Interaction:
I like reading other people's blogs and arguing either for or against them in:
Devil Went Down To Georgia
Crazy Horse
Huck Finn and
Robinson Poems

Discussion:
I LOVE comments on my blogs!!!!

Crazy Horse
John Henry
Yellow Wallpaper

Coverage:
Many of these blogs were just things that popped into my head after our discussions in class.

John HenryYellow Wallpaper
Robinson
Girl of the Golden West

Xenoblogging:
Dont you just love going out and giving some comment love?!?!

Robinson. What do you think?
Bierce and The Devil's Dictionary
Huck's Battle

Wild Card:

I am sooo interested in this topic... Please read!

Wild Dreams

"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!

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! :)

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.

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.

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?

I found an article in the Encarta Encyclopedia that described the death of Crazy Horse. This article contains a completely different attitude towards Crazy Horse and portrays the event in a more neurtal way by saying, " Crazy Horse and his warriors killed Custer and most of his cavalry. The United States Army then began a relentless pursuit of Crazy Horse; he finally surrendered in Nebraska on May 6, 1877. A few months later, while reportedly resisting confinement, he was killed by a soldier." I think it is important to research all aspects of a story to make sure you are not getting biased information.

I was also intigued by Nabila's article and statement about whether Crazy Horse should really be considered a hero. Nabila seemed to be concerned with the fact that Crazy Horse seemed to steal a man's wife away, but I thought of it in a different way. "Crazy horse was a quiet, introspective, and shy man" who loved Black Buffalo Woman since childhood. Although she was married, she left her husband to elope with Crazy Horse. I found this to be very romantic. I feel that because he was so shy he did not pursue Black Buffalo and realized he was too late, but his warrior/heroic qualities shone through when he fought for her love and went after what he wanted. Another aspect that I felt made Crazy Horse a true hero was his humble behavior. "He did not recount his war deeds, nor did he wear or display the symbols of achievement accruing to him."

I lastly wanted to comment on Nabila's ill feelings of the burial of Crazy Horse. I feel that his parents taking him into the mountains to bury him was respectful and was their way of dealing with their mourning. I think that she may have missed an important line in the narrative that stated, "It does not matter where his body lies, for it is grass; but where his spirit is, it will be good to be." Crazy Horse was a hero, and although he died trying to save and protect his people, his spirit and legend lives on.

I think that it is forst very important for everyone to consider that The Devil's Dictionary was not published all at once in a singlular book, but was rather published a few at a time in a Newspaper. When you think about it this way, i feel that Bierce had more time to think about what words he wanted to use and and what definitions he wanted to put to them. As i found in this article, Bierce's "true love was satire" and he would use any form to do it. I think of his dictionary as being equivolent to a political cartoonist today. Even though political cartoonists may not feel a certain way towards a particular political group, they know the issues that are out there and they create pictures that will spark interest in the public.

I agree with Erin Manko that although Bierce seemed to target women negatively in his article, that is how society is and he was just making a point. Many people would say that he critiziced women and African Americans too harshly. One of the definitions that actually made me cringe was that of an African (AFFRICAN, n. A nigger that votes our way.). I think that this definition is far worse than any definition aimed at women. Although Melissa Hagg points out very nicely that Beirce may have had bad experiences with women in his life, I would have to disagree with her that he picks on women more than any other group.

As pointed out by Paul Crossman, Aborigines is another interesting definition to look at.
ABORIGINIES, n.
Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
I feel that Beirce wanted to make people aware in a very blunt way, almost like a slap in the face, as to how cruel the American Society is. If he did not make the definitions to blunt and harsh, it would not have made such an enormous impact and would not be as talked about. Lastly, I think it is important to note that Bierce did not approve of the first title of his work, The Cynics Wordbook. Five years later, he changed the name to The Devil's Dictionary. I think that Bierce wanted people to know that these were not his (the cynics) words, but were the words of the devil. He was criticizing society and wanted change.

I found an awesome article that helped me write "Farquhar's Journey Home."

Another poem that I investigated in depth was The Raven. Read my "Raven's Battle Between Good and Evil!"

Interaction:
I found it very fun to find things that I disagreed with in other people's blogs then explain my own findings to them. I did this in:
"Farquhar's Journey Home"
"The Raven's Battle Between Good and Evil" and
"Hester and Pearl "

Discussion:
It is very pleasing to see that someone has commented on the things that you say in your blogs, and i like reponding to my comments.

"Huge Constrast in Bartleby the Scrivener"
"Farquhar's Journey Home"
" The Raven's Battle Between Good and Evil"

Coverage:
These are from discussions in class.
"Too Much Reliance on Society"
" Poetry Slam Dunk"

Xenoblogging:
I went out and posted comments on my classmates blogs so heres what they said and what I told them back.
"EMERSON"
" Compassion for Farquar"
"Raven-ous"

Wildcard:
I went to see Lysistrata last week and I LOVED IT!!! I love theater and I loved this play and i wanted to share what I thought about it with all of you!
"Lysistrata"

In "How Happy is the Little Stone" the mood is very cheerful and upbeat. I was happy to read a poem like this from Dickinson because I remember most of her poems being sad and depressed sounding. It seems as thought the narrator is envious of the simple life that the rock leads. It "does not care about careers" and it lives "in casual simplicity." It kind of amazed me how she can just write a poem about a rock, to me it seems like she is bored and needs a friend.

Another poem that I liked was "The Sun Kept Setting, Setting Still." Both of these poems dealt with nature and being outside, but the themes were completely different. This poem seems to fit Dickinson's style a little better because it deals with death, a subject she writes alot about. I love how the poem slowly describes death like the setting of the sun. It is a very relaxing feeling to hear it portrayed in this way. No wonder that by the end of the poem, she is "not afraid to know." I think this line is the most important in the whole poem. She seems to enjoy nature so incredibly much and marvels at its beauty, that she can only imagine heaven being even more beautiful than earth, and she is not afraid to go there and find out!

In a way I feel like Emerson is just trying to preach a new religion to everyone. He says not to follow society, but follow him instead? Hmmm that really makes me wonder about him. He refers a lot to religion and his way of doing things. For example, he says people should pray in private, but if everyone started doing that, it would become a societal norm again and there is just NO getting around it.

Accoring to Gioia, the poem portrays four main elements : "a compelling narrative structure, a dark atmosphere, hypnotic verbal music, and archetypal symbolism." I agree that the poem sets up a strong narrative and Poe was known to write in this style, as with "The Tell Tale Heart" and "The Cast of Amontillado". Although the poem's rhythmic sounds distracted me the first time i read it, instead of just getting caught in the flow of the poem, I stopped and tried to figure out the meaning behind the story in the poem during my second reading.

The setting in the poem reflects the inner emotions and feelings of the narrator. In amanda's blog, she questioned the sex of the narrator, but in my eyes, there is no doubt that the narrator is a male pining over the loss of his loved one, Lenore. Written during the 1800's Poe would more than likely not be writing about a women pining for another woman at this point in time. The setting of the novel is very solemn, dreary, and lonely, just the same as the feelings the narrator is experiencing. As the lonely scholar sits in his room late at night, he notices a "dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor." Because it is so late and the mood is so spokey, I feel this leads the narrator towards some hallucinations/ bad dreams. The narrator is "napping" when the gentle tapping comes to his door, and I think that Poe is basically telling the reader that the narrator is in a dreamlike state and this may not be happening in real life, but the ideas are coming from his subconscious mind.

The aspect of life worrying the narrator is whether there is a heaven or hell and where is he going to end up. When he first heard a noise outside his door, he thought it was the ghost or angel of his beloved Lenore, but when he opens the door, "darkness [is] there and nothing more." He begins "wondering, fearing" about death and whether there is an afterlife where he will find Lenore, or will he find eternal darkness like he did when he opened the door to his chamber. The Raven shows up at the window as a demonic like symbol of hell and tries to persuade the narrator that he will face a hellish dark doom. It is symbolic that the raven lands on the Pallas Athena above the door because she is the Goddess of Wisdom, but the raven sitting on her creates a block or "inability of reason." The presence of the raven, makes the narrator question his initial belief in heaven, and raises new questions in his head.

There is also a lot of contrast between light and dark in the poem. The "radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore" contrasts with the raven or "thing of evil." By the end of the poem, the narrator seems to give in or give up his belief in good to the raven in the final symbolic act of the raven casting his shadow on the floor where the narrator's soul "shall be lifted [from that shadow] - Nevermore!"

Erin's blog described the story as "a typical dream [where] everything goes prefectly." I feel that the story is more of a journey to the eternal home or heaven. After Farquar got out of the river during his escape, he "at least found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction... Overhead as he looked up through the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations." The reason the stars look unfamiliar is because they are not stars, he is following the light that all people who have a near death experience describe. There is another reference to Farquhar following the light that forshadows his death at the end of the story, and that is when he first falls into the river "he opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light." A final reference in the story to death and religion is when Farquhar leaves the river to go home and "the wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which--once, twice, and again-- he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue." This line made me think of an Angel whispering sweet things to him as he died to comfort him on his journey home.

Another aspect of the story that jumped out at me was the slowness of time in the moment of death. All of his senses seemed to become more aware and acute and his final moments dragged on for what seemed to be eternity. While Farquhar was awiting the moment to be hung, he heard "a sharp metallic percussion liek the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer... as slow as the tolling of a death knell... The intervals of slience grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening... What he heard was the ticking of his watch." This section of the story kept making me think of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" because the descriptions are so similar. An article describing this story states, " [Bierce] distorts time by revealing at the end of the story that Farquhar imagined his escape in the few seconds before he died even though the escape takes up a great portion of the narrative." I think this quote pretty much sums up the fact that Bierce was emphasizing the slowness of death in his short story.

I think one of Bierce's primary concerns for writing this story was to condemn war. At the opening of the story he describes military men anout to kill a good man with a kindly expression and "evidently was no vulgar assassin." Beirce seems to disagree with war and the slaughter of thousands of innocent men and women. I also think he empahsized the deception and unjust practices in war by ending the second section by describing the "Federal Scout" who tricked Farquhar into being caught by the soldiers. Another criticism i see in the story is if Farquhar really loved his wife so much, why would he go and take on the army at the bridge by himself. This was plain stupidity on his part and maybe his life with his wife was not as happy as he portrayed it in his perception before death. Maybe he was trying to escape an unhappy life.