I personally believe that the legend of John Henry had to have been true, at least to some extent. John Henry was a black steal driving man who took on a steel driving machine and won. Even with his superhuman strength and power, John Henry still dies in the end and falls to the power of the steam powered steel driver. Like HuiLin points out in his blog, the machine wins anyways even though John sacrifices his life for his work and his fellow steel drivers. This symbolizes the power and unstoppable momentum of technology and man's inventions. Although they help man, they also kill some men too, both physically, mentally, and economically. I think that this legend grew from some kinda of true story because there seems to be sufficient evidence to support a true real life John Henry who was a steel driving man. I think that the story was probably exaggerated and changed over the years as exemplified by the early version of the song, then the construction crew one, then the folk vresion, and finally the prison gang version. The legend of John Henry is an American classic that could apply to anyone and everyone. I think that is why the legend has always been and continues to be very popular. We can even relate it today with the growing abilities of computers and robot like technology. Computers are beginning to take over more and more jobs and it is kind of scary. For example, I walked into the grocery store a few weeks ago and was surprised to see check yourself out counters that have replaced cashiers. It is sad to see we lose so many jobs to technology but in the long run it helps us right? It happened back in the times of railroad steel driving and it happens now and it will continue to happen until we may end up like WIll SMith's movie "I, Robot."
Jessica Zelenak raises a good question in her blog about Edward Arlington Robinson. Why does he end his poems so quickly and not give the reader very much detail? Does he like to keep things short and sweet, or does he just want to make the reader figure things for themselves and use their imagination?
"Mr. Flood's Party" is a very deep and depressing poem about what appears to be an older gentleman who is an alcoholic. Because of Robinson's lack of detail this is only a guess. If you think about it, Robinson was smart to make his poems debatable because the more different interpretations there are, the more discussion there is about the poem, and the more Robinson's poetry is discussed and spread around. This poem displays a man whose only relationship is with himself and a jug of alcohol. After reading the poem I felt that it was about a man who was outcasted by his friends and kicked from his town for doing a wrong deed. He looks down at the town he used to belong to "where friends of other days had honored him." He has turned towards his only friend, the alcohol, in his times of loneliness, but he realizes it has ruined his life as "he [raises] again the jug regretfully." He is quietly calling for help "like Roland's ghost winding a silent horn" because he knows he might drink himself to death.
"Thomas Hood" is another very short to the point story. After learning that the character in this story has many "eternal tragedies" like Robinson himself, maybe he made the poem so short because it is about him and he does not want to disclose too much about himself. Hood seems good at hiding "his bitterness within" with a cloak "of puns and pleasantries." No one would think anything out of the ordinary when this man passes by and no one notices his pain. He is leading a double life which only makes him unhappier because he is hiding from the truth.
The last poem of Robinson's that I am going to discuss is "Aaron Stark." I pictured Aaron to be a snarled, haggard, deformed man that wanders the town, bigger children make up stories about him to scare the little children. Robinson only describes the man's physical features and does not tell what kind of person he is on the inside. Why do you think this is? I think he is criticizing the way people judge others not by what kid of person they are but what they look like. The part of the poem that really struck me was the way Aaron laughs at the end. As I thought about an explanation for this, two popped into my head. 1) Aaron knows how artificial these people are and hates how he can get pity from the townspeople but he still remains a "loveless exile moving with a staff." He thinks it is ironic that they can pity him but still not offer him help or love. 2) Second, he loves scaring people and making them pity him. Does he really enjoy making the townspeople scared of him because that is the only reaction he can get because he is so hideous and any reaction is better than no reaction? Since Robinson is so vague I think you can interpret his poetry any way you want and I think that is the way he wanted it. SO is Robinson no wordy enough? No, i think he is just wordy enough!
Did you ever wonder about why people sleepwalk or have u done it yourself? That was the question that I set out to answer after my roommates (one, Erin being in out class :P) told me that I sleep walk and talk. After doing some research, I found out that sleepwalking is semi-common in children because 15% of children tend to do it. It is fairly uncommon to find sleepwalking a problem in adults however, because on;y 1% of adults are known to sleepwalk. So now that you know how many people sleepwalk, how about I try to answer why people do it. The causes of sleepwalking tend to be stress or anxiety, lack of sleep, eating before sleep, or it could be psychological problems. Ok, do not be scared if you sleepwalk, that does not necessarily mean you are crazy. I have found that anxiety seems to be the number one cause of sleepwalking and if you think about it, it makes sense because children are the most likely to sleepwalk and they are the most likely to experience anxiety at night because of night terrors and childhood fears. Adults experiencing stress in their life due to work, school, family, or friends can experience sleepwalking. People suffering from Psychological disorders like Schizophrenia can experience sleep disorders also due to their feelings of anxiety from heightened suspicions and paranoia.
Another interesting fact is that sleepwalking tends to be hereditary, so if no one in your family sleepwalks, you can feel pretty confident that you will not either. As it turns out, my mother and her father both have been known to sleepwalk and sleeptalk. How about we talk about what happens that makes you sleepwalk. Sleepwalking occurs during either stage 3 or 4 of the sleep cycle, which usually is about 90 mintues after falling asleep. Because of stress or other problems, the sleep cycle gets disturbed causing a delay in the progression of the sleep stages. Because of the delay, your body may become half awake and half asleep. During this time, people can physically do tasks that are repetitive (they would be able to do them without thinking) like getting dressed, making the bed, opening drawers, etc, without being aware mentally of their actions. It can be a scary topic because there are some incidents where people have committed violence while supposedly sleepwalking and I feel it is imperative to find a way to understand how and why this is happening or if it is just a new tactic by lawyers to help their clients get off scott free.
This really interests me and if anyone has any other information about sleepwalking please let me know! I also may be interested in looking into a job as a sleep specialist, so if anyone knows of anyone who is a sleep specialist and knows what the job entails, please let me know! Thanks! :)
After reading David Belasco's "The Girl of the Golden West," the first thing that came to my mind was Zach Harvey's presentation on his second paper draft. I had a lot of respect for the girl after I read the play and Zach's portrayal of her as being a "whore" kept popping into my head. I must be honest and I did not read the play until over Thanksgiving break, but I went into it knowing a lot of background so I really enjoyed reading it. After Zach's presentation I was waiting for a scene where the girl showed even a little but of slutiness, but it just was not there. Instead of classifying her as a whore, I would call her a smart business woman who followed her heart when she found love.
I realize that this play is a melodrama and it certainly contains all of the aspects of a melodrama: Good guys, bad guys, overacting, and fantastic spectacle. I really wish that I could have seen this play being done to get the true "sensory experience" that the drama entails. It would be interesting to see the people cast as the characters because after you read something and picture what you think that everyone will look like, its cool to see who the director casts in the show. I read that Belasco did not want his play to be read but only seen, but I disagree with that because he used extremely detailed stage directions that helped me visualize the play and the set as I read it.
I agree with Zach's statement that the Girt is the center of the play because she is the center of the mining camp, the polka, and the hearts of all the men at the camp. When Zach went on to say that the girl is out of place at the camp, I strongly disagree. When the girl first enters the scene of the Polka for the first time, "she has a thorough knowledge of what the men of her world generally want. She is used to lfattery-- knows exactly how to deal with men-- is very shrewd-- but quite capable of being a good friend to the camp boys." She seems to fit right in. She is the motiviation that drives the men to work hard and strike it rich, she is the dainty lass that keeps them ruly and trying to be gentlemen like. The girl keeps the boys of the camp happy not by giving out sexual favors which would make her a whore, but by accepting drinks they buy her as a good business move so they keep buying drinks for themselves at her very successful Polka. For example, when Blonde Harry sends her a drink, she says, "Here, give it to me-- (pouring it back into the bottle)-- and say it hit the spot."
The girl is anything but a slut. She refuses to marry Jack Rance because she knows that he has a wife in New Orleans and even though he tells her "my wife wont know it," she still refuses the offer. She is looking for true love, the kind that her parents had. As she remembers her childhood she says, "Lord! How they loved each other, it was beautiful!" She is saving her first kiss to give to her true love and she finds it in DIck Johnson. At the end of the novel, she tells him that "all that mother was to Father, I'm going to be to you." She has finally found the one person that she loves and she will not give him up. She has ended the love triangle and even gives up her business for the man she loves.
After reading The Adventures of Huck Finn written by Mark Twain aka Samuel Clemens, and having class discussions on the novel, many ideas were floating around in my head. Many of the blogs that I read also sparked ideas and interesting points to ponder. Melissa Haggs and Erin Manko both brought out important points in the story that I agree and disagree with. Here is what I had to say after doing some futher research to support my claims.
One of the main things that I wanted to research was the symbolism that teh river took on in the novel because it caused a somewhat heated debate in class and I disagreed with Melissa's point of view from her class presentation (no offense Melissa) :). She thought that the river symbolized a peaceful escape from the crazy society Huck is running from. She also says that the river has "its own personality and character traits." I disagree that the river is an escape from the crazy society because there are many examples when the river is anything but peaceful, like when Huck and Jim see a dead body floating down the river in the house boat as a result of a violent act. Although Hucks seems to enjoy his ride down the Mississippi because it is an adventure, the trip is not peaceful because he has to worry that at any moment he could get caught and be sent back to either live with his father or Miss Watson, both situations being very appalling.
I find it very much more likely that the river is a symbol is Huck's coming of age. Through every trial and tribulation on the river, Huck learns a lesson or overcomes some kind of obstacle. He is faced with moral dilemmas and is forced to act couragesously at times to test his ability to enter young manhood. "On the river and along its banks, Huck and Jim witness life and death, tragedy and comedy, strife and peace". . . and " by the end of the journey, teh river will have served as the vehicle for Huck's development to maturity." Tom starts out the novel bearing the indestructable teenager mentality. He goes on daring adventures and pulls crazy stunts without even considering the bad things that could happen to him. He begs Jim to go onto the origically thought of abandoned boat to ransack it, without thinking that there could be someone already there and not happy with them trying to steal their goods. Huck is irrational and spontaneous at the beginning but by the end, he learns lessons that could possibly change his view on life.
As the river takes him to his final destination, the plantation of his friend Tom's family, he realizes how precious life is when he almost loses his best friend Tom due to a gun shot. His long travels has taken him not only on a journey through the southlands, but also on a journey of life lessons. At the beginning and throughout the novel Huck seems fascinated by death. He very proudly fakes his own death and during the one scene he pushes through the crowd to look in the window at the dead man on the floor.
Another point that I would like to discuss is something that Erin Manko mentioned in her presentation. She thought that Huck was friends with Jim because he had good morals and was a smart boy. She seemed to say that even though Huck was young and did not have the best schooling, he understood the deeper meaning of life and overcame prejudices. I do not think that Huck was as much smart as he followed his free will. His free spirit allowed him to go against societal norms and befriend Jim because he liked him, not because he was trying to overcome the horrors of slavery and change the world.
After reading The Yellow Wallpaper, and a brief history on the life of the author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the motives that she had for writing the story ran a lot deeper than one might suspect. Gilman lived from 1860-1935 and she disagreed with the constraints that society placed on women during her lifetime. Women were supposed to stay at home and do the cooking, cleaning, and raising of children. Because she found that this way of life was strangling the life out of her and because she was influenced by strong women like her Great Aunt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, she became a leading Theorist of the women's movement during the turn of the century.
I found that many of the events in Gilman's life found their way into this famous short story. Like the woman in the story, Gilman suffered from severe depression after giving birth to her only child. She hated the confines of marriage and ended up leaving her husband. She also consulted Dr. Weir Mitchell, a nerve specialist who imposed his "rest cure" upon her. In Short Story Criticism, Gilman is actually quoted saying, "the real purpose of the story was to reach Dr. Mitchell, and convince him of the error of his ways." The symbol of the story to Gilman's life, was not the only one I found in The Yellow Wallpaper.
In an article I found at the library, Loralee Macpike says, "The furnishings of the narrator's room become a microcosm of the world that squeezes her into the little cell of her own mind, and the wallpaper represents the state of that mind. " She is confined to an old prison-like nursery, which symbolizes her status in society. She is like a child, where socially and economically she must be led by an adult, her husband. Her husband suggests that writing is dangerous to her health, but it is really only dangerous for him because it may lead to her being economically independent, and he might lose his control over her.
The bars on the window represent her inability to change her place in society and the immovable bed represents her sexuality. She is not close with her husband and she is anable to care for her child, the product of her sexuality.
Obviously, the biggest symbol in the short story is the yellow wallpaper itself. The wallpaper becomes a symbol of the narrator and her unfullfilling life. The wallpaper surrounds and torments her like her physician husband.
"John is a physician. . . perhaps that is the one reason I do not get well faster"
Gilman is criticizing men and doctors with this statement, and does not agree with their controlling behaviors. John says in the story, "You really are better dear, whether you can see it or not. I am a Doctor, dear, and I know." I think that Gilman also is criticizing women by describing "a smouldering unclean yellow" wallpaper. The narrator is yellow for not standing up to her husband.
The narrator transforms and learns how to act perfectly in her world to please others like the wallpaper that "changes as the light changes." She eats when her husband is around and she does not cry in front of him. She becomes obsessed with saving the woman from the wallpaper, but just like the woman in the wallpaper, she cannot escape her life, "nobody could climb through that pattern-- it strangles so."
I found it interesting that although men are controlling women throughout most of the story, do you think it is significant that Gilman ended her story with John fainting and his wife crawling on top of him (maybe showing male weakness and the eventual triumph of women?)
Like we discussed last class about how every story has an origin, and whether or not it was important to know if John Henry was real or not, DO you think it is imperative to know about Gilman's real life experiences to understand this story and her motives for writing it?
Lastly, Do you think that she really was living in an old nursery, or were the items in the room contraints for the crazy woman?