Where We Are Going And Where We Have Been
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Continuity of the Creation Myth
The creation story is part of every culture. It is impelled into being by a need, an innate desire of people to explain their origins. Many modern people find the same comfort in science, which has put forth the theories of The Big Bang, Punctuated Equilibrium, and Evolution as its way of explaining how the universe came into being, how it was formed, and how we as humans arrived in it, but many of the explanations are just theories, theories that could one day be proved incorrect, and become the stories that people in the future read to infer as to how people defined themselves in the twenty first century. A people’s creation stories are an excellent place to start when delving into its culture. The stories seem to lay out the foundation of beliefs, a guide to social order, and values that societies tend to closely adhere to indefinitely thereafter (except in the cases where the society is utterly decimated by foreign invaders: i.e. Europe's conquest of the Native Americans).
By comparing and contrasting the creation stories of the Iroquois and the Pima people of the west to that of the abrahamic faiths, one can see that the early Americans worshiped a veritable pantheon of gods, most of witch were largely animistic or based on natural objects. Many of the characters in the Pima creation story could shape shift, taking the form of various birds, or shrink to fit in a walking stick or molded vessel in order to escape an impending flood.
Despite differences between the monotheistic and polytheistic faith systems certain similarities exist in their creation documents: examples of humanities deep desire to know how the world came to be; why and how were humans created; what brought evil into the world to torment humans with pestilence and cruelty. These similarities are indicative of how alike we all are regardless of where we are geographically located or what stage of development our society happens to be in.
Rebbeca Harding Davis, Life In The Iron-Mills
The conditions endured by the inhabitants of Wheeling Virginia are difficult to fathom, especially for the reader in ‘clean’ ‘modern’ 21st century America. The severe language employed to describe the lives of 19th century industrial laborers helps the reader to comprehend the workers plight. Rebecca Harding Davis is more able to describe the workers suffering because she lived in the same city. Even though she was not in the same class and subject to the workers fate, she witnessed their horrid dismal lives. The enormity of the industrial laborers existence was a reality to her. Thus she could do it justice in her writing. Her description of the Wolfe’s dwelling: "It was low, damp,- the earthen floor covered with a green, slimy moss, - a fetid air smothering the breath" (2250). evokes a picture which may have been obtained by her personal inspection of the very dwelling. It is through this vivid imagery that Davis conveys the reality experienced by the class of the industrial laborer.
She writes to expose the stark disparity of the classes. Irish Welsh and other immigrants were the victims of industrialism, permanently trapped in the bottom echelons of the American class structure. "The future of the Welsh puddler passing just now is not so pleasant. To be stowed away, after his grimy work is done, in a hole in the muddy graveyard, and after that, - not air, nor green fields, nor curious roses" (2548).
Davis makes this story especially painful and saddening by exposing another aspect of the workers plight: they are human, possessing feelings intellect and unexplainable passions for creativity. Caught in the vicious machine their bodies become machines, their humanity neglected, squandered. "These men, going by with drunken faces and brains full of unawakened power, do not ask it of Society or God. Their lives ask it; their deaths ask it. There is no reply" (2549). By juxtaposing Wolfe with the upperclass Doctor, Mill owner, journalist, and intellectual, Davis allows them to interact. Intrigued by Wolfe’s korl sculpture the aristocrats become confounded with the realization of the workers ability to create, to be more than just a machine. Will there ever be enough money to resolve this timeless moral dilemma when the mind is aligned to the same purpose?
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl
This narrative especially impresses upon the reader the concept of universal humanity. Harriet Jacobs very effectively conveys her feelings of indignity caused by the ludicrous notions of ownership and power. She explores slavery in a human way, and in a philosophical sense, delivering very important insight. Her accounts of the human suffering resulting from the barbaric treatment of slaves are effective, but her appeal to our higher moral senses moved me to go further in exploring the realities of her time that still persist in multiple forms today.
The concepts of property and commerce are so ingrained into our world-view, that it is difficult to imagine life without them. Though, in almost all respects they serve to cheapen anything touched by them. Jacobs gives us the most extreme of instances by discussing her own moral dilemma "The more my mind has become enlightened, the more difficult it was for me to consider myself an article of property; and to pay money to those who had so grievously oppressed me seemed like taking from my suffering the glory of triumph" (1777). Even when her allies attempt to liberate her from the tyranny of her ‘master’, she is immediately opposed to the idea, for it is an insult for any human to be sold and bought, even by those with good intentions. It is only after much contemplation and persuasion that she agrees to the transaction, realizing it is the only way to attain freedom and an end to her perpetual persecution. Still, it is not without reservation and incredulity, "A human being sold in the free city of New York" (1777)! Her following incisive statement demonstrates here acute knowledge our nation’s hollow morality, "The bill of sale is on record, and future generations will learn from it that women were articles of traffic in New York, late in the nineteenth century of the Christian religion. It may hereafter prove a useful document to antiquaries, who are seeking to measure the progress of civilization in the United States" (1777). Her vision is invaluable. Her narrative should be universally read, to discover the untold and maybe irreversible damage we have wrought upon ourselves.
Using Both "Young Goodman Brown" by Hawthorn and Irving’s "Rip Van Winkle," look at the use of setting, characters, and/or allegory to advance the themes of the writers. What are those themes?
Young Goodman Brown is set in Salem Massachusetts in the mid to late 17th century. It was during this time that the Salem Witch Trials occurred (in 1692). Hawthorn was born in Salem in 1804, and was rased in a Puritan Family. During that period there was a very strong interest in the Salem Witch Trials. There was also an emerging debate over the correctness of puritan doctrine and its effects on people and society. People were starting to question wether it was a good thing to believe in original sin, and the natural depravity of humans from birth . Hawthorn used the character Goodman Brown to represent the confusion and doubt Puritan ideology instills in people, and how spiritual fulfillment and societal harmony are incompatible with the Puritan ideology. The conversion ceremony in the forest is representative of a rebellion against the rigidity of village life in Salem, and a search for a more genuine spiritual experience that allows tolerance, even of sinners, which is made evident in this passage, "It was strange to see, that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints." (1270). It also reveals a duality in the supposedly pious lives of the town members such as Goody Cloyse, deacon Gookin, and the minister. Hawthorn is even somewhat satirical, drawing parallels between the Puritan idea of sin as the natural condition of humankind, and the ‘religion of the underworld’. "Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race!" (1271).
The tragedy of Goodman Brown was that he neither took to the duality of a Christian life accepting of sin, nor could he be a devout Puritan. Totally distrustful of people and disenchanted with his own religion he lived out the rest of his life, wary and unhappy. "When the minister spoke from the pulpit, with power and fervid eloquence, and with his hand on the open bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and of triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading, lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, awakening suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away." (1272). Goodman Brown is representative of many people of the period who were caught in the catch 22 of the beliefs instilled upon them from a very young age. Hawthorn’s message is no less pertinent today. Some of the most important events of our time have at their core the same paradoxical theme, the pious’ condemnation of evil and of evildoers (no bush did not make that word up), while being no less guilty themselves.
Allegory;1 : the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence;
Washington Irving’s ‘Rip Van Winkle’ is an especially allegorical tale. Rip is a sort of archetype of the proverbial slacker. The henpecked husband who despite or in spite of the incessant nagging of his wife manages to get away with sloth and indolence regularly, and accomplishes just about nothing in his life. Rip’s only noteworthy accomplishment was getting very drunk, sleeping for twenty years straight, and telling about it afterward. But this story is about much more than a chronic underachiever, and his mostly uneventful life. The story is set in a very unique span of time, from pre-declaration of independence, to post-revolutionary war America. During this time the land called America went from being a continent mostly populated by native people living traditional lives, with a small population of European colonists, disparate and isolated, to a sovereign nation aggressively defending its freedom and acquiring territory with little regard for those who may have been there first. A new nation was born, with its own unique brand of patriotism and culture. The story of "Rip Van Winkle" addresses these changes, and what existed before in the Kaatskill mountains "They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country." (981), in a little village of great antiquity founded by Dutch colonists. "Here they used to sit in the shade, of a long summer’s day, talk listlessly over village gossip, or tell endless sleepy stories about nothing." (983). The romantic language with which Irving describes these times, leads me to believe that he may have been content living in a village much like the one he depicts. I must admit that I am envious of the seeming simplicity of these character’s lives.
The plot of the story proceeds with Rip being routed by his wife away from his junto. Eventually in order to avoid work Rip flees to the mountains to hunt. "Poor Rip was at last reduced to despair; and his only alternative to escape from the labor of the farm and the clamor of his wife, was to take his gun in hand, and stroll away into the woods." (984). It is there that he meets the ghost of Henry Hudson, and helps him carry his keg of gin to Hudson’s crew where they play nine pins, and imbibe a magical liquor. The gin induces a twenty year sleep, and it is with this device that Irving seats the old colonial life beside the comparatively fast paced and politicized present. Rip makes his way back to the village and notices that "The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquility." (988).
And that’s about it, many more conclusions may be drawn about the advantages and disadvantages of modernity and ‘progress’, but they are purely subjective, and moot at this point.
On The Narrative of the Life of Gustavus Vassa
Gustavus Vassa’s work succeeded in further edifying me about the abhorrent institution of slavery. Up until now my education in the subject has been largely from a historical perspective, which fails to lend even a fraction of the humanity this story conveys. I wish I could meet the author. I imagine him in his later years in England in a study sitting in an over stuffed chair reading a thick leather bound book, late afternoon sunlight streaming in through a tall window illuminating suspended dust motes. I wish I could be transported back in time to knock at the partially cracked door of that study to hear his low ragged voice, to query his deepest thoughts on the human condition.
I could use this opportunity to extol Vassa’s virtuous character, or his perseverance in the face of adversity. I could stand on my soap box and expound upon the myriad deplorable behaviors of the ‘white race’ during that time, before and to this day. But we already know all of this. Instead I want to do my best to explain how his writing made me feel.
The two examples I will use occur in the later portion of the work because it was there that I felt the most suspense, and sympathy for Vassa in his predestinarian quest for freedom. I put myself in his captain’s place upon learning of the altercation in Doctor Perkin’s yard, and seeing Vassa cut and mangled and close to death in his jail cell that "he could not forbear weeping" (p. 778). I felt depressed and frustrated reading this and the following passage where the captain tried but failed to find redress for such a heinous transgression. As I likened it to our present day struggle for justice and equality beyond its nominal form. Lastly I want to celebrate and fly through the streets of Montserrat with Vassa to the Register’s Office to get the critical binding document, his manumission. "My imagination was all rapture" " My feet scarcely touched the ground, for they were winged with joy" (p. 780). I was overjoyed as well reading this, my elation incomparable though with what he must have felt from the novelty of freedom.
Full bus
sixty-three of us
young and vital
quite, minds primed
our heads lurch
together in acceleration
shoulders sway synchronized
we are capable
with vast knowledge
our potential infinite
holding the future
tightly packed progeny
ride the gauntlet
LCC Student
Discuss the portrayals of religious topics in two of the works we’ve read this term; Bradstreet (1612-1672) and Wheately (1753-1784)
One hundred forty one years separates the birth of these two literary geniuses. Bradstreet was one of the first European inhabitants of America. She was a Protestant, thus she believed in a somewhat wrathful god. In her mind forgiveness and entry into heaven were rarely granted even to the pious. In the following excerpt Bradstreet speaks of a wise glorious god, and a powerful beautiful god, but nowhere is the mercy and forgiveness that would later be attributed to the almighty. There is mention of his goodness, but not his kindness, and not his love.
"I wist not what to wish, yet sure thought I, If so much excellence abide below, How excellent is he that dwells on high, Whose power and beauty by His works we know? Sure he is goodness, wisdom, glory, light, That hath this under world so richly dight; Mor heaven than earth was here, no winter and no night" (253).
Phillis Wheately was born in Africa, enslaved and transported to America. Lucky for her she was purchased by ‘enlightened’ Christians who believed slavery was incompatible with Christian life, they treated her much less like a slave than a pupil, I get the feeling she was something like a project or an experiment to the Wheatley’s. We explore Wheatley’s view of her god in her letter to Arbour Tanner.
"In his crucifixion may be seen marvelous displays of Grace and Love, Sufficient to draw and invite us to the rich and endless treasures of his mercy, let us rejoice an adore the wonders of God’s infinite Love in bringing us from a land Semblant of darkness itself, and where the divine light of revelation (being obscured) is as darkness" (821).
Wheatley’s god is one with infinite love and endless treasures of mercy. A god that would allow one to feel a little more at ease with imperfection, and hopeful of redemption.
Furthermore it seems Wheatley believes heaven is a given destination for those that live with grace. In the same letter she states "Till we meet in the regions of consummate blessedness, let us endeavor by the assistance of divine grace, to live the life, and we shall die the death of the Righteous." (821). Whereas in Bradstreet’s view it is more difficult to follow the path of the righteous, and gain access to heaven. In this passage she casts doubt on all of humanity, and maybe even herself included. "But some new troubles I have had since the world has been filled with blasphemy and sectaries, and some who have been accounted sincere Christians have been carried away with them, that sometimes I have said, "Is there faith upon the earth?" and I have not known what to think; but then I have remembered the works of Christ that so it must be, and if it were possible, the very elect should be deceived." This statement is very telling, and to me discouraging. I cant imagine ever feeling good about myself if her faith was mine. It is sad to me so many lived under the shadow of this mentality, with unconscious sin lurking in every thought and deed. Their humanity crushed under the specter of a wrathful unforgiving god.
Although it is my belief that if given the choice, people would adopt Wheatley’s god much more readily than Bradstreet’s more strict one. I do appreciate very much Bradstreet’s rationalization or argument for the existence of god. "That there is a God my reason would soon tell me by the wondrous works that I see, the vast frame of the heaven and the earth, the order of all things, night and day, summer and winter, spring and autumn, the daily providing for this great household upon the earth, the preserving and directing of all to its proper end. The consideration of these things would with amazement certainly resolve me that there is an Eternal Being." (247). I am in agreement with that statement. It is a beautiful proof of the existence of at least some kind of logical intent within the universe. Giving us a divine model to hold up and compare ourselves to in times of doubt.
On Moby Dick
{Out of his failures with Mardi and the slave labor of the next two books, Melville had built a literary theory in which a writer writes simultaneously for two audiences, one composed of the mob, the other of "eagle-eyed" readers who perceive the true meaning of those passages that the author has "directly calculated to deceive-egregiously deceive-the superficial skimmer of pages."} (2289).
My question then becomes, which are we? With our severely abridged version of "the best known title in American literature." one thing is certain, I will acquire and read this book in its entirety. And along with Thoreau, Melville will become a part of my repertoire of thoroughly read authors. A day may even come when I am secure enough in my knowledge and appreciation of his work to call myself a Melvillean. Until then I will read, and read, and read. Aye were it not for time, I would step into a region immune to perturbation, with pen, pad, Melville, and a dictionary, to learn of the past and the immutable human condition.
Captain Ahab is the central figure in Moby Dick. I say figure because if the central character were what was in question I would have to assign that role to Ishmael, the narrator. Ahab is a dynamic character subject to fits of rage, and spells of manic diatribe. Ishmael knows him first as a mysterious captain who never comes on deck, but administers from his cabin via the first mates. Ahab is first seen through these words "Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter deck." (2311). In the paragraph that follows Ahab is described in almost mythic or supernatural terms. "He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness." (2311). Unlocking the mystery of Ahabs character I think is only possible with the text fully read. Thus I will not venture it now, but will end with this insightful passage.
"To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there is naught beyond. But’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing in it..That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him." (2315)
Escorting Bob
I noticed Bob on the bus, he sat in the front with his cane, when his cell phone rang he pulled it out and felt its face to turn it on. He got off at the same stop as me. We stood on the curb of an extremely busy street. When the fast moving cars passing in front of us subsided he started across the street. Holy shit the light had not changed the crosswalk sign said DO NOT WALK. He is in the middle of this four lane road and a car is coming, this man is in the middle of the street with his big white stick waving it around in front of him, this man is blind. The car is not stopping, the car does not stop, The man stops, Bob stops. He can hear the car he can hear its tires on the road, he can hear its 45mph whoosh as it passes, Bob stopped. I breathe, I was not breathing. I ran across the street and spoke to him, I said, "Sir, can I help you get to wherever it is that you are going?" He reached out to touch me, grabbed my left arm then walked around to my right side, and held my elbow. We walked. Us, me escorting this man with his arm in mine. I smiled, and thought this is it I love this. After I walked him to his door we introduced ourselves, and had a short conversation about our professions. He is a social worker with the lane independent living alliance. I said goodby and hoped that I would see him again. On my way to McLennan Sound Monitoring I had an overwhelming feeling of joy it almost started me crying. I wished that I could help like that every day I wished I could help more. It was a profound moment of connection. I felt a part of something larger than myself, I was useful to someone. I wanted to be his eyes and describe the color, the shapes, the contours, paint it all with words for him, words inspiring imagery. Of course only if he would have desired it.
Applied Theology
The account of Mary Rowlandson is one of the most incredible examples of survival and human willpower I have ever read or heard of otherwise. Just this evening I was listening to a story on NPR that discussed how people often react much differently to extreme situations than they think they would given foreknowledge of the situation. Being captured by Indians was obviously something Rowlandson had thought at length about "I had often before said that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive", and up until the point when she was made to choose between death and capture she had thought she would choose death. What was it that made her choose life, her children, the hope of some day being reunited with her husband? She must have been young, and had to have been strong and vital to endure such constant and prolonged hardship. But even with all these things to live for I think it was something else that carried her through the constant peril of starvation and toil she endured. I believe that it was her bible and the strength she found in its passages that stood in the way between the loss of all hope and her subsequent demise "But the lord upheld my spirit, under this discouragement". As her situation deteriorated she read more and more from her book until it seemed almost as if I was reading a montage of the new testament. Yes it was here faith in god that carried here through, praise the lord hallelujah.
How does that make me feel as a person with almost no faith in her religion? Not bad I guess, I probably would have chosen death immediately, or not long there afterwards in her situation. That or I would have succumbed to my wound or the elements, I just cant see myself having her strength. But I appreciate all she went through to make it possible for her posterity to read of her torturous journey, bible verse included.
Poetry of Anne Bradstreet
It does not make me want to read on after an author discredits themselves, and that is what Bradstreet does in the opening poem ‘The Prologue’ in these lines "Men have precedency and still excel, It is but vain unjustly to wage war; Men can do best, and women know it well Preeminence in all and each is yours"(p. 240). Those lines disgust me. Yes wage war amongst the sexes. Claim your rightful place as equals with men. It’s never too early, by all means begin. Maybe women would be making mens wages by now, instead of 76 cents on the dollar. We might have had a woman president, and equal representation in government. Even when she writes about how she got published she derides herself, and her abilities as a writer. I do not appreciate her self deprecation at all. But now I guess I wont feel alone in disliking her writing and subject matter, with the author as my fellow critic. I have no appreciation for her poetry at all, give me almost anything else and Ill read it with more enjoyment. Give me controversy, give me new ideas, romanticism, enlightenment, not this pious domestic flowery drivel.
Her best piece in my opinion was ’A Dialogue between Old England and New; Concerning Their present troubles’. This was my favorite piece because she advocates going to war against Rome "To sack proud Rome and all her vassals rout;", and even starting a new crusade to liberate Israel from Turkey "This done with brandished swords to Turkey go" " and lay her waste" "as thou hast done to Rome" (p. 247). Not that I approve of either, it is just quite amusing to hear what she actually believes to be right. I also liked her rhyme schemes, how she would end a second line with a word that did not rhyme with the last word of the first line, but you could pronounce it in such a way as to make it work. She would even alter words like armada to armado to rhyme with woe. Just like Shakespear.
On The Eve Of The Civil War
In his A House Divided speech, President Lincoln gave us a method of determining where we are going and where we have been: "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it" (1609). On the eve of the Civil War the fate of Americans depended upon politics. Struggles within state and federal governments mirrored those of the abolitionist and the slave holder. Politics became hostile, even violent. Territories on the verge of statehood turned into battlegrounds where the victors could determine whether it was possible to outlaw slavery. There were bills in congress designed to make slavery the individual states’ prerogative, essentially eliminating the possibility of the Constitution ever forbidding it. The Fugitive Slave Law had been enacted. The Supreme Court ruled against Dread Scott, and declared that a black person could never be a citizen of the United States. In light of these facts Lincoln declaimed, "This shows exactly where we are, and partially also, whither we are tending" (1612).
It was a time when our nation could have been lulled to sleep by the convenience of economics. Profit was slavery’s only motive, and in it’s extinction, power, and privilege the only things at stake. The same belief that today feeds our lust to excessively consume, buttressed the pro-slavery framework of ideology, and rhetoric. American slavery was an edifice of institutionalized subservience, although profitable pecuniarily, it degraded us morally.
It took a combination of popular will, literature, and personalities to elevate the cause of the abolishment of slavery to a level capable of preserving the Union. Abraham Lincoln possessed a personality integral to the abolition of slavery. His oratory, his moral integrity, and his election to the presidency in 1860 were the deciding factors in slavery’s "ultimate extinction".
The mind’s of Americans before the Civil War were filled with uncertainty about peace, laws, freedoms, economics, and even their very survival. Would slavery persist? Would the country survive? Many Americans would die in the Civil War. Many more would participate in it by fighting, building weaponry, or as doctors, and nurses. Before the war Americans’ futures were uncertain.
The North and more specifically New England was liberal philosophically. We can see evidence of the Northerners’ enlightenment in Margaret Fuller’s statement about her father. "He was a man largely endowed with that sagacious energy, which the state of New England society, for the last half century, has been so well fitted to develop" (1654). The northerners had ideas such as women’s suffrage, temperance, and ending slavery. They started progressive movements literary, social, and political. Transcendentalism, equal rights and protections for women and minorities, and The Republican Party all arose as appealing ideas within the Northerners’ minds.
The North’s literacy and enlightenment was offset by the South’s ignorance. Not only was it illegal to educate four fifths of the population, many poor whites were illiterate. The ideas of Margaret Fuller were probably as foreign to the average Southerner as the practice of slavery abhorrent to the average Northerner.
Industrialism was a beast fueled by greed with which late 19th century Americans also had to battle. Child labor, mistreatment of workers, and lower wages for women and minorities were all symptoms of a poorly regulated economy, and the impunity with which the capitalists operated. Humanities redemption, though, is found through our ability to care. As long as there are authors who expose injustice with their writing, there will be reform.
The artist must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give. What is a man good for without enthusiasm? And what is enthusiasm but this daring of ruin for its object? There are thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls; we are not the less drawn to them. The moth flies into the flame of the lamp; and Swedenborg must solve the problem that haunts him, though he be crazed or killed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
On Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism holds that pure understanding lies within the individual. No amount of experience in the outside world such as reading, or travel, can deliver a true knowledge of the universe. This understanding is contained inside of us, beneath our sensing mind, beneath our feeling mind, and beneath our thinking mind, it is at the core of our being, a pure consciousness that unites all of the universe. "A man is furnished with this superb case of instruments, the senses, and perceptive and executive faculties, and they betray him every day. He transfers his allegiance from Instinct and God to this adroit little committee" (7).
The Transcendentalists also stressed the importance of the individual, for it is within the individual that the idea is ascertained. I think it was their value of the idea that most propelled the Transcendentalists. The notion that people can separate from the accepted norm, and build their own set of standards, and their own beliefs was radical for their time.
The Transcendentalists embraced many authors from abroad. Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and many German authors became sources for new ideas. Romanticism was one literary movement that emerged in Europe that the Transcendentalists quickly adopted. The Romantics believed that God was manifested in all things natural. Mountains, rivers, and trees were all things divine in which one could catch a glimpse of the creator. The proof of God was our very existence on such a complex and vibrant Earth.
The Transcendentalists incorporated the concept of nature being holy into their belief system. The subject was so important that Emerson wrote a book titled Nature, which became a sort of bible for the transcendentalists. But Transcendentalist writings also expressed many more ideas on a broad variety of subjects. "The insurgents had ideas about politics and economics, and about relations between the sexes, as well as about woodchucks and sunsets" (12).
The Transcendentalists believed firmly in the abolition of slavery. Transcendentalists spoke at many anti-slavery conventions and demonstrations. "No critic, however friendly, claimed that Thoreau had much presence as a public speaker, except during the fury of some of his abolitionist addresses" (1790). After his death Thoreau’s writings would be used by socialists, and Labor Party members to support their causes. And later still Martin Luther King employed tactics of civil disobedience from Thoreau’s work, Resistance To Civil Government.
Thoreau titled the first chapter in his book Walden, Economy. In Economy Thoreau advocates living simply, which also means living cheaply. Thoreau deplored excessive toil. He believed that most possessions were cumbersome, and put forward the concept that large objects such as houses, and farms own people, and not the other way around. Emerson warned us about possessions, and a commercialism that even he never imagined. "As long as our civilization is one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men" (39).
Even though Transcendentalism had dozens of adherents, it was confined largely in Boston and Concord, and only survived as a literary movement for a few decades. "Surely, if it once did contain revolutionary implications for society, by 1850 or thereabouts these were no longer visible" (13). "It must therefore be insisted upon that if Transcendentalism did not remain a disturbing force, the reason is not alone that America adopted it and made it orthodox, but that it consumed shattered and destroyed its adherents" (14).
The influence of the Transcendentalists is evident in the works of many authors of the time and beyond. Walt Whitman embraced such Transcendentalist ideals as independence. "You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them for yourself" (2233). The greatest contribution of the Transcendentalists were their poetic prose. Their works ring just as true today as when they were written, and inspire all readers and writers who seek truth and beauty in their literature.
The moment our discourse rises above the ground line of familiar facts and is inflamed with passion or exalted thought, it clothes itself in images.... Hence, good writing and brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories. This imagery is spontaneous. It is the blending of experience with the present action of the mind. It is proper creation. It is the working of the Original Cause through the instruments he has already made. (42)
Bibliography
(7, 39, 42) Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Ralph Waldo Emerson On Man And God. Mount Vernon New York: Peter Pauper Press, 1961.
(12, 13, 14) Miller, Perry. The Transcendentalists An Anthology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2001
All other citations taken from The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Sixth Edition.
Dickinson, My Life had stood a Loaded Gun
My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - Identified -
And carried Me away -
And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -
And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through -
And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Masters Head -
‘Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s
Deep Pillow - to have shared -
To foe of His - Im deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -
Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without - the power to die -
(2525-2526)
"My Life had stood -a Loaded Gun - In Corners - till a Day" is a fantastic metaphor for the potential contained within the human mind. It is a perfect example of potential kinetic energy, or stored kinetic energy. The words of ideas have the power to move us, literally, and figuratively. They can inspire us to create, and cause us to learn, and reform.
"The Owner passed - Identified - And carried Me away - ". Does Dickinson believe the owner of the products of her creativity is herself, or is it Fate, or a God of her own devising? It seems the "Owner" may be a combination of the latter two.
"And now We roam in Sovereign Woods - And now We hunt the Doe - ". Sovereign being the key word in those lines in which Dickinson’s independence is made apparent. The Woods are the truth and possibilities which exist in our minds, as our ideals of how we could manifest our world. The Doe represents an enigma, the elusiveness of perfection.
"And every time I speak for Him - The Mountains straight reply -, And do I smile, such cordial light Upon the Valley glow - ". These are agreements of sorts. If Nature agrees with our ideas, and our ideas agree with Nature, then they have a truth difficult to refute. A form or quality analogous to nature has an instant, timeless, and aesthetic beauty.
"It is as a Vesuvian face, Had let its pleasure through - ". These lines demonstrate the capriciousness of Nature. But even in light of this capriciousness Life still flourishes. This aspect of Nature makes the richness of Life all the more divine: that it persists through violence against all odds.
"And when at Night - Our good Day done - I guard My Masters Head - ‘Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s, Deep Pillow - to have shared - ". The comfort derived from divine knowledge surpasses all earthly comforts. To see and appreciate Nature’s forms brings us peace.
"To foe of His - I’m deadly foe - None stir the second time - On whom I lay a Yellow Eye - Or an emphatic Thumb - ". The only foes she could truly kill would be the ones within herself. Here she breaks with Transcendental ideas. Ralph Waldo Emerson had resigned himself to non-aggression on all fronts. "What would It avail me, if I could destroy my enemies? There would be as many tomorrow. That which I hate and fear is really in myself, and no knife is long enough to reach it’s heart" (56).
"Though I than He - may longer live, He longer must - than I - " Dickinson’s name may outlive her messages. But it is important that her message persist, and vitally important that Nature persist as well.
"For I have but the power to kill, Without - the power to die - ". Literature never dies.
Bibliography
(56) Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Ralph Waldo Emerson On Man And God. Mount Vernon New York: Peter Pauper Press, 1961.
All other citations taken from The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Sixth Edition.
Last Paper
There is no single text which we have read this term which is all in one the most interesting, challenging, and surprising. But I can assign a work to each of those qualities.
The most interesting work I read this term was Thoreau’s Walden. Yes I know it was not an assigned text, so technically "we" did not read it, but in all honesty I found it the most interesting. Thoreau’s insolence made me giddy. The accusations he leveled all had a certain degree of merit. And his teachings that even he admittedly did not always adhere to were very interesting. And thus the most Interesting piece, for its timeless social commentary, and its record of what once was Concord Massachusetts from 1846 to 1850. In relation to the theme of the class, "Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been" the piece is perfectly appropriate.
The author who surprised me the most was Phillis Wheatley. The amazing circumstances of her life, such as her correspondence with George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin impressed me. Here was a slave girl writing on matters of philosophy and politics almost one hundred years before slavery’s abolition. Her literary presence was accepted by our founding fathers, yet the question of racial equality was not embraced by the nation as a whole until one century later. With Wheatley the surprise for me is that This Is Where We Have Been.
Emily Dickinson was for me the most challenging author we read. At first I did not like her poetry. It frustrated me. I thought it was too vague. I felt her words did not give me enough to understand what she was trying to express. But after we discussed her writing in class my interest was renewed. To want guidance in the interpretation of poetry is my weakness maybe.
It is important to see poetry for what it is. It is a gift, a riddle sometimes, a challenge proffered up by the poet to stir us from our complacency. We do not have all the answers. We could not comprehend them if we did. And maybe that is what some poetry is, an answer we must work to comprehend, and only by unlearning, and removing hidden assumptions do we get closer it’s true meaning.
Continuity of the Creation Myth
The creation story is part of every culture. It is impelled into being by a need, an innate desire of people to explain their origins. Many modern people find the same comfort in science, which has put forth the theories of The Big Bang, Punctuated Equilibrium, and Evolution as its way of explaining how the universe came into being, how it was formed, and how we as humans arrived in it, but many of the explanations are just theories, theories that could one day be proved incorrect, and become the stories that people in the future read to infer as to how people defined themselves in the twenty first century. A people’s creation stories are an excellent place to start when delving into its culture. The stories seem to lay out the foundation of beliefs, a guide to social order, and values that societies tend to closely adhere to indefinitely thereafter (except in the cases where the society is utterly decimated by foreign invaders: i.e. Europe's conquest of the Native Americans).
By comparing and contrasting the creation stories of the Iroquois and the Pima people of the west to that of the abrahamic faiths, one can see that the early Americans worshiped a veritable pantheon of gods, most of witch were largely animistic or based on natural objects. Many of the characters in the Pima creation story could shape shift, taking the form of various birds, or shrink to fit in a walking stick or molded vessel in order to escape an impending flood.
Despite differences between the monotheistic and polytheistic faith systems certain similarities exist in their creation documents: examples of humanities deep desire to know how the world came to be; why and how were humans created; what brought evil into the world to torment humans with pestilence and cruelty. These similarities are indicative of how alike we all are regardless of where we are geographically located or what stage of development our society happens to be in.
Rebbeca Harding Davis, Life In The Iron-Mills
The conditions endured by the inhabitants of Wheeling Virginia are difficult to fathom, especially for the reader in ‘clean’ ‘modern’ 21st century America. The severe language employed to describe the lives of 19th century industrial laborers helps the reader to comprehend the workers plight. Rebecca Harding Davis is more able to describe the workers suffering because she lived in the same city. Even though she was not in the same class and subject to the workers fate, she witnessed their horrid dismal lives. The enormity of the industrial laborers existence was a reality to her. Thus she could do it justice in her writing. Her description of the Wolfe’s dwelling: "It was low, damp,- the earthen floor covered with a green, slimy moss, - a fetid air smothering the breath" (2250). evokes a picture which may have been obtained by her personal inspection of the very dwelling. It is through this vivid imagery that Davis conveys the reality experienced by the class of the industrial laborer.
She writes to expose the stark disparity of the classes. Irish Welsh and other immigrants were the victims of industrialism, permanently trapped in the bottom echelons of the American class structure. "The future of the Welsh puddler passing just now is not so pleasant. To be stowed away, after his grimy work is done, in a hole in the muddy graveyard, and after that, - not air, nor green fields, nor curious roses" (2548).
Davis makes this story especially painful and saddening by exposing another aspect of the workers plight: they are human, possessing feelings intellect and unexplainable passions for creativity. Caught in the vicious machine their bodies become machines, their humanity neglected, squandered. "These men, going by with drunken faces and brains full of unawakened power, do not ask it of Society or God. Their lives ask it; their deaths ask it. There is no reply" (2549). By juxtaposing Wolfe with the upperclass Doctor, Mill owner, journalist, and intellectual, Davis allows them to interact. Intrigued by Wolfe’s korl sculpture the aristocrats become confounded with the realization of the workers ability to create, to be more than just a machine. Will there ever be enough money to resolve this timeless moral dilemma when the mind is aligned to the same purpose?
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl
This narrative especially impresses upon the reader the concept of universal humanity. Harriet Jacobs very effectively conveys her feelings of indignity caused by the ludicrous notions of ownership and power. She explores slavery in a human way, and in a philosophical sense, delivering very important insight. Her accounts of the human suffering resulting from the barbaric treatment of slaves are effective, but her appeal to our higher moral senses moved me to go further in exploring the realities of her time that still persist in multiple forms today.
The concepts of property and commerce are so ingrained into our world-view, that it is difficult to imagine life without them. Though, in almost all respects they serve to cheapen anything touched by them. Jacobs gives us the most extreme of instances by discussing her own moral dilemma "The more my mind has become enlightened, the more difficult it was for me to consider myself an article of property; and to pay money to those who had so grievously oppressed me seemed like taking from my suffering the glory of triumph" (1777). Even when her allies attempt to liberate her from the tyranny of her ‘master’, she is immediately opposed to the idea, for it is an insult for any human to be sold and bought, even by those with good intentions. It is only after much contemplation and persuasion that she agrees to the transaction, realizing it is the only way to attain freedom and an end to her perpetual persecution. Still, it is not without reservation and incredulity, "A human being sold in the free city of New York" (1777)! Her following incisive statement demonstrates here acute knowledge our nation’s hollow morality, "The bill of sale is on record, and future generations will learn from it that women were articles of traffic in New York, late in the nineteenth century of the Christian religion. It may hereafter prove a useful document to antiquaries, who are seeking to measure the progress of civilization in the United States" (1777). Her vision is invaluable. Her narrative should be universally read, to discover the untold and maybe irreversible damage we have wrought upon ourselves.
Using Both "Young Goodman Brown" by Hawthorn and Irving’s "Rip Van Winkle," look at the use of setting, characters, and/or allegory to advance the themes of the writers. What are those themes?
Young Goodman Brown is set in Salem Massachusetts in the mid to late 17th century. It was during this time that the Salem Witch Trials occurred (in 1692). Hawthorn was born in Salem in 1804, and was rased in a Puritan Family. During that period there was a very strong interest in the Salem Witch Trials. There was also an emerging debate over the correctness of puritan doctrine and its effects on people and society. People were starting to question wether it was a good thing to believe in original sin, and the natural depravity of humans from birth . Hawthorn used the character Goodman Brown to represent the confusion and doubt Puritan ideology instills in people, and how spiritual fulfillment and societal harmony are incompatible with the Puritan ideology. The conversion ceremony in the forest is representative of a rebellion against the rigidity of village life in Salem, and a search for a more genuine spiritual experience that allows tolerance, even of sinners, which is made evident in this passage, "It was strange to see, that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints." (1270). It also reveals a duality in the supposedly pious lives of the town members such as Goody Cloyse, deacon Gookin, and the minister. Hawthorn is even somewhat satirical, drawing parallels between the Puritan idea of sin as the natural condition of humankind, and the ‘religion of the underworld’. "Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race!" (1271).
The tragedy of Goodman Brown was that he neither took to the duality of a Christian life accepting of sin, nor could he be a devout Puritan. Totally distrustful of people and disenchanted with his own religion he lived out the rest of his life, wary and unhappy. "When the minister spoke from the pulpit, with power and fervid eloquence, and with his hand on the open bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and of triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading, lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, awakening suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away." (1272). Goodman Brown is representative of many people of the period who were caught in the catch 22 of the beliefs instilled upon them from a very young age. Hawthorn’s message is no less pertinent today. Some of the most important events of our time have at their core the same paradoxical theme, the pious’ condemnation of evil and of evildoers (no bush did not make that word up), while being no less guilty themselves.
Allegory;1 : the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence;
Washington Irving’s ‘Rip Van Winkle’ is an especially allegorical tale. Rip is a sort of archetype of the proverbial slacker. The henpecked husband who despite or in spite of the incessant nagging of his wife manages to get away with sloth and indolence regularly, and accomplishes just about nothing in his life. Rip’s only noteworthy accomplishment was getting very drunk, sleeping for twenty years straight, and telling about it afterward. But this story is about much more than a chronic underachiever, and his mostly uneventful life. The story is set in a very unique span of time, from pre-declaration of independence, to post-revolutionary war America. During this time the land called America went from being a continent mostly populated by native people living traditional lives, with a small population of European colonists, disparate and isolated, to a sovereign nation aggressively defending its freedom and acquiring territory with little regard for those who may have been there first. A new nation was born, with its own unique brand of patriotism and culture. The story of "Rip Van Winkle" addresses these changes, and what existed before in the Kaatskill mountains "They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country." (981), in a little village of great antiquity founded by Dutch colonists. "Here they used to sit in the shade, of a long summer’s day, talk listlessly over village gossip, or tell endless sleepy stories about nothing." (983). The romantic language with which Irving describes these times, leads me to believe that he may have been content living in a village much like the one he depicts. I must admit that I am envious of the seeming simplicity of these character’s lives.
The plot of the story proceeds with Rip being routed by his wife away from his junto. Eventually in order to avoid work Rip flees to the mountains to hunt. "Poor Rip was at last reduced to despair; and his only alternative to escape from the labor of the farm and the clamor of his wife, was to take his gun in hand, and stroll away into the woods." (984). It is there that he meets the ghost of Henry Hudson, and helps him carry his keg of gin to Hudson’s crew where they play nine pins, and imbibe a magical liquor. The gin induces a twenty year sleep, and it is with this device that Irving seats the old colonial life beside the comparatively fast paced and politicized present. Rip makes his way back to the village and notices that "The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquility." (988).
And that’s about it, many more conclusions may be drawn about the advantages and disadvantages of modernity and ‘progress’, but they are purely subjective, and moot at this point.
On The Narrative of the Life of Gustavus Vassa
Gustavus Vassa’s work succeeded in further edifying me about the abhorrent institution of slavery. Up until now my education in the subject has been largely from a historical perspective, which fails to lend even a fraction of the humanity this story conveys. I wish I could meet the author. I imagine him in his later years in England in a study sitting in an over stuffed chair reading a thick leather bound book, late afternoon sunlight streaming in through a tall window illuminating suspended dust motes. I wish I could be transported back in time to knock at the partially cracked door of that study to hear his low ragged voice, to query his deepest thoughts on the human condition.
I could use this opportunity to extol Vassa’s virtuous character, or his perseverance in the face of adversity. I could stand on my soap box and expound upon the myriad deplorable behaviors of the ‘white race’ during that time, before and to this day. But we already know all of this. Instead I want to do my best to explain how his writing made me feel.
The two examples I will use occur in the later portion of the work because it was there that I felt the most suspense, and sympathy for Vassa in his predestinarian quest for freedom. I put myself in his captain’s place upon learning of the altercation in Doctor Perkin’s yard, and seeing Vassa cut and mangled and close to death in his jail cell that "he could not forbear weeping" (p. 778). I felt depressed and frustrated reading this and the following passage where the captain tried but failed to find redress for such a heinous transgression. As I likened it to our present day struggle for justice and equality beyond its nominal form. Lastly I want to celebrate and fly through the streets of Montserrat with Vassa to the Register’s Office to get the critical binding document, his manumission. "My imagination was all rapture" " My feet scarcely touched the ground, for they were winged with joy" (p. 780). I was overjoyed as well reading this, my elation incomparable though with what he must have felt from the novelty of freedom.
Full bus
sixty-three of us
young and vital
quite, minds primed
our heads lurch
together in acceleration
shoulders sway synchronized
we are capable
with vast knowledge
our potential infinite
holding the future
tightly packed progeny
ride the gauntlet
LCC Student
Discuss the portrayals of religious topics in two of the works we’ve read this term; Bradstreet (1612-1672) and Wheately (1753-1784)
One hundred forty one years separates the birth of these two literary geniuses. Bradstreet was one of the first European inhabitants of America. She was a Protestant, thus she believed in a somewhat wrathful god. In her mind forgiveness and entry into heaven were rarely granted even to the pious. In the following excerpt Bradstreet speaks of a wise glorious god, and a powerful beautiful god, but nowhere is the mercy and forgiveness that would later be attributed to the almighty. There is mention of his goodness, but not his kindness, and not his love.
"I wist not what to wish, yet sure thought I, If so much excellence abide below, How excellent is he that dwells on high, Whose power and beauty by His works we know? Sure he is goodness, wisdom, glory, light, That hath this under world so richly dight; Mor heaven than earth was here, no winter and no night" (253).
Phillis Wheately was born in Africa, enslaved and transported to America. Lucky for her she was purchased by ‘enlightened’ Christians who believed slavery was incompatible with Christian life, they treated her much less like a slave than a pupil, I get the feeling she was something like a project or an experiment to the Wheatley’s. We explore Wheatley’s view of her god in her letter to Arbour Tanner.
"In his crucifixion may be seen marvelous displays of Grace and Love, Sufficient to draw and invite us to the rich and endless treasures of his mercy, let us rejoice an adore the wonders of God’s infinite Love in bringing us from a land Semblant of darkness itself, and where the divine light of revelation (being obscured) is as darkness" (821).
Wheatley’s god is one with infinite love and endless treasures of mercy. A god that would allow one to feel a little more at ease with imperfection, and hopeful of redemption.
Furthermore it seems Wheatley believes heaven is a given destination for those that live with grace. In the same letter she states "Till we meet in the regions of consummate blessedness, let us endeavor by the assistance of divine grace, to live the life, and we shall die the death of the Righteous." (821). Whereas in Bradstreet’s view it is more difficult to follow the path of the righteous, and gain access to heaven. In this passage she casts doubt on all of humanity, and maybe even herself included. "But some new troubles I have had since the world has been filled with blasphemy and sectaries, and some who have been accounted sincere Christians have been carried away with them, that sometimes I have said, "Is there faith upon the earth?" and I have not known what to think; but then I have remembered the works of Christ that so it must be, and if it were possible, the very elect should be deceived." This statement is very telling, and to me discouraging. I cant imagine ever feeling good about myself if her faith was mine. It is sad to me so many lived under the shadow of this mentality, with unconscious sin lurking in every thought and deed. Their humanity crushed under the specter of a wrathful unforgiving god.
Although it is my belief that if given the choice, people would adopt Wheatley’s god much more readily than Bradstreet’s more strict one. I do appreciate very much Bradstreet’s rationalization or argument for the existence of god. "That there is a God my reason would soon tell me by the wondrous works that I see, the vast frame of the heaven and the earth, the order of all things, night and day, summer and winter, spring and autumn, the daily providing for this great household upon the earth, the preserving and directing of all to its proper end. The consideration of these things would with amazement certainly resolve me that there is an Eternal Being." (247). I am in agreement with that statement. It is a beautiful proof of the existence of at least some kind of logical intent within the universe. Giving us a divine model to hold up and compare ourselves to in times of doubt.
On Moby Dick
{Out of his failures with Mardi and the slave labor of the next two books, Melville had built a literary theory in which a writer writes simultaneously for two audiences, one composed of the mob, the other of "eagle-eyed" readers who perceive the true meaning of those passages that the author has "directly calculated to deceive-egregiously deceive-the superficial skimmer of pages."} (2289).
My question then becomes, which are we? With our severely abridged version of "the best known title in American literature." one thing is certain, I will acquire and read this book in its entirety. And along with Thoreau, Melville will become a part of my repertoire of thoroughly read authors. A day may even come when I am secure enough in my knowledge and appreciation of his work to call myself a Melvillean. Until then I will read, and read, and read. Aye were it not for time, I would step into a region immune to perturbation, with pen, pad, Melville, and a dictionary, to learn of the past and the immutable human condition.
Captain Ahab is the central figure in Moby Dick. I say figure because if the central character were what was in question I would have to assign that role to Ishmael, the narrator. Ahab is a dynamic character subject to fits of rage, and spells of manic diatribe. Ishmael knows him first as a mysterious captain who never comes on deck, but administers from his cabin via the first mates. Ahab is first seen through these words "Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter deck." (2311). In the paragraph that follows Ahab is described in almost mythic or supernatural terms. "He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness." (2311). Unlocking the mystery of Ahabs character I think is only possible with the text fully read. Thus I will not venture it now, but will end with this insightful passage.
"To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there is naught beyond. But’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing in it..That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him." (2315)
Escorting Bob
I noticed Bob on the bus, he sat in the front with his cane, when his cell phone rang he pulled it out and felt its face to turn it on. He got off at the same stop as me. We stood on the curb of an extremely busy street. When the fast moving cars passing in front of us subsided he started across the street. Holy shit the light had not changed the crosswalk sign said DO NOT WALK. He is in the middle of this four lane road and a car is coming, this man is in the middle of the street with his big white stick waving it around in front of him, this man is blind. The car is not stopping, the car does not stop, The man stops, Bob stops. He can hear the car he can hear its tires on the road, he can hear its 45mph whoosh as it passes, Bob stopped. I breathe, I was not breathing. I ran across the street and spoke to him, I said, "Sir, can I help you get to wherever it is that you are going?" He reached out to touch me, grabbed my left arm then walked around to my right side, and held my elbow. We walked. Us, me escorting this man with his arm in mine. I smiled, and thought this is it I love this. After I walked him to his door we introduced ourselves, and had a short conversation about our professions. He is a social worker with the lane independent living alliance. I said goodby and hoped that I would see him again. On my way to McLennan Sound Monitoring I had an overwhelming feeling of joy it almost started me crying. I wished that I could help like that every day I wished I could help more. It was a profound moment of connection. I felt a part of something larger than myself, I was useful to someone. I wanted to be his eyes and describe the color, the shapes, the contours, paint it all with words for him, words inspiring imagery. Of course only if he would have desired it.
Applied Theology
The account of Mary Rowlandson is one of the most incredible examples of survival and human willpower I have ever read or heard of otherwise. Just this evening I was listening to a story on NPR that discussed how people often react much differently to extreme situations than they think they would given foreknowledge of the situation. Being captured by Indians was obviously something Rowlandson had thought at length about "I had often before said that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive", and up until the point when she was made to choose between death and capture she had thought she would choose death. What was it that made her choose life, her children, the hope of some day being reunited with her husband? She must have been young, and had to have been strong and vital to endure such constant and prolonged hardship. But even with all these things to live for I think it was something else that carried her through the constant peril of starvation and toil she endured. I believe that it was her bible and the strength she found in its passages that stood in the way between the loss of all hope and her subsequent demise "But the lord upheld my spirit, under this discouragement". As her situation deteriorated she read more and more from her book until it seemed almost as if I was reading a montage of the new testament. Yes it was here faith in god that carried here through, praise the lord hallelujah.
How does that make me feel as a person with almost no faith in her religion? Not bad I guess, I probably would have chosen death immediately, or not long there afterwards in her situation. That or I would have succumbed to my wound or the elements, I just cant see myself having her strength. But I appreciate all she went through to make it possible for her posterity to read of her torturous journey, bible verse included.
Poetry of Anne Bradstreet
It does not make me want to read on after an author discredits themselves, and that is what Bradstreet does in the opening poem ‘The Prologue’ in these lines "Men have precedency and still excel, It is but vain unjustly to wage war; Men can do best, and women know it well Preeminence in all and each is yours"(p. 240). Those lines disgust me. Yes wage war amongst the sexes. Claim your rightful place as equals with men. It’s never too early, by all means begin. Maybe women would be making mens wages by now, instead of 76 cents on the dollar. We might have had a woman president, and equal representation in government. Even when she writes about how she got published she derides herself, and her abilities as a writer. I do not appreciate her self deprecation at all. But now I guess I wont feel alone in disliking her writing and subject matter, with the author as my fellow critic. I have no appreciation for her poetry at all, give me almost anything else and Ill read it with more enjoyment. Give me controversy, give me new ideas, romanticism, enlightenment, not this pious domestic flowery drivel.
Her best piece in my opinion was ’A Dialogue between Old England and New; Concerning Their present troubles’. This was my favorite piece because she advocates going to war against Rome "To sack proud Rome and all her vassals rout;", and even starting a new crusade to liberate Israel from Turkey "This done with brandished swords to Turkey go" " and lay her waste" "as thou hast done to Rome" (p. 247). Not that I approve of either, it is just quite amusing to hear what she actually believes to be right. I also liked her rhyme schemes, how she would end a second line with a word that did not rhyme with the last word of the first line, but you could pronounce it in such a way as to make it work. She would even alter words like armada to armado to rhyme with woe. Just like Shakespear.
On The Eve Of The Civil War
In his A House Divided speech, President Lincoln gave us a method of determining where we are going and where we have been: "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it" (1609). On the eve of the Civil War the fate of Americans depended upon politics. Struggles within state and federal governments mirrored those of the abolitionist and the slave holder. Politics became hostile, even violent. Territories on the verge of statehood turned into battlegrounds where the victors could determine whether it was possible to outlaw slavery. There were bills in congress designed to make slavery the individual states’ prerogative, essentially eliminating the possibility of the Constitution ever forbidding it. The Fugitive Slave Law had been enacted. The Supreme Court ruled against Dread Scott, and declared that a black person could never be a citizen of the United States. In light of these facts Lincoln declaimed, "This shows exactly where we are, and partially also, whither we are tending" (1612).
It was a time when our nation could have been lulled to sleep by the convenience of economics. Profit was slavery’s only motive, and in it’s extinction, power, and privilege the only things at stake. The same belief that today feeds our lust to excessively consume, buttressed the pro-slavery framework of ideology, and rhetoric. American slavery was an edifice of institutionalized subservience, although profitable pecuniarily, it degraded us morally.
It took a combination of popular will, literature, and personalities to elevate the cause of the abolishment of slavery to a level capable of preserving the Union. Abraham Lincoln possessed a personality integral to the abolition of slavery. His oratory, his moral integrity, and his election to the presidency in 1860 were the deciding factors in slavery’s "ultimate extinction".
The mind’s of Americans before the Civil War were filled with uncertainty about peace, laws, freedoms, economics, and even their very survival. Would slavery persist? Would the country survive? Many Americans would die in the Civil War. Many more would participate in it by fighting, building weaponry, or as doctors, and nurses. Before the war Americans’ futures were uncertain.
The North and more specifically New England was liberal philosophically. We can see evidence of the Northerners’ enlightenment in Margaret Fuller’s statement about her father. "He was a man largely endowed with that sagacious energy, which the state of New England society, for the last half century, has been so well fitted to develop" (1654). The northerners had ideas such as women’s suffrage, temperance, and ending slavery. They started progressive movements literary, social, and political. Transcendentalism, equal rights and protections for women and minorities, and The Republican Party all arose as appealing ideas within the Northerners’ minds.
The North’s literacy and enlightenment was offset by the South’s ignorance. Not only was it illegal to educate four fifths of the population, many poor whites were illiterate. The ideas of Margaret Fuller were probably as foreign to the average Southerner as the practice of slavery abhorrent to the average Northerner.
Industrialism was a beast fueled by greed with which late 19th century Americans also had to battle. Child labor, mistreatment of workers, and lower wages for women and minorities were all symptoms of a poorly regulated economy, and the impunity with which the capitalists operated. Humanities redemption, though, is found through our ability to care. As long as there are authors who expose injustice with their writing, there will be reform.
The artist must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give. What is a man good for without enthusiasm? And what is enthusiasm but this daring of ruin for its object? There are thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls; we are not the less drawn to them. The moth flies into the flame of the lamp; and Swedenborg must solve the problem that haunts him, though he be crazed or killed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
On Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism holds that pure understanding lies within the individual. No amount of experience in the outside world such as reading, or travel, can deliver a true knowledge of the universe. This understanding is contained inside of us, beneath our sensing mind, beneath our feeling mind, and beneath our thinking mind, it is at the core of our being, a pure consciousness that unites all of the universe. "A man is furnished with this superb case of instruments, the senses, and perceptive and executive faculties, and they betray him every day. He transfers his allegiance from Instinct and God to this adroit little committee" (7).
The Transcendentalists also stressed the importance of the individual, for it is within the individual that the idea is ascertained. I think it was their value of the idea that most propelled the Transcendentalists. The notion that people can separate from the accepted norm, and build their own set of standards, and their own beliefs was radical for their time.
The Transcendentalists embraced many authors from abroad. Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and many German authors became sources for new ideas. Romanticism was one literary movement that emerged in Europe that the Transcendentalists quickly adopted. The Romantics believed that God was manifested in all things natural. Mountains, rivers, and trees were all things divine in which one could catch a glimpse of the creator. The proof of God was our very existence on such a complex and vibrant Earth.
The Transcendentalists incorporated the concept of nature being holy into their belief system. The subject was so important that Emerson wrote a book titled Nature, which became a sort of bible for the transcendentalists. But Transcendentalist writings also expressed many more ideas on a broad variety of subjects. "The insurgents had ideas about politics and economics, and about relations between the sexes, as well as about woodchucks and sunsets" (12).
The Transcendentalists believed firmly in the abolition of slavery. Transcendentalists spoke at many anti-slavery conventions and demonstrations. "No critic, however friendly, claimed that Thoreau had much presence as a public speaker, except during the fury of some of his abolitionist addresses" (1790). After his death Thoreau’s writings would be used by socialists, and Labor Party members to support their causes. And later still Martin Luther King employed tactics of civil disobedience from Thoreau’s work, Resistance To Civil Government.
Thoreau titled the first chapter in his book Walden, Economy. In Economy Thoreau advocates living simply, which also means living cheaply. Thoreau deplored excessive toil. He believed that most possessions were cumbersome, and put forward the concept that large objects such as houses, and farms own people, and not the other way around. Emerson warned us about possessions, and a commercialism that even he never imagined. "As long as our civilization is one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men" (39).
Even though Transcendentalism had dozens of adherents, it was confined largely in Boston and Concord, and only survived as a literary movement for a few decades. "Surely, if it once did contain revolutionary implications for society, by 1850 or thereabouts these were no longer visible" (13). "It must therefore be insisted upon that if Transcendentalism did not remain a disturbing force, the reason is not alone that America adopted it and made it orthodox, but that it consumed shattered and destroyed its adherents" (14).
The influence of the Transcendentalists is evident in the works of many authors of the time and beyond. Walt Whitman embraced such Transcendentalist ideals as independence. "You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them for yourself" (2233). The greatest contribution of the Transcendentalists were their poetic prose. Their works ring just as true today as when they were written, and inspire all readers and writers who seek truth and beauty in their literature.
The moment our discourse rises above the ground line of familiar facts and is inflamed with passion or exalted thought, it clothes itself in images.... Hence, good writing and brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories. This imagery is spontaneous. It is the blending of experience with the present action of the mind. It is proper creation. It is the working of the Original Cause through the instruments he has already made. (42)
Bibliography
(7, 39, 42) Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Ralph Waldo Emerson On Man And God. Mount Vernon New York: Peter Pauper Press, 1961.
(12, 13, 14) Miller, Perry. The Transcendentalists An Anthology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2001
All other citations taken from The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Sixth Edition.
Dickinson, My Life had stood a Loaded Gun
My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - Identified -
And carried Me away -
And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -
And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through -
And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Masters Head -
‘Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s
Deep Pillow - to have shared -
To foe of His - Im deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -
Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without - the power to die -
(2525-2526)
"My Life had stood -a Loaded Gun - In Corners - till a Day" is a fantastic metaphor for the potential contained within the human mind. It is a perfect example of potential kinetic energy, or stored kinetic energy. The words of ideas have the power to move us, literally, and figuratively. They can inspire us to create, and cause us to learn, and reform.
"The Owner passed - Identified - And carried Me away - ". Does Dickinson believe the owner of the products of her creativity is herself, or is it Fate, or a God of her own devising? It seems the "Owner" may be a combination of the latter two.
"And now We roam in Sovereign Woods - And now We hunt the Doe - ". Sovereign being the key word in those lines in which Dickinson’s independence is made apparent. The Woods are the truth and possibilities which exist in our minds, as our ideals of how we could manifest our world. The Doe represents an enigma, the elusiveness of perfection.
"And every time I speak for Him - The Mountains straight reply -, And do I smile, such cordial light Upon the Valley glow - ". These are agreements of sorts. If Nature agrees with our ideas, and our ideas agree with Nature, then they have a truth difficult to refute. A form or quality analogous to nature has an instant, timeless, and aesthetic beauty.
"It is as a Vesuvian face, Had let its pleasure through - ". These lines demonstrate the capriciousness of Nature. But even in light of this capriciousness Life still flourishes. This aspect of Nature makes the richness of Life all the more divine: that it persists through violence against all odds.
"And when at Night - Our good Day done - I guard My Masters Head - ‘Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s, Deep Pillow - to have shared - ". The comfort derived from divine knowledge surpasses all earthly comforts. To see and appreciate Nature’s forms brings us peace.
"To foe of His - I’m deadly foe - None stir the second time - On whom I lay a Yellow Eye - Or an emphatic Thumb - ". The only foes she could truly kill would be the ones within herself. Here she breaks with Transcendental ideas. Ralph Waldo Emerson had resigned himself to non-aggression on all fronts. "What would It avail me, if I could destroy my enemies? There would be as many tomorrow. That which I hate and fear is really in myself, and no knife is long enough to reach it’s heart" (56).
"Though I than He - may longer live, He longer must - than I - " Dickinson’s name may outlive her messages. But it is important that her message persist, and vitally important that Nature persist as well.
"For I have but the power to kill, Without - the power to die - ". Literature never dies.
Bibliography
(56) Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Ralph Waldo Emerson On Man And God. Mount Vernon New York: Peter Pauper Press, 1961.
All other citations taken from The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Sixth Edition.
Last Paper
There is no single text which we have read this term which is all in one the most interesting, challenging, and surprising. But I can assign a work to each of those qualities.
The most interesting work I read this term was Thoreau’s Walden. Yes I know it was not an assigned text, so technically "we" did not read it, but in all honesty I found it the most interesting. Thoreau’s insolence made me giddy. The accusations he leveled all had a certain degree of merit. And his teachings that even he admittedly did not always adhere to were very interesting. And thus the most Interesting piece, for its timeless social commentary, and its record of what once was Concord Massachusetts from 1846 to 1850. In relation to the theme of the class, "Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been" the piece is perfectly appropriate.
The author who surprised me the most was Phillis Wheatley. The amazing circumstances of her life, such as her correspondence with George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin impressed me. Here was a slave girl writing on matters of philosophy and politics almost one hundred years before slavery’s abolition. Her literary presence was accepted by our founding fathers, yet the question of racial equality was not embraced by the nation as a whole until one century later. With Wheatley the surprise for me is that This Is Where We Have Been.
Emily Dickinson was for me the most challenging author we read. At first I did not like her poetry. It frustrated me. I thought it was too vague. I felt her words did not give me enough to understand what she was trying to express. But after we discussed her writing in class my interest was renewed. To want guidance in the interpretation of poetry is my weakness maybe.
It is important to see poetry for what it is. It is a gift, a riddle sometimes, a challenge proffered up by the poet to stir us from our complacency. We do not have all the answers. We could not comprehend them if we did. And maybe that is what some poetry is, an answer we must work to comprehend, and only by unlearning, and removing hidden assumptions do we get closer it’s true meaning.
posted by IGUS at 12:42 AM
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