Second Written Assignment for American Literature II (03-28-12).

Joseph Melanson

American Literature II

Prof. McAllister

18 March 2012

Second Written Assignment

1.                  Explore one or more of the following contrasts in "The Hairy Ape": past vs present, rich vs poor, industrialization vs pastoral, or freedom vs imprisonment. How is this presented in O’Neill’s play, and what is being communicated by the presentation of the contrast?

            Mildred remarks “How the black smoke swirls back against the sky! Is it not beautiful?” (O’Neill 1062). She has the privilege of living above decks by her inherited wealth while the poor men of society like Paddy live in an industrial version of hell, “choking our lungs wid coal dust – breaking our backs and hearts in the hell of the stokehole” (O’Neill 1060). 

            Paddy is a hopeless drunk, who lives in the dreams of his youth. “Oh, to be back in the fine days of my youth, ochone!” (O’Neill 1059). The old days of equal men are over, where people worked and benefited together. Now the rich are separated from the poor workers, the rich live in clean, comfortable luxury above deck, while the crew lives in filthy, hazardous, and uncomfortable conditions.

            Mildred remarks, “Please do not mock at my attempts to discover how the other half lives. Give me credit for some sort of groping sincerity in that at least.” (O’Neill 1063). She by the luxury of her wealth can intrude upon the world of the poor, escorted for her own safety, and then can escape back into her comfortable life while the men have very limited options other than where they are right now.

            Mildred remarks, “Or rather, I inherit the acquired trait of the by-product, wealth, but none of the energy, none of the strength of the steel that made it.” (O’Neill 1063). She acknowledges that she has what she has, and can enjoy what she has without having to worry about working for it.

            Paddy relates the past of, the glory days of sailing when “A warm sun on clean decks” (O’Neill 1060). “Work – aye, hard work – but who’d mind that at all? Sure, you worked under the sky and ‘twas work wid skill and daring to it.” (O’Neill 1060). Then he relates how when the days work was done, one could sit upon the deck, relaxing just like everyone else, enjoying the various splendors that one could witness from above deck; the seemingly limitlessness expanse of the oceans, the equally limitlessness expanse of the skies, the life-affirming vistas of foreign landscapes, nature in all of its wonder. 

            “’Twas them days a ship was part of the sea, and a man was part of the ship, and the sea joined all together and made it one.” (O’Neill 1060).

4. Select one poem from our reading in Modules 04 and 05 and explain its structure, use of figurative language, point of view, and theme.

            In “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes, he relates black history through the most famous, and largest rivers of the world. He relates the history of African-American experience through its coincidental epochs with these rivers. He equates the beginning of time at the Euphrates, “when dawns were young” (Hughes 1138). The dawn of civilization begins in the Congo, and it became home to the African people, where they could be “lulled to sleep” (Hughes 1138). Civilization was crafted and engineered at the Nile, where the pharaohs built monuments to themselves, raising “pyramids above” this river (Hughes 1138). Then the atrocities of slavery brought the Africans to the Southern United States, to the plantations near the Mississippi, until “Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans”, to set them free (Hughes 1138).

“I’ve known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers”. (Hughes 1138).

            Langston Hughes tells the history of the black race through the rivers of the world, using his first place “I” to symbolize the black race. The famous rivers are connected to corresponding events in history. The black race goes through its evolution in bathing, building, looking upon, and finally being able to hear the lessons of history. 

5. Select one character from any of the pieces in Modules 04 and 05 and explain the development he or she undergoes during the course of the play/poem/short story.

             In “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner we meet Sartoris Snopes, the youngest boy and child of the family. His family is a dysfunctional, abusive family, where the boy does not seem to gravitate strongly to any of the other members of the family. He is treated more like a slave than a member of the family, his father comes and gets him to carry out his whims whether the boy is sleeping or not. The father was crippled stealing a horse during the days of the Confederacy, the man is now a twisted, hateful man who creates problems for himself everywhere they go. They migrate from one employer to another, after the father creates havoc due to his inability to put aside his pride, and submit to creating a stable home for his family. The father uses the members of the family to carry out his war against society, they are just mere tools for his hatred. Sartoris had gone through this experience long enough, in enough places that he realized at his young age that things were never going to change, and that he was better off fleeing and surviving by his own wits than maintaining his attachments to his dysfunctional family. He makes up his mind to finally escape the dysfunctional cycle of his family when his father goes to burn down another employer’s barn, this time hearing gun shots, never bothering to find out whether his father got killed, or was finally moved to homicide. He ran away forever, and “he did not look back” (Faulkner 1198).  

Works Cited:

Faulkner, William. “Barn Burning”. Perkins and Perkins 1187-1198.  

Hughes, Langston. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Perkins and Perkins 1138.

Perkins, George, and Barbara Perkins, eds. The American Tradition in Literature. 12^th ed. Ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print.

O’Neill, Eugene “The Hairy Ape”. Perkins and Perkins 1055-1084.

Analysis of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family, and Seinfeld (Television and Culture 03-25-12).

 In The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the main character Mary Richards is a lady alone in the city, starting a new life after a two year relationship seems to have gone under.

Mary seems to be surrounded by men who do as they please in their self-righteousness male privilege, while being surrounded by women who are trying to compete with her for apartments, or to be included as a fellow woman trapped in married life.

In one instance her boss Lou drinks at openly at work, barely hiding it, during an interview with a potential employee. At one point he asks her about her religion. Mary informs him that it is against the law to ask her this question. “Do you want to call a cop” he responds, not at all concerned that he could be facing a harassment lawsuit. He gives her a job as “associate producer” on a whim, the job title paying less than the secretary position, perhaps just because she is good looking and entertained his drunken harassment. The men in her life stumble through their positions, her boss is an open drunk, the anchor is on television giving the news despite what seems to be a speech impediment, and another one of her male coworkers mocks her with announcing that the position that she is seeking has been filled, then tells her she got her job because their boss was probably drunk. In one instance her boss Lou, arrives drunk, intrudes and then stumbles around her apartment, casually sexually harassing her, then helping himself to her typewriter after comparing Mary and his wife’s “caboose”. Men do as they please, Mary seems just a puppet that can only go along with, or go against men but this would probably end up in her losing her job. It was a good thing that Lou wasn’t really intent on forcing his way upon her, otherwise she would be in a very difficult position.

When it comes to the relationships with her fellow women, there is one point in the episode where there is confusion title of aunt between Mary’s landlord and her daughter. Mary is not really a relative and the daughter doesn’t know why her mother insists on calling Mary “Aunt Mary”. It is an honorary title automatically conferred by some adults to others when it comes to children. The mother instead of trying to justify calling Mary an aunt, she admits to her daughter that Mary is not an aunt, and therefore not really any one other than one of the tenants, just another human being that just happens by circumstances to be there. The mother is later upset with the daughter when she blurts out the crux of the story that Mary’s boyfriend Bill is coming to see her. The women are catty amongst themselves. In one instance, Mary’s landlord signs a lease for Mary for year without talking to her, knowing that Rhoda wants Mary’s apartment. Rhoda is another tenant in the building who covets Mary’s apartment, and this seems to be a running plot device of the two fighting over the rightful ownership of the apartment.

I noticed in the opening credits that men wrote and directed the show.

In the episode “The Cigar Store Indian”, Jerry thinks it is appropriate to purchase a cigar store Indian, which is aesthetically unattractive in itself for a woman’s apartment and is also a racist artifact of a time when it was permissible to use racist stereotypes as advertisement. The cigar store Indian was used by tobacconists, as an attempt to advertise their products by using the Indian by its association with the idea that the Native American introduced the European settlers to tobacco. In Europe the early cigar store Indians looked more like racist caricatures, rather than depicting actual Native Americans. According to Moonan (1997), the Cigar Store Indian was “supposed to be American Indians, but what they reveal is the European idea of how an Indian might look,'' (The New York Times). Moonan (1997) goes on to state that “no Indian in the New World ever wore a feathered skirt, but Columbus sent back reports saying Indians were naked except for feathers, and the Europeans invented the skirt for modesty's sake. None of the Indian figures are historically correct” and later in the article it is related how Native Americans in the form of the cigar store Indian were referred to as “noble savages” (The New York Times). This is an example of how a limited perspective of another race becomes an assimilated and unconscious social stereotype.                                        

I think in this episode Jerry symbolizes the part of us who isn’t normally racist but still entertains the occasional racist joke, believing these jokes are assimilated/just a product of our common culture.

           

 In the episode All in the Family, an African-American character Lionel, makes an allusion to stealing flowers when Gloria gives him a dollar, he responds “where I get my flowers from, this is a dollar profit”. This fits him into the stereotype of black people as thieves. Later on Lionel is revealed to be playing a game with Archie about his racism, and he entertains Archie’s racism by referring to his degree that he is pursuing as “electical engineer” rather than “electrical”. He is in the home to do repairs on the upstairs television set, used by Archie for his knowledge of television, as Archie believes he is saving money by not having to take the television to a professional repairman. Edith even states this, and Lionel admits to Mike that he has to do what he has to do, in order for white society to allow him to attain a degree.

When Mike and Archie get into an argument about white male privilege, about “what you have and how you can keep it”, Archie gets irate and uses terms like “spics and spades”. Archie is often loud and bombastic, he shouts down other people’s opinions, and uses insults like “silly dingbat” for his wife when she shows appreciation for the counter side of his argument.

Archie responds to one of Mike’s statements by saying “I never said your black beauties was lazy. It’s just their systems are geared a little slower than the rest of us.” When they find fault with his statement he tells them to look it up as if racist literature gives truth to his statement. Archie is indignant, stubborn, racist, set in his ways, and the head of the household. His ideas and beliefs are things to be defended to the death, rather than making any consideration for other people’s understanding and ways of thinking. Archie always has an answer for everything, and that is why is always at odds with everyone else.

"Love is All Around". The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Hulu.com. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. ,

“Meet the Bunkers”. All in the Family. Hulu.com. Web. 21 Mar. 2012.

“The Cigar Store Indian” Seinfeld. Youtube.com. Web. 21 Mar. 2012.

Moonan, Wendy. “Antiques; Cigar Store Indians on Parade”. The New York Times, 21 Nov. 1997. Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 Mar. 2012

American Literature II First Written Assignment (03-18-12).

Joseph Melanson

American Lit II

Prof. McAllister

19 February 2012

First Written Assignment

1). How can The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn be understood as a tale of Huck's personal moral development?

           Huck overcomes all kinds of obstacles that would keep him as much a slave in his own community, in his own reality, as much as Jim, who was an actual slave in these times. Huck escapes all kinds of prisons of life; the indoctrination of hypocrisy by the Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson, his backwards and brutalizing father, one that wants to drag him down to his own level of savagery, friends who are more likely to end up hurt or imprisoned if they were to carry through with their plans, and a greater society of people who do what they see is just despite the harm they cause. Huck does not succumb to trying to fit in, at least not with people that do not match his own sense of morality. Huck adapts to all the people he meets, but he always chooses to rise above them.  

           Traveling with Jim through various places, and through various circumstances, Huck sees how his civilized, “white society” treats Jim based solely on his race. Getting to know Jim personally on their travels changes how Huck sees his own society, and his place within it. Through his own sense of alienation, he becomes so full of conviction in his belief that he is willing to go to hell for doing what he feels is just and moral, rather than what society tells Huck is just and moral.

3). How does Crane's story, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" work to create a compassionate response to the main character?

            Crane starts the story by following Maggie’s eldest brother Jimmie through his typical routine of fist fights and gang warfare in the streets of the slum. 

            “A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of Rum Alley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil’s Row who were circling madly about the heap and pelting him” (Crane 706).

            This introduction provides the typical savagery to be found in the streets and back alleys of the slum where Maggie lives. Other descriptors like Devil’s Row for the name of the rival gang, and the reference to the building which “quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels” gives the reader the impression that this environment is not anywhere near paradise.

            She is in charge of her baby brother Tommie, who she drags around in her travels around the slums. This child was probably her only companion in an environment which consisted of debris “in all unhandy places”, where infants, “played or fought” or “sat stupidly in the way of vehicles” (Crane 709).
            “Formidable women”, disheveled, role models of what Maggie is expected to become, gossip or scream in “frantic quarrels” (Crane 709). Drug addicts and alcoholics sit “smoking pipes in obscure corners” (Crane 709). Crane informs the reader that Maggie is surrounded by shady and violent people.

            The father and mother are alcoholics, who fight and beat the children without remorse. The father displays his lack of concern for the children.
            “Let the damned kid alone for a minute, will yeh, Mary? Yer allus poundin’ ‘im. When I come nights I can’t git no rest ‘cause yer allus poundin’ a kid. Let up, d’yeh hear? Don’t be allus poundin’ a kid” (Crane 710).

            Through the words of the father Crane lets us know by not referencing either Jimmie or Maggie specifically, that both of them are often the target of their mother’s instability, probably the toddler Tommie as well.

            Maggie goes on to suffer physical and emotional abuse from her family for a number of years, gets a job doing mindless manual labor, and probably foreseeing this as what she would doing for the rest of her life. When Pete comes, she has no knowledge of the outside world, how men really are. When she is offered the chance of escape from the misery of her family, she leaps. Only this time its into the arms of someone who will abuse her like everyone else.

5). What is Edna's greatest strength? Did you find her an admirable character?

            Edna is a free spirit, a person who wants to live as she sees fit, and not allow herself to be limited to what the society of her time says is permissible for her gender. She pursues a man that she is interested in, going against the social norms of the time, which even intimidates the object of her desire, Robert. She loves her children and her husband Leonce, but it is a marriage of convenience, and not a true love of the heart. The couple has an understanding that both can do as they please. He can go off to his own pursuits, whether it is spending time at the club on the island, or going off to the city for his own adventures. It is an empty marriage and Edna is getting tired of merely going through the motions of life.

            “He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children, If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?” (Chopin 544). This statement not only summarized her husband’s confining position, but also was the predominant philosophy of the day towards the extent with which women may live their lives.

            She is unable to live this unnatural, repressed way of living, and pursues her desire for Robert without shame. When he leaves, she chooses to end her life by drowning herself, rather than succumbing to the slow suffocation and strangulation within the life she knows she will never escape other wise. I find her an admirable character, a person who can live only as she sees fit, rather than a life of only being in servitude and a convenience to others.

“The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies” (Chopin 627).

Works Cited:

Chopin, Kate. “The Awakening”. Perkins and Perkins 540-627.

Crane, Stephen. “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets”. Perkins and Perkins 706-747.

Perkins, George, and Barbara Perkins, eds. The American Tradition in Literature.

 12^th ed. Ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print.

Twain, Mark “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” Perkins and Perkins 154-327.

Poopy and Boogers (03-14-12).

Gina told me some jokes a few weeks back.

“Knock, knock”, she says.

“Who’s there,” I naturally respond.

“Poopy”, she says, unable to suppress her amusement. She giggles.

“Poopy who?”

“POOPY, Joe”. She says my name as if I am the dumbest person in the world.

“Knock, knock”, Gina says.

“Who’s there?”

“Boogers”, she says, so amused by this word like only a four year old can be about the idea of mucus.

“Boogers who?” I ask.

“Just BOOGERS, Joe”, she says, clearly frustrated at having to rely on a moron for her conversation.

“Gina”, I said, “if poopy and boogers ever come to your house, turn off the lights and don’t make a sound”. She looks at me as seriously as she is able.

And as seriously/soberly as I could say it, I tell her, “We don’t answer the door for poopy and boogers. Nobody ever, ever… answers the door for poopy and boogers”.

Post to Discussion in Creative Nonfiction I (03-10-12).

You are a good storyteller, the reader’s eye gets carried along very easily, and you are generally easy to follow. You, like myself and a lot of other people, pack in a lot to the sentence, overloading it with information. You need to watch your sentences, avoiding run on sentences, and breaking them up as you have to.

I would try to rewrite the paper in a summary so you know what is going on through its stages, or what the point of each paragraph is. I am beginning to see what the usefulness of this technique myself in using an outline summary to have another avenue of seeing my writings. Using your story, create an outline of what you have, in order to see what you can do with it, what it looks like as a whole, etc. Then you can look at each part to see if it serves its function.

I think you write like I do, just dumping ideas on paper, but then find difficulty knowing what to do with it, and how to go about fine tuning it. I think it would really help you to try to define what the overall message or theme is of the story is, versus what you are trying to say in this essay. To me it is how Whitney Houston has been a part of your life, how you grew up with her, how she was an influence and role model. Is that it? Is that what you are trying to say? Are you doing that efficiently? Why not? I think it is by examining it through an outline that you will be able to see it better and answer these questions to your satisfaction. Hope this helps.

Post to Discussion in Abnormal Psychology Considering Suicide Myths (03/10/12).

I suffered from depression too when I was growing up, and the impression you could give others is one of selfishness, of not wanting to just try and make an effort of getting along with others and going through the motions of life. But it is difficult to express the gaping emptiness one feels, the hopelessness that life is just a continued cycle of just going along for the sake of going along, rather than any experience of joy one can find in one's life. It is a sensation that lingers heavily, and one can wonder why more people don't committ suicide. Why invest yourself into anything? Why bother? Life is meaningless anyway, right? It is thoughts like these that revolve in the depressive's head, and without the introduction of how to appreciate one's life, and being surrounded by strong, healthy, positive people than this cycle of thinking can continue in its circles. The years go on and on, just proving that there is no point to existing, other than just living because our body continues to do so. This voice that one hears in one's head is our own negative self thinking, the thoughts that have become the mental weather. The depressed person attaches an importance to this way of thinking, and places value on these thoughts not knowing anything else. But it is important to realize that it is a cycle of thinking, of a chemical imbalance, of righting one'e behavior to align ourselves with recieving better thoughts, rather than continuing in behavior which perpetuates the cycle of being depressed. The depressed person, like most of us, often needs the introduction of some outside influence to get one out of the cycle of depression before it inevitably leads to catastrophe, before it robs one of too many years of one's short existence.

Post to Discussion in Creative Nonfiction I (03-09-12).

Whether or not you use my ideas it is important to know why, or why not to use them. What is important is to know why your ideas are right and why they are wrong. We often get trapped into thinking our ideas are genius, or in the right direction of the general idea we have. I think this class teaches us how to focus and develop our perspective in order to tell a complete and polished tale in our writings. What makes the story worth reading? Is the message we're sending worth sending in the first place, or does the message we are trying to send need tweaking? The important thing is to be able to see our writings on the multiple levels that they are supposed to function on if they are to be included in definition of "literature". The first step is to be able to look at every single aspect of our story as critically as we can, and know exactly what it is that we are trying to say, what we need to get across, and if we are successful in getting the message across. Everyone has a story that they want to tell, it is the writer that must sophisticate and develop their self-expression as best one can. Writing is just the means we choose, others choose to say what they want to say through painting, others drawing, others photography, etc.