If any of you know, I am a Poe fan, however, I have never really gotten into The Raven. It's not because I don't like the poem, it was always basically because I didn't really understand it. I never took the time to disect it and try to understand it. I did like reading it just because of the rhyme and rhythm that it has. Actually, when we were assigned to read it, my boyfriend and I were at the park and I made him listen to me read it aloud. He then proceeded to say that it sounded awesome, but then asked me what it meant. "I dunno!" was my response. I have a general idea, but I actualy had to research it to truly get myself to understand it.
I like how Poe uses the raven as a character that the narrator cannot get responses from. He is supposed to be left wondering and pondering. It wouldn't make sense if Poe used a human instead of a raven because a human could answer the questions.
It is true that we torture ourselves about things in life that we can derive no explanation from. It's comparable to losing a loved one,just like the narrator did, we want to know why it happened and have a constant feeling of emptiness, but there is no physical way that we can have all of our questions answered. Nothing will make us feel better, but regardless, we always jump to conclusions about the slightest inclination of some knowledge of an answer or solution to our problem.
Well, now that we are done reading the Scarlet Letter, and I have only blogged one initial response, I'd like to expand a bit.
Originally, I disliked the novel. It seemed bland, dry and tedious. I can honestly say that I biased myself because I didn't like the style in which the book was written. However, once we started the in-class discussions, my opinions changed dramatically. This was no longer just a book I had to read, this was a book that I wanted to read.
I soon became intrigued with Pearl and the role she played throughout the novel. As someone said in class, she seemed to be the ultimate symbol of truth. She was also, no matter what, the symbol of an evil doing, for she was what came from her mothers wrong doing. I found this great website which gives a detailed analysis of the Scarlet Letter. One thing that intrigued me was the first chapter and what the symbolism of the rose-bush meant. Hawthorn remarks in the first chapter that the rose-bush serves to "symbolize some sweet moral blossom". This is seen to represent Hesters sin as a passion, and since Pearl came from her passionate sin, maybe she is the symbol for morality.
I also found it incredibly interesting that Hester kind of transforms Pearl into a walking resemblence of the scarlet letter she wears. She makes her clothing so elaborate and beautiful, just the way she had made the A she herself wears. People only see Pearl as the sin of adultry, and not as a little girl. The symbolism that Hawthorne uses is amazing.
I didn't realize it until I read this analysis (linked above), that Hawthorne carried on his theme of the rose-bush throughout the story by making refrences to it in different chapters. In chapter 8, Wilson calls Pearl a red rose, and when she is asked about whom she was made from, "she said that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses, that grew by the prison-door."
These are just some of the things I learned and that caught my attention. I can now say that I am a fan of this novel!
After reading Melville's Bartleby, I fell in love with this short story. Since we've been assigned to read it, which was some time ago, I have found myself reading it just for my own enjoyment. I find this story absolutely ridiculously funny. I can't get enogh from it. I did a little bit of research into some of the small details of the story and here is what I found...
To begin, the initial humor starts in the narrorator, or the lawyer. He uses the phrase "the nature of his avocations" clearly talking about his career. I then proceeded to look up the word avocation to see what it meant and it more or less meant a hobby, second to your vocation, meaning job http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=avocations. Was the narrorator implying that he was not serious about his job? The second thing that caught my eye implementing humor was that he compared himself and praised John Jacob Astor. Astor was a man who was corrupt in his efforts to earn himself money by smuggling drugs and buying foreclosed homes during a great time of stuggle in the nation.
Overall, I found that Melville's great depths of description set most of the humor for me personally. The way that he describes each character is such great detail gives us just enough information about them that in the sequential scenes, the story line becomes funny because of their actions. For example: Turkey says "gentleness is effects of beer- Nippers and I dined together today. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go black his eyes?" In this sentence, he is referring to black Bartleby's eyes. This is funny. Throughout the story, Nippers and Turkey act accordingly to what time of day it is. If it is the morning, Nippers has fuel behind his fire and is very edgy, and for Turkey, he is calm in the morning. In the evening, Turkey is feisty because he is usually drunk and Nippers is calm.
After reading Melville's Bartleby, I fell in love with this short story. Since we've been assigned to read it, which was some time ago, I have found myself reading it just for my own enjoyment. I find this story absolutely ridiculously funny. I can't get enogh from it. I did a little bit of research into some of the small details of the story and here is what I found...
To begin, the initial humor starts in the narrorator, or the lawyer. He uses the phrase "the nature of his avocations" clearly talking about his career. I then proceeded to look up the word avocation to see what it meant and it more or less meant a hobby, second to your vocation, meaning job http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=avocations. Was the narrorator implying that he was not serious about his job? The second thing that caught my eye implementing humor was that he compared himself and praised John Jacob Astor. Astor was a man who was corrupt in his efforts to earn himself money by smuggling drugs and buying foreclosed homes during a great time of stuggle in the nation.
Overall, I found that Melville's great depths of description set most of the humor for me personally. The way that he describes each character is such great detail gives us just enough information about them that in the sequential scenes, the story line becomes funny because of their actions. For example: Turkey says "gentleness is effects of beer- Nippers and I dined together today. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go black his eyes?" In this sentence, he is referring to black Bartleby's eyes. This is funny. Throughout the story, Nippers and Turkey act accordingly to what time of day it is. If it is the morning, Nippers has fuel behind his fire and is very edgy, and for Turkey, he is calm in the morning. In the evening, Turkey is feisty because he is usually drunk and Nippers is calm.
Here are the entries for all of my favorite blogs that I have done thus far throughout the semester. First is for The Cask of Amontillado. Here is another...I Love Bartleby the Scrivener This just so happens to be my favorite piece of literature that we read so far. Another entry is for The Scarlet Letter. This was my first initial blog on this novel, when my opinion of the book was not yet as developed. I had a very closed mind when I wrote this blog. Here is my most recent entry for what I called My Progression in the Scarlet Letter. Another entry that I have is for Poe's The Raven in which I discussed my lack of understanding of the poem.
Poe has always been one of my favorite authors. His short stories, however, can have a lot of background information that does not explain itself throughout the text. So, sometimes to have a better understanding, a bit of research must be done. I find it helpful to myself even.
After doing my oral presentation, I was asked a question about the "Masons" that were mentioned in the story. Given the context of the story, it seemed easy to conclude that the "Masons" were some sort of secret society, or even just a society. I had somehow neglected to pick up on this. I skimmed over it not thinking that it had any significant revelance in itself. So, after my interest was peeked and doing some research, I found that the Masons were members of a fraternal organization that had secret rites and signs. Leading to a few lines in the story before when Fortunato gives a grotesque movement, he is actually giving Montressor a secret sign that the Mason's used. This is why he doubts that Montressor is not a Mason.
I also, upon doing some more in depth research rather than just words I didn't understand, found that there was a lot of psychology used in this story. Montressor uses reverse psychology in order to fool Fortunato a number of times. An example of this being when Montressor asks Fortunato to come and taste his Amontillado, but then insists that he is too sick to go down into the vaults. This is only adding fuel to the fire to get Fortunato to insist on going down. He also uses it when he mentions Luchesi, another wine expert, as if he were going to ask him instead of Fortunato because of Fortunato's poor health. Fortunato clearly has a competetion between himself and Luchesi otherwise he would not have lashed back so badly by saying "And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado". Apparently, this would have been a pretty harsh insult between two wine expert.
Let me know if you guys have any other comments or want to know anything else about this story. I found a great link for this story that has connotations on the side that help you read it more critically... check it out. http://www.ivcc.edu/rambo/poe1.htm
I choose to do The Cask of Amontillado by Poe basically because it is my favorite Poe short story. You can find a copy of the story at...http://www.literature.org/authors/poe-edgar-allan/amontillado.html.
I love the deception that Montressor plays upon Fortunato. It is genius how Poe plans out the story line so intricately. He goes as far as to name Fortunato this because he is said to be less "fortunate" in the story.