Half the World Away...Goes Back to School

Hey It's Easter!

2011-04-22T18:59:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow finds the Greene family hunting for eggs at the community wide Easter Egg hunt that my friend Sara Lynn is organizing. The church sponsors it, so I will be front and centre with Jelly Beans in hand! Maybe I will be clever and take pictures. Josh is 8 now, with beautiful long blonde hair. Chloe is the next birthday...16! I found her a very cool 4 wheel drive Pathfinder. It does not drive fast, and it does not drive far! Perfect...

The more things change...

2011-04-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

I've come to the realization that I am not comfortable with getting older. It's okay to just throw that out there. Tonight I watched a movie that reminded me of the years 7thgrade-19years old, and I realized that some part of me is frozen there. Deep inside there is this kernel of me that stopped at age 19/20 and doesn't care to move beyond the limited scope of vision that this age provides. More later I guess

24 Hour Party People

2011-04-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

I am finally getting to watch this movie, and am loving the Valkyries music at the beginning. Last night I finished my senior thesis; it is the hardest paper I've ever written...to have that much breadth and freedom is almost paralyzing. I felt like Richard Blayze on the finale of Top Chef: 1,2,3 and CHOKE.

But, I finally got a tight thesis statement: Reactions to Aristotle's Theory of Fear and Pity in Bleak House and Great Expectations. I broke the statement down into three reactions: Resolve, Retreat and Ruin. Just shy of 11,000 words, it is a literary force to be reckoned with. GRE's here I come; with my hat in my hand!

Below is a CS Lewis essay on Myth Sightings in Perelandra:

Corrie Greene
C.S. Lewis
Dr. King
11 April 2011

Odysseus, Virgil, Charlemagne, Nietzsche, and Tennyson: How Myth Influenced Perelandra

C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra is a reimagining of one of the primary biblical myths, the Fall of Man. Or as David Downing describes in his essay, “Paradise Retained,” it is a story of the, “reality of myth and how ordinary mortals may be called upon to engage in mythic labours” (Downing, in Edwards, 35.) To underscore the theme of Perelandra, Lewis makes several references to both classical mythology and biblical myth. Among the classical are: Circe, Alcina, Hesperides, The Legends of Charlemagne, and the tale of the Lotus Eaters in Odysseus. These mythic references function to inform Ransom’s own journey and struggle to be a hero, in spite of his Piebald existence- having one leg in the heroic and the other in mortality.

In Chapter 4 Ransom comes face to face with the Green Lady for the first time. He is surprised to see a woman, and then surprised at himself for his reaction to her. She is, “strangely accompanied,” thronged by, “beasts and birds” (Lewis, 48.) He begins to doubt himself and confronts his fear of hallucination: “Was this the beginning of the hallucinations he had feared? Or another myth coming out into the world of fact-perhaps a more terrible myth…” (Lewis, 48.) It is at this point that Lewis, through the mind of Ransom, references Circe and Alcina.

Judith Yarnall in her book, Transformations of Circe, explains that it is impossible to know where Circe the enchantress, “first took on deed and shape,” however, she does appear in Homer’s Odyssey. Circe lives on an island of Homer’s creation called Aiaia, where she entertained sailors and eventually turned them into pigs. Yarnall also finds her in Virgil’s Aeneid as the, “ruler of a promontory where the air vibrates with the howls of chained and enraged beasts.” She also turns the wheel that governs incarnations, and is the fair witch in Spenser’s Renaissance, “bower of bliss waiting for virile young lovers…” She is also found in 17th century ballet and in James Joyce’s Ulysses (Yarnall, 1.)

The thesis of Yarnall’s book gives insight into why Circe springs to Ransom’s mind as he encounters the Green Lady covered by animals on an otherworldly island: “No matter what century or work Circe appears in, she is associated with our bodily vulnerability…” (Yarnall, 2.) Using this observation as an inspiration, the reader of Perlandra can see the pertinence of the Circe reference. Not only are the circumstances parallel to the setting of the Odyssey, but also Ransom himself is in a psychologically and physically vulnerable place. He is naked, on poor footing because of the fluid nature of the island, and he has just experienced the Green Lady’s flash of disappointment upon seeing him. He is unsure of the purpose of his visit to this world or why the eldila had sent him. His life is completely infused with vulnerabilities.

Ransom also references Alcina at his first meeting with the Green Lady. In Bulfinch’s Mythology Thomas Bulfinch provides the story of a brave knight returning home to aid the Emperor of France. He and other soldiers reach Alcina’s castle by the sea. Alcina is referred to as a, “powerful enchantress.” “Alcina had fixed her eyes on me and planned to get me into her power…no sooner…were we…moved off than I saw my folly but it was too late to repent…Soon Alcina, sated with her conquest grew indifferent, then weary of me, and at last to get rid of me, she changed me into this form, as she had done to many lovers before me, making some of them olives, some of them palms…” (Bulfinch, 64.) As the Green Lady appears to Ransom he is surrounded by some of the most interesting and intoxicating foliage and trees he has ever experienced, it stands to reason that fear could allow him to reference Alcina’s powers to turn warriors into her own personal arboretum.

Lewis also uses allusions to Hesperides, Titian’s painted satyrs, Artemis, Maenads, and satyrs dancing in Italian woods. Since the satyr is mentioned twice in Perelandra, it is worth noting that both Maenads and satyrs have a prominent place in the cult of Dionysis, who is the twice-born figure of Greek Mythology and the symbol of Nietzsche’s belief, explains Paul Valadier in his essay, “Dionysus versus the Crucified,” that Dionysus was the ideal image of, “the affirmation of life,” and that Christ or the “Crucified,” was the image of the negation or suppression of life (Valadier in Allison, 247.) One can hear the echoes of Nietzsche’s argument of the suppressive nature of Christianity in the relentless campaign the Un-Man levels at the Green Lady:
“Because this forbidding is such a strange one…” (89.)
“…Maleldil has sent you other men whom it had never entered your mind to think of…” (90.)
“They do not need to wait for him to tell them what is good, but know it for themselves as he does. They are, as it were, little Maleldils” (91.)
“He does not want you to go on to the new fruits you have not tasted before” (98.)
“Are you certain that He really wishes to be always obeyed?” (99)
“A real disobeying, a real branching out, this is what He secretly longs for…” (100.)
“Your deepest will, at present, is to obey Him-to be always as you are now, only His beast or His very young child” (102.)

Although Perelandra is riddled with mythic references and allusions one other from Greek Mythology stands out. As Ransom is chasing the Un Man, after their battle, he rides on the back of the large fish into the area of water inhabited by mermaids and mermen. Lewis writes:
“He (Ransom) noticed presently that some of the water people in his immediate neighbourhood seemed to be feeding. They were picking dark masses of something off the water with their webbed frog-like hands and devouring it…The sight of their eating had reminded him that he was hungry…(he eats the seaweed)…As soon as he had eaten a few mouthfuls of the seaweed he felt his mind oddly changed…He felt his memory of the Green Lady and all her promised descendants and all the issues which had occupied him ever since he came to Perelandra rapidly fading from his mind” (138,139.)

This sequence in Ransom’s journey on Perelandra is a patchwork of mythic references. The riding on large fish again references the story of Alcina: “I (the soldier) who was rash did not hesitate to follow her, but swam my horse over and mounted the back of the fish” (Bulfinch, 723.) The mermaids appear in myriad ancient references, including The Legends of Charlemagne, and the sirens of the Odyssey. Finally, the bliss and forgetfulness inducing seaweed is reminiscent of the Country of the Lotus-Eaters encountered by Odysseus’ men as they sail from Troy. Tennyson describes the feeling of eating the lotus in his poem, “The Lotus-eaters,”

To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild melancholy
To muse and brood and live again in memory
…
Surely surely slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar
Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

In God in the Dock Lewis writes, “In the enjoyment of a great myth we come nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction…To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord other myths. The one is hardly more necessary than the other” (Lewis, Dock, 66,67.) The narrator in Perelandra reveals Ransom’s thoughts to the reader in Chapter 11: “Ransom had been perceiving that the triple distinction of truth from myth and of both from fact was purely terrestrial” (122.) Ransom’s thoughts mirror Lewis’ explanation of the importance of myth to the Christian.
Through his use of biblical and classical mythology, Lewis creates an environment where Ransom is called upon to experience the myth-like qualities of the world of Perelandra, interpret them, and act upon them, just as we Christians must do here on earth.

On Shelley

2011-04-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

I like Shelley.

Corrie Greene
Romantic Literature Essay
Dr. King
1 April 2011

Leave Thee Naked to Laughter: Falling In and Out of Love, Shelley Style

William Flesch in his book, The Facts on File: Companion to British Literature, 19th Century reveals that Shelley wrote “Lines: When the Lamp is Shattered,” “under the spell of Jane Williams, the last of his passions” (Flesch, 210.) With the death of his love towards his wife Mary and his new passions toward Jane foremost on his mind, the reader can see the transient nature of love displayed in the stanzas of, “Lamp.”

In his opening lines, “When the lamp is shattered; the light in the dust lies dead…” Shelley clues his reading audience into his idea that after love dies there are remnants of the former feelings, but they are altered and often worthless. Fredrick Garber in his book Romantic Irony, Volume 8, calls these lines, “A two sided truth,” explaining that the light in the dust still exists, it is simply dead. In it’s death, his love is redefined. The same can be said for his comparison of love to the shedding of a rainbow’s glory.

The lines, “ When the lute is broken/ Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, loved accents are remembered not,” examine the idea that once the, proverbial, music of love ceases to be played or sung, both the song and the singer slip from memory and importance.

In Stanza two Shelley expands on the cessation of the song and the singer, taking them to their natural conclusion: death. The once cheerful love song is replaced with the rhetoric of a funeral; “sad dirges,” “mournful surges that ring the dead seaman’s knell.”

Stanza’s three and four are a rich metaphor of birds and their nests. It is hard not to think that Shelley was referring to himself when he spoke of the bird that, “first leaves the well-built nest,” and leaves his wife Mary to live in the memory of their previous love. But the erstwhile lover chooses unwisely after he leaves his safe nest and, in fact, chooses, “the frailest of homes,” to live and have a family.

Shelley leaves his audience with a warning that there is no way to control love. If one is governed by passions, passions will, “rock thee.” If, on the other hand, one allows themselves to be ruled by logic and a level head, the storm of love will cause reason to, “mock thee.” The line, “Like the sun from a wintery sky,” implies that love is an illusion akin to the bright sunshine seen through the window on a winter day, but yielding no satisfaction of warmth.

Like “Lines: When the Lamp is Shattered,” “To_____Music When Soft Voices Die,” also deals with the death of love, although, according to James Bieri, a Shelley biographer, this was the death of his love to an Italian girl named Emilia, not to Mary. Bieri reveals that Shelley wrote to a friend after Emilia’s marriage stating, “married…is the same as being dead” (Bieri, 255.) “Music,” however does allow for the lingering poignancy: “Music when soft voices die/ Vibrates in the memory-“

“Music,” utilizes references to the sensorial. “Music,” is heard. “Vibrations,” are felt. “Sweet violets,” and roses are inhaled and visually beautiful when they are in their prime. Finally (and this one is a bit of a reach) both roses and violets are edible. Whether or not Shelley stopped to eat the violets, he does seem to suggest that love, in its prime, possesses the entire being of those in love. When it dies, it lingers on in it’s dead forms: vibrations, brief scents that jog memory, petals- fallen and useless but still beautiful. Love is reduced to, “thoughts,” and the dreams we keep as we, “slumber on.”

Shelley, in his poems, “Lines: When the Lamp is Shattered,” and To_______Music, When Soft Voices Die,” describes the feelings of both the scorned and the scorner. Neither can control love. Love’s only constancy is its inability to be tamed. It cannot be kept forever in memory, warming the jilted heart, and it cannot be molded into wise or rational patterns, no matter how wonderful we feel our new, “nest,” will be.

This paragraph does not fit, and I am running out of time to finesse it into the body of the essay:

Shelley uses End Rhyme in an ABAB/ CDCD pattern, as well as parallelism, repeating the words, “When the ____verb_____,” creating a chanting effect for the reader. The writer admits she is feebly skilled at picking out feet and meter, but “Lines,” sounds like Iambic Trimeter to her. “When,” “The lamp,” “Is Shattered…”
Then, “The light,” “In the dust,” “Lies dead…” He also employs Enjambment in all but the first stanza; the first stanza is in Quatrains, maybe even an Envelope Quatrain.

CS Lewis' Of Other Worlds

2011-03-08T19:43:00.000-08:00

Brief Essay on one of Lewis' essays in Of Other Worlds

Corrie Greene
C.S.Lewis
Dr. King
8 March 2011

Prunes Are Far Too Nasty to Be Funny: Three Important Ideas About Fairy Tales

In his essay, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” C.S. Lewis offers two good approaches to writing and one equally as informative, bad approach. He begins with the bad approach, indicating to his reader that if they do nothing else other than acknowledge that this upcoming concept is abhorrent, they will be farther ahead in the game than many of their, “adult,” peers. The bad way is to subscribe to, “that special department of, ‘giving the public what it wants,’ “ or including ideas in a story on the assumption that, “what the modern child wants.” Lewis counters that he focused on the high tea scene with Tumnus the Faun in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, not because, “The little blighters like plenty of good eating,” but because: “I put in what I would have liked to read when I was a child and what I still like reading now that I am in my fifties.”

The two good approaches to writing for children begin with Lewis distinguishing the difference between, “giving the children what they want,” and seeking to tell a story to a particular child. It stands to reason that the story teller will be crafting this one tale to fit the personality of his listener, however Lewis elaborates on the changes the story undergoes as it becomes print. He describes the change as:

In any personal relation the two participants modify each other. You
would become slightly different because you were talking to a child and
the child would become slightly different because it was being talked
to by an adult. A community, a composite personality, is created and out
of that the story grows.

This “composite personality,” creates the final printed story.

Lewis goes into the most detail with his third method, as this is the one, “which is the only one I could ever use myself.” This technique is, “writing a children's story because a children's story is the best art-form for something you have to say.” He finds this to be important because a good children’s story can and should be enjoyed by anyone of any age. He compares a poorly written, narrow children’s story to a waltz: “A waltz which you can only like when you are waltzing is a bad waltz.”

He extends the waltz analogy to the specific genre of fairy tale. If critics belittle the reading or writing of fairy tales as not being, “grown-up,” Lewis hastily points out that being concerned, “about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of child¬hood and adolescence.” He further explains that to fear being accused of “arrested development,” for liking what would be, in modern eyes, termed childish is actually a fear based on flawed logic: “arrested development consists not in refusing to lose old things but in failing to add new things? I now like hock, which I am sure I should not have liked as a child. But I still like lemon-squash.” By this mode of thought, the reader who adds enjoyment of fairy tales to his repertoire of enjoyment has truly grown.

Finally Lewis, with a nod to Tolkien, references the fact that fairy tales were not traditionally made for children. They simply found their way into the nursery much like out of fashion Victorian furniture. Lewis also cautions that he is not setting out to give a lesson on, “How to Write a Story.” In fact he claims to, “have never exactly 'made' a story.” He describes his process as seeing pictures, and if we,” keep quiet and watch they will begin joining up.”

We can see these pictures, snap shots, of modern fairy tales joining up in Lewis’ works such as the Screwtape Letters, where we watch the interplay between the demons lead us to an understanding of how Satan works against the Christian. If we are quiet we can hear the underlying message in the resurrection of both Spring and Aslan in TLtWatW, and if we give up our adherence to being grown up and practical we can accept the greatest fairy tale of all… as Lewis unfolds it in Mere Christianity.

According to Lewis, the child and the author are free to watch the tale unfold as equals. They are free to each loathe prunes.

Jane Austen, Emma and the development of the novel

2011-03-08T18:21:00.000-08:00

This was for Romantic Lit...i think it will be the jumping off point for my end of semester paper for this class

Corrie Greene
Romantic Literature
Journal III
Dr. King

Jane Austen opens Emma with the description, “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition…” (Austen, 1.) With her first words, Austen declares herself to be well within the parameters of the definition of a novel. She immediately tells her readers that they will be privy to scenery (“comfortable home,”) dialogue (“clever,”) and details (“handsome,” and “rich.”)With the introduction of “the evils,” of Miss Emma Woodhouse’s character: “the power of having rather too much her own way, and the disposition to think a little too well of herself…” (2,) the reader quickly sees that Emma will also contain introspection, self-analysis, and narrative analysis of the main characters. With these characteristics in mind, the reader can easily follow Austen as she develops Emma into Ian Watt’s definition of a novel: “A full and authentic report of human experience” (King, Moodle, 3/8/11.)

In Emma, Austen carries on the tradition of the novel as begun by Samuel Richardson in 1740. Emma concentrates on the every day life of the residents of Highbury, specifically the character Emma Woodhouse and her social problems. The reader immediately sees that Emma is meddlesome and opinionated, consumed with romantic love, although not, it seems, for herself, but instead for those around her. She finds pressing importance in the details of everyday life. The reader does not see her focusing any energy on conceptual or heavenly concepts. In fact, the closest she comes to religion is to contemplate the suitability of the vicarage as a dwelling place for her protégé, Harriet: “He (Mr. Elton) had a comfortable home for her (Harriet,) and Emma imagined a very significant income; for though the vicarage of Highbury was not large, he was known to have some independent property…” (Austen, 68.)

Austen eschews dialogue focusing on “modern society,” although she does perpetuate the division between the relative tranquility of the country versus the modern concerns of the city. John Knightly and Emma’s sister Isabelle live in the city. John is portrayed as over-worked, unable to relax or enjoy an evening out with friends: “Mr. John Knightley’s being a lawyer is very inconvenient…There will not be time for anything…Mr. John Knightley must be in town again on the 28th” (Austen, 166, 67.) John’s wife, and Emma’s sister, Isabella is frequently unwell and delicate: “My dear Isabella…be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself…” (Austen, 219.) Frank Churchill is also from the city, and proves to be duplicitous and callous in his dealings with the citizens of Highbury.

Conversely, the country is full of parties, games, exercise, romance and innocent intrigue, work is very rarely mentioned. Even the farmer Mr. Martin appears to be more of an administrator than a labourer: “Harriet was ready to speak of the share he had in their moonlight walks and merry evening games…” (Austen, 52.) He also employed shepherds and had time to ride, “three miles round one day, in order to bring her some walnuts” (Austen, 52.)While Emma is grossly mistaken in her attempts to divine love and marriage matches for her friends, she is not callous towards their feelings. In fact, the majority of the permanent country dwellers are transparent in their feelings and motives. Mr. Knightley, who moves back and forth from the city to the country, is guarded in matters of his own feelings of love, but open with his council to others and care for Emma.

Austen reveals more of the inner character of her Highbury dwellers through their letters to one another. Although the reader only sees one fully transcribed letter, near the end of the novel, we are made aware of the contents of several throughout the novels volumes. These letters also help to denote the passage of time. While letters and the post office are quite modern and, “really astonishing” (Austen, 70,) by using the seasons to denote the passage of time, Austen gives a nod to the regularity and dependability of the country.

Some timeless themes of the post 1740 novel are the, “acquisition of wealth, marriage and upward mobility” (King, Moodle, 3/8/11.) Emma contains myriad examples of these pivotal situations:
• Mr. Weston would not marry until he had his finances in order and had moved beyond the lowered station that his first wife’s death had bound him. He gave himself the personal goal of saving, “enough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining Highbury, which he had always longed for- enough to marry a woman as portionless even as Miss Taylor…never settling until he could purchase Randalls” (Austen, 26.)
• Mr. Elton would never marry someone with less fortune than himself. He was perpetually upwardly mobile. When the wealthy Emma rejected his proposal she observed, “if Miss Woodhouse the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not so easily obtained, as he fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody else with twenty or with ten” (Austen, 289.)
• Marriage is the topic of the hour: Mr. Martin’s proposal to Harriet; Harriet’s desire to marry Mr. Elton, Mr. Elton’s desire to marry Emma; Emma’s interest in Frank Churchill; Frank Churchill’s seeming interest in Emma; Mr. Knightley’s recommendation of marriage to Mr. Martin regarding Harriet; Mr. Knightley’s insight into Mr. Elton wanting to marry Emma; Mr. Knightley’s suspicion of Frank Churchill’s interest in Jane, Mr. Elton’s surprise marriage to Augusta, Frank’s surprise engagement to Jane, Emma’s surprise love for Mr. Knightley, Mr. Knightley’s not so surprising love for Emma, and Harriet’s ultimate marriage to Mr. Martin. And finally… “Mr. Elton was called on, within a month of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin, to join the hands of Mr. Knightley and Miss Woodhouse” (Austen, 315.)

With marriage, wealth, and social climbing as some of the main themes of Emma, the 21st Century reader cannot be too hard pressed to see the realism integral to a successful novel. However, Austen was skilled in communicating, “her individual vision of reality” (King, Moodle, 3/8/11.) She was able to maintain a unity and coherence within her plot using, as Ernest Baker describes it in The History of the English Novel: “the working formula…rough specification of the novel, ‘the interpretation of human life by means of fictitious narrative in prose’” (Baker, 12.) This leads to the satisfaction of the final three requirements of the novel: Analysis of human behavior, interest in setting, and language referential to everyday life (King, Moodle, 3/8/11.)

Emma Woodhouse spends her days and nights analyzing the behaviours of her friends and acquaintances. She draws inferences and makes assumptions which lead to not only debacles but also to personal revelations regarding her own flaws of character. Austen’s ability to portray the locale as well as the mannerisms and peculiarities of the wealthy in such clear language lends a rich and realistic background to the lessons of the importance of, “Very little white satin, very few lace veils… (And) the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends…” (Austen, 315.)

CS Lewis is super cool

2011-02-27T15:58:00.000-08:00

I want to be an Oxford Don when I grow up!

Corrie Greene
CS Lewis Journal 2
Dr. King
27 February 2011

Why Do Presbyterians Sprinkle, Baptists Dunk, and Catholics Get to Drink So Much: Losing and Gaining My Religion

There aren’t many sections of Mere Christianity, that don’t either give me pause or bring to mind a question that I have wrestled with, or continue to wrestle with. I enjoy reading this because it makes me feel okay about how excruciatingly hard it is for me to accept the fact that I accept the fact that Christ is who He says He is, and that I want to follow Him.

As a child, Christianity was this incrediblely simple, “If/ Then,” equation…If we confess our sins, (Then) He is faithful and Just to Forgive us our sins, and (Then) cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I believed this wholeheartedly. It was really easy to believe, because everyone told me that this was so, and grown-ups never lie. Right?
As I got older, the nuances of Religion started to throw me… If I keep committing the same sin over and over again, then I’m not asking forgiveness; I’m asking to be excused. And, if I’m asking to be excused then I am saying I am above God’s laws, because God’s law says, “Thou shalt not…whatever…” And then, if I think I am outside God’s law, then am I really a child of God at all??…” and SHAZAAM, we get to Losing My Religion, and Salvation Based on Works, and, oh, there goes my head exploding.

Religion is very complicated.

I decided I was better off without it, and I would strive to be the type of person that Lewis describes on pages 53 and 54 as believing in a “Life-Force,” or “Creative Evolution.” “All of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences.” I suppose underneath all of my denials I must have believed in God, because I was also the person who thought that, “Life-Force,” was, “A mind bringing life into existence and leading it to perfection,” I was simply loathe to call it God.

God was confusing and several of the stories didn’t make sense to me. How could Adam and Eve be that stupid? I mean, really…in one afternoon Free Will goes that awry? It’s so easy to think of the Fall of Man as a parable, a life lesson. The Ark? I lost nights out of my life debating the plausibility of the Ark and the Flood Myth… Then there was this man, running away from God, and he VOLUNTEERED to get thrown into the ocean, and then he lived in the belly of a fish, until he was vomited up, and not made into parfum.

When I looked at the myriad fantastic stories in the Bible, it read like the Odyssey. Goliath might as well have been the Cyclops, and David, Odysseus swinging a slingshot in lieu of strapping himself to sheep’s belly. What was the difference?

My discovery? While I was confused about the scriptures, and man’s interpretation of God, I didn’t, deep down, buy the whole theory that I could be morally good on my own. Lewis describes evil as a, “parasite,” that actually lives off of good. Evil exists because of goodness, and Satan exists because of God. All of my own efforts to be good were, the proverbial, “filthy rags,” they never quite measured up and I was left feeling perpetually lacking. Lewis explains: “The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide”(11.)

And so all of my feeble Life-Force attempts at goodness, peacefulness, love, longsuffering, gentleness, and meekness turned me into a devil. I was, by turns, judgemental, holier-than-thou, defeated, depressed, rebellious, and resigned. I was never joyful. Life-Force was not enough to guide my life.

If, “Christianity is a fighting religion” (37,) then Christ is a Golden Gloves recipient. The first time I read Mere Christianity, I lingered, picking my jaw up off of the ground, at the Chapter, “The Rival Conceptions of God.” Did he just write: “If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through…!?!” If this was truth, then most of my hang-ups had become, in a span of tiny seconds, pettily academic. It didn’t really matter for the moment if Gilgamesh seemed way too similar to Noah.

At the same time as the above revelation, God had introduced into my life a group of Christians who lived their lives with a Relationship with Christ. They rejected the trappings of Religion. They were smart, witty, accepting, and didn’t write me off as a pathetically stoned pagan. One, in particular, showed me a major fallacy in my thinking…I was watching other flawed human beings to see how God worked, and I was looking at stories and picking them apart for the pleasure of proving myself right. In addition, I was thinking that by my being right, I had somehow managed to prove God wrong. (It seems so silly to write now…it’s a wonder I did not get struck down by lightening.)

I gave up my pig headedness. “There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake” (29,) is one of the best quotes in the world. I didn’t understand the Fall of Man, I didn’t understand Immaculate Conception, I didn’t understand homosexuality, I didn’t understand alcohol, I didn’t understand Religion (especially Baptists!), forgiveness, back-sliding, speaking in tongues, or why some people say dancing is bad while King David danced in the Bible! There was more I didn’t understand, than what I did.

But, “People ate their dinner and felt better long before the theory of vitamins was ever heard of” (81,) and people had been forgiven by Christ long before there were Baptists, so I figured I was going to be okay.

I still get hung up on the academics of Christianity. I want to understand it all, and I don’t like mysteries that aren’t solved in the final chapters or wrapped up neatly by a Belgian detective with a handsome mustache. There is great solace for a person such as me in Lewis’ observation, “A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works: indeed, he certainly would not know how it works until he has accepted it” (82.) It seems pathetic to try to verbalize how freeing that statement is.
I can say, “Oh, wow! That totally changed my life…” But really REALLY… it’s a liberatingly Big Deal.

Knowing that if I look for Christ, I will find Him, and when I find Him I will find everything else…in time, is enough.

Literary Criticism Paper

2011-02-13T16:23:00.000-08:00

“Poetry is the image of man and nature.” “All I ever meet is witty bastards:” Wordsworth and Salinger Tangle over The Catcher in the Rye

The movement of poetic revolution Wordsworth spoke of in his 1800, “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” was a movement away from the stilted language of prior eras. Wordsworth broke this revolution down into a four-fold structure. Initially, the Poem should depict, “incidents and situations from common life.” It should then, “relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really used by men.” As well as, “throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect.” And finally, “make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature.” The final layer, according to Wordsworth was, “above all” (Wordsworth, bartleby.com, 3.) J.D. Salinger’s 1951 coming of age novel, The Catcher in the Rye, while not a poem, underscores the importance of this language of every day men, the colouring of imagination, and the primary laws of our nature as manifested in humbleness and rusticity.

Salinger’s use of then current slang as well as blunt views into the mind of a disturbed teenaged boy, have resulted in both the banning of his book and continuing literary discussion over its merits and shortcomings. Holden is the reader’s unreliable narrator; we learn early on in the novel to notice the, “colouring of his imagination” (Wordsworth, bartleby.com, 3,) on his descriptions of others and circumstances. However, throughout his quest to avoid coming of age, we are made painfully aware of his, and perhaps our own, primary laws of nature.

Tagged as an erstwhile Bildungsroman novel, The Catcher in the Rye, narrates the story of two days and nights in Holden’s life, right before Christmas break where, “this madman stuff happened to me”(Salinger, 1.) Holden is telling his story, we find out later, from a sanitarium in California, somewhere near Hollywood. The reader notices through the language that Holden uses, that he is judgmental and defensive. He claims in the first two sentences that his childhood, “bores,” him. However, Holden spends much of the novel desperately trying to hang on to his youth and avoid growing up to become worst fear, a phony.

Holden is hung up on the phoniness of adults and is unwilling to understand the need for his peers to begin posing and acting like the adults he despises. While he is no stranger to communicating Wordsworth’s idea of, “our elementary feelings,” he is not able to contemplate them, “accurately,” although he does communicate them, “forcibly” (Wordsworth, bartleby.com, 4.) Holden ferociously hates nearly everyone and everything, preemptively pushing both friend and foe away before they could possibly hurt him. At the same time, he is incredibly rigid in his ideals of wrong and right, as well as achingly lonely. These dichotomies cause him to become confused, as he breaks his own code of honour and misses the very phonies he detests.

Holden has been expelled from his fourth private school for failing four subjects. He describes standing on top of a hill, “hanging around, trying to feel some kind of a good-bye” (Salinger, 4.) his memory is one of playing football until long after dark with some other boys in the fall. The simplicity of this memory and the fact that it was outside, which represented freedom from the pressures of academia to Holden, cause him to feel satisfied and complete, but only for a moment. As he takes off across the icy fields, and moves further and further away from the countryside, he introduces us to another important theme in his life: the fear of disappearing: “It was that kind of crazy afternoon, terrifically cold and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road” (Salinger, 5.)

Wordsworth understood the importance of the humble and rustic life. He explains that, “the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language.” Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, the reader sees Holden at his best when he is outside. He even suggests to his girlfriend of the afternoon, Sally, that they, “drive up to Vermont…We’ll stay in these cabin camps…we could get married or something. I could chop all our own wood in the wintertime and all. Honest to God, we could have a terrific time!” (Salinger, 132.)

In Central Park, as well, he is relaxed and gravitates towards the skating children. Holden loves children; he considers them to be pure and real. He notices that children, “always have to meet their friend. That kills me” (Salinger, 119.) Outside in the park with the children, Holden can be himself. He does not feel judged by the children or by nature and therefore he does not have to criticize in return. He can use plain language and feel, “essential passions of the heart.” Wordsworth also notices this phenomenon as he explains, “The language (of rustic men) has been adopted…purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust…” (Wordsworth, bartleby.com, 5.)

Holden remains steadfast in his eschewing of adult convention and, “dopey-ness” (Salinger 123.) He acknowledges his preference for girls and boys with intelligence, but at the same notes that, “the trouble with these intellectual guys. They never want to discuss anything serious unless they feel like it” (Salinger, 144.) This in turn makes them, “a pain in the ass” (Salinger, 149.)Wordsworth turned the phrase only slightly less caustically: “Poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression…furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation” (Wordsworth, bartleby.com, 5.)

Conversely, Wordsworth does point out that, “triviality and meanness,” are the fault of the, “Writer’s own character” (Wordsworth, bartleby.com, 6.) Holden too has his trivial and mean character pointed out to him by his younger sister Phoebe. Ironically, the very thing he previously did not feel judged by, a child, shows him the phony within himself:

You don’t like anything that’s happening.
You don’t like any schools. You don’t like a million things.
You can’t even think of one thing.
Name something you’d like to be.
(Salinger, 171, 72.)

At his sister’s insistence, Holden produces his life’s ambition, to be the Catcher in the Rye, the lone adolescent saving children from falling off of the precipice into adulthood as they run carelessly through a field of rye. He quotes Robert Burns’ poem (although he calls it a song) “If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye…” His sister stops him: “It’s ‘If a body meet a body comin’ through the rye’! It’s a POEM…” (Salinger, 171-72.) In this moment Holden has the futility of his life presented to him. His life’s ambition to avoid adulthood and to save others from the same fate is based on a pose. It stems from a Poem he thought was a song, which he had been misquoting, and in turn applying incorrectly to the reality of his life. His trivial judgments and his meanness to nearly everyone were not the fault of society but in fact due to his own lack of “sensibility” (Wordsworth. Bartleby.com, 6.)

Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger uses the incidents and situations in Holden’s life to paint a picture of the traumas of becoming an adult. While Holden’s situations may not be, “common,” to the practicing Christian, even the most devout can relate to feelings of hypocrisy and loss of way. Salinger’s lexicon of modern language, as well as the imaginations of a colourful narrator, shines a light on some of the primary forces of nature (fears, dichotomies, and capabilities for phoniness) in us all. With the addition of Holden’s sense of salvation through the Rustic and Humbleness of the Wilderness, and the continuing debate over the merits of Catcher’s uncensored narrative, the conversation regarding Catcher’s merits as Literature continues 60 years after publication. Through this continued relevancy, we can surmise that Wordsworth’s purpose behind his poetic revolution has been successful in the case of The Catcher in the Rye: “a species of poetry would be produced, which is genuine poetry; in its nature well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and likewise important in the multiplicity and quality of its moral relations” (Wordsworth, bartleby.com, 33.)

Wordsworth would have ordered PBR, but for all the wrong reasons

2011-02-11T19:32:00.000-08:00

Corrie Greene
Romantic Literature Journal II
Dr. King
11 February 2011

Wordsworth is Not Someone I Would Like to Have a Drink With

As I read, “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” I formed a mental picture of Wordsworth. He would be the aging Hipster sitting at the bar in the Admiral in downtown Asheville, eagerly waiting for the after work crowd to come in. He would drink PBR, not because it was awesome and poker can be played with the cards under the cap, but because drinking an artisan beer would be akin to, “gaudiness and inane phraseology” (Wordsworth, bartleby.com, 4.)

He would look smug, thinking to himself that he had successfully blended in to the population of the Everyman. In my mind’s eye I watched as a patron enters the Admiral and sits down next to Wordsworth. I imagined that I could see W turn his body ever so slightly towards this new friend and strike up a conversation. The newcomer would speak of Catullus, Wordsworth would best him with talk of Shakespeare; the newcomer would counter with Dryden, Wordsworth one-upping him with analysis of Pope. Then W would go for the kill… “Forget all of that ostentatiousness, how about Humble and Rustic!?”

He would lean in now, and take a deep breath: “What I proposed in my new book of poems, you can get the e-book off of Amazon for 9.99, it’s like number 12 on the self-published list…anyhow, in my new book what I’m trying to do is focus on the incidents from common life, right, and describe them so that the reader can totally relate to them. And how do I do that? Oh man, this is the good part, I use the language of the common everyday guy, and to hook them, I use a little artistic license. Yeah, a little amplification, a little Hollywood, a certain…colouring of the imagination!” (Wordsworth, bartleby.com, 5)

The guy at the bar would signal for beer number two. “If that’s the way that you write poetry, how can you hope to succeed? Why would I buy a book of poems that sounds like I’m talking… about the things I normally talk about? Wouldn’t I want to be transported out of my rustic work-a day world?”

Now I’m just curious. What would Wordsworth say to this, after all, who would want to read a poem that says:
I saw you across the stacks of black sweaters
At Urban Outfitters
The one on the corner of Merrimon
I would have gotten your number
Or at least your name
So that I could Facebook you later
But I got distracted wondering
If the crewneck I held in my hands
Was made sustainably
Or by small children
In China.

I see W smile benevolently, a little condescendingly, “Silly rustic common man,” I can see flash across his face for a moment. “Here’s the difference between Urban Outfitters poetry, and a custom made pair of trousers that look like they came from Urban Outfitters, but actually are hand-made in Italy by someone with talent: All *good* poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, with the added caveat that they only come AFTER long and deep thought. Do you see the difference? I may be moved by the everyday occurrence of seeing a beautiful face across the sale bins at my local clothier, but the talent, no, the lot in life of the Poet, is to temper that moment with thought, memory and finally the description to help the reader recall that moment so vividly that they are enlightened, strengthened and purified. That is what the purpose of the Poet should be.”

“But, isn’t the subject important? I mean, I don’t necessarily want to read about feelings all the time; I get enough of that from my girlfriend!” the guy at the bar spins his bottle and I see him reaching for his Bic lighter. He invites Wordsworth out to the smoking patio. Together they walk outside under the awning that protects the hard-core smokers from rain and snow, sleet and hail. I follow them, because, well I quit smoking...but this one time won’t be too bad…right?

Wordsworth declines the offer of a Marlborough Light and instead pulls out a hand rolled smoke from organic and locally grown tobacco. He lights it with a Zippo. I see that he can’t resist the name-drop: “Coleridge picked this up for me in a little shop in Covent Garden. I was all, ‘you shouldn’t have done that!’ and he was all, ‘It’s no big deal…’ But what were you saying, oh yeah, the subject. Absolutely! Absolutely the subject is important, I mean, everyone has the ability to be excited by gross or violent stimulants. That’s just smoke and mirrors. Look, when you get a bunch of guys together in the city, doing the same job day in and day out, they are hungry for sensation. Check it out, Shakespeare, Milton, all the greats, they are considered obsolete, people crave more and more frantic entertainment. It’s degrading to mankind and degrading to the word writer. The Poet, the Writer with a capital “W,” they have to have the talent, no; the passion, to rise above all of that foolishness and show the inherent and indestructible bits of mankind, and do it with style! You write with style, and you can keep the Reader in the company of flesh and blood…you will keep his interest!” (Wordsworth, bartleby.com, 8.)

I get cold, and a little disinterested as Wordsworth launches into a description of the stylistic qualities that make his poetry better than other’s poetry, so I head back to my booth in the Admiral. I catch little snippets of the conversation when the other smokers open the door to come back into the warmth. I hear the name, “Gray,” spoken snidely and some snickering as Wordsworth recites some lines of Gray’s poetry about a “reddening Phoebus,” and, “fields with green attire” (W, bartleby.com, 10.)

Finally they come back in. Wordsworth buys the next round and I hear him wrapping up his lesson: “So here’s the thing, yeah…if I do this right…if I can distill an emotion that overflows from me naturally, if I can condense it and think about it, and bring it back in the form of words so familiar that everything else disappears for the reader except for that one emotion as he reads my work…well, then I’ve created an, ‘over balance of pleasure,’ and I’ve gratified my reader. And that my friend is how you sell some f-ing poetry!” Wordsworth must be a four beer guy, the fifth one is making him channel his inner Burns, I notice.

His partner in conversation drains the last of his PBR and sets the bottle down. I listen as he turns to leave and then says, “Hey man, do you have a link to that book of poetry on your Facebook site?” Wordsworth says, “No, but you can follow me on Twitter and I’ll hook you up that way.” “Cool,” says the guy. “Later.” But Wordsworth is muttering a poem to himself, “These pretty Babes with hand in hand/Went wandering up and down; But never more they saw the Man/Approaching from the town.”

And so I am left to think about what Wordsworth said. He seems like a pompous guy, maybe a little insecure, and I am loathe to acknowledge the truth in his observations about mankind, and Poetry and Emotion. But I do. So I walk over and pay his tab while he’s absorbed in trying to roll another cigarette, and then I beat it out the side door, in case he wants to talk to me.

Ethan Frome Revisited

2011-01-30T18:36:00.001-08:00

I loved this story when I was in Mrs. Wallace's 10th grade AP English class. It was cool to revisit it in my Literary Criticism class. Obvious from the first paragraph, I applied Aristotle's parameters of Tragedy to the story. It could go a totally different way with Feminist Lit Crit using either female character, But we could only use Plato or Aristotle for this paper, and since Plato seems llike a big jerk, I chose Aristotle and Ethan.

“He Who Hears the Tale Will Thrill with Horror and Melt to Pity at What Takes Place:” Aristotle’s Poetics Applied to Ethan Frome

Aristotle wrote in his “Poetics,” “Tragedy, then is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude…(that takes the) form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation…’ (XXX, yeah right; do your own research.) In Edith Wharton’s book, Ethan Frome, one can examine the events of one destructive winter in the life Ethan Frome, and through this close study determine that the specifics of Aristotle’s definition of Tragedy can be applied succinctly.

Aristotle describes the specifics of Tragedy as:
• Unity of plot: the plot must, “imitate one action,” and that the, “structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed” (XXX)
• The emotions of fear and pity are best produced when the, “events…follow as cause and effect. The tragic wonder will be greater than if they happen by themselves or by accident” (XXX)
• Along with Unity of Plot, there must be a Reversal of Situation, which usually is accompanied by Recognition, or, “the change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate…” (XXX) This Recognition in tandem with Reversal will produce either pity or fear in the audience.
• Finally, after Recognition and Reversal, there comes the Scene of Suffering. The Scene of Suffering usually presents itself as a painful action, “such as death on the stage, bodily agony, wounds and the like” (XXX)

Ethan Frome centers on the bleak life of the title’s namesake. The character list is sparse, consisting of a nameless narrator, and limited characters. Each character plays a pivotal role in the unveiling of Ethan’s failed life. The narrator is a representation of all that Ethan could have become, had he not been destroyed by the, “cause and effect,” of his decisions.

According to Aristotle the plot must imitate one action, or follow one thread throughout, and each addition of plot must be integral to the next. In Ethan Frome, the reader is tantalized by the introduction of Ethan, the broken, crippled man, who is described by the narrator as, “if he was dead and in hell,” and by the Postmaster as, “been in Starkfield too many winters” (XXX) Throughout the novel, the audience is presented with the layers of Frome’s hell. Even the town, Starkfield, looms over the story as a living memoriam to Ethan’s inability to find happiness. It is the literal hell freezing over. Death is the unifying theme: death of Ethan’s future; death of Ethan’s spirit, death of Ethan’s farm, death of his capacity to love. Silence functions as a side-effect of death.

As the narrator retells Ethan’s story of a doomed winter, 24 years earlier, the audience catches a glimpse of who Ethan could have become. He had gone away to college, and to an engineering job in Florida, but a kick to the head by a horse rendered his father senseless, and he felt compelled to return home to care for the bleak family farm. The audience can begin to see Aristotle’s concept of cause and effect come to fruition in the withering of Ethan’s chance to escape the misery that was life in Starkfield.

He reveals the effect of his father’s death and the slow death of the town to the narrator as he describes the necessity to tear down the back side of the house which protects the inhabitants from the winter elements as they walk between the house and the barn, and the railroad cutting the family house off from any town traffic, and with it any signs of bustling life: ““We're kinder side-tracked here now,” he added, “but there was considerable passing before the railroad was carried through to the Flats”(XXX) He attributes the confusion and eventual silence of his mother to the fact that, “after the trains begun running nobody ever come by here to speak of, and mother never could get it through her head what had happened” (XXX)

Silence becomes the cause of his ill-fated marriage to Zenobia, her very name conjuring up images of a stranger, someone who does not understand Ethan and will contribute to his alienation rather than supporting him in his dreams. In a moment of panic, after the death of his mother Ethan asks Zeena to stay and marry him: “After the mortal silence of his long imprisonment Zeena's volubility was music in his ears” (XXX).

Here we see Aristotle’s depiction of the proper tragic figure, defined as, “the character between the two extremes-that of a man who is not eminently good and just-yet whose misfortune is not brought about by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty” (XXX) Frome’s frailty in the face of silence, and his lack of foresight into what a future away from the farm, even alone, could offer prove to be the errors that cement his tragic future.

With marriage comes Zeena’s own resentment, illnesses, and eventual silence. The final pivotal character of the book is introduced in the form of Zeena’s young cousin, Mattie Silver. With Mattie comes joyful conversation and life; life in the midst of a dead winter and a dead marriage, in a dead town. Again Ethan displays the characteristics of a man caught between two extremes. He is miserable in his marriage, and in love with the lively Mattie Silver, yet he sees that he is trapped with the wife he chose and the farm he cannot save nor sell.

The cause and effect of Ethan’s desperate life coupled with the unifying theme of death inevitably produce the emotion of pity in the audience. Fueled by this success, one may continue on to the next specific of Aristotle’s Tragedy: Recognition, or the change from ignorance to knowledge, and Reversal of the Situation.

Although Ethan is leery of his wife’s, “obstinate,” and, “fault-finding silence” (XXX), he thrills at Zeena’s announcement that she will be leaving town for a night to see a new Dr. in Bettsbridge, as this will enable him to be alone with Mattie for an entire evening. The stage is set for Recognition.

Ethan imagines life in the face of his bleak surroundings: “they would sit there, one on each side of the stove, like a married couple, he in his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she laughing and talking in that funny way she had, which was always as new to him as if he had never heard her before” (XXX) There would be no silence, and in anticipation he breaks out into song. However, even as they play house at the laden dinner table, the reminder of Zeena creeps in and causes the mirth to die. This compels them to bouts of their own silence.

Present at the dinner table is a pickle dish, which the cat knocks over and shatters just at the moment where Ethan grasps Mattie’s hand in his for a moment of intimacy. Here the audience is introduced to Aristotle’s belief that, “even inanimate things of the most trivial kind may in a sense be objects of Recognition” (XXX) The pickle dish, it is revealed was a treasured wedding gift, placed on an uppermost shelf by Zeena and never used. It represents Ethan and Zeena’s marriage, cloistered; repressed, denied it’s true use and the pleasure of serving others. And, it is shattered by illicit use, just as the mutual understanding of passion between Ethan and Mattie irrevocably shatters his marriage.

Mattie panics, wailing, “Oh, Ethan, Ethan—it's all to pieces! What will Zeena say?” (XXX) Ethan replaces the broken dish, but the night has changed. Recognition comes in the form of their realization that each cared for the other as their hands touched, but the splintering of the pickle dish brings the Reversal of the Situation. From this moment on, there is no hope for Ethan to find happiness.

Zeena returns from her trip with the announcement that Mattie must vacate the Frome house in 24 hours. She also discovers the broken pickle dish and reveals her true feelings for Mattie calling her a, “bad girl,” and stating, “I was warned of it when I took you, and I tried to keep my things where you couldn't get at ’em—and now you've took from me the one I cared for most of all—”(XXX) The audience cannot be certain if she is referring to Ethan, her idea of marriage, or merely the beautiful dish, but regardless the final layer of Tragedy, Scene of Suffering, is laid.

The audience openly pities Ethan and the loss of any modicum of happiness he might be able to snatch from his bare existence in Starkfield. As he drives Mattie to the train station we begin to fear for him as well. Despite his wife’s imploring and conniving he is determined to have one more stolen moment with Mattie. Again, he shows his weakness and lack of foresight. As they discuss their doomed love for one another, Ethan blurts out, “I don't know how it is you make me feel, Matt. I'd a'most rather have you dead than that!” (XXX)

When Mattie agrees that she would rather be dead as well, Ethan is shaken. He backtracks and attempts to draw her out of her melancholy by taking her on the long promised “Coasting,” ride down the dangerous hill by the schoolhouse. The giant elm looms over their ride and exhilarated at cheating death, they embrace and cling to each other. Finally with the striking of the clock, they realize their time together is over. Their Scene of Suffering will be the eternity they have to spend without each other.

Mattie challenges Ethan to coast once more, only this time straight into the elm, and to their deaths together “Right into the big elm. You said you could. So ’t we'd never have to leave each other any more” (XXX). And so the frail character of Ethan succumbs to the, “the wild wonder of knowing at last that all that had happened to him had happened to her too” (XXX)
The Scene of Suffering , according to Aristotle, is destructive, painful, resulting in death, bodily agony and wounds. The audience gasps in fear as Ethan and Mattie hurdle through the night sky: “There was a last instant when the air shot past him like millions of fiery wires; and then the elm…” (XXX)

Had the two ill fated lovers died upon their impact with the tree, Ethan Frome would cease to be a tragedy, for Ethan would have commanded his fortune into death with the woman he loved. Instead, they each survive. Each maimed beyond repair.
Ethan is forced to continue life on his farm, eking out a living now as a suffering cripple, his gashed face a constant mark of his infidelity, and his right side so completely destroyed that, “it cost him a visible effort to take the few steps from his buggy to the post-office window” (XXX) Mattie is paralyzed and returns to the Frome house to live out her days with the family. Ethan is must confront his frailty daily, as he watches his sweet love Mattie sour under the strain of immobility in both her body and her love.

In the end the very thing that drew Ethan to both of the women in his life, their banishment of deadly silence, becomes his daily hell. Mrs. Vale, a lifetime friend of both Ethan and Mattie describes this hell to the narrator: “sometimes the two of them (Matie and Zeena) get going at each other, and then Ethan's face'd break your heart…When I see that, I think it's him that suffers most” (XXX) Mrs. Vale completes the Tragedy with a final pity-inducing monologue:

There was one day, about a week after the accident,
when they all thought Mattie couldn't live. Well, I say
it's a pity she did…
… if she'd ha’ died, Ethan might ha’ lived; and the way they
are now, I don't see's there's much difference between
the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the
graveyard; ’cept that down there they're all quiet,
and the women have got to hold their tongues.
(XXX)

Aristotle postulated that simply by hearing a tale the audience, “will thrill with horror and melt with pity at what takes place” (XXX) In Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, with the reader acting as audience, we see not only the satisfaction of the structural parameters of a Tragedy, but also the purging effect of both our fear for Ethan’s future, and our pity at his tragic life. We are resigned, along with Ethan, that there is nothing left for him but a daily, silent, waking death.

Last Semester...maybe

2011-01-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

This is the big one...Senior Thesis; Literary Criticism...those crazy Master's entrance exam things...one paper at a time!

Essay for Romantic Literature

Alexander Pope wrote, in the third Epistle of, “An Essay on Man,” “Great Nature spoke; observant man obeyed. Cities were built, societies were made: here rose one little state, another near, grew by like means, and joined through love or fear.” Throughout, “An Essay on Man,” Pope is a proponent of the Victorian notion of the Great Chain of Being: each creation having an order of importance in Nature. Another important theme in, “An Essay on Man,” is, “Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; but vindicate the ways of God to man.”

While Pope was a great satirist, it still seemed odd to see him quoted in Robert Burns’ “Nature’s Law-a poem.” Burns does not appear to be particularly devout; worshipping perhaps more at the altar of the skirt rather than the church. Yet, he was influenced by Pope.

By examining Burns’ poem, “Nature’s Law,” and the sections of Pope’s, “An Essay on Man,” that precede Burns’ opening homage, “Great Nature spoke; Observant man obeyed,” the reader can see, “Nature’s Law-a poem,” as a kind of response to Pope’s vindication of God’s command, and also Burns’ distillation of, “Essay,” into a much more personal version.

In part III of Epistle III, Pope discusses sexual attraction, reproduction, and child bearing, “Each loves itself, but not itself alone, each sex desires alike, till two are one.” He continues, describing how the rearing of children is an extension of love between all species, and that man, specifically, needs, “A longer care.” This longer care creates: Reason, Reflection, Sympathy, and Choice, and that with each child comes, “new needs, new helps, new habits,” until youth takes care of the aged.

Part III is reflected in Burns’ “Nature’s Law-a poem,” as he deftly dissects war, struggle and, “plagues of human life,” out of his repertoire, and chooses instead to focus on only Great Nature’s command: “Go on, you human race; This lower world I you resign; Be fruitful and increase.”

While Pope spoke of, “lasting bands,” in reference to human love and sexuality, Burns leans on the side of the beasts, who, according to Pope, “each seeks a fresh embrace, Another love succeeds…” Burns claims that Nature has given him a larger share of passion: “Kind Nature's care had given his share, Large of the flaming current; and, all devout, he never sought to stem the sacred torrent.”

Again Burns’ justifies his lascivious behavior by pointing out that, “Propitious Powers screen'd the young flow'rs from mildews of abortion.” It is interesting to note, that while Propitious Powers seem to homage to the Great Nature or God’s Chain of Being, the phrase, “screen’d the young flow’rs from the mildews of abortion,” sounds like a nod to Darwin’s Natural Selection. It is as if God has ordained Burns’ promiscuity by providing him with healthy, fertile women to bear his young.

In part V of Epistle III Pope describes the effects of fertility combined with Reason and Dominion:

Converse and love mankind might strongly draw,

When Love was liberty, and Nature law.

Thus states were form'd, the name of King unknown,

Till common int'rest placed the sway in one.

This is the result of observant man’s obedience.

Burn’s too describes the outcome of his obedience to Great Nature as a type of kingdom, he uses the words, “sire,” “Nobler,” and “Powerful,” to describe Coil, the place where his family is established. Their, “common interest,” being posterity, multiplying joys, and poetic fire. Pope’s Reason, Dominion, Reflection…even the Great Chain of Being itself, is transformed by Robert Burns’ into the singular and personal story of one man, many women, and his effect on his homeland.

I could go on and on….

Book Review

2010-11-16T19:50:00.000-08:00

Corrie Greene
Shakespeare
23 October 2010
Dr. King

McDonald, Russ. The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2001.

Russ McDonald identifies one of the problems that is common to both the teacher and reader of Shakespeare in his “Preface,” to The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: how, “to put the Shakespearian text into cultural perspective without causing it to disappear” (VII). He goes on to explain that with the advent of academic study at the end of the nineteenth century, and its continuation and variation throughout the decades, our concept of Shakespeare becomes less about the actual text of his works and more about the, “recognition that who we are determines what Shakespeare is…” (2). The Bedford Companion is Mr. McDonald’s answer to the questions any scholar faces before enjoying any of Shakespeare’s works:
Are these…?
• Literary artifacts
• Theatrical scripts
• Dramatic Poems
• Documents in English political history
• Records of social class struggle
• Depiction of gender class conflicts
• Archival evidence of the history of ideas

Mr. McDonald postulates that the answer to the questions above is “yes,” to all. He explains that each instructor or student will approach the texts differently. The secret to a successful interaction with the texts of Shakespeare is an understanding of their literary, cultural, and historical backgrounds. The Bedford Companion is divided into chapters which encompass authorship, language, types of drama, cultural understanding of the theatre, Shakespeare’s library, importance of the printing press, life in Shakespearian England, Gender, Politics, Religion and Performance. With all of the variations on why Shakespeare is studied, McDonald reminds his reader that the common thread that holds all scholarship together is the enjoyment that Shakespeare’s plays bring. He leaves his reader with the knowledge that his main purpose of The Bedford Companion is to amplify this enjoyment (9).
The Bedford Companion does succeed in the amplification of all of Shakespeare’s plays. Each chapter cites specific plays as examples to prove various points. In, “Shakespeare, ‘Shakespeare,’ and the Problem of Authorship,” McDonald uses the dates of authorship for Macbeth and The Tempest, as proof that Edward de Vere could not have been the, “real Shakespeare,” as he died before these plays were written. In the chapter, “To What End Are All These Words?” McDonald explains the intricacies of the verbiage of Shakespeare. He cites Romeo and Juliet as an example of the familiar, “Thou,” and the formal, “you,” showing how Shakespeare was able to imply the flirtation and intimacy of Romeo and Juliet to the audience without overtly, “spelling it out.” He also provides Queen Margaret’s curse as a demonstration of a verbal slap to Richard III, as she berates him with, “Thou loathed issue of thy father’s loins!” (emphasis mine.)
Puns and wordplay are one of the more enjoyable aspects of Shakespeare’s plays. The experience is satisfying for either the listener or the reader. McDonald cites Shakespeare’s mastery of this art of wordplay as one proof of Renaissance society’s delight in language. One of the reasons the conscious or unconscious pun becomes important in Shakespeare’s texts is that it, “provides humour when a second meaning is released unexpectedly” (46). It often revealed an underlying character trait and was not always meant to be funny. Its purpose was to supply the audience with intellectual pleasure and to underscore the main idea/s of the play. McDonald uses Macbeth as an example of the serious pun; the list of examples culminating in the witches prophecy, “None of woman born/shall harm Macbeth,” and the fact that MacDuff was, “untimely ripped…” or born by Caesarean.
Tragedies, Comedies, Histories and Romances are all examined in The Bedford Companion’s History chapters. McDonald explores what he defines as the two phases of Shakespeare’s plays: 1590-1600, comedies and histories, and 1601-1611, tragedies and romances. He is quick to add the caveat that examples of every genre of theatre can be found in each Shakespearean decade, but for the most part the ten-year breakdowns work.
For Comedy, McDonald provides background and understanding for several plays, but lends his spotlight to, as he describes, “one of the most influential modes of Shakespeare study” (2), feminist literary criticism. He cites, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Taming of the Shrew as an example of the problem the modern scholar is faced when interpreting Shakespeare. Are these plays, particularly The Taming of the Shrew, a comedy or an expose into the history of misogyny? He credits Shakespeare’s capability as a writer, to be the foundation which allows his works to withstand such varied types of scrutiny.
“I Loved My Books,” allows a glance into the deep field of reference that Shakespeare drew from as he wrote his plays. McDonald removes the myth of Shakespeare as a natural writer with no formal education. Instead McDonald discusses Shakespeare’s use of Renaissance Grammar School, Latin sentence structure and literature, influence of the classics, theatre, the Bible, and the Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He provides evidence of Shakespeare’s love of Continental romantic fiction as the basis for The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and also the character of the lustful civic official in Measure for Measure. Particularly interesting in this section were the facsimiles, at the end of the chapter, of various primary sources that lent inspiration to Shakespeare.
Shakespeare students have faced a wall of seemingly identical Shakespearian texts only to ask themselves: “Which version? What edition should I buy?” McDonald explains the reasons behind the varying editions and translations of Shakespeare’s works in his Chapter, “What Is Your Text?” As these were works originally written for the theatre, McDonald describes the process that each script would have been subjected to before it was printed as an entire work. He uses the scene in which Bottom and his troop prepare their play Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a humorous example of how changes make their way into the original script idea. The inaccuracies of the early printing press are also examined, and again, the ending Primary Source examples are helpful and entertaining as various examples of “Bad Quartos,” the literary equivalent to a Blooper Reel, are displayed.
Chapters 7-9 all lend a view of the historical backdrop of Shakespeare’s England, and begin to support McDonald’s theory that the answer to all of the contextual questions regarding Shakespeare’s plays is, “yes!” An understanding of this historical backdrop allows an understanding of daily life, occupation, class struggles, recreation, money and social context in Shakespeare’s plays. McDonald explains the industrial importance of London and it’s proliferation of commercial guilds, the Shadowy Suburbs and it’s housing of criminals, brothels and public houses, and the highly organized-if not idyllic-agrarian centric English Countryside. The Winter’s Tale provides several examples of how a working knowledge of the geography and social structure of Elizabethan England adds to the enjoyment of the play.
McDonald begins Chapter 8, “Men and Women: Gender, Family, Society,” with the qualification that the reader must understand the information provided in the previous chapter, “Town and Country,” before considering gender issues in Shakespeare’s plays. McDonald further weaves his previous chapters into the questions of Gender and Hierarchy as he explains that Shakespeare’s literary influences (Chapter 5) provided him with ample, “justification of the perceived inferiority of the female” (255). Shakespeare however, as explained in Chapter 2, used his mastery of sarcasm, mockery and pun, to mock the male ego and provide commentary on the role and treatment of women, both strong and traditional.
Patriarchy, Racism and Homosexuality are explained in a historical context, with McDonald concluding that although Shakespeare was, “No revolutionary” (277), he was adept at challenging his audience to think critically about the English social systems. It is within this context of critical thinking that the Shakespearian scholar can begin to understand the layers of contradicting characters and plot lines.
An understanding of politics and religion in Shakespeare’s time provides insight into not only Shakespeare’s plays themselves but also into his longstanding popularity. McDonald describes Queen Elizabeth as a pragmatist, and genius at compromise, Parliament as responsive only to the wealthy, and the Church as, “virtually inseparable” (315), from politics. Because of the religious controversies that plagued the Elizabethan era, as well as an ideology of the Great Chain of Being that espoused the importance of a, “commitment to order and obedience…and a system of hierarchies…as a precondition for the peaceful and productive operation of society” (319), Shakespeare, in McDonald’s opinion, mostly avoided religious controversy and publically supported The Great Chain of Being. He cites the opening act of Troilus and Cressida where Ulysses laments the lack of order and, “dissolution of authority,” as an example of Shakespeare’s role as a, “willing spokesman for the orthodoxy of his age” (323).
The final installment of The Bedford Companion, Chapter 10, “From Bracegirdle to Branagh,” deals with the history of Shakespeare in performance. McDonald illuminates the cyclical fashion of stagecraft and discusses the technical and theatrical innovations of the past centuries. While this chapter seems out of place during this present reading, it is a testament to McDonald’s opening explanation: that we must recognize, “ that who we are determines what Shakespeare is…” (2). While this reader does not respond to the theatrical history of Shakespeare at this time, McDonald has amply proven that an interest in Shakespeare is fluid. An understanding of context adds layers of meaning to Shakespeare’s scripts, and each reading and each study opens a door to a level of curiosity previously unknown. The Bedford Companion succeeds in educating, entertaining and amplifying enjoyment (9).

Bears! Oh My

2010-11-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

Analysis essay on Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale

Corrie Greene
Journal on The Winter’s Tale
Dr. King
14 December 2010

Exit, Pursued by a Bear

The Bear poses not only a logistical problem to directors and producers of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, but a theoretical and analytical one as well. Is the bear the embodiment of Time, chasing its victims across the earth to their inevitable doom? Or, could it be Hermione transformed into a savage beast to destroy Antigonus as she had prophesied in his vision. Could the savage beast be a representation of King Leonte’s jealousy and how it consumed those around him? Finally, could the bear personify “Nature,” in the running, “Art Versus Nature,” theme of The Winter’s Tale?
(Weekly dates between this writer and Shakespeare preclude her from believing that the bear was simply the “animal du jour,” during the writing of The Winter’s Tale, and held no meaning beyond the fact that, “It would be verily quite awesome to allow yon grizzly to gambol with feet fleet across the Globe!”)
For the purposes of this journal, the Bear is the representation of King Leontes’ jealousy. Nice!
King Leontes is an immature guy. If he were one of my regulars back in my bartending days I would call him a, “Peter Pan,” owing to his refusal to completely grow up. Camillo describes both Leontes and Polixenes’ maturity as conditional to the, “royal necessities,” of their stations(1.1,26.) Polixenes tells Hermione of his childhood with Leontes and how they thought they would, “be boy eternal” (1.2,64.) Each King blames women for causing them to leave the pastoral world of their boyhood where they frisked and played like twin lambs. King Leontes lack of maturity leads him to jump to conclusions about his wife’s fidelity.
Shakespeare foreshadows a falling- out between the two in Polixenes admission that as lambs they did, “bleat the one at th’other” (1.2, 68,) and in Hermione’s observation that in her two times of graceful speech she only gained Polixenes as a friend for, “some while” (1.2, 108.) Leontes is silently resentful of his wife, he does not trust her, and his staunch vow of , “brother” (1.2,15,) to Polixenes is shown to be hollow.
Leontes begins to suspect Polixenes of fathering the young prince Mamillius. He allows his jealousy and resentment to infect his brain (1.2,11.) He rages against womankind in general, calling them, “false as o’erdyed blacks” (1.2, 132.) He mocks his friend Leontes calling him, “best brother,” while secretly hating him. He moves from the physical world to the spiritual world as he rants against Nature. Decrying the tender things of nature as a, “folly,” or deception, masking it’s hardness.
Leontes lapses into a memory of himself 23 years earlier, where he had to keep his dagger, “muzzled, lest it should bite its master, and so prove, as ornaments oft do, too dangerous” (1.2,156-58.) It is arguable that Leontes could be alluding to Hermione as the dagger that should have been muzzled so as not to cause him any pain. However, another interpretation is that Leontes jealousy, when unmuzzled or unleashed, was primed and ready to bite or devour.
Leontes begins his chase across the wasteland of his life. He plots to murder his friend Polixenes, he destroys his friendship with Camillo, and he strips his wife of her son, reputation, freedom and newborn. He threatens to “dash out,” the, “bastard brains,” of his newborn daughter, and when his confidant Antigonus attempts to dissuade him from his murderous thoughts concerning his child he threatens the life of Antigonus and his, “lewd-tongued wife” (2.3,170.)
Leontes has become a figurative bear, chasing down his prey and disemboweling them through heartbreak and fear. Antigonous, as he is leaving to take the child to its certain death, prays to Nature to instruct the “kites and ravens to be (her) nurses” (2.3, 184,5.) He also makes the observation that even bears can cast their savageness aside and have pity. Leontes will not cast off his savageness, he sends Antigonus on his way with the stubborn statement: “No, I’ll not rear another’s issue” (2.3, 190.)
On the island, Antigonus is given two warnings against leaving the child alone. The first is through the Mariner, who notices the omens in the heavens, and the second is by Hermione in a vision. In a picturesque speech to the baby he is about to abandon against his conscience, he says, “My heart bleeds, and most accursed am I” (3.3,51,) yet his fear of the King and his jealous rages is stronger than his moral obligation to a, “poor wretch.” The King has devoured Antigonus’ soul.
Enter the bear.
The bear chases Antigonus, just as Leontes chased Polixenes. The bear taunts Antigonus, just as Leontes taunted Hermione, Camillo, Paulina and Antigonus. And finally, the ravenous bear tears out Antigonus’ shoulder bone, removing, just as Leonte’s had with his threats of death against Antigonus’ family, his ability to help himself or anyone else. Finally, the bear seemingly destroyed any chance of baby Perdita’s survival when it killed Antigonus, just as King Leontes seemingly destroyed any chance of his family’s survival (and therefore his own) by causing the deaths of his wife and son.
Leontes removed the muzzle on his jealousy, and in doing so he not only caused himself great grief, but he devoured his son’s life, and sixteen years of his wife, Hermione’s. He mauled his friendship with Camillo and King Polixenes, and maimed his friend Antigonus’ soul so completely that he was killed leaving an infant to die on the beach of anther man’s kingdom. Although he sheathed his dagger and muzzled his jealousy, he could not recall the bear. The damage lay buried in the sand in Bohemia, and in the chapel where his son lay dead.

Aside: If the bear was Hermione she would be the Russian bear, since her father was, “The Emperor of Russia…” (3.2,117.)

Ethics Schmethics

2010-09-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

My first Ethics essays

1. Compare and contrast the ethics of Aristotle, Kant and Mill.

Aristotle opens the Nicomachean Ethics with the statement, “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.” It is within this claim that the basic premise of Aristotle’s view on ethics can be found.

Using mankind’s striving for an end result of good, Aristotle maps out both a theoretical and practical approach to ethics. Aristotle describes the highest good for humans as being happiness, which can be achieved by both actions and a constant mental striving for a virtuous character. According to Aristotle happiness is not possible without a virtuous character. To ensure the acquisition of a virtuous character Aristotle describes a sequence which, if followed, can lead to “the good,” or happiness: “Therefore, if there is only one final end, this will be what we are seeking, and if there are more than one, the most final of these will be what we are seeking.”

To accommodate finding the end (result) of a virtuous life which leads to the ultimate goal of happiness, Aristotle introduces the concept of a “mean,” or a place in the middle of the extremes of pleasure and pain, where the most virtuous course of action can be found.

While Aristotle does deal with pleasure and pain, he does not believe, as Mill does that “the most ethical action was that which brought the most people the greatest amount of happiness.” For Mill, happiness was also the greatest good, but it was achieved by, “pleasure and the absence of pain.” Aristotle’s happiness was a result of an, “activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.”

Both Mill and Aristotle make a distinction between, as Mill terms it, the base pleasures, or ones which are common to all animals not just men. Aristotle states, “Life seems to be common even to plants but we are seeking what is peculiar to man…” Mill extrapolates further that, “Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying.”

Kant challenges both Aristotle and Mill’s emphasis on happiness and virtue, arguing that happiness is based on luck and although we want to achieve happiness it is not always within our power to do so, and therefore the only thing that is good without any qualifications is a good will. Good will, according to Kant, must be universal, or applicable to everyone, and should stem from the application of duty. He is quick to distinguish the difference between acts done in accordance with duty and acts done for the sake of duty, emphasizing that only acts done for the sake of duty have the moral worth associated with Good Will.

Mill falls short of “poo-poo-ing” the notion of duty, acquiescing that there are events which demand the good or virtuous man to deny himself happiness out of duty towards another. However, he is quick to point out that pride in a sense of duty is not the “end,” (as Aristotle would say) instead he provides the caveat: “It is noble to be capable of resigning entirely one's own portion of happiness, or chances of it: but, after all, this self-sacrifice must be for some end; it is not its own end; and if we are told that its end is not happiness, but virtue, which is better than happiness, I ask, would the sacrifice be made if the hero or martyr did not believe that it would earn for others immunity from similar sacrifices?”

It appears that each new generation of philosopher takes from their elders what they feel is relevant and expands, modifies or ignores that with which they do not agree.

2. Name six of Aristotle’s moral virtues and briefly describe each.
• Courage: Aristotle states that this is a, “mean with regard to feelings of fear and confidence.” He is not saying that to be morally virtuous we should have no fear; in fact he allows that, “to fear some things is even right and noble.” He uses the example of a morally virtuous man fearing disgrace. Aristotle feels that to live a life where one acts in an upright manner because one fears being disgraced is good and modest and only a shameless man would not fear this end. He is quick to draw distinction between courage and the easy transference of the word “bravery,” which seems to hold much less moral worth to Aristotle, as he makes it out to be a subjective term. He also explains other applications of the word courage: the citizen-soldier, experience with regard to particular facts, acts from passion, courage in the sanguine, ignorance of danger
• Temperance: Aristotle calls this a, “mean with regard to pleasures.” Aristotle initially describes Temperance as being concerned with bodily pleasure, but then amends this blanket statement by removing the pleasures which deal with sight, sound, and smell. He explains that temperance is required for the “slavish and brutish,” pleasures: those of touch and taste. These are the pleasures which all animals have in common.
• Liberality: Aristotle speaks of Liberality as it concerns, “the giving and taking of wealth, and especially in respect of giving.” He further defines wealth as, “all the things whose value is measured by money.” Aristotle cautions that those who are “prodigal sons,” with their money and squander their wealth on self-indulgences are though to be, “the poorest characters,” as they combine several vices. Aristotle s quick to provide a description of what constitutes a liberal man: “Therefore the liberal man, like other virtuous men, will give for the sake of the noble, and rightly; for he will give to the right people, the right amounts, and at the right time.”
• Magnificence: Like Liberality, Magnificence is also concerned with wealth, but it has a narrower focus. Aristotle explains that Magnificence only deals with an, “expenditure involving largeness of scale,” within parameters similar to Liberality, as in: “It is what is fitting, then, in relation to the agent, and to the circumstances and the object.” Aristotle cautions that if the expenses are large and fitting, then the results should be as well, and that it is an excess to spend large amounts of money on objects or events that are not as important on the social scale.
• Pride: Aristotle defines Pride as a vice, but adds the disclaimer that, “they do not bring disgrace because they are neither harmful to one's neighbour nor very unseemly.” Pride is the mean between being a fool and being vain. The proud man is, “an extreme in respect of the greatness of his claims, but a mean in respect of the rightness of them; for he claims what is accordance with his merits, while the others go to excess or fall short.” Aristotle cautions that the proud man has the responsibility to be, “good in the highest degree,” because he deserves the most. He must be truly good and to be truly good he must possess, “greatness in every virtue.”
• Good Temper: Good temper falls into the category, like Liberality and Magnificence, of the moral virtue which must be applied at just the right time in just the right way. Aristotle explains that an act of anger, at the right time about the right injustice is virtuous, but that as a whole, the Good-Tempered man, “is thought to err rather in the direction of deficiency; for the good-tempered man is not revengeful, but rather tends to make allowances.” Aristotle admits that, “it is not easy to define how, with whom, at what, and how long one should be angry, and at what point right action ceases and wrong begins.” He decides that we must cling to the middle state. (Aside, he seems frustrated by Good-Temper, as witnessed by his curt segue at the end of the chapter, “Enough of the states relative to anger.”)

3. List four of Aristotle’s intellectual virtues and briefly describe each.

• Scientific Knowledge: Aristotle postulates that, “the object of scientific knowledge is of necessity.” This necessity makes it eternal. All scientific knowledge must be, “capable of being taught, and its object of being learned.”
• Practical Wisdom: Aristotle describes the mark of a man who possesses Practical Wisdom as being one who is, “able to deliberate well about what is good and expedient for himself,” (and mankind.) It stands to reason then that for a man to possess Practical Wisdom he must first be able to deliberate. Aristotle differentiates between Practical Wisdom and Scientific Knowledge or Art. Scientific Knowledge deals with demonstration and art deals with things which are, as Aristotle terms it, “invariable,” but Practical Knowledge is, “a true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man.” Aristotle also equates Practical Wisdom with action.
• Philosophic Wisdom: Aristotle defines Philosophic Wisdom as, “the state of mind concerned with a man's own interests.” He claims that there is a different Philosophical Wisdom for each of the species, just as there is a medicine for each type of illness. Philosophic Wisdom is also concerned with heavenly and divine aspects; Aristotle modifies his definition and expands it to, “philosophic wisdom is scientific knowledge, combined with intuitive reason, of the things that are highest by nature.” He emphasizes that it is important to have both Practical Wisdom and Philosophical Wisdom or else we will know things which are, “know things that are remarkable, admirable, difficult, and divine, but useless.”
• Art: Art is the, “reasoned state of capacity to make, and there is neither any art that is not such a state nor any such state that is not an art, art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning.” Aristotle describes art as being concerned with coming into being, but not necessarily concerned with whether should actually be or not be. Art for Aristotle must be, “a matter of making, not of acting.” Aristotle compares art to chance.

This Blessed Plot, this earth, this realm, this England

2010-09-19T19:01:00.001-07:00

Journal on Richard II

While it is possible to write at length about the various themes of Richard II, including:

· the historically differing views of the roles of kings: medieval Richard versus more modern Henry/Bolingbroke

· Shakespeare’s running metaphor of English Pride (I caught myself humming, “There Will Always Be An England, during Act Two Scene One’s “This happy breed of men, this little world; this precious stone set in the silver sea…This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England…”)

· Richard’s immaturity and short-sightedness as a ruler

· Shakespeare’s frequent reference to “flatterers,” but omission of any direct “Yes Men,” from the plot

· The series of compounding errors in judgment which eventually lead to Richard’s death

I choose to write about Shakespeare’s clever use of opposing plot lines to add irony and a sense of tension to the plot of Richard II.

At first glance, the primary plot concerns the rise of Bolingbroke (or Henry) and the fall of Richard. Various ancillary opposing plots such as the loyalty of the Dukes Aumerle, Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, Kent and others of the twelve, versus the treasonous Northumberland, Willoughby, Ross et all, or Bolingbroke’s word against Mowbray’s word, orbit around the Rise and Fall theme. However, I would argue that the unspoken main running theme is an interplay between Shakespeare and the audience or reader.

Throughout Richard II, Shakespeare urges his audience to consider the opposing plot lines of Richard as tragic hero or short-sighted villain. Initially, Shakespeare sets his audience members up with the understanding that Richard is, at heart, a medieval king, appointed by God: “God’s is the quarrel-for God’s substitute, His deputy anointed in his sight, Hath caused his death,” and therefore able to do as he will with his subjects. The complaints of his stripping the country men of their wealth and land become understandable when seen through the lens of a medieval king, who believed he owned all of the constituents within his kingdom.

Crashing into the audience’s new found leniency regarding Richard and his boorish handling of his kingdom comes an accusation of conspiracy to murder his cousin, the Duke of Gloucester. Richard is seen to encourage Mowbray’s silence before the anticipated duel: “Securely I espy virtue with valour couched in thine eye…” but then also seek to cover his bases by determining a, “dateless limit of thy dear exile…” to the unfortunate Mowbray.

Is Richard complicit in Gloucester’s murder? Shakespeare allows his audience to feel sympathy with John of Gaunt and Gloucester’s widow as they discuss their grief: John as the father of the ten years banished Bolingbroke (no, six! Four winters less!), and the Duchess of Gloucester, the kinswoman to Bolingbroke and Gaunt and widow of the Duke of Gloucester. John of Gaunt explains that he only participated in the council of banishment because he thought someone would stop him, and he didn’t want to be accused of, “a partial slander,” or partiality to his son in the knight’s duel. This sympathy towards the railroaded Gaunt and bereaved family leads one to begin to mistrust Richard.

Shakespeare peppers his work with references to flatters, poor council and youth, thus allowing the audience a sympathetic eye towards the laundry list of ill-fated choices Richard is displaying (banishment, blank charter, war with Ireland.) However, Shakespeare immediately undermines this sympathy by not only giving little to no direct evidence of flattery, but also providing enough historical evidence for the reader to divine that Richard was actually 31 years old when the play begins.

This cavalier and entitled sense of kingdom allows the audience to cheer when Bolingbroke marches back to his native soil, that glorious garden- England, to reclaim not only his legacy seized in the name of an antiquated medieval king, but also to challenge the very throne itself. The audience is ready for a modern king: “Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre’s gilt, and make high majesty look like itself…” Ready for a king who is loved by the nobility and the commoners alike: “Boys with women’s voices strive to speak big and clap their female joints…thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows...against thy state…both young and old rebel…”

And yet, out of left field Shakespeare launches a PR campaign of sympathy toward the abdicated throne. Richard appears pathetic, relying on his outdated, “appointment by God,” beliefs: “What must the King do now? Must he submit? The King shall do it…must he lose the name of king? A God’s name let it go.” He bargains with God for his life, offering up a life of rosaries and cloister. His sack cloth and ashes demeanor validated by the dumping of rubbish and no doubt ash on his head as he walks out of town.

Bolingbroke to some extent, but definitely Northumberland, are now villanized by Shakespeare, kicking the pathetic Richard while he is down: “Part of your cares you give me with your crown,” snarks Bolingbroke, reminding Richard of the bankrupt state of the kingdom Richard is relieving himself of. Northumberland badgers the former king with demands to read a statement of, “grievous crimes committed by your person…” so much that Bolingbroke finally commands, “Urge it no more!”

One final error leaves the audience reeling, as “Our Friend in the North,” Richard is murdered by Exton, a loyal subject of King Henry, who upon hearing the King, “wish him (Richard) dead,” decides to murder the exiled king. Yet unexplicably, King Henry grieves! Shakespeare deftly brings us full circle, back to the beginning of the play where the audience must decide if we believe one man’s protestations of innocence in the involvement of murder, or if he is complicit in the death of another by his words.

(less formal asides: Shakespeare is a genius…that line about “wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre’s gilt,” to an audience it could mean “gilt,” like the gold of royalty…”Whoo hoo let’s have a real king!” or “guilt,” as in Bolingbroke would now expose the treacherousness of Richard’s rule. He let the audience make inferences about the characters based on the audiences own dispositions. I am sort-of flabbergasted right now.)

Else the Puck a liar call...

2010-09-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

(Aside: The summer before my senior year of high school, when I was 16, I went to Nag’s Head. While I was there I went to the movie theatre with some friends and we watched “Dead Poet’s Society.” That was the night I decided I wanted to become and English professor. In the movie, one of the main characters plays the part of Puck, I loved Puck’s closing monologue so much that I went and bought the paperback of the play, and became a huge Shakespeare fan. Thanks Robin Williams, you’re the best!)

After reading Paradise Lost, Helena’s line, “I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,” stood out to me for the first time. Having focused on the self delusion that Satan uses as he declares that “the mind is its own place, and in its self can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven,” it was interesting to transfer that same spirit of self-delusion onto Helena.

Prior readings have formed a sisterly bond between Helena and myself. The first time I read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I was hopelessly in love with Jay S., who was equally as in love with a tall, dreamy hippy girl named Katie(?). Like Helena, I thought my erstwhile Demetrius loved me, once. (I didn’t quite shout, “He hailed down oaths that he was only mine!” but I did sulk a lot and complain to my friends, who all thought he was a dork and that my love had no “mind of judgment taste.”) And, if I could only, like Helena, follow him around enough and wear him down, my, “heart…as true as steel,” would be his. While he never spoke to me as harshly as Demetrius (“I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes, and leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.”) he did tell our mutual friend Marc Thorne that he wished I would, “get a life.”

Later I debated with a friend, who was pursuing her Masters in Feminist Literary Theory at, that Helena was actually a feminist heroine. She bucked tradition, I argued. She states, “We cannot fight for love, as men may do; we should be wooed and were not made to woo.” And yet, she fights tooth and nail to not be forgotten by Demetrius: revealing the elopement plans of Lysander and Hermia, she is willing to endure the emotional pain of the man she loves chasing after another woman, to hope fully win the battle for his heart when he realizes that Hermia will never love him. I did not create any converts in the Feminist Literary Criticism Tea and Whiskey Circle that night, although my reasons for backing Helena were legion.

Reading Helena through the eyes of Milton’s Satan, is to see her somewhere between the deluded Pathetic the womYn (that’s how they liked to spell their gender) in the Tea Circle saw her, and the Deluded Heroine making the best of her current situation of rejection. Just as Satan was, in one breath damned, and in the next, celebrating the fact the he was no longer under the thumb of God the Father.

Helena gave up her power, true. She states in a fury of passion that she is willing to be Demetrius’ dog to: “spurn, strike, neglect, lose,” for only the privilege of following him. Yet, were that her true character, and not simply another in a laundry list of Shakespeare’s examples of “what fools these mortals be,” Helena would have jumped at the chance to be loved by Demetrius when he was enchanted by the pansy juice. Instead, she is incredulous: “O Spite! O hell! I see you all are bent…” and she attempts to leave the woods where the four have finally come together to argue over who loves whom more passionately and truly.

I vacillate with Helena, as I do with Satan, between applauding the ability to find the lemonade in both banishment and rejection, and abhorring the degeneration of the soul that leads someone to give up their dignity for another, or for power. Puck reassures the audience that these questions are all a “weak and idle theme,” while God in PL reassures that, “order from disorder sprung,” each reminding the reader that we are capable of extremes of fancy and madness.

Much Ado About Modern

2010-09-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

Today's assignment is on Much Ado About Nothing

In Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, the first words the audience hears from Beatrice is, “I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?” This simple query is then followed by a vehement denial of either caring for or about Benedick (Signior Mountanto.) In fact, Beatrice does her best to disparage Benedick, scorning him and calling him a, “stuffed man,” and having only wit enough to stay warm and be distinguished from a horse.

The modern listener or reader is instantly clued in that this sharply written Beatrice and Benedick are a match made in Shakespearian heaven. One only has to turn on any of the 4,000 satellite and cable TV channels to see Shakespeare reinvented in the guise of the warring would be lovers. The shouting match preceding the passionate embrace has become almost de rigueur in modern romantic comedies and television sit-coms. Beatrice and Benedict are mimicked by the Jerrys and Elaines of 21st century humour, daily.

Likewise, the modern reader can sense that the malleable and weak characteristics of Claudio will lead his love of Hero to no good end. Shakespeare arms his audience with such examples of weakness as: an inability to court Hero himself, a readiness to accept Don Pedro’s offer to deceptively arrange their marriage, and an instantaneous mistrust of Don Pedro’s efforts at wooing Hero (“Thus answer I in the name of Benedick, but hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.’Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things save in the office and affairs of love.”) Shakespeare’s technique of foreshadowing of failures through character defects appear on screen today in the form of the Sopranos, Dexter, Don Draper in Mad Men, or Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Poirot series. (Just to name a cross-section.)

Consider also the trend of the character with the poor self-esteem and lack of self assurance. These characters are often manipulated by what is deemed in the modern screen play as, “The Big Bad.” “The Big Bad,” in MAAN is Don John, (“it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain.”) Written as a one dimensional evil character, he inherently sees the weakness in Claudio and knows that he can be used further a vendetta against his brother Don Pedro. (“Come, come, let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way.”)

Shakespeare has set a discerning audience up to witness the effects of this Big Bad on the life of weaker character. This plot-line surfaces in modern writing for screens of all sizes and pages as well. Combined with the angry lovers scenario and the weak- character- makes- for- a- mess- in- love scenario, MAAN reads much like a modern HBO series. Beatrice and Benedick are also modern and riveting in their banter, refusing even in love to be reduced to mere pleasantries, they could be the great great grandparents of Bruce Willis and Sibyl Shepherd's characters on Moonlighting:

CLAUDIO: And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her;
For here's a paper written in his hand,
A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,
Fashion'd to Beatrice.

HERO: And here's another
Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket,
Containing her affection unto Benedick.

BENEDICK: A miracle! here's our own hands against our hearts.
Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take
thee for pity.

BEATRICE: I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield
upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life,
for I was told you were in a consumption.

BENEDICK: Peace! I will stop your mouth.

While these scenarios were not necessarily new to Shakespeare, as explained by Thomas Marc Parrot and Robert Orenstein, Shakespeare was the literary genius that has turned them into gold, or now market shares and stock options to network executives the world over.

The Bard

2010-08-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

Nothing like Fall semester with the Bard...

Journal Entry for Two Gentlemen of Verona:

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona shows the early fascination of the author with the themes of Romantic Love, Friendship, Meddlesome parents and Disguise. The struggle between the friendship (phileo) love between Proteus and Valentine and the romantic love represented by both Julia and Silvia is a running theme throughout the entire play.

Shakespeare introduces this struggle in Valentines opening sentence: “Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus: home keeping youth have ever homely wits.” Valentine is inferring that by Proteus’ staying home for the love of Julia, he is in danger of becoming a dullard, and therefore, he, Valentine is preparing to sharpen his wit and bravery by going abroad, one of his final digs to his friend Proteus being, “Love is your master, for he masters you: And he that is so yoked by a fool, methinks, should not be chronicled for wise..”

However, Shakespeare wastes no time in having Valentine eat his own words to Proteus. He falls swiftly in love with Sylvia, and becomes the fool himself as his best friend attempts to steal his love from him.

Struggles between friendship and romance pervade Two Gentlemen, but the theme I found most interesting throughout Two Gentlemen stems from the aforementioned deception between Proteus and Valentine. Shakespeare’s use of disguise and deception touched nearly every major character in the play:

• Speed is deceived by Lucetta when he delivers Proteus’ letter to the woman he thinks is Julia. Her silence, so as not to give herself away as being a servant, forms the incorrect opinion the Julia is, “hard,” and that Proteus should take this into consideration and ,”give her no token but stones. She’s as hard as steel.”

• Julia deceives Lucetta into thinking that she cares nothing for Proteus, “Why he, of all the rest, hath never moved me.”

• Proteus withholds the fact that his love for Julia is reciprocated, and because of this deception he has to leave Verona and Julia. “I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter, lest he should take exceptions to my love.”

• Speed tells Valentine that he is deceived by his love for Sylvia… “S: If you love her you cannot see her. V: Why? S: Because love is blind…”

• Silvia deceives Valentine into thinking he is writing a letter to another of Silvia’s suitors, “As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter unto the secret nameless friend of yours.” Because he does not know that the letter is intended for himself, he writs the letter very “gently,” or stiff; this causes Silvia to return the letter and chide Valentine, “Ay, ay: you writ them, sir, at my request; but I will none of them; they are for you; I would have had them writ more movingly.”

• Love itself is identified as a chameleon, which has a deceptive connotation

• Proteus deceives Julia, swearing to her, “Here is my hand for my true constancy…” only to compare her to a waxen image in front of a fire, and “She is fair; and so is Julia that I love-that I did love, for now my love is thaw'd…”

• Valentine accuses Thurio of appearing to be something he is not: “T: What seem I that I am not? V: Wise.” Also in this same scene Thurio is accused of being a chameleon by Valentine because he has gotten so angry at their volley of words that his face has changed colour.

• Valentine deceives the Duke even though he knows that the Duke prefers Thurio as a suitable husband to Silvia. He plans to elope with Silvia in the night. “Ay, and we are betroth'd: nay, more, our marriage-hour, with all the cunning manner of our flight, determined of; how I must climb her window…”

• Starting in Scene IV Proteus goes on a rampage of deception, starting by deceiving himself: “I cannot now prove constant to myself, without some treachery used to Valentine.” And then forming a plan to have Valentine banished, and, “by some sly trick,” make Thurio fall from grace in the Duke’s eyes, which will leave himself to pick up the pieces of Silvia’s broken heart.

• Julia deceives everyone she comes in contact with as she has Lucetta disguise her as a page so she can travel to where her love Proteus. Shakespeare gives great detail about disguising her appearance, even how she did her hair, “I'll knit it up in silken strings with twenty odd-conceited true-love knots.” Shakespeare does a nifty job of pitting Proteus’ self-deception about forswearing his love to Julia against Julia’s dialogue with Lucetta where she describes Proteus as, “His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles, his love sincere, his thoughts immaculate, his tears pure messengers sent from his heart, his heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.”

• Proteus deceives Valentine by turning him in to the Duke after Valentine has confided his elopement plans. At the same time he is deceiving the Duke about his intentions to Silvia and Thurio about his support of the union between Thurio and Silvia.

• The Duke deceives Valentine by inventing a lover who he is unsure about her affections to himself. He coaxes Valentine into giving him his overcoat where he finds the concealed rope ladder and a love letter. Valentine’s treachery infuriates the Duke: “Be gone! I will not hear thy vain excuse; but, as thou lovest thy life, make speed from hence.”

• Valentine deceives the Outlaws into thinking he is a murderer.

• Julia continues to deceive those around her, and somehow weasels her way into Silvia’s service.

• Valentine attempts to deceive Silvia by claiming Julia is dead, and that Valentine is dead.

Through all of this deception Shakespeare builds up to the moment of revelation where all of the lies are to be uncovered. Sebastian reveals that he is in fact Julia, Valentine is confronted with his betrayal (and tendencies toward rape and bullying and basic pathological liar characteristics), the Duke sees his daughter’s love for Valentine, Valentine stands up to Thurio, Thurio backs down….all of these scenes are written realistically, if not a it brief when compared to the build up.

Uncharacteristically false, or at least careless is Shakespeare’s “Then I am paid…” speech, where Valentine immediately forgives Proteus and offers him either Silvia herself, or “all that was mine in Silvia I give thee…” meaning he again has the deep love for Proteus that he currently has for Silvia. Either way, it seems like a quick finish and a get out of jail free card to not have to write the ramifications of such pervasive deceit out in full.

Speed and Launce should have their own sit-com on PBS Saturday nights.

house etc

2010-06-06T17:32:00.000-07:00

So the house move is going gangbusters. We have had a bevy of water leaks, including one minor (ha!) bathroom ceiling waterfall, and several ripped out places to fix the plumbing. After all of that fun, we ripped off the two story porch on the front of the house. The one that had been damaged by the tree falling on it, and then left to its own devices for two years.

The house already looks better.

The lens of my camera is broken (of course) but whenever I get it serviced I can post pictures.

Oh, after two mowings of, what can only be loosely called lawn, we discovered a nice wide sidewalk and a flagstone path. Bully for us!

The best decoration for the yard though is not the indigenous mountain stonework we did around the weeping cherry, no, it is the giant yellow yard skip holding all of the gutted bits of the house...signaling in the start of the new!

On a totally unrelated note: We have boycotted Wal-Mart for 4 years now, and I only just found this site:

The People of Wal-Mart
It is disturbingly awesome.

Here's a teaser:

Gripe

2010-05-07T07:39:00.001-07:00

I have a gripe...I know this is the kinder gentler version of my blog, but I feel I would be selling myself short if I didn't mention this:

When did the phrase, "on line," become the appropriate way to describe yourself standing, "in line," or en queue or queued up?? It is without a doubt the most annoying morph of the English language that I have experienced in...I'm going out on limb here...the past decade.

This has to be as bad as it was for my mother when, "bad," became good.

Except that it's my generation who is saying this ridiculous descriptor.

I blame the hipsters. Stupid name dropping, foodie wanna-be, pin striped hat wearing, dogs as children hipsters.

That's it. I'm done. Back to the mundane.

The End is Near

2010-05-07T05:46:00.000-07:00

One more week, two more papers and I am done! Then I get 2 weeks of "vacation," to pack and teach at the Montessori school, and then camps start. Still, it will be nice to not have to analyze every thought that passes through my head.

We had the house inspection, and there were no surprises...it was really as bad as it seemed! HA! So, we close in 12 days. Wow! I've planned the kitchen down to the dollar, drawn it in 3 dimension, watercoloured it...I'm obsessed. Now if only building it were that easy.

Dodge

2010-04-21T05:35:00.000-07:00

Last night was our dodgeball tournament. We came in 3rd...we should have been 2nd, but another team cheated. I know, I know, a likely story! But really, they did. Summer league starts soon, and we will be avenged, I'm sure!

I completed the final draft of my Advanced French paper, which I would post here, but seeing as it would make no sense...it really is pointless. It was on Simone de Beauvoir; she was kind-of slutty, although she would say, "enlightened." But, whatever.

We put a bid in on a house yesterday, and have to wait until at least 5:00 today to find out what the seller said. It's this crazy old bed and breakfast, built in 1910...a tree fell on it, so there is extensive exterior damage, and it is rough going on the inside too. But, the foundation is good, and it's 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, almost 3,000 square feet...so it will definitely hold all of us. Realistically, it will take us about three years to make the house right, but that's ok. There will be a bunch of equity in it when we are done.

Anyhow, here's hoping.

F. Scott Fitzgerald Essay:

In "Winter Dreams," F.Scott Fitzgerald provides his readers with the physical character of Dexter Green while simultaneously having Dexter represent the vacant failures of a life based on dreams and wishes. Adept at creating pictures of human failings, Fitzgerald is careful to show Dexter in all of his frail glory.

Dexter lives his life focused on what he wants his reality to either be, or grow to be. These are his Winter Dreams. He caddy's for pocket money, creating scenarios in his mind featuring himself as the amazing golfer who beats the gold club royalty, Mr. T.A. Hedrick. He chooses his school based on the fact that it had the reputation for being, "the best," and the best was what he "often reached out for...without knowing why he wanted it" (2188).

In Dexter's mind, Judy Jones is the best. It is up to the reader to decide if it was in one of those, "reaching for the best and not knowing why," moments that Dexter chose rather to quit caddy-ing, than to appear subservient and unworthy of Judy, or if he quit because he had intuition that she was too much of a hassle to get involved with. it is likely that Dexter, with his uncanny ability to seek out the, "glittering things" (2188), saw the shine on Judy even at the young age of 11.

Dexter's failing, of course, is that he sees the faults of Judy Jones, and yet he is content to live in his dream. She has a dozen suitors and he sees her methods of stringing them along, but he is willing to dangle from her string. Even confessing that, "he had been hardened against jealousy long before" (2196). He prefers to live in his dream world where there is always the possibility of Judy.

Winter of his 24th year brought about the realization that he would never truly "have Judy Jones" (2196); he could never really have his dream. So, he settled on a much less exotic, yet equally socially valuable wife. But, the dream lingered in the background. One request to come in for the night brings him back into the web of Judy. She is the glitteriest of the glittery things, even clad all in gold. He wants to believe her proposal of marriage, even though his every experience tells him it will be a failure.

The hurt that he causes himself and others is worth the momentary possession of his dreams. It is only with the revelation that the glitter has faded and that Judy is no longer an unattainable dream, but instead a study in spent reality that Dexter's heart breaks.

Emptiness comes to Dexter, like so many of F.Scott Fitzgerald's characters, in the moment that their failings of thought and emotion become their empty realities. Dexter lost the ultimate success, when he lost the Judy of his Winter Dreams.

Behind

2010-04-15T06:13:00.001-07:00

I'm posting the fourth and fifth Faulkner essay, because we are moving on to the next book, "The Red Badge of Courage," and I still haven't caught up with F. Scott Fitzgerald essays etc.

Faulkner IV:

Jason's remark to the drummer (p191) "I give every man his due, regardless of religion or anything else" (191), is a stellar example of the Compson family's deluded view of themselves.

Quentin views himself as the avenging lover to Caddy. Mrs Compson sees herself as the long suffering, trod upon martyr of the family. And, Jason fancies himself an even handed, tolerant man. Yet, Quentin is a suicidal and homicidal college student; Mrs. Compson is a manipulative, calculating matriarch, and Jason is a cold, closed minded bigot.

He considers his niece, Miss Quentin to be a "slut" (185), who is, "slipping around...like a n*gger wench" (188,89). He complains about Uncle Job, the older black man who works with him, postulating, " What this country needs is white labor. Let these dam trifling n*ggers starve for a couple of years, then they'd see what a soft thing they have" (190,91). To the same man that he claims to give, "every man his due," he proceeds to rage against the jewish race, claiming in one breath that he has, "nothing against jews as an individual" (191), and in the next breath accusing, "It's just the race. You'll have to admit they produce nothing" (191).

Jason is outwardly in control, much more so than Benjy or Quentin, yet he is a facade. Inside he is a megalomaniac, claiming that the only way to surprise his lover, other than cash, is "a bust in the jaw" (193). He holds the people he is in charge of under his thumb, and cannot understand why they desperately want to wriggle free.

Faulkner V:

The fourth and final section of "The Sound and the Fury," functions as the sort of wrapping paper on the proverbial package that Benjy, Quentin and Jason provided. Through the eyes and voice of an omniscient narrator (and sometimes Dilsey) the reader is treated to further insights and some much needed closure.

Long suffering Dilsey has, throughout the book, served as a vivid foil to the flighty, hyper-emotional, irrational Compsons. She has remained stalwart, loyal, practical and logical in the face of castration, banishment, alcoholism, and suicide. For her voice to guide us to the end of the novel is a smooth and fitting end to a rather bumpy ride.

Dilsey has switched her concerns to Miss Quentin, Caddy's daughter, as she is browbeaten by the sadistic Jason. Even as she protects and soothes Quentin, she is scorned by her; reminding the reader that Dilsey is not equal to the Compson. This occupational inequality makes Dilsey's loyalty all the more comment worthy.

Dilsey is a firm proponent of keeping the peace. Benjy cries? Give him the slipper. Mrs. Compson whines? Shrug it off and make biscuits. Jason tries to beat on Miss Quentin? Let him beat on her instead. This keeping of the peace is a painful juxtaposition to the closing scene where we, the readers, find Luster taking Benjy to the graveyard:

Instructed by Dilsey, in an effort to keep the peace, to take Benjy on his usual weekly visit to the graves of his family, Luster is showing off with Queenie-the horse. Jason has been robbed by Miss Quentin and has gone crazy, Mrs Compson is locked up in her room bemoaning her fate, and TP, the usual surrey driver, has gone to ST John's. Luster is the only one left to drive the surrey.

In an effort to impress some others at the graveyard, Luster whips Queenie and speeds around to the left of the graveyard monument. This deviation from what is the regular order of operations on these outings sends Benjy over the edge. Faulkner describes is as, "horror, shock, agony" (320). It is in that moment that the reader sees the futility-the actual Shakesperian, "Sound and Fury,"- of the entire novel. There is no breaking free, no turning to the left...for the Compson's: "t'was always thus; and always thus will be."

Mid Something

2010-04-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

It is the middle of April already. Are you kidding me? Welcome to birthday season, whether I like it or not... Josh's birthday is tomorrow and we are having a "Lorax" unit at his school. I get the Lower El and Upper El classes for the afternoon, and we are planting an herb garden for the school. Then my dad is going to read "The Lorax," (Josh's favourite book) and then Lorax shaped garden markers will be available to paint for everyone to take home, along with sunflower seeds to plant.

The only thing stumping me is a snack that still shouts "Birthday," but doesn't affect anyone with wheat or sugar issues. Maybe Popsicles made with fruit juice. I don't know...

After that we have Chloe, turning the big 1-5, and pestering us to no end about her Learner's Permit, and when we are going to get her a car ("10 minutes to never!" is what I feel like saying.)

Fast on the heels of Chloe is Cammie, turning her milestone of 13, and planning her trip to the Big Apple, which means more pestering, only this time about ways to make money...and NO, it will not be babysitting...that is not her gift.

Around the corner after Cam is Millie, turning 4 and wanting a Princess cake, although it needs to feature the frog heavily. "How about a Frog Cake?" I wonder to her..."If it can be pink," she decides.

Advanced French paper has been written and turned in for its first translation edit. My poor professor. Research paper on the differing schools of thought on the authourship of the Gospel of John V. 1-3 John, has been researched, but not written. Paper on a Modern's view of Pauline Marriage Tenets has not been researched or written...yet.

English presentation on Round Characters and Flat Characters in Great Expectations and Adam Bede has been researched and completed. F.Scott Fitzgerald paper for US Lit is in the third and final Edit for my end of year thesis...

So basically, 5 papers in varying stages of completion due in the next 3 weeks, and 1 presentation (with 2 other people...I can do that in my sleep!)

Next semester has been registered for, we have:

Shakespeare by Arrangement: basically I read every play written by Shakespeare and check in with my professor via journaling, meetings and one big paper.

US Literature III by Arrangement: same as above, but US Lit from 1930-present day

Non Fiction Narrative Writing: me blogging and turning it in for credit. It's supposed to be a class about, "Writing the Story of Your Life..." oh dear! :O

The Writer's Experience: I have no idea what this is, but it's taught by the lady who heads up the Writing Scholar Program, so I figure there's some editing stuff involved.

Ethics: ooooohhhhhh noooooo!

Computer Competency Exam: not fun. I still don't know how to format a margin.

That's it folks. Only two classes are actually on campus, which is awesome as I will be working a total of 52 hours per week between all of my jobs.

Life...it does not stop.

I can't remember if I finished Faulkner essays yet...

No, I didn't.

Faulkner III

Quentin's section of "The Sound and the Fury," bears some similarities to Benjy's section. Despite being considered competent (compared to Benjy's mental retardation) and stable enough to be sent off to Harvard, Quentin is, in fact, worse off than his simple minded brother.

Benjy loves Caddy because Caddy represents safety and understanding to him. She interprets his needs, enables him to socialize and protects him when he is upset. Benjy is obsessed with Caddy as a small child fixates on their favourite sibling, only he never grows out of his fixation, because he never grows up.

Quentin however is obsessed with controlling and containing Caddy. He is mentally whole, it appears, and yet he drives himself mad wondering about her every move and motive. He would rather slit her throat with a knife and then his own, rather than have her marry Herbert Head. He is fascinated and repelled by her at the same time.
His sexual confusion towards her, causes an ambiguous memory about what could be interpreted as a clumsy attempt at a triste with a girl named Natalie, or a forceful unwanted encounter. In either case he is vigorously rejected and told to "keep your nasty old hands off of me" (136).

Quentin is completely saturated with his fixation. It occupies his every thought and orchestrates his encounters with others. He often asks them, "do you have a sister," and he fights the unsuspecting Gerald Bland for imagined disrespect to Caddy: "did you ever have a sister? Did you?" (166)

Quentin's unhealthy obsession with his sister leads him to perjure himself to his father, confessing to incest and its resulting pregnancy to his Father. His hope to be the worst two sinners in hell, and thus be alone with Caddy being the final straw in the bale of insanity that he had become.

Benjy loved Caddy as a child would love: deeply but with less dimension; purely. He was disabled, but true. Quentin was considered sane, but inside he was a man filled with a twisted version of love as power and control and jealousy. In the end, his suicide showed his fragile mental state.

Excellent

2010-04-01T06:15:00.000-07:00

it's been a lovely week, both figuratively and literally. All of the assignments pressing down on me were completed...most of them with sparkly good grades...except for one dodgy French test where I had to write a response to a Dear Abbey question. I believe Abby's response sounded much like a disabled 7 year old penned the words.

Je Regret!

The atmosphere at my house has been great; dodgeball kicked serious arse. Um, everything pretty good except for pesky Fall scheduling where I realized that it is nigh unto impossible to get classes to fit into your schedule at a school the size of a hat pin head. I will not change schools this late in the game just because I'm feeling petulant about a Milton course not being offered in the time slot I need it. I. Will. Not. Have. A. Tantrum.

On to Faulkner, then to the office at Montreat, then to teach at the Montessori school...then to work the Seder/Maundy Thursday Service...mmmm, It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood!

Faulkner II

Having read ahead, into Quentin's section, I have the context to zero in on an inconsistency. Views of parents typically differ between siblings; this is not uncommon. However, the portrayal of Father through the eyes of Benjy in the second part of his chapter shows a man nearly unrecognizable to the man described in Quentin's chapter.

Benjy remembers a time when his Father removes him from his mother's room where she had the "sick cloth" on her head. He takes the children to the library where they sit and talk. Benjy remembers his father smelling like rain (64), and later Quentin comes in and he too smells like rain (66). Even in the midst of disciplining Jason, and scolding Caddie, Benjy's reminiscence ends with Caddy and Jason and Father snuggled up in Mother's chair. Benjy describes the fire jumping off of Caddy's hair, and Father reaching down and picking him up to join the others. A tender, Fatherly moment.

Even though Quentin is not mentioned as being in the family pack, Benjy does describe the exchange between Father and Quentin as they discuss Quentin's fight in a comical manner. Only later, as Dilsey tucks them into bed, do we notice Quentin's crying and assume that, like Jason, Quentin has received a spanking for his misbehaving.

Benjy, as the perpetual child, views his Father in a benevolent, flawless manner. He has the benefit of never needing his father's advice about women, or virginity, or family obligation. He is blissfully able to remain locked in his memory of the firelight jumping off of his family as they sat, hanging onto their Father's neck, at bedtime.

Vintage

2010-03-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

I only have the barest of moments to write this, but I was inspired by Scott's blog (Sartorialist...link on the side bar) He is doing Vintage style shots sent in by readers of his blog. They are incredible.

Yesterday I finally worked up the nerve to go through a big pile of photographs from the old house. Inside of a folder I found stacks of black and white snaps. My grandfather looking dapper in a sportcoat and fedora hat.My grandmother, slim and lovely in a wrap dress that I would love to have in my own wardrobe. My mother sat on a table top with a birthday cake...the writing on the picture was "First birthday."

My Uncle was there looking young and fearless in his WWII uniform; laughing and holding a doll out to my mother. Digging deeper, I found my grandparents wedding photographs and pictures of my grandfather as a baby...faded and silvery from age.

Under neath those were my baby portraits, and family portraits dating back to 1973. Nearly every single one of them. The one of my grandfather and laughing at something the photographer must have said brought me to tears...

...because all of these photos were dug out of the garbage.

Spring

2010-03-30T06:06:00.001-07:00

My toes saw the light of the sun last week, and now I refuse to put them away...even in the face of the fickle mountain springtime.

It's been crazy hectic with school and life etc. I feel like my nose is just breaking the surface, but if I can tread water for six more weeks...it's over for the summer. Unfortunately, those six Weeks consist of 4 research papers (one written entirely in advanced French) and three presentations. Not to mention coordinating summer camps, which I am abysmally behind on.

The last book I read (in 3 days) was Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and I've been too busy to come up to the computer lab and post anything about it...but man, I love those stream of conscious Modernists. I remember reading this book before, but I don't know for which class. It must've been when I was younger and mostly skimmed, as I only remember the flash bits; like castration and suicide.

Journals to follow:

I don't even know how to begin a journal about this book...it is mind bending.

Benjy, part one:
Somewhere in the back of my mind I have read this book before. For instance, I knew about the time jumps, and the two Quentin’s...some of the details that would cause a person doing a cold reading to go absolutely crazy trying to figure this all out.

Even still, my book is covered in brackets, denoting: "Present," "Past: Christmastime," or "Past: swimming at the branch." Couple this with notes like: Damuddy dead, pre-dammudy death' Versh caretaker-Benjy small; pre-name change; post name change, Miss Quentin, Quentin brother, Mr. Jason, Jason the son...Faulkner becomes a maze of clues, and I become a rat searching for the Pavlovian prize.

One technique I notice, as I read Benjy's reminiscences is the lack of punctuation and how it is used to demonstrate Benjy's state of mind. Periods and commas are the only punctuations. Questions are not studded with a question mark; instead they fall flat, a dead thud where the voice should rise. I wonder, is the question even important, does the answer matter?

Quotes are left naked with no quotation marks to prove that the statement was ever made. Benjy's mind flows on in perfect stream of conscious bliss, never stopping to confirm that a word is exactly as it was fifteen years ago. The lack of quotations reminds the reader to consider the source, is he reliable in his memories?

Benjy's memories are shocking at times. The smells of childhood are mingled with smells of pain, rejection, death and promiscuity, yet not a single exclamation point graces Faulkner’s pages. To Benjy, his exclamations, queries and statements are driven by the volume and length of his bellows. We as the reader would do well to tune into the severity of his moans to determine the priority of the situation.

Browning

2010-03-12T07:36:00.001-08:00

Last day of school for a bit! Here is my exam on Brownings Dramatic Monologue: "Count Gismond."

I Was Just Telling Adela

The literary technique of Dramatic Monologue provides its audience with a uniquely entertaining point of view. The nature of the monologue is to have one person speaking to another who is allowed no reply. Therefore the audience is left to decipher whether or not the narrator is a reliable source. Often times, through the relaying of the story, the narrator leaves behind clues to their true nature, and, as is the case in Brownings poems, there is a twist at or near the end where the audience not only finds out who the unseen listener is, but also is allowed a clearer picture of the intent of the narrator.

These facets all show themselves in Browning’s poem, “Count Gismond,” where Browning’s focus is on the Countess Gismond and an underlying feeling of illicit secrecy that hangs about her tale. Browning is no stranger to secrecy in his dramatic monologue poems; he uses this human failing to great advantage in, “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,” as the audience listens in amazement to the secret murderous hatred of one supposed man of God to another. We also witness the secret revengeful rage of a scorned woman in, “The Laboratory.” By exploiting human fissures in sanity and flaws of character, Browning utilizes the techniques of dramatic monologue to create a tension within his poem, which creates an audience fully vested in the outcome.

In “Count Gismond,” we, the reader are faced with the challenge of determining the believability of our narrator, the Countess Gismond. She is the speaker and the teller of the tale; therefore she controls its crafting. As her story unfolds, we do not know to whom she is telling this story; it could be a magistrate, a priest, or a child on their wedding night. We are left to trust her as she bobs and weaves. The unspeaking listener is the perfect foil against the dominating narrator, and their unfolding relationship keeps the reader’s interest piqued. Browning reveals his unseen listeners sometimes overtly, as in “Count Gismond’s” case, where the Countess, in the last stanza calls her by name: Adela. Or, he may reveal the listener by inference, as in the case of “The Laboratory,” where it is only by the type of statements made by the narrator that we sort out that she is speaking to a chemist perfecting her poison.

Besides the narrator, the listener and the interplay with the audience, Browning provides each of his dramatic monologues with a specific occasion. In “Count Gismond,” it is the story of a princess’s honour being called into question on her birthday and coronation day. Again, as she, the scorned princess, is telling the story, we are provided with the opportunity to be shocked at the impertinence of Count Gauthier. We wonder why he would spoil the beautiful day of an orphaned princess. However, as we read more closely, or listen as the case may be, we catch inconsistencies in the princess’s tale. She begins to reveal her character.
The now Countess Gismond, takes great pains that her listener would understand the jealousy of her cousins: “I thought they loved me, did me grace to please themselves; twas all their deed” (13, 14). She sets us up to feel that their jealousy was all part of a plot to destroy her. But, looking more closely we can see the condescending manner in which she refers to them, “They too so beauteous! Each a queen…Not needing to be crowned, I mean, as I do” (19-22). She felt they were beneath her.

Later we see the Countess employ the tried and true technique of having her memory erased. She claims to have no memory of what she happened when she was accused of having spent the night with Count Gauthier before she was married. Very convenient. Just at this moment in the story, she also pauses to see where her husband, and champion, Count Gismond is; “See! Gismond’s at the gate, in talk with his two boys: I can proceed” (49, 50). As the reader, we must also pause and wonder why it matters if the supposed hero of the story is around to hear her brag of the events to come….unless she is spinning the tale in an false direction. The only other person present who knows truth of the story is Count Gismond, and she is making sure that he is out of earshot.

Browning now has revealed both the circumstance of the tale: an accusation of promiscuity: “Shall she whose body I embraced all night long, queen it in the day?” (58, 59) and the character of the Countess, she is hiding something. Browning continues to allow the Countess to unintentionally reveal her character to the audience as she relates the tale of the duel to avenge her honour between Count Gauthier and Count Gismond. She takes for granted that her listener will not challenge her statements of purity, even though we notice that she never actually denies the charges of sexual impropriety. Stating only, “I? What I answered? As I live, I never fancied such a thing” (61, 62).

Gauthier is, naturally, defeated by Gismond and forced to recant his accusation, but we as the readers must remember the statement made by the Countess earlier when she flippantly told her listener, “What says the body when they spring some monstrous torture-engine’s whole strength on it? No more says the soul” (64-66). Should we believe a man being threatened with death?

We readers are hooked. Browning has utilized all of the tools in his Dramatic monologue tool kit to entrance us. We wonder about the Countess; hang on every word looking for double meanings and shades of grey. We wonder about Count Gismond, what his reaction would be to this version of the tale. Finally we come to the conclusion.
In other dramatic monologues by Browning, he gives his audience some satisfaction and closure. In “My Last Duchess,” we learn that the entire monologue was a chilling warning about the expectations of a Duke towards his next Duchess.” In “Porphyria’s Lover,” we find that the unseen listener is the corpse of Porphyria. In “Count Gismond,” however, we do not get a full sense of closure, only some inference. We learn that the Countess is talking, perhaps in the garden, to another woman named Adela. She is most likely a peer, as it is doubtful that Countess Gismond would be speaking this freely with any member of her staff. And, we can assume that she is someone who did not know the Countess when she was a princess, or any of the “vexed” cousins. She would have no reason to doubt the Countess.

Browning delivers the final jab at the Countesses reliability, and one more moment of satisfactory tension for his reading audience when he shows the blatant deceit of the Countess. In mid justification of the parentage of her first born son: “Our elder boy has got the clear Great brow” (121,22), she pauses, as she sees her husband the Count approaching, and blithely says, “I was just telling Adela how many birds it (the tercel) struck since May” (125,26).

Browning uses his skill in the elements of dramatic monologue to bind us to his poem. He creates a moment where we feel as though the Countess is speaking to us, and we are driven to unearth the truth or deception behind her story.

Midterm

2010-03-11T06:05:00.001-08:00

Today is my New Testament Midterm. I'm having a hard time retaining everything for this class. Lots of timeline things which I am abysmal at.

I'm looking very forward to Spring Break where I will be cleaning my house and working at the Montessori schools.

Lovely rest for the brain...other than that pesky F. Scott Fitzgerald project and the reading of those two novels...and studying French for an hour a day...and working at my regular job...and trying to do the whole, "being successful at something on my own running project"...and going to Cammie's track meet...and signing Josh up for Spring soccer...and Millie up for Smart Start Soccer...and taking Carson to book club...and trying to keep up with what friend Chloe is talking about...and Soccer with Todd...and Dodgeball...and therapy...and communication

It's going to be a super relaxing Spring Break!

If I can do: clean house
novels
therapy
communication
dodgeball

That will be good.

Essay on "Trifles."

One of the tenets of The Unwritten Rules of the Good Wife is that, "Thou shalt not leave dirty dishes in the sink when you leave the house in case something happens and the long arm of the law has to come in and examine your house upon your untimely demise..." There are other rules, such as, "Thou shalt always have ketchup in the cabinet," and "Thou shalt not let the toilet paper run out in the house..." These rules are quietly passed down from mother to daughter, or in a more frequent, yet less talked about instance, from Mother-In-Law to Daughter-In-Law after a surprise visit where the daughter in law was found to be reading a historical fiction novel on the sofa while dirty dishes lay unchecked on the countertop by the draining board.

"Trifles," illuminates the details that are so important to a housewife. The certain shelf where the preserves rest, the place where the bread rises, the order in which even the dirty dishes are placed in the sink. When things are in disarray, the house tells the story.

The men in, "Trifles," are looking for the big clues. The motive bearing "stunner," that breaks the murder case wide open. To them the incidentals of everyday huswifery are trivial; telling them nothing but superficial judgements about Mrs. Wright's fitness as a housekeeper. But the women see the emotion that the empty house leaves behind even after its mistress has been taken to jail.

The temperature of the house is cold, but it is nothing compared to the coldness of spirit that lingers even after it's inhabitants have gone. Mrs Hale refers to the house as "never seem(ing to be) a very cheerful place," and when pressed by the County Attorney she elaborates that it wasn't as much because of Mrs Wright's lack of homemaking skills, but because of John Wright. He is described as not cheerful, "close," "no company," a hard man and "like a raw wind that gets to the bone." (1973-74)

The quilting work shows the women that all was not well in the emotions of Mrs. Wright. Her stitches, before so neat and tidy, were jagged and "all over the place," (1973) this showed the women that something had happened to break Mrs. Wright's reserve; something had changed from one patch to another.

Other trifles complete the picture of the motive for the women as they sit, forgotten, in the kitchen of the cold crime scene while the men think big thoughts and search for big answers. The bird cage with the wrenched off door leads to memories of a once fluttery sweet voiced Minnie Wright nee Foster who, like her bird had had her voice choked out of her by Joe. The discovery of the choked bird with its neck broken brings the women closer to feeling Mrs. Wright's misery than in previous moments: "If there'd been years and years of nothing, then a bird sings to you, it would be awful-still, after the bird was still" (1975).

The women debate amongst themselves about the finer points of the law and crime and punishment. Their definition of crime leaning more towards an organic, emotional crime of isolation and the crimes women afflict on each other causing them to drift apart even in the midst of experiencing the same loneliness. In the end, it is the trifles that unite them, in much the same way as the trifles show the cracks in the facade of the perfect life...the quiet life of the house in the hollow; with it's dirty towel roll and suspicious windows.(1970,1976).

Dodge

2010-03-10T05:49:00.000-08:00

Last night was game one of my third season playing dodgeball. (Yet another tidbit I find hysterical since I am far from what one might term, "Athletic.") Anyhow, we broke from the Camino's team this season, and put together another team. Some of the Camino team players came with us, but they were all our friends and not really employees. So now we have a little friendly rivalry with our old team.

It's not quite fair though, as we are: A. Sober when we play. Big advantage there, and B: we have three guys off of the watershed soccer team, and the coach for the Montreat Women's softball team, as well as his assistant coach and two of their really good players...and me...and my friend J amie. We add the humour to the squad.

The sad thing is that we play this most excellent team called "En Fuego." They are like Movie Worthy. We got killed! Out of maybe 8 matches, we won UNO against these guys. Here's the insult. They're in 9th and 10th grade.

We comfort our bruised egos by insisting that they are closer to the ground and haven't damaged themselves any with life yet.

Langston Hughes essay today:

For me, I shudder with embarrassment when I read Langston Hughes' "Mulatto," and "Visitors to the Black Belt,"; I sway with delight when I read, "The Weary Blues; I swell with misplaced pride when I chant, "I, Too," and I smile as I feel the tearing of the 23 year old student in "Theme for English B." That is the brilliance of Langston Hughes, his ability to force, to demand, that his reader feel!

Langston Hughes is real, writing even at a young age with the wisdom of the whole of an age of slavery on his back. He writes about what he sees and knows and senses as injustice, but without an emotional depression of hopelessness. In "Mother to Son," there is the nod to the struggle: "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair," but the battle cry of hope to not "set down on the steps," "don't you fall now-...(Because) I'se still climbin'" (2265).

Our Anthology bookends "mother to son" with "theme for english B" the natural culmination of the climb of those splintered, torn up, bare stairs...the moment when the black man stands nervously in front of his English Professor; the recipient of the same writing assignment as his white counterparts. Unlike the white students he acutely aware of his differences, but he focuses instead on, "I guess being colored doesn't make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races.". The climb up those stairs allows him to face society, still struggling with a new definition of the black man's place in society and say that he is Harlem, he is New york, he is the South, he is America, he is Democracy and he is there to stay.

Open Boat

2010-03-09T06:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I took the children to the park, except for Cam, because she was at track. (I still find it hard to write that! Our most unlikely athlete...)It was packed because of the weather finally breaking. But, I managed to run a mile while they played in the sand and Chloe took photographs of them. I'm supposed to find things to do on my own that bring me some kind of fulfillment. (it is the nice way of saying stop being a smothering desperate pathetic loser to your spouse...but, as per usual, I digress.)

So, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I used to like running AND I used to like taking the kids to the lake...VIOLA!"

I feel a little sore, and not very changed, but it was only one time...so perhaps I could work on developing patience.

It's Midterms and Spring Break this week and weekend, which means I am teetering on the cusp of things getting absolutely viciously crazy. I cranked out 16 pages on F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Importance of Failure in his novel, "This Side of Paradise." I now get to edit those 16 pages 2x's...One version, for the class, is down to 12 pages, and another for a Research Symposium will be down to 8 pages. That's my project over Spring Break, along with reading, "Jude the Obscure," and "The Sound and the Fury."

I think I'd like to go the beach!

Below is my Journal on "The Open Boat."

Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat," utilizes understatement throughout the first and second sections of his short story to great effect. This understatement provides black humour for the reading audience as they suffer along with the four shipwrecked sailors as they struggle to get to land.

With words carefully chosen, Crane paints a canvas of desolate grey seas, fraught with danger, using adjectives such as: "slate, foaming white, edge jagged with waves, and barbarously abrupt" (1779). Then, cleverly he interjects humour when the cook, as he bails out the boat observes, "Gawd! That was a narrow clip."to the ceaseless pounding of each death laden wave.

Cranes description of the sea on page 1780 is humourously understated: "A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it..." (1780). Allowing the reader a rest from the heightened tension of the narrow escape the four seamen are pulling off.

The cook and the correspondent lend a note of trivial understated humour as they argue about the difference between a House of Rescue and a Life Saving Station...debating which is staffed with people and which is staffed with gear. Each knowing, like the oiler and like the audience that, "we're not there yet" (1781). They need to arrive safely before they can take advantage of either.

By section II the reader is fully invested in the safe arrival of the crew after their harrowing adventure, yet they continue to be relieved of their stress, and by proxy, the crew is relieved of some of their tensions by the understated, or perhaps obvious, observations put forth by the cook and the oiler. Ever the positive one, the cook applauds the fact that, "it's an on-shore wind. If not, where would we be? Wouldn't have a show" (1781). The correspondent and the oiler agree, but the Captain splashes some cold water on their good humour, asking them, "do you think we've got much of a show, now, boys?" (1781). A great big, "D'uh!" Moment!

Feeling like he had stung his, "children" (1781), the Captain assures them, "we'll get ashore alright." To which the oiler quickly joins, "Yes! If this wind holds!" And the cook, ever cheerful adds, " Yes! If we don't catch hell in the surf."

The refusal to see obstacles like the wind and the surf as negatives, but instead as the very linchpin to their success makes the characters endearing. The trend of understatement and humour takes the direness of the story into the territory of "yarn," where the listeners feel that the outcome will be positive. With other lighthearted additions, such as turning their opinions of "ominous and grewsome," onto the sea gull as opposed to their death defying situation (1782), or describing their bodily fatigue as stemming partially from, "the excitement of clambering about the deck of a foundering ship," and "forget(ing) to eat heartily" (1783).

By section IV however, the audience and the sailors have admitted the seriousness of the situation. Their credo of "If she has decided to drown me, why did she not do it in the beginning and save me all this trouble..." (1785). In the end, the "wily surfman", the oiler, is the one who does not make it. All the understatement in the world cannot extend the "welcome of the land to the men from the sea" (1795) to the oiler, and in some regards, the audience who sailed along chuckling at times and holding their breath while crossing their fingers at others.

So, am I the oiler or the cook; that is the question?

Shift

2010-03-08T05:43:00.000-08:00

I wasn't going to write anything personal on here, until I figured I could do it without being destructive. I am trying to be constructive, or RE-constructive, if you will...

Everything I said and did two years ago, however long ago that personage was, was humiliatingly wrong of me. I absolutely shredded my husbands trust in me, and although he was willing to stay married to me, I've killed something inside of him, and I suppose myself too.

We are going to this counselor, and I'm grateful that he will go with me, but it is gut wrenching to pull out the past and find out how vacant and lacking one is of a soul. She says I'm not unfixably broken, but I think there is something fundamentally wrong with me, if I could get angry and diffuse my anger by publicly flogging someone...whether online or not.

So, further updates and newsworthy events are that this is my Mea Culpa. I was wrong to write about him in any way shape or form. Half of it was seen through a microscope of anger; which everyone who is over the age of five knows is not the most reliable microscope. I knew it, and yet I typed away. The other half was irrelevant pity party attention getting antics. I am sorry.

I'm sorry for every picture you have in your head of what my life was like or how I was treated or what I thought or why I did what I did. They weren't your pictures to have to deal with making judgement calls about. They were something I should have worked out like an adult, and not like a petulant child.

My therapist says that in her opinion the damage I have done could be irreparable; that I may never be forgiven and I need to learn how to live with that. That is a horrific idea for me, as a person who finds it hard to forgive herself if not reciprocally forgiven. So, there's that or what it is.

Regionalism

2010-02-16T10:29:00.000-08:00

In US Lit II we started regionalism (in between snow storms;) with the focus being on regional women writers. I'm enjoying this, but missing Twain already and champing at the bit to get to Fitzgerald. Part on of our semester thesis is due next week, and I am thinking of doing a literary analysis or comparison of some of Fitzgerald's work, but I'm not sure which yet. Our professor likes us to do our papers on works we did not cover in class because it broadens our scope.

Ah well.

We got rid of the Internet at home, and stripped down to basic cable, and no texting by teenagers. My life is so much more peaceful!

On to Regional authors...

Rhythm, pattern and status quo are the common pervading themes of Sarah Orne Jewett's "White Heron," and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's "A New England Nun." Both female protagonists live lives of quiet independence. They have routine and an almost religious appreciation of their natural surroundings. The introduction of both men and breaks in routine present problems of morality and spirituality to both.

Sylvy, in "White Heron," is faced with several dilemmas: Her love of the solitude of the forest and the comfort of the birds is threatened by her infatuation of the gun-toting stranger and his offer of the ten dollars. The ten dollars could provide momentary comfort for she and her grandmother, but it would be her own Faustian pact with the devil...selling her soul and the life of the beautiful heron for fleeting materialism. Also, there is her fear of letting the stranger in to her secluded secret world, he is fearsome and yet intriguing to her.

Louisa is faced with similar dilemmas. Louisa's love of her simple life, full of routine and rhythm is threatened by the arrival, after fourteen years, of her fiance Joe. She, like Sylvy, is infatuated with the practicality Joe offers her. The gun wielding stranger offers Sylvy financial practicality and Joe offers Louisa the chance to work on what she loves the most, her wifery skills with a needle. Louisa is faced with the further dilemma of obligation, she does not want to break Joe's heart, after he has come back to her with his Australian fortune and is ready to marry her. Her good manners require her to continue the courtship, even as it disturbs her perfection of solitude.

In the end, a walk alone in the quiet dark bring the heroines to their thankful decisions. Sylvy walks (and climbs) alone in the early morning darkness to see the heron flying free, and roosting close by to "talk" to its mate. Louisa walks alone in the evening darkness and climbs the rock wall to hear Joe sit close by and talk to his love. Both heroines are released from their confusion and distress within. They walk home resolved to maintain the status quo, and each, in their own way, maintain love...Sylvy for the herons and Louisa for Joe and Lily Dyer

Perfect for Valentine's Time

2010-02-10T05:52:00.000-08:00

On to "Daisy Miller," in US Lit. This novella reminded me of an F. Scott Fitzgerald story. All Bright tragic fabulousness. Love the decadent European destruction, etc. Anyhow, literary critique done in the form of my daily US Lit journal to follow:

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

Henry James' character, Daisy, is, much like her namesake the spring flower: fresh, beautiful and in full bloom when she is first observed by Winterbourne. James immediately clues his readers in to the nearly diametrically opposed forces of the two main characters by giving them names that evoke the frivolous springtime and chilly frigidity.

On the surface, James' novella, "Daisy Miller," appears to be almost a scientific observation by Winterbourne of an "ugly American" set loose in urbane Europe. But, below the documentary style writing lies a rather sardonic view of decorum as it applies to men and women, as well as a commentary on personal freedom versus public responsibility.

Winterbourne breaks with tradition and risks offence simply by approaching Miss Miller, he notes: " In Geneva...a young man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under rarely-occurring conditions; but here at Vevey, what conditions could be better than these?- a pretty American girl coming and standing in front of you in a garden" (1497). Miller expresses his personal freedom and strikes up a conversation with Miss Miller, yet he is surprised and perplexed when she responds and then continues to openly converse with him. Winterbourne observes that, "he had never yet heard a young girl express herself in just this fashion...save in cases where to say such things seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence of a certain laxity of deportment." The double standard begins.

Winterbourne is the daring rogue, but Daisy is the suspiciously fast woman.
Winterbourne initially feels that Daisy is an innocent, but also a flirt. However by his own admission he admits to having," lost his instinct" (1500), when it came to analyzing women's behaviours and motives. Was Daisy a, "designing," "audacious," and "unscrupulous young person" (1500), or was she an unintentionally "unsophisticated...American flirt" (1501)?

A consultation with his Aunt introduces the court of public opinion regarding the proper role of women in society and the manner in which they should conduct themselves. According to the tenets of the day, Miss Miller was, "common," "uncultivated," and "dreadful" (1503, 04).

Winterbourne continues to observe the open behavior of Daisy as they travel around Italy. Unlike Daisy, no one seems to question his motives as he frequently calls on Daisy and keeps her company without any engagement. In contrast however, Daisy develops a reputation among the ex-pats, and any commentary about Winterbourne is exclusive to warning him that, "they are hopelessly vulgar" (1513), and that Miss Miller had been, " flirting...sitting in corners with mysterious Italians; dancing all the evening with the same partners; receiving visits at eleven o'clock..." (1520).

Daisy wants only to have a good time. Her motives seem childish and James creates an almost Fitzgerald-esque "Bright Young Thing "character who enjoys shocking the status quo, and yet there seems to be no malice in Daisy's antics. She appears to only wish to experience life in freedom, removing the restrictions of both American and European society, while in the same breath claiming to wish to run amidst the select society (1516).

Society itself deals the first blow felt by Daisy. After her foreshadowing declaration to Winterbourne where Daisy describes her social affairs as: "I know ever so many people, and they are all so charming. The society's extremely select...I never saw anything so hospitable" (1517), it is society in the form of Mrs. Walker that turns their back on Miss Miller. It is the first documented observation by Winterbourne that Daisy feels the disdain of her peers and understands that this shunning is a direct response to her chosen freedoms (1524).
Again Winterbourne displays the disparity between the sexes. He enjoys the pleasure of travelling freely, without an escort. He walks about at night, visits women as he may, striking up conversation, stating opinions with freedom. His loyalty to Daisy's innocence has been a sort-of defacto approval of her equal ability to live this lifestyle, although he is afflicted with talking out of both sides of his mouth: at one time reveling in her freshness and at the same time counseling her to curb her flirting.

James provides the inevitable fall of Daisy on page 1529 when Winterbourne encounters her in what appears to be a lovers meeting near midnight in the Colosseum. Winterbourne is described as experiencing both horror and relief (1529), finally he could cease his defenses of her; she was simply, "a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect" (1529). Society, it seems, had won out over personal freedom.

James saves the final blow for the end, however with Daisy's death revealing the underlying truth of her innocence. She was revealed to be the bearer of Winterbourne, and therefore all of societies, injustice. Winterbourne by compromising and listening to petty gossip had committed more of an injustice to Daisy than she had ever committed to society with her wanton disregard for the decorum of the day.

Salvation through Damnation

2010-02-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

This started as a journal, but will probably morph into my mid-term US Lit paper. Basic thesis is Huck achieves his much eshewed Salvation through his his self proclaimed Damnation, after deciding to free Jim from the Phelp's farm.

Chapters 25-31 outline Huck's unconscious path to salvation even as he verbally denounces Christian living with such zingers as, "All right, then I'll go to hell," and "I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog" (1415). He experiences the growth of his conscience and allows the prickings of guilt. This leads him realise the specifics of his guilt and acknowledge his sin. Confession, forgiveness and Christ-like behaviour follow in the wake of denial, and self proclaimed wickedness. Huck is hung up on the act of contrition, he does not realise he has already achieved salvation, and has begun running from sin. Twain cleverly scripts a commentary on the differences between a Religiously Correct Conversion and being physically Like Jesus.

Huck's moral code was firmly in place from the very beginning of "Huck Finn," but it existed in a very limited, self-serving context. Huck's decision to not turn Jim in as a runaway slave is his first foray into extending his morality into the realm of service to others, but the Funeral Swindle shows the full growth that has occurred inside of Huck. When he hears the King and the Duke discussing the con job they have planned for the three Wilkes sisters Huck declares,"That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour ago, it would a been a little different, but now it made me bad and disappointed" (1393). Later, when the King and Duke have fooled the sisters into thinking that they are all going to Sheffield together, Huck feels the power of his newly expanded conscience: "It made my heart ache to see them getting fooled and lied to so" (1396).

Huck demonstrates Christ-like compassion for the sisters and the slaves as he worries about their welfare and how best to stop the plans of the King and Duke. He justifies the selling of the slaves to himself: "I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor miserable girls and n*ggers...I reckon I couldn't a stood it all...if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no account" (1397). He also begins to act on his revulsion to the sins of the King and Duke, lying to them to keep them off track, thus creating a line in the sand where the possible financial gain was no longer worth the degradation of the marks lives or his own soul. Huck also makes the memorable observation, "It's the little things that smooths people's roads the most"(1401). Without overtly stating, Huck displays the real qualities of a Christ centered life. It's the little things, the unseen way where we function as Christ's hands in a sinful world, that create the best way of life.

Chapter 28 finds Huck turning the corner towards his own salvation. He is faced with the task of deciding whether to continue to lie for the King and Duke, or tell the truth. In essence, this is the moment where Huck must decide to no longer support a life of sin. "Well, I says to myself at last, I'm agoing to chance it; I'll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder..." (1399).

Like many others striving to make a clean break from sin, Huck cannot quite shake the King and the Duke. Though their sins did find them out, the two escape to catch up to Huck as he flees. During this time on the river Huck is persecuted by the two, but he remains committed to leaving the two in the dust at the first chance he gets. Twain reminds us that we are never free from sin, there is no utopian happy ending where the sinner is no longer oppressed. Sin is all around us, we have the obligation to plot to escape.

Huck's moment of salvation comes in chapter 31, and it comes in typical Twain dramatic irony. Huck struggles with the decision of notifying Miss Watson of Jim's whereabouts rather than have Jim be sold into slavery in the deep south away from his family. He debates with himself and decides that he is like every other sinner and con man,"A person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace..."(1414). Huck thinks he speaking about his "rascality"(1414), involving the aiding of a run away slave, but in actuality, the statement is a commentary on the institution of slavery itself. Huck has completed his first step towards salvation...he has identified the sin.

Huck experiences the frustration of being unable to pray, his prayers will not come. He discovers it is because his heart is not quite right. Again, he sees this duplicity as saying he wants to do right, but hiding Jim all the same. The surface gives way quickly however with Hucks confession: "he will give him up for the reward if you send"(1415). Huck may say he cannot pray a lie, but in fact he does. All of this does not, at first glance, lend itself to a pure salvation experience, but a deeper look reveals the fact that God does not need nor want Huck to condone slavery, Huck's very denial of slavery to it's very core is the true confession. Huck has become Christ-like.

Huck experiences forgiveness but calls it damnation. Twain provides a tongue in cheek observation that perhaps walking the road Jesus walked can be hell. Huck says," I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it"(1415). That is the essence of salvation. Huck chooses the thing that represents redemption for him: he tears up the letter telling the Widow Douglas where Jim could be found. He decides," All right, then, I'll go to hell" (1415), but in fact he has been saved.

Not Enthusiastic

2010-02-03T07:52:00.000-08:00

Feeling quite subdued as of late, and very ______ (insert negative adjective of your choosing here.)

Aside: I think It's odd that when writing and using parentheses, one puts the period inside the parentheses. But, when doing a citation within the text, the period goes on the outside of the parentheses. Odd language we have.

Huck Finn has now encountered the King and the Duke, and I love the irony of this chapter. It is fierce...and not in a dorky Tyra Banks way Fierce, but in a savage, unrelenting way. Huck Finn is a viciously literary book.

The introduction of the characters The Duke of Bridgewater/Bilgewater and The King gives the reader the opportunity to explore Huck's growing maturity and sensibilities, as well as the role the river plays in this growth.

Huck sees the men for what they are: charlatans, but he is happy to play along with their game of king and duke. He feels no need to expose their lies. He goes so far as to comfort them, serve them and give up his bed and sleep in the rainstorm without visible complaint. Although the ironic/sarcasm disguised as frankness, commentary about being naked, the rain warm, and the waves not being so high when he had to sleep outside did show that he had an opinion about the men taking his sleeping quarters, he simply wasn't voicing it.

Huck states that he learned about the importance of keeping the peace from Pap. This is a great addition by Twain, a multi layered literary device. It gives a window into Huck's maturity: he can divorce himself from the actions of the man and take only the truth the man spoke. The truism is also a foreshadowing, setting the reader up to find out that it was actually Pap who was found dead in the floating house...being unable to keep the peace on his own erstwhile raft. Finally, it is another source of delicious irony that a man, so unable to lead a peaceful life, would pass along the very advice that enabled his son to utilise two con-artists to his own advantage, and eventually find himself closer to the road of real freedom.

The river again plays its integral part of allowing Huck to be the one in control while floating. Huck is the rescuer of the men while he is in the water; he is not functioning as a child, which the King and the Duke see him as when they are on land. He also provides the King and the Duke with a platform on which they can plot and think and practice, a floating safe house. On land there are horrors of men that are incomprehensible, and completely out of Huck's control: shootings, lynching, mobs, cowardice, but on the river, Huck is in control of his immediate environment.

As Huck progresses down the river, the reader is privileged to see his maturity and savviness grow and change with the experiences which are thrust upon him.

Siren Song

2010-02-01T05:16:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has teenagers will know that sometimes the siren song and its ultimate crash and burn on the rocks looks pretty good compared to the reality of the stuff they can get into.

Anyhow, on to Tennyson's Warning of the Sea-Fairies and how they sound great and then screw you in the end

Corrie Greene
Victorian Literature
1 February 2010
Dr King

Tennyson’s “The Sea Fairies,” deals with the destructive temptation on the artist’s “aesthetic autonomy,” posed by the world’s distractions by using the literary allusion to Odysseus’ Sirens. Tennyson glosses the literal temptations of the mariners, in the forms of the physical, practical and sexual, with the same figurative allures of the world on the isolated yet pure artist.

The sirens in Tennyson’s “Sea Fairies,” provide a persuasive temptation to the “weary mariners” (1). Their song seeks to lure them into what they think is a “life of frolic and play” (18), but in reality, according to the Odyssey, the Sea Fairies song will culminate in the deaths of the enchanted sailors (Odyssey, Book XII).

The ladies tempt the mariners physically with the promise of “blissful downs and dales” (22). This is the perfect lure for the sea weary men, as they have faced nothing but the open sea and traumas for years; the thought of the rolling countryside surely sounds inviting. The sailors also have their practical natures tempted by the empty promises the siren’s song provides. The ladies sing that, “the rainbow forms and flies on the land…the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand” (25-27). The rainbow means the sun is shining even in the rain; the rainbow means the end of tempests and the threat of sea wrecks and at long last, peace.

The mariners are only “half in fear” (5), when they hear “the little harps of gold” (4) played by the ladies; the other half is attracted to them. They promise the men companionship, marriage and pleasure by tempting them sexually with such flirtations as: “merry brides are we” (33); “we will kiss sweet kisses” (34); and “your eyes shall glisten with pleasure and love and jubilee” (36). After all, it’s been a long sea voyage.

Tennyson glosses these temptations and the ultimate demise of the sailors if they succumb to the Sea Fairies song with his opinion that the siren song, or distractive lure of the world, leads to the destruction of the artist’s pure artistic state and therefore the artist themselves. The world is attractive at times to the isolated artist. It provides the physical comforts of friendship, distraction and work-a-day routine that living alone does not. The world, with its emphasis on career and budgetable income, has “calmer weather,” than the life of an artist. The chance for feast or famine is greatly diminished when the artist has a regular pay packet and a pension. Finally, the aloof and removed artist finds himself without companionship and love. While some thrive off of sexual frustration, it must be tempting to pack it all in and find a nice maiden, at least every now and then.

Tennyson feels, however, that these promises of the sirens, or compromises on the austere artists lifestyle that he feels are necessary for pure art, can cause nothing but ruin. Just as the mariners would perish on the shores if they deviated from their ship’s course to follow the ladies, so would the artist and his art perish in the hustle of the everyday world.

Spark Notes!?...Really!?

2010-01-28T06:12:00.000-08:00

I sat down at the computer directly beside the one I am typing on now, and the screen that appeared was another student's. Evidently, they had forgotten to log out. Up came the Spark Notes screen, with the tell tale, right click highlight and save screen still blazing. The other tab that was opened was the student's Word Doc where they had pasted the Spark Notes highlighting into the body and reformatted the paragraphs into and instant paper...on...

Pride and Prejudice.

I mean for goodness sake, you can watch umpteen movies and PBS Drama's about this show, you have to plagiarise Spark Notes.

Listen, any of you lazy English takers who happen upon this blog:

If you are the kind of Jack Ass who cuts and pastes an entire paper from A Spark Notes or Free Paper site, let me give you a few hints:

1. If this is you, then the odds are you do not use words like, "Impetuous," "Ingratiating," and the like. So change them from your blatant copying before turning in your paper.

2. Paragraphs should have at least 4 sentences.
Unless you're trying to make a point.

Like This.

3. Most colleges/universities use TurnItIn.com so I hope you enjoy your academic suspension.

That is all. (See how the short paragraph works in some instances?)

And now, on to the "Huck Finn," journal. (Aside: read this book, don't copy someone Else's thoughts on it...it's really incredible. I've read it more than 10 times and every time I get smarter.)

Twain's less than favourable view of religion is made clear in Huck's discussion of prayer after the Widow Douglas' instruction to, "pray every day and whatever I asked for I would get it. " The reference to the fishing line received without any hooks appears to refer to religion being rather impotent and useless in the practical world. Taken even further the inference could be drawn to Jesus' instruction to becoming fisher's of men, and Huck's observation that there is nothing to hook the men with...there is nothing to this religion he hears about.

In his own way though, Huck is spiritually sensitive. He sees the difference between the caring, Christ-like Providence that the Widow Douglas tells him about (and incidentally, displays with her caring for Huck himself) and the legalistic, Pharisee-like Providence that Miss Watson demonstrates. Huck spends time thinking about these heavy theological quandaries...Legalism vs Love...and "reckoned I would belong to the widow's, if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was agoing to be any better off then than when he was before, seeing I was so ignorant and so kind of lowdown and ornery.

Huck puts his theology of Widow Douglas' Providence into action when he discovers Jim, starving on Jackson's Island. He becomes the Good Samaritan to Jim, dismissing the moral dilemma of Jim's runaway status deftly with the reasoning, " I ain't agoin back there anyways, " and giving up some of his precious stores to feed Jim and get his strength up.

Twain seems to put more stock into actions than spiritual words and thoughts. Huck, for all of his superstition and disregard has mind predisposed to spiritual matters and the willingness to act on his own moral code regardless of what the law may mandate.

And we're back...

2010-01-26T18:02:00.001-08:00

Comparison or contrast between Tennyson's "The Poet," and "The Poet's Mind..."

In “The Poet,” and “The Poet’s Mind,” Tennyson creates a record of the struggles a poet faces as he chooses between writing powerful words for mass appeal, or risking criticism and rejection by writing powerfully personal poems. Using the continuous metaphor of a garden, Tennyson contrasts the two receptions his poetry could receive.

In “The Poet,” Tennyson presents the opinion that a poet is gifted from inception (1, 2), that the ability to see through the eyes of his soul is his dowry (3), and that his words upon fertile ground have the ability to grow and shake the world (56). To assure that, “many minds did gird their orbs with beams” (29), and “truth [be] multiplied with truth” (32), Tennyson must write with a silver tongue, utilizing the “hate of hate, scorn of scorn and love of love” (3, 4). These universal pleasantries would surely be well loved by many, and they do have an inherent simple power. Tennyson compared this adoration of the masses to a garden, from which Freedom, clad in Wisdom (assumably the poet’s wisdom), rises up and “rives,” or break into pieces, the spirit of man. This follows the garden metaphor, as the ground of a field must be broken for fruit to ever grow.

In “The Poet’s Mind,” however, Tennyson presents this same garden as fragile, able to wither with merely a misunderstanding (4). Here the ground is holy (9), but instead of being a place for the masses, the reader is instructed to, “come not anear” (8). The garden in “The Poet” is open and created by the “arrow-seeds” (19), which float and make themselves accessible to all, but in “The Poet’s Mind,” the garden is walled off by laurel bushes (14), filled with frail, blight susceptible flowers (15,18). Even though the garden is filled with beauty, music and nature, it is private and it can only be appreciated by the poet (36). The metaphor of the garden presents a poet who is himself fragile, filled with private thoughts, fear and a predisposition to hold his public at arms length, to protect himself from their possible criticism.

“The Poet,” embraces its reader, it not only shows them the garden, but it invites them to come in and experience the Freedom the poet offers. It provides mass appeal. “The Poet’s Mind,” keeps the public at bay, instructing them immediately to “Vex not” (1). “The Poet” and “The Poet’s Mind” are Tennyson’s accounts of the quandary faced by the talented: limit themselves to mass appeal and the safety of the watered down love of the public, or reveal their true essence and face the narrow appeal that comes from honesty.

But tonight thank god its them instead of youuuuuuu

2010-01-04T12:27:00.000-08:00

That was the most horrible line to have the young Bono sing; really anyone sing, because taken out of context by a generation that didn't appreciate the fabulousness of Band-AID's "Feed the World," release...it sounds rather...snobbish, er toffee-nosed.

So, we are 4 days into the New Year. I haven't smoked since midnight on the 31st; bully for me. I only miss it when I see pictures of people smoking. They only publish stylish photos of smokers, the reality here, in tobacco-land central, is quite different.

I've worked out, everyday except Sunday.

UM, I found a place for local grass fed abx free meat...

And I pitched my idea for a community outreach art based program during the week and all summer. I got approval and have started doing the research and curriculum building. I already had the original ideas, now it's just the lesson plans, scope and sequence, training meetings and advertisment, along with how much is charged to the families and how much is subsidised by the Outreach Fund at church.

Art in the Afternoon and Weekend art is Processed Oriented for the 18m-35m old set as well as the 3-5 year old set. Lower and Upper elementary students have a skill set to work within.

Summer Camps are two pronged. One week will be Art based (some ideas are an Upcycling Camp: exploring sculpture, mosaic, beading, collage etc through using reclaimed and recycled materials. Another is Farm to Table: exploring local agriculture and Farming, cooking, shopping and making our own place settings for a family feast after the farmers market)

The other week is called K.I.O.S.K (Kickin it Old Skool...yes, I made that up) where the camp will be all those things we used to do as kids before Atari...like, backyard theatre, cardboard box building, red rover, cookouts, rock hopping, water fights, marco polo in the pool, homemade lemonade making...etc.

I'm pretty excited about it, and I'm hoping we get a good response from the community. Everything will have a humanitarian undertone where we do something that raises money for a cause the children come up with. I'd like to give money to a local outreach this time, as opposed to the Sierra Leone and Uganda projects that we worked on in the fall.

So far, more pluses than minuses in the New Year.

Feed the World...
Let them know it's
Christmas Time again...
(not really)

New Years and everything after

2009-12-31T09:53:00.000-08:00

So it's New Year's Eve and time for resolutioning etc.
I resolve to be:

A better wife, a better more involved mother...less cross...less impatient...more spiritual...more conscious...more global...a better cook...more organised...a more conscious shopper...better with money...more adult...more mature...a perfect student...less catty...more accepting...more cheerful...positive...exercise more...do yoga 5 times a week...acknowledge the light in everyone else...read with my little ones...listen when my big ones talk...not roll my eyes...not do the big deflating balloon sigh...not worry so much about things I can't change...change the things I can...be less accepting of chaos...never wear sweatpants to class...get back into my favourite pants...change my hair colour at least once...wear makeup even when it's easier to just not care...stop being an insufferable nag...be less addicted to tv...whittle down the budget...get chickens...keep fewer weeds in the garden...use all the vegetables that we grow...reduce my carbon footprint...compost more...recycle better...remember to buy cat food...stop being so snarky...not think ugly thoughts about people...quit smoking... be a vegetarian twice a week...only buy local and sustainable whenever possible...get rid of processed foods...remember to put my eye wrinkly cream on every night...paint my nails...wear heels even when its raining...remember my umbrella............

I'll check back in on those periodically

Bereft

2009-12-29T20:23:00.000-08:00

Tonight, while todd was at a footballer's do, I decided to grab the luxury time and catch up at the Sartorialist...my erstwhile favourite street fashion blog. I noticed him talking about Garance...another street fashion blogger out of Paris. He's mentioned her on his blog before, a few times each year, but he is (was) married and had two daughters. He talked freely about his wife and pictured his kids...there's even a shot of one of his daughters in the Sartorialist book that just (ok, August) came out...(which I got for Christmas.)

Then, like *poof* he's dating Garance. I was very distressed to read him referring tohimself as, "her boyfriend," on his blog, and taking a fashion photography trip to Austrailia, etc. So, like any self respecting blog follower, I googled the whole confusing mess.

Lovely post from the jilted wife on the Page 9-esque Metro blog or OnSugar, I can't remember, I read so many, any how. What an ass. I'm very upset about this, so I need a new fashion blog.

Enter Street Style London

Definitely cool

It's not just because I'm mad at Mr Scott Schulman the bragging adulterer bespoke wearing Mr Everyman, "You too can look as cool as these people if you just develop your own style," Sartorialist...but this Jak and Jil sight is Wicked Cool! And I say that in the most respectful early 80's Electric Blue Way!

Check it out.

Still haven't decided if I am going to keep going to the Sart sight. Probably not. But I will keep the book. Sad Sad Sad; I thought he was such a cool guy!

There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
-Indigo Girls-

Final Exam essay on Milton

2009-12-08T07:04:00.001-08:00

Essay on John Milton's thesis of Paradise Lost, "to justify the ways of God to Man." No outside sources, so it doesn't get very critical. Just text based. I'm Xing out some of the quote citations so that some poor firstyear will have to actually read Pardise Lost to know how to document this if they really REALLY want to use it! (It's not worth it, and PL is really good... do your own assignment...I'm only posting this so that I can go back and read it and laugh later!)

Free Will: Justifying the Ways of God to Man

The question of why God allowed Satan, sin and death to enter the Garden of Eden and thus create the potential for the dooming of, not only, mankind but nature itself to a fallen state, has plagued many. John Milton, in his Paradise Lost epic poem strove to answer this question, not only for himself, but for the myriad readers who continue to tackle his work. Milton’s premise of Paradise Lost was, “to justify the ways of God to man.” Milton’s usage of the free will of Satan, Adam and Eve, and Christ as individual examples of how free will works, as well as how the results of this free will intertwine between the four, successfully expands on the methods God uses to demonstrate his love towards us, while maintaining his sovereignty.

God created Satan, “just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall” (abc 98, 9). His purpose behind this seeming paradox was that, had Satan not been created free, or of free will, then there was no real litmus test to prove his, “true allegiance, constant faith or love” (abc 104). God would receive no pleasure from a creation bound to obedience. Instead he gave Satan the abilities of will and reason, stating, “Reason is also choice” (abc108). If Satan chose to obey him, it was of his own volition.

God knows of Satan’s predisposition to revolt, and yet He understands that His simple knowledge of an event’s future happening has no bearing on the fault of the offender (abc 118). God detaches himself from the fault or success of His creation. He simply equips them with the necessary skills and knowledge to do what is right. Milton uses this as a reminder to the reader of the fact that Satan’s rebellion was no more certain when He (God) had foreknowledge of it, than if he did not: “Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, Which had no less proved certain unforeknown” (abc 118, 19).

It is important for the questioning reader to understand that we, “were formed free, and free [we] must remain” (abc, 125, 26). This freedom is the most important concept for us to understand of God. Had God not given Satan the freedom of choice, regardless of his penchant to use it for rebellion, then he would be altering the same, “decree,” (abc 126) that pertained to Adam and Eve, and ultimately His own Son, Christ.

Satan, post-rebellion, relies on the unchanging nature of God, as it applies to free will, as he contemplates the best way to cause the fall of God’s latest creation, man. Satan realized that his greatest temptation was from within (ab 64). He transferred this realization over to his tactics against man. Satan wonders if Adam and Eve, “stand by ignorance, is that their happy state” (ab 518, 19)? Satan seems to be implying that God is allowing Adam and Eve to function in a loyal state to Him, without giving them all of the facts that will further enhance their freewill. He calls God’s decision, “Suspicious, reasonless” (ab 516).

Echoing His decision to equip Satan with the necessary skills and reason to withstand the temptation to rebel/fall, God sends Raphael to further educate Adam, and by default Eve, on the danger of Satan and his temptation. Milton, by creating the tutor/student relationship between Raphael and Adam, deftly avoids Satan’s accusation that God was acting suspiciously when he did not provide Adam and Eve with all of the pertinent information regarding the tree of Knowledge and all that eating of it could provide. God instructs Raphael, “ …his will though free, yet mutable; whence warn him to beware He swerve not too secure…Lest willfully transgressing he pretend Surprisal, unadmonished, unforewarned” (a 236-44).

As with Satan’s fall, God knows that Adam and Eve will disobey and eat of the Tree of Knowledge: “man falls deceived By the other first: man therefore shall find grace” (abc 130, 31). Again, His foreknowledge of an event does not justify His removal of free will to change the catastrophe in the garden.

Instead, He, through Raphael, explains to Adam the premise of free will and how it affects Adam and Eve’s obedience:

That thou art happy, owe to God;
That thou continu’st such, owe to thyself…
…God made the perfect, not immutable;
And good He made thee, but to persevere
He left in thy power, ordained thy will
By nature free, not overruled by fate…
For how
Can hearts, not free, be tried wether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must
By destiny, and can no other choose? (V 520-34)

Again, Milton justifies God’s reasoning for allowing the temptation of Adam and Eve. Without free will, he would remain, as Satan postulated, “unreasoned.” God is the author of reason, and therefore must provide the same freedom of reason, or choice to mankind as He provided to His angels.

Finally, the same premise of freedom is bestowed upon God’s only Son, Christ. God, with his foreknowledge of the fall, has created an alternative salvation for mankind; one, “not of will in him, but grace in me” (abc 274). This salvation has everything to do with the free will that rests in Christ. God explains that man through his disobedience has no other choice but to die, unless someone else is willing to pay for him, “death for death” (abc 212).

When God asks all those remaining in heaven, “Which of ye will be mortal to redeem Man’s mortal crime?” (abc 214, 15) only Christ replies: “Behold me then, me for him, life for life I offer, on me let Thine anger fall” (ab 236, 37). It is Christ’s choice to sacrifice Himself to bring about grace.

As with Satan and Adam and Eve the idea of God’s foreknowledge of Christ’s agreement to become a living sacrifice for us, becomes a question. Milton infers God’s knowledge of this by providing the reader with God’s ready comfort to His Son: “for him [man] I spare Thee from my bosom and right hand, to save by losing Thee a while, the whole race lost” (abc 278-80). Or, “Nor shalt thou by descending to assume Man’s nature, lessen or degrade Thine own” (abc 303, 04). If God is omniscient, as Milton has shown Him to be in all other circumstances, then he is omniscient regarding His Son, and his Son’s death. (ab 516).

The importance of free will creates a continuous thread throughout the books of Paradise Lost. Satan’s decision to fall, led to the temptation and fall of man, which led to Christ’s sacrifice and finally the promised ultimate redemption of all mankind and the total defeat of Satan. Milton wove an intricate design of God’s unwavering dedication to the freedom of wills and reason for all of His creation. Milton successfully represented God’s belief that without their free will, Satan, Adam, Eve, and Christ would always be, as Satan accused, “suspicious.” It is only, “because we freely love, as in our will to love or not; in this we stand or fall” (a 539,40).

Brilliant!

2009-12-08T06:58:00.000-08:00

100 on my Brit Lit exam, which gives me a 4.0.

Still no statistics grades yet. I. Am. Dying. If I get an A it will be by the hair on my chinny chin chin.

I want to watch that pathetic 2.11 that I had with all of my Withdraw Fails back in 94 go up and up.

World Lit exam just ended. Lots and lots of writing, and my hand feels crampy. Plus the fact that I had the most horrible pen. The roller ball was stuck and I would scratch the paper at random times and drive my self crazy. Add to that that it was too thick and didn't fit nicely in my hand...

...oh dear. I just blogged about pen comfort.

That's it. I need to go commit some senseless act of coolness to even out the high quality nerd I just channeled.

Honey Cutters on Wednesday at the Black Bird. I'm not going, but I bet it will be rockin'

Exams

2009-12-07T09:49:00.000-08:00

I have successfully made it through the regular semester with all A's. Down to the exams now...I would really be unhappy if my exam grade brought my A in Statistics down to a B. It was hard! One down, 3 to go. I thought they still did exemptions, but I didn't hear anything, so I'm showing up with my pen in hand.

We had an Ugly Christmas Sweater party this weekend hosted by a friend of ours. It was lovely. I rocked a Michael Jackson, "Dangerous," era cardigan in black with shoulder pads and gold metallic embroidery all over...with matching gold, "faux crocodile," shoes as well. Well of course!

Off to Britsh Literature.

Click Click Boom

2009-11-24T08:08:00.000-08:00

Emily Dickinson's number: 764 and 788 today. This is the "Loaded Gun," poem and the perils of publishing poem...which I have managed to compare. I feel I could compare rocks with feathers these days and find some way to make them work literarily. (The rock is the authors way of juxtaposing the heaviness of spirit in a state of sin versus the feather alluding to angels wings and the holiness and lightness in the perceived presence of God. Bam! Done!...I really did think of that on the fly...)

Evidently the afore mentioned Paper Opt Out Scheme is tried by some students in college. That or a variant of it. Word to the Wise...this makes your professor super angry and she is crabby at her next class...namely mine. Do the work they give you. Get off of facebook and read the Odyssey or Faust or Dante or whatever chapters you have in class. Yes, it does in fact apply to your life...no really, it will.

Dickinson: (whiner...me no like...)

Dickinson’s poem number 764 (The loaded gun) creates a picture of Emily Dickinson’s views of power utilized and power frustrated. She echoes these feelings in number 78(Publication-is the auction.) The gun, who narrates poem 764, holds the powers of: life, death, protection, pillage, hunger and satisfaction in itself. But, without another to pick it up and put it into use, or circulation, it is simply an ornament, “in corners.”

Dickinson pens a similar view point about publication, or the lack thereof, in 788. Here she implies that it is better to be poor than to be published with changes that are not her own original composition:

Thought belong to him who gave it-
Then-to him who bear
Its corporeal illustration-sell
The royal air-

Like the loaded gun, Emily Dickinson felt her poetry had power and purpose, but lacking the proper hands to pick it up; cock it and fire it…the poetry simply stood, in frustrated power, with the gun in the corner.

My notes on 764/788
My life- (her life is in her poetry)
Had stood-a Loaded Gun-
In Corners- (in fascicles and letters and unpublished works)
Till a day
The Owner passed-Identified- (The right person to execute her poetry as it was meant to be)
And carried me away- (follows through with correct publishing and now her poems are a loaded gun)

A rush and a push and the land is ours...

2009-11-20T07:59:00.000-08:00

Art classes today should give a proper good reprieve from all of the research I've been doing. The paper coming up is the one that I feel like I could research my whole life and still come up with different ways to write it...historical, sexual, spiritual, demographic, personal, private, public...it's on Milton's treatment of Eve in Paradise Lost.

Yeah.

That's a broad canvas on which to paint my feeble undergraduate strokes. Eventually, I will need to tighten up my thesis, but that tends to happen as I write the paper and see where it's leading.

But, for now, I am happy to do printing techniques with homeschoolers and let the scholar take a break.

Got irritated at an email I received from one of the homeschool moms stating that she was having her (high school age) daughters, "opt out!?" of the assigned THREE PAGE paper that the art class has every semester. Opt Out!? Really. I don't recall that being an option. Good luck with that after you graduate.

That to me is one of the biggest shortcomings of homeschooling. The sense of entitlement that comes with self-directed learning. The parent/child relationship makes it so that its very easy to skip or disregard assignments that are not, "fitting in," with the family lifestyle. These same child/parent pairs have a hard time being accountable to any other teacher.

It's concerning, because you can't send an email to your boss and tell him you are, "opting out," of a project, or your dual enrollment professor and tell him the same thing. Basically, it felt like a slap in the face. Like this was a joke to them and I need to just stay in my corner and teach art techniques. I'm confused, the co-op wants high quality art classes where actual skills are learned, not just crafty things, and yet they are unwilling to recognize the importance of art history to why we do art the way we do it.

Ah well, off to see who else is, "opting out," either officially, or by just looking at me blankly when I ask where their paper is, or if they need help with their rough drafts, or research queries.

Other than that...they're sweet kids. I of course, have my favourites. ;)

Insert Smiths song lyrics here

The crush of papers

2009-11-17T10:46:00.000-08:00

I have now begun literary critiques of commercials and street signs...That's all I can get my brain to do:

Today I finished the fourth revision of a literary analysis of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Sojourner truth's entertwining of the Suffrage and Abolitionist Movement
Also started a paper on the Medea influence of Gretchen in Faust

Came up with thethesis for a Comparison contrast of Faust and Lolita

And wrote a short analysis of Nature vs Religion in Emily Dickinson's poetry.

Tonight I play dodgeball and will not analyze anything!

Dickinson Paper:

Emily Dickinson’s poems lend a clearer perspective on an intellectual relationship with God. They seem to encourage their readers to go beyond, “blind faith,” but instead to use their natural surroundings to further deepen their understanding of a creator. In poem 49 (“I never lost as much but twice-“) the Farmer Narrator begs God for help, but he does not sit idly by. He replants. Trusting in the cycles of nature to swing the pendulum back to where his storehouses will be full again. At least twice he has been bankrupt, and twice wealthy, but always continuing on in his work.

In 324 (“Some keep the Sabbath going to church-“) Dickinson plays with the rules of religion. Offering the suggestion that high church is no more appealing to God than finding His glory in the creation all around. Church can be on the Sabbath, in robes, with hymns and the pealing of bells, and lengthy sermons. Or, church can be out in the backyard with the birds and fruit trees as a natural cathedral. Dickinson suggests that she, like the Quaker in Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills, daily wears her “wings.” Suggesting that it is better to humbly serve God in all that we do than to dress up once a week in finery and live for ourselves all the other six days of the week. She again makes this, “daily living the Christian walk,” suggestion in the last stanza of 324,” So instead of getting to Heaven, at last- I’m going, all along.”

Sentimentality also comes into play in 324, with the line, “And instead of tolling the bell, for Church, Our little Sexton sings.” Nothing swells the heart with appreciation for God’s mystery and majesty like the sweet reedy voice of a child singing. They have no thought of being pious, or sounding fantastic for their pew mate; they are simply lifting up their voice in praise, and in return, those around them have their hearts lifted up as well. The venue has no bearing on the holiness of this event.

The essence, perhaps of Emily Dickinson’s rejection of Religious Piousness in favour of an exploration of God’s creation comes in poem 202 (“‘Faith’ is a fine invention.”) Dickinson is able to strip down to four lines the problem of oft times unrelatable ecclesiastical faith versus employing the physical senses to help the seeker understand that through the closer examination of the natural world, they will find God, and their faith.

Emily Dickinson’s poetry creates an alternative to stiff, legalistic religion. Reasoning that appreciation of nature, its rhythms, beauty and mysteries will create in the seeker a close daily walk with the Creator of the world they seek to understand and emulate.

Sing Your Life

2009-11-12T10:37:00.000-08:00

November pressure is going to do me in! I have papers due every day, sometimes two a day. All of t hem are supposed to be thorough Literary critiques, some are not so thorough, and of course there are still all of those journals to write. Positive note though, I will be 3 credits into my senior year after the Spring Semester.

Personally, um, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out how I got to the point of being so angry and different and difficult. I know that there are always infinite ways to interpret situations and that emotion can colour or skew the facts of a situation to make it shine in one light or another...but why did I let it get to where it coloured everything with the same brush. Like, I had zero perspective on anything.

Now I have the other side of it and that is crushing sorrow for wasting all of that time and disregarding others feelings, mostly my husband's. I am feeling quite horrid, actually. Constantly. Wormish.

Today we read Faust. I feel like I carried Mephestopheles around with me for one whole year in my pocket. He's not in my pocket now, but I feel like I sold him my soul and ruined myself and hurt people because...what? Self justification. I don't know.

Anyhow...all of that for another day I guess.

Today, Whitman:
Out of the Cradle Endless Rocking
A very uplifting poem I know, but I dug it.

Super surface Literary Criticism following:

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking’s Song of Life

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking is immediately a poem about, “Singing Your Life.” In other words, taking the personal events of loss, mortality, death of ideals, loneliness, and abandonment and turning them into universal commentary.

Whitman uses the Mockingbird as the main character of Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, and the boy to man narrative as the interpretation of the Mockingbird’s story, as well as the means of extending the Mockingbird’s personal loss into a universal truth.

Out of the Cradle begins with the man narrator reminiscing about a walk on the beach he took as a young boy:

A man—yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, 20
Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

He comes across two Mockingbirds sitting minding their nest.

Up this sea-shore, in some briers, 25
Two guests from Alabama—two together,
And their nest, and four light-green eggs, spotted with brown,
And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand,
And every day the she-bird, crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, 30
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.

This is where the first song is sung. It is a song of loves ability to weather any storm. But soon, the she-bird mysteriously disappears, and the he-bird begins to sing a new song, asking the sea to blow his mate back to him: “Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok’s shore! I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me.” The man narrator now steps in and begins to apply this singular loss to a greater lament:

Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,)
Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it mostly to me?
For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping,
Now I have heard you,
Now in a moment I know what I am for—I awake

The boy now awakens to his own mortality, just as every reader, has, on some occasion discovered that they are finite. His own song of his life must now be sung. He says, “O you singer, solitary, singing by yourself—projecting me; O solitary me, listening—nevermore shall I cease perpetuating you.” The bird’s song of death will now live on through the boy, and be spread by the man to all generations. This theme of constancy is similar to Whitman’s focus in, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” as he contemplates the actions, loves and experiences he is having and has had that will be felt and lived by generations to come:

What is it, then, between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not.

Just like the Mockingbird does not understand the death of his mate, the boy struggles to understand his future, “O if I am to have so much, let me have more! O a word! O what is my destination? (I fear it is henceforth chaos ;)” The man narrator interprets the sea’s answer, as it chants only one word back to them all, “Death.” With this word, and the boy/man’s growing acceptance of it, comes the ability to sing his own song of life…different from the Mockingbird’s, because it holds the key to all of mankind’s songs: that we all must die; literally, and figuratively. Literally, as the body will, at some point, cease to live and figuratively, that we will constantly have to die to ourselves, and our dreams and our ideas of how life should be.

My own songs, awaked from that hour;
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song, and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
The sea whisper’d me.

Sing your Life
Any fool can think of words that rhyme
Many others do
Why don't you?
Do you want to?
-Morrissey, sing Your Life-

Pictures

2009-10-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

Here are current pictures:

Todd at a Camino's Party:

Josh at Watershed Soccer:

Carson at the Lake:

Cam's Cheerleading Picture:

Chloe at the Lake Concerts:

Millie at Montreat Presbyterian Church:

Me:

Friday, again

2009-10-30T16:52:00.000-07:00

Art class was stellar today. I'm always floored by the work that even the smallest of my artist crank out! We've been doing proper carvings these past three Fridays, and I purposely didn't tell them that the equipment and techniques they have been employing, are traditionally more adult oriented. My feeling is that if you have great expectations from a child, they will step up.

I need to post pictures...guess I need to get some parents permission and all that. They've been doing carving on speedy cut lino sheets. They were in charge of their own draft, the transfer of the draft onto the Speedy cut and the carving with the various tools. I did more, "hovering," over the 6 and 7 year old crew, and my youngest, sweet W illa, had help from her mum during class...but all in all, they did it all themselves. Props to the artists of the future!

Art class is also a great opportunity to talk to other moms. My favourite, of course, is the most like me, and she told me about this cool thing she and her women's group are doing called. "The Advent Conspiracy." Don't worry, it's not some anti-Christmas, "Festivus for the restavus..." Basically:

Americans spend 450 billion dollars on Christmas EACH year! (Disgusting!) So let's say, for sake of argument, during a recession we spend a paltry, 350 billion...now, for only 10 billion dollars we could provide fresh, clean sources of water to EVERYONE who are currently dying because of diseases related directly to not having fresh water! Amazing that, right?

So, the Advent Conspiracy asks you to simply not buy one obligatory gift. Not to give up gift giving, but one gift that you know you are buying because you feel like you, "have," to. After you commit to doing that, get everyone around you fired up to do it and take the money that you would have spent and donate it to an agency committed to providing wells in third world countries...specifically Africa.

If water's not your thing, there are also Micro economies to create with 100 dollar loans to women in third world countries to start their own businesses. The loans are repaid back into the fund and re loaned to other women. Your 100.00 could change myriad lives.

So here's what we're doing...and I know I still have some lurkers out there! (Remember, it's my Father Bush blog...kinder...gentler...I know somebody still has to read this thing even though I'm not committing public suicide every day that I type a letter, now...) Point being, maybe you can do it too, and spread the word. Get a group together and save some lives.

Personally: We have saved our change all year to divvy up between the kids to spend on their family Christmas gifts and gifts for their friends. We've saved over $600.00. Each of our children decided to give 10% of their cuts toward the charity of our family's choice. Todd and I will match their money, and fore go trinkets for our parents and relatives etc. Instead they will finally get the family picture that they keep hounding us about.

Professionally Pt I: For the church, the children in my group are all submitting drawings which I am printing onto Christmas Cards. The cards will be available for order to the church and family members etc. They will be cute holiday cards, and all of the proceeds go to one of church missionaries who are serving in Uganda getting wells set up for the people there.

Professionally Pt. II: We look after 14 children on Sunday nights at the church. All during November they will be making really nice gifts for their parents, teachers etc. We are sending the gifts home, wrapped and looking high-end, with a note asking the parents to consider giving a portion of the money they would have used to supply store bought gifts for their children to give, and instead contribute that money to our missionaries as well.

It's easy! You know people, and they know people and they have blogs and facebooks and twitters. Just do something! Quit spending your money at Bath and Body and Hickory Farms and just say, "Screw It!" I'm out of this inane cycle and I'm giving my cash to save someones baby from dying.

I put the link up to the Advent Conspiracy's blog on the side of my blog. From there you can hit the whole web site.

Living in these mountains has brought out the long latent hippie in me! OK, that was an over statement.

School= Killer. I have a 3.9 Thank You very Much!!

It's Tuesday, but it feels like Monday...but it should be Friday (I'm in love...)

2009-10-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

Have to get better at working in musical references in my titles. I usually have, maybe, 15 minutes between class changes in the computer lab to do this, so its a little dicey trying to come up with a lyric.

Um, today is Tuesday, but I stayed at home yesterday because Millie, Josh and Carson were sick...so it feels like the week has just begun.

Eldest Greene child broke my Blackberry last night, which just makes me so mad that I am beyond wanting to holler about it, and am just feeling like, "whatever." I am contemplating going cell phoneless. It wouldn't make me any nevermind, but it seems like people get peeved now if you don't have a cell phone. Like it's your obligation to be available for work stuff all the time. What happened to lists and weekly meetings? I'm just thinking, that's all.

Journal Entry for today:

Odysseus and the Kyklops (yes, that's how they spelled it)

I find it interesting that at the beginning of Odysseus Book IX, Odysseus was talking about how he could not get his men to follow directions and leave Ismaros after they had plundered it. They ended up staying long enough to be raided by the inland Kikones. As a result of their insubordination, six men from each ship died. That’s 72 men!

Noteworthy is that Odysseus does not mention or describe being angry at or seeking retribution from his ships’ crew. Why not? The gods are constantly and sometimes capriciously exacting vengeance and expressing their displeasure with human conduct. Why doesn’t Odysseus follow this example? His only remark is, “And this new grief we bore with us to sea.” Followed by the Metrical Formula, “our precious lives we had, but not our friends.”

Another point of notice is immediately following the incident on Isamaros, when Odysseus and crew find themselves on the island of the Kyklops; the crew now wants to leave right after they plunder the cave. (Perhaps they now felt cautious about overstaying their welcome?) Odysseus is now the one who wanted to stay! He wants to check everything out and maybe meet the inhabitant of the cave. He even brought an extra special vintage from Apollo’s vineyard along with him. He turned right around and did not listen to the same counsel he gave his me not long before. This leads to the death of nine men!

If that wasn’t enough, he won’t listen to the men AGAIN when they beg him not to taunt Kyklops:

God’s sake Captain!
Why bait the beast again?
Let him alone…
…I (Odysseus) would not heed them
In my glorying spirit
But let my anger flare and fly

One would think Odysseus would be extra sensitive to not doing anything that would cost more lives, but he is completely foolhardy…which I surmise is the example he gave to his crew…so why am I surprised at their lack of obedience, and his lack of discipline?

Fall Break

2009-10-07T07:31:00.000-07:00

So today begins fall break; which is nice. Rather than lounging around though, I will be catching up on office work at the church and cleaning up the bomb site that currently doubles as my living quarters!

Tomorrow I am special helper in Millie's Montessori class. Very Exciting! I've been looking forward to helping out all semester to see how they run the classroom. Millie always comes home all blissed out. Last night she demonstrated her yoga techniques for Todd and I until finally, she gave up the fight and fell asleep in the middle of the floor.

Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures and post them.

Todays Literature Post is the second journal for World Literature...oh, and i got an A on the Hawthorne Paper.

Journal Notes on the Epic of Gilgamesh

Two similarities to other “epic,” stories immediately struck me as I read, “The Epic of Gilgamesh.” First: the seduction of Enkidu is very like the seduction of Mowgli to the Man Village in Rudyard Kipling’s, The Jungle Book. And, second, is the bringing of wisdom to Enkidu is very like the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu is educed by a prostitute at the water source where he is nearby with his animal family. After having slept with her, and being instructed in the ways of humans, he finds that he no longer fits in with either his animal family or the family of men. He is displaced. By the same token, Mowgli is enchanted by a lovely young woman drawing water from the well by the village which is near to where he is in the jungle. After he goes to see her, he finds himself not belonging yet in either world, but finds that he must stay in the world of men, just as Enkidu finds that he must stay with Gilgamesh.

The second similarity occurs when Enkidu has the realization that he is no longer one of the wild things. He is seated at the Harlot’s feet. She says to him, “You are wise, Enkidu, and now have become like a god.” This is reminiscent of the story of the fall of man, where the serpent says eating of the forbidden fruit will make Eve like God. Both Enkidu and Adam and Even tasted of something tempting, but that really wasn’t supposed to be for them. All lost their identities to become, “wise,” and ultimately, all lost their lives.

Sssssnake Farm...
Sure sounds nasty
Sssssnake farm
Purty much is!
-i heard this song on WNCW and I looovvve it!-
Ray Wylie Hubbard

Midterm One

2009-10-06T05:56:00.000-07:00

Today is my World Literature midterm. It consists of a writers portfolio and a comprehensive test. I have been journaling for this class on all of the readings we have done thus far. They cover Early Egyptian poetry- Medea. The next half of the semester goes from Lysistrata-Faust.

So, I have all the journal entries typed up and today's is an entry on Early Egyptian poetry and how teenaged girls have not changed in thousands of years!

Journal on Egyptian Poetry

“I Was Simply Off to See Nefrus,” is a perfect example of the battle between child and woman that rages in a teenaged girl.

In the poem, the child is giddy, off to gossip about boys with her friends. I suppose today they would be texting one another and wouldn’t have run into anyone at all. But, in the poem, they are out, and they run into the handsome Mehy!

(Actual Poem)
Don't let him see me!
Where can I hide?

(Today's teenager)
Don't look now, there's Justin!
Mom! Stop it! I said, "Don't look!"

Inside, she wants him to see her, but she’s afraid she will blurt out her crush on him…

I know I will blurt out,
‘Please take me!’
(I mustn’t)

*************************

Should I write him a note?
What if I ask him to the dance?

I know, I’ll call…
CLICK) Oh No! He answered!
(I.Die.)

Then, the woman kicks in, maybe the memories of advice given by her own mother, or her Aunts…

No, all he would do is brag out my name.
Mehy would make me just one of the girls
For all the boys in the palace.

***********

No! I won’t chase him down!
I won’t be like the other girls
Throwing myself at him…

Then the other boys will make up stories about me
And give me a rep.
I’ll just play hard to get…
(Oh! But isn’t he hot?)

That poem was a good juxtaposition with, “Love How I’d Love to Slip Down to the Pond.” I liked the jump of holding back sexual advances as a younger unmarried woman, to the safety and excitement of seducing one’s husband.

The married woman at the pond does not have to fear that other men will think she will do for them what she does for her husband there, in the pond. As, it is doubtful that he will spread this story around as bragging Mehy would do. The husband has no need to boast or brag to build up his sexual position within the single Alpha-male group- he has his wife in see through wet linen re-enacting the Bo Derek, “10,” scene for his own personal enjoyment.

Ah, the joys of playing hard to get…at first.

Downstairs...

2009-09-29T09:48:00.001-07:00

Downstairs, underneath the computer lab, where the pool tables and the big screen tv live, someone is playing a jazz/ragtime fusion, and belting out lyrics like Harry Connick Junior. I am digging it.

Done and dusted are the papers on Euripides's "Medea," and Hawthorne's Short Stories, "The Minister's Black Veil," "Young Goodman Brown," and "Roger Malvin's Burial."

I got A's on both of the Literature Tests....did I write that already? Today, the statistics test came back with a solid B...whew! And the Oasis paper got returned to me with no corrections necessary and a, "Wow!" comment.

The Medea topic was: Narcissistic Personality Disorder as Displayed by Euripides' Medea...sounds riveting doesn't it?

Hawthorne Paper is The Role of Secret Sin and it's Consequent Destruction in Hawthorne's Short Stories equally exciting, I know.

Here is the Medea Paper...without the end notes...because eventually someone will google: Literary Criticism of Medea and up comes my entry, and now they have to figure out the sources themselves, which in my book equals research, so plagiarisers of the world, unite and buy your papers from some web-site that does that sort of thing...thanks!

They Died From a Disease They Caught From Their Father: Narcissistic undertones in Euripides’ “Medea”

“Narcissist!” A lovely, biting descriptor used to describe everything from the boss who disregards a contribution to a staff project, and instead takes all the glory for himself; to an ex-lover who leaves an, “it’s not me; it’s you,” message on a voice mail. But, what is a narcissist really?

Oxford Textbook of Psychopathology describes Narcissistic Personality Disorder as including a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy.(1) The street description for NPD is described as, “having a God Complex.” Such a complex is not surprising from Medea, as she is descended from a god: her grandfather is Helios, the sun god.(2)

Euripides writes in his tragedy, “Medea,” the perfect narcissistic character: the namesake herself. Medea is a clever, powerful, jealous and angry woman. Her husband Jason has taken a younger lover whom he has made his bride. Medea considers herself to be far from a Starter Bride, however, as she and Jason have two sons together, and a long intertwined history. As her rage overtakes her, she allows herself to slip into the depths of her narcissistic personality disorder, until the very justification for her unthinkable infanticide becomes Jason’s fault.

The APA further describes the narcissist, in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , as having up to nine distinct outward signs. Euripides crafts a story of unthinkable revenge around all nine of these characteristics.

One of the first outward manifestations of NPD is, “Has a grandiose sense of self-importance.” “Medea,” is full of , “I,” statements by its main character, Medea. Consider her exchange with her estranged husband, Jason as he discusses her imminent departure from Corinth:

I saved your life, and every Greek knows I saved it…
I killed (the snake), and so gave you safety of the light.
I myself betrayed my father and my home…
I killed him, Pelias, with a most dreadful death…
(3)

Jason, of course has another viewpoint of her contributions to his reputation, he feels that Cypris, also known as Aphrodite, was responsible for his success, not the omnipotent Medea.

Medea is “preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love,” the second characteristic of NPD, as described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . This is made abundantly evident throughout the play as she discusses with anyone in earshot how she has been wronged by Jason and his new lover: “a distinguished husband I have-for breaking promises!” (4) She is also determined to have success in the form of the ultimate revenge against Jason by killing his new wife, the King of Corinth and her own children…even when it flys in the face of her own tenuous conscience:

No, no, I will not do it.
I will renounce my plans.
Ah, what is wrong with me?
Do I want to let go my enemies unhurt and me laughed at for it?
(5)

She is more concerned with reputation and others people’s opinion of her power, than the lives of her sons.

Medea is also impressed with her own brilliance. She compares her cleverness and skill to that of the ancient oracle Phoebus during a discussion with Aigeus, her old friend who has recently come from a session with the oracle regarding his childlessness. The oracle has given Aigeus a task to do before he will have a child, yet Medea insists that she can more easily end his barren condition through magic, if only he will take her in, after she leaves Jason:

But receive me into your land and at your very hearth…
…You do not know what a chance you have come on here.
I will end your childlessness, and I will make you able to beget children.
(6)

Medea also focuses on being an outsider in the land of Corinth. She considers herself to be an object of envy and scuttlebutt to the other Corinthians because of her education and cleverness of debate. (7) This further shows the extent of Medea’s descent into the bowels of the narcissistic personality; as another description of NPD is, “ (the narcissist)believes they are ‘special’ and can only be understood by, or should associate with, people (or institutions) who are also ‘special’ or of high status.” (8)

The narcissist requires excessive admiration.(9) They want to hear that they are the best lover, the best parent, the best spouse, the biggest contributor at work…second best is the first loser in their world. Medea is furious about being cast aside for a younger wife by Jason. She is not used to being second choice, and she lashes out at her competition; hatching a plan to rid herself of the new bride and the King who allowed the jilting to occur. She would rather see the two of them die a horrible death than admit that she was passed over. She blatantly brags:

By exiling me, he has given me this one day
To stay here, and in this I will make dead bodies…(10)

Medea’s sense of entitlement, another characteristic of the narcissistic personality, runs amok throughout Euripedes’ play. It is evident as she justifies the murder of the princess and the king:

Ah come, Medea in your plotting and scheming
Leave nothing untried of all those things which you know.
Go forward to the dreadful act. The test has come
For resolution. You see how you are treated. Never
Shall you be mocked by Jason’s Corinthian Wedding.
(emphasis mine)
(11)

Entitlement also shows itself in Medea’s conversation with the chorus, on page 452 of Norton. The Chorus inquires, “But can you have the heart to kill your flesh and blood?” Medea replies, “Yes, for this is the best way to wound my husband.” Medea feels so entitled to her revenge at the cost of innocent lives, that she is willing to be, as the Chorus points out, “most unhappy.” She stubbornly disregards their common sense observation with her cold rebuttal, “So it must be. No compromise is possible.” She will have her pound of flesh.

A narcissist is a master of manipulation. The professional description of this character trait is, “interpersonally exploitative.”(12) The manipulation showcased by Medea is masterful. She uses every arrow of technique in her quiver as she debates the King of Corinth for an extension before her exile. She uses deference: “by your knees…” or the love of his daughter: “by your new wedded girl…” or patriotism: “O my country!...” and finally she plays to his fatherly affections: “Have pity on them! You have children of your own.” (13)

Another demonstration of her exploitation of others is the using of her desperate friend Aigeus. Aigeus, as mentioned above, is longing for a child. Knowing Aigeus’ desperation, Medea is quick to play to his weaknesses. She portrays herself as also alone, also desperate and in need, and finally, she promises children where there currently are none. (14)

She continues her twisting of the truth as she convinces Jason to let the children enter the palace and take gifts to the new bride. She simpers: “It is natural for you to bear with my temper, since we have had much love together…” She flatters: “Why make myself an enemy…of my husband who does the best thing for me by marrying royalty and having children who will be as brothers to my own…” She is self deprecating: “But we women are what we are,-perhaps a little worthless…” Finally, she admits wrongdoing: “Now I give in, and admit then that I was wrong.” (15) Her tactics are so successful that not only does Jason agree to let the children bring gifts of a gown and a diadem to his new lover, but also to ask his bride if the children might stay in the castle with them.

Meadea’s envy is made evident throughout the whole drama. A narcissist is convinced that others are envious of them and they themselves are quite envious of others. Medea is filled with envy for the new bride. Envy spreads its fingers into every fibre of her being. She uses it to fuel her murder; to suppress and assuage her conscience and to justify the web of deceit and blood she weaves.

The narcissistic personality demonstrates arrogance and a haughty attitude. Medea expresses her arrogance as she discusses with the chorus the reasons why she has no choice but to stab her sons:

Let no one think me a weak one, feeble-spirited
A stay-at-home, but rather just the opposite,
One who can hurt my enemies and help my friends;
For the lives of such persons are most remembered (16)

She is so detached from the reality of her actions, and so filled with arrogant concern about how others will perceive her, that she feels completely justified in all of her actions.

Finally, the last characteristic of the narcissist, as listed by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is lack of empathy. Empathy is identifying with someone else’s thoughts and feelings. Medea’s frigid demeanor and taunting volley of words to Jason as he grieves over the loss of his only sons is a shocking display of her lack of empathy.

Jason is left with the carnage of the destruction of his children; the poisoning and burning of his wife and father-in-law, and the bitter knowledge that the murdering mother of his sons is being borne away unfettered by her grandfather’s chariot. In his grief, rage and confusion he cries out to her, “…it was not my hand that destroyed them!” Medea, twisted in logic and reply justifies her act by blaming him: “…it was your insolence, and your virgin wedding…” and then, “The children are dead. I say this to make you suffer.”

At last, Medea sums up her self-importance, envy, self-centredness and manipulation-her classic description of a life destroyed by Narcissistic Personality Disorder- as she looks at Jason and relieves herself of all responsibility regarding her actions…

They died from a disease they caught from their father
(17)

Learn to love me
Assemble the ways
Now, today, tomorrow and always
My only weakness is a list of crimes
My only weakness is ... well, never mind, never mind

-The Smiths-
-Shoplifters of the World Unite-

(This is actually the cover sheet)

I hope..and I pray.. for a Hester to win just one more "A"...

2009-09-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

that's right, vacant area of cyberspace known as the "understood audience," it's Nathaniel Hawthorne time in United States Literature. And yes indeedy, we are now into the territory of US Lit that I actually enjoy.

Today I happily read the Introduction, The Custom House and the first nine chapters of the Scarlett Letter without even once emitting forth a deep sigh that sounds much like a deflating balloon.

Without any further ado...oh wait, there is an ado: Statistics test today made my brain hurt. Brit Lit test result was a 90 out of 100. I'm not sure what areas I failed to do well in; I guess I'll find out Friday. I had hoped for higher marks though.

Anyhow, now....my Hawthorne journal for today's 2:00 class:

One of my favourite parts in Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter is when Hester is interviewing with Governor Bellingham about the prospects of keeping her daughter Pearl. Before this exchange Hester’s character is written in a martyr type voice. While the reader knows Hester has done wrong by having a sexual relationship with another man, outside of marriage, her strength of character in the face of such scorn and ridicule frames her in an almost saintly light.

It is only when there is a threat of taking away the child, the one good thing that came of her affair, and conversely, the constant reminder of the cross she has to bear, that she becomes realistic in the eyes of the viewer. Gone is the martyred context or the stoic forbearance. She, in the modern day vernacular, goes completely, “ghetto.”

Hawthorne describes Hester’s appeal to Rev. Dimmesdale as a, “wild and singular appeal,” (p100) I venture to theorize that by Arthur’s reaction, he took it for what it really was: a threat.

‘Speak thou for me!’ cried she.
‘Thou was’t my pastor, and hads’t charge of my soul,
and knowest me better than these men can.
I will not lose the child!
(p100)

I see her modern day counterpart, turning on him like an angry mother grizzly bear and shouting, “Get up there and fix this! You know me better than any of these me, you know my heart…I slept with you for god’s sake! I. Will. Not. Lose. The. Child.

Hester continues to cause Arthur panic as she dances around the truth of the secret that rests between them:

Speak for me! Thou knowest-
for thou has’t sympathies which these men lack!
Thou knowest what is in my heart,
and what are a mother’s rights,
and how much the stronger they are,
when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter!
Look thou to it!
I will not lose the child!
Look to it!
(p100)

The line, “and what are a mother’s rights, and how much stronger they are, when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter,” is the most telling statement of Hester’s entreaty. She seems to be carefully and cryptically letting Dimmesdale know, “Look, I deserve to keep this child…it is my right; I kept you safe and lived my life with nothing but the scorn and hatred that comes with this scarlet letter that YOU helped put here. You get your reputation…I WILL have this child!”

Finally, she ends with a demand; a demand that was probably looked at as a crazed woman’s undignified appeal. I’m certain women weren’t in the custom of making demands on men, especially not the clergy. They would most likely approach in deference. But not Hester. There is no sense of any regard for her place in society; Arthur’s place in the community…only her heavy knowledge that if ever there was a time to play her trump card; that time was upon her.

Look Thou To It!
You Make This Right; You Owe Me That Much!

The sadder but wiser girl's
the girl for me!
The sadder but wiser girl for me!
-Music Man-

More Testy Testy

2009-09-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

Following hot the heels of British Literature test was US Literature test consisting of Four Essay questions. Now, I will be the first to say that US Literature is not my cup of tea, especially the Transcendental crew. I like a little Hawthorne, and I luvs me some Twain, but Emerson and his posse, even James Fennimore Cooper make me rankle. So this is a particularly difficult test for me, because we are in their time period. Here it is:

Question One:
Emerson said in “Self-Reliance”: “Isolation must precede true society.” How does Emerson support Thoreau’s comments in the chapter on Solitude? Mention a brief passage from Walden to support your thinking.

Thoreau spoke about the wearying nature of being in a crowd, also the lonliness that one feels when abroad in a group of people. He says, “A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows” (Norton p900). Thoreau indicates that without being happy in ones own company and work; without first knowing oneself, there is no basis for actual society. There is only, “exertion of the legs,” (Norton p 898) bringing two minds nearer to each other.

Emerson seconds this opinion in his passage in, “Self Reliance,” when he speaks of men becoming a mob. He indicates that we must look for knowledge within ourselves, and not from other men.

Man does not stand in awe of man,
nor is the soul admonished to stay at home,
to put itself in communication with the internal ocean,
but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water from the urns of men.
We must go alone.
Isolation precedes true society
Norton p 543

Both Thoreau and Emerson found it be important for each person to become alone in their own mind and thinking…independent. After this achievement, people can be together socially without seeking answers or validation from one another; they are comfortable with their own minds and decisions. Only then can we manage to, “pass a cheerful evening with social mirth and pleasant views of things” (Norton p 901).

Question 2.
How do Rip Van Winkle and Hawk-eye of The Last of the Mohicans emblemize the myth of the American Adam? Use a brief quote from each work to support your thinking.

Rip Van Winkle and Hawk-eye each represent facets of the American Adam. However, neither completes all of the characteristics of the American Adam.

The American Adam is a man; both Rip and Hawk-eye fit these criteria. Like the Biblical Adam, the American Adam experiences some kind of fall, or event that affects the subtext of his character. In Rip Van Winkle, the “fall,” is more of a character flaw than a physical action or sin/crime. Rip is lazy. Washington Irving describes this character flaw as, “The great error in Rip’s composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labour” (Norton p457). James Fennimore Cooper’s character Hawk-eye however, does not have a clear fall experience, in the chapter available. Instead he exhibits more of the self-reliant or independent nature of the American Adam.

The American Adam tendency is toward a solitary life, even wandering. They are usually in a wide open space, or that is their preference. Hawk-eye’s independent nature and knowledge of his chosen, “wild space,” gives him the respect of the Mohican Indians, and aids in his survival. Cooper describes this respect Hawk-eye has garnered in an exchange between the Indian and Hawk-eye,

‘The thieves are outlying for scalps
And plunder,’ said the white man,
Whom we shall call Hawk-eye,
After the manner of his companions…
…’ Tis enough,’ returned the father,
glancing his eye toward the setting sun;
‘they shall be driven like deer from
the bushes. Hawk-eye, let us eat tonight
and show the Maquas that we are
men tomorrow.’
Norton p474
Emphasis mine

Rip, also prefers the quiet of nature to get away from his nagging wife and townspeople’s expectations of how a man should function. At his lowest, Rip takes to the highest part of the Kaatskill’s mountains. He is doing some squirrel hunting. Irving’s rich depiction of Rip’s wild space, cements the need for the American Adam to have solitude and nature available to him:

…He threw himself, late in the afternoon,
on a green knoll, covered with mountain herbage,
that crowned the brow of a precipice. From
an opening between the trees, he could overlook all
the lower country for many a mile of
rich woodland.
Norton p 459

Finally, the American Adam is an outsider. Happiest to touch society only briefly and then pull away. This is distinct in the character of Hawk-eye, living as he does, tracking in the woods with the Indians. Cooper disguises his eyes, which are perhaps a window to Hawk-eye’s soul as, “quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke…” (Norton p 471). Physically, Hawk-eye is always on the move. He is not content to settle down and become a family man; like his eyes, he is persistently roving.

Rip, on the other hand, thinks he is cut out to be a family man, as he is married and has children. Yet, he is happiest on the move towards nature. He may sleep and drink while he is there, but it is his place of solitude. His role as an outsider is cemented upon his return to his village after he awakens from his 20 year sleep. Not only is he an outsider because many of his friends are dead, but also in his methods of thinking. He is still a loyal subject of the king, even though society has moved on to Independence.

Finally, Rip embraces his outsider status when he realizes that Dame Van Winkle is dead and his daughter is happily married with a good life. Only then can he, “resume his old walks and habits.” (Norton p 465). Still, he does not rekindle friendships with his peers, instead with the younger generation, and he does not embrace the thinking of the times, but instead keeps a, “chronicle of the old times, ‘before the war.’” (Norton p 465)

Both Hawk-eye and Rip Van Winkle are examples of the independent spirit, solitary nature and roving characteristics of the American Adam.

Question 3.

How are poems by Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley similar? How different? Mention one poem by each author. They lived and wrote poetry in the same place, Massachusetts, 100 years apart—Bradstreet around 1670 and Wheatley around 1770.

While Anne Bradstreet and Phyllis Wheatly were both published women poets during a time when women were not readily acclaimed as writers and poets, and also lived in the same area of the United States, their subject matter and style of writing differs greatly.

Anne Bradstreet writes from experience about every day activities. She writes with a matter of fact style and in a journal-like fashion, giving the same frank treatment to a poem where she express concern over death in childbirth as she does to the burning of her house and what spiritual lessons she has learned from its destruction. She is her poetry. There is no flair for flairs sake. She is very raw when she writes

If two be one, as surely thou and I,
How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie?
…
Wherever ever stay and go not hence;
Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,
I here, thou there, but both one.
Norton p 109

In stark contrast is the lofty, verbose styling of Phyllis Wheatly. Phyllis is very rarely raw; she is instead crafted and considered, coming across to the reader as precocious or gushing. Her topics of poetry range from Advisory, (“To the University of Cambridge, in New England,”) Memorial, (“On the Death of Rev. Mr. George Whitfield,”) Lofty, (“Thoughts on the Works of Providence,”) and Fan-girlish, (“To His Excellency General Washington.”)

When she does write poetry consisting of her own experiences, such as, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” she lacks a grasp of reality. Perhaps this is owing to her youth, her frailty and dependence on her masters, or her specialized upbringing at the hands of enlightened people, but Masters all the same. In, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” she caters to her white audience by stating:

‘Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God and a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought or knew.

In essence she allows the slave holders a balm for their conscience by calling her slavery a mercy, because she met a God she would have never know. While she dances around a reprimand in the following lines of the same poem:

Some view our sable race with scornful eye
‘Their colour is a diabolic dye.’
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refined and join the angelic train.

She never presents the reality of slavery. She is content to live in a world of flowery speech and management by her white masters, until upon their deaths she is freed. It is my opinion that upon being freed she lacked the skills to help her survive in the real world, because she had been encouraged to live in an academic world of high thought and misplaced complacency with her slave condition.

Because her later works of poetry were never published, it is impossible to see if the realities of her adult condition affected the realities of her poetry.

Question 4.
Readers of Poe stories often assume that Poe is like the narrator, an alter ego. However, instead of the narrator, think of a subordinate or side character as Poe-like in “Fall of House of Usher,” and “The Purloined Letter.” Discuss non-narrators in these two stories as representing character traits Poe might have seen in himself.

It would be interesting to consider Poe to be like the house in the, “Fall of the House of Usher.” While a house is inanimate and dispassionate, Poe does take some effort in personifying this particular manse. He describes it as, “bleak,” as having vacant face like features, as, “rank,” and having, “an utter depression of soul.” In all, he gives a particularly unpleasant disposition to this home.

The house is a shell. It has to capability to house and protect both evil and good; insanity and reason. Poe himself is a shell which houses these elements: the dark side of his mind when he writes, revealing his fears or thoughts, and the pleasant side, where he loves his wife and strives for success in the editorial world. He continues his study in opposites with the insanity of his alcohol addiction harshly contrasting the dedication and normalcy of his periods of sobriety.

The house itself is cracked down the middle, seemingly representing Poe’s two distinct natures. As the, “Fall of the House of Usher,” proceeds the house eventually splits completely in two and falls in on itself. It is possible that Poe felt that this disparity between his two parts could not continue forever, and would, in its own time, cause him to splinter, and collapse into his disease.

The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon,
which now shone vividly through that once barely discernible fissure,
of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building,
in a zigzag direction, to the base.
While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened—
there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—
the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight—
my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—
there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—
and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly
and silently over the fragments of the “House of Usher.”
Norton p701

A differing perspective would be to look at Poe as the competent but confused Prefect in, “The Purloined Letter.” The Prefect has done everything right. He is talented, intuitive, charming, modern and bright, yet, he cannot reach his goal of recovering a stolen letter. Likewise Poe is well raised in his youth, given every educational opportunity, modern, popular and celebrated at the height of his living career, and yet he could not succeed in the area he really desired. He could not stay employed at the various literary magazines he worked for or edited; he could not curb his violent drinking; his life, “was a tangled mess,” just as the Prefect’s search for the purloined letter was a tangled, unsuccessful mess.

The Prefect complains to Dupin of his failures and is exasperated to the point of rhetorically, he thinks, offering up a portion of the cash reward to anyone who could help him recover the letter. He is shocked and confused when Dupin admits that he has already recovered the missive. Poe describes the Prefect’s reaction as, “absolutely thunder stricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, less, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets…” (Norton p 717). It seems Poe’s demons would not allow him the successful recovery of a literary career. I would imagine his facial expression may be similar to the above description of the Prefect’s if he knew what a stir his writings caused now.

Testy Testy

2009-09-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

So this has been the (quasi) week of tests! Friday I had British Literature test. I had extra time, along with the whole class...I wasn't the special kid who alone needed more time, to write the essay question and its answers.

Now, I don't know about the other students, but I am incapable of writing a literary analysis (and as my spell check just showed me, I am incapable of spelling it as well)in anything resembling a short essay form. I always feel like I am standing on the precipice of Master's Thesis whenever I start typing, and the professor is going to screaming, "Jump off the cliff an die!" at me before they are done sifting through everything I have put down.

Anyhow, here is my essay for Dr. King's first test.

The question was: Compare and or contrast two of the Middle English ballads we studied in terms of the characters, the themes, and or the settings. Which ballad do you consider most effective.

(Notice my stalwart attempt at a thesis statement right off the bat for this professor. I tend to wander sleepily into the land of thesis statements, but this professor likes them right away...very hard for me.)

Both the, “Wife of Usher’s Well,” and, “Sir Patrick Spens,” focus on the negative effects of obligation, as well as grief and mourning. The common themes of death at the hands of the sea, displeasure with the commissioner of the sea voyages, grief, and the supernatural and even common winter time settings link the two ballads. “The Wife of Usher’s Well,” however, portrays a more realistic view of tragedy, obligation and grief; the visitation of three dead sons not withstanding.

In the ballad, “Sir Patrick Spens,” the king, in Dumfermline, Scotland, needs a brilliant sailor to ferry his daughter, Margaret, to Norway for her wedding to King Eric (Chalmers, Reverend Peter. Historical and Statistical Account of Dumfernline. 1859). Sir Patrick Spens is suggested by the king’s right hand knight. When the king’s letter arrives to Sir Patrick, he is obligated to sail, even though the timing of the wedding will have him returning home in the winter. The winter time was considered to be fraught with impossible sailing conditions (Chalmers, Reverend Peter. 1859.) Still Sir Patrick will obey his king, and agrees to sail.

The mother in, “The Wife of Usher’s Well,” sends her three sons off to sea. There is a suggestion by an undocumented author (Wikipedia) that boys sailed during the dangerous winter months, due to the Scottish superstition of calling forth the dead by mourning them for more than a year and a day, but there is not a readily available primary source for this theory. (It is listed as a Southern Appalachian superstition, which leads one to believe it could be Scottish.) Since the boys appeared at Martinmas (Norton, p 2901), it stands to reason, if the year and a day theory is truth, then the sons sailed and died in November.

Although the reason for their sea trip is not stated, the boys would have felt a strong obligation to do as their mother instructed. When the boys return later, as ghosts, their actions toward her suggest that they are none too pleased with their mother; just as Sir Patrick was none too pleased with the knight who offered his name up to the king as a sailor (Norton p2903, l 17-20).

To show their hostility to their mother, the boys wear hats with birch branches on them. Scottish folklore states that the foliage on the heads of the dead was to protect them from the influences and temptations of the living world Wikipedia). They are, in effect, stating with their clothing choice that they are dead, and staying that way. They continue to force their mother to admit their death and separation from her by reminding her twice that they have to leave before sunrise

Up then crew the red red cock
And up then crew the gray.
The eldest to the youngest said,
‘Tis time we were away.’

The cock he hadna’ crawed but once,
And clapped his wings at a’
When the youngest to the eldest said,
‘Brother we must away.’
(Norton, p 2901)

The supernatural also plays a part in each ballad; admittedly, it plays a smaller role in, “Sir Patrick Spens.” Sir Patrick Spens and his crew by either clairvoyance or stellar sky reading foresee their own death as witnessed on page 2903 of our text

Late late yestre’en I saw the New Moon
Wi’ the auld moon in her arm,
And I fear, I fear dear master,
That we will come to harm.

The role of the supernatural is much more overt in the, “Wife of Usher’s Well,” with the sons appearing on Martinmas in the cold dark night of winter. They make no attempt to comfort their mother or assuage her grief. In fact, the boys appear on a Scottish Term Day (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1990/ukpga_19900022_en_1), or holiday where fasting is the normal daylight occurrence, knowing full well that they cannot eat the feast their mother will joyfully lay at their nightfall return; just as the fast is breaking. In a similar fashion Sir Patrick offers no comfort to his sea crew, nor is he offered any alternatives to certain death at sea by his king.

Death is the order of the day in both ballads. Sir Patrick Spens, along with all of the Scottish Lords on board his ship, drown. All of these lives are greatly and publicly mourned. Sir Patrick’s death is romanticized by the vision of lovely ladies waiting, clutching their fans, dressed in their finery waiting for the men who will never return to them. They become gloriously and tragically heroic. The mother, in the, “Wife of Usher’s Well,” becomes only tragic. She is doomed to a life of grief and regret, fettered in her knowledge of her role in her son’s deaths, and their disregard for her need to be comforted and perhaps forgiven during their November visit.

“Sir Patrick Spens,” becomes a ballad of obligation cum loyalty to ones king. This forever cements him in the realm of a hero’s death, romanticizing and idealizing Sir Patrick. “The Wife of Usher’s Well,” even with the spectral visitation, is a more likely observance of grief. The mother receives no hero’s wake for her three sons; only, painful reminders of all that could have been, or should have been done: the bed unslept ; the dinner plates untouched; the lonely holidays, and a cold wind that continuously blows no one home. (Norton, p 2901)

Art day

2009-09-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend is going to be a minor taste of literary hell! Two tests, one via e-mail, one first thing Monday Morning. Two long papers due, three journals and the beginnings of the mid term portfolios, full of all the revisions of previous papers...oh, and the first 8 chapters of The Scarlett Letter. Happily I *heart* the Scarlett Letter.

But, on to lovelier things. Today is Art Class and we are doing Mono printing. Which is the process of painting on a slick surface (non porous) laying paper down on top of it, and then drawing on the back of the paper. This transfers the drawing onto the painted background.

Not to be undone, we also have a test review coming up for Art.

A few days ago, some of the guys who work with Todd at Ridgecrest caught one of the resident bears in a trap. It is a sweet bear, who doesn't cause any real harm, but is mischievous and likes to come up to the coffee shop now and again.

Anyhow, they trapped him (illegal) and decided to keep him caged (illegal) and then transfer him about 65 miles away to another wooded area..(again, ultra illegal.) Todd was quite upset by the way they were hoisting the cage around and scaring the bear, because bears can have heart attacks really easily. He said the bear was freaking out and his mouth was all bloodied from trying to chew through the cage.

Finally, with the aid of the fork lift they got the bear into a covered trailer (it's illegal you know...did I mention that?) and could not think of a clever way to release the bear once they got to their destination.

Todd, being clever, said they should climb up on to the roof of the trailer and use a string attached to the cage door to pull up and release the bear. Cunning Plan! So, they did, and the bear shot out of there like a bullet.

Sad thing is, that little bear had no reason to be unfriendly to humans until now. Todd said the next hiker that comes up on the bear is going to be UNHAPPY!

I'm off for home to gather up supplies.

And finally she gets to use Oasis in a paper!!

2009-09-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

Oh the joy that made my heart leap when my World Lit professor handed out the assignment to find Allusions to Odysseus, or the Heroic Cycle in general, in modern day works.

My mind swam with the possibilities...

Oh Brother Where Art Thou...based on the Odyssey itself...
The Police's, "Wrapped Around Your Finger," referencing Skylla and Kharybdis
or maybe the Hip/Hop-Gangster rap tradition of pouring out some of their drink for their dead homies having its roots in the Greek tradition of pouring out wine onto the ground to represent the blood spilled by their brothers in arms...?

Nothing.

I knew a bunch of people would be doing Oh Brother. I couldn't form a paper out of the Police, and frankly I had to edit out so many of the lyrics from Gangster Lean and Tupac songs that the rap paper just looked staccato.

Ahhhhhh...Oasis.... yeah, somehow I can make this Lad Band bend to my Literary Will.

I choose Masterplan, the b-side release that has "Half the World Away," on it, and formed the song lyrics into a passable heroic cycle. Passable...not great, but hopefully points for not doing a retread of Oh Brother, or the Spongebob Odyssey episode!

The Masterplan:
Oasis’ Masterplan b-sides cd as a modern day representation of the heroic cycle

Manchester based British band Oasis released a b-sides compilation cd in 1998 entitled, “Masterplan.” Previously in the music industry, “b-side tracks,” were thought to be songs unworthy of major album release. Oasis created discussion and controversy by compiling an album full of songs woven together by their talent and their seeming stand-alone quality. In listening to this album, in its completion, the listener begins to feel a sense of the band creating a story in the songs as a whole…a journey from start to finish. As one experiences the lyrics and the story they tell, the allusion to the heroic journey, in a somewhat shortened form, begins to show itself.

In literature, the heroic cycle opens up with a call, or a challenge, to the Every Man to step outside of his known world and become a hero. Oasis’ Masterplan begins with Track One entitled, “Acquiesce.” Acquiesce is defined by Webster as, “to accept, comply, or submit tacitly or passively.” The lyrics contain the stanza:

There are many things
That I would like to know
And there are many places
That I wish to go
But everything's depending
On the way the wind may blow
I don't know what it is
That makes me feel alive
I don't know how to wake
The things that sleep inside

These lyrics indicate a desire for the narrator to leave his comfortable space and begin to experience the unknown of the world at large. But, outside circumstances, which could be translated as fear of leaving his comfortable if not mundane world, stop him from making a change.

In the heroic cycle, the Every Man often refuses the Call, initially. There are many reasons this could be the case: comfort, fear, disbelief in his own worthiness, mistrust of his own capabilities. In the Masterplan, the narrator, in Tracks Two and Three, laments the static nature of his current existence. He is, unwilling to make, or distrusting of what a change might bring.

When I was young
I thought I had my own key
I knew exactly what I wanted to be
Now I'm sure
You've boarded up every door

Lived in a bubble
Days were never ending
Was not concerned
About what life was sending
Fantasy was real
Now I know much
About the way I feel
-Fade Away-
Track Two
And Track Three

Here am I, growing older in the rain
Here am I, going nowhere on a train
Here am I, gettin lost and lonely, sad and only wild sometimes cos my life feels so tame
-Going Nowhere-
Track Three

In Fade Away, he observes that in his youth he had dreams and a vision of what he could be, and by that reasoning, what he could do. But now, as he is older, these doors are closed to him. His Call has caused him to start to consider his position; how he feels trapped in his life. His distaste for his current condition drives him to Acceptance of the Call.

In the traditional Heroic Cycle there is usually a supernatural occurrence which helps the fledgling hero rise to his call to action. In the Masterplan, no such supernatural occurrence is documented. The simple fact of the narrator seeing his life for what it has truly become is enough to cause him to make the leap of faith. Track Four, “Half the World Away,” documents his jump:

I would like to leave this city
This old town don't smell too pretty and
I can feel the warning signs running around my mind
And when I leave this island I'll book myself into a soul asylum
And I can feel the warning signs running around my mind
So here I go still scratching around the same old hole
My body feels young but my mind is very old
So what do you say?
You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway
You're half the world away
Half the world away
Half the world away
I've been lost I've been found but I don't feel down.

Track four also introduces the idea of trials and tribulations faced by our fledgling hero. The journey is arduous; the hero is most likely still plagued by doubt, and confusion. In, “Half the World Away,” the narrator is away from his home now, but its lure remains. He feels the advice of his youth, “running around,” in his mind; he wonders if he’s just in for more of the same, but in the end, home and the old life are far away, and he must press onward.

In the heroic cycle, as the hero presses onward, he undoubtedly becomes more comfortable with his quest. The trials and tribulations persist, but he is more prepared through experience. As, “The Masterplan,” progresses, the narrator finds himself still fumbling, but not afraid, and not ashamed of the predicaments he finds himself in. He begins to realize that he is after something more important that just his own safety and security; he is after the boon or the reward. Track Five displays this change of heart:

Lost in a fog
Up a tree like a dog
And I'm out of here
I got no name
And I feel no shame
And I got no fear
And I bow down
To the tears of a clown
Whatever's going down
Is coming around
I hope you don't regret today
-Headshrinker-

The boon in the Heroic Cycle could be a tangible treasure, a healing elixir, or an epiphany that is relevant to mankind. The hero is seeking this boon. Upon finding it, he is only partially successful however, as he must then return home to share what he has discovered or recovered.

Our narrator in, “The Masterplan,” collects his boon in the form of an epiphany, or an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure, according to Webster. He discusses this realization in Track Seven, “It’s Good to be Free,”

So what would you say if I said to you
It's not in what you say it's in what you do
You point the finger at me but I don't believe
Bring it on home to where we found
My head like a rock sitting upside down
In my mind there is no time

And starting the journey homeward is discussed in Track Eight entitled, “Listen Up.”

Sailin' down the river alone,
I'll be tryna find my way back home,
But I don't believe in magic,
Life is automatic, but I don’t mind being on my own,
No I don't mind being on my own

The supernatural shows itself on the return journey as well for our heroes. Help is often provided at the right time. The hero may be helped emotionally or physically. In The Odyssey, Odysseus is helped by the gods to escape from Scylla as he paddles by on his raft, by them causing her not to see him. His spirit is ministered to by Kirke, as she warns him of dangers to come and how best to get through them. In, “The Masterplan,” our narrator cum hero is ministered to, in a time of weakness of spirit, by a stranger:

Sleepin' on a plane
You know you can't complain
You took your last chance
Once again
I landed, stranded
Hardly even knew your name

I wanna talk tonight
Until the mornin' light
'Bout how you saved my life
You and me see how we are
You and me see how we are
Track Eleven
-Talk Tonight-

Finally, at the end of the Heroic Cycle, our hero returns home. He has the boon; he has the stories; he is a changed man. It is time to apply the lessons he’s learned. Our narrator’s Masterplan journey is at an end as well. Track Twelve, the final lyric submission to the cd, is entitled, “Masterplan.” It recaps and explains all that our hero has learned on his journey outside of his comfortable, boring life of, “quiet desperation.” (Thoreau) He spreads his boon about liberally, in hopes that it may help others who find themselves in the same moment of despair he found himself in, in the beginning of the cd.

Take the time to make some sense
Of what you want to say
And cast your words away upon the waves
Bring them back with Acquiesce
On a ship of hope today
And as they fall upon the shore
Tell them not to fear no more
Say it loud and sing it proud
And they...

Will dance if they want to dance
Please brother take a chance
You know they're gonna go
Which way they wanna go
All we know is that we don't know
What is gonna be
Please brother let it be
Life on the other hand won't let you understand
Why we're all part of the masterplan

I'm not saying right is wrong
It's up to us to make
The best of all things that come our way
And all the things that came have past
The answer's in the looking glass
There's four and twenty million doors
Down life's endless corridor
Say it loud and sing it proud
And they...

Will dance if they want to dance
Please brother take a chance
You know they're gonna go
Which way they wanna go
All we know is that we don't know
What is gonna be
Please brother let it be
Life on the other hand won't let you understand
Why we're all part of the masterplan

Track Twelve
-Masterplan-

The heroic cycle remains relevant and alive in the allusions present in modern day music, movies, literature, and pop culture in general. Its lure and attraction have immense staying power because of the human condition of ennui and the constant searching for more outside of ourselves. Oasis captured a moment, a snapshot of the struggle fought by the average everyday working man to break free from the comfort and relative safety of his workaday world, and journey for the reasons behind his existence…his own Masterplan.

Friday is the best day

2009-09-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

Today is 9:00 British Lit class with Dr. King. Dr. King is who I want to be when I grow up, and I am a total fan girl. He is a C.S. Lewis expert as well as a visiting Oxford professor in the summers and a really neat guy (who wears old school Chuck Taylor low tops...I.Die.) Anyhow, he is also going to be my advisor. I have my first paper due for him on Monday. Defending my opinion of what the most important Anglo-Saxon ideal is and using examples from Beowulf; Dream of the Rood; the wandered and Battle of Maldon as my defence. Fun! I am looking forward to it!

Friday also means art class teaching. This semester is printmaking...we started with rubbings, and are now doing our safer/cheaper version of lithographs with glue. I'm trying toincorporate more art history this semester, so we are viewing examples of Albrect Durer, Hiroshige, Hokusai and Gustav Baumann and talking about their lives.

I'm hoping class preparedness goes up from last semester...sometimes it's hard for the students to get themselves and their supplies and homework to the co-op. Since it's all homeschoolers there aren't any lockers...sometimes things get lost. I have a few main culprits, so wewill see. Todaytheirfirst homework assignment is due. Vocabulary words on Lithography.

Journal entry on Poe's Ligela and Fall of the House of Usher

2009-09-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

Today is Tuesday. On Tuesday's I have 8:00 statistics class with an adjunct named James.

Then World Literature with Dr. Angle...lots of writing in her class, but I seem to be able to keep up. On the first day of class we discussed the heroic cycle and she asked us to discuss our ideas of a hero, or why we needed heroes and our favourite hero movies. The girls behind me decided that their favourite heroic movie/tv show was the Wizards of Waverly Place...I realized then that I was extremely unprepared for the age gap, as the Wizards of Waverly Place is a show my 9 year old likes.

After World Lit. is chapel, which I go to and get graduation credit for and it isn't that bad. I sit in the back and remember sitting in the chapel 15 years ago and how hard it was to make it to chapel by 10:00. These days I'm up by 6:30.

Then its off to the Montessori school to get Millie, lunch in the cafeteria, Millie to my mom's house and me to:

US History with Dr. Gray. I had Dr. Gray 15 years ago as well. He seems infinitely smarter to me now! (I seem smarter to me now.)

So this is my search for common threads in Poe's Ligela and the Fall of the House of Usher two page essay that is due today at 2:00 for Dr. Gray.

On Ligela and The Fall of the House of Usher

Poe appeals to the macabre nature in all of us…the part that looks at the car wreck, only to suffer at night when the pictures won’t leave our heads. In reading both of Poe’s short works, “Ligela,” and, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe tends to have some common threads running through his depiction of nightmarish reality.

Obligation features prominently in, “Ligela.” The bridegroom feels obligated to obsessively try to remember the details of his first wife, Ligela. He labours over this and frustrates himself at their elusiveness. His sense of obligation also compels him to sit beside his dying second wife’s bed, contemplating Ligela…their differences, his second wife’s unwinnable position, their illnesses. He drives himself to madness with his obligation.

The childhood friend of Roderick Usher also feels a sense of obligation in his acceptance of Mr. Usher’s invitation to his house, in “the Fall of the House of Usher.”The narrator intimates that he and Usher are not really very close, and that the house gives him the creeps, as it were. An overblown sense of obligation keeps him in the house after Lady Madeline’s death and her brother, Usher’s steep descent into insanity. It is my opinion that this sense of obligation creeps close to some kind of hero-complex on the narrator’s part…where better judgment is thrown aside and one stays on to become the rescuer.

Poe also seems to enjoy setting a very dark, ominous yet opulent, movement rich scene. In both stories the rooms are oddly lit, the furnishings are either rich but in decline or rich but out of place. There is an emphasis on the movements of curtains and the unbalancing effect this has on the occupants of the rooms. Coffins are, evidently, readily available in the houses.

Regardless of Poe’s actual use or non-use of opium, opium must have been prevalently on his mind. Its effects on both waking life and dreaming life are used in both stories as descriptors to show characters mental states, or used to help a character disregard the irrational and unexplainable things that are happening around them.

Finally, being presumed dead when not actually dead seems to be a fear of Poe’s. If not a fear- then a fascination. Rowena is dead, then not dead, then dead three times over, in, “Ligela.” Her husband sits and administers feeble attempts at causing her to fully awake…but he does not summon help. Roderick Usher entombs his sister alive. (I think he knows all the time, as he only puts her under the house; perhaps finding himself unable to give her a proper burial.) He descends into madness as she ascends the stairs from her coffin. Our bridegroom, in, “Ligela,” falls into madness as Ligela rises from the death bed.

Obligation, power of suggestion through settings, drug addled states and paranoia as well as death, eternity, and the afterlife seem to weave their way through these two and many others of Poe’s works.

The Back to School Edition

2009-09-03T06:17:00.000-07:00

So, I'm back at school and writing all the time and I figured I would post my papers on here. That way I could read them later and laugh at the forced nature of them all!

Things are great. I have a much needed new lease on life and my family and marriage. I feel lucky.

Here's the new use for my blog; more positive energy.

Today's class is World Literature with Dr. Angle. The assignment is to compare the Epic of Gilgamesh's Flood story with the Biblical account of Noah and his flood.

The similarities between Gilgamesh’s flood story and the account of Noah’s ark are striking. They seem to be cut from nearly the same cloth. The likeness of the two lends itself to theory that all myths spring from, or are derived from one central story. This story, in turn, gives us insight to who we are and where we are going.

In Genesis, God saw that the wickedness of man was great. In Gilgamesh, the gods, and one god in particular, Enil, found the uproar and overpopulation of mankind to be unbearable. In Genesis, God was sorry he had made man and it grieved him. He said he would destroy man and the beasts. In Gilgamesh the gods came to a consensus that mankind was intolerable and needed to be exterminated.

Both of the stories find their God or gods rethinking his/ their mass extermination plan, and they both find one worthy soul to save: Noah and Utnapishtim. For Noah, God speaks directly to him about the impending disaster. For Utnapishtim, one of the other gods, Ea, actually speaks to Utnapishtim’s house about the flood and what to do about it. (Plausible deniability!?)

God is very specific with Noah. He tells Noah the type of wood to use: Gopher; how to make the boat waterproof: use pitch; how long: 300 cubits; how high: 30 cubits, and how wide: 50 cubits. Noah’s ark is a rectangle. Utnapishtim’s round-about discussion with Ea is less specific. He is told to tear down his reed house and build a boat. Utnapishtim also uses pitch and asphalt to waterproof his boat. Utna’s boat is square: 1 acre wide; 121 cubits high…making a square.

Noah is given the unenviable task of housing 2 of every living creature, as is Utnapishtim when he is instructed to, “take up seed of every living creature.” One major difference comes in when Utnapishtim is told to lie to the people about what is going on with the flood preparations:
I have learnt that evil is wrathful against me, I dare no longer
Walk in his land nor live in his city; I will go down to the gulf
To dwell with Ea my lord. But on you he will rain down abundance
Rare fish and shy wild-fowl, a rich harvest-tide. In the evening the
Rider of the storm will bring you whet in torrents.

This is definitely not the reality of the human’s fate when the storm-rider actually comes. Noah, on the other hand, wants others to understand their fate and be spared. They, however, do not believe Noah and Noah enters the ark with only his immediate family. Utnapishtim carries his family, their kin, craftsmen and a navigator.

In both flood accounts the water is released from all sides. Underground, above, and existing waterways break their banks and flood over. Utnapishtim’s storm is shorter, lasting only 6 days and 6 nights, but it is so strong it causes the gods to cower in fear and regret their decision. Noah’s flood is substantially longer; lasting 40 days and 40 nights. The Bible does not mention if God had any thoughts about the destruction. But, it does say that God, “remembered Noah and every living thing…and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged…” At some point, it seems, God felt enough was enough.

Noah came to rest on Mt. Ararat, and after 10 months, Noah could finally see the mountain tops. Utnapishtim had it much easier. He too came to rest on a mountain, the Mountain Nisir. But, Utnapishtim could see his mountain top 14 leagues away from where he floated on the seventh day of his flood adventure.

Both men used a combination of birds to test for land availability. Noah: a raven, a dove and another dove. Utnapishtim also used a dove, then a sparrow, then a raven. Each was given clues by their birds as to when it would be safe to exit the boats.

Noah got off of the boat and made a sacrifice to God. God smelled the sweet aroma from the sacrifice. This prompted the Lord to first think the covenant of no more total destruction of the earth, and later to speak the personal covenant with Noah. God swore to Noah that he would never again destroy the earth by flood. He also created a justice system for Noah: “Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” Basically, God implemented capital punishment…perhaps as a stepping stone to ensuring that his earth would not become so pervasively wicked again.

Utnapishtim also made a sacrifice, although his was on the deck of his boat. His, too, smelled good to the gods. Even though the gods are many, they tended to make decisions as a unit. Together they gathered around the sacrifice, and enjoyed its aroma, but at Ishtar’s insistence they left out Enil because the flood, that they have grown to abhor, was his idea. Their own reactions of fear and disgust to the method and outcome of the flood speak to the probability of their destroying the earth again by water being very slim. Also, Ea’s poem/soliloquy lends weight to this theory.

Ea’s poem also brings up the, “Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood…” issue, in the first two stanzas: “Lay upon the sinner his sin. Lay upon the transgressor his transgressions.” This succinctly handles the future unknown in regards to humankind’s behavior.

Finally, both Noah and Utnapshtim receive their blessings for their faithfulness. Utnapishtim’s from Enil, the god who initially wished to destroy him and everyone else, and Noah, from God, who wished to destroy everyone but him.

Red rain is coming down
red rain
Red rain is pouring down
All over me
-Peter Gabriel, Red Rain-