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. 12th ed. Ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print.
O’Neill, Eugene “The Hairy Ape”. Perkins and Perkins 1055-1084.
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