July 29, Final Post

I’d have to say the one story that I liked most, perhaps because it was my lead respondent story and I looked deeper into it than some of the others, was “A New England Nun”. I guess the appeal was the ambiguity of its true meaning. On the surface we have this proper woman who pledges her marriage to a man who travels away for 15 years. She becomes accustom to a life of routine and monotony, even finds joy in it. Her human interactions are almost non-existent and when her past lover returns she is annoyed by his very presents. In fact the realization that her married life is now coming to fruition upsets her. The text tells us that, “In that length of time much had happened. Louisa's mother and brother had died, and she was all alone in the world. But greatest happening of all-a subtle happening which both were too simple to understand-Louisa's feet had turned into a path, smooth maybe under a calm, serene sky, but so straight and unswerving that it could only meet a check at her grave, and so narrow that there was no room for any one at her side.” All of her relationships have been severed and she has become numb to human interaction. Her pets metaphor her life well, both cut off from others and content in doing so. This life of basically house chores is safe and comforting. She finds that Joe has fallen in love with a younger woman and breaks their marriage arrangements. This brings her ease saying, “the next morning, on waking, she felt like a queen who, after fearing lest her domain be wrested away from her, sees it firmly insured in her possession.” Such a strange way for a human being to act, but it can be understood. In the theme of change this story fits well, our protagonist goes through a rather dramatic and peculiar life style change. I like how much dissecting this story takes with room for lots of interpretation. Odd characters (i.e. the pets) are added for substantial evidence making. I would recommend this story to a fellow literature student to write about.

July 27, Gilman & Wharton

“The Yellow Wall Paper” was a very strange story. An inanimate object, old yellow wallpaper, becomes the narrator’s crazed obsession. She first hates it and then soon becomes infatuated with it, begins studying it and seeing women in it. This wallpaper, which does cover the walls, could be considered a metaphor for the confinement and domestic imprisonment many women suffered back that time. “But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief. Half the time now I am awfully lazy, and lie down ever so much. John says I musn't lose my strength, and has me take cod liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat.” John is painted as the male chauvinistic captor who plays into the confinement and medication of our narrator’s entrapment. Eventually she kills herself. I felt that she was deemed sick for not being a stereotypical woman and was neglected because of it.

In Wharton’s “Roman Fever” women set of to Rome in search of wealthy husbands. At the time the Great Depression was crippling America’s economy and so they felt their chances of finding rich men in Europe was better. A “gold digger” is a negative connotation, but an older American society also made it very hard for women to be independently successful. They were expected to receive limited education for low-level jobs and merely be housewives. This has become a survival technique, one of very few options to better themselves. “As soon as you could get out of bed your mother rushed you off to Florence and married you. People were rather surprised—they wondered as it being done so quickly; but I thought I knew. I had an idea you did it out of pique—to be able to say you’d got ahead of Delphin and me.” It seems like a catch 22 for men to expect women to rely on men for money then frown at them for using it merely to get ahead.

July 26, Freeman

In Freeman’s “A New England Nun” a woman becomes set in her ways and fears change when her future husband returns home. I think when people are truly scorned by love, friendship or any other human interactions, which evoke emotion, we can become callused. Louisa Ellis lost her brother and mother, all that she had, in a very short amount of time. She also was separated from Joe for 15 years, an ample amount of time to accept loss and move on. With everyone who was close to her dead or gone she fell into a reclusive nun like life. An outsiders perspective may be that of pity, but the text reveals, “Then there were some peculiar features of her happy solitary life which she would probably be obliged to relinquish altogether…Louisa dearly loved to sew a linen scam, not always for use, but for the simple, mild pleasure which she took in it. She would have been loath to confess how more than once she had ripped a seam for the mere delight of sewing it together again. Sitting at her window during long sweet afternoons, drawing her needle gently through the dainty fabric, she was peace itself. But there was small chance of such foolish comfort in the future.” She has found peace in her mundane activities. Most of us equate happiness with human relationships, but this could be a considered norm that everyone does not follow. Perhaps Louisa has lost everyone and has no interest in doing it again. She is perfectly happy by herself and takes little stock in relaying with others. The reader feels sorry for the lone woman, such a foreign character trait is hard to resonate with or understand. But, the reader must trust the text and accept that she is happy this way. Like a nun devoting themselves to God, she has devoted herself to a routine life she has made for herself.

July 23, Chopin

Chopin’s short stories all contain sexual nature in their themes. A theme which at the time was not often written about so directly in literature. In “The Storm” a woman has an affair with an old fling while her husband and child are in town taking cover from a nasty storm. The storm itself metaphors much of the happenings during the passionate encounter. It acts as a sexual awakening which she seems to have long since forgotten. When the husband and child return she greets them warmly, the text saying, “the three seated themselves at table they laughed much and so loud that anyone might have heard them as far away as Laballière's.” It seems the affair rejuvenated her for the better stating, “So the storm passed and every one was happy.” Affairs in stories were uncommon at the time, but unprovoked and unpunished ones were unseen.

In “Desiree’s Baby” an orphan grows up and has a child with a well to do young man. When the baby is born it has dark skin and Desiree is chastised for possibly being part black. The theme of interracial relations is not uncommon in literature at the time (we see this in both Douglass and Jacobs’ narratives) but this story dives deeper into the emotions and shame this brought back then. Desiree runs away into a bayou, while Armand later finds out he is the one who was part black. The text never specifically says this is the first time he finds out about it. The proof seen in his baby may of surfaced the shame he felt of being part black in an upper class, white society. Chopin’s stories were very edgy for her time and were generally denied publication in national magazines and news papers but were important towards the relaxing the tabooness of sex in America.

July 22, Twain & Harte

Both Twain and Harte’s pieces take place in small towns with relatively similar depictions of rural Americans. In “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” Twain pokes fun at these stereotypical people with the use of slang such as, “his under-jaw’d begin to stick out like the fo’castle of a steamboat.” Harte’s “The Luck of Roaring Camp” uses comparable words like, “has n’t mor’n got the color”; “ain’t bigger nor a derringer.”

They both use nicknames for their characters which other characters know them as more readily than their actual names. Another joining aspect is how they’re told. Both seem to be told from a narrator that lives among these people and speaks their dialect. It gives the impression that we are listening to an old yarn from a local, further depicting this slice of American culture. I think these stories were relatable and true to the nature of small town America. Much of it probably still holds true to small towns today which always seem to be stuck in time.

July 21, Davis

In Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills” we see into the life of the early American factory worker, America’s new version of slavery. Wages are low and working conditions are dangerous. The bleak life of these workers consists of pollution, long hours and little accommodations. The poor environment causes major health problems for the workers and their families. “Masses of men, with dull, besotted faces bent to the ground, sharpened here and there by pain or cunning; skin and muscle and flesh begrimed with smoke and ashes; stooping all night over boiling caldrons of metal, laired by day in dens of drunkenness and infamy; breathing from infancy to death an air saturated with fog and grease and soot, vileness for soul and body.” They are the bottom of the American social class, one that is highlighted in the story with defined lines between others. It is amazing to think how far we have come to treat all social classes with care which blurs the lines between.

July 20, Melville

In “Benito Cereno” a ship crew finds another crew on a sea torn vessel. For much of the story Delano and his men, the ones who found the distressed ship, are duped by slaves pretending to still be under their master’s control. The reader is right there with Delano, trying to take in clues and evaluate what the situation is on this strange boat. Many of the clues such as, “Suddenly, one of the black boys, enraged at a word dropped by one of his white companions, seized a knife, and though called to forbear by one of the oakum-pickers, struck the lad over the head, inflicting a gash from which blood flowed.”, pokes holes in both the illusion of control on the ship and the character of the blacks.

While it could be construed that Melville was sympathetic towards the abolition of slavery by his portrayal of the slaves being clever enough to hatch this plan or by showing that they are not bread for subservient living, I think he was pro slavery. It is easy to pick through the text now in retrospect and build a case for an anti slavery message, it is easier to read the story and see the blacks as violent captors and the bad guys of the story. Considering the time this was written, before the civil war, not many people viewed blacks as equals. Even many of those who didn’t believe in slavery still didn’t view blacks as equals. It is then hard to imagine that white America read this story and saw past the brutish portrayal of these black slaves. I think many took this as a warning as to what could happen if the grasp that held blacks in slavery was loosened.