“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
This is a story about tension: constant interplay with competing existences, based mostly on life versus death. Mrs. Mallard takes in the death of her husband and sees life in it; when she sees that he is alive, she is killed by the shock. Mrs Mallard confines herself in a room to fully understand what liberation means. The passive narrator takes the reader through the stifled liberation of Mr. Mallard to show that life and death are more than just states; they become symbolic of a larger choice to liberate oneself in life or imprison oneself in death. Or, maybe I have it backwards: perhaps Mrs. Mallard’s death was a liberation as her life represented a sort of imprisonment under Mr. Mallard. Overall, what does life and death mean in this story?
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot
If you are searching for concrete meaning in this poem, it ain’t gonna happen. This poem is typical of modern stream of consciousness writing where authors write in pit of despair, wallowing and wallowing and weaving verse to talk about their wallowing. I don’t mean to say that Prufrock (the speaker in the poem) is a whiner; he is actually, in my estimation, a very honest individual. He wanders through the numb cityscapes, hoping that “indeed there will be time” (line 37) but closing has come nearer than expected as the author bellows in frustration, “It is impossible to say just what I mean!” (line 104). The frustrations, the laments, are a catharsis of some sort for Prufrock. He is unsatisfied, but he does have the forum of this poem. Should he have embraced this forum?
“Musee des Beaux Arts” by W. H. Auden
You just as well could titled this poem, “go about your business.” For the overwhelming idea of humanity is lost in simple living, and the painting that Auden is inspired by demonstrates this: the remarkable fall of Icarus and how the world around him ignored such a tragedy like someone walking past a man dying on the street corner. Does this poem note that life and death are just simple truths in life, or does it reveal that people choose to not look at life and death?
“Traveling through the Dark” by William Stafford
In contrast to Auden’s poem, the narrator of this poem wrestles with the concepts of life and death. The basic reality is that the person needs to remove the deer from the road to avoid cars from getting in accident, but the narrator cannot help by stare at death and life (a fawn “alive, still, never to be born” line 11). And though the narrator decides to roll the deer into the canyon (the practical decision), the hesitation of the narrator showed an acknowledgement of the gravity of the situation. Death is not mundane; life is not mundane. This may seem like a practical dealing with wildlife, but it is not mundane. Do you have any times in your life when you have had a similar encounter with life and/or death?
“my old man” by Charles Bukowski
Though Bukowski wrote this poem much later in his life (at a time when he might have understood his father a little more as an adult), he chooses to remain in the state of his 16 year old self: young, cocky, ambivalent, and unsure why his father would relate to a story about a man’s tragic death. At least 16 year old Bukowski understood the intimacy that this story created between himself and his father as he close the poem in “as close / as we ever got” (lines 71-72). What does it mean when a son writes a story (that when he “had written it / I had no idea / of what I was / writing about” lines 60-63) and this story touches his somewhat callously depicted father?
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Readings for June 6
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The exclamation of “my Faith is gone!” by Young Goodman Brown (YGB) in the midst of his experience in the forest epitomizes YGB’s transformation from a young, naïve, and prideful man to a callous and jaded man (9). He is prideful in that he agrees to meet with the devil in the forest, knowing full well that he would be tempted. YGB clings to Heaven and his wife as he declares he will “stand firm against the devil” (8). But why encounter the devil to begin with? Why would he tempt himself in this way?
These questions stand out in the readers mind as YGB seems to have ensnared himself. For it appears that he has witnessed some evil witchcraft in the forest, but it is his conscious decision to judge his fellow townspeople (despite the ambiguity of whether he was dreaming or not about what the devil was showing him). Does this mean that YGB is actually the only one who falls victim to the devil’s coercion? YGB wholly believes in the experience that he has in the forest. His faith shifts from the foundation of his wife to the singular experience in the forest, and he remains committed to this new faith in the hypocrisy of people until his death.
So, was YGB’s choice to enter the forest what led him to his undoing or was his decision to accept what he saw (whether it was a dream or not) what led to his undoing?
“What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie
In contrast to YGB, Jackson Jackson (JJ) is not on a quest of self-destruction as much as healing. Although JJ is self-destructive in his own right, he is not as pervious to the destruction of his will as YGB. JJ is homeless, broke, and constantly drunk; but he hangs onto hope and chance for healing through his grandmother’s powwow regalia. At the end of the story, he does not see the evil in people as YGB does; instead, JJ as the narrator exclaims to the reader, “Do you know how many good men live in this world? Too many to count!” (458). As JJ dances in the street, he experiences a sense of healing with his past, present, and future.
Of course, the reader is not to assume that JJ is to be completely healed. After all, JJ narrates in a guarded confessional of a Native American—wanting to tell his story, but aware of the wounds caused by revealing too much to “white folks.” This leads the reader to wonder if he or she as the audience is supposed to be a white audience that is aware of its part in the white manifest destiny that decimated the life and traditions of the Native American. (One might wonder if Alexie was very aware of his audience as this story was originally published in The New Yorker). Yet, JJ takes his rough life in stride. When Officer Williams picks JJ up, the police officer states, “You Indians. How the hell do you laugh so much?” (451). The reader might wonder the same thing: how does JJ seem so content in his meager life?
The reader might also wonder why JJ keeps spending the money that gets. When he wins $100 from a lottery ticket, JJ’s first inclination is to give it away. Why doesn’t he save his money? Perhaps, his accumulation of money for the regalia is not JJ’s main purpose. JJ is taking a hero’s journey through present characters and past events to find the meaning in the regalia itself. The fact that he “won” the regalia for simply going on his journey seems to diminish the importance of the fund raising plot device in comparison to what JJ gets from the journey itself.
“The world is too much with us” by William Wordsworth
This poem paints a picture of human incompatibility with its natural environment. In this way, the poem might be an environmentalist anthem or a call for religious reform. For there seems to be an inherent assumption the modern religion does not respect the Nature of the world as much as more ancient religion (i.e. Greek mythology). In ancient religion, the gods were part of Nature; in modern religion, people are “out of tune” with nature (line 8). Wordsworth sentiments in this poem are attuned to the romantic notions of spirituality in nature and truth embedded in past practices.
“Plus Shipping” by Bob Hicok
It is hard to gauge whether Hicok’s central tone for the poem is either cynical, angry, defeated, or all three. For, Hicok imagines the conception and audience for Golfer-Pelli as one that converted the sacred into the useless commodity without any regret. This is not even a conversion from the sacred to the profane as much as an acknowledgement that a consumer can recognize beauty that exists in an object or icon and then honor it by making it a part of commercialism on their mantle:
Hicok highlights the perceptions that consumers have that change the meaning of the object or icon.
The exclamation of “my Faith is gone!” by Young Goodman Brown (YGB) in the midst of his experience in the forest epitomizes YGB’s transformation from a young, naïve, and prideful man to a callous and jaded man (9). He is prideful in that he agrees to meet with the devil in the forest, knowing full well that he would be tempted. YGB clings to Heaven and his wife as he declares he will “stand firm against the devil” (8). But why encounter the devil to begin with? Why would he tempt himself in this way?
These questions stand out in the readers mind as YGB seems to have ensnared himself. For it appears that he has witnessed some evil witchcraft in the forest, but it is his conscious decision to judge his fellow townspeople (despite the ambiguity of whether he was dreaming or not about what the devil was showing him). Does this mean that YGB is actually the only one who falls victim to the devil’s coercion? YGB wholly believes in the experience that he has in the forest. His faith shifts from the foundation of his wife to the singular experience in the forest, and he remains committed to this new faith in the hypocrisy of people until his death.
So, was YGB’s choice to enter the forest what led him to his undoing or was his decision to accept what he saw (whether it was a dream or not) what led to his undoing?
“What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie
In contrast to YGB, Jackson Jackson (JJ) is not on a quest of self-destruction as much as healing. Although JJ is self-destructive in his own right, he is not as pervious to the destruction of his will as YGB. JJ is homeless, broke, and constantly drunk; but he hangs onto hope and chance for healing through his grandmother’s powwow regalia. At the end of the story, he does not see the evil in people as YGB does; instead, JJ as the narrator exclaims to the reader, “Do you know how many good men live in this world? Too many to count!” (458). As JJ dances in the street, he experiences a sense of healing with his past, present, and future.
Of course, the reader is not to assume that JJ is to be completely healed. After all, JJ narrates in a guarded confessional of a Native American—wanting to tell his story, but aware of the wounds caused by revealing too much to “white folks.” This leads the reader to wonder if he or she as the audience is supposed to be a white audience that is aware of its part in the white manifest destiny that decimated the life and traditions of the Native American. (One might wonder if Alexie was very aware of his audience as this story was originally published in The New Yorker). Yet, JJ takes his rough life in stride. When Officer Williams picks JJ up, the police officer states, “You Indians. How the hell do you laugh so much?” (451). The reader might wonder the same thing: how does JJ seem so content in his meager life?
The reader might also wonder why JJ keeps spending the money that gets. When he wins $100 from a lottery ticket, JJ’s first inclination is to give it away. Why doesn’t he save his money? Perhaps, his accumulation of money for the regalia is not JJ’s main purpose. JJ is taking a hero’s journey through present characters and past events to find the meaning in the regalia itself. The fact that he “won” the regalia for simply going on his journey seems to diminish the importance of the fund raising plot device in comparison to what JJ gets from the journey itself.
“The world is too much with us” by William Wordsworth
This poem paints a picture of human incompatibility with its natural environment. In this way, the poem might be an environmentalist anthem or a call for religious reform. For there seems to be an inherent assumption the modern religion does not respect the Nature of the world as much as more ancient religion (i.e. Greek mythology). In ancient religion, the gods were part of Nature; in modern religion, people are “out of tune” with nature (line 8). Wordsworth sentiments in this poem are attuned to the romantic notions of spirituality in nature and truth embedded in past practices.
“Plus Shipping” by Bob Hicok
It is hard to gauge whether Hicok’s central tone for the poem is either cynical, angry, defeated, or all three. For, Hicok imagines the conception and audience for Golfer-Pelli as one that converted the sacred into the useless commodity without any regret. This is not even a conversion from the sacred to the profane as much as an acknowledgement that a consumer can recognize beauty that exists in an object or icon and then honor it by making it a part of commercialism on their mantle:
For as we eat and sleep there’s someone
flipping through a magazine, strolling the open veins
of ruins, touching forgotten texts, sculpted faces
of a people centuries gone, who can’t help but think
there’s beauty and sorrow and money in every one of these. (lines 40-41)
Hicok highlights the perceptions that consumers have that change the meaning of the object or icon.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Welcome to English 2200
Welcome to the blog site for English 2200: Summer 2011 edition! I will post weekly responses to the readings on this blog, and I will link student blogs on the right column labelled "fellow bloggers."
You will be required to write up a 200 word response (about the size of this post) to question in the course schedule by midnight the day before that particular reading will be due; and you will be required to respond to two other blogs per reading response session before class time.
Don't think of it as mandatory drudgery; think of this blogging as a chance to write down some thoughts on the course readings and see what other people are experiencing in the readings. When writing up your reading response blogs, think about the question and explore other questions you might about the text, the author, the reader, and the cultural context of the readings.
These reading response blogs will also give introverts a chance to write their thoughts down instead of saying them in class (and we will often go into these blogs during class discussions to bring up interesting observations). So, the reading response blogs are really a chance for students to voice their opinions on the readings in an informal manner. Have fun!
You will be required to write up a 200 word response (about the size of this post) to question in the course schedule by midnight the day before that particular reading will be due; and you will be required to respond to two other blogs per reading response session before class time.
Don't think of it as mandatory drudgery; think of this blogging as a chance to write down some thoughts on the course readings and see what other people are experiencing in the readings. When writing up your reading response blogs, think about the question and explore other questions you might about the text, the author, the reader, and the cultural context of the readings.
These reading response blogs will also give introverts a chance to write their thoughts down instead of saying them in class (and we will often go into these blogs during class discussions to bring up interesting observations). So, the reading response blogs are really a chance for students to voice their opinions on the readings in an informal manner. Have fun!
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