4/16 Proposal

For my third paper, I will be talking of the relationship between Nathaniel Hawthorne's book The House of The Seven Gables and the poem "A Dialogue of Self and Soul" by William Butler Yeats. In the paper I will be describing the social form the burden of history through Hawthorne's use of the Gothic framework and Yeats' utilization of internal speculation about his life. Yeats and Hawthorne both speak of the darkness in one's soul and how the past can come back to haunt the present, as well as how reminiscing can cause pain or pleasure.
Thesis statement: The burden that history places upon one can cause those it affected to relive the mistakes, achievements, pains, and pleasures of the past.

Shedding Some Light On Dark Secrets

This chapter speaks to me as being the most Romantic of all the chapters because of the wizardry and supernatural density presented. This chapter shows to me that The House of Seven Gables belong in the Gothic genre. The death of a young innocent girl is another signifier of the unnatural happening in this novel. This chapter encompasses the book as a whole into one chapter by showing the realism laced with the absurd and supernatural by Hawthorne himself.
By presenting us with a story by Holgrave, Hawthorne is highlighting the fact that through storytelling, one can "hypnotize" an audience such as Maule did to Alice Pyncheon. By being the storyteller, you can almost control how your audience is feeling (tense) or what emotions they will feel (anger,sadness,fear). This is a allegory to how Hawthorne is controlling how we are perceiving the story as it is written. Should we take everything literally, or look for signifiers of the supernatural entanglement.
Speaking of art forms, I thought of how Alice looked at Maule as an artistic individual and became infatuated with him. Infatuation to the point of trusting him to hypnotize her, which, unfortunately, led to her untimely death.
Hawthorne presents storytelling and writing as an art form that uses form and content to tell a story or explain a human condition.

A Turn For The Better?

In the beginning of chapter seven "The Guest", we see a turn in Hawthorne's writing. Let it be clear that The House of The Seven Gables is still part of the Gothic literature genre, but it is presented differently here. We open to a scene of Hepzibah and Phoebe preparing to cook a breakfast meal. Although they are still inside the house, the atmosphere has seemed to change. In class we have talked about how Phoebe is the innocent one who helps the family climb out of the dark past that has been haunting them, figuratively and literally.
Not only has the atmosphere changed in the house, but Hawthorne's writing as well. His details and writing have more of a cheerful mood behind the ink on the page. Although he continues to use Gothic "vocabulary" such as ghosts, castle, shadowy hands, and pale cheeks, the mood itself has change to a more positive outlook on life and their surroundings. Since Phoebe's arrival things have been looking up for the family, especially Hepzibah. This scene sort of gives off the "Sunday morning family breakfast" feeling.
Personally, I think this shift of Hawthorne's writing is meant to show that beauty can be found in this genre of literature. Although he continues to still write the same and use the same words, he puts beauty behind them and shows that he is talented enough to portray life and beauty through immortal and deathly adjectives and nouns. It is almost impossible to find beauty such as the Gothic beauty portrayed and presented in this genre. The writing is so stylized and structured so that a mortal can understand how beauty can die as well.

Signifiers of Gothic Literature

Whenever I think of Gothic literature, a few authors' names pop into my head such as Samuel Coleridge, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. They gave us such works as Rime of The Ancient Mariner, The House of Seven Gables, Fall of The House of Usher, Frankenstein, and Prometheus Unbound. These works and the genre of Gothic literature all have signifiers, or characteristics, that are part of the genre itself. The list is broad and very long, but a few are: ancient castles, subterranean dungeons, secret passageways, flickering lamps, screams, moans, bloody hands, ghosts, graveyards, the supernatural, and even animals reacting to a supernatural event about to happen (i.e. dogs barking, horses neighing). We can even go as far to say the novel could take place in a "fallen world".
In The House of the Seven Gables, immediately upon reading the first chapter we are presented with witchcraft, curses on Colonel Pyncheon, and an excerpt in which Hawthorne personifies death as a person:

"Thus early had one guest-the only guest who is certain, at one time
or another. to find his way into every human dwelling-thus early
had Death stept across the threshold of the House of Seven Gables."
(pg. 16)

Unexplained events that could be causes of the supernatural occur also such as Maule's Well becoming disease stricken after his death and even "cursed ground" upon which Colonel Pyncheon decides to tear down Matthew Maule's old house and build The House on top of it. Maule curses the Colonel before being hung and uttering a prophecy that will eventually com true later in the story, another trait of a Gothic novel. Sleepless nights and things that go bump in the night occur also.
The Gothic genre of literature and the Romantic genre fuse together at times and present us with a world that is full of the unexplained and supernatural as well as plots that just dont make sense in which we will question our narrator's sanity and the words they speak. As readers we must analyze the book we are reading and break it down in order to fully understand it.

The Big River Isnt The Only Thing That Is Two Hearted

When analyzing The Big Two Hearted River by Hemingway, it is easy to become lost in the search and explanation of metaphors throughout. But the larger idea that presents itself is this theme of nature and the effects it has on man. In war it is known that it is a "man versus man" struggle, in nature though, it is a "man versus nature struggle". Our narrator, Nick, uses nature as his recovering technique, and it is also a metaphor for his recovery from the horrors he has seen when at war. Nature is presented peacefully through fishing, clean air, morning coffee and this idea of oneness between man and earth. When camping or hunting or simply surviving in nature, it is seen as a noble "sport" where the fight is just as important as the win. In war, there is only sadness, pain, hurt, and future trauma to come.
The Iceberg Theory can be applied to the story in its entirety by which Hemingway used the technique of omission where background details are not addressed, but rather the foreground is the main subject material. Time flows forward in this story and Nick always looks ahead as not only a positive thinking technique, but also a recovery technique to not dwell on the horrors he experienced at war. When looking at the story in a detailed manner, the section where Nick walks through the burned down town, we are not presented with reason for the fire, only the black grasshoppers. This can be seen as a metaphor that those who have been through hell and back show mental and a physical changes in their performance through life and appearance. Mental and physical activities that Nick performs are so mundane that he doesn't allow himself to think of anything else.
This story was one of the most simple and bare stories we have read in the class to date, yet, it has one of the most unexplained backgrounds we have seen. Does the simple writing style convey deeper meaning than a writing style of detail and explanation? I hope we can discuss this idea in class.

The Immeasurable Weight of Decisions

The wind is rocking the boat and mist is hitting your face as you come to a decision that will inevitably change the entire course of your life. Possible death awaits you across the ocean fighting a war that isn't yours and you do not agree with. While peace and a new life awaits you across the shore of the river to Canada. If faced with this decision, I would choose to go to war for the benefit of my country and the honor of my family. No one ever wants to shame their family by becoming a coward and not doing your duty as an American citizen. My family has had a long history of being in the military and that is something that i hold in high regard.
My cousin is a helicopter pilot for the marines and he has been deployed twice now over in the Middle East. I can see the respect that my family has for him and the decision that he made to enlist and possibly go career. they speak highly of him and see him as a hero. I would want the same thing for not only myself, but the courage I want my family to have. No matter the risk or unpleasant consequences, never letting my family down has, and always will be, my number one priority. I would deal with the consequential nightmares and horrors I would see by telling myself that I made my family proud, and that is more than enough reason for me.

Pulling The Curtain In Shakespeare's Hamlet

It isn't uncommon that one feels as if he/she is the center of attention for all to see how their life plays out. In fact, I think it is safe to say that we have all felt that our own life is something out of a movie at times. Other times, we feel that we are nothing but an actor going along with a script that we have never seen before. Do we have free will, or is Shakespeare trying to convince us that we are not the masters of our own destiny? The scene in which Polonius creates this grand plan of Hamlet and Ophelia meeting, we are given a taste of the idea that there is an architect behind our path in life.

In the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2008 production of Hamlet, we are shown how delicately and ironically Polonius sets up the meeting between Ophelia and Hamlet. He runs through her posture and how she shall walk when she sees him, almost as if they are practicing for a play or performance. He is reading from a letter that Hamlet had sent her, explaining his feelings for her and her beauty. Polonius looks at this letter inquisitively and studies it almost as a critic would do when he/she sees a performance in a theater. Polonius mocks the letter, showing how even when one is being true to thyself and their lover, others still mock and critique their life, just like a member of an audience viewing a film or show.
When play-wrighting, such as Shakespeare had done all those years ago, one must create a credible presentation of reality to the viewers, or audience. One of the major plots behind Hamlet is Hamlet's mother, step-father, friends, and lover trying to understand him because they see him as going "mad". This is a characteristic of a key character in any play, because we do not know whether or not to trust his point of view. Going along with the idea characters, Hamlet says it himself that he shall don the role of "avenger" for his father's untimely surmise. This idea of him acting out a role is another example of us as humans acting during our lives according to the present situation.
Polonius, Claudius, and Gertrude view the meeting between Ophelia and Hamlet behind one-way glass, symbolizing how actors in a play are supposed to act as though no one is even watching them. This modern depiction of the meeting between the two is a satire on acting as a whole. Wen never know the difference between real life and when someone is planning our next move and how things shall play out. Polonius even speaks to the audience as though we are right there with them when Hamlet returns after yelling at Ophelia. When Hamlet realizes that Ophelia and him were being watched, he comes to the conclusion that something bigger than man controls our fortunes and lives, Destiny decides how our lives shall be played out, as if it were the play-wright itself.

2/6 blogpost

"Parsley" by Rita Dove is a poem written about the persecution of Haitians by "El General", Trujillo. He had Haitians pronounce the word "parsley" or "perejil"; those who could not pronounce it would die. It is no secret that sound is especially important in a poem that speaks of lives and deaths determined by pronunciation. In the first three stanzas, as well as the whole poem, the consonants S and R are emphasized through phonemic relation for the words parrot, spring, palace, appears, parsley, searches, screaming, and swamp. The consonants S and R are key when pronouncing the word parsley, since it is in the middle of the word and is stressed. In line 57, pronunciation and sound is emphasized by switching the r's in spanish to l's in order to emphasize the wrong pronunciation of the Haitian people. There is syntactic relation in lines 26-30 by saying "the one" and "as he", and quickly switches the view from 3rd person to 1st as the General moves throughout his room, indicating that the reader is to be put into his shoes and feel his isolation and grief that his mother has died.

In all, the poem entitled "Parsley" is generalizing the horrors of the Haitian people to a dictator that chooses to execute genocides upon lesser people purely to distract him from the pain he feels. The sounds, syllables, and pronunciation of words is a complex play on words since we see much phonemic relations. The sentence structure is odd to say the least. We find Dove ending stanzas in the middle of the sentence to indicate the erratic thoughts of the general and how one word can send him reeling back to a memory and feelings. For instance in line 41, "...brought up for the bird; they arrive", then continued in the next stanza starting with "dusted with sugar on a bed of lace" in which El General proceeds to tell a new story not connected with the previous in the stanza before, but the emotion he feels correlates the two.

ENG 210 Blogpost 1/30

I chose the poem "The Garden of Love" by William Blake as my subject to study for its aesthetics. The period of life being addressed here in this poem is one that has to do with dealing with change. The change that the narrator is addressing, is one from childhood to adulthood. The "garden of love" or "chapel" that the narrator speaks of is one that he visited a lot when he was a small boy to see the flowers and greens. Now the garden he once enjoyed as a small boy, is overrun with graves, clergy, and a gated chapel with "thou shalt not" written above the door. This poem is written in stanza form made up of three quatrains. The rhyming pattern is ABCB with the last stanza being ABCD with no rhyming pattern to signify the death and decay that has overwhelmed the beauty that once entranced the narrator as a child. The symbolic meaning of the flowers that once grew in the garden is love. But, now, the clergy have built a chapel and filled the garden with graves to signify the displeasure that the narrator feels when organized religion denies men the right to their pleasures and instinctive desires. The "Thou shalt not" written above the door only strengthens this argument. The feel that this writing gives off is one of change going from beauty to sadness and anger. The words in the first stanza have a "beautiful" feeling to them with a nature feel, and with the progression of the poem the words in the second and third stanzas had a feeling of destruction and denial, with the use of words such as "gated", "door", "graves", and "binding". These words give off a very mechanical feeling in which we can no longer see or feel the nature that was once present in that Garden of Love.