:48:00.000-06:00

I am not someone who is familiar with many different authors but I have to say that I enjoyed reading Hughes and Sandburgs writing's. I felt that they both used so much passion in their writing and they choices of words they used help me see what they were talking about. They both Incorporated Chicago in poems and the pride and determination was evident in their poems as wells.
Reading Hughes Visitors to the Black Belt described that view the outsiders had on the black society without really knowing them and how the visitors are the "outsiders" In Sandburgs poem Chicago he describes the good and bad and those descriptions would be those of an outsider who does not know anything about the city of Chicago.
I cant truly say that I will look forward to reading more material from them two authors because there is something about their writing that pulls me in.

Redemption in American Literature

2011-12-13T05:40:00.002-06:00

American literature is not my favorite thing on any day. I can think of only one American author who would fit into my personal top ten list, and it is quite possible that I am least familiar with American literature as compared to other categorizations. Despite my lack of interest and excitement about the reading materials of this course, I have learned from these American authors, even if I do not particularly enjoy all of their writings. Though I may not rush to the nearest bookstore for a complete set of their works, I thought Raymond Chandler’s story Red Wind was engaging and pretty fun to read; I enjoyed Frost’s imagery; and I appreciated T.S. Eliot’s profundity. I especially responded to the theme of redemption that can be found in Moore, Hurston, and Hughes.

Redemption is perhaps most clearly realized in Zora Neale Hurston’s story The Gilded Six-Bits, in which the protagonist Joe’s wife is unfaithful to him. For several months, Joe and Missy May struggle to reconcile with each other. Their marriage shrinks to less than a shadow of the loving relationship detailed in the first few pages. However, when Missy May gives birth to Joe’s son, Joe is able to forgive his wife. Both must sacrifice to overcome the deficiency in the marriage: Joe must relinquish his anger towards his wife, and Missy May has to acknowledge the grief that has come through her action. As a family, their lives are redeemed and knit back together.

Less overt are the themes of redemption in Langston Hughes’ and Marianne Moore’s poetry. In some ways, both hope for redemption in seemingly hopeless situations. Moore wrote In Distrust of Merits during World War II. Throughout the poem she questions the worth of the countless deaths of soldiers fighting in the war. She believes in the cause that they are fighting for,

“Fighting the blind

Man who thinks he sees…

That hearts may feel and not be numb.”

Moore acknowledges the promise inherent in supporting the soldiers, that “we’ll never hate black, white, red, yellow, Jew, Gentile, Untouchable.” Yet she still cannot quite believe that this makes the deaths worthwhile, since “we are not competent to make our vows.”

Moore has a moment of questing despair as she asks, “The world’s an orphans’ home. Shall we never have peace without sorrow? Without pleas of the dying for help that won’t come?” This is a clear example of the often overwhelming disconnect between the way things are and the way they ought to be, and Moore is understandably troubled by it. I am not trying to say that Moore is here expressing a distinctly Christian view or anything of that sort. Still, these few lines are a cry for the redemption of humanity.

In the end, Moore maintains her hope for all of the deaths to be redeemed, saying,

“If these great patient

dyings—all these agonies

and wound bearings and bloodshed—

can teach us how to live, these

dyings were not wasted.”

Hughes’ is similarly hopeful for future redemption in a different situation. Writing during a time of intense racial prejudice, Hughes’ poetry often expresses his dreams of a truly equal America.

“Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes…

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

Hughes displays a sense of urgency, desiring the racial/social redemption of America to come quickly. “I do not need my freedom when I’m dead./I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread,” he reminds his audience, calling for attention and change in place of lassitude and complacency. Elsewhere, he openly states that part of being American is being interdependent whether we want to be or not, despite differences in skin color.

“You are white—

yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.

That’s American.”

Hughes hopes for redemption in the negative situation through social change and recognition of the parts that each of us play in each others’ lives.

American literature may not replace my other interests any time soon, and my top ten authors list has not been disturbed by this course. But I have learned through exploring authors I liked or did not like, understood or barely managed to stumble through. American authors of this time period had a great deal to say about justice, freedom, redemption, and morality. That we are listening 60 to 100 years later says a great deal about the importance of their words.

Chaplin's Modern Times Satirizes Factory/Machine Industrialization

2011-12-13T01:28:00.005-06:00

"Modern Times," does a good job at poking satirical humor at the industry and factory life. The workers do all the work while one boss sits on his rich high horse watching all the workers through security cameras and directs people what to do through the intercom while the lowly, blue collar factory workers work rigorously to produce on the assembly line for the factory as fast and as efficient as possible.

The star of the film, Chaplain, does an amazing job at being funny. But the question that you need to ask yourself is this; why is this film funny?

I think this movie is funny because Chaplain is making fun of the everyday, mundane lifestyle of the common day factory worker. It seems as if in real life it's always the boss, the person in charge that gets the last laugh in the workplace but Chaplain tried to turn this way of thinking upside down by stopping the process at all costs, thus infuriating the boss and many others including the police in the process; pinching people's noses, spraying black oil in people's faces, literally putting his body through the production machines, running from cops, pressing and pushing all the buttons and levers he could find.

He kind of took the role of a rebel in the film who did not do what he was supposed to do, he didn't do his job and even purposely defied the system. He found himself trying to be arrested and put in jail by cops. Chaplain was seen as an outcast but I personally think he was more of a hero than anything. Chaplain reduced the glory of working on a assembly line to nothing more than a laughable joke. He made fun of the rise of new technology and the use of machines by being force fed by a machine that did not work right and honestly I think he proved that humans are made to be free not slaves.

There is a song called, "voices," by Chris Young that says, "I hear voices like my Dad saying work that job but dont work your life away." 'Don't work your life away' is a quote that I believe is a really strong message for this movie because it gave people freedom just from watching it, if not freedom gave people the simple pleasure of a good laugh.

I think at the time that this movie was made that was exactly what America needed; some good comedic relief from a Great Depression where the hearts of people were becoming cold hearted, worn out, and tired of living a mediocre life. Where works literally sucks the life out of people sometimes, Modern Times does a great job of satirizing the generation of its age by showing how ridiculously hilarious working in a factory can be. Chaplain wasn't even screwing the bolts of the assembly line but because his arms had no control because he was so used to screwing things in the factory that he saw a woman's buttons on her jacket in broad daylight and immediately wanted to screw them and ran after the freaked out lady in a fit of madness and hilarity. Chaplain was driven mad by working in the assembly line factory and I bet there were some real life factory workers thinking the same thing.

Although there was little to no talking in the movie, the actor did a great job of using his facial expression to illustrate words. Chaplain seemed to be a master of the physical comedy; making humor without using words but with physical movement. The way he skipped, the way he walked, the way he thought, the way he acted in the movie and played the role of this crazy factory worker was sheer comedic genius. His little mustache and character was a character that could easily be laughed at and be remembered for years to come. This movie really put him into the spotlight and is still seen to do this day as one of his greatest works.

The bible verse, "do not be conformed to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind," Romans 12:2, does a great job at explaining the symbolism that Modern Times and Chaplain stands for. While all of society might stress that the key to a good life is working hard at your job for your own self ambition, for money, to get a big house, and live the good life. However, to receive true happiness in life you have to go against the patterns of this world. The world needs more joy, passion, and freedom in life. Modern Times does a great job at giving people something to be happy and joyful about. Comedy, in general, is best used when it can be funny and have a deeper message behind it. I feel Modern Times is not one of those movies that is funny just for laughs sake, but goes deeper by satirizing the life of a factory worker and the assembly line industrialization and gave everyone a much needed freedom from being seen as a machine. You clock in and clock out, the same routine every single day. Breaking free from the bondage of working a monotonous, boring life that ultimately enslaves someone to working a job against the will of the heart and soul, Modern Times and Chaplain do a great job satirizing industrialization and living a life that brings you eternal happiness, joy, and peace.

"I, (now) too, Sing America"

2011-12-12T17:20:00.003-06:00

I have to admit that at the beginning of the semester, I was a little less than excited to open another American Lit anthology. In my past experiences with American Lit, I had never took much time to appreciate or even think deeply about the writers that came from my own country. I always desired something new and unfamiliar, something that would transport me into a new culture of new ideas and a new way of thinking. What I never truly realized until this semester was that American Literature is the perfect example of all those things.

Whitman describes America in an idealistic way which many of us concluded was too wishful and self-contradictory. Yet comparing this author with Twain, the values and inspiration behind Leaves of Grass and Huck Finn matched up on certain levels. Each author wrote about freedom, power, principles and the common people. Each author clearly casts a vision for humanity, saying this is how we should be or this is how we should act. It is evident that many American authors such as Twain and Whitman saw themselves as the poets who can see and give a voice to what Whitman described as each person’s “kosmos.”

Similarly, the poets of the Harlem Renaissance saw themselves in such a way that resembled the earlier authors we studied. Although these poets can be studied and looked at as a uniquely separate part of American literature, they fully encompass what sets American literature apart. Their works include themes of motivation, overcoming difficulty, freedom and the realistic hardship of urban life. These authors also depict the struggle to rise up as a minority and fight for justice and equality—principles that our nation was founded on.

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you. (Hughes,”Freedom,” lines 15-20)

Hardship, struggle and motivation to rise above the circumstances proves to be a major theme throughout American Lit, no matter the time or author. In “Mowing,” Frost speaks of work as a good thing, something that makes living worthwhile. He declares that working and earning whatever it is that is desired is better than “the gift of idle hours” or “easy gold at the hand of fay or elf” (lines 7-8). The same pleasure in work is seen in Chaplin’s Modern Times and Sandburg’s “Chicago.”

We see that the concept of the American Dream is sought after continuously, no matter what race, time period or class. Chaplin’s factory worker raising his eyebrows and declaring that he will find a home even if he must work for it put a comical spin on the hard realities of the time. Sandburg speaks about the variety of craftsmanship in the city as he mentions the “hog butcher for the world, tool maker, stacker of wheat,” and so on (lines 1-2). But what makes this mindset different from that of industrial cities in other parts of the world is the peoples’ individuality and responsibility they must put on themselves in order to overcome their struggles.

The head note to Sandburg mentions that he “believed that the people themselves, rather than a cadre of intellectuals acting on behalf of the people, would ultimately shape their own destiny” (p. 1436). This is true for many of the authors that make up American Lit, even today. In recognizing this, I have come to appreciate American Literature as whole on a much deeper level, while also becoming more aware of what makes up the voice of America. Though skeptical and critical of American Lit to begin with, I came out at the end of this semester saying, “I, too, sing America.”

Modern Times and Modern Work

2011-12-12T11:01:00.002-06:00

Prior to watching Modern Times, I was not sure what to expect. I had only heard vaguely of Chaplin before watching this movie, and I expected a slapstick comedy with lots of goofy antics and no plot. While the comic aspect was still apparent, the film was much more symbolic and held deeper meaning than most comic movies.

The way Chaplin does this is by connecting with the 'everyman,' and placing himself into a situation that is familiar to his audience. Crane says that Chaplin's film The Kid, "made me feel myself, as a poet, as being 'in the same boat' with him." The same and be said of Modern Times. We either connect with Chaplin because we have experienced the same thing, or we sympathize with him because of his situation.

In Modern Times, Chaplin plays a factory worker who is virtually chained to the assembly line. He deals with the average work stresses, such as angry foremen, difficult co-workers, and the charge to 'stay ahead,' lest he be fired. Throughout the film, we begin to realize that Chaplin's character is incredibly attached to his job in the sense that it has permeated his entire life. He has become incapable of controlling his body due to the repetitive job that he develops a spasm that interferes with not only his well-being, but also the safety of his coworkers. Eventually, he is declared insane and is presumably taken to a mental hospital.

While this film initially provides laughs, it does not take one long to draw parallels between Chaplin's work situation and modern employment circumstances. While Chaplin is forced to keep working faster, harder and more efficiently so that his company can stay ahead, modern employers feel the same stress of needing to work as efficiently as possible, lest they be reprimanded.

While Chaplin's employers seek a way to completely eliminate lunch breaks so that they can be in production 24/7, nowadays corporations are constantly looking for ways to stay ahead, often at the expense of the employees. These decisions do not effect the higher-ups negatively (in the end, they have more capital), they often effect the lower-level employees adversely by eliminating breaks, extending work hours, and eventually harming the workers either physically, mentally, or emotionally.

As a former employee for a major fast food chain, I have seen these occurrences firsthand, and Chaplin's depiction of the stress of the modern worker is not far from the truth. I have seen and experienced mental and physical fatigue caused by extended hours or unrealistic expectations of an employee's performance, all because the company's managers wanted the most profits. These higher-level employees did not care what the cost to the lower-lever workers was, as long as the company was succeeding.

It is sad to see that society has not progressed past this mentality. Ninety years following Modern Times, we see the same situations that were satirized by Chaplin continuing to occur just so companies can make money as quickly and efficiently as possible. While I understand that it is necessary for companies to make profits to stay afloat and compete with other businesses, it is often done at a much greater cost, one that is not monetary. Thinking back on my experiences at my first 'real' job at that restaurant, it is not difficult to place myself in Chaplin's shoes and recall the hardships I endured at the hands of a corporate giant. My personal experience was not nearly as traumatic as Chaplin's portrayal, but I know of many people who would say that the character's experience was not a far cry from what they dealt with as they worked long hours under hazardous conditions.

Modern Times, Then and Now

2011-12-12T09:40:00.001-06:00

(Caveat: This blog post is full of cynicism. Read at your own peril.)

It seems to me that our 21^st Century has strikingly little difference with the early 20^th Century as portrayed in “Modern Times.” In fact, it's similar in at least three ways and there are tie-ins to poetry we've read all semester.

As the factory workers, we rely on technology, but instead of cogs and wrenches, we run on circuit boards and lasers. He who invents the next big “toy” that will revolutionize the American daily life will make millions at the expense of the materialist and the technology-proficient. The salesman cared little for the Little Tramp but only for the malfunctioning machine, and I wonder if it's all that different from how we treat people. We may not see the hard-working conditions in China or Thailand, but is buying low-priced products really all that different from the way the movie portrays the production line?

Just as the Little Tramp is chased for being too machine-like and not being able to stop himself from twisting washers – and anything that looks like them. Our equivalent is not the over-active or the hard worker but the couch potato, the 30-year-old video gamer in his parents basement, the teenage girl who can't be separated from her Blackberry without panicking. At least the Little Tramp was addicted to his work. Today, we are addicted to entertainment, fueled by technology, and we wonder why we're an obese culture. Seems like Chaplin was spot-on when he made a character that couldn't shut off. With cyborg implants on the horizon, it won't take long for some to actually become part machine in the name of progress and individual choice – or so they say now.

But back to the film. When the Little Tramp is released from prison, he asks to stay. With little to no work expect, a homey cell, and food provided at every meal, his unjust life as a prisoner turns out to be the best thing that happens to him. Until he meets the gamine, he's still striving to return to prison because it feels like a better life. He is jealous of the commodities provided, and that still happens today. Michael Moore's documentary “Sicko” revolves around the injustices of the healthcare system in America. In one part of the film, Moore takes a boat load of chronic patients with no insurance to the waters outside of Guantanamo Bay and uses a loudspeaker to demand universal healthcare for the American citizens with him, since the prisoners receive the healthcare they need regardless of the crimes they are imprisoned for. The criminal are still better off than the poor nearly a hundred years after Chaplin's film.

The theme of this movie also reminds me of Ezra Pound's “With Usura.” While Chaplin doesn't directly address the problem of debt and usury, the idea of the class gap is prevalent in both works. Chaplin blames the gap on modernization and exploitation of the little man while Pound focuses on the financial enslavement of the down-and-out man to those that already have money. Both men are commenting on the same problems we have present in our current society. The education gap is something that none of the authors have truly addressed but is becoming an increasing factor in the widening gap between poverty and wealth.

I will clarify: I don't hate technology. In fact, I believe it is useful and even necessary for our current culture. However, I found the themes in Chaplin's “Modern Times” to be striking with the same issues we have present today. Though we label our culture, literature, and philosophy as postmodern, I see very little difference between the modernity portrayed by Chaplin and the issues still in society.

RATS: Rebel Against The System

2011-12-12T04:44:00.001-06:00

I had always heard that Charlie Chaplin was one of the Greats of early film, and I had seen a few clips of his work here and there. But it’s only been after seeing this long portion of “Modern Times” that I’ve actually been able to appreciate just what a master Chaplin really was. He knew film, knew comedy, and all the nuts and bolts of both. In “Modern Times,” I think he’s using this expertise to comment on the nature of American capitalism and bureaucracy.

First, of course, we have the scenes within the factory, and the dominating theme is the dehumanization of the industry. Each and every one of the workers has become “programmed” to fulfill his role in keeping the machines running. This programming prompts Chaplin to begin humorously harassing two women (and their buttons), and keeps the other workers from chasing him around due their fear of falling behind. Further denigrating Chaplin is the incident with the feeding machine, which demonstrates the administration’s patent disregard for his feelings, desires, pain, or emotion in general. He is not a person to them: he is an asset, a cog in the workings that is expected to stay in its place and do what it is supposed to. Not unexpectedly, Chaplin’s refusal to cooperate and decision to flaunt the rules results in his incarceration. He has become a broken cog, and of no more use to the company.

The second instance of commentary arrives during Chaplin’s arrest for being a communist leader, when he is taken away based solely on the evidence of him carrying a (presumably red) flag. The portrayal of the police in “Modern Times,” in fact, is very similar to that of the factory workers. Policemen are pieces of the government’s bureaucratic machine, rather than industry’s capitalistic machine. They carry out their duties with ineptitude and minimal attention, only figuring out who really stole the loaf of bread after several conversations.

Theft brings up the third major instance of social commentary. When unable to find steady work, Chaplin begins seeking for ways to get arrested, eventually succeeding by eating a massive meal at a café and having no way to pay for it. That his character would rather go to prison than live in free Chicago says a great deal. In one sense, it is an accusation that this rising capitalistic profit-driven economy is responsible for making workers suffer. This is also seen in the trio that breaks into the department store, and after recognizing Chaplin, tell him, “We’re not burglars. We’re hungry!” For all its progress, industry has primarily brought hardship.

Chaplin’s character, then, is essentially caught within a Catch-22: he cannot achieve the American Dream without working for the big companies, but it is simultaneously these industries that are killing the American Dream and making its attainment impossible to the common man. The System has them beaten, and it is leaching the life out of the underlings that keeps it going. Capitalism and bureaucracy, according to Chaplin, want automatons without emotions or free will to complicate things; they wants gears in the machine that can be dealt with easily and clinically.

As we’ve seen, Chaplin’s character refuses to take this lying down, and he seems to suggest that optimism and determination are the antidotes to the domineering power of the System. They may not be enough to achieve the American Dream, but they’re enough to survive and claim a little bit of happiness—and maybe that’s sufficient.

"Ye blind idiot, ye noxious Azathoth...

2011-12-12T03:58:00.003-06:00

...shal arise from ye middle of ye World where all is Chaos & Destruction where He hath bubbl'd and blasphem'd at Ye centre which is of All Things, which is to say Infinity...." (August Derleth and H.P. Lovecraft, The Lurker at the Threshold)

The texts we’ve focused on in class have been predominantly in the Modernist tradition, but it strikes me that there’s been very little said as to what exactly that means. In doing my own research, I’ve found that no one really knows what it means either, but it’s a convenient divider, and while there may not be a specific definition there are certainly common threads:

“In instances like this there is a tone of lament, pessimism, and despair about the world which finds its appropriate representation in these ‘fractured’ art forms… In a word, the modernist laments fragmentation.” (Peter Barry in Beginning Theory, 84)

Considering the period, fragmentation has been a very real thing in the lives of many of these authors – two World Wars within twenty years, political and economic upheavals and arguments, a world that’s becoming smaller and smaller and smaller…

There’s a sense, I think, in which many of these authors can be identified by an identity crisis of sorts that is more societal and existential than it is strictly personal. In studying H.P. Lovecraft independently, I’ve read much about his consideration of himself as a “nonentity” and a “machine” – Lovecraft is relevant because he is a postmodern among modernists, but the modernists are still reacting to the same situations and trials as Lovecraft. In a move that is strikingly similar to this dissociative master of weird fiction, Ernest Hemingway creates in The Snows of Kilimanjaro a character who’s identity is defined by his own achievements – like Lovecraft, Harry’s identity, or lack thereof, is formed within his writing and his validation as an author. He is acting in a world where things are becoming more and more subjective and the concept of truth is becoming harder and harder to verify because the whole world is becoming defined by its own fragmentations – if he cannot be validated through his own experiences, how can his identity be considered concrete?

Similar sentiments crop up in T.S. Eliot’s poetry:

“Would it all have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’ –

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all.’” (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1579)

The “overwhelming question” is a reoccurring motif in Love Song… and that question is never ultimately answered, yet it is clear that the narrator’s identity is wrapped up in either the answer or the act of answering that question. As long as that question remains unanswered, what is he, really? An old man or a young man? Living or dying or dead? A social entertainer or a drowning autistic? His place is undefined, and so is his person.

And even as his identity is being threatened, language and therefore self-expression itself takes a blow as his companion admits, “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.” The ability to have interpersonal communication is also in jeopardy, the door for deconstruction is open and so long as that “overwhelming question” remains unanswered there will never be any complete understanding, no complete discourse, and therefore no agreement which can verify truth.

So we return to the lament which Barry describes – Hemingway’s Harry dies with no identity, and Eliot begs for an answer to the “overwhelming question” that can perhaps reunify the fragmenting world as it loses definition.

Meanwhile, Lovecraft the non-entity drifts ever forward, perhaps resigned and perhaps even a little excited, over the Mountains of Madness into unknown Kadath and the realm of Yog-Sothoth as the world is given over to the crawling chaos…

It leaves me wondering how, exactly, Eliot would have reacted had he ever read Lovecraft’s work.

Welcome to the Machine

2011-12-12T03:09:00.000-06:00

There are a whole slew of comics that come to mind by simply bringing up the words "black and white" - Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the Three Stooges, Abbot and Costello among others. Admittedly, Chaplin stands unique from and perhaps head-and-shoulders above all the rest, so much so that we continue to reference him in our own artistic culture:

"The difference between Keaton and Chaplin is the difference between prose and poetry, between the aristocrat and the tramp, between eccentricity and mysticism, between man as machine and man as an animal." - The Dreamers, 2003

In Modern Times Chaplin especially plays up this idea between man as a machine and man as an animal: by the end of the film, he has been both. But there is a degree to which it's shown that he has to be a little of each - the Tramp dreams of a simpler time when he will have everything he needs at his disposal and he will be permitted to simply live but he recognizes that must work, at least for a time, in order to achieve this - life requires an amount of unlife, or "Need to work until I don't have to."

Chaplin's comedy addresses this situation we've created for ourselves, the idea that in order to enjoy our humanity we must first sacrifice a measure of it - in our society, a person still needs to afford to be a person.

The bitter-sweet thing about Chaplin's act, however – the really potentially distressing thing – is that he does not offer a way in which a man can provide for himself and still retain his humanity. It can be argued that the gamine girl represents this cross-over, but her struggle cannot be called work in the occupational sense; society has taken from her, and so she is taking back. The tramp, meanwhile, attempts to provide for himself and later for the gamine by belonging to society but even those jobs he takes end in him flying in the face of society and abusing his position as a means of providing for the two of them - any actual, societal work would inevitably rob him of his humanity and leave him unable to live.

No one else in the Tramp's proximity, none of his fellow factory workers, can really be said to be living, none of them are animals any longer, they are driven by the machinery. As the Tramp develops his twitches and is unleashed on society, his actions are a hyperbole of the interaction but we have to admit to ourselves that his antics aren't, really, anything unusual. Mechanized husbands will eventually go home to mechanized wives in constant routines, even the woman with the buttons marches down the street towards the Tramp like she's a steam engine - the fact that he chases her with the wrenches can very much be seen as one machine about to give another a tune-up.

Of course it should never be this way - humans were never mean to behave this way with one another. But even from the beginning of scripture, we've been commanded to work, and in our brokenness our work takes us over. Chaplin sees this disparity, sees that the society has created a situation in which a man must choose between the necessity of his work and the existential need of his own humanity. The end result, for all its humor, seems to be that the two remain mutually exclusive.

...What do you think?

Pride in America

2011-12-12T02:05:00.001-06:00

A recurring theme that I found throughout the American literature we have read this semester is pride/confidence. I think the theme or feeling of pride is often seen amongst American literature and Americans in general. I saw a video in one of my education classes that stated that American teens fall short behind the major world countries in every academic subject but lead in the area of confidence. I don’t think this just goes for Americans today but for Americans in the past too. Walt Whitman, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes all show a lot of pride and confidence.

Walt Whitman expresses pride and confidence in himself –

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am

touch'd from,

The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,

This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.” –

and also pride and confidence in America through all of his descriptions of the American people and landscape that he observes around him. America has a lot to be proud of – our forefathers worked incredibly hard and our troops still fight valiantly in order to keep our freedoms that we so enjoy and take for granted in America today. Americans may not be considered hard workers anymore (in fact, we’re almost always referred to as ‘lazy Americans’ but in our past we have had people that built this country up on good morals and hard work. Walt Whitman’s pride and confidence may be somewhat overbearing at times and we might think of him as ‘cocky’ or ‘conceited’, but he also shows healthy pride and expresses that a person should do whatever makes them happy.

Zora Neale Hurston expresses healthy pride in herself, in her race, and in her hometown. At a time when there was major oppression and racism, her pride and confidence is surprising but also refreshing. Hurston expresses pride in herself and her race in Colored Me when she says, “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” In Hurston’s short stories about her hometown, Eatonville, Florida, she jokes about their small town ways, but does it with pride. I understand this because as someone from a small town, I make fun of it all the time to others but still love to go back there and think it’s a great place to live.

Langston Hughes expresses his confidence in himself and his race through his poetry. In I, Too, Hughes writes,

“Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed –

I, too, am America.”

This poem could be expressing a dream of equality some day –he has confidence that the world will one day be just and right and his race will be recognized as beautiful and everyone that thought it wasn’t will be ashamed. I believe this view expresses what many people of color were feeling at this time and through the next few decades. This poem could also be expressing Langston Hughes’ confidence in his ability to become famous. One day he’ll be famous and put all of those people to shame that made him feel like dirt before he became famous. Hughes also expresses confidence through The Weary Blues, which says,

“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,

Ain’t got nobody but ma self.

I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’

And put ma troubles on de shelf.”

In this poem Hughes expresses that even though a person may have lost everything in their life or may feel like they have nothing, they can “quit their frowning and put their troubles on the shelf” and have confidence in who they are and their own abilities. With a downturned economy in America today people may feel like this old blues singer did about his life, but they can do the same thing and have confidence that everything will get better because if you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up.

American pride may be a little misplaced nowadays – in our possessions, our careers, and our money instead of things that should really matter – but it is definitely still present. Americans now have become even more confident and prideful in themselves than Walt Whitman is in his poetry. Readers at the time probably thought it undoable, but once again, America has outdone itself.

Modern Times

2011-12-12T02:00:00.001-06:00

The film Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin is in one sense a silly, entertaining slapstick that is quite welcome to watch in the midst of the stress of studying for finals. In another sense, it has some pretty serious themes that were relatable to the 1930s, and also in the present time.

One noticeable theme is the theme of work. As the opening credits roll, a clock can be seen in the background, its second hand always moving. This somehow feels like it ties into work already. Perhaps it is a symbol of someone “working against the clock”. Or it could be a symbol of your life ticking away as you go on with your working life. It could be, of course, that Chaplin did not intend anything special with the clock, but as I was trying to find connections, I thought the clock was interesting.

The very next in the film scene shows a herd of sheep just wandering around, and then it fades to the next scene, which shows a group of men leaving the subway station, heading off to work. This is where the critique on work truly begins. The sheep scene fading into the scene with the commuters symbolizes how people working are often like a bunch of sheep, just going along mindlessly with the norm of society, without ever bothering to change their ways. Because work is necessary, people just move along like sheep every single day. This is a pretty harsh statement, yet there seems to be some truth in it.

Now I will confess that I had some difficulty trying to connect Modern Times with some of the literature that we read. However, out of all the poems that we discussed over the past week, I found that “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg seems to fit the best with the film. First, Modern Times takes place in a city and “Chicago” is describing this great city. Second, “Chicago” gives more images of working than in some of the other poems. When a picture of the city is being painted in “Chicago”, these words show up around lines 13 or 14:

“Bareheaded,

Shoveling,

Wrecking,

Planning,

Building, breaking, rebuilding….” (1437)

These lines are just verbs that are simple yet create a strong image. One can picture a man being outside doing hard labor, trying to get through the day’s work. This is similar to the Tramp (Chaplin’s character) trying to constantly keep up with the machine in the factory, no matter how fast it ends up going. It gets to the point where the Tramp almost becomes a machine himself. He becomes unable to stop twisting the tools that are in his hands (which leads to some amusing and awkward situations). And do his supervisors or coworkers care that his arms are on this strange autopilot? Instead, they just tell him to keep working faster and not to stop. In every job the Tramp does, people constantly yell at him.

The odd thing is that even though work is criticized and poked fun at, it is still something to be desired. Yes, the Tramp and the Gamin have their fantasies about not having to work and just have grapes growing by their house. But ultimately, work is what is going to give them this desired American dream. The Tramp says that he and the gamin will have this dream “even if I have to work for it!” He shoves his way through a crowd to get a job, and he is excited when a department store employee breaks his leg (meaning there will be a job opening).

Modern Times may be a comedy, but its commentary on work can be quite serious and it hits home for us even today.

Money and Machinery or People?

2011-12-12T01:56:00.002-06:00

As previously stated by many fellow classmates, I too had never seen anything by Charlie Chaplin until watching Modern Times in this class. I found Chaplin hilarious but also very intriguing. “Stupid humor” isn’t really my cup of tea, so Chaplin’s well thought out and politically expressive humor suited my taste. I found the first segment of Modern Times to be the funnier of the two that we’ve seen in class so far. The fact that money and the machine are cared for more than the person is so true that it’s funny. But it also raises the more serious question, “How did America become like that?” I guess America was kind of built on the values of getting ahead instead of caring about people though. When Christopher Columbus first discovered America he lied to people in order to get them to come over and tried to get rid the Native Americans so that he could have the land for himself. We did it once again with the slavery period and now we do it with our factory workers. I’m not saying that Americans don’t care about people but I think as Chaplin’s work shows, we certainly don’t care enough for people. Chaplinesque hints at this mentality with the stanza saying,

For we can still love the world, who find
A famished kitten on the step, and know
Recesses for it from the fury of the street,
Or warm torn elbow coverts.

I feel that the word ‘can’ reflects that America does not typically still “love the world” but states we do have the ability. Crane speaks in metaphors about the same thing that Chaplin pokes fun of in his silent film – America can create the opportunity to care about people but so often we choose to care about making money through our machines and work than we do about people. The famished kitten on the step seems to represent poor or poverty stricken people that people can take in to their homes to help or factories can take in to give jobs to in a rescue from “the fury of the street” –the actual streets to homeless people or the horrible job market for the unemployed. "The game”, referred to in line one of the last stanza in Chaplinesque refers to Charlie Chaplin’s humor of the world around us – it “enforces smirks.” Carter also refers back to the kitten that he spoke of earlier in the poem saying,

And through all sound of gaiety and quest
Have heard a kitten in the wilderness.

Crane seems to be saying that Chaplin’s work (the ‘sound of gaiety and quest’) has forced people to hear ‘the kitten inthe wilderness’ – or to recognize the people around them instead of keeping their focus only on money and machinery. The kitten in the wilderness could also be more specifically referring to the girl in the second section of Modern Times that we saw. She becomes an orphan in “the wilderness” of the city. Chaplin’s character represents the part of America that sees past the love of money and machinery and cares for this girl who is “famished… on the step.” Crane and Chaplin read together give a full view of the social issues – the humor that can be found within them and also the severity of them. Chaplin does a great job with getting people’s attention through his jokes and then giving his viewers something to talk about after they have finished watching the movie. So think about it, are you going to be the lover of money and machinery, or the lover of people?

Mocking vs. Pity

2011-12-11T14:29:00.003-06:00

Viewing the Charlie Chaplin film has by far been my favorite part of this course. It has been a way to view the reality of the time period, laced with over-the-top comedy. I found it interesting that I was familiar with Charlie Chaplin's character "the tramp" before I had ever seen any of his films, especially his comedic hat. I don't know WHERE I had seen this character, but he has forever been present in the back drawers of my mind. As I thought about this phenomenon, I wondered why. What could have made his character stand out to significantly in media history?

So as I watched the film, I was struck by the contrast between the comedic mocking of everyone and everything while at the same time feeling pity for 'the tramp'. He is a foreign body thrown into this modernized world where is so blatantly doesn't belong. He is swept up in the world of the "machine" without the ability to adjust, and then swept from one situation to another without finding a true resting place (aside from the jail, which was only temporary). When he gets a job at the department store and even thought the dream that he has, he is surrounded by moment after moment of grandeur that the viewer (and the character himself) could only dream of him ever achieving. It made me wonder what exactly he was trying to convey (and every good film makes one think, yes?).

But personally, the most significant part of this film for me was how "the tramp" and "the gamine" are the only two characters in the entire film who show an ounce of individuality and non-conformity. Everything else is mechanized, routine, and patterned. Ladies stand and shop, men continually work machines with mindless repetition, the masses move uniformly in the streets, etc. But the two main characters go against the tides. Against the masses. They stick out in the most ridiculously amusing yet sad ways. Chaplin's brilliance in maneuvering these situations (especially having his actual wife play "the gamine") can be plainly seen.

Watching Chaplin caused me to dig deeper into what the meanings were behind all of the things being conveyed. It caused me to really think about the situations that "the tramp" and "the gamine" were in instead of just absorbing the comedy and moving on. I wish that there was more examples of this type of film that came out today. Our media tends to be of consistently poor quality, but Charlie Chaplin really did set a pretty high bar.

Importance of Laughter.

2011-12-10T08:31:00.001-06:00

I had never seen a Charlie Chaplin film before this class,but now I can’t believe that I had somehow missed his work. It took less thanfive minutes before I knew that I was absolutely going to love Modern Times. In fact, I am actually reallyanxious to finish the rest of the film so I can start watching his other works.

I’m not sure exactly what I find appealing about Chaplin orhis Little Tramp character. For one thing, I think there are some interestingcomplexities to the type of humor used in this movie. Sometimes a joke comesafter a long and rather intelligent or edgy setup sequence (I’m thinking thered flag waving or the “nose-powder”). Other times the punch line is as simpleas a punch in the face. Much like the sketches Monty Python or Fry and Laurie,this mix of high and low forms of humor is something that, when done well, is morethan memorable: it is universally appealing.

I am struck by what Dr. Fruhauff explained about Chaplin’sdecision to keep the Tramp a silent character in order to maintain his culturaluniversality. In some ways I think there is a timeless quality about him. Sure,silent films are virtually a thing of the past. Sure, the story is distinctlyabout the Great Depression. Sure, the movie is in black and white. Etc. Thereare plenty of things about Modern Timesthat indicate the fact that it was created 75 years ago, but I do not thinkthat Chaplin’s character is among them.

For one thing, a lot of the slapstick comedy we experiencetoday has its roots back in this era with the development of vaudeville(vaudeville, by the way, is a wonderful word to say aloud, try it). I know thatI recognize many of sorts of gags found in ModernTimes because of a childhood full of Saturday morning cartoons.

There is something so essentially appealing about theTramp’s innocent escapades. I think Hart Crane described this appealparticularly well in his poem “Chaplinesque.”

We make our meekadjustments,

Contended with suchrandom consolations

As the wind deposits

In slithered and too amplepockets.

Yet, it is not just amusement that I find attractive in theTramp. There is an element of steadfastness that is also appealing. Everyoneloves rooting for the underdog character, right? And who better to root forthan the innocent victim of circumstances. In the Tramp we find a characteradmirable for his persistent optimism and for his ability to maintain a senseof (to borrow from Ernest Hemingway) “grace under pressure.”

The game enforcessmirk; but we have seen

The moon in lonelyalleys make

A grail of laughter ofan empty ash can,

And through all soundof gaiety and quest

Have heard a kitten inthe wilderness.

I like that image of laughter in light of great adversity. Italso has an important role in Sandburg’s great poem “Chicago.” There we findthat the worker’s laugh comes to signify the endurance of the life of anindividual despite the trials they face in their daily lives.

Under the terribleburden of destiny laughing as a young man

laughs,

Laughing even as anignorant fighter laughs who has never lost

abattle

Bragging and laughingthat under his wrist is the pulse, and

Under his ribs the heart of thepeople,

Laughing!

This is a powerful image, and I think especially in Americanculture. Not to go on a tangent, but one of my favorite songs, “The Boxer” by Simon andGarfunkel (1968), seems to be tapping into the same sorts of themes asSandburg, Crane, and especially Chaplin.

When I left my homeand my family

I was no more than aboy

In the company ofstrangers

In the quiet of therailway station running scared

Laying low, seekingout the poorer quarters

Where the raggedpeople go

Looking for the placesonly they would know…

In the clearing standsa boxer

And a fighter by histrade

And he carries thereminders

Of every glove thatlayed him down

Or cut him till hecried out

In his anger and hisshame

"I am leaving, Iam leaving"

But the fighter stillremains!

Maybe I am just seeing what I want to see, but those imagesare similar enough that I don’t think they are coincidental. If anything theyexemplify this ideal of American persistence; that insistence on “pullingyourself up your bootstraps.” I find that the Tramp speaks to this fight forhope and he does so in a way that sticks with you.

In my experience thus farwith Chaplin’s work, that is the thing I appreciate the most. He shows us the difficulties of the world, but he does so while laughing.

What were they trying to say?

2011-12-07T09:41:00.001-06:00

As I sat down to write today, I came to a block. After reading Hart Crane’s poem titled, Chaplinesque I had no real insight into what Crane was trying to say. I know the poem was written after Crane’s viewing of The Kid which was a Charlie Chaplin film, but that didn’t help me too much since I’ve never seen The Kid. I did end up watching a short segment from the film but that didn’t even do me any good. I was still stuck looking at Crane’s poem without the slightest idea of what he was trying to say. I ended up doing a little research on the poem and found that various people saw Crane’s poem as a reference to life and the world. The life of a man that was contented with whatever the wind brought him, because he didn’t have anything in his pockets to begin with. Life is a game (v.19), and there are different instances in life where you experience loneliness, but also times of laughter.

I don’t really have too much else to say about Crane’s poem, because I just don’t fully understand what he was trying to convey. I think it is interesting that Crane wrote this poem in response to watching The Kid, because the clip I saw didn’t seem to have anything to do with what Crane wrote. I may be extremely dense to these things though.

From my short viewing of Charlie Chaplin in class yesterday, I saw Modern Times as entertaining and enjoyable. Not until we started talking about the social aspects of the movie did I notice that something bigger was going on. We talked about how the film portrayed that the big business motto would be: bigger bang for the buck. They didn’t view their workers as people, but rather as part of the machine that needed to be used in the process of mass production. Chaplin jabs fun of this idea by making a mockery out of it. It’s clever that he takes a societal problem of the time and makes it humorous, because it gets his point out there, but does it in a non-offensive sort of way. It is a passive aggressive approach to the problems of the times.

Carl Standburg

2011-12-05T11:53:00.000-06:00

I did not know much about Carl Sandburg so I decided to look up some information that would give me an understanding of who he was and the type of person he was as a poet. Sandburg quit school when he was young and worked several jobs. Sandburg's experiences working and traveling had an impact on they way he wrote. He was familiar with the outside world and he knew the difference with rich and poor.
Sandburg lived in Chicago and he is given us, the readers the imagery of what Chicago was like back then. He helps you be able to see the town. He describes the negatives,but that does not out weight the good. Sandburg is proud of the city of Chicago, He write "Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning." He knows there are some not so good things in the city, but he still loves is and is truely fond of it.
When he talks about Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads, etc. He is breaking down the industrial jobs that were available then.
Sandburg' poem " Chicago" is known as being one of the best works of the 20th Century. This poem is a realistic look at a city growing so fast that its population is on the rise. Sandburg calls the city of Chicago, The City of Big Shoulders. I find Sandburg expression by the use of a variety of techniques.

Returning To the Earth

2011-12-04T12:45:00.001-06:00

After reading this poem over and over again, I was left with graphic images that left much for reflection. I saw a war torn field filled stacked with corpses, bloodied soldiers compiling the bodies of their fellow comrades, and a graveyard with no headstones bordered by railroad tracks. I really loved the intensity of this poem. I love Sandburg’s choice of words; specifically the verbs pile, shovel and work. I repeated these words out loud and it added to the brevity and intensity of the image of death depicted in this poem. Men had fought and died in an unnatural way and now they were being disposed into nature, into the ground.

“Shovel them under and let me work—I am the grass; I cover all” (1439)

I felt this to be very symbolic to the natural order of God’s creation in that we are made from the earth and to the earth we will return. I immediately went to Genesis 3.19 which says:

“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground. For you were made from dust and from dust you will return.”

I could be reaching here but I see a contrast with Sandburg’s poem and Genesis 3.19. Adam and Eve had lived in a perfect and beautiful naturally ordered world, had just chosen sin against God and because of that choice, were thrown out into an unnatural world, or a “battlefield”. Everything that was ordered and perfect was now in chaos. Adam and every person after him would have to fight and toil and battle for survival. With their choice, sin entered into the world. All that was unnatural: Death, pain, loss, hatred, and war became a part of the once perfect world. I see the consequences of mankind’s actions when I read this poem. In every war I have ever read about it has been about power. That is exactly what led Adam and Eve to sin. They wanted power; they wanted to be like God.

In Sandburg’s poem, I see the grass speaking. It is a resting place, a healing agent; “it covers all”. The grass is mentioned in the beginning of the poem and also at the end; connecting the whole. It is covering all that has happened, every battle, every fallen man. Not erasing but covering over and healing. All of the men are lost but not forgotten and we see that in lines 7-9:

“Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this? Where are we now?”

No matter how many years have passed, the battles and the men who fought and lost their lives in those battles are remembered. They are laid to rest in the earth. For from the earth they came, and to the earth they returned.

Sandburg's Common Death & Beauty

2011-12-01T23:47:00.000-06:00

After spending a semester reading arguably some of the best American writers, it is interesting to finish the semester with Carl Sandburg. Sandburg deliberately set out to write poetry about common experiences and feelings for common people. This type of poetry has a large obvious contrast to that of T.S. Eliot. Sandburg does not require you to figure out 50 allusions to understand 2 lines of poetry. This sort of ease and relatable quality is much like a breath of fresh air. However, just because Sandburg writes easily about common experience does not mean that the poems lack depth in any sort of fashion. Sandburg’s Cool Tombs and Grass both address harsh human realities, but in an easy to grasp way.

Cool Tombs begins with three notable historical figures, who were all dead at the time of writing (and are still dead). Lincoln is often thought of as one of the most influential presidents, but he still had enemies. Grant also accomplished much in office, but lost everything because of his corrupt dealing. Pocahontas has become idealized for her helping of the settlers, but at the same time leaving her own people. All of these people had built a strong legacy that was not perfect, but in many senses admirable. However, they all also died and forgot all of their successes and failures “in the dust, in the cool tombs.” Sandburg seems to be reminding all of us that we cannot take our legacies, good or bad, with us. The fourth stanza takes a slightly different and more personal tone for all of us – it turns directly to the common person. In this stanza Cool Tombs forces each of us to re-evaluate our lives and realize the brevity of it. We do not “get any more than the lovers” and just like the three historical figures before us nothing is left or matters “in the dust . . . in the cool tombs.” Life is what it is, and we need to make the most it while we still can.

Sandburg’s Grass is actually written from the perspective of grass. Grass seems to grow nearly everywhere it is allowed to grow, especially in the Midwest, where Sandburg was from. Yet, rarely do we ever consider the restorative work that this plant does. The narrator in the poem asks for the dead from five different battles, and in this implies that it takes the dead of the whole world. The dead, who according to Cool Tombs no longer remember their lives or have accomplishments. The grass asks for the dead, so that it may be allowed to ‘work.’ In life, we bury the dead and then from their burial place grows grass; this is a common event. Sandburg is reminding all of us of the redemptive work that one of the most common plants – grass, does for all of us every day. The grass takes the old, dead, and now useless bodies and turns them into beautiful landscaping. Through this view we are able to find beauty in death as well as redemption in nature. It is this type of beauty and redemption, which is not afforded to us by Cool Tombs, because we cannot achieve it. It is not us, but nature that makes and creates the beauty and redemption of death.

Sandburg definitely had skill at being able to take a mundane everyday object, such as grass, and use to create a poem with much more depth than it would originally seem. The Norton Anthology does a great job pairing Cool Tombs and Grass. Both of these poems deal with death, the brevity of life, and the after-effects, but from two very different perspectives. Cool Tombs shows a more personal perspective, where we see historical figures, and ourselves, remember and retain nothing from this life in death. On the other hand, Grass shows us how our deaths, even in the most brutal of forms from war, can bring about beauty through nature and the growing of grass. Much of the growing in nature is dependent upon the circle of life. Instead of stacking the bodies we ought to let nature take its’ course and do its’ work creating beauty and thereby redemption through death, but in the mean time we ought to make our lives worthwhile. While these Sandburg poems focus on death, they also serve to remind us about life.

Leaving Things Behind

2011-11-30T08:38:00.004-06:00

The character of Harry in The Snows of Kilimanjaro is a complex one. I think Hemmingway wrote him (and the whole story) brilliantly, but I cannot like him. Despite the fact that he is dying of infection throughout the whole story it was hard for me to even feel sorry for him after a while.

All of Harry’s reminiscences and his present dialogues with Helen and the servant are thoroughly drenched in bitterness. It is evident when he thinks about his lost loves, his affairs, his aspirations, and experiences. He is most bitter of all when he thinks about his lost writing talent.

“It was his duty to write of it; but now he never would….That was one story he had saved to write. He knew at least twenty good stories from out there and he had never written one. Why?”

The sting Harry experiences when remembering the decline of his talent is doubled in that he lost it by becoming just what he had planned to write out clearly for everyone to see. He had planned to write a sort of scoop on the rich from the perspective of an inside-outsider, but he became a part of the system himself, dependent on the rich women he lived with. He is aware of this double standard in his life, of hating the thing he depends on for his comfort, but he does not have the fortitude to completely remove it and return to his writing. The Africa trip is an attempt in that direction, but even he has to admit that it could not succeed in “burning the fat from his soul” because of the presence of Helen and Helen’s money, which, while not extending to luxury on the trip, at least prevents any hardship.

Hardships and luxuries aside, Harry still contracts an infection and gangrene in his leg. Knowing that he is dying, he begins to self-destruct in a way, drinking alcohol despite Helen’s advice, intentionally wounding her, and giving up generally.

“Do you have to kill your horse, and your wife and burn your saddle and your armour?...Stop it, Harry, why do you have to turn into a devil now?” “I don’t like to leave anything,” the man said. “I don’t like to leave things behind.”

This seems to indicate a pattern of Harry’s life, then. He never leaves things behind. From his recounted stories it seems that he is constantly on the move: Germany, Paris, Constantinople, rich woman to rich woman. He is convinced that “no thing could hurt him if he did not care,” so he refuses to care, simply pulling everything down around him as he leaves. Only as he is dying he realizes that this pattern of leaving nothing behind, of doing “anything…too bloody long,” means that at the end of his life, there is nothing for him to turn to, no chance for “the company that he would like to have.”

He’s worn everything out—his love, his talent, his life—and since he has left nothing behind, he has nothing left ahead of him but his curiosity and his bitterness.

Harry is convinced that everything is easier and better if you just do not care, and thereby avoid pain. But as he is dying he does not seem content with what that has brought him to, in the end.

Is Harry a Failure?

2011-11-30T00:13:00.001-06:00

Hemingway’s character in The Snows of Kilimanjaro is complex and puzzling enough to create confusion and possibly even frustration within the reader as we learn of his habits, successes and downfalls. He drinks, cannot be committed to one woman and admits to himself that he has been unable to write many of the stories he has in his head. But do all these things make Harry a failure?

Initially, I wanted to say yes. He does not have ambitious goals for himself and depends on the wealth of women he’s with to live. Most importantly, Harry has created an entire false persona full of deception in hopes of finding success in that way. Yet as he lies at the base of the mountain with gangrene eating away his life, he begins to reflect on himself as an individual, in which his true character is revealed.

We sit with him as he realizes his faults in love, the reality that he felt more comfortable when “he no longer meant what he said, and that lies were more successful than telling the truth.” We get the impression that he dislikes this conclusion about himself, pointing to his current wife as the “caretaker and destroyer of his talent.”

As Harry lapses into thoughts of stories he could have written about, it becomes evident that he regrets not taking more effort to write about what he wanted to. One big question he continues to ask himself as he nears death is ‘why?’ “He knew at least twenty good stories from out there and he had never written one. Why?” “He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would.”

We begin to see Harry not as a failed writer, but as an artist who is struggling with his art form. Hemingway uses Harry to show just how damaging the loss of one’s muse is to a writer, just as he also went through the same struggles in his own life. Hemingway is able to communicate just how deceptive that muse can be, and once infected, he can no longer be in control over his art. It is also important to note that although Harry sees the top of the mountain in his dream right before death, we have no indication that the couple has ambitions to climb to the top of Kilimanjaro; it seems they are only there to hunt.

From first look, it may be concluded that Harry is a failure simply because he never wrote what he most desired to. But when taking a step back and examining the piece from all angles, it is better to conclude that Harry, although not triumphant in any way, is not a failure. He is simply a tragic result of striving for pleasure and success by taking one direction, only to realize that he had taken the wrong path.

Writers and Writing in "Kilimanjaro"

2011-11-29T22:29:00.000-06:00

The biography section on Ernest Hemingway in Norton’s Anthology of American Literature discusses two new themes that became apparent in Hemingway’s writing. According to the anthology, “The second new theme, obviously autobiographical, was that of the successful writer losing his talent in an atmosphere of success, celebrity, and wealth.” It goes on to say that this theme is conveyed in The Snows of Kilimanjaro, which also has some biographical elements, as Hemingway used to go on safaris in Africa.

Well, using these words as my guide, I went into the story on the lookout for this ‘fallen writer’ theme. While I could see a little bit of a fallen writer theme, I could see quite a bit of commentary on just writing in general. An example of this is the flashbacks of Harry, the writer and protagonist. At first, I found the flashbacks confusing and I wasn’t sure what purpose they served in the plot. Looking at them again, I found a recurring topic in many of the flashbacks. In one way or another, his writing comes up. In one particular flashback, there’s a neat paragraph on Harry as a writer, which says:

“He had never written any of that [the quarrels] because, at first, he never wanted to hurt any one and then it seemed as though there was enough to write without it. But he had always thought that he would write it finally. There was so much to write. He had seen the world change… He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would.” (1992)

Harry seems to have this duty to write about the things he sees and experiences. Yet something stops him from writing it, whether it’s unwillingness to hurt people or a hesitation in presenting his stories, or whether it’s just getting caught up in his lifestyle. This is one example of how Harry is shown as a writer who fails not because his writing style is poor, but because other factors get in the way of his writing. Another flashback says, “He knew at least twenty good stories from out there [Paris] and he had never written one. Why?” (1996) Why indeed?

Another thing the anthology noted was how Harry blames his wife for his loss of talent, when deep down he acknowledges that it was his own fault. This and the idea of how you can lose your talent is expressed in the following paragraph:

“He had destroyed his talent himself. Why should he blame this woman because she kept him well? He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in, by drinking so much that he blunted the edge of his perceptions, by laziness, by sloth, and by snobbery, by pride and by prejudice, by hook and by crook.” (1988)

I found it interesting that Harry partly attributes his loss of writing talent to not using his talent. Basically, writing isn’t something that can be lost the same way a pencil can be lost-you can’t just accidentally drop it on a sidewalk and misplace it. Instead, you choose not to refine your craft, you choose to do something else instead or you simply get too busy. When you look at it that way, it actually seems quite easy to lose a talent for writing, which is a little scary to think about.

The theme of the writer in The Snows of Kilimanjaro makes me wonder: Are Harry’s reflections on writing also Hemingway’s personal thoughts on writing? It seems like it, but I could be totally mistaken.

The meaning behind the stiff leg

2011-11-28T11:47:00.001-06:00

In Faulkner's short story Barn Burning, the stiff leg of Abner Snopes serves to be a metaphor that guides the action in the story. Abner had injured his leg thirty year prior in the Civil War. It is no doubt a constant reminder of the injustice and pain he witnessed and took part of. It seems likely that Abner's morale for justice can be equated with the cruelty and destruction of war.

Honesty is not a virtue for Abner. He tells his son Sartoris early on that "You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain't going to have any blood to stick to you." Therefore, he encourages Sartoris to lie in court if it means saving the family name. This appears to be the same mentality in a setting like war--no matter what the cost, save your own kind.

He makes this fact known to his son by beating him. In this scene, we first see the mention of Abner's stiff leg, which is a reoccurring theme throughout the story:

"Once more he followed the stiff back, the stiff and ruthless limp, up the slope and on to the starlit road where, turning, he could see his father against the stars but without face or depth--a shape black, flat and bloodless..."

The first characteristic that Sartoris identifies on his father is most often the stiff leg. He can hear the stiff leg as he says, "it came down on the boards with clocklike finality, a sound out of all proportion to the displacement of the body it bore." To Sartoris, the limp encompasses his father's being which shows how Sartoris views his father as an oppressing man. Abner is not only physically wounded, but emotionally from what occurred previously in his life. His disillusioned notions of justice are usually taken out on his son.

The most telling part of the story occurs when Abner and Sartoris are in the house of Major de Spain and Abner stains their rug from the manure stuck on his stiff legged shoe. I believe this scene presents the central metaphor and meaning in the story. First of all, his stiff leg serves as a metaphor for Abner's rigid views of justice. Because the war treated him unfairly, he now tries to make up for it by believing he deserves more than he receives. It is a permanent thorn in his side. As the show of the stiff leg goes on to stain the rug, it shows how this perspective permeates into all aspects of his life--from his family, to his work and to the society he lives in. Faulkner uses effective descriptive language to convey the scene:

"And now the boy saw the prints of the stiff foot on the doorjamb and saw them appear on the pale rug behind the machinelike deliberation of the foot which seemed to bear twice the weight which the body compassed...

"The boy watched him pivot on the good leg and saw the stiff foot drag round the arc of the turning, leaving a final long and fading smear...He stood for a moment, planted stiffly on the stiff foot, looking back at the house. 'Pretty and white, ain't it?'"

Abner is forced to pay ten bushels of corn to Major de Spain for ruining the expensive rug, but Abner is appalled at the sentence, believing he doesn't deserve to give the major anything. What results is a tragic ending as Abner is killed and Sartoris escapes the scene, fleeting his family and previous life. The only certainty is now Sartoris will no longer be held under the oppression of his father's stiff leg.

My Faulkner

2011-11-27T23:45:00.001-06:00

I haven't been a lifelong reader. I wish it wasn't true, but some things must be brought to the light, I suppose. I was a fan of the Harry Potter series in my youth (though I never read the seventh book - another sad confession), and I always read what was required of me in school. Even though I only began seriously getting into literature during my senior year of high school, William Faulkner was there long before. He also walked me through this journey, and now I have encountered him again.

I love Faulkner, but I also hate him. I love that he's familiar to me. I read A Rose for Emily in seventh grade and again when I was a junior, and if you asked me how I felt about it, I would say, "I like it, I guess."

When I decided to get into reading the summer before my senior year, I was at a Barnes and Noble in Seattle, standing at a table with a sign that said something to the effect of "If you're in high school and you like to read, these books are important." I scanned the selection and Faulkner's name jumped out at me. I decided to purchase As I Lay Dying not only because of the familiarity Faulkner's name, but also because the book shared a name with one of my favorite bands at the time.

I put the book on my shelf and forgot about it for a while. Before I read it, I also bought The Sound and the Fury, because a friend of mine recommended it to me. I decided to read both. This is when I grew to hate Faulkner.

I hated the long sentences. I hated the dialect in As I Lay Dying and how it jumped from character to character and how I wasn't sure who was a boy and who was a girl. I hated the long chapters in The Sound and the Fury. I hated how the same story was told four times, and how one of the chapters was not chronologically accurate because one of the characters was mentally retarded. I thought, "Who DOES that?" I finished the books - not because I wanted to, but because I knew I couldn't quit.

When I opened to Barn Burning, my first emotion was genuine excitement. Here was good ol' Bill Faulkner to provide me with some good times. But as I began writing this blog, I remembered all of the bad times I had had with Bill, and how much I grew to hate him. I really hoped Barn Burning would take me back to the good times. I figured that I was a more mature, more knowledgable reader than I had been at that time, so hopefully I would get something more out of Faulkner.

After reading this story and taking into account my past experience with Faulkner, I decided that Faulkner had mastered this method of storytelling. Once again, Faulkner uses the viewpoint of a child going through hardships to tell the story of desperation in the Great Depression/Dust Bowl era. Faulkner plays off the innocence of Sartoris to get the reader to sympathize with the desperation the family is going through. He does the same thing in As I Lay Dying as the children carry their mother's casket to be buried, the youngest children unaware of what is happening.

In the beginning, Sartoris does not understand the trial what his father has done. All he knows is that Harris is the enemy. This innocence carries the tone throughout the novel as he does not understand a world of desperation, violence, and his father's sinister ways. Faulkner does an excellent job of getting the reader to connect to the young character and decipher their situation through the eyes of a child. He reveals the harsh lifestyle of this time through a gentle medium.

In the end, my heart broke for Sartoris. I can't imagine that he fully grasped the magnitude of his father's death or the extenuating circumstances. That's when I realized that this was a common motif in the other novels I had read by Faulkner. It almost made me want to go back and read through those stories again, just so I could have my heart broken by these poor children again. Maybe I'm just a sucker for those poor kids.

Or maybe I'm just a sucker for Faulkner.

The Journey of Injustice

2011-11-27T18:58:00.000-06:00

“The boy said nothing. Enemy! Enemy! He thought; for a moment he could not even see, could not see that the Justice’s face was kindly.” Many questions are asked as the reader reads the beginning pages of Barn Burning . Why is this small child worried about telling the truth? What is he trying to hide? And most importantly as the story progresses, why is he protecting his father? As you can see by the initial quote this child thinks the Justice of the Peace is an enemy and after reading more you find it is based solely on what his father has taught him and by what he has been told. He doesn’t take into effect that this “enemy” might not be an enemy and instead might help him. His mind is too clouded by the persuasion from his father (whether it be good persuasion or violent persuasion) and his family to understand legitimately what is right and what is wrong. There is a theme of justice being injustice throughout the entire novel which I will discuss at the end of this blog. For now I will talk about how this short story is about the journey into manhood for our main character, the young boy.

At the very beginning this story starts off with a small child being questioned about his knowledge on the transaction between his father and their neighbor. You can tell immediately that the child does not know what to say and is scared for his father’s reaction to the events transpiring. Anyone can see that he is ruling his family by violence and that his word is law. This story continues in the perspective of our young characters mind and you see how his family works together and how dysfunctional they are. During each “action scene” or scene that describes his father lashing out with violence or burning yet again another barn the young boy can be seen debating whether or not this was okay. But unfortunately he never had time to do anything about it because his father always ordered him to participate or to get his family to safety. That child was always unsure about his father’s actions but he was then pushed into participating in some way. As the story comes to its end you can even see the debate of man versus child found within this young boy as he is carrying the can of oil towards his father. He cried out to his Dad asking him to send someone to warn the family, like last time, but his father will not listen and this is where the boy reaches manhood. He fights against his father and his family in order to do what is right. Once he is free he does exactly that and his actions cause his father’s death. This shows you his transition from boy to man found within this story but it also brings back up the question of justice and how it was portrayed.

I think it was a portrayal of justice being injustice. What I mean by this is that every time “justice” should have been done it is not real justice and then when “real” justice happens it is still an injustice. I know that might be confusing so let me explain. First let’s understand the definition of the word justice. Justice is the moral principle determining just conduct or the quality of being just; righteousness equitableness, or moral rightness (Webster’s Dictionary). So based on the definition at the beginning instead of justice happening, the father of the young boy is not held accountable and instead he is just asked to leave the country. That is an injustice-which is a violation of the rights of others or an unjust or unfair act (Webster’s Dictionary). Further down the father is asked to pay the family back for ruining their rug and instead he decides to burn yet again another barn-theirs. When his son gets away to warn the family the result is that the father gets shot that may seem like justice but in fact it is not real justice. This was another person taking justice into their own hands and killing someone by deeming it justice. The father needed to be held accountable for his actions but it was not up to that family to decide that. So in the end you think justice has been served but in fact it was yet again another injustice. You may or may not agree with me and that is okay but these are the conclusions I found within the story.

2011-11-27T16:02:00.002-06:00

Burning Bridges......

I really like this short story by Faulker. Though it is a short story, it was a complex story because of the characters. Sartoris and his father are especially complex and the tension between the two as they interact definitely left me sympathizing for both. The difficult relationship that Sartoris has with his father is hostile yet Sartoris is completely loyal to his father. At first I thought it was because he lived in fear of his father and what he could be capable of. But as I read on, I saw it was something different. Sartoris loves his father. He loves him and so he lies for him and obeys him; hoping and praying that there is good somewhere in his father that it would surface. Faulkner allows us to see that hope, love and pleading for his father when he allows us to read Sartoris’ thoughts. “Maybe he will feel it too. Maybe it will even change him now from what maybe he couldn’t help but be” (Page 1960, Norton). He holds onto a hope that maybe his father will someday change but that day never comes. Throughout the story I see a goodness and seriousness that resides in this young boy, a seriousness that is beyond his years. When he and his family travel to another farm, he surveys the land and the house and for a moment, forgets his father and their troubles. “They walked beside a fence massed with honeysuckle and Cherokee roses and came to a gate swinging open between two brick pillars, and now, beyond a sweep drive, he saw the house for the first time and at that instant he forgot his father and the terror and despair both, and even when he remembered his father again the terror and despair did not return. Because for the twelve moving, they had sojourned until now in a poor country, a land of small farms and fields and houses, and he had never seen a house like this before” (Page 1959). Sartoris looks at the grandeur of the scene and believes it to be safe from the deviousness and evil working of his father. “They are safe from him. People whose lives are a part of this peace and dignity are beyond his touch, he no more to them than a buzzing wasp: capable of stinging for a little moment but that’s all; the spell of this peace and dignity rendering even the barns and stable and cribs which belong to it impervious to the punt flames he might contrive…..” (Page 1959). When Sartoris’s father attempts to burn down De Spain’s barn, he goes against his immoral father, warns De Spain; choosing independence and right. Despite how hard Sartoris’s journey may be he chooses another path apart from his father and his family. He chooses the moral path and never looks back.

How It Feels to Be Colored Me-Hurston

2011-11-22T07:05:00.002-06:00

Hurston's background is that she was born in Alabama and moved with her family to an all-black town in Eatonville, Florida. Her father was a baptist preacher who you could tell probably had a great deal of influence on her life to speak with so much eloquence, power, and truth. But she was known for her high spirits. When she sought her degree at Howard University, she gathered a reputation for telling stories as a genius storyteller. She was known for telling stories about her childhood with a high level of wit, fun, and charm. She was a master conversationalist telling of side-splitting tales that captured the hearts of many. Her writings also seek to communicate the longings, passions, secrets, hidden desires, sorrows of the black culture of the time. However, well off white people were the main sponsors of and the chief audience of her work so there was this sort of paradoxical, tension going on that she had to live through. Her work was not popular with the male intellectual leaders of the community. She quarreled with famous writer, poet Langston Hughes because she rejected the idea that a black writers chief concern should be how blacks are portrayed to the white reader. She did not write to "uplift her race," because in her view it was already uplifted, which is a powerful and bold statement into the testimony of her character.

She also seemed greatly influenced by The Great Depression. She speaks about race with literal ease and uses language to describe situations that can leave you breathless. Her best work, in my opinion, is her work of literature entitled, "How it Feels to Be Colored Me." She offers a candid, truthful, down to earth, and even, humorous explanation of her colored life in a Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. But her deepest words are, "But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sorrow school of Negrohood who hold that nature has somehow given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world -- I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife." This quote was powerful too, "At certain times I have no race, I am me." These thoughts are extremely powerful identity shaping realizations that speak to her transcending a black generation and a black culture that looked to point to the sorrow, she tried to point more to the joy, the pride of being from a Negro town, a pride in her heritage and identity as a black woman. Her boldness in this lyrical confession and her ability to speak truth in her writings is to be greatly admired and esteemed. She has made an effect on the world through her writings that I believe is for the better, for the good of society. Giving life to her race and taking what was broken and making it beautiful.

The Amazing Race

2011-11-21T00:16:00.004-06:00

I've never had soul. I listen to gospel music or watch an African American worship service with despair as I realize just how terrifically un-fly I am. What they turn into an earthshakingly good time, I turn into a lesson about funeral etiquette and how to successfully pose for hatted man with an easel. Nothing I can do changes this fact. But it is in these nihilistic moments that I have come to realize the intrinsic worth of cultural differences. Every race has something to offer that is unique and valuable. Even though I will never be able to dance or evoke the dancing of others, I can still have a deep appreciation of those who can.

This is why I particularly liked reading Zora Neale Hurston. As a woman who came from an entirely black community she had a thorough understanding of African American culture. One can see this in “The Eatonville Anthology.” Basically, the Anthology is a collection of the lives of various fictional black folk. Obviously, I don’t think that she meant for this to encompass every black person on the planet, but the glimpses that she gives are still very specific to how she viewed her culture. For instance, an old fashioned hoedown takes place in part XI where young blacks are seen dancing the night away: “Sweating bodies, laughing mouths, grotesque faces, feet drumming fiercely. Deacons clapping as hard as the rest.” A sly woman named Cal’line successfully mocks her husband by donning his clothing in part XIII. In “How it Feels to be Colored Me,” Hurtson talks about how jazz deeply excites her (to which the white man nearby does not experience. For the purposes of this blog, we’ll assume white people intrinsically have less soul).The energy and drive of black people is thus conveyed nicely. And there is a sense of pride in these good moments that also comes across the page (pride in the uniqueness of her culture).

But there is an element here that is intriguing. Among the good and funny characteristics that she shares, there are also a good number of bad qualities. Abuse shows up in VI, IX, and X. Abuse from brutal husbands shows up specifically in X and IX (“He answered that she just did it for spite and that his fist was just as hard as her head”). Immoral acts such as thievery and prostitution take place in VI and XII. I pondered for a while about why she would include these qualities, especially as a Harlem Renaissance writer who shared seats with the more aggressive Hughes (who more assertively shared his tiffs with black discrimination) during a time where blacks were far from equal. It would seem that African Americans were already represented poorly enough without stories documenting their weaknesses.

However, I also couldn’t shake how much more honest this approach seemed. Hurston seemed to adore her culture, but she wasn’t afraid to shy away from where it fell short too. I believe this was done on the concept of equal humanity. Hurston talks about this in “How it Feels,” “I have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored. I am merely a fragment of the Great Soul that surges within boundaries.” This particular writing began with statement, “I remember the very day that I became colored.” She seemed to believe in her human identity on terms of her humanity rather than society. Maybe the reason for her inclusion of flaws was that humankind, both in its own good and bad ways, shares the same problems and weaknesses. In other words, this is a place where people can become equal.

I think that Hurston is trying to show that black people aren’t perfect, but in their imperfection they are as equally human as whites. Perhaps her reason for choosing this angle was to more or less say, “Black people aren’t greater than anyone else; they are just like everyone else in this way.” So it is more an attempt to show rather than tell. She still makes an interesting distinction here. Rather than calling everyone identical, she does seem to hold to a black identity, but it isn’t the racist black identity. In “The Eatonville Anthology,” How it feels to be Colored Me,” and in “The Gilded Six-Bits,” there is a clear sense that blacks have certain universal qualities. Personal energy, for example, shows up in all of the stories. The dialect in each story is also the same. What I think this means is that there is a real black identity that transcends the white racist’s view, “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background,” “He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored.”

It is important to note that Hurston never explicitly says that she is proud of her ethnicity. But in light of, one, the prominence of unique black culture in her writings, two, the attachment to the idea of being herself and being alright with where she comes from, and three, the historical context in which this was written, I think it is safe to say that she had a concept of freedom and identity that was rooted in a moral reality. This doesn’t help me dance, but it does give me an excuse to reflect and be uptight for a bit longer.

"Race Does Not Exist"

2011-11-20T22:55:00.001-06:00

What really surprised me when reading the biography of Zora Neale Hurston was that she “quarreled especially with Langston Hughes; she rejected the idea that a black writer’s chief concern should be how blacks were being portrayed to the white reader.” The biography goes on to say that Hurston felt she didn’t have to uplift her race because it was already uplifted. I guess I was so surprised by this because the era in which Hurston was writing was one marked with so much racism. She withstood the oppression and stayed confident in who she was despite everything. “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” shows Hurston’s attitude about her race. She says that she is constantly reminded that she is “the granddaughter of slaves” but this reminder “fails to register depression” within her. When I first read this sentence I couldn’t believe what she was saying. How could she not be angry about all of the years of oppression and inhuman treatment that her people went through? Is she just disregarding all of the horror that her ancestors bore? After reading on, I realized that she is not disregarding it, but has grown from it. She doesn’t see herself as someone bound by her race and is happy “to hold the center of the national stage, with the spectators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep.” Hurston uses the analogy of the start of a race to explain her view on her ancestors. “The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said, “On the line!” The Reconstruction said “Get set!”; and the generation before said “Go!” I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep.” She says that she has paid through all of her ancestors to get where she is today.

I didn’t understand Hurston’s joke that she uses to begin “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” so I looked up a commentary on it by Cheryl A. Wall of The Scholar and Feminist Online. Hurston’s joke says, “I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother’s side was not an Indian Chief.” Wall says, “The joke is aimed both at those whites who would assume that blackness is a problem requiring a solution, or at least an explanation, and at those blacks, almost certainly including race-conscious New Negroes, who want it understood that they are not merely black.” Hurston claims her race but realizes that it is not biologically, but socially defined. Dr. Reynolds (TIU professor) always says that “race doesn’t exist” because race cannot be found in DNA. We know that there are different pigments of skin but the real difference comes because of social barriers. Hurston acknowledges this when she says, “I remember the very day I became colored.” She speaks of her hometown, Eatonville, where everyone around her was black. She knew nothing of discrimination and the evils of racism until she left Eatonville to go to school and make a life for herself. She refers to this journey as Hegira – “the forced march of Muhammed from Mecca to Medina in 622 C.E. hence any forced flight or journey for safety.” Although she feels this journey has been forced, she “asserts that any incongruity between the “colored” and “me” of its title has been resolved” (Wall).

At the end of the essay, Hurston compares people to stuffed bags. She says that the bags may be different colors, but the stuffing “might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly.” Simply put, the color of our skin or the color of the bags may be different, but what is inside is similar. “Perhaps that is how the Great Stuffer of Bags filled them in the first place – who knows?”

Hurston's Anthropology

2011-11-19T12:41:00.000-06:00

Zora Neale Hurston is arguably one of the most notable and best writers to come out of the Harlem Renaissance. There are two main features of Hurston’s writing that set her apart from the other writers of the Harlem Renaissance – her willingness to accurately portray humanity and the dialectal speech of many African-American characters. The culmination of these traits in her writing leads to the distinct tone of a much more genuine literature than many of us have become accustomed to. Recently, we praised poets for their ability to be “raw” and “genuine;” Hurston although writing in a different genre accomplishes the same feelings and goal.

The Norton biography notes that Hurston fought with the American great Langston Hughes over the portrayal of black characters and a black writer’s purpose. Hughes thought that African-American literature should “uplift” the race, portraying African-American characters only as good. This type of portrayal would obviously create a mis-anthropic view of African-Americans and more specifically humanity (NAAL, 1701). Hurston, likely because of her strong upbringing, believed that the African-American race was already “uplifted” and wrote in a way that portrayed all her characters as “good and bad, strong and weak” (NAAL, 1701). The willingness toward portrayal of the bad is readily, and humorously, seen in The Eatonville Anthology.

However, the depth of the characters both good and bad is much greater in The Gilded Six-Bits. Joe is a loving husband, but he is allowed to be angry and stay angry for a stretch of time. Missie May is a loving wife who cheats on her husband and is allowed to go through many emotions from shame, sadness and grief. The spectrum of emotions allows the characters to develop depth and become much more realistic. It would have been easy for Hurston to succumb to the pressure of one-dimensional characters and not allow hardship and sin to enter the lives of her characters. Without such a spectrum of emotion, hardship, and sin, the forgiveness in the end of The Gilded Six-Bits would have been something to take lightly. Rather, Joe’s willingness to forgive Missie May and return their lives to normal is a blessing not only to Missie May, but the reader as well. By allowing ourselves to deny depravity through showing only one-dimensional characters, we also deny the beauty of grace and forgiveness. Hurston’s willingness to show life as it is, rather than as it should be creates a more “genuine” and “raw” form of prose than Hughes was advocating for, and this rawness makes her literature even better.

Hurston was not only genuine in her emotional and active portrayal of her characters, but also in their speech. Hurston studied anthropology and was even granted a fellowship to study African-American storytelling and dialect (NAAL, 1700-1). It was this work, knowledge and interest that led Hurston to write her characters’ speech dialectally (NAAL, 1700-1). To be honest, the first time I had to read Hurston it was this dialectal speech that turned me off from her and made me irritated. However, as I have grown, Hurston’s writing has grown on me. Dialects and accents are not only an African-American occurrence, we all have them. I do. You do. None of us speak exactly as we write. Hurston’s choice to add this dimension to her characters gives them more depth and reality. You can hear the emotion in Missie May and Joe’s voices when they are flirting, fighting and everything in between. This type of realism would not have been possible if they had spoken as though they were writing an essay, with perfect pronunciation, diction and grammar.

Not long ago blogs were written in praise of Moore’s ability to write raw and genuine poetry. If we are able to unashamedly praise an author for putting herself ‘out there’ by writing raw poetry, the same should be done for prose. Hurston writes beautiful raw prose, allowing her characters to truly be and demonstrate humanity. The Gilded Six-Bit shows characters who have a range of emotion, make mistakes and speak as though they are real. It is these types of characters that readers will learn from and grow, not the one-dimensional singularly orientated type of characters.

Also on a side note, who else would fight with Langston Hughes over his ideas of ‘blackness’? This woman deserves some serious props for that one.

Pride and Desperation

2011-11-17T10:51:00.002-06:00

To me, Langston Hughes presents the "Negro" plight quite well through his poetry. He writes about not only the terrible and unfortunate events that happened back in the early 1900s, but also of Black pride. He writes about retaining a scorned identity, no matter what life may bring your way. Yes, the poems are not lengthy or written in Fitzgeraline prose, but they strike the heart through their simplicity.

A great example of this simplicity is Mulatto. I read this poem for the first time as a college freshman. I remember how I had never thought about the identity crisis children from mixed-race families must have. Hughes uses stronger language in this poem to get the point across, and it quite successful. The lines, "Git on back there in the night, You ain't white...I am your son, white man! I little yellow Bastard boy" exude not only disdain for a white Father, but of hopelessness. Of resignation. When I took Cullen's piece into consideration after reading this poem, I wondered "how would a Mulatto child retain pride in his identity?"

Hopelessness, resignation, and bitterness are apparent in all of Hugh's poetry from the selection of our reading. But on the flip side, there is "Mother to Son" and "I, too" that speak of hope and pride. They speak of a future filled with equality, regardless of what their reality is now. But even those contain desperation between the lines of encouragement to others. It gives valuable insight into the heart of the Black experience.

Ain't and Such: Ebonics and Language in Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen

2011-11-16T10:15:00.002-06:00

Most, if not all, of us are familiar with ebonics. Think back to the way that Jim talked in Huckleberry Finn and you have a pretty good idea of how the African-American slang is written out. I use the term "African-American" very deliberately here since the ebonics of black Americans differs from other Africans in the world. For example, when the Trinity Gospel Choir went on tour to England several years ago, the title for the tour was "It Ain't Over." After several days on tour, it became obvious that our audience had no idea what "ain't" meant. It was then that I began to realize that the ebonics of America were not internationally understood and I found the uses of ebonics in the poetry of both Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen to be interesting.

Word choice is often important to understanding poetry, and in the case of Hughes' poem “Mother to Son,” the language of the mother gives the woman narrator a sense of actually existing in the real world. Line two references the same thing I noted in the first paragraph: “Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.” The same voice of ebonics is used in “The Weary Blues” to give personality to the blues piano player and “Note on Commercial Theatre” with yet another blues player. Word choice is important to this accent, but so is altered grammar like in line seven, “Yep, you done taken my blues and gone.” While these seem like little observations, it is important to see why a particular voice is used in these three poems but not in others. Hughes uses the ebonic voice when the perspective of the mother and blues player is necessary, but not when the character is able to shine through in other ways like the rhyme scheme, structure, or a turn of a phrase.

Cullen uses ebonics and word choice effectively as well in “Uncle Jim.” The purpose of quoting Uncle Jim saying “White folks is white” is to convey his character. However, Cullen rarely uses colloquial language in his other poems in the anthology if ever. He prefers to use high religious language in “Yet Do I Marvel” and “Heritage” instead to convey the tone and context of the poetry. In the same way, Cullen's lack of ebonics does not mean that he is any less American than Hughes, simply different. While Hughes talks of the history of Africans in America and the African-American culture of Chicago and Harlem, Cullen's “Heritage” speaks to a desire to identify with his ethnicity and Africa but feeling unable to connect after being “centuries removed” from it.

Both poets choose their words, grammar, and structure carefully to express their feelings about culture, origins, and language. Seeing the differences between their use of ebonics and language can help us understand these poets and what they were trying to accomplish in using language that we may or may not be familiar with.

Winter Does Not Last

2011-11-14T13:28:00.001-06:00

Though I have seen film based off of Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”, I have never read the book. When Dr. Fruhauff passed the blogging sheet around in class I specifically chose to blog on Fitzgerald because I had never read anything by him. I liked both short stories assigned to us for class and chose to blog on “Winter Dreams”. The title itself I think, hints to what the story is about: a brief dream. This man Dexter retells a brief season in his young adult life when he is introduced to more than just figuring social status, money, and the next entrepreneur job he can expand upon. He is introduced to love. I personally wouldn’t call it love but rather an infatuation. Dexter meets Judy and is immediately smitten by her beauty and charm. I know physical attraction plays a part in the first introductions between a man and a woman but reading through the story, I quickly became frustrated with Dexter and his inability to see anything else beyond physical beauty in Judy. Fitzgerald does a swell job in conveying to us the deviousness, manipulating workings that are within woman. Judy knows exactly how to reel the men in with her “curvy lips” and commanding, husky voice. Judy is clearly only looking for a good time and whatever she wants, she gets.

“Whatever the beautiful Judy Jones desired, she went after with the full pressure of her charm. There was no divergence of method, no jockeying in any of her affairs. She simply made men conscious to the highest degree of her physical loveliness.” Page 1831

There is proof to this when Dexter justifies Judy’s indiscretions because of his passionate infatuation for her. He knows she is running around like a trollop with other men but Judy’s sweet nothings win Dexter over and over again during their season of “love” but as we know, winter does not last. There is sadness in the fact that this heated affair does take place in the cold season of winter but I find it rather appropriate on the author’s part. Both characters in the story want something more in their lives but they only know how to want in the moment. I think for the young and attractive Dexter and Judy, they exhaustively try to live in the “dream” of the moment and when it does not last, Dexter clings to that moment in time. He encapsulates this dream and remembers it with the passions of his youth. Later in Dexter’s life, when his “dream” of Judy is shattered with the news that she is in a loveless marriage tending to her brood of children, Dexter desperately looks back on his moments with Judy but he realizes that they are now lost.

“The gates were closed, the sun was gone down and there was no beauty but the grey beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of illusion, of youth, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished. “Long ago,” he said, “long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more.” Page 1839

This ending is sad and confuses me. What is the “thing” he keeps repeating. What “thing” is now lost? His passions? His love? Or perhaps the “thing” is the dream that he dreamt that winter not so long ago?

Were they all fools?

2011-11-14T11:22:00.001-06:00

I was first introduced to Fitzgerald in high school. We were required to read The Great Gatsby and I remember really enjoying it. I merely enjoyed the story line of the book, but when we went back and discussed the book as a class, I realized there was even more to it than I initially thought. When I saw that the reading for today was on Fitzgerald, I was really excited. I’ve never read any of his short stories or any of his other pieces of work, so I was curious to see if my thoughts of his other works would match my appreciation for The Great Gatsby. I do have to say that I was quite pleased with both of the short stories I read. I was frustrated at certain points in reading them, but I did see the bigger message within.

The first one, Winter Dreams initially caught my attention because it takes place in Minnesota, my home state. However, it didn’t take me long to realize that Dexter’s experiences in Minnesota would not resemble any of my own. In fact, this story made me angry. I couldn’t be more frustrated with the characters in this story, because from an outsider’s point of view, they were all foolish! I absolutely could not stand Judy Jones. The way in which she uses her beauty to allure men sickens me. It sickens me even more that they let her pull them into her trap. She’s like a black widow spider. She traps men in her web only to destroy them. I’d like to think that Dexter doesn’t become entranced by this vamp, but he becomes the most mesmerized of them all! It feels like defeat for the reader every time Judy tricks Dexter into thinking he is more important than any of the other guys only to spit him out in the next second. And when I finally thought Dexter might be victorious in overcoming Judy’s trap, he falls back into it again. This time, harder than before, because he doesn’t only hurt himself, but also Irene, the woman he was going to marry.

“It seems strange to say that neither when it was over nor a long time afterward did he regret that night…Nor did it matter that by his yielding he subjected himself to a deeper agony in the end and gave serious hurt to Irene Scheerer and to Irene’s parents who had befriended him” (1836).

And what did he win by hooking up with Judy one more night? Dexter truly believes that all the pain was worth it. It was worth it to have the beauty of a woman that was desired by many. It was worth a life of gloom to have but a few moments with Judy. This saddens me, because Judy didn’t ever really love him. She won.

Dexter himself is also at fault for the direction his life turns. His search for beauty and perfection outweighed his chances of ever truly being happy. The beauty of Judy and the quest to win this beauty was all in vain when Dexter finds out at the end of the story that Judy is no longer the sultry temptress she once was. She is merely a woman…not too plain, not too pretty, nothing out of the ordinary special. At the end of the day, he questions, if she isn’t beautiful, than what can be? It’s tragic because he realizes that the drive he had for life was not even worth living for because it didn’t last in the end.

This whole story makes me wonder who the greater tragedy is. Is it Judy, or is it Dexter?

Memories Revisited?

2011-11-14T09:35:00.000-06:00

As I was reading Fitzgerald’s story Babylon Revisited I came to the conclusion that this was not only well written but that it had to be based in some way on a personal experience. Something about this story seemed so real that I knew it could not just be another fictional piece. So I quickly went back to the biography of Scott Fitzgerald to see if anything written there would tell me more about his motives behind writing this story. It revealed two things. The first being that in his younger years he lived a very colorful lifestyle, he went to all night parties, drank, and pursued any means of pleasure available. The second thing that it revealed was that Babylon Revisited was written immediately after the stock market crashed and is a personal national story. This story was an anecdote for the entire nation showed through one family and how it related to the entire nation.

I was quite relieved to know that I had in fact been correct about it being a personal story but this also made me a little confused. Was it only a personal story because of the stock market crashing or was there more to it? After further research I found that Fitzgerald’s wife (married since 1920) struggled their whole marriage from her husband’s alcohol problem which led to her physical and mental exhaustion. She was admitted to a sanatorium in the 1930’s. Finding out that he was an alcoholic helped me understand the story because it gave me an understanding of Charlie’s struggle with alcohol being much more authentic due to him experiencing it himself. Upon finding out all of his marital problems it made this story much clearer. I felt it was Fitzgerald writing part of his own story. The guilt placed upon Charlie’s shoulders for his wife’s death could have been Fitzgerald’s guilt for causing his wife so many problems.

Once I knew the reasons behind Fitzgerald’s motivation to write this story it was easier for me to see the message found within the story. The main point I saw was that past mistakes, no matter how hard you try, cannot always be fixed. I know this is probably a harsh statement but Charlie portrays the father who has made many mistakes throughout the entire story and he is trying to work his way back to redemption only to find that it is not possible; even though he was not an alcoholic anymore, even though he had a governess ready for his daughter, even though he had the money with which to take care of her, and even though he was emotionally ready. He and the other responsible adults could not get past the image of who he was. The image of a lousy, drunk, out of control, murdering (in the eyes of the sister) father never left his side and because of that image in the end he is still at square one. He is left just as alone at the end of the story as in the beginning and that is what is so complicated about this story. You can see from the very beginning that he is devoted to his daughter and to staying on the right path but that image of him in the past never lets him get away. At the end he almost gets his daughter back but his past, Lorraine the woman he does not want to be associated with, comes back to haunt him and takes away all his hopes for the future. So I felt that the story was trying to remind us that we may think that hard work and effort can erase the past but in reality sometimes it comes back to bite us.

F. Scott Fitzgerald:

2011-11-13T20:03:00.000-06:00

I used to view F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway as representingthe two antithetical dominant personas of the Jazz Age novelists. Since then I’ve come to see (through some oftheir correspondence) that their close friendship alone is enough to placate anyview that places their works in direct opposition. Still, I find thedistinctive elements of their literary voices particularly intriguing. I’ve previously tended to admire Hemingwaymore than Fitzgerald, for it is Hemingway’s prose that we compliment as being obviouslyunique. It was not until this mostrecent reading of Fitzgerald’s work that I understood the praiseworthycharacteristics of his writings. Forwhile Hemingway excelled in creating a minimalistic prose style, Fitzgeraldmore than many others captured the characterof his particular generation.

I think in both stories, “Winter Dream” and “BabylonRevisited,” we can see that Fitzgerald is at his best when providing the readerwith insights into the nature of his characters. Often these descriptions seem to indicatesomething hidden and not necessarily knowable from our own experiences ofobservation.

“The little girl whohad done this was eleven–beautifully ugly as little girls are apt to be who aredestined after a few years to be inexpressibly lovely and bring no end ofmisery to a great number of men. The spark, however, was perceptible”(1824).

Fitzgerald’s narrator speaks with a knowledge that may bebeyond the grasp of the characters in the play, but his observations are neverwithout precedent or without significance and they often allows for an elementof dramatic irony. We as readers areallowed clear insights into the meaning of a protagonist’s actions and characterbeyond their obvious implications.

“He kissed her curiousand lovely mouth and committed himself to the following of a grail” (1831).

“The Irish mobility of his face was sobered by a deep wrinkle betweenhis eyes” (1840).

But Fitzgerald’s keen observations are not limited to brief,descriptive asides; rather, they compliment his fascination with the inner workingsand motivations of his tragic protagonists, Dexter Green and Charlie Wales inthese particular stories. “Winter Dream”touches on many of the themes later addressed in Fitzgerald’s most famous work The Great Gatsby. For example, Dexter’s infatuation with JudyJones seems functionally similar to Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy Buchanan.

Perhaps one of the most profound aspects of these insightsinto the tragedy of such an infatuation is the honesty with which it isaddressed throughout these stories, partially because of the knowledge of thenarrator, but also seen in an outsider’s examination of those high in society. Dexter’s commitment to his winter dreamsshows this well, for though he seems to be able to acknowledge the true natureof Judy Jones he is unable to stop himself from desiring her. In fact, it motivates him, and he views it asproof of his acceptance into the desirable class of society.

“It excited him thatmany men had loved her. It increased her value in his eyes…He was disappointedat first that she had not put on something more elaborate…It even offended himthat she should know the maid’s name” (1830).

Dexter Green is not a heroic figure trying to overcome greatadversity; he is at best trying to fit in among the rich and powerful. The quest for Judy is the quest to become apart of this society, but it is also described as being the “following of agrail”. And in these synonymous questsit seems his motivation is nothing other than pride.

“Then a perfect waveof emotion washed over him, carrying off with it a sediment of wisdom, ofconvention, of doubt, of honor. This was his girl who was speaking, his own,his beautiful, his pride” (1836).

With the ability to describe with a clarity that ispraiseworthy, Fitzgerald was able to capture something unique about thecharacter of his era, the Jazz Age, and in doing so he touches upon themes thatare universal. Though none of us haveever lived in the same world as Dexter or Charlie (or Fitzgerald for thatmatter) all of us can recognize that aspects of these characters and theircircumstances ring true even today.

A question for discussion: do you find anything relatable inFitzgerald’s style of characterization or am I unique in identifying with it?

Advice: If you enjoy the world of the Jazz Age andhave not seen Woody Allen’s most recent film Midnight in Paris, do yourself afavor and get a copy when it is released on DVD this December.

P.S. On a humorous note, I think this comic strip from the website Hark! A Vagrant is an accurate representation. Though be forewarned the webcomic does employ some off-color language and childish humor from time to time. If that doesn't bother you, you are in for a real treat.

Cheap Soap

2011-11-09T22:56:00.006-06:00

The short explanatory note before Cather's "From The Novel Demeuble" introduces the essay well without skipping a beat. The whole time I read this excerpt, I felt like I was looking at a Mondrian painting from 1940, that painted and outlined the meaning of Modernism.

Cather is clearly a modernist writer in the way that she argues "the higher processes of art." She utilizes Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as an example of what happens when creativity is taken out of literary art. She argues that it tells you who and what, but it does not allow you to imagine, and it certainly does not allow you to feel.

She says that "whatever is felt upon the page without being specifically named there--that, one might say, is created." She compares novels like these that are more focused on entertaining large quantities to cheap soap, cheap perfume and cheap furniture. This, again, is a perfect example of the Modernist movement.

But if this is the case, and true art is nothing more than this vague "surrounding in the dusk" that leaves the reader to decide whether it falls into the category of creative or not, then everything is relative and subjective. There would no longer be ways to measure and critique art in any way. At what point can you decide a piece of literature is garbage (or rubbish) if you are living on the standard of relativity.

Call me conservative, but I feel as if Cather is sliding too much in the direction of art becoming nothing more than what the next person on the street defines it as, and as a result, it loses its stamina, its skill and eventually its creativity. Art should not be so limited to where there is no room for flying cars or talking lions, but it should not be so relative that there is no formal way to study it and be able to argue its worth.

No offense to Cather, but I think I'll keep my furniture.

"Not to undermine the consequence, but you are not what you do..."

2011-11-07T00:41:00.005-06:00

I feel a bit guilty as a sit down to write this because I'm noticing that everyone thus far has written on Moore as well. But after a short-lived internal debate, I find I just can't pull myself away from Moore's "What are Years?"

It may have something to do with the fact that I/we am/are at the age where questions such as those posed in this poem are becoming more and more important... so it should also come as no surprise that I'm kind of at a loss for what to do with it.

What is our innocence,

what is our guilt? All are

naked, none is safe...

This is something that's been on my mind for a while, actually - mostly because I've just come to realize how much I dislike the phrase, "No regrets": "I regret nothing; I have no regrets; I don't regret a minute of it!" My automatic response is, "Then who in the world are you?"

I think I know what most people mean, or are trying to mean, when they say things like that - they want to convey that they are who they are, they wouldn't change anything and they're happy with themselves. Terrific - but I would also hope that there's a healthy amount of regret in there.

The dictionary definition of regret is: "to feel sorrow or remorse for (an act, fault, disappointment); to think of with a sense of loss." It strikes me that regret is, more often than not, a feeling of warranted sorrow. It certainly seems that true repentance for the Christian doesn't come about without a certain amount of regret. "You are not what you do," as Jars of Clay puts it, but that lyric also says "Not to undermine the consequence" - we're not defined by our failures and shortcomings, but we're not far from them either.

This is why I question anyone who claims to be innocent along with anyone who claims to have no regrets, just as Moore seems to do - "All are naked, none is safe." There is a disparity here that should not be denied, she says.

It's interesting that, from there, she would say "whence" is courage, rather than ask "what" it is as she did with joy and guilt. "Whence": where does it come from? She doesn't ask for a definition; perhaps it's assumed we know what it is, but if we need to have innocence and guilt explained to us, it's unlikely that we know what courage is. So it's not exactly a "thing", it's more of a force - it's kinetic. Courage is an "unanswered question," standing up even in the face of hopelessness - it's in process, constantly moving.

To what end, though? Moore seems to suggest that courage is its own end, especially in the face of certain defeat. The body of the poem certainly seems to suggest an objective futility ("Imprisonment rises...struggling to be free and unable to be...this is mortality, this is eternity), but also that "Satisfaction is a lowly thing, how pure a thing is joy."

Is the joy, then, in the struggle itself? Does the joy cease if the object of the struggle is attained? Does the search, even the fight, for meaning become meaningless if we find meaning? Satisfaction, she suggests, leads to complacency - it causes us to stop fighting, and it's in the struggle that we find our real joy. As Eliot valued stillness in "Burnt Norton," Moore seems to see perpetual motion as the ultimate source of happiness.

And the harder I look, the more I find myself disagreeing. And the more I disagree, the more I appreciate. Perpetual motion, at this point in my life, is the only thing keeping me sane in many ways. The struggle keeps me alive, there's always something new to accomplish, it's the fight that gives me the momentum to move forward. But Moore seems to suggest that if you stop to consider the meaning of the struggle, then it only serves to wreck your cadence...

But she misses the meaning of fighting, I think: "To contend in any manner; strive vigorously for or against something." The point of fighting is the removal of an obstruction.

The only reason anyone fights is for the chance to rest at the end of it.

"Blessed be the Lord, that has given Rest unto His people, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised." (1 Kings 8:56.)

Moore is right, there is a purpose in struggle and in questioning and even in "the unanswered question" - but as for me, it's that final victory and everything that comes with it, regrets and consequences and graces and all, that I'm looking forward to.

A Place for the Genuine

2011-11-06T23:53:00.004-06:00

I read The Paper Nautilus first. The title caught my eye because nautili fascinate me and I am rather fond of Jules Verne. This poem has nothing to do with the main portion of my blog post, since it was not assigned in the syllabus. I mention it only to illustrate that Marianne Moore, for me, inspires a broader exploration of her poetry than is required by the class assignments. Her poetry is just what she says it ought to be:

“the raw material of poetry in

all its rawness and

that which is on the other hand

genuine,”

and as she concludes, I am interested. Moore’s poetry examines the “phenomena” of life, such as mortality and the human mind, in a manner both skillful and intelligible that helps the contemptuous reader see “beyond all this fiddle” and into the heart of what is genuine.

In What Are Years?, Moore ponders the topic of mortality. She questions the nature of guilt and innocence, and the place courage occupies in humanity.

“He sees deep and is glad,
Who accedes to mortality,”

she decides, but this is not a morbid fixation on the inevitability of death. In the next line, the thought continues:

“and in his imprisonment rises

upon himself as

the sea in a chasm…

So he who strongly feels,

behaves.”

Moore is advocating the acceptance of death as an earthly boundary, in contrast to the denial of death, or to an attitude of despondency. Death will come, the bars of the cage exist, and the sea cannot escape the chasm. However, the existence of these boundaries does not negate the responsibility of birds, oceans, and mankind to act in the way they were designed to act.

We, as humans, cannot truly live if we attempt to deny death, or if we allow death to stand as a conqueror over us. The bars of the cage, the presence of death, cannot truthfully be described as satisfying, but joy is just as real as death, and can be found in the midst of death. We must acknowledge death and its limited power without despairing. Our own “mighty singing” in the face of death is an affirmation of life, of the existence of both mortality and eternity.

Moore reflects on the human mind in The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing. In the course of the 36-line poem, she compares the mind to, among other things, an insect’s wing, a falling gyroscope, and the compositions of Domenico Scarlatti (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iw46wMNhWo). The comparisons Moore makes address the swiftly moving functions of the brain—flickers of thought like inconsistencies in sonatas and the brief “fire in the dove-neck’s iridescence.” The mind is also compared to an awl, a sharp tool often used for boring holes in leather, and as an agent that tears mist and veil from the heart. So to Moore, not only does the mind flicker quickly from thing to thing, it also has the ability to penetrate and stir the heart.

Moore claims that the mind exists in order and “unconfusion,” despite its rapid and confused function. The order of the mind comes from its pattern of interconnection like the katydid’s wing and from its own “conscientious inconsistency.” Thus, even in the seemingly disorganized working of the human mind, Moore emphasizes the form that exists, in the mind’s consistency of changefulness.

Marianne Moore wrote for understanding, of

“hands that can grasp, eyes

that can dilate, hair that can rise

if it must,”

of common “phenomena,” baseball, kiwi birds, and things that unite humanity. She wrote openly of death and difficult questions. Her poetry displays both complex patterns of rhyme and of life that, while not always obvious, are well worth discovering.

As one English student to another, the rest of Moore's poems in the anthology are more than worth the time it takes to read them.

I want some more of Moore

2011-11-06T20:00:00.001-06:00

Marianne Moore is a breath of fresh air. Her style and poetry meets the reader in a genuine and thoughtful way. Her work "Poetry" begins by frankly stating "I, too, dislike it" referring to the very thing she has devoted her life to. Ironically, for me this allowed a feeling of relief: the poet herself understands me and my frustration over the difficulty in understanding poetry! She breaks the ice and finds common ground where all can stand on. However, she doesn't end here. She states that by having a "perfect contempt" for poetry offers, in fact, a place for genuine understanding.

Clearly, Moore is in a tizzy over the haughty interpretations critics approach poetry. When they attempt to intellectualize poetry down to its core, their response becomes "unintelligble." Because we cannot admire what we do not understand, we mare its significance and its beauty for what it is.

To describe the beauty in peculiar things, she offers allusions to nature--a bat resting upside down, an elephant pushing, a tireless wolf under a tree. In the middle of these descriptions, she cleverly puts in "the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that feels a flea." Putting this in is comical, because the first image that came into my head when reading this line was that of an animal. I instinctively read "critic" as "critter." Perhaps, she is mocking the "high society" class of criticism in poetry?

She calls poets that aim too high in their craft, "half poets." What must happen for a "half poet" to become whole is to take on the "literalists of the imagination." Imagination, then, is key to all poetry. Her phrase "imaginary gardens with real toads in them" is a catchy phrase and a fun image. Moore finishes her poem with saying that one is interested in poetry if one demand's that there be both rawness and genuine qualities.

I think Moore is saying that the imagination is the root of all rawness and ingenuity. The imagination cannot be contrived or perceived as anything but your own mind. The imagination is what brings poetry to life. When critics try to force imagination out of poetry, they kill the very art of poetry itself.

Similarly, in her poem "The Mind is an Enchanting Thing" describes the ethereal quality of the human imagination and intellect. It helped me to put the poem into a bullet point:

The Mind is an Enchanting Thing like...
1) the glaze on a katydid-wing
2) Gieseking playing Scarlatti
3) apteryx-awl

The mind is an enchanting thing that...
1) has memory's ear
2) has the power of strong enchantment
3) tears the veil

The first three examples are certainly "enchanting" things --a hero of Greek myth, a Classical Greek, and a flightless New Zealand bird. On top of these words' actual meaning, I believe she picked these three things because they are unique words and had particularly interesting pronunciations and articulations.

Near the end of the poem, she says that the mind "tears off the veil." This could very well be an allusion to Jesus' death where the veil tore in two. I believe this to be true because the end of her poem relates to the biblical story of Salome and the beheading of John the Baptist. She ends the poem with "it's not a Herod's oath that cannot change." The back story behind Herod is that he made a promise to his step-daughter Salome that he would give her anything she wished...and she chose the head of John the Baptist (sheesh, most daughters would ask for a husband, wouldn't ya think?). Herod gave an oath he couldn't return--unlike what the mind can do. I think what she's trying to get at here is that the mind is not nearly as rigid as a promise. It can move in every which way, having feelings and emotions that alter and vary. It is truly man's greatest tool, but also must be used wisely, as it can vary so that it can go to many extremes.

Moore's poetry is enchanting. She wrote at a particularly telling time in history in the 1920s-1960s where women were gaining prominence in literary circles. She wrote in a unique manner where stanzas were counted by syllables. She was subtle in her approach, but resonates deeply when one takes the time to truly appreciate her work. It is obvious that she does not try to be someone other than herself in her work; the honesty she presents is what makes her so endearing. When you know that a person is truly writing from their soul, that is when you can distinguish between the half poet and the whole.

Morality & Mockery

2011-11-03T00:05:00.006-05:00

I must admit that my initial reading of Wallace Stevens’s “A High-Toned Old Christian Woman” left me completely baffled. The whole about peristyles and masques beyond the planets…strange. Bawdiness “converted into palms, / Squiggling like saxophones”? Even less sense. It was only after reading a few paragraphs of notes about the poem by Daniel Schwarz (critic and professor at Cornell) that things started to fall into place.

In the poem, Schwarz says, Stevens “proposes that religious fictions have no greater status than fictions of the imagination that include sensuality and play.” Schwarz makes further comments, but even that little bit allowed me to see the poem in an entirely new light (or rather, in any light at all instead of my previous dark).

With this new lens of understanding, the first thing I noticed was what must be a play on words: where he “make[s] a nave” of moral law (l. 2). I can’t imagine that this is anything other than a pun on the old word knave, which the Oxford English dictionary variously defines as a boy of “low condition” or even as “an unprincipled man, given to dishonourable and deceitful practices.” Thus, Stevens (or at least the speaker) takes a shot at religion by identifying the nave—the central approach to the altar of a church—with a contemptible and unprincipled person.

The speaker then equates the conscience with palms (an allusion to Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem) or guitars “hankering for hymns.” In other words, it merely does what it is supposed to and isn’t a dynamic entity; it’s merely a part of humanity.

The next section is difficult, and the best I can make of it (and Schwarz’s hints) is that this projected “masque” is a fantasy realm where “our bawdiness” may be “indulged at last”(ll. 8-10). In this realm, morality is not absolute but is what we make it (for lewdness has been “converted into palms,” earlier equated with the conscience)(l. 11). Here, Christians (presumably identified by the “disaffected flagellants,” probably a reference to the monk-ish or Dimmesdale-ish practice of self-flagellation) may as well give way to the “jovial hullabaloo”(ll. 15,20). This succumbing is, according to Schwarz, “a kind of carnival, a release, a pleasure principle.”

Naturally, the widow and Christians like her will cringe at any such proposal as the one the speaker suggests. But that doesn’t matter, because this fantasy universe of hullabaloo cannot be controlled: “fictive things / wink as they will”(l. 21-22). By the very last sentence, it seems that this fictional kingdom will make itself most known when it is most jarring to the widow or Christian. “The more we would deny that aspect of life,” Schwarz interprets, “the more it asserts itself.” Taken in sum, then, “A High-Toned Old Christian Woman” seems to be a sort of frustrated rant toward legalistic Christianity, and sacrilegious seems the most appropriate word for describing its shock value.

Even given this interpretation, it is difficult to know whether or not Stevens means it. He may genuinely hold these opinions, that humanity is slave to their consciences and that other aspects of our being (sensuality, humor, etc.) should be given equal reign to religion. Or, as just mentioned, he may simply find certain Christians or certain aspects of Christianity frustrating, and could be offering the poem as his own type of release by taking one counter-argument to its extreme, simply to get a rise out of the widow, as it were. Either way, it’s certainly a dense piece worthy of careful study.

As a side note, once I figured it out, I liked it.

Reference:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/christian.htm

"One man's trash is another man's treasure"

2011-11-02T19:00:00.003-05:00

Science - State Goal 13: Understand the relationships among science, technology and society in historical and contemporary...

So much depends upon

A red wheelbarrow

Glazed with rain water

Beside the white chickens

“What could possibly depend upon a wheelbarrow? Wheelbarrows aren’t even that useful!” When I first read this poem in high school, these were my thoughts on this work by William Carlos Williams. This poem was assigned to me for a poetry project in my AP English class and I had no idea what I was going to present on so I went searching for answers from my other English teachers.

Because I feel that most people have the same view as I did when they first read this poem, I’d like to share what my teacher, Ms. Scholten, shared with me and the analysis of the symbolism that we did together. (Don't worry Dr. Fruhauff, this is not a "copy and paste an essay from High School" type of thing. I don't even have the essay from high school saved.)

What could possibly depend upon a wheelbarrow? Imagine a farmhouse in which a fatally ill child is confined to bed with one window in the room, overlooking this scene described in the poem.

Beginning with the second line, we see symbols of life. Red is the color of life – blood, when red, contains oxygen which is a necessary part of human life. Red also is a symbol for passion – without passion, life does not feel as if it is worth living. So in this small three letter word, we already see how this poem might have more depth than meets the eye. The wheel of the wheelbarrow represents the circle of life and is a reminder that life continues. In the third line the word glazed also points us to the theme of life. When I think of the word glazed (besides thinking of Kwik Trip donuts) I think of glazed over eyes. Glazed eyes are full of life but in death, eyes are dull, cold and empty. Rain is cleansing, life-giving water –spring brings plants and flowers that come to new life because of the rain. In the last line, the chickens are intentionally described as white because white is the color of purity and new life. The chickens also represent life in a more physical way than the rest of the symbols –they are the one thing that is actually living and breathing in this farmyard scene.

Think back to the farmhouse scene that we discussed earlier –this dying child, who may be running out of the will to live sees this scene outside the window. The child looks at all of these symbols of life –the color red, the wheel, the glaze of rainwater, the color white, and the chickens –and suddenly realizes that life still exists amidst the small confines of his or her space. This scene is an encouragement to the child to keep pursuing life – that life is not over –it still exists abundantly even right there in that small farm yard. This scene gives the child will to keep fighting the disease because life is still worth living.

So even if nothing in our life depends upon red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside some white chickens, this scene could mean the world to another person. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” When reading over this poem quickly without thinking of its symbolism or meaning, we might think it is garbage. But if we were that small ill child, we would be treasuring it and holding onto the hope that is written in those 15 short words.

As with any interpretation of something, I can’t be positive that this meaning was the author’s intent but because he starts off with the line “So much depends upon,” I can’t help but think that he meant this poem to be worth so much more than its face value. I hope this description of the symbolism used and the scenario in which something would depend upon this scene helps you to better understand and also enjoy the poem as much as I have since learning about it in high school.

Spring and All

2011-11-01T23:11:00.002-05:00

“Spring and All” by William Carlos Williams was not just about landscape or nature. It did describe in length the attributes of nature and natures awakening from winter but at the same time it felt like it was describing a moment of rebirth or natural birth.

“They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter. All about them the cold, familiar wind” (Williams 1467) and “But now the stark dignity of entrance-Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted, they grip down and begin to awaken.” (Williams 1467).

Both of these stanzas taken from the poem not only describe the awakening of life after a cold winter but also an awakening or the soul (rebirth). When the reader sees that this poem is meant to be taken metaphorical and not just literally it allows them to relate to the message of the poem. It makes the poem more than just being about spring and instead it is about the growth within the individual and the ability to restart and enter the world with dignity and uncertainty of the future. This is something everyone strives for, especially if they feel they have made mistakes and wish to start over. The idea that the winter, the hard months of frozen fear or stress, is now gone and the chance to grow in the warmth of the healing spring, the time for new choices and new goals is an idea that is appealing to most readers.

In regards to this poem being about natural birth it could be assumed that because William Williams was a doctor, specifically dealing with house calls that occasionally dealt with childbirth, that he was describing the experience he witnessed of a new life coming into the world. The two stanzas mentioned above also reflect that idea of babies entering the world. This was also written during the Depression and that is why there is emphasis in this poem about spring being colder than one would usually describe it. There is an element of birth as a shocking experience, an experience that is scary and uncertain while at the same time it is embracing life.

Restarting always feels like it is impossible with humans because our past has a way of always being present within our lives. But within this poem I get the impression that there is hope for humans. We can restart and grow, like a flower in the spring breaking free from the confines of the frozen tundra. That was the main message that I found within this poem.

As I was researching more about this poet and poem I realized that I tend to not try hard enough to understand the meanings within these poems. Sometimes, yes, I believe that the poems are silly and have no real deep message (for instance in my case “This Is Just to Say” was a great example) but as we were discussing “The Hollow Men” I realized that I enjoyed finding the hidden meaning within the text and it was very interesting to discuss it with others. I took that new knowledge and applied it to this poem and found myself thinking new things about something that on first glance I thought was only about nature. “Spring and All” was in between too simple and too difficult because it was hard at first to find the deeper meaning behind the words but as one of my suite mates read the poem out loud to me things became clearer. A mix of metaphorical and practical meanings soon became apparent to me and this allowed me to organize my thoughts more effectively.

Product of a War-Torn Age

2011-10-31T23:24:00.001-05:00

Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” has been one of my favorite poems since early in high school, and my love for it hasn’t diminished. I think I used to like it simply for the imagery and its sense of weight. I still admire those elements of the poem, but my eyes have learned to be a bit more critical.

I’ve been aware for years that the standard interpretation of the poem views it as a reaction to World War I, but I only recently looked at it myself to try and understand why. I was expecting to find little evidence for such an interpretation, but lo and behold, the critics have a good point (I mean, admit it: they can say some pretty erroneous stuff sometimes).

First are the repeated references to death’s other/dream/twilight kingdom: “Those who have crossed / with direct eyes to death’s other Kingdom” (ll. 13-14). Direct eyes? As opposed to indirect eyes, I suppose, which would imply seeing something in person rather than through description or imagination. This stanza, then, seems almost like a prayer for the dead to forgive the living.

Consistent images of emptiness also reinforce the notion that “The Hollow Men” is a depressed reflection on the pointlessness of war—this “great” war in particular. The most powerful of these is of course the scarecrow, which is at once both hollow and stuffed. Although it’d probably be a stretch to suggest what post-war Western society might be “stuffed” with, it’s more reasonable to assume that this hollowness is some kind of loss of humanity or moral integrity, covered up, perhaps by “deliberate disguises” (l. 32). The epigram from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness also seems to suggest this, for the novel is full of morally hollow men.

It’s the second stanza of III that really brings the image of a war-torn Europe home to me, though:

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

What immediately comes to mind is a recently-widowed woman waking up in the middle of the night. She reaches over to the other side of the bed and finds it empty, so instead of being in the arms of her lover, all she can do is say a prayer at the war monument. That, of course, is just the eye of one beholder, and those lines could no doubt be seen in other lights.

Perhaps linked is the observation that in “The Hollow Men,” there is a prominent duality between the abstract and the manifest. This is most apparent in part V, where “the Shadow” continually falls between the thought of something and the act of carrying it out. Structuralists would have a field day here, but I will simply point out that this Shadow (presumably the war) is stunting everything, keeping things empty and meaningless. A thought without any associated action makes no impact on the world.

In short, though, “The Hollow Men” serves as an epitomic piece of Modern literature, running in the same vein as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. Whether or not Eliot’s poem deals primarily with World War I or not (another strong theory is that it deals with his wife’s alleged affair with Bertrand Russell), it is safe to say that this work is a product of the age in which it was written.

The Darkness Surrounding T.S. Eliot's Poem, "The Hollow Men."

2011-10-31T21:17:00.002-05:00

After reading T. S. Eliot’s poem, “The Hollow Men,” you will quickly realize that it is not a happy poem. “The Hollow Men,” is a dark poem that speaks of men that are “hollow,” or “stuffed.” I decided to go deeper into the darkness of the poem and the results were very interesting.

In the epigraph of the poem (The references between the Title and the first line of the poem) I researched where the line, “Mistah Kurtz—he dead,” came from. It came from a book ironically called, “The Heart of Darkness,” by Joseph Conrad. Mr. Kurtz in the story is a character that goes into the heart of Africa seeking riches and ivory and he killed many people that tried to stand in his way. In the story, it describes Kurtz killing natives by chopping off their heads and putting them on sticks to serve as a scare tactic to anyone who tried to rise up against him. Now if that isn’t dark and hollow I don’t know what is.

The story follows the main character, Charles Marlow, who is a Belgian native who takes a job as a river-boat captain in Africa from a Belgian trading company. Along Charles’ journey to Congo he encounters three levels of darkness: the darkness of the Congo wilderness, the darkness of the Belgians' cruel treatment of the natives, and the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil. I believe the last level of darkness is what T. S. Eliot was trying to describe when he was writing “The Hollow Men.”

Here is the full context of the T. S. Eliot’s reference in the epigraph as it was written in the book, “The Heart of Darkness,”

The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress; and Kurtz’s life was running swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time. The manager was very placid, he had no vital anxieties now, he took us both in with a comprehensive and satisfied glance: the ‘affair’ had come off as well as could be wished. ... The pilgrims looked upon me with disfavour. I was, so to speak, numbered with the dead. It is strange how I accepted this unforeseen partnership, this choice of nightmares forced upon me in the tenebrous land invaded by these mean and greedy phantoms. ...
Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. ... It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw in that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror – of an intense and hopeless despair. ... He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision – he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath –
‘The horror! The horror!’
I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining in the mess-room, and I took my place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. ... Suddenly the manager’s boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt –"Mistah Kurtz – he dead."

This passage is a fairly well known passage. The line that stood out to me in reference to Eliot’s poem was, “I saw in that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror—of an intense and hopeless despair...he cried in a whisper...” Eliot makes a direct reference to this “whisper” in the first stanza of “The Hollow Men,” “Our dried voices, when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless as winds in dry grass or rats’ feet over broken glass in our dry cellar.” Eliot’s dark imagery has a sort of surreal feeling to it. I found myself drawn in to the mysterious darkness that this poem describes.

The second reference that Eliot makes is regarding the line, “a penny for the old guy,” which is a reference to Guy Fawkes who tried to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords with explosives and gunpowder during the state opening of England’s Parliament on November 5^th, 1605. Fawkes was found out before he could carry out the plan and was sentenced to death by execution.

Fawkes jumped from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the drawing and quartering (chopping your body into pieces) that followed.Talk about “hollow.” Now people light bonfires and fireworks on Guy Fawkes Night in London to celebrate King James’ survival.

>I hope the references I made put what was dark into the light. T. S. Eliot’s poem, “The Hollow Men,” serves as a harsh reminder to how cold and dark the world can be. Men can be cruel, empty people. T. S. Eliot’s poem proves it.

Gerontion

2011-10-30T22:22:00.001-05:00

Gerontion was originally meant to be a prelude to The Wasteland, and I can see why that would be the case. Gerontion is not quite as sporadic, confusing, and bizarre as The Wasteland, but it is certainly in that category. John Paul Riquelme described the poem as “disjointed” and I would have to say that is quite accurate. Paragraphs do not necessarily connect with each other, all sorts of random things come up from nowhere, and it can be tricky to sort through. Looking at the Modern American Poetry website sometimes only added to the confusion of it rather than helped it. However, I will do my best to work through it.

When I was reading Gerontion, I initially thought it would be on old age. The footnotes say that “gerontion” comes from the Greek word meaning “old man”, and the narrator of the story comes across as an old man who is depressed. The poem begins with the first two lines:

“Here I am, an old man with a dry mouth,

Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain”

So I honestly started thinking that it was going to be a depressing poem about how awful it is to get old. That was what I was expecting at first. Other lines do seem to back this up:

“I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it

Since what is kept must be adulterated?

I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:

How should I use them for your closer contact?” (lines 57-60)

This is clearly coming from an old man who is nearing the end of this life. However, it is not really about old age. One of the biggest topics in Gerontion is actually about Christ.

How can this be? One of the first examples of this is when the poem says the following:

“Signs are taken for wonders. ‘We would see a sign!’

The word within a word, unable to speak a word,

Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year

Came Christ the tiger.” (lines 17-20)

Why precisely Eliot chooses a tiger to describe Christ is uncertain to me. It could be that he thinks of Jesus as this fierce being, much like a tiger. It reminds me a little like Aslan representing Jesus in the Chronicles of Narnia series. A lion is this powerful creature and is not tame. A tiger is similar to that. But “unable to speak a word/Swaddled with darkness” could also talk about when Christ first came to earth. When He first came to earth, Jesus was a helpless baby, wrapped with swaddling clothes, unable to speak and is far more humble than the conquering king that others were expecting. So the “tiger” could be Christ as the world expected Him to be, as this strong defender, whereas “unable to speak a word/Swaddled in darkness,” is Christ as He actually came to earth. It may also refer to two types of comings of Christ. The “Swaddled with darkness” is Christ’s first coming, where He came and died for our sins, and the “Christ the tiger” is Christ in His second coming, where He returns to judge.

The ‘tiger’ comes again later: “The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours.” (line 49) This could mean Jesus coming to earth and taking us back to heaven. And in line 75, “Tenants of the house,” the “house” may be referring to the church.

The theme of Christ’s coming might be the glue that keeps this crazy poem together. Christ comes in on a ruined world full of broken people and ‘devours’ those people.