What I've been agonizing over all week...

Alright, contrary to what Hepworth thinks this is a video I made for my Media class. I just wanted to share it with anyone who was interested...it's not the finished product because that one is simply too large to upload here. I did not take any of the pictures myself but instead found the images in various places and put them to music and added facts to the mix. I don't think this version shows my facts either...what a bummer. It's supposed to be my version of a public service announcement on the problem of eating disorders. I wish it would have worked...but oh well.

Reading List

I finally got a chance to read some Toni Morrison...I think I'm a new fan. I really enjoyed her story about the girls who were both put in the orphanage, one because her mom was ill and the other because her mom liked to stay out all night and "dance." One black, the other white, they become the best of friends and then are both taken from the home and go on with their lives only meeting up at various times throughout their adult life. Each encounter is different than the last and it seems they are conflicted about the things they remember happening while they lived at the orphanage. The basic gist of the story is that they were both sad and scared little girls that let some of that fear enter their adult life and which kept them at odds at some points in their lives. I liked it, very true to life for people who have shared fears and hardships.

I will comment on the rest of my reading later but it is 4:30 in the morning and I have not been to bed yet...trying to get caught up...hopefully I can make it out of bed in a few hours to start again. Yikes!

Final Project

Ok, this project has be stumped! I want to do it on one of the Native American short stories I have read this semester...I think. However, I'm a little nervous about just asking a Native person if I can take their picture for my blog. I am still formulating something and will post it soon.

Updike Story

Coming soon...my version of Updike's story, "Trust Me". I have been thinking about writing it from the perspective of the teenage son...I'm not decided yet.

Podcast

Stay tuned I will be uploading my podcast soon! If I can figure it out!

Thoughts from class...

What is an American?

*inhabitant of North American, patriotic to this land
What is culture?
*customs that define who wer are, way of life
What is nature?
*trees, birds, wind, rain, sun, grass beneath our feet
What is wilderness?
*outdoors, woods, wild
What is wild? What defines it?
*untamed, undomesticated - ?
Can a body be wild?
*yes - free, uninhibited, non-conformity
Can a culture be wild?
*yes - untamed, unristricted, no rules, outlaw, no social structure
What do we mean by modern?
*breaking of old ways of doing things and using new ideas or techniques or equipment, etc.
What do we mean by the term regional?
*pertaining to the vicinity your currently residing in
Are these terms more than social constructions?
*maybe - there might be some freedom there
What distinguishes the border between pre-modern and modern?
*the period before the newest edition or latest advances
How do we distinguish from past and present?
*anything happening in this second is the present, everything prior to that is the past
How does the term modern influence what we read?
*I think it influences people to want to read newer and more modern texts because they want things they identify with and or it can also influence someone who does not like moving beyond the past to go back and revisit the older material
Is Langston Hughes a modernist?
*I would say that he is, only in that way that he was more advanced and forward thinking - he expounds on the unfairness of treating black Americans as outsiders in America, “I, too, am American.” He clearly writes his feelings to make you feel it and think it over. Poetry with a social consciousness that sums up the culture of the Harlem Renaissance and what it stood for, freedom to speak out against injustice - for his time this was modern thinking
What is literature?
*words that are written, spoken, sung
What defines that term?
*books, articles, oral stories, songs, magazines, poetry, etc.
Who should read it?
*literature if for everyone if they will only let it in
Who should write it?
*anyone who feels compelled to do so
What are its cultural purposes?
*to connect with others in the culture, to raise awareness of your culture, to educate
What are the borders of the US?
*geographically the borders of the US run on the East from Maine all the way down to the tip of Florida and then run along the top of Mexico and go West from California up to Washington and along the border to Canada. There are also a few little land masses unconnected from the largest portion, Alaska and Hawaii...can't remember if Porto Rico has their independance from US yet but that is a whole other story
Where are they?
*see questions above
Who is an Asian?
*people traditionally from the far East or from people of that descent
What does it mean to be All-American
*patriotic, upstanding, clean cut, law abiding, represents all the values that American's hold dear like patriotism, etc.
Where does this All-American live?
*typically you would think in the US somewhere but you can be All-American and live anywehere
What images do we associate with the typical or All-American town or place?
*like Mayberry on the Andy Griffith Show, peaceful, orderly, everyone in the town are good citizens who look out for each other
What do we mean by the immigrant experience?
*not originally from the country of their own particular heritage and moved to a new location separate from it
What is cultural assimilation?
*taking on the prevalant culture and inserting yourself into it
What is cultural resistance?
*not allowing yourself to be immersed in the prevalane culture and maintaining your own personal cultural identity
What images of the depression do you carry with you from your experiences with your family?
*The Grapes of Wraith, the poor farmers, the small little farm houses trying to survive on very little, being resourceful with anything you can get your hands on
What images of immigration do you carry with you?

____________________________________________________________________

PHOBIA

What am I afraid of?

*falling, being nothing to myself, being nothing to those I love, letting people down including myself, not living up to my expectations, failing, confinement, being unhappy, student teaching and hating it

What makes me happy?

*my son when he's happy, being with my family, going on vacation, Christmas, sitting in front of a raging fire and sipping cocoa, rainy days and a quiet house where all that can be heard is the rain outside the window, curled up in my chair with a really good book, walking outside on a warm day, walking my dogs

Why do we exist?

*I don't know, to learn lessons to go on to another existence beyond this one, to learn and teach and show kindness and love, to be loved, to heal ourselves and others in the process of life, to make this world the best place it can be, appreciate the beauty in nature

What is poetry?

*words strung together that bring meaning to some, that convey thoughts, feelings, opinions, attitudes, artistic expression, they are mini-stories or lyrics to a song, ideas that we either reject or identify with or just find lovely to read, it lives forever

What is its form?

*nothing, to some they may want meter, rhythm or something that makes it easier to read or that moves it along in a sing-song fashion - but I like the free-for-all style of just putting down your feelings and thoughts on paper for yourself

Where is poetry?

*it is everywhere, in the trees, in the sights and the scents and the sounds, you could say it comes from the senses because so much of it is based on feelings and perceptions of the human experience

Where does poetry come from?

*it comes from everything, it can be written on scraps of paper, painted on the overpass of a highway, heard in the lyrics of a song, or spoken aloud

How is poetry useful?

*for letting the soul speak, for getting out the happiness, sadness, emptiness, whatever from within and placing it outside of yourself to share or to keep secret and/or locked up inside the pages of your diary

____________________________________________________________________

Describe this Era - Stream of Consciousness

technology - faster, faster, faster - speeding by - going - don't look back - run - go for it - do it - make it happen - make something of yourself - don't stop - you can't wait, just go - take a minute, don't ever have a minute - run here, go there - my mind is always racing - thoughts, thoughts - nothing makes sense - good ideas come and are gone and forgotten - age or Ritalin - diagnosing problems where there are none - nobody listening to each other or paying attention - need more, need more - never satisfied - never pleased or fulfilled - always wanting more - keep going - don't stop to think - just write but original thoughts are hard to get when I can't stop to think - just go and originality goes out the window - good thoughts - freedom - want to slow down and appreciate - everything is unreal - shallow and focused on looks - not on being real or being pure - no authenticity

SCANSION

Nature by Emily Dickinson (iambic)
The morns/are meeker/than they/were,
The nuts/are getting/brown;
The berry’s/cheek is/plumper,
The rose/is out /of town.

The maple/wears a/gayer scarf,
The field/a scarlet/gown.
Lest I/should be/old-fashioned,
I’ll put/a trinket/on.

^ '/^'^/'^/'
^'/^'^/'
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^'/^'/^'

^'^/'^/'^'
^'/^'^/'
^'/^'/^'^
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Alright, this is my attempt at scansion of this poem…I am not sure how to put the marks above the words on here so I hope you understand what I was trying to do below. If anyone knows how to do this please inform me, I would love to know.

Questions/Responses to Faulkner's Barn Burning

1. How do Americans typically establish individual independence as teenagers? Do you remember any crucial moment in your own life when you realized that you had to make a choice between what your parent(s) and/or family believed and your own values?

American teens usually establish their independence by railing against authority…they develop a know everything attitude and don’t want to hear adults tell them how it really is. I can remember vividly thinking that my parents were out of touch and had no idea what they were talking about because they weren’t living my life in my time. They just couldn’t understand what my life was all about. That is what I believed at the time and I think this is true for most teens. I think its part of the egocentricity of childhood and not being able to see beyond themselves long enough to know that their parents are just trying to look out for their best interests. However, I also believe this is how teens develop their own ideologies separate from their family. They question what their parents are saying more and begin to see them not as the models of perfection they saw them as in childhood. Once I became a parent I was forced to see what my parents were trying to do but I could also see that I should stay true to myself as well. This may have been my turning point I suppose.

2. Is the destruction of another person's property ever something we can justify? Explain.

I don’t think there is a really good justification for destroying someone else’s property ever. I am from the “do unto others” ideology so I don’t think the destruction of things necessarily proves a good point in the fight to be right or as a revenge tactic.

3. Does it matter that this story is rendered through Sarty's consciousness? What were Faulkner's options, and how would the story be different if he had exercised them?

I think that the story rendered through Sarty’s consciousness gives the reader an insight into what his motives are and why he makes the decisions that he does. In this way too the reader is able to understand the conflict that Sarty faces in being loyal to his father and at the same time not agreeing with what he is doing. I think Faulkner could have told it in a more narrative format and probably gotten the same results but I think it would have been difficult to describe the conflicted feelings of the character of Sarty. However, if he would have told the story as a interpolated tale where there is a story within a story and it may have been a little easier to follow what was going on. At times I wasn’t sure what was happening because it seems that the story was only written from the angle of what Sarty is thinking and feeling and not from the point of view of what is really happening in the story.

4. What are the key symbols in the story, and how do they serve the thematic purposes Faulkner had in mind?

I think the burning of the barn is the key symbol to the story and I believe it represents the idea of Sarty’s beliefs and faith in his father burning away. Maybe, after the burning comes a renewal or rebuilding from the ashes and this is what Sarty has to face now that he has gone against his family. He has to establish a new set of values outside of his family…but perhaps this is something he was developing all along and it finally came to fruition with the barn burning. 5. Do the class issues the story raises have any parallels today?

I do believe that there are parallels in the world today to this story because we still have a lot of working class poor who accept jobs working for the wealthier classes. Many of the upper class society are unaware of the challenges and hardships the working poor have to face and take advantage of their desperation in order to get what they want. I also see the way Mr. Snopes behaved toward the black servant in the story and how he resented having to listen to him and refusing to do so and the consequences of this action. Interesting that Mr. Snopes needed to have someone beneath him in class to disrespect, like the black child. It is still true today that no matter your class standing in society there is still a need for everyone to feel they are above someone else in station.

6. What is the tone of the story, and how is it established.

The tone for the story is the sour way in which Mr. Snopes conducts himself toward his family and society in general. Beginning the story in the makeshift court room really puts a mental image in the readers’ mind as to the disposition of Mr. Snopes and then as the story progresses you see it in the way he treats his wife and children in such a cold manner. There is, however, a few small elements that are thrown in to make you understand why Sarty is torn about going against his father. There are times when he is quiet and sharing with his children, like sharing the lunch of cheese and crackers with his boys. This is a small moment but it demonstrates the small kindnesses that are probably rare but make Sarty feel affection for his father.Writing assignment (blogs): Choose a short story from the Modern period that you like and then explain why you like it. For instance, you might like the humor in a particular story, the method the author uses to characterize an individual, or a particular character or the way the author depicts a particular period in history, and so on.

One of the short stories that stood out for me was “Karintha” from Cane by Jean Toomer. I liked the way he tells this story in the 3rd person narrative; it lends a more dramatic flair to the tale of Karintha. The rich descriptions of Karintha as a beautiful and free spirited child who gets what she wants from men, or more than likely gets what she doesn’t want from them too soon. The artistic way that he shares the story of the exploitation of a young black woman and gives such vivid detail in her experience with it is like nothing else I have read before. Her story, when told in this style, has a very dramatic effect; it speaks of her soul in a detached way that shows the coldness with which men have treated her. It speaks of her beauty and yet of how this beauty doesn’t capture for her anything but sorrow, which is one of the plights of women, especially for one who’s “skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon.”

I have been reading a lot of Native American literature this week for both of my literature classes and I was fortunate enough to have a guest speaker in one of them. This man's name is Horace Axtell and he was invited to speak to our class about his book, "A Little Bit of Wisdom." I found this man to be fascinating to listen to and memorable for several reasons. The main and most profound one was for a statement that he made about forgiveness. He stated that the Nez Perce people have a word for this (he didn't say what) and that through his experiences he has achieved forgiveness of what has happened to his people. Speaking to a small group of primarily white students, this was a touching statement for each of us to hear. As one of my classmates stated, we all feel the burden of guilt for what has happened to the Native American, and to hear him tell us he forgives us was an honor.

We have read a variety of Native American authors over the past few weeks and many of the stories were similar. They told of a Native man coming back emotionally scarred by the war, coming to terms with not only the sadness and loss of war but also with the sadness and loss that the Native people have suffered for so long. We read these stories and went along with the characters as they struggled for identity and meaning in their lives. Then we meet Horace Axtell who is all of these characters come to life. He is the conclusion to their stories, or at least what I hope would become of the characters in these stories. He has lived this life and had these struggles and come to terms with it all and found peace and forgiveness in his heart.

I can't say that I have never been one of those white people who said, "It happened so long ago, can't we all just let it go?" Now, I feel shame for ever having felt this way. Reading and learning have brought me closer to an understanding of the price the Native people have paid for me to sit where I sit, at this moment, typing this blog, in the comfort of my home that sits on what used to be Nez Perce land. As I listened to Horace tell stories to the class about his life I couldn't help but drift off to the times I sat and listened in this same way to my own grandfather tell stories. It touches me and I think about how much I loved my grandfather and how much he taught me about life and people. Then I listen to Horace and think about what he has also taught people, and the tragedy of the way his people were treated sits behind him like a shadow, casting a shame on the white man as he tells our opaque faces that he has forgiven all. I remember all the stories of the broken people who have suffered and struggled with their identity and the loss of their culture and religion. I understand now that we took the soul of these people when we took the land and they have been lost ever since, trying to find their way back to where they belong and their identity. The kind of forgiveness Horace speaks of is so huge that I don't know if I would ever be deserving of it, but I hope to someday be.

Updated Reading List

Week 1- (1/12-1/18) Fools Crow: James Welch - Anthology of American Lit: Emily Dickinson

Week 2- (1/19-1/25) Fools Crow: James Welch - Anthology of American Lit: Emily Dickinson

Week 3- (1/26-2/1) Fools Crow: James Welch - Anthology of American Lit: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

Week 4- (2/2-2/8) Fools Crow: James Welch – Anthology of American Lit: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

Week 5- (2/9-2/15) African American Folktales (37-56) – Samuel Langhorne Clemens (56- 106) – Francis Ellen Watkins Harper (161) - Zora Neale Hurston (162) – Ghost Dance Song (214-217) – Kate Chopin (357-363)

Week 6-(2/16-2/22) Tracks: Louise Erdrich – Samuel Langhorne Clemens (67-106) – Alexander Lawrence Posey (217-222) – John Milton Osikson (222-228) - Henry James (279-334)

Week 7-(2/23-3/1) Tracks: Louise Erdrich – Grace King (202-208 ) - Jack London (524-526) – Standing Bear (538-540) – Charles Alexander Eastman (554-556) – Sarah Winnemucca (554-556) - Louisa May Alcott (650-665) – Out of Africa: Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)

Week 8– (3/2-3/8) Men on the Moon: Simon Ortiz – Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (566-576) - Harriet Prescott Spofford (665-667) – Constance Fenimore Woolson (675-667) – Sarah Orne Jewett (693-701) – Out of Africa: Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)

Week 9- (3/9-3/20) Men on the Moon: Simon Ortiz – Mary E. Wilkes Freeman (712-723, 758) – Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (734-744) – Sarah M.B. Piatt (751-755) – Ella Wheeler Wilcox (757) - Sophia Jewett (758-759) – E. Pauline Johnson (760-761) – Elaine Goodale Eastman (762-763) – Alice Dunbar Nelson (763-764) – Sarah Norcliff Cleghorn (765) – Gertrude Bonnen (809-819) - Edith Wharton (962-1000)

Week 10- (3/23-3/29) Men on the Moon: Simon Ortiz – Edith Wharton (1000-1028) - Willa Cather (1034-1039) - Robert Frost (1058-1070) – Ezra Pound (1109-1131) - Gertrude Stein (1145-1156) - T.S. Eliot (1278-1306) – William Carlos Williams (1314-1315)

Week 11- AAHPERD Convention Week (3/30-4/5) Ceremony: Leslie Marmon Silko – The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: Sherman Alexie - Booker T. Washington (868-887)

Week 12- (4/6-4/12) Ceremony: Leslie Marmon Silko – W.E.B. DuBois (894-917) – James Weldon Johnson (919-939) - A Little Bit of Wisdom: Horace Axtell – Mourning Dove (1733-1736) – John Joseph Mathews (1740-1747) – Thomas Whitecloud (1752)

Week 13-(4/13-4/19) Ceremony: Leslie Marmon Silko– Charles Reznikoff (1784-1790) – John Steinbeck (1791-1802) – Eudora Welty (1917-1919) – Tennessee Williams (1960-1962) – John Updike (2451-2453)

Week 14- (4/20-4/26) Smoke Signals/The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven: Sherman Alexie – Toni Morrison (2437-2438) – N. Scott Momaday (2479-2489) - Bharati Mukherjee (2693-2694) – Maxine Hong Kingston (2703-2704) – Simon Ortiz (2724-2725) – Jimmy Santiago Baca (2658-2662)

Week 15- (4/27-5/3) The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven: Sherman Alexie –– James Welch (2680-2681) – Martin Luther King Jr (2340-2341) – Norman Mailer (2400-2401) - Sherman Alexie (3079-3081) - Leslie Marmon Silko (2829-2830) – Wendy Rose (2837-2845) - Arthur Miller (2051-2053) – Gwendolyn Brooks (2142-2153) – Flannery O’Conner (2216-2217) – Louise Erdrich (2995-2997)


Week 16- (5/4-5/10) The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven: Sherman Alexie –– Allen Ginsberg (2229-2240) - Jack Kerouac (2243-2245) – Gary Soto (2983-2988) – Malcom X (2273-2274) – Joy Hargo (2950-2959) – Sylvia Plath (2330-2338)

AAHPERD

So, I've been a total slacker on blogging for the last few weeks since I went on my trip to Tampa, Florida. I had visions of being able to use the hotel computers, since I didn't want to pack my laptop with me for the trip, and blogging about all my reading and my trip experiences. Well, it went the way that visions go which is to say it didn't happen at all. The computers that the Hyatt had were being used 24/7 and were impossible to get access to the whole time I was there. Anyway, those are my excuses, so now I'm making an attempt to get caught up.

You might be wondering what the hell AAHPERD stands for and it is the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. They have a national meeting once every year in different locations across the United States. As a part of the Kinesiology Club I have been lucky enough to attend one in Salt Lake City, Utah and one in Fortworth, Texas. This year, probably will be my last, and as the President of the club I really wanted to go and get one more really good convention in while I still could. They probably don't sound like much fun to the outsider but they really get me excited about my major all over again every time I go. It's a big week long convention for PE/Health teachers, exercise science people, athletic trainers and various other professions within the sporting realm. They have several different seminars that you can attend everyday that give presentations on things like research results from different universities on health, they have sessions on new sports equipment and ways to exercise, new lesson plans for teachers and ways to do things more efficiently in the classroom, etc. If it has anything to do with health and fitness it is at this convention. In addition, they have a big exhibit hall packed with booths that are giving away free products and information, enter you in drawings to win things like ipods and Wii fitness machines, and allow you to test out new equipment like DDR's and the rockwall treadmill. They also have shows going on at various times in the building by local dancers and students. They perform anything from small dance competitions to jump roping contests to stacking races (this is cup stacking that sounds really silly but is amazing to watch). Oh, and I was able to meet the Olympic track star Carl Lewis, I got a picture with him and his autograph...I thought that was pretty cool.

I am honored every year that I get to go and I enjoy coming back with new ideas that not only help me but that I can share with the club as well. I am always recruiting new students for the club and this is one of the best selling points for me to lure people in. I have posted a few pictures of just a portion of what the convention looks like in case any of you bloggers are curious.


Anyway, this was a real whirlwind trip and we flew all day Tuesday and Friday to get there and back again and only had two days to get through the entire convention so it was nuts. I also always end up getting talked in to doing crazy fitness stuff while I'm at these things and so we tire ourselves out really quickly. In addition, one of my friends and I decided to go on a journey to find a Barnes & Noble store and walked a good 5 miles until we found one. We were a little tired, sweaty, and sunburnt by the time we got there so we spent some time inside cooling down before we trekked back the 5 miles to the hotel. I had so many grand plans to catch up on my reading while I was flying and during what I thought would be "down time" but that did not happen. We didn't seem to have many spare moments and when we did we were exhausted and trying to catch some sleep.


I was able to read some Booker T. Washington while on the trip and I bought a book in the airport by Sherman Alexie called "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." This book was laugh out loud hilarious and then at times kind of heartbreaking. I am currently pestering my son to read it but I don't think he's interested. Anyway, it was a quick read and completely enjoyable...I'll try to share more on this later.

Spring Break

Over spring break I watched the Reformation video and I have to say it was really good. I even got my family to watch it with me...maybe we are all geeks for that kind of stuff but I think PBS puts out some really good shows. Anyway, from there I read Mary E. Wilkes Freeman, Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, Sarah Piatt, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Sophia Jewett, Edith Wharton, etc. I was a busy reader and found that I really liked a lot of the different stories put out by these women, they were varied in their subject matter, interesting, and at times progressive for their time. I really enjoyed Mary Freeman's "A New England Nun" and liked the way she showed the character of Louisa as being capable and happy on her own. I could completely identify with her not wanting to get married and being comfortable in her life as it was...not wanting to share her space...this is something I can relate to as I'm sure most modern day women can.






I also really liked the poem The Wood-Chopper to His Ax by Elaine Goodale Eastman. There was something about this poem that I really liked and I found myself reading it out loud several times. The meter of the words, the words themselves, I'm not sure why but I just liked it a lot, it felt powerful and I could picture the man with his ax chopping down the tree and the power the ax had in his hands. Good imagery. On the topic of poems, I enjoyed I Sit and Sew by Alice Dunbar-Nelson as well. It ran in the same vein as Mary Freemans story...questioning the roles of women...but at the same time this one focused more on the tediousness of the domestic role of women rather than the enjoyment of womanly solitude to do domestic tasks as Freeman's story demonstrated. I could relate to what this peom was talking about as this feeling of wanting to break free from trivial things and instead do something of importance with your life. In her case she is thinking of the men who are fighting in the Civil War and how she wishes she could be part of that rather than spending her days sewing.

I'm now a big fan of Edith Wharton and I haven't even finished reading all of her work in this book yet. I especially liked the stories, Souls Belated and The Other Two, the complexity of the situations these characters find themselves in are truly modern day predicaments. The social constraints are not as apparent now as they were at that time but I still think much of it holds true today. In Souls Belated, Lydia and Gannett find themselves, having run away together to escape her bad marriage, in a upscale European hotel passing themselves off as a married couple. They had always thought they did not need the social hierarchy and had mocked it in the past but found themselves enjoying being part of it in this place. In the end Lydia feels that she should strike out on her own and leave Gannett because they will always be under this cloud of their scandalous affair. Even if they marry someday someone could find out and it would ruin their social standing that they have found they truly love being a part of. However, when faced with the choice of leaving or staying, Lydia finds that leaving and being a woman on her own in that time would be more difficult than staying with Gannett. It's a really good skeleton in the closet story and is a timeless situation but Wharton's ability to pull the reader in to the complex feelings of the characters and their tough decisions is really compelling. I found myself reading both of these stories rapidly, kind of on the edge of my seat, wondering right along with the characters what or where they were going to go from one situation to the next.

Week Before the Break

Well, I fell a little behind it seems in my blogging and didn't get my post on here for the week before the break. I have been reading like crazy but for this blog I will share just a few.




I read some stories from Men on the Moon by Simon Ortiz that were really good. As I was reading Men on the Moon I tried to get a sense of what the moral of the story was when I went through each one. Maybe that is silly but it almost felt like there was one if you look at it the right way. However, I don’t think it’s so much a moral as a search for what the meaning is for the Native American in the story. The Panther Waits was especially true in this way because I took from that story that the brother, Taft, was most in touch with what Harry Brown was saying when he told them his story. The parallel between Harry Brown being a drunk and Taft being a drinker in later life shows you how being more in touch with their heritage makes it harder for them to fit into the world around them. At least this is the way I take it. I watched a movie once that talked about how when the Native American man had his land taken, his way of life was diminished. He was no longer what he was raised to be, a warrior. He is in touch with a spiritual world that no longer has land or animals that are treated in the sacred manner of the people. Everything he has known is taken and he is placed on a piece of land nobody wants and told to live on it and be happy. How can you be a brave warrior of your people when you can no longer hunt and provide for them? When you add drinking to this loss you break this Indian warrior down even further. Or maybe the drinking is what makes them numb to their pain, to their loss of the old ways. I think this is the essence of what The Panther Waits is conveying to the reader, that Taft and the old man who are so in tune with their heritage are also the ones who cannot fit into the world around them.

One other story that I really liked was To Change a Life in a Good Way. I liked the way that Bill and Ida became friends with Pete and Mary and they all accepted each other regardless of the differences in their heritage. When Bill’s brother died I liked the way Pete and Mary brought the Indian bundle to them and explained that it would help them, even if they couldn’t explain the old ways of how or why since they didn’t really remember exactly. This is such a modern twist on the way the Native American has lost some of his heritage over time but has still kept the traditions going because they know it has value. In the end it really did help Bill and Ida in their healing and acceptance of the death of Slick. I believe that both of these stories as well as the other’s that Ortiz writes about, show us how the Native American lives and deals with everyday life in a dominant white world. Some have learned to accept it and still hold on to some of the old ways, some don’t deal with it at all and are either broken or damaged, and some of the very old ones sit back and are bewildered by the ways of the white man. He gives us the broken homes of the Native and the hard way of adjusting and the sacrifice they make in order to live as an Indian in a white world. These glimpses of hardship, puzzlement, and acceptance of the modern Indian’s way of life are important to share, to try to make sense of the aftermath of what has been done to these people. How they continue to go on even after they have had their culture ripped from them, how they continue to recapture the old ways, how they have endured is a lesson for everyone.

One other author I wish to share from week before last was Karen Blixen or Isak Dineson who wrote Out of Africa. I really enjoyed this story with it's rich characters and landscapes. I felt that this wasn't just a typical love story but a complicated relationship of various people and you could even say it was a love story to the people and the place of Africa as well. Throughout her story I felt that she was remembering back to a place and time that was vivid unlike any other part of her life before or after. There was such happiness but so much sadness for the people that she had become so immersed in and finally had to leave behind. After I finished the book I watched the movie with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. The movie was a bit different in that it focused more on her relationship with Robert Redford's character than any of the other characters in the story. You got a sense of her closeness and her feeling for the African people from it but the book was better at conveying...which I feel is always true of books.


Anyway, I really enjoyed this and recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good atypical love story to read.

Reading Big

So this weekend I found a reprieve from all of my other homework for a change and had some time to read. I read a lot but I will just put on here the ones that I enjoyed the most. I really enjoyed Jack London's story, "South of the Slot," it was an interesting read about a guy living two very distinct and seperate lives. Not in the sense that he has one family here and another over there but more that he splits his personality to take on a whole other persona, "acting" as he would call it, to fit in. However, I believe he is really the everyday guy with the gregarious personality more than he is the stiff and cold college professor, True to this feeling, that is the guy he ends up being in the end. I liked the way London showed the complexity of what this character was thinking and how he actually became what he thought he was only acting to be. It was an excellent story.



Sarah Winnemucca was also an interesting read and kind of encompassed all of the Native American reading I did this weekend. She was a very educated "Indian" woman and gave a heartbreaking narrative of her encounter with the whites as a child. She gives the reader a true sense of how terrifying it was to be a woman in those times, especially a Native woman. Her experience with the white man, she aptly contrasts to the experience of her grandfather with the white man. She shows how different everything is from the woman's perspective and how helpless they felt at that time.



I was also able to read a little Louisa May Alcott and though I have read "Little Women" a long time ago I wasn't sure what to expect of "My Contraband." I found it to be a moving story of a white woman on the side of the Yankees during the civil war and of the mullato soldier who finds himself in the same hospital with his white brother. There is no love lost there and needless to say she is able to keep him from killing his dying white brother and helps him in his pursuit of finding his lost wife. The conclusion is good, if a bit expected, but I found this story interesting because it was such a contrast to reading "Little Women" and it was very different from what I at first thought it would be. I guess I will have to try to find more of her work.


The last story I will comment on was something else that Dr. Hepworth mentioned in class as a personal reading assingment. I decided to get "Out of Africa" by Karen Blixen or Isak Dineson, which is the name she wrote under. It was kind of funny because I almost didn't get the book because I thought it was the wrong one since I was looking for Blixen not Dineson. I got the book anyway and started to read the pre-face and realized that it was indeed Blixen writing so I was glad I took the time to read into it anyway or I would have felt silly. Anyway, I just started it so I will have to comment on that a little later. Just wanted to keep everyone posted on where I'm at and what I'm up to...in case you had some burning desire to know.

Oh, and I also listened to the wax recordings of Whitman and a few others too. A little creepy in some ways because of the way their voices sounded. Whitman's was a little distorted too because of the scratchy sound on the recording. However, it was pretty cool to think that this was what their voices sounded like reading their poems. I was a little bummed that I couldn't get the Alan Ginsberg recording to work...maybe I will try it again later.

So I finished reading Samuel Clemens this week and I especially enjoyed' "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg." I really like stories like this one that give a little moral at the end and yet don't turn out anything like what you would have expected. I won't spoil the story for anyone who chooses to read it but I will say that it goes to show what a guilty heart can do to a person. I have to say that I had never really read much of Clemens stuff other than the Huck Finn standards and I think that I became a new fan now that I've read his other work. I also really liked "The War Prayer" and the message it was conveying. Clemens is a great story teller, able to draw you into his stories and make you hang on every word, and they have such great endings. A little moral truth to give you food for thought. I'm going to have to add some of his other stuff to my reading "wish" list.



I also read "Daisy Miller" and "The Art of Fiction" and I am now a Henry James fan. I found Daisy to be a free spirit who spit in the eye of convention to the dismay of "society". I was a little let down at the end because it wasn't exactly a happy ending which I'm a sucker for...but it had it's own sense of morality. I think James was trying to show Mr. Winterbourne as a guy who realized too late that this socially unconventional girl just wanted his attentions and he should have stopped caring about what everyone else thought and just be with her. I could be wrong on my interpretation because it was, or seemed, like an abrupt end to the story. If anyone sees it differently I welcome your thoughts.

The Greatest Love

I remember the day I first met him. I was still reeling from losing someone I loved very much. My emotions were raw and I was numb with disbelief. I imagine this is how most people feel when someone dies, but I don’t really know, I did know that my life would never be the same again. So much had changed now that he was gone, I would never again feel so loved and accepted by anyone. My best friend in the world was gone from this place; never will I see his face or hear his voice. To be in his presence was to feel calm and complete. I can remember we used to take these incredible walks on Sunday afternoons. He would pick me up in his old pickup and I would run out to jump in, excited to go on another adventure. He would let me shift the gears on the impossibly long stick shift and after a few grinding attempts I would find it and lock it into place. Once at our destination, we would grab our old gnarled walking sticks out of the back of the truck and make our way along the seemingly unexplored trail. It would be a beautiful summer day; at least that is how I always see it when I think back on it now. The sun would shine down and warm our backs as we traveled slowly along the trail. We walk side by side, at first not saying a word, wrapped in a comfortable silence. The soothing sounds of the outdoors, the scurrying creatures of the woods running from our footsteps, the trees swaying on the light breeze. We walk along on this glorious day and little by little we begin to talk. I tell him everything that’s gone on in my little world over the past week, running on and on. He does not stop me; he just listens to every word. He hears me like no one else can or will. When my talk winds down he tells me things about his life. There is so much to know, his life has been so rich and his experiences so vast. I want to know every part of it, hear about everything, and picture it in my mind. I ask questions, so many questions, and he patiently answers them all. When we come to the clearing on the mountain side we brush off the two flat rocks that we made into our chairs on our first trip to this place. He reaches into his pants pocket and hands me out his small pocket knife, the one that’s my favorite. I begin to whittle the handle of my walking stick while he pulls out his special camera with the long lens. He takes pictures of the river way down below us, the boats like specks on the water. I’m busy with my knife as we sit and enjoy the serenity of this place, the sweat on our backs drying in the sun. All too soon we have to pack up our things and head back down the trail, we have dinner waiting for us at home and we can’t be late. Those days are bittersweet in my thoughts, I miss them now more than anything, and I wish I had appreciated them more at the time. I guess that happens when you’re just a kid and life seems like it will always stay the same, that things will never shift and the people we love will always be there.

I sat there that day, the day I met him, thinking about these things as the tears slid down my cheeks. I looked into those little eyes and felt his small heartbeat beneath my hands. I am so happy for this gift but yet so terribly sad that he couldn’t be here to see him. I had dreamed about this moment, always with him here, watching him hold my precious son and rocking him gently in the old worn recliner. It is at this moment that I look up to the ceiling of my sterile little hospital room and begin to pray. “My dear Grandpa, please look out for my little baby boy. Walk beside him as you walked beside me; whisper those same stories into his ear. Tell him all the important things about life as you told them to me...all those years ago.”

Emily Dickinson...Finally

What were your first impressions of Dickinson?

My first impressions of Dickinson were that she was obviously talented but I didn't really enjoy a lot of her subject matter. She has a lot of nature involved in her poems and repeats a lot of the same words and I have a hard time getting into it. I felt like it was best read out loud so that I could really hear the words to appreciate it. This worked much better and I did find a few that were my favorites..."I'm Nobody!, I felt A Funeral In My Brain," etc.

Have your impressions changed as you’ve studied and reread her poems this semester? If so, how? Why?

My first impression did change as we've gone on and talked more in depth about her and her life. I felt the day that Heather read a few of her lines...that was pretty intense...and very moving. I also found that as I tried to write some things in her style, I could appreciate more of her work, especially trying to incorporate some of her words into my own writing was a challenge. However, I think using her words made what I wrote much more beautiful...at least to me.

What were the dilemmas of Dickinson’s life? How do these dilemmas manifest themselves in her writing?

I believe the biggest dilemmas of Dickinson's life were her unrequieted love for Susan Gilbert Dickinson and her role as a women in the time she lived. She was really intelligent and I can only imagine how stifling it was to live in that period where a woman barely had the right to be heard, let alone write. Her writing has a lot of moments of unfulfilled love and loss and you get a sense of her struggling with this feeling of frustration to be heard.

After reviewing Dickinson’s work, make a list of words that are particularly Dickinsonian.

Celestial, Vesuvian, Dwell, Thee, Ascended, Sea, Death, A Stone, Hands, Face, Dew, Earth, Harvest, Sun, Moon, Stars, Beckons, Immense, Divine, Infinite, Soul.....

Photo Contest

A: Gary Snyder, William Stafford, Allen Ginsberg, W.S. Merwin, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, Gertrude Stein, Dorothy Parker, Willa Cather, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare, Joyce Carol Oates, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway

**Of all these authors I would still like to read some Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, and Virginia Woolf - I haven't really read much of any of them. If there are any others above that anyone would recommend let me know...I am open to suggestions.

Kate Chopin/African Folktales/Clemens

I will begin with the short story by Kate Chopin "Désirée's Baby," I really enjoyed this tragedy with the unexpected twist at the end. I like the way she alludes to the baby being black when the mother visits, but the girl doesn't see it. She is blissfully unaware, in love with her husband and child, not seeing what is before her. As I was reading I was thinking the obvious, that the girl must be of black heritage. I am disliking her husband for falling out of love with her for this, petty little racist that he is. Poor Désirée is so heartbroken when finally facing the truth, or what she believes is the truth, she takes her baby and disappears into the swamp. Probably killing herself and her child, the optimist in me would like to think she wandered to her mothers but that would in a way make the story a little less compelling. How rewarding to find out at the end that it was the husband who was really the son of a slave. Sad though that his mother and father were not around for his upbringing and he turned out to be such a lout. It seems to me that two such parents who were so forward thinking would not leave their son in the racist south to become a terrible plantation owner who treated his slaves horribly. However, it made for a really good story anyway.

Next I read the African Folktales and enjoyed the story telling of each of the short stories. You can see how the language progresses from early slavery as very crude and a bit hard to read to a dialect that is a little easier to understand. I'm wondering if this was because many of the early stories had to be done in the oral tradition due to the inability for the slaves to be educated? I also noticed that many of the stories are similar in that they are most often about trickery at the expense of the "Master" or they show the "Master" as the foolish character. You can also see the culture of superstition heavily in the work like in "Talking Bones" and "Old Boss Wants into Heaven" where there is the strong belief in ghosts depicted. The writing also portrays many of the negative and racist beliefs of the white people of that time as well. Reading these stories are like stepping back in time to the attitudes of the south and their way of life.

Another story that I felt appropriate for this section was "A True Story" by Samuel Clemens. I liked the part of the title that says "Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It" stating that this is a story that is told in the oral tradition. This is a story about "Aunt Rachel" who is a servant in her 60s who has a jovial sense of humor. Since her temperment is so jolly her owner (for lack of better term) makes the comment that she has never seen "any trouble" in her life because she has such a good humor. Then she tells the story of being raised a slave and having her husband and children sold away from her at auction. She relates how her youngest son finally found her in this story and then after telling her tale of woe, she says to her owner, "Oh no, Misto C, I hain't had no trouble. An' no joy!" I can just hear the sarcasm dripping of these final words of the story.

To sum up all of these stories is humbling for me...being white I am from the race that does not know racism the way that these people experienced it. I can only read these stories and appreciate what the African race has had to endure and how they survived it to see the day that one of them became the President of the United States. Now that is progress...slow moving...but progress never the less.

Love Poem

The first time your lips touched mine I knew you would possess me
I tasted your infinite love and my soul ascended to the stars
Beckoned back to Earth by your gentle hands
Our bodies intertwined in a sea of passion
I burned for you then from the core of my being
My heart awakened from its painful death with every caress
You healed me there on that moonlit night
My anguish set free on the wind

Calendar for American Literature II

Week 1- (1/12-1/18) Fools Crow: James Welch - Anthology of American Lit: Emily Dickinson

Week 2- (1/19-1/25) Fools Crow: James Welch - Anthology of American Lit: Emily Dickinson

Week 3- (1/26-2/1) Fools Crow: James Welch - Anthology of American Lit: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

Week 4- (2/2-2/8) Fools Crow: James Welch – Anthology of American Lit: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

Week 5- (2/9-2/15) African American Folktales (37-56) – Samuel Langhorne Clemens (56- 106) – Francis Ellen Watkins Harper (161) - Zora Neale Hurston (162) – Ghost Dance Song (214-217) – Kate Chopin (357-363)

Week 6-(2/16-2/22) Tracks: Louise Erdrich – Samuel Langhorne Clemens (67-106) – Alexander Lawrence Posey (217-222) – John Milton Osikson (222-228) - Henry James (279-334)

Week 7-(2/23-3/1) Tracks: Louise Erdrich – Grace King (202-208 ) - Jack London (524-526) – Standing Bear (538-540) – Charles Alexander Eastman (554-556) – Sarah Winnemucca (554-556) - Louisa May Alcott (650-665) – Out of Africa: Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)

Week 8– (3/2-3/8) Men on the Moon: Simon Ortiz – Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (566-576) - Harriet Prescott Spofford (665-667) – Constance Fenimore Woolson (675-667) – Sarah Orne Jewett (693-701) – Out of Africa: Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)

Week 9- (3/9-3/20) Men on the Moon: Simon Ortiz – Mary E. Wilkes Freeman (712-723, 758) – Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (734-744) – Sarah M.B. Piatt (751-755) – Ella Wheeler Wilcox (757) - Sophia Jewett (758-759) – E. Pauline Johnson (760-761) – Elaine Goodale Eastman (762-763) – Alice Dunbar Nelson (763-764) – Sarah Norcliff Cleghorn (765) – Gertrude Bonnen (809-819) - Edith Wharton (962-1000)

Week 10- (3/23-3/29) Men on the Moon: Simon Ortiz – Edith Wharton (1000-1028) - Booker T. Washington (868-887) – W.E.B. DuBois (894-917) – James Weldon Johnson (919-939) – Willa Cather (1034-1039) - Robert Frost (1058-1070) – Ezra Pound (1109-1131) - Gertrude Stein (1145-1156) - T.S. Eliot (1278-1306) – William Carlos Williams (1314-1315)

Week 11- (3/30-4/5) Ceremony: Leslie Marmon Silko - Langston Hughes (1248-1249, 1316-1317, 1519-1547) – Lola Ridge (1254) – Edwin Rolfe (1255-1257) – Genevieve Taggard (1261-1267) – E.E. Cummings (1268-1277) - F. Scott Fitzgerald (1324-1360) – Katherine Anne Porter (1387-1395) – Ernest Hemingway (1420-1422) – William Faulkner (1436-1464) – Alaine Locke (1490-1492) – Jean Toomer (1500-1510)

Week 12- (4/6-4/12) Ceremony: Leslie Marmon Silko – Mourning Dove (1733-1736) – John Joseph Mathews (1740-1747) – Thomas Whitecloud (1752) – Charles Reznikoff (1784-1790) – John Steinbeck (1791-1802) – Eudora Welty (1917-1919) – Tennessee Williams (1960-1962)
Week 13-(4/13-4/19) Ceremony: Leslie Marmon Silko – A Little Bit of Wisdom Horace Axtell – Arthur Miller (2051-2053) – Gwendolyn Brooks (2142-2153) – Flannery O’Conner (2216-2217) – Louise Erdrich (2995-2997) – Allen Ginsberg (2229-2240) - Jack Kerouac (2243-2245) – Gary Soto (2983-2988) – Malcom X (2273-2274) – Joy Hargo (2950-2959) – Sylvia Plath (2330-2338)

Week 14- (4/20-4/26) Smoke Signals/The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven: Sherman Alexie – Toni Morrison (2437-2438) – John Updike (2451-2453) – N. Scott Momaday (2479-2489) – Jimmy Santiago Baca (2658-2662) – James Welch (2680-2681) – Martin Luther King Jr (2340-2341) – Norman Mailer (2400-2401) - Sherman Alexie (3079-3081)

Week 15- (4/27-5/3) Smoke Signals/The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven: Sherman Alexie – Bharati Mukherjee (2693-2694) – Maxine Hong Kingston (2703-2704) – Simon Ortiz (2724-2725)

Week 16- (5/4-5/10) Smoke Signals/The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven: Sherman Alexie – Leslie Marmon Silko (2829-2830) – Wendy Rose (2837-2845)

Favorite Thoreau Quote

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."
Henry David Thoreau US Transcendentalist author (1817 - 1862)

Alone by Edgar Allen Poe

From a childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were – I have not seen
As others saw – I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I lov’d, I lov’d alone.
Then – in my childhood – in the dawn
Of a most stormy life _ was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that ‘round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold –
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by –
From the thunder and the storm
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

My Ode To Poe

I am a freak of the biography and prefer, at times, to read about the people behind the stories rather than just the stories themselves. I just finished a few biographies of Poe and I found that he was the first original "Emo" as my son would say. So, my literature blog would not be complete without him.

The life of Edgar Allen Poe was, like so many of his stories and poems, short and eerily haunted. He infused his writing with the darkness he saw around his own life.

Edgar Allen Poe was born in Boston in1809. His parents were poor actors and thus he was born into poverty. He spent the first three years of his life in a "succession of shabby dressing rooms (CSPEPA 816)." The first major personal tragedy that befell him was the death of his parents.
He was adopted by John and Frances Allen along with his brother William Henry and his sister Rosalie.
Poe attended the best schools in Virginia. He showed flashes of his brilliant mind early on in his studies, but as a student he was "already something of a brooder (CSPEPA 816)." He spent much of his time alone and on some occasions would be seen walking with his "poetically inclined older brother (CSPEPA 816)." Poe enrolled at the University of Virginia, but due to strained relations between him and his foster father, he received minimal financial help. The difficulties of his financial situation at college led him to drink and gamble. At the end of one year he found himself $2000 in debt, and was forced to drop out of the University (Erlich 2001). He returned to Richland to find that disappointment waited for him there as well. He had fallen in love with a girl there, and had been writing her letters from college. The girl’s parents, not approving of Poe, intercepted the letters. The girl, assuming that he had forgotten her, became engaged to another man. Heartbroken and miserable, he wrote a long poem, Tamerlane, which became his first published work.
The friction between his foster father and himself escalated until Poe was forced to leave the house permanently. He returned to Boston, intending to find work in "New England’s budding literary center (CSPEPA 817)." As with so much of his life prior, disappointment seemed to be a staple of Poe’s life. Six weeks later, unable to find employment anywhere, he enlisted in the U.S. Army under the name of Edgar A Perry.
In the summer of 1827, he got his first book published. Although it was little more than a pamphlet containing approximately 40 pages, Tamerlane and Other Poems, was the beginning of what would later become a stellar career (CSPEPA 817). After publication of his book, Poe felt that the army was not for him and asked for a discharge. It was granted on the condition that he reconcile with his foster father. When John Allen refused, Poe suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. Then on February 28, 1829, his foster mother died, and John Allen, complying with his wife’s last request, agreed to see his foster son again. The discharge from the army was arranged and Poe and Allen made a truce. The truce did not last long, however, and in May, Poe went to live with his widowed cousin and her daughter, Virginia.
In the summer of 1830, Poe decided to try the military again. He reverted back to his old habits of drinking and gambling that had plagued him at the University of Virginia. Despite the pleas from his foster son, John Allen refused to pay Poe’s bills. Early in 1831, Edgar Allen Poe was court-martialed and discharged. Subsequent misfortunes followed: Poe’s brother William Henry died, John Allen wrote his foster son out of his will, and a scandal involving Poe’s drinking ended a love affair with a Baltimore woman named Mary Starr.
Finally, in early 1836, it appeared that his luck had changed. He married his cousin’s daughter, Virginia Clemm, on May 16. His stories were being published with regularity and his name was well known throughout the literary world. He was given a job as editor for The Gentleman’s Magazine. He was free of financial debt, and had stopped drinking and gambling. But like so many of Poe’s stories, misfortune was waiting just around the corner.
In January 1842, Virginia was stricken with a tubercular attack. Poe was once again filled with despair and began to drink heavily. His job performance suffered and relations with coworkers became troubled. In May he was fired from the magazine. He suffered another breakdown and was sick and delirious for several months. He eventually recovered enough to begin writing again. In early 1843, several of his works were published, including The Tell-Tale Heart. Virginia also seemed to recover, and once again things appeared to be going well. When Virginia fell ill again, Poe returned to his drinking habit. Despite moving out of the city because of concern for her health, Virginia never recovered. "On that blustery night of January 30, 1847, the long-drawn-out tragedy of Virginia Poe came to an end (CSPEPA 816)." Poe broke down completely this time and he too never fully recovered.
There is yet more to the story of the life of Edgar Allen Poe, but for my purposes of keeping this blog somewhat brief here, none that are relevant. Suffice it to say, that the remainder of his life was not entirely a pleasant one. There were attempts of suicide, rampant drinking and opium use, and finally, on a Sunday morning in October 1849, Edgar Allen Poe died. It is reported that his last words were, “Lord help my poor soul.” Then he died alone (CSPEPA 816). Ironically, Poe wrote a short poem that I found, titled Alone that I will publish in a separate Blog Post.

The one profound difference that made Edgar Allen Poe stand out from other authors of his time was the element of gloom that he infused into his writings. In The Fall of the House of Usher, this infusion takes place at the very onset of the story. The first line of the story reads, "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher (Cain 794)." In this first sentence Poe sets the tone for the whole story. The story itself has all the elements of a modern horror story: A haunted house, dreary landscape, mysterious sickness, and a doubled personality. For all of its easily identifiable horror elements, part of the real terror of this story is not in what is said or described, but in what is not. It is the vagueness of details that creates a sensation of fear. For example, it is never mentioned when or where this story takes place. Instead of using standard narrative of place and time, Poe uses things like poor weather and a barren landscape to act as a locater. We (the readers) know that it is autumn. Any more than that we can only surmise.
Another aspect of vagueness is that initially we and the narrator are unclear as to why he has been summoned. Another is the fact that although the narrator had been one of Roderick’s "boon companions in boyhood” (Cain 794)", he did not know the basic fact that Roderick had a twin sister. The story begins without complete explanation of the narrator’s motives for arriving at the House of Usher, and it is this ambiguity that sets the tone for a plot that is inexplicable, sudden and full of unexpected events.
There is also a sensation of claustrophobia in this story. The narrator is trapped by the lure of Roderick’s attraction, and he cannot escape until the House of Usher collapses completely. Because it appears that the characters in the story cannot move and act freely in the house, the house takes on a role itself; a character that plays the role of an evil mastermind that controls the fates of its inhabitants. Poe creates confusion between the living things and inanimate objects by doubling the physical house of Usher with the family line of Usher. He uses the word “house” metaphorically, yet he also describes a real house. The narrator gets trapped inside the mansion, and through this we learn that this confinement describes the biological fate of the Usher family.
The family has no enduring branches, so it can be assumed that genetic transmission has occurred incestuously within the domain of the house. Further evidence of the house as a metaphor is found in Poe’s use of the poem, The Haunted Palace. By the descriptions of the palace within the poem, it becomes evident to the reader that it is not a palace at all, but a woman. The somber mood is maintained throughout the whole story, never once allowing for a single moment of relief. Even at the end, when the narrator is finally escaping the house, Poe continues the mood through use of the storm. "The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the causeway (Cain 809)."
The same gloomy mood is found in the story The Tell-Tale Heart, however, it is written very different than The Fall of the House of Usher. One thing that is most notably different in this story is how Poe uses fewer adjectives and descriptions to paint an equally terrifying picture. He employs fewer details as a way to heighten the murderer’s obsession with specific things: The old man’s eye, the heartbeat, and his own claim to sanity. Each item of obsession is uniquely integral to the setting of the mood. The reason given by the murderer for killing the old man is the eye. "He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees – very gradually – I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever (Cain 809)." The eye, an inanimate object, becomes a symbol of evil. When the narrator is sneaking into the old man’s bedroom, he finds that the eye has been watching him. "It was open – wide, wide open – and I grew furious as I gazed upon it (Cain 811)." Poe creates the mood at this point of the story with the visual imagery of the “wide, wide” open eye.
The heartbeat of the old man serves as a catalyst to the murder. Although the narrator was in the room to commit the murder and would have done so regardless of any outside factors, Poe uses the beating of the heart to heighten suspense. When the narrator first hears the heart, he becomes enraged, yet somehow manages to remain calm. Then the heart begins to beat louder. "It grew quicker, and louder every instant. It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! (Cain 812)." Later in the story, the narrator continues to hear the heartbeat. When the police arrive, the narrator was the epitome of confidence. Yet the more he proclaimed how calm and cool he was, the louder his own heart beats, which he mistakes for the beating of the old man’s heart.
The narrator’s claim to sanity is a theme found throughout the story. The story opens with the narrator asking why the reader would think him mad. "How, then am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily – how calmly I can tell you the whole story (Cain 809)." Then after he explains why he had to kill the old man, he immediately returns to defending his own sanity. By using imagery in the form of the narrator’s speech, rather than lengthy descriptions, Poe enables the reader to clearly see that the man is insane.
Edgar Allen Poe is one of the most well known names in literature. He is a known short story writer and poet. He is credited with creating new writing genres such as "the modern horror tale, science fiction story, and the detective story (Erlich 2001)." He is also a master of invoking fear through his many methods of setting the mood. In The Fall of the House of Usher he employs long, lengthy descriptions to create the chilly imagery and impose a dark and gloomy atmosphere. In The Tell-Tale Heart Poe creates frightening imagery with the use of simplistic descriptions that, when seen through the eyes of the murderer, become more terrifying with incorporated suspense.
I believe that Edgar Allen Poe is one of the greatest writers of all time. He was also a troubled soul who found disappointment everywhere he looked. He lived a life fraught with gloom and despair, and that reality carried over to his fiction. There is an old piece of advice that applies to aspiring writers – “write what you know.” I believe that Poe did just that.

Citations

Cain, William E. American Literature Volume I. New York: Pearson Education, Inc. 2004.
Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe. New York: Doubleday, 1966. *
Erlich, Heyward. A Poe Webliography. April 3, 2001. Dec. 2, 2005.
* A compilation of short stories and poems, with included Poe biography. There was no author mentioned in book (other than Poe) and subsequently the biographer was never named.

The Call of Sleep

It pulls me in with its sweet caress
Lulling me softly, begging me to rest

I want to succumb; it knows just what I need
It calls to me like a lover, no end to its greed

Whispering gently into my ear
Secrets and lies are all I can hear

It beckons to me, it will not be denied
An overwhelming sensation I cannot abide

I try to resist, I cannot go there yet
But it wants me - and I really want it

It begins slowly, my eyes begin to close

impose

My body releases, as I finally let go
I begin to drift, this fight is over, I know

Walt Whitman

I first want to start this blog by saying that I just finished watching the biography on Walt Whitman and I have to say that I had no idea. I am a virgin of literature and will admit to all that I have not read much Whitman...but after this movie...I wanted to read it all. He's one of those writers that is best read out loud.

3. What does the phrase e pluribus unum mean? What does the phrase have to do with Whitman?

Latin for "Out of Many, One," is a motto requested by Pierre Eugene du Simitiere and found in 1776 on the Seal of the United States, and adopted by an Act of Congress in 1782. The phrase originally came from Moretum, a poem attributed to Virgil but with the actual author unknown. In the poem text, color est e pluribus unus describes the blending of colors into one.

I think this phrase embodies so many things about Walt Whitman and what he stood for on a personal level. He was a watcher of people, an observer of life, and as he told the stories of the people he saw he really told his own story. As Whitman watched he felt deep connections that touched his soul and at times filled him with love. He felt his writing had the ability to bring people together and to mend the hurt that man inflicted upon itself. He was very patriotic and had a love affair with his country and its people. The fact that this phrase is on the Seal of the US is perfect, Whitman would find it fitting I believe. He saw the world as made up of one people and he loved all their differences as one human commonality. "In the faces of men and women I see God."

9. Can you comment on "A Woman Waits for Me"?

This is probably my favorite poem by Whitman...I love it because it's bold, baudy, and honest. It stirs something within me that I haven't quite figured out yet. I'll have to get back to you on this one. Right now all I can say is that I will keep reading it, again, and again...out loud...to myself.

My Struggle With the Calendar

"I like the idea of spontaneity. I just don't know how to schedule it - yet."

In the Manner of Emily Dickinson

I'm Somebody! Who are you?
Are you Somebody too?
Then we'll join all the masses
In our quest for greatness

All of us somebodies - who struggle
Are you the original you?
Not a carbon copy of others
Individual, authentic, and true

Tell me Somebody
If Somebody is what we are
Why do we try to belong?
We imitate others and label it ours.