On Tuesday, the class met at the Karl E. Mundt Library at the DSU campus. We were presented with the "how to's" for retrieving Literary Critique resources at our library as well as the databases and inter library loan specifics. I jumped up to get the Dictionary of Literary Biographies and I was not successful at finding it just by "winging" it. I had to get back to my laptop and write down the actual index information so I could locate it! Oh well, there are so many great books in there and I saw some new ones while I was lost, so that was a bonus.
Then, we met in our "Feminist Critique" group as all the other groups organized, too. We discussed the questions posted by Professor Hueners and decided upon PowerPoint to present our findings to the class. So, we split up the sample questions to get us going and then we thought that we could all try to develop another question which would be relevant to a Feminist Literary Critique. In class on Thursday, we'll move along with our PowerPoint and decide how our presentation will be organized...even looking for a good "feminist" song for background sound.
Discussion board for our Feminist Critique:
Message no. 227
Author: Deana Hueners (engl210_dh)
Date: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 9:44am
Feminism – concerns of gender, power
What types of roles do women have in the story? (Who is the most
feminine woman?)
What types of roles do men have in the story? (Who is the manliest man?)
Do any stereotypical characterizations appear in the story? (See your
responses to the above.)
What are the attitudes toward women held by the male characters in the
story?
What is a good man? What is a good woman?
How do male/female stereotypes and power structures influence what
happens in the story?
Message no. 229
Author: Amy Woolston (avwoolston)
Date: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 2:33pm
For our group project, we started by splitting up the suggested questions given by
Professor Hueners. I have question 3 and 4.
3. What types of roles do the men have in the story? (who is the manliest man?)
The father, Bailey, portrays a "family man"...organizer of the trip and provider for the
family. He was "the answer man", meaning the decisions came down to his final say;
"Bailey was looking straight ahead. His jaw was as rigid as a horseshoe. 'No,' he said."
With this answer about whether or not the family would stop to see the house with the
secret panel, he tries to put his foot down. But, the kids scream and yell in the car that
they wanted to stop and see this house. They whined to their mother (the kids) that they
never had any fun even on their vacation because they didn't get to do what they
wanted. Then, their dad gives in..."All right!' he shouted and drew the car to a stop at the
side of the road. 'Will you all shut up? Will you all just shut up for one second? If you
don't shut up, we won't go anywhere.'" He wasn't the manliest man, but he did his best to
guide the family and rule with fairness.
The son, John Wesley, was a boy with strong words and spunk. He seemed to speak his
mind; "Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground," ... probably something he heard
from another child or even an adult!
There was a little African-American boy cited in the story, yet it doesn't delve into his
character beyond his "sighting".
Then, the Misfit. A leader of men, even if the followers he travelled with were just more
or less his young "henchmen", they are portrayed as pallbearers to a funeral....arriving
in a long, hearse like automobile...a clue of what's to come perhaps.
Back to the Misfit. He was wearing tan and white shoes with no socks....presumably the
shoes of one of his victims. He wore glasses and his hair was starting to grey. He spoke
with proper language....almost polite and concerned at first. "Lady,' the man said to the
children's mother, 'would you mind calling them children to sit down by you? Children
make me nervous. I want all you all to sit down right together there where you're at."
The Misfit commands every ones attention with his calm, stature and perhaps the fact that
he held a rifle. The Misfit is the manliest man, I think. At least, the one in control...and
the male with the longest life experience and organization enough to lead a jail break,
get a vehicle, clothes..and keep his partners-in-crime under control.
4. Do any stereotypical characterizations appear in the story?
Yes, I think the grandmother is stereotypical. Holding on to her beliefs about what
a "lady" behaves and looks like. The grandmother remains very concerned about
appearances and what other people think. She complains that she'd like to go
somewhere else on a road trip, yet she is the first one in the car the morning of the trip.
The mother of the children is stereotypical as well. She clearly takes care of everyone
but herself. She wears a scarf around her hair because she probably doesn't have the
time to tend to it. She is quiet and loving...in charge of many little tasks that keep the
family life going. The mother rarely speaks, and really shows very little emotion until she
watches her husband getting escorted into the woods....then she kind of "freaks."
Bailey, the father is a bit stereotypical, too. He was reading the sports section at the
kitchen table when he was introduced into the story. He speaks when he needs
to...probably everyone in the family knows his certain looks and what they mean, so
they just all do as is expected from him. He is their ring-master...he says what happens
and when...even if he does take some considerations for the others desires.
The kids are stereotypical as well. Active and vociferous...they say what comes to their
mind with no filtering...so refreshing and definitely stereotypical of children in general.
The Misfit was a stereotypical criminal. Believing he knew more than others and thinking
the belongings of others were just his...he just needed to "claim" them. The world is his
oyster...he takes and takes and takes...and gives nice little observations of what he
thinks life is. A stereotypical criminal might be kind of cocky...and a bit crazy. He is an
opportunist and behaves as though he has the ultimate knowledge needed to negotiate
the world around him. Only one basic problem, he's a murderer and a thief...with a
bankrupt soul.
Even the Mistfits two accomplices were stereotypical. Followers...taking orders from one
that could mold their thoughts and effect their actions...they seemed to be like soldiers
taking their orders from their "General" and are seemingly unaware that they are pawns
in The Misfits game.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Group Literature Critiques
FEMINIST Group:
Audra, Katie, Alicia, and myself
Well, I really look forward to understanding our assignment better and conversing with my teammates. I read the excerpt in the class text for "Feminist Criticism" and feel kind of fortunate to have been put in this category. But, I am a bit overwhelmed about how to go about this project and how working with a team will be. Especially with one midterm in Algebra this week before Spring Break and then trying to keep in touch with my teammates for our final presentation. I'm sure we'll find a way to all be satisfied with our contributions.
Website for info @ Feminist Critique:
http://members.tripod.com/~warlight/OPPERMANN.html
This website gave a great background about the "birth" (oops, that would probably command a feminist response!) of a feminist critique and some major contributors in this area of critique.
Woman seem to need to write against the current...assert some of their own individuality and autonomy that only a woman can do. A male "feminist critic" K.K. Ruthven suggests that one not need to be a man to be a feminist and rejects the idea that feminism "is essentially women's work." In saying so, he almost reveals his "maleness" and lack of knowledge that men can be feminists, yet they cannot "be women!" Oh my goodness, this is a great category to be in! It should be interesting to get out of the bounds of physiology and assert that "male" knows only "male" thoughts...and "male" experiences. Well, of course, they can't help it!
Vocabulary we're bound to see more of:
Powerlessness
Self against self
Typical
Domination
Deceptive
Perception
Interpretation
Marginal
Ideology
Tradition
Contradiction
Symbolism
Postmodernism Feminism literary critique
Meta-narratives
Let's put on our seat belts...this is bound to be a bumpy ride and one heck of a PowerPoint presentation!
Groups:
Biographical
Historical
Tiffany N.
Katie L.
Nick K.
Halee W.
Britta S.
Freudian
Kurt J.
Nick R.
Jacob S.
Melissa O.
Jungian
Kensi N.
Tressa W.
Adam J.
David R.
Reader Response
Dakota N.
Amber S.
Melanie A.
Deidra T.
Marxist
Becky L.
Bobbi N.
Jeff P.
Michelle S.
Feminist
Amy W.
Audra J.
Katie P.
Alicia M.
Audra, Katie, Alicia, and myself
Well, I really look forward to understanding our assignment better and conversing with my teammates. I read the excerpt in the class text for "Feminist Criticism" and feel kind of fortunate to have been put in this category. But, I am a bit overwhelmed about how to go about this project and how working with a team will be. Especially with one midterm in Algebra this week before Spring Break and then trying to keep in touch with my teammates for our final presentation. I'm sure we'll find a way to all be satisfied with our contributions.
Website for info @ Feminist Critique:
http://members.tripod.com/~warlight/OPPERMANN.html
This website gave a great background about the "birth" (oops, that would probably command a feminist response!) of a feminist critique and some major contributors in this area of critique.
Woman seem to need to write against the current...assert some of their own individuality and autonomy that only a woman can do. A male "feminist critic" K.K. Ruthven suggests that one not need to be a man to be a feminist and rejects the idea that feminism "is essentially women's work." In saying so, he almost reveals his "maleness" and lack of knowledge that men can be feminists, yet they cannot "be women!" Oh my goodness, this is a great category to be in! It should be interesting to get out of the bounds of physiology and assert that "male" knows only "male" thoughts...and "male" experiences. Well, of course, they can't help it!
Vocabulary we're bound to see more of:
Powerlessness
Self against self
Typical
Domination
Deceptive
Perception
Interpretation
Marginal
Ideology
Tradition
Contradiction
Symbolism
Postmodernism Feminism literary critique
Meta-narratives
Let's put on our seat belts...this is bound to be a bumpy ride and one heck of a PowerPoint presentation!
Groups:
Biographical
Historical
Tiffany N.
Katie L.
Nick K.
Halee W.
Britta S.
Freudian
Kurt J.
Nick R.
Jacob S.
Melissa O.
Jungian
Kensi N.
Tressa W.
Adam J.
David R.
Reader Response
Dakota N.
Amber S.
Melanie A.
Deidra T.
Marxist
Becky L.
Bobbi N.
Jeff P.
Michelle S.
Feminist
Amy W.
Audra J.
Katie P.
Alicia M.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor
EEEEk! Not just your average family vacation!
O'Connor gives the reader a family that is a group of fun, wacky people...much like many of our own families. They start out at home and have plans for a road trip to Florida. Grandmother complains about it, she wants to go to Tennessee! But, the next morning she's the first one in the car. They travel....they bicker....they stop and eat...they travel some more. Then, they take a "side trip" at the suggestion of Grandmother and they end up dead...all of them! Shot by some "misfits" the grandmother had read about in the newspaper before they even left for their road trip. This story was rich with descriptions...and the characters had realistic personalities. The reserved husband, the wife that wanted to dance, the vociferous little girl and the active boy. Geez, they all get blown away....
I was astounded. I kept thinking, "no"...they are alive, right?
What a great story...and terrible, too.
I assumed that Flannery was a man...I guess it just sounded like an Irish male name.
I think the line in the story that says so much is:
"She would have been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
Really? Misfit? Yes, Misfit! Like it's up to him who lives and who dies. As if one person has the right to take an other's life. It was almost like the Misfit saw it as his function on Earth, to randomly kill and have no remorse. His name was always capitalized "The Misfit", like he was God. Or, the hand of God. Was it God, taking the family to heaven? Did the Grandmother know what waited for them on the side road? And, was it part of God's plan all along? I guess they (whoever they are) say that everyone has a time to go and you can't mess with the master plan.
Chilling, really, to think that a random act or change of plans can bring about such dire results.
I think I'll stay on main roads from here on out, just in case The Misfit is awaiting!
O'Connor gives the reader a family that is a group of fun, wacky people...much like many of our own families. They start out at home and have plans for a road trip to Florida. Grandmother complains about it, she wants to go to Tennessee! But, the next morning she's the first one in the car. They travel....they bicker....they stop and eat...they travel some more. Then, they take a "side trip" at the suggestion of Grandmother and they end up dead...all of them! Shot by some "misfits" the grandmother had read about in the newspaper before they even left for their road trip. This story was rich with descriptions...and the characters had realistic personalities. The reserved husband, the wife that wanted to dance, the vociferous little girl and the active boy. Geez, they all get blown away....
I was astounded. I kept thinking, "no"...they are alive, right?
What a great story...and terrible, too.
I assumed that Flannery was a man...I guess it just sounded like an Irish male name.
I think the line in the story that says so much is:
"She would have been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
Really? Misfit? Yes, Misfit! Like it's up to him who lives and who dies. As if one person has the right to take an other's life. It was almost like the Misfit saw it as his function on Earth, to randomly kill and have no remorse. His name was always capitalized "The Misfit", like he was God. Or, the hand of God. Was it God, taking the family to heaven? Did the Grandmother know what waited for them on the side road? And, was it part of God's plan all along? I guess they (whoever they are) say that everyone has a time to go and you can't mess with the master plan.
Chilling, really, to think that a random act or change of plans can bring about such dire results.
I think I'll stay on main roads from here on out, just in case The Misfit is awaiting!
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Character Division/Categories for "The Management of Grief"
Bharati Mukherjee's "The Management of Grief"
Class discussion of the story brought the discussion of the main character/narrator.
Professor Huener assigned a Journal entry for today concerning what the reader may see in all the characters in the story and how one could divide them into categories.
I think the most effective way to divide the characters into specific categories would be to define how they individually "deal" with the death of a loved one. Some reactions may be a "knee jerk" reaction that comes from the very upbringing one has had and how one deals with tragedy and/or trauma.
The narrator, Shaila Bhave, referred to the fact that "this terrible calm will not go away." She behaved calmly, strong and together, but she had the benefit of Valium. I had the benefit of Valium towards the end of my late husband's chemo rounds and subsequent death. Valium makes you feel no real strong emotion...either way to sadness or happiness. It brings a cloud of calm, but a bad calm...almost unnatural. Others saw Shaila as "the strong one", one who was kepping it all together in the face of tragedy. Shaila wanted "scream, starve, walk into Lake Ontario, jump from a bridge." Too right! Shaila would be in a category I will title
"The Walking Dead", those that don't want to discuss anything, yet continue on in a pattern of previous behavior because it comes most natural when everything has gone to "hell in a handbasket." Then, when the timing is right for them, and them alone, do they rebirth themselves and desire to feel all the feelings (good and bad.)
Then , there is the old, Sikh couple who lost two sons in the plane incident. They just closed their doors, physically and figuratively. They trusted no one, and kept "the hope" that their boys would come take care of everything. They would not/could not pay their most basic bills because their sons had taken care of it for them previously. They were distrustful and would not sign any papers. They thought others would take from them, as their sons had been taken. Their category title is
"The Ground Hogs", because they cannot move beyond the day of the tragedy or make new moves even in their own best interest, they have been paralyzed by their loss.
Then, we have the widowers. Those men who remarry almost too soon, because it is a cultural tradition that a man have a wife to care for. They move on, but they are not allowed, nor do they probably allow themselves to grieve. They just go into auto-drive, replacing what they have lost and moving towards a new life and away from the memories of the past. This isn't wrong, none of them are...I think everyone deals with what they get in their own manner. The title for this category will be
"The Robots" because they can move around any pain, at least from an outward appearance and go forward with their new task, which is a new family.
Then, one might see all the connected parts of family of the deceased as "The Shovellers."They shovel their ideas towards those they care about who may have just had a terrible tragedy. They think they can help. They "busy" the person, they suggest, they promote "keep on truckin" until they are blue in the face because they may feel like there really is nothing they can do and that is just too hard to accept as one watches a loved one go through so much grief. They want to facilitate Healing and read the books on how to help and what the "stages of grieving" are, but they are only observers. They cannot actually help. They may hover around their hurting loved one just in case they are worried about depression. Yes, people get depressed. It takes time...and no one should be monitoring one's schedule of healing...it's free-form kind of thing that has a life all it's own.So, they just keep shovelling all those good intentions until they feel like the person has survived the tragedy.
Then, I guess there are the bystanders. Those who work within the social services or read the news and feel real compassion for those that have lost one or more loved ones. I mean, really, we all can imagine how we would feel...and we want to help. Plus, we're feeling pretty lucky at this point, since we still have our loved ones...our family unit...our job...our sanity. Maybe there is a reason why we got to keep our loved ones...maybe those that suffered the terrible tragedy deserved it somehow? What makes us different? Well, nothing makes us different. We are all the same and we can never know what's coming around the corner. These people are categorized as "The Blessed." They are blessed because they do not know what it feels like and they think they can actually help. Fact is, they try to be gracious and understanding, and perhaps even deep inside they are screaming too because they don't know how they would react. Maybe they think they'll never have to. Well, that's unlikely....everyone loses someone, sometime...there are just so many different scenarios and schedules, that omne can't know when the shit will hit the fan.
Time for me to go look through some family albums...I miss my hubby and my mom. This was a cathartic exercise for me.
Class discussion of the story brought the discussion of the main character/narrator.
Professor Huener assigned a Journal entry for today concerning what the reader may see in all the characters in the story and how one could divide them into categories.
I think the most effective way to divide the characters into specific categories would be to define how they individually "deal" with the death of a loved one. Some reactions may be a "knee jerk" reaction that comes from the very upbringing one has had and how one deals with tragedy and/or trauma.
The narrator, Shaila Bhave, referred to the fact that "this terrible calm will not go away." She behaved calmly, strong and together, but she had the benefit of Valium. I had the benefit of Valium towards the end of my late husband's chemo rounds and subsequent death. Valium makes you feel no real strong emotion...either way to sadness or happiness. It brings a cloud of calm, but a bad calm...almost unnatural. Others saw Shaila as "the strong one", one who was kepping it all together in the face of tragedy. Shaila wanted "scream, starve, walk into Lake Ontario, jump from a bridge." Too right! Shaila would be in a category I will title
"The Walking Dead", those that don't want to discuss anything, yet continue on in a pattern of previous behavior because it comes most natural when everything has gone to "hell in a handbasket." Then, when the timing is right for them, and them alone, do they rebirth themselves and desire to feel all the feelings (good and bad.)
Then , there is the old, Sikh couple who lost two sons in the plane incident. They just closed their doors, physically and figuratively. They trusted no one, and kept "the hope" that their boys would come take care of everything. They would not/could not pay their most basic bills because their sons had taken care of it for them previously. They were distrustful and would not sign any papers. They thought others would take from them, as their sons had been taken. Their category title is
"The Ground Hogs", because they cannot move beyond the day of the tragedy or make new moves even in their own best interest, they have been paralyzed by their loss.
Then, we have the widowers. Those men who remarry almost too soon, because it is a cultural tradition that a man have a wife to care for. They move on, but they are not allowed, nor do they probably allow themselves to grieve. They just go into auto-drive, replacing what they have lost and moving towards a new life and away from the memories of the past. This isn't wrong, none of them are...I think everyone deals with what they get in their own manner. The title for this category will be
"The Robots" because they can move around any pain, at least from an outward appearance and go forward with their new task, which is a new family.
Then, one might see all the connected parts of family of the deceased as "The Shovellers."They shovel their ideas towards those they care about who may have just had a terrible tragedy. They think they can help. They "busy" the person, they suggest, they promote "keep on truckin" until they are blue in the face because they may feel like there really is nothing they can do and that is just too hard to accept as one watches a loved one go through so much grief. They want to facilitate Healing and read the books on how to help and what the "stages of grieving" are, but they are only observers. They cannot actually help. They may hover around their hurting loved one just in case they are worried about depression. Yes, people get depressed. It takes time...and no one should be monitoring one's schedule of healing...it's free-form kind of thing that has a life all it's own.So, they just keep shovelling all those good intentions until they feel like the person has survived the tragedy.
Then, I guess there are the bystanders. Those who work within the social services or read the news and feel real compassion for those that have lost one or more loved ones. I mean, really, we all can imagine how we would feel...and we want to help. Plus, we're feeling pretty lucky at this point, since we still have our loved ones...our family unit...our job...our sanity. Maybe there is a reason why we got to keep our loved ones...maybe those that suffered the terrible tragedy deserved it somehow? What makes us different? Well, nothing makes us different. We are all the same and we can never know what's coming around the corner. These people are categorized as "The Blessed." They are blessed because they do not know what it feels like and they think they can actually help. Fact is, they try to be gracious and understanding, and perhaps even deep inside they are screaming too because they don't know how they would react. Maybe they think they'll never have to. Well, that's unlikely....everyone loses someone, sometime...there are just so many different scenarios and schedules, that omne can't know when the shit will hit the fan.
Time for me to go look through some family albums...I miss my hubby and my mom. This was a cathartic exercise for me.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
THEME "A Souvenir of Japan" by Angela Carter and "The Management of Grief" by Bharati Mukherjee
The theme of a story is "far more general that the subject" of it. To discover the theme one must pay attention to setting, character, plot, symbols, point of view, and language.
We've read about and discussed all those parts of literature, and now they come together as a whole to help identify the central idea.
Themes are powerful. To create themes, a powerful tool is drawing on some common experience and knowledge. The theme can remind the reader of their own experiences or take a reader into a new existence...to a whole new world in one's imagination.
Themes to look for/be aware of:
Cross-cultural scenarios
Allusions (references to religion, history, cultural practices...)
Customs
Social differences
Misunderstandings
"A Souvenir of Japan" by Angela Carter
The story is about a Japanese man and a Caucasian woman. They have an affair. It's hard to say "love affair" because I got the feeling through the reading that it wasn't about love as much as excitement and taboo for them both. Their secret rendezvous and ineffective communication. No discussion of the "elephant in the room", and a lot of tension surrounding what they both knew about their relationship. The main character, not of Japanese upbringing or thought, saw hypocrisy in the Japanese culture...a "world of icons and there they participate in rituals which transmute life itself to a series of grand gestures, as moving as they are absurd." The words repressed, torture, "object of passion" all made it so hard for me as a US citizen to even comprehend their lifestyle. "Taro" (his name) and ? (I never got her name in the story) ended up with a failed romance, with the differences between their personal politics and cultural/social policies being the reason that they could not spend their lives together. He needed a quiet, available, & subservient woman. She wanted a relationship of equality, of partnership...at least I think so because she came from a different world than Taro. Cultural clash...but probably some great sex!
After I read this story, I looked into Angela Carter's personal bio. Pretty interesting path she lead with many twists and turns in her own life! I'm not gonna say "poor little rich girl", but I imagine her choices were based upon her desire to understand the world and her place in it, along with self-actualization and no seeming fear of anything. Well, at least she didn't let things get in her way or shy away from much...talk about "balls"...
"The Management of Grief" by Bharati Mukherjee
A story of an Indian family who live in Canada. The husband and sons are all killed in an airplane crash. The "care" by other people, the "widowhood", the day-to-day routine of going on when everything she loved had been taken from her. Then, she has to separate between the customs of her homeland and the customs of her new life in Canada. What she takes from the old, and what she takes from the new and how it all will melt together as she rebuilds her life. She seemed to have all these people around who thought she should be doing this...behaving like that...oh my goodness...she just needed to heal in her own way and in her own time.
"I never once told him that I loved him," I said. I was too much the well brought up woman. I was so well brought up I never felt comfortable calling my husband by his first name.
Her friend says, "He knew. My husband knew. They felt it. Modern young girls have to say it because what they feel is fake." (Oh my, how young and fake I was, then! Ha!, what a difference in culture and belief)
Then later, in a haze or illusion high in the Himalayas, she has a discussion with her deceased husband. She asks him, should she stay? The image tells her "You must finish alone what we started together." How poignant, brought me to tears.
She may not understand why the catastrophe happened to her, and how she will survive. Yet, she draws from her original culture and her new culture and finds herself as a brave woman beginning a new voyage.
This story really hit home with me. Of course, I didn't have the India/Canada culture clash...but definitely how death and dying affects each individual so differently and how the healing process varies for everyone. She told us of how she should have been behaving, how she felt, how others behaved, and how the rituals from her homeland gave some order to her crazy feelings. She found her way through it. I thought it was interesting that she would take the bodies back to India on a plane...that she could get over how their death happened and move forward.
We've read about and discussed all those parts of literature, and now they come together as a whole to help identify the central idea.
Themes are powerful. To create themes, a powerful tool is drawing on some common experience and knowledge. The theme can remind the reader of their own experiences or take a reader into a new existence...to a whole new world in one's imagination.
Themes to look for/be aware of:
Cross-cultural scenarios
Allusions (references to religion, history, cultural practices...)
Customs
Social differences
Misunderstandings
"A Souvenir of Japan" by Angela Carter
The story is about a Japanese man and a Caucasian woman. They have an affair. It's hard to say "love affair" because I got the feeling through the reading that it wasn't about love as much as excitement and taboo for them both. Their secret rendezvous and ineffective communication. No discussion of the "elephant in the room", and a lot of tension surrounding what they both knew about their relationship. The main character, not of Japanese upbringing or thought, saw hypocrisy in the Japanese culture...a "world of icons and there they participate in rituals which transmute life itself to a series of grand gestures, as moving as they are absurd." The words repressed, torture, "object of passion" all made it so hard for me as a US citizen to even comprehend their lifestyle. "Taro" (his name) and ? (I never got her name in the story) ended up with a failed romance, with the differences between their personal politics and cultural/social policies being the reason that they could not spend their lives together. He needed a quiet, available, & subservient woman. She wanted a relationship of equality, of partnership...at least I think so because she came from a different world than Taro. Cultural clash...but probably some great sex!
After I read this story, I looked into Angela Carter's personal bio. Pretty interesting path she lead with many twists and turns in her own life! I'm not gonna say "poor little rich girl", but I imagine her choices were based upon her desire to understand the world and her place in it, along with self-actualization and no seeming fear of anything. Well, at least she didn't let things get in her way or shy away from much...talk about "balls"...
"The Management of Grief" by Bharati Mukherjee
A story of an Indian family who live in Canada. The husband and sons are all killed in an airplane crash. The "care" by other people, the "widowhood", the day-to-day routine of going on when everything she loved had been taken from her. Then, she has to separate between the customs of her homeland and the customs of her new life in Canada. What she takes from the old, and what she takes from the new and how it all will melt together as she rebuilds her life. She seemed to have all these people around who thought she should be doing this...behaving like that...oh my goodness...she just needed to heal in her own way and in her own time.
"I never once told him that I loved him," I said. I was too much the well brought up woman. I was so well brought up I never felt comfortable calling my husband by his first name.
Her friend says, "He knew. My husband knew. They felt it. Modern young girls have to say it because what they feel is fake." (Oh my, how young and fake I was, then! Ha!, what a difference in culture and belief)
Then later, in a haze or illusion high in the Himalayas, she has a discussion with her deceased husband. She asks him, should she stay? The image tells her "You must finish alone what we started together." How poignant, brought me to tears.
She may not understand why the catastrophe happened to her, and how she will survive. Yet, she draws from her original culture and her new culture and finds herself as a brave woman beginning a new voyage.
This story really hit home with me. Of course, I didn't have the India/Canada culture clash...but definitely how death and dying affects each individual so differently and how the healing process varies for everyone. She told us of how she should have been behaving, how she felt, how others behaved, and how the rituals from her homeland gave some order to her crazy feelings. She found her way through it. I thought it was interesting that she would take the bodies back to India on a plane...that she could get over how their death happened and move forward.
Character Analysis,( Amy, compare to first draft for works cited and thesis changes)
Amy Woolston
Professor Hueners
ENG 210
15 February 2007
Malignant Montresor:
A Carnival Internment
Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is a portrayal of a man who focuses his entire wrath for alleged and mysterious injuries on one man. Set in Italy during the celebration of carnival, the reader is chaperoned through an evening of deception, mystery, and ultimately, murder. “An eye for an eye” and “what goes around, comes around” are not the form of justice the narrator/murderer has in mind. A penalty of death is executed as the narrator becomes judge, jury, and henchman. A “gentleman” sets the stage for the homicide within the catacombs beneath his family home and then releases his staff for the evening so that his plan can go forward without interruption and detection. This vengeful man lures his drunken, costumed sitting duck to his home with the ruse of sharing a bottle of fine wine. Then, when his prey is deep within the bowels of his home’s vaults, the deranged operate chains his captor in a small crypt and buries him alive. In Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” the main character and narrator of the story describes a murder he committed and fails to realize that he has suffered a mental break and pursues a deed borne of false assumptions, deception, and insanity.
The narrator of the story is Montresor, a man who suffers from the delusion that an acquaintance, Fortunato, has brought “the thousand injuries” (Poe 108) upon him and states, “I must not only punish but punish with impunity” (Poe 108). Consider for a moment whether or not Fortunato was responsible for any of Montresor’s troubles, surely death does not befit the redress Montresor so desires. Montresor has become the victim of his own obsession for revenge. Montresor claims that he “did not differ from him materially” (Poe 109), yet somehow he feels slighted by his target and exhibits irrational delusions and conclusions. This slanted view that Montresor adopts and plots a crime behind are the signs of his madness.
Montresor is careful to give no overt clues to Fortunato that any ill will exists between them. He perpetuates this façade when he writes “I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation” (Poe 109). Immolation is a proper and even pleasant way to say sacrifice (Webster’s). The use of this word is Montresor’s vehicle to objectify Fortunato as an impersonal defendant for the injuries Montresor feels he has suffered. Thus, he exposes himself as corrupt, sadistic, and void of humanity.
Montresor promulgates deceit and dementia in several statements preceding the murder. “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day” (Poe 109) is his counterfeit greeting to the unsuspecting lamb. In addition, the bogus friendship continues when Montresor further baits Fortunato by saying, “My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature” (Poe 109). In Montresor’s madness, he keeps his friends close and his enemies even closer. As the two men approach Montresor’s empty home, Montresor again enlists deceit by suggesting to Fortunato that they not enter the crypts to avoid the nitre within; “Come, I said, with decision, ‘we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy as once I was. You are a man to be missed’” (Poe 110). Of course, Fortunato is inebriated and he will not forego the opportunity to partake in yet another bottle of wine. As the pair continues to descend to the Montresor vaults, Montresor describes his family arms to the unwitting Fortunato. “A huge foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel” (Poe 111). In Montresor’s twisted reality, Fortunato represents the serpent and Montresor is the golden foot. Furthermore, Montresor shares his family motto with Fortunato when he states “Nemo me impune lacessit” (Poe 111), which means, “No one provokes me with impunity” (Poe 111). Consequently, Montresor hints that someone is about to be punished, that he will get away with the murder and oddly enough, he will hold Fortunato responsible for the alleged insults. It is not a very fortunate situation for Fortunato.
As the assassination grows closer, Montresor continues to weave his web of lies. The two reach the readied crypt and Montresor tricks his drunken friend into believing that the bottle of Amontillado is inside a small, dark recess. “Proceed,” I said; ‘herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi-‘” (Poe 112). Montresor has now become a machine for manslaughter. The premeditated plan for a live human interment now becomes a cold description of how the sacrificed individual is detained and concealed. “A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite” (Poe 112). Montresor continues his innocuous small-talk with Fortunato,”pass your hand,’ I said, ‘over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you’” (Poe 112). Montresor has no intention to free his captor. “With these materials and with the end of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance to the niche” (Poe 112) is the matter-of-fact description that Montresor gives as his plan comes to conclusion. Furthermore, Montresor separates himself from the thoughts of Fortunato as a specific person. “I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamoures grew still” (Poe 113). Montresor was heckling his captive! With great virulence and trickery, Montresor had successfully abrogated his friend. Fortunato starts to giggle nervously from within his tomb, “he! he! he!- he! he! he!- yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will they not be awaiting us at the palazzo-the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone” (Poe 113). Montresor retorts,”Yes, I said, ‘let us be gone’” (Poe 113). They are both gone, indeed!
At the very end, Montresor grows impatient with the entombed Fortunato, “But to the words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud- “Fortunato!” No answer. I called again- ‘Fortunato!’ No answer still” (Poe 113). Fortunato never speaks another word to anyone. Montresor plasters the last stone in place, re-erects a wall of bones to cloak the new masonry work, and leaves.
The tale of the murder is not revealed for fifty years. Even as the chronicle is unveiled and perhaps a “missing person” mystery is solved, it would appear that Montresor is quite elderly by that time and that the purging of the story was just an attempt to release the dark secret from his past and perhaps even boast about his clever deed to whomever he shared the event. The final words of the written story are “In pace requiescat!” (Poe 113), which means “May he rest in peace!” Not only is this statement meant to sound as if it is for Fortunato, it may also be a means for Montresor to plea for absolution. Personal injuries to Montresor were not “redressed” and Fortunato suffered an unfair fate at the hands of a miscreant. Retribution did not “overtake its redresser” (Poe 109), as Montresor had hoped because an insane man cannot know peace or regret.
The imagery and tension created by Poe in “The Cask of Amontillado” sets a scenario that commands the reader’s attention. Montresor, with his fine tooling of the English language and colorful description of the evening, may initially fool the reader to believe that he must have a good reason to feel so victimized. Yet, his true persona emerges and hints of madness, treachery, and brutality reveal his true nature. Poe’s Montresor was a man who lost his mind, lost control, and lost his soul.
Works Cited
Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Cask of Amontillado.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Portable ed. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2006. 108-113.
“Immolation.” Webster’s Student Dictionary. Revised Ed. 1999.
Professor Hueners
ENG 210
15 February 2007
Malignant Montresor:
A Carnival Internment
Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is a portrayal of a man who focuses his entire wrath for alleged and mysterious injuries on one man. Set in Italy during the celebration of carnival, the reader is chaperoned through an evening of deception, mystery, and ultimately, murder. “An eye for an eye” and “what goes around, comes around” are not the form of justice the narrator/murderer has in mind. A penalty of death is executed as the narrator becomes judge, jury, and henchman. A “gentleman” sets the stage for the homicide within the catacombs beneath his family home and then releases his staff for the evening so that his plan can go forward without interruption and detection. This vengeful man lures his drunken, costumed sitting duck to his home with the ruse of sharing a bottle of fine wine. Then, when his prey is deep within the bowels of his home’s vaults, the deranged operate chains his captor in a small crypt and buries him alive. In Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” the main character and narrator of the story describes a murder he committed and fails to realize that he has suffered a mental break and pursues a deed borne of false assumptions, deception, and insanity.
The narrator of the story is Montresor, a man who suffers from the delusion that an acquaintance, Fortunato, has brought “the thousand injuries” (Poe 108) upon him and states, “I must not only punish but punish with impunity” (Poe 108). Consider for a moment whether or not Fortunato was responsible for any of Montresor’s troubles, surely death does not befit the redress Montresor so desires. Montresor has become the victim of his own obsession for revenge. Montresor claims that he “did not differ from him materially” (Poe 109), yet somehow he feels slighted by his target and exhibits irrational delusions and conclusions. This slanted view that Montresor adopts and plots a crime behind are the signs of his madness.
Montresor is careful to give no overt clues to Fortunato that any ill will exists between them. He perpetuates this façade when he writes “I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation” (Poe 109). Immolation is a proper and even pleasant way to say sacrifice (Webster’s). The use of this word is Montresor’s vehicle to objectify Fortunato as an impersonal defendant for the injuries Montresor feels he has suffered. Thus, he exposes himself as corrupt, sadistic, and void of humanity.
Montresor promulgates deceit and dementia in several statements preceding the murder. “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day” (Poe 109) is his counterfeit greeting to the unsuspecting lamb. In addition, the bogus friendship continues when Montresor further baits Fortunato by saying, “My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature” (Poe 109). In Montresor’s madness, he keeps his friends close and his enemies even closer. As the two men approach Montresor’s empty home, Montresor again enlists deceit by suggesting to Fortunato that they not enter the crypts to avoid the nitre within; “Come, I said, with decision, ‘we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy as once I was. You are a man to be missed’” (Poe 110). Of course, Fortunato is inebriated and he will not forego the opportunity to partake in yet another bottle of wine. As the pair continues to descend to the Montresor vaults, Montresor describes his family arms to the unwitting Fortunato. “A huge foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel” (Poe 111). In Montresor’s twisted reality, Fortunato represents the serpent and Montresor is the golden foot. Furthermore, Montresor shares his family motto with Fortunato when he states “Nemo me impune lacessit” (Poe 111), which means, “No one provokes me with impunity” (Poe 111). Consequently, Montresor hints that someone is about to be punished, that he will get away with the murder and oddly enough, he will hold Fortunato responsible for the alleged insults. It is not a very fortunate situation for Fortunato.
As the assassination grows closer, Montresor continues to weave his web of lies. The two reach the readied crypt and Montresor tricks his drunken friend into believing that the bottle of Amontillado is inside a small, dark recess. “Proceed,” I said; ‘herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi-‘” (Poe 112). Montresor has now become a machine for manslaughter. The premeditated plan for a live human interment now becomes a cold description of how the sacrificed individual is detained and concealed. “A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite” (Poe 112). Montresor continues his innocuous small-talk with Fortunato,”pass your hand,’ I said, ‘over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you’” (Poe 112). Montresor has no intention to free his captor. “With these materials and with the end of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance to the niche” (Poe 112) is the matter-of-fact description that Montresor gives as his plan comes to conclusion. Furthermore, Montresor separates himself from the thoughts of Fortunato as a specific person. “I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamoures grew still” (Poe 113). Montresor was heckling his captive! With great virulence and trickery, Montresor had successfully abrogated his friend. Fortunato starts to giggle nervously from within his tomb, “he! he! he!- he! he! he!- yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will they not be awaiting us at the palazzo-the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone” (Poe 113). Montresor retorts,”Yes, I said, ‘let us be gone’” (Poe 113). They are both gone, indeed!
At the very end, Montresor grows impatient with the entombed Fortunato, “But to the words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud- “Fortunato!” No answer. I called again- ‘Fortunato!’ No answer still” (Poe 113). Fortunato never speaks another word to anyone. Montresor plasters the last stone in place, re-erects a wall of bones to cloak the new masonry work, and leaves.
The tale of the murder is not revealed for fifty years. Even as the chronicle is unveiled and perhaps a “missing person” mystery is solved, it would appear that Montresor is quite elderly by that time and that the purging of the story was just an attempt to release the dark secret from his past and perhaps even boast about his clever deed to whomever he shared the event. The final words of the written story are “In pace requiescat!” (Poe 113), which means “May he rest in peace!” Not only is this statement meant to sound as if it is for Fortunato, it may also be a means for Montresor to plea for absolution. Personal injuries to Montresor were not “redressed” and Fortunato suffered an unfair fate at the hands of a miscreant. Retribution did not “overtake its redresser” (Poe 109), as Montresor had hoped because an insane man cannot know peace or regret.
The imagery and tension created by Poe in “The Cask of Amontillado” sets a scenario that commands the reader’s attention. Montresor, with his fine tooling of the English language and colorful description of the evening, may initially fool the reader to believe that he must have a good reason to feel so victimized. Yet, his true persona emerges and hints of madness, treachery, and brutality reveal his true nature. Poe’s Montresor was a man who lost his mind, lost control, and lost his soul.
Works Cited
Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Cask of Amontillado.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Portable ed. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2006. 108-113.
“Immolation.” Webster’s Student Dictionary. Revised Ed. 1999.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
In-Class Discussion of "Young Goodman Brown" and Symbols
Simile
Her eyes were beautiful like the universe had come to life and the light shone through her eyes alone.
The fly buzzed around the room like a thundering military helicopter searching for it’s enemies.
The professor’s voice sounded like a piccolo, piercing my eardrums and causing my eyes to twitch nervously.
She slept on the sofa like an elephant with a sinus infection.
Metaphor
Her eyes were a pool of forgiveness.
The professor’s voice is a thundering train racing at my ears.
His skin was an old western easy chair: used, loved, and worn.
The wind is a hostile warning of a hive of bees that the eye of the storm is nearing.
Symbols
Flag, Rose, 4-leaf clover, hearts, snakes…
Allegory
“Faith”…obvious tooling of words to show meaning in story
“Young Goodman Brown”
Pink ribbon
Sunset/night
Snake staff
Forest
Father and son
Wild beasts
Her eyes were beautiful like the universe had come to life and the light shone through her eyes alone.
The fly buzzed around the room like a thundering military helicopter searching for it’s enemies.
The professor’s voice sounded like a piccolo, piercing my eardrums and causing my eyes to twitch nervously.
She slept on the sofa like an elephant with a sinus infection.
Metaphor
Her eyes were a pool of forgiveness.
The professor’s voice is a thundering train racing at my ears.
His skin was an old western easy chair: used, loved, and worn.
The wind is a hostile warning of a hive of bees that the eye of the storm is nearing.
Symbols
Flag, Rose, 4-leaf clover, hearts, snakes…
Allegory
“Faith”…obvious tooling of words to show meaning in story
“Young Goodman Brown”
Pink ribbon
Sunset/night
Snake staff
Forest
Father and son
Wild beasts
Chapter 5 Symbol and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown"
Symbols are uses of language that connect imagination between our ideas and our senses and may reveal similarities between things that we never associated together before.
Figures of Speech
(Figurative language)
Simile, when "as" is used. "Her eyes were as blue as the see."
Metaphor, a straight forward comparison. "Grandma's lap was a big comfy couch."
Extended Metaphor, more detailed and complex and tends to underscore an entire work.
SYMBOL!
Can put together two things that are actually somewhat different, yet bring a judgement or visual element to the reader that brings a flash idea about how something is or what it stands for.
i.e. A rose....can be a symbol of love, female beauty, a husband's appreciation or even hint at hidden cruelty (every rose has it's thorns).
A flag can be seen as a symbol for liberty or achievement.
Archetypes are "literary elements that recur in cultural and cross-cultural myth."
Sometime, clues are needed to establish connections and allow for individual interpretation of what is meant.
Snakes can be thought of as evil...yet "the snake in "The Jungle Book" is on the side of law and order."
An ALLEGORY is another extended symbol that "encompasses a whole work." Much like the whole Narnia collection of stories....symbols are constantly referring to religious themes, good, and bad, good conquering evil, and strife to realize strength.
Myths provide stories that attempt to explain an unknown reason for nature, and/or reasons to avoid certain behaviors.
"A good symbol cannot be extracted from a story" because it leaves a lasting image of what the story is all about. These symbols are "rich and complex."
"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel HawthorneSet in Salem, probably around the days of the witch hunts..
Wowee...a truly dark story with so many symbols that I am sure I didn't even see most of them!
This man, Goodman Brown, leaves his fair wife at home one evening whole he leaves to attend to some pressing task. Why at night? And, into the forest he goes (dark, yet magical, maybe evil, supporting some secret society or ceremony?). He is joined by another man, with a walking stick fashioned as a snake. This man seems to represent evil, though I do not know why Goodman Brown is in his company if Goodman Brown is on the side of good and righteous deeds.
Young Goodman Brown finds that his wife is part of a witch's ceremony...and he doesn't kill anyone (this time!, it seems he has before...to fight for good and erase evil).
He says to Faith, his wife, before she finishes the ceremony, "Look up to heaven, and resist the Wicked one!"
The wicked one must be a reference to evil or the devil.
Then, Goodman Brown wakes up the next day and it is as if nothing happened the night before. Was it a dream? He can barely look at his wife without thinking she is part of the "evil"...he lives out his life in despair, and dies, leaving his family after years of discontent, mistrust, and faithlessness.
This was a hard story to read. Not that the text was difficult, just so rife with statements that left me wondering what was meant! I kept wanting someone to come up to me and explain each and every symbol and what's really going on. This man was so intent on fighting evil that he seemed to become almost obsessed with it. And, he held himself in quite high regards....like it was his destiny to decide who was evil and get rid of them. Dangerous ground, a real slippery slope of vigilante behavior and murder....not good conquering evil.
What is sin? What makes it so? And, who decides what's best for others? The "apple" is there for all of us, and one person should not be the one in charge of what he feels is right and wrong.
Figures of Speech
(Figurative language)
Simile, when "as" is used. "Her eyes were as blue as the see."
Metaphor, a straight forward comparison. "Grandma's lap was a big comfy couch."
Extended Metaphor, more detailed and complex and tends to underscore an entire work.
SYMBOL!
Can put together two things that are actually somewhat different, yet bring a judgement or visual element to the reader that brings a flash idea about how something is or what it stands for.
i.e. A rose....can be a symbol of love, female beauty, a husband's appreciation or even hint at hidden cruelty (every rose has it's thorns).
A flag can be seen as a symbol for liberty or achievement.
Archetypes are "literary elements that recur in cultural and cross-cultural myth."
Sometime, clues are needed to establish connections and allow for individual interpretation of what is meant.
Snakes can be thought of as evil...yet "the snake in "The Jungle Book" is on the side of law and order."
An ALLEGORY is another extended symbol that "encompasses a whole work." Much like the whole Narnia collection of stories....symbols are constantly referring to religious themes, good, and bad, good conquering evil, and strife to realize strength.
Myths provide stories that attempt to explain an unknown reason for nature, and/or reasons to avoid certain behaviors.
"A good symbol cannot be extracted from a story" because it leaves a lasting image of what the story is all about. These symbols are "rich and complex."
"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel HawthorneSet in Salem, probably around the days of the witch hunts..
Wowee...a truly dark story with so many symbols that I am sure I didn't even see most of them!
This man, Goodman Brown, leaves his fair wife at home one evening whole he leaves to attend to some pressing task. Why at night? And, into the forest he goes (dark, yet magical, maybe evil, supporting some secret society or ceremony?). He is joined by another man, with a walking stick fashioned as a snake. This man seems to represent evil, though I do not know why Goodman Brown is in his company if Goodman Brown is on the side of good and righteous deeds.
Young Goodman Brown finds that his wife is part of a witch's ceremony...and he doesn't kill anyone (this time!, it seems he has before...to fight for good and erase evil).
He says to Faith, his wife, before she finishes the ceremony, "Look up to heaven, and resist the Wicked one!"
The wicked one must be a reference to evil or the devil.
Then, Goodman Brown wakes up the next day and it is as if nothing happened the night before. Was it a dream? He can barely look at his wife without thinking she is part of the "evil"...he lives out his life in despair, and dies, leaving his family after years of discontent, mistrust, and faithlessness.
This was a hard story to read. Not that the text was difficult, just so rife with statements that left me wondering what was meant! I kept wanting someone to come up to me and explain each and every symbol and what's really going on. This man was so intent on fighting evil that he seemed to become almost obsessed with it. And, he held himself in quite high regards....like it was his destiny to decide who was evil and get rid of them. Dangerous ground, a real slippery slope of vigilante behavior and murder....not good conquering evil.
What is sin? What makes it so? And, who decides what's best for others? The "apple" is there for all of us, and one person should not be the one in charge of what he feels is right and wrong.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Class Discussion, February 13, 2007
Well, it was great to view other Character Analysis. I can see I need to change the format for my citations/works cited....and complete a conclusion...along with fixing up the whole project before Thursday.
We had a Q & A to use a guideline for peer reviews and I plan to use this privately in the future as a reminder to ask these important questions about my essays:
1. What did you think when you first saw the title? Is it interesting? Informative? Does it seem appropriate for the paper? Will it attract other readers’ attention?
2. Does the introduction provide enough background information for you to understand the thesis? Has the author and the title of the work been clearly identified?
3. Is there a clear thesis statement? Copy and paste it here:
How well does the thesis statement meet the requirements of the paper? Is in interpretive? Does it present something that a typical reader would need to be convinced of?
4. Has the author used specific words and passages from the text in order to support the thesis? Is there sufficient support for the thesis? Is there anywhere you’d like to have more detail? If so, somehow indicate this area.
5. How well do you feel the essay achieves its purpose? In other words, how convinced are you by the end of the paper? Do you agree with the thesis? Do you feel the thesis hasn’t been supported well enough to convince you?
6. How well has the author documented sources? Is there a Works Cited page citing the textbook? Are there in-text citations, citing specific page numbers? Do exact words or passages appear in quotation marks?
Back to work...much to do...
We had a Q & A to use a guideline for peer reviews and I plan to use this privately in the future as a reminder to ask these important questions about my essays:
1. What did you think when you first saw the title? Is it interesting? Informative? Does it seem appropriate for the paper? Will it attract other readers’ attention?
2. Does the introduction provide enough background information for you to understand the thesis? Has the author and the title of the work been clearly identified?
3. Is there a clear thesis statement? Copy and paste it here:
How well does the thesis statement meet the requirements of the paper? Is in interpretive? Does it present something that a typical reader would need to be convinced of?
4. Has the author used specific words and passages from the text in order to support the thesis? Is there sufficient support for the thesis? Is there anywhere you’d like to have more detail? If so, somehow indicate this area.
5. How well do you feel the essay achieves its purpose? In other words, how convinced are you by the end of the paper? Do you agree with the thesis? Do you feel the thesis hasn’t been supported well enough to convince you?
6. How well has the author documented sources? Is there a Works Cited page citing the textbook? Are there in-text citations, citing specific page numbers? Do exact words or passages appear in quotation marks?
Back to work...much to do...
Monday, February 12, 2007
Setting, Student Writing sample, and Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets"
Stories are embedded with a setting-time & place.
The setting may by mythical, futuristic, have a limited time span, be of a historic event, a cultural expression....there seem to be as many types as settings as the imagination allows! These settings help the reader visualize the characters do what they do and often even set an emotional overtone. As an example, a setting of war can create conflict within the reader and even some fear for "what's gonna happen here?" The stories rely on their setting in varying degrees and different ways, but it is the setting which lends the "canvas" for the story.
GIVE SUBSTANCE TO THE ELEMENTS OF FICTION
"A Pair of Tickets" by Amy Tan
The story of this American-raised Chinese lady was wonderfully descriptive of the characters in the story, the personalities they each had, the architecture, and even the social interaction between all the family members. I did see the film version, I think; "The Joy Luck Club" a few years back. But the film had a few more dramas going around the whole "going to meet the half-sisters" trip to China. The story documents how a woman discovers she has twin sisters back in China. There is much ado about how to properly inform them of their mother's recent death and how the young lady who grew up in the U.S. isn't feeling Chinese...yet some of her heritage and "Chinese" emerges during her trip to China.
I so enjoyed the fact that when the young lady and her father check into their luxurious hotel, that she feels for sure that they can't afford it! "Is this Communist China?"...I think she says under her breath. Then, with some local relatives who had met them as they arrived in China, they order Hamburgers and French Fries to eat...even though June May (Jing-mei) really was looking forward to some real Chinese food!
As she lays her eyes upon her twin sisters for the first time, she is taken aback by how much they look like a younger version of their mother. Then, upon closer inspection and greeting, they are a bit different. With a Polaroid snapshot, the greeting is forever recorded. The author writes "Together we look like our mother."
And, the story ends there, which left me to my own devices to complete their visit in my own mind....perhaps that real Chinese food June May so desired....and even a return trip home with the twins along to San Francisco. I can almost see their mother smiling down from heaven. Jeez...now I am starting to cry...
Yes, I took my mother for granted too....
The setting may by mythical, futuristic, have a limited time span, be of a historic event, a cultural expression....there seem to be as many types as settings as the imagination allows! These settings help the reader visualize the characters do what they do and often even set an emotional overtone. As an example, a setting of war can create conflict within the reader and even some fear for "what's gonna happen here?" The stories rely on their setting in varying degrees and different ways, but it is the setting which lends the "canvas" for the story.
GIVE SUBSTANCE TO THE ELEMENTS OF FICTION
"A Pair of Tickets" by Amy Tan
The story of this American-raised Chinese lady was wonderfully descriptive of the characters in the story, the personalities they each had, the architecture, and even the social interaction between all the family members. I did see the film version, I think; "The Joy Luck Club" a few years back. But the film had a few more dramas going around the whole "going to meet the half-sisters" trip to China. The story documents how a woman discovers she has twin sisters back in China. There is much ado about how to properly inform them of their mother's recent death and how the young lady who grew up in the U.S. isn't feeling Chinese...yet some of her heritage and "Chinese" emerges during her trip to China.
I so enjoyed the fact that when the young lady and her father check into their luxurious hotel, that she feels for sure that they can't afford it! "Is this Communist China?"...I think she says under her breath. Then, with some local relatives who had met them as they arrived in China, they order Hamburgers and French Fries to eat...even though June May (Jing-mei) really was looking forward to some real Chinese food!
As she lays her eyes upon her twin sisters for the first time, she is taken aback by how much they look like a younger version of their mother. Then, upon closer inspection and greeting, they are a bit different. With a Polaroid snapshot, the greeting is forever recorded. The author writes "Together we look like our mother."
And, the story ends there, which left me to my own devices to complete their visit in my own mind....perhaps that real Chinese food June May so desired....and even a return trip home with the twins along to San Francisco. I can almost see their mother smiling down from heaven. Jeez...now I am starting to cry...
Yes, I took my mother for granted too....
First Draft, Character Analysis
Amy Woolston
Professor Hueners
ENG 210
15 February 2007
Malignant Montresor:
A Carnival Internment
Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is a portrayal of a man who focuses his entire wrath for alleged failures on one man. Set in Italy during the celebration of carnival, the reader is chaperoned through an evening of deception, mystery, and ultimately, murder. “An eye for an eye” and “what goes around, comes around” are not the form of justice the narrator/murderer has in mind. A penalty of death is executed as the narrator becomes judge, jury, and henchman. A “gentleman” sets the stage for the homicide within the catacombs beneath his family home and then releases his staff for the evening so his plan can go forward without interruption and detection. This vengeful man lures his drunken, costumed sitting duck to his home with the ruse of sharing a bottle of fine wine. Then, when his prey is deep within the bowels of his home’s vaults, the deranged operate chains his captor in a small crypt and buries him alive. In Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” the main character and narrator of the story describes a murder he committed and attempts to rationalize a gruesome crime by gaining the compassion of the reader.
The narrator of the story is Montresor, a man who suffers from the delusion that an acquaintance, Fortunato, has brought “the thousand injuries” (108; all page references are to the class text, The Norton Introduction to Literature, Portable ed.) upon him and states, “I must not only punish but punish with impunity” (108). Consider for a moment that Fortunato was responsible for some of Montresor’s troubles, surely death does not befit the “impunity” he so desires. Montresor has become the victim of his own obsession for revenge. Montresor claims that he “did not differ from him materially” (109), yet somehow he feels slighted by his target and exhibits irrational delusions and conclusions. Montresor is careful to give no overt clues to Fortunato that any ill will exists between them. He perpetuates this façade when he writes “I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation” (109). Immolation is a proper and even pleasant way to say sacrifice (Webster’s). The use of this word is Montresor’s vehicle to objectify Fortunato as an impersonal defendant for the injuries Montresor feels he has suffered. Thus, he exposes himself as corrupt and void of humanity.
Montresor promulgates deceit and dementia in several statements preceding the murder. “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day” (109) is his counterfeit greeting to the unsuspecting lamb. In addition, the bogus friendship continues when Montresor further baits Fortunato by saying, “My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature” (109). In Montresor’s madness, he keeps his friends close and his enemies even closer. As the two men approach Montresor’s empty home, Montresor again enlists deceit by suggesting to Fortunato that they not enter the crypts to avoid the nitre within; ““Come”, I said, with decision, “we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy as once I was. You are a man to be missed”” (110). Of course, Fortunato is inebriated and he will not forego the opportunity to partake in yet another bottle of wine. As the pair continues to descend to the Montresor vaults, Montresor describes his family arms to the unwitting Fortunato. “”A huge foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel”” (111). In Montresor’s twisted reality, Fortunato represents the serpent and Montresor is the golden foot. Furthermore, Montresor shares his family motto with Fortunato when he states “Nemo me impune lacessit” (111), which means, “No one provokes me with impunity” (111). Consequently, Montresor hints that someone is about to be punished.
As the assassination grows closer, Montresor continues to weave his web of lies. The two reach the readied crypt and Montresor tricks his drunken friend into believing that the bottle of Amontillado is inside a small, dark recess. “”Proceed,” I said; “herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi-“” (112). Montresor has now become a machine for manslaughter. The premeditated plan for a live human internment now becomes a cold description of how the sacrificed individual is detained and concealed. “A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite” (112). Montresor continues his innocuous small-talk with Fortunato; “”pass your hand,” I said, “over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you”” (112). Montresor has no intention to free his captor. “With these materials and with the end of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance to the niche” (112) is the matter-of-fact description that Montresor gives as his plan comes to conclusion. Furthermore, Montresor separates himself from the thoughts of Fortunato as a specific person. “I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamoures grew still” (113). Montresor was heckling his captive! With great virulence and trickery, Montresor has successfully abrogated his friend. Fortunato starts to giggle from within his tomb, ““he! he! he!- he! he! he!- yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will they not be awaiting us at the palazzo-the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone”” (113). Montresor retorts, “”yes,” I said, “let us be gone”” (113).
At the very end, Montresor grows impatient with the entombed Fortunato, “But to the words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud- “Fortunato!” No answer. I called again- “Fortunato!” No answer still” (113). Fortunato never speaks another word to anyone. Montresor plasters the last stone in place, re-erects a wall of bones to cloak the new masonry work, and leaves.
The tale of the murder is not revealed for fifty years. Even as the chronicle is unveiled and perhaps a “missing person” mystery is solved, it would appear that Montresor is quite elderly by that time and that the purging of the story was just an attempt to release the weight of his guilt and perhaps even gain the compassion of whomever he shared the event. The final words of the written story are “In pace requiescat!” (113), which means “May he rest in peace!” Not only is this statement meant to sound as if it is for Fortunato, it may also be a means for Montresor to plea for absolution. Personal injuries to Montresor were not “redressed” and Fortunato suffered an unfair fate at the hands of a miscreant. Retribution did indeed “overtake its redresser” (109), as Montresor has attempted to avoid, and peace escapes the treacherous defiler.
Works Cited
Booth, Alison, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2006. 106-113.
Professor Hueners
ENG 210
15 February 2007
Malignant Montresor:
A Carnival Internment
Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is a portrayal of a man who focuses his entire wrath for alleged failures on one man. Set in Italy during the celebration of carnival, the reader is chaperoned through an evening of deception, mystery, and ultimately, murder. “An eye for an eye” and “what goes around, comes around” are not the form of justice the narrator/murderer has in mind. A penalty of death is executed as the narrator becomes judge, jury, and henchman. A “gentleman” sets the stage for the homicide within the catacombs beneath his family home and then releases his staff for the evening so his plan can go forward without interruption and detection. This vengeful man lures his drunken, costumed sitting duck to his home with the ruse of sharing a bottle of fine wine. Then, when his prey is deep within the bowels of his home’s vaults, the deranged operate chains his captor in a small crypt and buries him alive. In Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” the main character and narrator of the story describes a murder he committed and attempts to rationalize a gruesome crime by gaining the compassion of the reader.
The narrator of the story is Montresor, a man who suffers from the delusion that an acquaintance, Fortunato, has brought “the thousand injuries” (108; all page references are to the class text, The Norton Introduction to Literature, Portable ed.) upon him and states, “I must not only punish but punish with impunity” (108). Consider for a moment that Fortunato was responsible for some of Montresor’s troubles, surely death does not befit the “impunity” he so desires. Montresor has become the victim of his own obsession for revenge. Montresor claims that he “did not differ from him materially” (109), yet somehow he feels slighted by his target and exhibits irrational delusions and conclusions. Montresor is careful to give no overt clues to Fortunato that any ill will exists between them. He perpetuates this façade when he writes “I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation” (109). Immolation is a proper and even pleasant way to say sacrifice (Webster’s). The use of this word is Montresor’s vehicle to objectify Fortunato as an impersonal defendant for the injuries Montresor feels he has suffered. Thus, he exposes himself as corrupt and void of humanity.
Montresor promulgates deceit and dementia in several statements preceding the murder. “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day” (109) is his counterfeit greeting to the unsuspecting lamb. In addition, the bogus friendship continues when Montresor further baits Fortunato by saying, “My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature” (109). In Montresor’s madness, he keeps his friends close and his enemies even closer. As the two men approach Montresor’s empty home, Montresor again enlists deceit by suggesting to Fortunato that they not enter the crypts to avoid the nitre within; ““Come”, I said, with decision, “we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy as once I was. You are a man to be missed”” (110). Of course, Fortunato is inebriated and he will not forego the opportunity to partake in yet another bottle of wine. As the pair continues to descend to the Montresor vaults, Montresor describes his family arms to the unwitting Fortunato. “”A huge foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel”” (111). In Montresor’s twisted reality, Fortunato represents the serpent and Montresor is the golden foot. Furthermore, Montresor shares his family motto with Fortunato when he states “Nemo me impune lacessit” (111), which means, “No one provokes me with impunity” (111). Consequently, Montresor hints that someone is about to be punished.
As the assassination grows closer, Montresor continues to weave his web of lies. The two reach the readied crypt and Montresor tricks his drunken friend into believing that the bottle of Amontillado is inside a small, dark recess. “”Proceed,” I said; “herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi-“” (112). Montresor has now become a machine for manslaughter. The premeditated plan for a live human internment now becomes a cold description of how the sacrificed individual is detained and concealed. “A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite” (112). Montresor continues his innocuous small-talk with Fortunato; “”pass your hand,” I said, “over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you”” (112). Montresor has no intention to free his captor. “With these materials and with the end of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance to the niche” (112) is the matter-of-fact description that Montresor gives as his plan comes to conclusion. Furthermore, Montresor separates himself from the thoughts of Fortunato as a specific person. “I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamoures grew still” (113). Montresor was heckling his captive! With great virulence and trickery, Montresor has successfully abrogated his friend. Fortunato starts to giggle from within his tomb, ““he! he! he!- he! he! he!- yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will they not be awaiting us at the palazzo-the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone”” (113). Montresor retorts, “”yes,” I said, “let us be gone”” (113).
At the very end, Montresor grows impatient with the entombed Fortunato, “But to the words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud- “Fortunato!” No answer. I called again- “Fortunato!” No answer still” (113). Fortunato never speaks another word to anyone. Montresor plasters the last stone in place, re-erects a wall of bones to cloak the new masonry work, and leaves.
The tale of the murder is not revealed for fifty years. Even as the chronicle is unveiled and perhaps a “missing person” mystery is solved, it would appear that Montresor is quite elderly by that time and that the purging of the story was just an attempt to release the weight of his guilt and perhaps even gain the compassion of whomever he shared the event. The final words of the written story are “In pace requiescat!” (113), which means “May he rest in peace!” Not only is this statement meant to sound as if it is for Fortunato, it may also be a means for Montresor to plea for absolution. Personal injuries to Montresor were not “redressed” and Fortunato suffered an unfair fate at the hands of a miscreant. Retribution did indeed “overtake its redresser” (109), as Montresor has attempted to avoid, and peace escapes the treacherous defiler.
Works Cited
Booth, Alison, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2006. 106-113.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
February 8, 2007; Class Discussion of Bartleby's Character
Amy Woolston
“Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville
FOCUS: The NarratorPhysical. What does the character look like? How old is the character? How do the character’s physical attributes play a role in the story? How does the character feel about his or her physical attributes? How does the character change physically during the story? How do these changes affect the character’s experience?
The Narrator is:“I am a rather elderly man.” Pp 133
Peaceful, “I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.”
Formally dressed, “One winter day I presented Turkey with a highly-respectable looking coat of my own, a padded gray coat, of a most comfortable warmth, and which buttoned straight up from the knee to the neck.” Nice hand-me-downs!
Perhaps soft-spoken and thoughtful. He thinks before he speaks/reacts. Also, he seems to speak wisely to his employees and evokes no anger from them. He seems to be a calming force in the office. “I came within an ace of dismissing him then.”
The narrator doesn’t really change physically during his time with Bartleby. But, since he is elderly, he sees to opportunity to just move his office rather than deal with Bartleby’s “stand the ground behaviour.
“Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville
FOCUS: The NarratorPhysical. What does the character look like? How old is the character? How do the character’s physical attributes play a role in the story? How does the character feel about his or her physical attributes? How does the character change physically during the story? How do these changes affect the character’s experience?
The Narrator is:“I am a rather elderly man.” Pp 133
Peaceful, “I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.”
Formally dressed, “One winter day I presented Turkey with a highly-respectable looking coat of my own, a padded gray coat, of a most comfortable warmth, and which buttoned straight up from the knee to the neck.” Nice hand-me-downs!
Perhaps soft-spoken and thoughtful. He thinks before he speaks/reacts. Also, he seems to speak wisely to his employees and evokes no anger from them. He seems to be a calming force in the office. “I came within an ace of dismissing him then.”
The narrator doesn’t really change physically during his time with Bartleby. But, since he is elderly, he sees to opportunity to just move his office rather than deal with Bartleby’s “stand the ground behaviour.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Character Analysis Prewrite and Draft
Amy Woolston
Professor Hueners
ENG 210
7 February 2007
Malignant Montresor:
A Carnival Internment
Two ways to express the idea that justice will inevitably be realized are “an eye for an eye,” and “what goes around, comes around”, directly or indirectly. One may actually state in a fit of rage, “I was so angry I could have killed him!” However, the element of self-control and reason eventually overrides the anger and lawful problem-solving skills step in to replace irrational behavior. A story that guides that reader through the steps of committing a murder presents a scenario wrought with curiosity, then mystery, and finally, horror. In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” the main character and narrator of the story describes a murder he committed and attempts to rationalize a gruesome crime by gaining the compassion of the reader.
Physically: I read him as an old man, yet in the story of the murder incident he describes he is probably around 25/30 years of age. Though there is no physical description of him, I can pull from his pain that he probably has a solemn expression on his face. He is probably well dressed and puts a “smile” on his face when he comes face-to-face with his secret enemy, Fortunato.
“It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much.” Montresor is still out and about in life, engaging in the parties of the time.
Intellectually: I see him as educated, as one can see through his use of text and colorful descriptions. He may have been just as bright as his peers and just had some "bum-luck"...but he is intelligent enough to rationalize and plot a murder...and crazy enough to follow through...which leads to ...
“In this respect I did not differ from him materially;-I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.”
Emotionally: he is consumed with his grief over lost chances and poor luck. Assuming that one person is responsible for his misfortune, he allows the idea of revenge or "redress" to be an actual option. That is clearly a form of unrest. Also, the idea that if he redresses the misdeeds against him that there will be an equality of destiny...his warped idea of "what goes around, comes around" perhaps. Montresor uses words like “immolation”, “impunity” and “gesticulation” to impress the reader perhaps, to sell the point that he surely has a right to carry out his own justice. Vengeance! Vigilante!
“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”
“A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redressor.”
Socially: Montresor is limited, if only by his feelings of inferiority of some lost dreams and vanished success. He may be serious upon approach and distrusting of others. He is injured and may portray this out in his every day life by passive behavior and a general lack of trust for anyone/anything. However, he is wealthy enough to maintain his family home and have staff to care for it; this indeed is a sign of some financial security.
“”The Montresors,” I replied, “were a great and numerous family.”
“A huge foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.”
(Perhaps Fortunato to Montresor!)
Philosophically: Montresor is corrupt. He is filled with contempt, unreasonable as it may be, and he directs all his pain towards one man..., which surely and statistically cannot be the sole blame for his discontent. He thinks if he can gain the compassion of those he addresses far after the fact of the crime then he can win their sanction of the gruesome deed he had committed. He has lost sight of moral boundaries; he has allowed hate to eat his heart, and actually puts energy into taking another's life...how sordid.
“”Come,” I said, with decision, “we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter.””
Montresor is lying by saying he is concerned for Fortunato’s health, and he suggests that he is happy no more…and that maybe he can massage his victim’s ego to ease the trap of murder. He gives clues, yet he is mischevious.
Works Cited
Booth, Alison, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2006. 106-113.
Poe, Edgar Allen. The Cask of Amontillado. Literature.org. 23 May 2005. 7 February 2007 http://www.literature.org/authors/poe-edgar-allan/amontillado.html
Professor Hueners
ENG 210
7 February 2007
Malignant Montresor:
A Carnival Internment
Two ways to express the idea that justice will inevitably be realized are “an eye for an eye,” and “what goes around, comes around”, directly or indirectly. One may actually state in a fit of rage, “I was so angry I could have killed him!” However, the element of self-control and reason eventually overrides the anger and lawful problem-solving skills step in to replace irrational behavior. A story that guides that reader through the steps of committing a murder presents a scenario wrought with curiosity, then mystery, and finally, horror. In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” the main character and narrator of the story describes a murder he committed and attempts to rationalize a gruesome crime by gaining the compassion of the reader.
Physically: I read him as an old man, yet in the story of the murder incident he describes he is probably around 25/30 years of age. Though there is no physical description of him, I can pull from his pain that he probably has a solemn expression on his face. He is probably well dressed and puts a “smile” on his face when he comes face-to-face with his secret enemy, Fortunato.
“It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much.” Montresor is still out and about in life, engaging in the parties of the time.
Intellectually: I see him as educated, as one can see through his use of text and colorful descriptions. He may have been just as bright as his peers and just had some "bum-luck"...but he is intelligent enough to rationalize and plot a murder...and crazy enough to follow through...which leads to ...
“In this respect I did not differ from him materially;-I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.”
Emotionally: he is consumed with his grief over lost chances and poor luck. Assuming that one person is responsible for his misfortune, he allows the idea of revenge or "redress" to be an actual option. That is clearly a form of unrest. Also, the idea that if he redresses the misdeeds against him that there will be an equality of destiny...his warped idea of "what goes around, comes around" perhaps. Montresor uses words like “immolation”, “impunity” and “gesticulation” to impress the reader perhaps, to sell the point that he surely has a right to carry out his own justice. Vengeance! Vigilante!
“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”
“A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redressor.”
Socially: Montresor is limited, if only by his feelings of inferiority of some lost dreams and vanished success. He may be serious upon approach and distrusting of others. He is injured and may portray this out in his every day life by passive behavior and a general lack of trust for anyone/anything. However, he is wealthy enough to maintain his family home and have staff to care for it; this indeed is a sign of some financial security.
“”The Montresors,” I replied, “were a great and numerous family.”
“A huge foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.”
(Perhaps Fortunato to Montresor!)
Philosophically: Montresor is corrupt. He is filled with contempt, unreasonable as it may be, and he directs all his pain towards one man..., which surely and statistically cannot be the sole blame for his discontent. He thinks if he can gain the compassion of those he addresses far after the fact of the crime then he can win their sanction of the gruesome deed he had committed. He has lost sight of moral boundaries; he has allowed hate to eat his heart, and actually puts energy into taking another's life...how sordid.
“”Come,” I said, with decision, “we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter.””
Montresor is lying by saying he is concerned for Fortunato’s health, and he suggests that he is happy no more…and that maybe he can massage his victim’s ego to ease the trap of murder. He gives clues, yet he is mischevious.
Works Cited
Booth, Alison, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2006. 106-113.
Poe, Edgar Allen. The Cask of Amontillado. Literature.org. 23 May 2005. 7 February 2007 http://www.literature.org/authors/poe-edgar-allan/amontillado.html
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Haunted by "Bartleby"...!!!
I have read and reread "Bartleby the Scrivener"...much to my sadness.
After the first reading, I found myself even constructing my own thoughts in strange and tedious fashions. The Narrator, the lawyer who employs Bartleby, is found in a world of, dare I say it again....tedious work and even the story is so overly descriptive of all environments and activities that the way it is presented to the reader in long superfluous narration was tedious to read. Even I was bored with the job of scrivener by the time I completed the story the first time!
Bartleby, so depressed....unable to find any joy in the world and any solace for his existence on the planet that he dies. How very sad. Perhaps Bartleby's spirit was broken a long time ago from severe heart-break or he has just always been prone to depression. Nonetheless, he functioned just to pass the day..."preferring" to not do much asked of him other than what he felt like doing! Bartleby flabbergasted his employer. Goodness knows, for a lawyer to choose a position as scrivener seems like a waste of talent and knowledge...but someone with legalese needed to do it I suppose.
All I know is that the narrator and the other scriveners were numb to the dullness of their job and their daily routine. No one person is responsible for an other's depression, and in the end Bartleby reached his pinnacle of depression by just failing to thrive...starving to death in a prison because he was so "passive" and sad. This story perplexed me.
Now I really want to find work that I LOVE for fear of becoming a lost soul in a wondrous world!
After the first reading, I found myself even constructing my own thoughts in strange and tedious fashions. The Narrator, the lawyer who employs Bartleby, is found in a world of, dare I say it again....tedious work and even the story is so overly descriptive of all environments and activities that the way it is presented to the reader in long superfluous narration was tedious to read. Even I was bored with the job of scrivener by the time I completed the story the first time!
Bartleby, so depressed....unable to find any joy in the world and any solace for his existence on the planet that he dies. How very sad. Perhaps Bartleby's spirit was broken a long time ago from severe heart-break or he has just always been prone to depression. Nonetheless, he functioned just to pass the day..."preferring" to not do much asked of him other than what he felt like doing! Bartleby flabbergasted his employer. Goodness knows, for a lawyer to choose a position as scrivener seems like a waste of talent and knowledge...but someone with legalese needed to do it I suppose.
All I know is that the narrator and the other scriveners were numb to the dullness of their job and their daily routine. No one person is responsible for an other's depression, and in the end Bartleby reached his pinnacle of depression by just failing to thrive...starving to death in a prison because he was so "passive" and sad. This story perplexed me.
Now I really want to find work that I LOVE for fear of becoming a lost soul in a wondrous world!
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Character
Chapter 3, Character
It's all about the who, as much as the where and how.
Any person plating a role within a story is a character, and the art of representing these characters is Characterization. A voice in the story, common terms for characters are Hero, Villian, Heroine, Anti-Hero, Protagonist, and Antagonist. There are major and minor players within a story, the latter being the figures that "fill out the story."
Characters that change and develop in front of the reader are said to be Round Characters; these often have conflicting motives. Flat Characters are figures that behave in "unsurprising ways". But, we must not get hung up on palcing characters into these terms, rather realize that simple characters are not always as they seem.
Characters based upon conscious or unconscious cultural assumptions about age, sex, ethnicity, occupation....are "stereotypes"...and we all tend to have some built withing ourselves over time.
"Character is Destiny", quote from George Eliot
"What I Live at the P.O.," by Eudora Welty
Wow, what a character the Narrator, "Sister," was! The small town of China Grove, Mississippi is the setting...really the family's home is where all the "family drama" takes place. The Narrator is simply not reliable. One call tell by reading that there is just a huge, long-lasting case of sibling rivalry and probably neither sister sees reality in an all together true light. Each having their won misconceptions about what happened and why. The thought that Sister's younger sister, Stella-Rondo, actaully stole a man from Sister is just one misconception Sister holds onto. Actually, there was never any romance between Sister and Mr. Whitaker....only an affair in the mind of Sister and perhaps the hopes she could marry and escape the small town.
"Of course, I went with Mr. Whitaker first, when he first appeared in China Grove, taking "Pose Yourself" photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up. Told him I was one-sided...."
There Sister goes, claiming she knows what others have said and quick to draw her own conclusions about it all!
Of course, the family arguement about why Stella-Rondo has separated from her husband and if the child is adopted, and if anyone cares about the little dramas carried on by the two fighting siblings will not be long-lived. They all need each other, even if it only to create some drama and pain to help them all feel alive and loved. Sister just wants to know all about the problems in Stella-Rondo's marriage, and probably deep down will spend a couple weeks at most living at the P.O. before someone visits her or begs her to come home. Sister may feel like life is passing her by. She went to Normal school to learn, but remains in her hometown, still tied to her family and the daily chores she thinks go unnoticed. Sister just never quite grew out of her resentments for her little "spoiled" sister, and remains in the world of self-pity and "I am the victim here" mentality
The Narrator is definitely Unreliable.
But, I loved the banter and sarcasm within the family, the writing flowed with realism and I could almost see them all making faces and using aggravating tones with each other.
It's all about the who, as much as the where and how.
Any person plating a role within a story is a character, and the art of representing these characters is Characterization. A voice in the story, common terms for characters are Hero, Villian, Heroine, Anti-Hero, Protagonist, and Antagonist. There are major and minor players within a story, the latter being the figures that "fill out the story."
Characters that change and develop in front of the reader are said to be Round Characters; these often have conflicting motives. Flat Characters are figures that behave in "unsurprising ways". But, we must not get hung up on palcing characters into these terms, rather realize that simple characters are not always as they seem.
Characters based upon conscious or unconscious cultural assumptions about age, sex, ethnicity, occupation....are "stereotypes"...and we all tend to have some built withing ourselves over time.
"Character is Destiny", quote from George Eliot
"What I Live at the P.O.," by Eudora Welty
Wow, what a character the Narrator, "Sister," was! The small town of China Grove, Mississippi is the setting...really the family's home is where all the "family drama" takes place. The Narrator is simply not reliable. One call tell by reading that there is just a huge, long-lasting case of sibling rivalry and probably neither sister sees reality in an all together true light. Each having their won misconceptions about what happened and why. The thought that Sister's younger sister, Stella-Rondo, actaully stole a man from Sister is just one misconception Sister holds onto. Actually, there was never any romance between Sister and Mr. Whitaker....only an affair in the mind of Sister and perhaps the hopes she could marry and escape the small town.
"Of course, I went with Mr. Whitaker first, when he first appeared in China Grove, taking "Pose Yourself" photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up. Told him I was one-sided...."
There Sister goes, claiming she knows what others have said and quick to draw her own conclusions about it all!
Of course, the family arguement about why Stella-Rondo has separated from her husband and if the child is adopted, and if anyone cares about the little dramas carried on by the two fighting siblings will not be long-lived. They all need each other, even if it only to create some drama and pain to help them all feel alive and loved. Sister just wants to know all about the problems in Stella-Rondo's marriage, and probably deep down will spend a couple weeks at most living at the P.O. before someone visits her or begs her to come home. Sister may feel like life is passing her by. She went to Normal school to learn, but remains in her hometown, still tied to her family and the daily chores she thinks go unnoticed. Sister just never quite grew out of her resentments for her little "spoiled" sister, and remains in the world of self-pity and "I am the victim here" mentality
The Narrator is definitely Unreliable.
But, I loved the banter and sarcasm within the family, the writing flowed with realism and I could almost see them all making faces and using aggravating tones with each other.
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