http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MatthewHampton/2006/05/final_blogging.html#more

Final Blogging Portfolio for EL 267

Coverage

Holocaust complete?
This was my last blog concerning The Great Gatsby. In it, I remarked I thought Tom knew Daisy was behind the wheel of Gatsby’s car when Myrtle Wilson was reduced to road kill. In fact, that detail was very much in doubt.

They should’ve gone to Tennessee
My blog about Flannery O’Connor’s story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” I sort of opened the floodgates and let it all pour out, so this blog is lengthy.

Bevel the baptized
My blog about O’Connor’s “The River.” I had a lot of cited passages in this one. What was I thinking?

Great Googly-Moogly
My blog about Roberts, Chapter 18, “Writing and Documenting the Research Essay: Using Extra Resources for Understanding” I think Vivisimo.com is a very useful search engine. Now Brenda C. thinks so too.

Lady and the Tramp
My blog about O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” I don’t know what happened, but his one didn’t make it beyond my own blog.

Raising Kane
Comments on the essay “Welles’s Citizen Kane: Whittling a Giant Down to Size.” We discussed this in class too.

The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
My blog about O’Connor’s “A Stroke of Good Fortune.”

A temple rent asunder
My blog about O’Connor’s “A Temple of the Holy Ghost.”

Pairaguys Lost
My blog about O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger.”

Appendix cited
My blog about Roberts, Appendix A “Critical Approaches Important in the Study of Literature.” I have to admit that since we read this section, I’ve had a bookmark there and I’ve reread it a few times for clarity’s sake.

Flashing (of) the bird
My blog about O’Connor’s “The Displaced Person.” In this blog, I talk about the peacocks and how the plumage reminded me of the Eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg.

Disc-o-inferno
My blog about O’Connor’s “A Circle in the Fire.” Circle-Fire … Disc-o-inferno. Get it? Anyway, I remarked this story could lead to write from an economic determinist critical perspective.

Houston, we have a …
My blog about Roberts, Chapter 12 “Writing About a Problem: Challenges to Overcome in Reading”

Frosty, this known man
My blog about Robert Frost. I still think “The Fear” is creepy. By the way, it took me about half an hour to decide which was the best combination of sounds for this blog title, so that when you say it, it sounds like the fellow with the corncob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made out of coal.

Lang’s 10 hues
My blog about Langston Hughes. Good poet. Excruciating play on words. It was late.

Water, water everywhere
History lesson
My blogs about James McBride’s The Color of Water.

Aww shucks, it’s nothing
My blog about O’Connor’s “Good Country People” in which I mangle the passage in Hulga Hopewell’s philosophy book.

General disorder: a late encounter with blogging
My blog about O’Connor’s “A Late Encounter with the Enemy.” I guess it’s only fitting that I waited so long for this.

Being put to the test
My blog about Roberts, Chapter 17, also known as Chapter 19 in the 11th edition.

Achievable goals for Paper III
A blog I was asked to post that identified some goals I felt I could reach regarding our third paper. These also served as some goals I could take from this class in general. I think I was able to reach or nearly reach all five.

Oral hygiene
My thank you blog to the class for their help during and after my oral presentation concerning Paper III. Jennifer D. is right: misery loves company. To know that others are struggling too gives you some comfort.

Tangled up in Blue
Blue note
My blogs regarding Arthur Miller’s Resurrection Blues.

Depth

Water, water everywhere
In this blog, in reference to The Color of Water, I drew upon a personal experience.

A temple rent asunder
I had to consult a Bible to find the correct passage. I also added a link to a web site that is a useful quick reference for Biblical matters.

Interaction

They should’ve gone to Tennessee
My novella. I guess it was a shotgun-style approach (discuss everything and something of value is bound to be there). A few people thought so.

Tangled up in Blue
I give credit to Arthur Miller (because we all liked Resurrection Blues) and credit to folks who needed to update their portfolios, but little to myself. The end result looks like I started something.

Discussions

Lisa Randolph’s item about O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger”
I commented on her entry and elaborated at length about the N-word in the story and in general. This apparently attracted the interest of a black female who joined the discussion and had some productive things to say. I probably owe Dr. Jerz an apology for freelancing so much since it seemed to me he came to my defense in an effort to smooth out the wrinkles. When I wrote that, I seriously considered not sending it, but I decided I wouldn’t shy away from the possible charged comments that might come my way because my feelings were genuine. Had I another chance to write it, I admit I’d treat it a bit differently.

General disorder: a late encounter with blogging
I took some time before I felt like blogging on “A Late Encounter with the Enemy,” because I guess I just didn’t have a strong reaction. I don’t think it was until I read Megan Ritter’s blog that something began to form.

Timeliness

They should’ve gone to Tennessee
I actually sat on this blog for about a month. I accidentally read it too far in advance, but I hung onto it until closer to the time we’d discuss the story. I’m not certain that did me any good at all.

History lesson
This blog about The Color of Water generated a discussion in which Chris Ulicne and Jennifer DiFulvio added some interesting counterpoints.

A temple rent asunder
People’s interest this blog, regarding O’Connor’s A Temple of the Holy Ghost in this one mildly surprised me since I was sort of lukewarm on this story.

Pairaguys Lost
This blog, about “The Artificial Nigger” generated some thoughtful comments from Chris Ulicne, Jennifer DiFulvio and Lisa Randolph

Xenoblogging

Lisa Randolph’s item about O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger”
A Comment Grande and (maybe) a comment half-baked: I also thought maybe my comments would carry over to the classroom and we’d talk about it at length.

My comment on Chris Ulicne’s blog about O’Connor’s “A Temple of the Holy Ghost.”
A Comment Informative: I just drew on my scant knowledge of the Old Testament. I find inspiration in Biblical stories about people who stand up for their beliefs in the face of danger. That and I remembered Marjorie’s statement from “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.”

My comment Brenda Christeleit’s blog about O’Connor’s “Good Country People.”
A Link Gracious: Brenda hit on some good ideas concerning O’Connor’s assignment of defects to her characters. Considering my topic for Paper III, this was food for thought to me.

Wildcard

Aww shucks, it’s nothing
My comments about the philosophy passage Hulga Hopewell had underlined. I wish someone would have blogged about that since that passage was a mystery to me. I would have liked to have seen someone else’s comments.

This was an interesting study guide and I liked the extensive timeline at the beginning. I think it’s important to try to understand some of the obvious forces that shape a writer. This is one thing I tried to do with Flannery O’Connor, with an arguable amount of success. Some things were obvious, others less so, many were debatable to a large degree.

Especially with someone who had the success and longevity as Arthur Miller (whose career spanned 70 years and a great deal of world and cultural change), understanding what he saw and experienced can be very useful. He lived and worked during some of the greatest events in world history.

I lit on the above passage because it seemed to try and touch on the issues the writer thought were essential in Resurrection Blues. I especially liked the last question. Rather provocative, I thought. My answer is no, but that’s me and that is born of the things I’ve seen and experienced. I’ve also met and suffered some Felixes and Skip Cheeseboros in my life. Their motivations would be something more material, I think we can all agree. However having characters like that in a play or novel provide such a contrast to the Nick Carraways and Henri Shultzes that we can’t help but trust the latter.

I originally blogged this passage, but this must have been about the time the web site went haywire, and it never posted.

Judging from our class discussion, we all enjoyed the banter between the characters and passages like the one above make me think this would be a great play to see. I’ll bet it is hilarious and one can only imagine the body language and gestures of the characters when they’re not speaking. This would be even funnier when the characters are together and the lines are coming rapid fire.

I suppose most people don’t like Felix, but I thought he his crazy narcissism was funny and made him Henri’s opposite.

Thanks for all the help and the comments as I try to clean up the mess I've made of this paper. I’ve had a difficult time with this paper, which is new to me because there was a different feel to my struggle this time. But as I said, I think I’m working out the wrinkles.

Your comments are helpful and if you think I can return the favor, let me know. Special kudos to Jennifer D. and Chris U. The former for agreeing with me when we spoke about my first draft weaknesses (since I think that conversation made me read Roberts again and finally the lights went on in the house), and the latter for going a step further in class with the similarities between Joy/Hulga and Manley Pointer. Chris, I think I can use that and it’ll be all your fault.

When this class is finished, I'm not going to miss the late nights, the stress, the constant deadlines and time away from my kiddos, but I probably will be nostalgic enough to miss the class discussions. They've been the most fruitful I've ever experienced in a literature class. It seems the books have had a little something for everyone and our class has consisted of people who haven't been shy about speaking their minds.

Thanks again.

Matt

By writing these, I identified my own weaknesses and they represent a type of check list. Without reviewing the course objectives that were in the syllabus at the beginning of the semester, I’d like to think these goals would compare favorably.

These are somewhat broad, but if a person wanted to narrow their focus, it would be something fairly easy to do.

1. Learn to write a paper from one of the perspectives in Roberts’ book. I have always been able to write a thesis and support it, but writing from a critical perspective has been my problem, no doubt about it.

2. Learn solid ways to construct an argument, that is, the ways to argue in favor and against a thesis.

3. Learn techniques to find the research I need to put a critical paper together. I’ve relied on books from the library stacks, but I’ve had trouble locating scholarly journal articles from which I can draw quotes and information. Perhaps the reason for this is some of the arguments I’m trying to make are obscure enough that they haven’t been covered by a lot of scholarly publications.

4. To be able to look at a series of work by an author, analyze and remove the ideas I need, assess that information and then possess the ability to recognize a critical perspective from which I can write.

5. Obtain the grade I want for that paper. Having said that, getting the grade would be a hollow achievement if the above objectives weren’t met (and I knew it). There have been times when I was pleasantly surprised by the grades I’ve received and wondered to myself if I truly deserved a grade that high. But that’s a secret I can probably live with, ha-ha!

This, I can understand. If I can apply Roberts to my efforts on Paper 3, I find I want to revisit my thesis a bit and make sure what I’ve been trying to determine fits the statement I made. Sure, I can introduce the antithesis, but naturally I want my own argument to be the strongest it can be, so I have to answer my own questions: What in essence is my statement saying? Am I sticking to that idea in my argument? If there’s a problem, do I need to tweak or fundamentally change my thesis, or do I simply need to rewrite the argument to be more concise?

I don’t think I’m that far off, truth be told. That doesn’t mean I’m happy with what I’ve got. Sometimes, we have to write something the best we’re able when we’re not given a lot to go on or a topic we don’t like. Some subjects lend themselves to arguments, and some, like Flannery O’Connor (in my case) are a tough nut to crack.

But if I can whittle my focus to a few key objectives then I can narrow my efforts. And as I wring my hands over this, I need to cut myself a little slack and things will operate more smoothly.

I also agree with Roberts that preparedness is an advantage. Even if you can’t think like the fellow making the test, at least you know you’ve done all that you could do to prepare and the confidence that comes with it is worth a few points when all is said and done. I’ve always maintained if you can take a test with a confident air about you, then you’ll perform better. It’s when I’ve been all balled up inside that I’ve blanked out when the test was handed to me.

Having said that, I might humbly offer as test questions: “In what ways might one suggest Flannery O’Connor uses her main characters?” “Do Flannery O’Connor’s main characters learn ultimate lessons at the ends of her stories or is her intended target only the reader?” “What might you suggest is a reason Flannery O’Connor seems to end her stories before a lot of closure takes place?” “If there is a common thread running through O’Connor’s stories, what might that be?” “Select a main character from one of O’Connor’s stories in A Good Man is Hard to Find and detail that character’s motivation in the story.” “Write a short comparison/contrast essay about two of the authors we’ve covered this semester. Offer some examples from their stories to support the points you’ve made.”

In a touch if irony, by forcibly putting him on the stage O’Connor shows us Sally doesn’t stand for those virtues herself. I agree with Megan that the general is a prop. In fact, what is a sash, but an ornament, not functional for any reason, merely eye-catching.

Other than watching parades, the general is otherwise useless and somewhat senile. In fact, the only worthwhile memory he has is presiding over a “premiere” in Atlanta. Incidentally, that’s the second time I’ve seen that word used. FSF used it when Jordan Baker described Daisy Fay in Louisville, saying at one point she had a premiere, which I take to be an archaic expression for a party of some sort in which the host gets the honor of holding it. I’ve never heard it used like that except in these two stories so maybe it’s a southern expression. I’ll have to look into it now that my curiosity is piqued.

Sally, tries to use the general as a tool to gain some sort of revenge on the vague “they” who force her to attend summer classes in order to get her licensure. In her view, her relation to the general will make her seem more aristocratic than, the other “commoners”. This, like we see in the girl in “Temple of the Holy Ghost” and some of O’Connor’s other characters, is maybe the sin of pride?

So by placing the frail general on stage she ultimately is the catalyst in his death.

I had little reaction to this story other than I figured, due to the foreshadowing Megan mentioned, the general was going to die. O’Connor, as she’s apt to do, leaves us to guess at Sally Poker’s reaction, the same way she leaves us without knowing the reaction of Bevel Ashfield’s parents after his drowning. I can’t help but think were she to continue we’d learn a lot more about the characters by those reactions. But that’s her style. I think after she exhibits the point she wants to prove, she likes to end it. Few of the stories in this book end so completely.

This passage is interesting for a couple of reasons. O’Connor capitalizes the “N” in some cases and not in others. This is sort of the way we use the word “god” in the generic sense, but when we write of Christ’s father, we capitalize the G in God.

That passage says science is concerned with what-is or that which exists. Nothing is the absence of something or “that which does not exist.” So if science is right then it wishes to know nothing of “that which does not exist.” Such is after all the scientific approach to “that which does not exist.”

Does this mean God? Is O’Connor trying to send a message? Especially when Manley Pointer (great innuendo) says “’You just a while ago said you didn’t believe in nothing. I thought you was some girl!’” (193). And on page 194 he yells, “you ain’t so smart. I been believing in nothing ever since I was born!” It’s just an interest reoccurrence of the word “nothing.”

When Pointer stalks off with Hulga’s wooden leg - the aspect Pointer said made her different – then he leaves her with (you guessed it) … nothing.

Indeed it would be a surprise to have to reconstruct the image you had of your mother and your self-image by default. As she recited her history, the added information would have completely recast his ideas of what his mother, his siblings and he was like. What a revision.

I think I want to say I didn’t see a huge amount of symbolism in this story, perhaps since it was a personal account of his mother’s history as seen through his eyes. McBride didn’t try to turn his mother into anything more than what she was. He seemed content to present the situations and allow us to make our own assessments, which probably turned out to be favorable in the end.

Maybe that’s why I found the book enjoyable – I didn’t feel laden with several layers of images or the responsibility to dig through them. This one was more of a page turner. It’s also our first non-fiction, discounting the poetry we’ve read. McBride, Dr. Jerz pointed out, probably edited his words to make his mother more favorable than not; however, he isn’t the god of his own creations, as was Elmer Rice, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Flannery O’Connor.

Having said that, maybe one could write a paper from an archetypical perspective, comparing Mommy to Mameh and Bubeh and how they put their children first, despite troubling circumstances. James McBride (I think Dr. Jerz mentioned this) was on a quest to find himself, so he said, and to do that he had to understand his mom to a greater degree. Mommy was on a quest to find happiness, love and all the other things she lacked in Suffolk, Va. I also think there’s material there for a psychoanalytical criticism or perhaps an economic determinist paper, given the overtones of the class differences between McBride and his white peers.

I found it interesting she used that analogy, since water is a symbol of life and life-giving.

I also really liked the way the author used the word “Mommy” in each case, even when he obviously gets older and would typically grow out of it. I think it shows A) his love for his mother and B) his dependency upon her as a child that he never really (up to this point) seems to lose.

What a powerful story. Incredible what she went through, achieved, especially given the loveless and abusive circumstances in her own childhood.

I once went to a service as a non-denominational church in the area where one of Jimmy Swaggart’s sons, Donnie, was delivering a sermon. I’m a Methodist and while were not incredibly formal, we’re not the jump in the aisles sort of people either. We’re probably right in the middle somewhere.

Anyway Swaggart’s sermon was interesting for me and a bit shocking as he ran up and down the aisles and whipped everyone into a religious fervor. His sermon involved the idea of original sin, which has come in handy when reading Flannery O’Connor.

But he also said something that stuck with me: the proof of Christ’s existence is in changed lives. Lives like Rachel in The Color of Water. It is sometimes awe-inspiring what belief in God can do to people. It can cause incredible tragedy if one takes on religious zealotry in the wrong sense, but it can also be absolutely beautiful given the right circumstances. God or belief in him can be life-giving, like water.

So the comparison is absolutely appropriate and reaffirming, to me.

In the time of silver rain
The earth
Puts forth new life again
Green grasses grow
And flowers life their heads,
And over all the plain
The wonder spreads
Of life,
Of life
Of life!”
In time of silver rain
The butterflies
Lift silken wings
To catch a rainbow cry,
And trees put forth
New leaves to sing
In joy beneath the sky
As down the roadway
Passing boys and girls
Go singing too
In time of silver rain
When spring
And life
Are new

This one appealed to me as much as the others, but I Langston Hughes’ sense of rhythm. It’s jubilant, colorful and, in this case, and far more appealing to me than Wallace Stevens, who was supposed to be expert at using cadence.

It occurred to me many of the poems in our book could probably be sung, hence the blues connection, I suppose. But they’re very lyrical in their presentation.

But one the authors of Six American Poets didn’t include was The Fear. For those who have the chance to read it (maybe in between chocolate Easter eggs), I’d appreciate your input if you care to give it. Specifically, I’d like to read your impression whether you think the couple was attacked or not. It is kind of creepy, almost Flannery O’Connor-ish.

These days, I’m sure the Robert Frost estate makes a lot of money selling the use of poems like The Road Not Taken to advertisers who use it to promote things like automobiles. I’ve also read articles where coaches will read that poem to their teams before a big game and then build upon the “taking the difficult road” cliche in order to rally them to victory. But I think they miss it to some degree.

People seem to concentrate on the “road” itself, but I think it’s about the decision - the actual choice the speaker makes, the choice not to follow others.

In this, Frost seemed to walk the talk as he moved his family to England while simultaneously trying to sell his poems in the U.S. If I recall correctly, Frost had a couple of favorable reviews by people like Ezra Pound, who decried the fact that Frost had to come overseas to be a success at home, a paradox.

I think I have seen these strategies somewhere before, but probably not all together at the same moment.

By the way, strategy 4: Argue against possible objections, seems to be what we’re expected to do as we write our papers: consider all the other arguments and outline why our own position is the better one.

And strategy 2: Analyze significant words in the phrasing of the problem, in which Roberts debates the seriousness of “delay” sounds to me that there’s a hint of the deconstructionist argument, but not exactly.

Using that passage as a start, I suppose one could look at A Circle in the Fire and write a criticism from an economic determinist/Marxist perspective.

Powell, seemingly another neglected child, seems to encapsulate all the good memories from his childhood into the time he spent on Mrs. Cope’s farm, while his dad was a hired hand.

Mrs. Cope owns the property and she doesn’t hesitate to tell people “it’s mine,” asserting her ownership. The boys, apparently from Atlanta, don’t seem to have too much, so there is at least a hint of class struggle here, combined with the fact Mrs. Cope is white and the boys are black.

By trying to set the farm ablaze, there is also a feeling from the boys (Powell especially) that “If I can’t have it, no one can.” So in some form of assertion on his part, Powell decides to burn it down since he knows he’ll never have it himself.

So by exercising that power over the property is he in some what showing he also has ownership?