For our American Literature Poetry Slam, I am going to be interpreting two of Emily Dickin's poems "I Heard a Fly Buzz" and "I Measure Every Grief I Meet." While I read the first poem, I want the class to be able to feel the scene at a deathbed, the way Dickins portrays it. I want them to see the slowness of death intensified by the fly. I think the poem leads up to the moment of death, which is the failure of light.
While reading the second poem, I want the audience to feel the pain that the narrator is feeling. She almost would prefer death over the grief she is carrying around. I want to portray how alone she feels, but by the end she realizes that others share her grief and it gives her a little bit of hope.
I really enjoyed our discussion in class about Hester and Pearl's Relationship in The Scarlet Letter that Nabila presented. I think that Hester needs Pearl more as a companion than as a daughter. There is no doubt that Hester loves Pearl, but she is not the best mother figure. On the way to Governor Bellingham's mansion, Pearl asks her mother for some sunshine and Hester says she has no sunshine to give Pearl. I think it is very ironic that Hester realizes and admits that she does not have a lot to give Pearl, but she still fights to keep Pearl with her. Is Hester acting out of a maternal love for Pearl, or is she being selfish? Pearl shares her shame with her. I think that one of the reasons that she dresses Pearl so extravigantly is so Pearl has more attention focused on her than on Hester when they go out in public together. Whether or not she does this on purpose, it is an important point.
I also think that Pearl is the epitome of truth and she torments Hester because she is concealing the truth about her real father, Dimmesdale. Pearl is the living example of the phrase, "the truth will set your free" because she is the one who "kissed [Dimmesdale's] lips [and] a spell was broken." As soon as the truth comes out, the it is important to note that the symbol of truth breaks the spell upon kissing her father. When pearl and Hester met Dimmesdale in the woods in chapter 19, Pearl is aware that Hester is trying to hide the truth of her sin and "stretched out her hand, with the small forefinger extended and pointing evidently towards her mother's breast." The symbol of truth will not be happy until her mother takes her honest form, the form of the adulterous. She also seems to control the sunshine in the forest by sucking it up herself and keeping it away from the untruthful Hester and Dimmesdale.
After reading Poe's the Raven, a thing jumped out at me and it was the use of the color purple. He uses a reference to the color purple twice in this dark and dreary poem. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas why Poe might do this. Does he just simply like the color purple or does it symbolize something. If anyone could help me out, I'd really appreciate it! :)
I found that a contrast jumped out at me as I read Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener." This is supposed to be a "story of wallstreet" and when I first think of Wallstreet, choas and confusion comes to my mind. Wall street is a place of business and economic growth and one might assume that individuals placed in this environment would be energetic and money hungry.
This begins the contrast that i found in this short story. Bartleby does not fit in his environment. Bartleby is slow moving, passive, and does not concern himself with money. If anyone does not agree, here are a few examples of Bartleby's actions.
1. When the narrator calls for Bartleby to come do something for him, he is slow to rely, slow to show himself, and passively says "I would prefer not to."
2. Bartleby does not seem to care about money. He does not seem to care if he is fired from his job, and when the narrator offers him money to vacate the premises, Bartleby just lets the money lay of the desk, untouched.
Why would you work on wall street if you did not care about money???
Bartleby's passive behavior evokes strange behavior from others. In a world used to turning to violence, this story depicts just the opposite. The narrator cannot seem to be mean or forceful with Bartleby because of how passive and honest he appears to be. I do not think that the narrator could be a succuesful businessman on Wall Street if he always tried to be so nice. He puts up with bad employees and lets them walk all over him. In such a competitive market, the kind of workers employed by the narrator today would hear, in the words a Donald Trump, "You're Fired !".
I found an interesting site that compares and contrasts Wallstreet of the 1850s to that of the 1990s. The article discusses how in the 1850s people were trying to distinguish between skilled and unskilled workers and I did not really like the fact that they incorporated that with Melville's novel. I do not think there is a question as to whether Bartleby was a skilled worker or not. He obviously had skills to work in the office at the beginning, he just chose not to by the end. A good point this article did make was the issue of stirkes in the 1990s. After thinking that Bartleby was disobedient to his boss not because he was unskilled at the task but because he was in a way revolting against his employer and going on strike. The big question then becomes why, why did such a passive individual cause so much turmoil in the office? This again creates contrast in the novel. Bartleby may not have been passive all along, he could have been a very smart guy who uses passiveness to get his way or to prove a point that he is sick of working and listening to other people boss him around. He is sick of feeling trapped in a life of copying and reading papers, and he rebels to feel alive again!