"Teacher" and "Loneliness"/Winesburg, Ohio

These two stories are my favorite so far in Winesburg.

There's something about each of the characters of Enoch Robinson and Kate Swift that is severely repressed; actually, the entire town of Winesburg seems to be repressing things. In the teacher and artist's case, this seems to be self-expression. Kate is a passionate woman whose thoughts only sometimes come to fruition (not unlike in "The Man of Ideas," though her stories are anecdotes, not lectures) and Enoch is a childlike man who has trouble expressing himself outside of his own mind. Though Kate is very mature and Enoch very naive and childlike, both of them have difficulty connecting with other people while expressing their inner passions.

Is something lost when thoughts are translated to words? Enoch loses his imaginary people once he begins to be close to the violinist, who leaves. Kate tries to connect with George Willard, who can't seem to equate her physical wants for him with her mental wants for him. Like a good teacher, she wants him to develop the "genius" he has, but struggles with loneliness just as much as Enoch does.

Enoch's story is interesting too, because he tries for a period of his life to completely subscribe to mundane, "normal" activities; he has a wife and children, has the newspaper delivered, talks politics... but it's still not enough for him, so he relapses back into his imaginary inner world. Some things are precious inside the mind to him. Why can't they be as precious outside?

Naturalism in "Ethan Frome"

I don't think there's a question whether or not Frome is a naturalist novel. Natural symbolism is around every corner, whether it's the snow that traps the townspeople in for months every year, the barren fields on the Frome farm, the constant references to spring and summer when Ethan thinks of Mattie, or even the references to illness when Zeena, physical presence or not, appears.

Even with Mattie's spring metaphors, nature tends to be a negative force in this novel (novella?). However, I don't think that I would go so far as to say that it's malicious. Instead, nature seems to both reflect what goes on in peoples' hearts and minds, even if they don't realize it themselves. For example, when Mattie and Ethan pause by the lake on the way to Mattie's train out of Starkfield, Wharton writes, "Across its frozen surface, from the further bank, a single hill rising against the western sun threw a long conical shadow which gave the lake its name. It was a shy, secret spot, full of the same dumb melancholy that Ethan felt in his heart." 

Ethan's mind is capable of being as melancholy and deep as a lake, and there is a shadow over his life—Zeena's—but he also gives into what 19th century readers might call "base" desires. His lust for Mattie is forbidden but untamed; he allows it to lead him. In some ways this is understandable, as nothing changes much in a small town except the inside of the body (the heart/soul) or sometimes the outside, as Zeena exemplifies.

Is Zeena truly ill? When I first read Frome I thought, No, hypochondriac, pure and simple. But this second reading has complicated that idea. "Then [Zeena] too fell silent." What is silencing about the country around the Frome farm? Is the winter so very taxing on the mind that Zeena finds solace in trying to "heal" her body? "I'm a lot sicker than you think I am," she says. What defines sickness in this novel? Is it a broken body, or is it a broken spirit?

Framed Fromes

The frame narrative that begins and ends Ethan Frome bookends it with tragic irony, with the 'sivilized narrator acting as a brand new perspective to the town of Starkfield. Having read it before in high school and loathed it, I'm trying to read it again now with an open mind.

(But I still, so far, resent its existence.)

I do appreciate the natural points in the intro; the trees bending with the weight of the snow, the oppression of the snow and the winter. I like that the townspeople all know enough about each other to have everyone else's story ripe for the telling, but they're also tactful enough to keep it to themselves. They respect each other's pain and hardship. Instead of man as a part of nature, as in McTeague, men in Starkfield (bare, desolate, emotionless wasteland) are results of nature. They are bowed and tamed by nature's force, hardened on the exterior by many harsh winters. The "smart" ones leave; so why have the other townsfolk (besides Ethan, who has been weighted down with responsibility and lameness) stayed? Why do Mrs. Gale and Harmon Gow stay?

Ethan reminds me of a stubborn mule this time around. Plodding on and on, never complaining, resting when necessary, helping you out when he can, not saying too much. So perhaps there is some subtle natural metaphor going on, here. We haven't delved into Ethan's mind too much yet, but we will. It'll get to be very depressing. There will be pickle dishes. And sleds. And bad decisions. But alas, what's a life for?

Angry Passage Analyses: Huck and Story

"Do I know you?  I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the South, and I've lived in the North; so I know the average all around. The average man's a coward. ...

"You didn't want to come.  The average man don't like trouble and danger. You don't like trouble and danger.  But if only half a man—like Buck Harkness, there—shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're afraid to back down—afraid you'll be found out to be what you are—cowards—and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man's coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is—a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.  But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness.  Now the thing for you to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole.  If any real lynching's going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a man along.  Now leave—and take your half-a-man with you"—tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it when he says this." ...

I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them." (Huck Finn, Chapter XXII)

I love this passage, because Twain's enraged voice shines through so clearly that he almost gives himself an entire chapter for a sermon, which he's careful not to do anywhere else in the novel. After all, essays and sermons are offensive. Novels are pure, frivolous amusement.

The idea of being a "man" comes up several times in this passage, as well as the idea of being half a man. What's half a man? A coward? What does a coward do? He follows the crowd. He's "pitiful," no, "beneath pitifulness." Pitiful, implies Twain, because while it's difficult -- actually it goes against innate human instinct -- to go against mob mentality, it's also the right thing to do, because if you're not thinking independently, you're not thinking at all, and you're just going to do what bigger people (men) tell you. You might not always be intelligent, like Buck Harkness, and if you've got a big mouth, you might get a little ways. Anyway, you don't have to be a scholar to get your head on straight, which is what America ought to do.

There's not many ways to write about this without sounding like a hypocrite. Gotta work on that.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination. (Story of an Hour)

This passage lets the reader have it. But I have good intentions;  I want only the best for you! But does that give somebody the right to dominate will over somebody else? According to Kate Chopin, no, it most certainly does not. What are the implications when somebody "live[s] for herself"? This contrasts with Twain a bit. While you should have independent thought, free from anyone else's will, you're apparently also obligated not to force your new ideas and ways onto others. Uh oh, this is getting difficult. Why did somebody have to say anything? That's okay, one of these people is a woman and the other is a political conspiracy theorist, so we'll just write them off as irksome nuisances.

This blog post got sort of angry. It stops here because the writer began to expostulate society.

Free Write: Starry Night

I have a crappy little copy of "The Starry Night" hanging on the wall of my dorm room because I like to look at it as I fall asleep. I used to like it because I didn't understand it; now I love it because I can think that I misunderstand it a little better. While Post-Impressionists were prone to painting unnatural representations of things while maintaining the thick strokes of paint and blurred images of Impressionism, I think I prefer Post-Impressionism to anything else. It's like looking at a metaphor. Sure, the stars aren't really so big and round, and they don't swirl together in the sky like that. But why not? When you look at a night sky, it could almost feel that way on a hilltop all alone, as if the universe is swirling above you, mindless of the bright little town in the valley.

Impressions and point of view in literature are harder to pin down. While in "Story of an Hour" you watch a woman's thoughts following her husband's death come full circle, only to be knocked over with irony, it's only subtly that you get the feeling of the woman's relief and joy. It comes over her like an illness, binding her to the chair. Or is it a rapture?

What about Huck? As a child reading Huck I only wanted to join him on the raft and be there for some of his adventures. As an adult I'm torn between anxiety for the mental welfare of a young man in a prejudiced world and radical amusement at Twain's dry satire. One of my favorite scenes is the mob scene, where a murderer turns a whole town to his way of thinking, simply by tweaking a few strings. I can't remember if this serves to break the mob apart or simply switch its purpose, but I feel that Twain's satire is most obvious in scenes like that, where Huck is simply apart, an individual caught up in a mob of people who would all like to think they believe the same things.

Both Mrs. Mallard and Huck are repressed characters; Huck because he's an uncivilized wild child, Mrs. Mallard because she's a married woman who must defer to her husband. Was her husband a repressive man, I wonder, or was she more weighted down by the expectations of society? Widows, after all, had a bit more leeway with things, tended to be a bit more respectable by themselves. Like the Widow Douglas.

Wait a minute, isn't a Mallard a male duck? What?

Through Huck's innocence and Louise Mallard's unbound joy, these characters create a lens that the modern reader can read through, picking up information as we go. Society had some issues, some hypocrisies, a lot of prejudice. I can see a way into talking about authority, here, but maybe I need to pull back and keep thinking about perspectives/impressions...

Trina and "McTeague"

"In Search of Local Color" sets two upper-class men in a slum neighborhood so that they might contrast with the people there, revealing them as representatives from a sort of detached paradise. McTeague does the opposite; it sets a lower-class man up as a middle-class dentist, though he is only able to pretend to be sufficient at his profession. In social affairs, McTeague is more of a lumbering giant, liable to break things, make a mess, get confused, and get progressively more aggressive to attain his purposes.

If "Local Color" displays characters as museum pieces, McTeague displays a set of caricatures; the people that make up McTeague's apartment building (plus Trina's family) are very iconic, if not picturesque, characters. You have Marcus, the man who pretends to know more than he does and almost succeeds at it; Maria, the Mexican (American?) cleaning woman who has a dubious claim to prior riches, in the form of gold tableware; the elderly folks upstairs that coexist with each other but only formally meet in Chapter 7; Trina, the doll-like, sex-less young girl, soon to be corrupted; her parents, The Sieppes, Swedish cartoon characters and iffy parents; and finally McTeague, tall, bumbling, filled with a strength he can't control and isn't even aware of. Outside of this cast, there are the people in the outside world, who come in waves throughout the day, beginning with the poorest who get up early, then the middle-class who bustle to work, then the rich who amble to manage things, and a reversal of people going out on the town to try to fulfill something.

I feel as though the characters are both heavily symbolic, and yet hold their own individual weights in the story. For instance, Trina is introduced as an exquisite little doll, with "an adorable little line of freckles" across her nose and "a charming poise, innocent, confiding, almost infantile." She isn't a child, but she can scarcely be called a young woman, as the "woman hasn't awakened" until McTeague uses his strength to kiss and woo her. So what is she? Sexless, label-less, pretty, female ...baby? Is McTeague attracted to her innocence or her loveliness? Is the reason she 'becomes a woman' when McTeague kisses her because she realizes for the first time the idea of physical wanting, and being wanted? Is that what defines a child from an adult? Lots of interesting paths to take here; but so far I'm suspicious.

The Last Word in Impressionism

The only thing I cannot tell from the tone of "In Search of Local Color" is which morality Brander Matthews ascribes to. Is he one of the ones who admires the impression of existence, of raw, natural life that the poverty-stricken seem to emanate? Or is he instead guilty of the voyeuristic feeling of dirty quaintness and charm that Suydam and De Ruyter get from the tenements? What is Matthews' last word?

I was reminded of Dickens while reading this short little story. Dickens was not the first writer to draw attention to the life of the poor, but he did draw much of his fame from his social commentary on that point. "In Search of Local Color" does things similar to the subjects presented in Dickens' novels, in fewer words. You get the feeling of muted awe when a well-to-do narrator or character confronts the rough-and-tumble poor of a large city. There is awe at the constant activity, the number and wildness of the children, at the squalor, at the variety of faces and cultures.

Unlike Dickens, though, there is a bizarre sense of voyeuristic curiosity in the novelist and the recent college graduate, who toss subjects such as Harvard readings, college degrees, and inheritances large enough to live on around as easily as so many pennies. "Say," says the novelist to the grad, "Can you show me to the poor section of the city? I'm in need of inspiration, of local color." Obligingly the two head to the poor quarter -- or should I say half -- of New York City. All I can say for these two is that they evidently have no idea that they are snobbish, classist, and egotistical. The awe and curiosity of De Ruyer is almost childish enough to excuse him as an artist nearly in touch with what's in front of him. Suydam, as the guide, is less forgivable. Why is he such an avid visitor to this section of the city? He obviously has no personal connection in the quarter. The people they intrude upon ("And of course I try never to intrude,") simply look on the two gentlemen quietly and go back to their business.

"Most of them have no sense of home," Suydam says, "Most of them don't know what privacy means." Of course, everyone whose place of abode is occasionally barged in upon by men of better fortune have no right to privacy, or else they could have a sense of home.

Interestingly, Matthews' turns the finger on the reader too, it seems. Aren't we all guilty of feeling pity for those less fortunate? Of course we are. We're taught to. Is that snobbish? Probably. We could be learning in childhood that fortune doesn't define people, but we're not. It's not a good story until the poor young orphan gets a rich benefactor. Why aren't people who are poor allowed to be happy, cultured, independent, free, respected? Why are they treated as the unfortunate animals in a dingy, broken-down zoo?

Points of view in this story come in two dual parts. First, you get the impressions of the life of the poor: the smells of rotting food, the swarms of children, the ugly but cultured features of the Italian women, the increasingly smaller rooms, and the casual occurrence of heinous crimes all paint a realistic picture of how tenement life was/could have been. Then concurrently you get the points of view of the graduate and the novelist. They discuss the Romantic presentation of the poor, but conclude that "They are not half so picturesque and so pathetic as the sensational newspapers make them out." Is this realism, or a firm refusal to face facts? They journey into the tenements and boldly stroll through the streets and into the apartments of the residents there. All they see are uneducated, foreign people, with nothing to do but sell cheap wares, sometimes families at a time, to get by. They are not people; they are curiosities.

Finally, our point of view as the reader, and probably of Matthews' as the writer: what are we to make of these men? These people? Just who is the poorer set? Maybe, because we're so blinded, we are.

Methods of Spoonfeeding: Realism and Romance in Huck Finn and Chickamauga

The romance in "Chickamauga" is easy to spot. A boy enamored with the glory and bloodlust of war, as taught to him by his ex-soldier father, a toy weapon, an imaginary battle, the blood of mighty warriors in his small, six-year-old breast. This continues undisturbed for four paragraphs and a sentence, and then the boy is startled by a rabbit in the woods, flees, and sobs himself to sleep in the forest. You're touched, then, by how young the boy is, how innocent. Very soon after this, the story takes a turn for the gruesome. The boy is confronted with a pack of crawling animals -- later determined to be men desperately wounded by battle.

The boy is so young that he doesn't realize the men are bleeding and broken, crawling towards the most basic relief in the world, and the last one that many of them probably will ever have -- water. Some die in the attempt, and others die with the success of plunging their heads into the river and not being able to get back out again. The boy tries to 'ride' on a man's back, and only when he's bucked off and faced with a man missing his jaw that he becomes afraid. Returning back to his home, he finds the mutilated body of his mother, and Bierce reveals that the boy is a deaf mute.

While the boy was embarking on his imaginary battle, a real one was taking place around him. The romance of war is quickly and cruelly flipped over to reveal the gory reality of it. Through the eyes of the child, war is at first a fascinating play, then an unimaginable terror. The purpose of the short story is to make a point quickly and efficiently, and unlike Twain, who weaves a tale of adventure and tucks satirical bits in between, Bierce is the kind of writer that goes straight for the emotional sucker punch, letting you know exactly what he's thinking and how he feels about it. Romanticizing war to children, in Bierce's view, is a dangerous and awful practice. There is no romance in war, only destruction and chaos. The innocence of the child is destroyed in the course of one day, and there's no getting that back for him. He will probably be on his own, as well, unless he finds someone kind enough to take on the care of a deaf mute child. Based on what I know from being a fan of Helen Keller, who was born twenty years after the Civil War, there were severe prejudices against people with disabilities. Usually, if they weren't kept at home, they were neglected, abused, or at the very least ridiculed.

Twain's Huck Finn isn't necessarily spoon-feeding Twain's comments and thoughts about his world, but he does combine romance and realism much more seamlessly, showing the skewed prejudices and hypocrisy of the American South through Huck's innocence. Bierce instead uses his child character's innocence as an emotional gripping point to make his comments about the horrors of war.

Personally I like Twain's method better, because to see the world through the eyes of a child -- an outsider child, at that -- is much more subtle, and therefore more interesting than Bierce's shock therapy.

Common Sense/Identity in Huck Finn

If you could line up a cast of characters from literature based on their intelligence, would you put a thirteen-year-old barely literate vagabond from the antebellum South? Well, maybe not. But what about common sense? Is this the same thing as intelligence?

Personally, I think it is and it isn't. Intelligence and common sense are both gained through experience and learning, and both enable you to make clear, reasonable decisions. Intelligence is something a little more refined, though, with applied learning instead of experience learning. But back to Huck:

Huck's vision is so clear that he sees straight through the prejudiced, straight-laced society he lives in without even realizing he's doing it. The judge who is supposed to protect his money for him 'buys' it for a dollar. The new judge in town refuses to separate an abusive, drunken father from his son. Later in the book, Huck finally decides to help free Jim from slavery, despite the huge amount of racism in the South that Huck must break away from (true, because of this learned racism, Huck suspects he'll be eternally punished for this, but considers that he's already headed down that way anyway and so he ought to do what he feels is right).

Part of the reason Huck is so clear-headed is because he's an 'other'—he was never truly a part of the society that ought to have made him educated, well-mannered, and racist. His father was the town drunkard and Huck himself was the vagabond son, living off the land for a simple, good-natured existence. He wasn't taught letters or manners or clean habits. Even things which seem to us so natural in a normal child, like imagination, don't come naturally to Huck, because he's never had a need for it.Tom Sawyer, a boy devoted to romantic stories, calls him a saphead for this, (an interesting insult) but what use is imagining something—say, dinner—when you're only going to get it if you physically put a line in the river and catch it yourself?

Interestingly paired with Huck's lack of imagination is his superstitions. Wherever he got them from, they must run deep, because whether it's killing a spider or spilling the salt shaker, Huck walks around with a semi-constant dread over him, expecting disaster to spring from nothing. He believes in witches and hairballs, but not in Sunday school Arab troupes. Why is it that Huck finds it so easy to adhere to the superstitious rules (tying a piece of your hair, throwing salt over your left shoulder, hanging up a horseshoe) but not to the societal ones? I would like to think that since the Widow Douglas' rules were slowing beginning to have an effect, that Huck is therefore susceptible to new codes of society. He's capable of adapting, but is interrupted during his 'sivilizing' and goes back to his old, free ways.

Is it the laws of society who make us who we are? Is it the moral laws (superstitions) we believe in? Is it the books we read, the people we admire, the people we consider equals? To Huck, at least, all of these factors are a part of his identity. As he travels up the river, his outlook on life begins to change, and eventually so must his identity. But the first few chapters of Huck Finn are enough to see how tenuous identity really is, especially a child. Perhaps, if adults view society as a judgmental equal, a child would look at it as a bothersome parent. Rules, customs, habits, traditions. They seem set in stone, but only a few miles up the river, and it's amazing how easily they're washed away.