Death in "The Waste Land"

       In T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, he combined Buddhist, English, Greek, and Jewish works in a way that portrayed many forms of death. Eliot also seemed somewhat interested about life after death and things neither alive or dead; he used things such as hyacinths and drowning to symbolize death and resurrection. Eliot showed death through writing about abortion, and he referred to someone by his birth and death place, saying, "Trams and dusty trees./ Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew/ Undid me" (Eliot 268). Eliot used all of these descriptions of death to point back to the first stanza of the poem, so that he could explain why April is the cruellest month on the mountain that he should feel so freely upon.

       T. S. Eliot's uses experiences of life and death to show that something other than both of them could possibly exist. Eliot seems to show an understanding that death will happen and is inevitable. The time of death doesn't necessarily matter to him; he, rather, is more focused on what happens after death within an individual. He wrote, "Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden,/ Your arms were full, and your hair wet, I could not// Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither/ Living nor dead, and I knew nothing," as well as, "Fear death by water" (Eliot 260-261). Both hyacinths and drowning are symbols of death leading to resurrection that Eliot uses in his poem. He doesn't explain what that resurrection is, but he argues within his poem that something other than life or death exists.

What does seduction have to do with death, resurrection, and modernism?

Palestine

       In Edward Said's essay, "States," he presents the changes of Palestinian identity from the time of 1948, when Israel was made a nation after War World II. Once Palestine didn't exist and Palestinians were forced to leave their homes, Palestinians lost their identity from a worldwide standpoint; other countries didn't recognize them as originating from "Palestine". Yet, when living in other countries, they didn't have the identities of the other citizens. They're recognized as "either 'the Arabs of Judea and Samaria,' or, in Israel, 'non-Jews.' Some are referred to as 'present absentees'" (Said 571). This has led to Palestinians connecting in many ways, much more than they would be if they lived back in their homeland. But, Said writes, "The further we get from the Palestine of our past, the more precarious our status, the more disrupted our being...When did we become 'a people'? When did we stop being one" (Said 591)? Said argues that this unstable status of Palestinian identity is found in all things and all people derived from Palestine, even down to the form of Palestinian fiction, which presents the instability and precariousness also found in Palestinians.

       Said presents the changes that he foresees in Palestinian identity in his essay, while these changes did happen to African Americans from the time of Frederick Douglass, in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, to the way that Du Bois speaks of the Negro American in The Souls of the American Negro: Of Our Spiritual Strivings. Said writes, "When I was born, we in Palestine felt ourselves to be part of a small community, presided over by the the majority community and one or another of the outside powers holding sway over the territory" (Said 577). During this time, Palestinians were close to their roots and their communities, but Said shows while making his father an example, that some Palestinians want to disconnect themselves from the memories of Palestine; he believes it will be a continual process, and the more amount of time that passes without a physical Palestine, the more Palestine identity loses a tangible meaning. This is similar to the black identity in America that changed from African Americans during the time of Frederick Douglass and a wish for freedom from slavery to the identity of the Negro American, who is not tied with Africa nor has a wish to be so. Instead, they want to find their identity within their race, history, and the meaning of being "American."

If Said's essay discusses the exile of Palestinians from Israel, doesn't the argument of the mentioned poem, "The Twenty Impossibles," not follow the arguments of the essay? What is the purpose of discussing the poem in the essay?

Freedom

       In W. E. B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois discusses freedom from prejudice and an America that conveys the equality and union that the nation was founded on. He explains that the African American population won't ever be able to see themselves or be seen by whites as equal in humanity or in conscience without schooling that equals to that of white Americans. Blacks long for freedom from intellectual bondage caused by prejudice and social bondage. He writes, "Freedom,...we still seek,--the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think...--all these we need, not singly but together,...each growing and aiding each,  and all striving toward that vaster ideal that swims before the Negro people,...the ideal of fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather in large conformity the greater ideals of the American Republic" (Du Bois 1691). He ends by explaining that the test of the principles of the republic is the Negro Problem, and all within the nation must strive to act in accordance with the founding principles decided on by the nation's forefathers. 

       Du Bois addresses the issues of social unbalance between blacks and whites in America. He gives the example of the time he first realized that he was different from everyone else, not because he was lesser of a person but because his fellow peer treated him as such. He wants all Americans, regardless of race, to put aside prejudice and live in the equality that the Declaration of Independence expresses. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" (Jefferson 1). Du Bois believes that this can be accomplished once both blacks and whites work together to "give each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack;" the process will progress once the products of freedom are used by all to unify the nation (Du Bois 1691).

When Du Bois writes, "After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son," does he mean that African Americans are seen as seventh on the race totem pole (Du Bois 1687)?

"The White Man's Burden"

       In Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden," Kipling addressed American colonization towards those who would become slaves or below Americans that moved to an area of new possession. When Kipling wrote the poem in 1899, he most likely was referring to the American colonization of the newly attained Philippines. He said many times towards the oppressed in his poem, "Take up the White Man's Burden," and conveyed an acceptance towards American colonization (Kipling). He showed this through his advice towards the oppressed by telling them to "send forth the best ye breed" and by telling them not to "call too loud on Freedom," as if this was their new purpose in life, so that the white man could succeed (Kipling).

       Rudyard Kipling and George Orwell both discussed the exploitation of the oppressed in colonization in their works, "The White Man's Burden" and "Shooting an Elephant," yet their views of colonization differ. Kipling referred to exploitation as working for another's gain and said to the oppressed, "Go bind your sons to exile to serve your captives' need" (Kipling). He also said repeatedly, "Take up the White Man's burden," showing his consent of the exploitations of American colonization. Yet, Orwell conveyed the negatives of imperialism and colonization through the narrator of "Shooting an Elephant." He complained of the evils he saw in the prisons and the way the Burmese treated whites because of the exploitation that they suffered. Orwell portrayed an encounter with colonization that caused him to recognize its evil, though Kipling doesn't recognize it in his poem.

What does Kipling mean in the sixth stanza when he wrote, "The silent, sullen peoples/ Shall weigh your gods and you" (Kipling 1)?

To Shoot or Not to Shoot

       In George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell explains his fickle feelings towards imperialism throughout his time as a British soldier in Burma, particularly during his wavering decision to shoot an elephant. In Burma, Orwell sees the wrongs of imperialism coerced on the people, yet he doesn't side with them completely either because he hates being ridiculed, especially by the Buddhist priests. He writes, "I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts" (Orwell 1). Even in this quotation, the effects of imperialism are seen in one who isn't for imperialism. He portrays a disintegration of the individual and the dehumanization of colonialism by calling the Burmese people beasts. In the end, although he is above them, Orwell is pressured into shooting the elephant because he would rather kill it than be tortured by the jeering masses around him.

       Orwell is concerned about his own freedom towards the end of his story. His diminishing freedoms reflect the communists' view of slavery in society that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles present in The Communist Manifesto. They write that a society must "assure an existence to its slave within his slavery" (Marx and Engles 2). This means that those in authority ought to make sure that workers have enough necessities, so that they are content in their poverty. Orwell recognizes that he must shoot the elephant because "when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys" (Orwell 2). Orwell must do what the natives expect of him or else he will be ridiculed, or in Marx and Engles' case, the people will rebel because they aren't satisfied in their slavery.

Shouldn't Orwell not want the other Europeans to grasp that he only shot the elephant to avoid ridicule because then he could still seem like a fool to those that figured it out?

Suffering for Survival

       In "The Open Boat," Stephen Crane shows the naturalist beliefs of creation being evil and creation reflecting who God is. The crashing waves that prolong the drowning of the captain, cook, oiler, and correspondent reflect how evil God, Fate, or the seven mad gods are. They put the boaters in many opportunities that could kill them like the raging waves and boating next to a shark, but they also taunted the boaters with many ways of escaping drowning that could have been successful if they hadn't been ignored. This conveys the darwinism of naturalism through the belief that man is just a part of nature and isn't special, separate, or above all else.
      
       The correspondent in "The Open Boat" is much like the man in "A Man Said to the Universe." He looks to Fate with no understanding of why his death is to be prolonged and taunted by the many opportunities that could have saved him and the three others. He says once, and similarly at other times, "If I am going to be drowned -- if I am going to be drowned -- if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods, who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?" (Crane 737). The correspondent thinks that Fate, which he references at another time, or the seven mad gods ought to feel obliged to save him or that they plan to save him since he has suffered so much in his traveling. The man, like the correspondent, in "A Man Said to the Universe," wanted the universe, which could represent God to naturalists, to recognize his existence. The universe cared enough just to say that it didn't care, just as the travelers were given many opportunities to be saved from the dingey but were never thorough enough to ever be successful.

Did any of the men, particularly the oiler, actually drown at the end of the story?

Stephen Crane and Realism

       Stephen Crane wrote three poems, "In the Desert," "A Man Said to the Universe," and "War is Kind," that reflect the ideas of naturalism. In "A Man Said to the Universe," Crane portrayed his naturalist beliefs by showing that man's existence has no significance of obligation to the spacious universe, which could be seen as greater than man. It shows how he believes that God has made man but has ignored him and his existence. In "War is Kind," Crane explained that war is kind because it ended the lives of suffering men quickly. He wrote, "Do not weep, babe, for war is kind./ Because your father tumbled in yellow trenches,/ Raged at his breast, gulped and died," but later wrote, "Swift blazing flag of the regiment,/ Eagle with crest of red and gold,/ These men were born to drill and die. Point for them the virtue of the slaughter, make plain to them the excellence of killing" (Crane 1). Crane depicted the miseries of dying in war but contrasted it with an agreeable ending by explaining that this is one of the best ways to die.

       

       In Stephen Crane's "In the Desert," he wrote about a creature that eats its own heart, but it enjoys it. The creature liked its heart, "Because it is bitter,/ and because it is my heart" (Crane 1). The creature's reason for liking his heart is similar to the arguments of Jonathan Franzen in "Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts." The heart of the creature was bitter yet it ate of it and liked it because it was bitter and its actual self, not because others liked it or because it was a popular thing to do. The "liking" of this poem is the kind of "liking" that Franzen suggests people should think and feel because it is derived from something true and "Something realer than likability has come out in you, and suddenly you're having an actual life" (Franzen 2).

Why does Crane explain why war is kind to maidens and babes but not to mothers about their sons?

Critiques and Criticisms of English Literature

        In William Dean Howells' Criticism and Fiction, he argues that honest truth makes literature good, rather than how famous the author is. He uses English literature as his example as he contrasts Jane Austen with other authors like, Bronte, Thackeray, Dickens, and Eliot. Howells commends Austen for using simple truths and, "instructs a man to think what he likes is good, instead of teaching him first to distinguish what is good before he likes it" (Howells 1). Her work is also loved for its truthful character, not solely on her ability to write or convey her own qualities through her work. He compares her to Anthony Trollope, who also wrote with entire truthfulness, rather than the romantic-type authors of his day. Howells thinks authors should write with detail towards that which is good because it conveys truth, rather than giving of details of beautiful or ugly things, which they consider good or bad not based on the truth of the statement.

      The arguments and claims that Howells presents in Criticism and Fiction closely align with the what Berger, in "Ways of Seeing," calls bogus religiosity. Bogus religiosity in the context of Criticism and Fiction appears when Howells realizes that the authors, more than the truths they present, account for the approval or disapproval of criticizers and readers. Howells writes, "Because English criticism, in the presence of the Continental masterpieces, has continued provincial and special and personal, and has expressed a love and a hate which had to do with the quality of the artist rather than the character of his work" (Howells 1). Both Berger and Howells want and explain that readers not fall to mystification but rather engage the truths, though they may be few in English texts, that the authors build in their works.

Why is England the only European nation that Howells lists that has this specific problem addressed in the essay, rather than other authors that he mentions, like Scandinavian, Latin, and Slavic authors?

Realism and the Rights of the Working Class

       In Rebecca Harding Davis's "Life in the Iron Mills," she uses America's own short story to convey the hardships of the working class, particularly those whose lives surround the iron mills. Davis addresses urbanization, the American Dream, and economic opportunity in terms of realism. Through Hugh and Deborah Wolfe, Davis conveys how life for these and many like them suffer and are deprived of the rights that America is "so-called" built on. The story introduces an important concept of money leading to success, but also that the money that factory workers receive won't give them any opportunity. Instead, they live lives of crime, drinking, and some eventually kill themselves, as Hugh committed suicide at the end of the story.

       When Hugh's sculpting talents are found out by the group of higher class men, they believe Hugh's talents are great enough for him to make a better life for himself outside of the bonds of factory working. His description of the sculptor being hungry and its meaning shows his intelligence is greater than their stereotypical views of the workers. The Doctor tells Hugh, "Make yourself what you will. It is your right,"but they don't help him further than that (Davis 1226). This is what de Crevecoeur explains in Letters of an American Farmer.  He says that in America, men control their own fate depending on how hard they work. He claims that however hard a man works, he will be equally rewarded. They are the rights of the hardworking men of America, who really are men from many places who have come together with a common dream. "Life in the Iron Mills" shows that the same teachings and dreams of rights and economic, increasing success is still present in America. Deborah explains this to Hugh when she gives him the stolen money, but he soon learns that his rights are limited; not even Americans living here already can succeed in the dream that has been implanted in them since de Crevecoeur.

Was Mitchell of a lower class before making himself a life, since he had some tenderheartedness towards Hugh during the conversation about his sculpture?

Consumer Products = Tangible Narcissism

       In "Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts," Franzen claims that technology and consumer products keep people from having an actual life, especially loving relationships; therefore people need to flock towards what causes painful emotions. Consumer products are like narcissistic people because they are manufactured "to be immensely likable" (Franzen 1). They and social networks, like Facebook, cause humans to live as narcissists because humans are focused much more on themselves and what they "like". When it's time to truly love someone, it's impossible to like all of them so you will destroy your  likable image of a person during arguments. "Something realer than likability has come out in you, and suddenly you're having an actual life" (Franzen 2). Then, Franzen explains that love will cause pain, but it will be easier to cope with and embrace when the pain is due to what you love. 

       Towards the end of his essay, Franzen describes how he came to love birds by looking for wrong in the world. The way in which he learned something about man through his experiences with nature is what Emerson conveyed in his essay, "Nature." Franzen wasn't necessarily looking to learn something about man from nature or forcing himself to think about nature's creation or harmony, but he was really wanting to find something wrong with the world to deal with his pain. "My anger and pain and despair about the planet were only increased by my concern for wild birds, and yet, as I began to get involved in bird conservation and learned more about the many threats that birds face, it became easier, not harder, to live with my anger and despair and pain" (Franzen 3). Here Franzen connects truth about a connection between nature and man, like a transcendentalist, to learn about love between men and the way love works.

Would Franzen recommend getting rid of all social networking to those who support his claims?

How Google Contrasts with Poetry

       In Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?," he argues that the internet, especially Google, makes us stupid because it no longer forces us to spend time researching and reading long articles and books. Instead, we type in a few words into a search engine and find what we're looking for within a couple minutes. This was shown with the study done by the University College London. They studied the ways in which people researched by reading only the first one-two pages of an article, then looked up another resource to continue looking for answers. He also compares the effects of the Internet with the effects of the invention of the printing press and Taylorism. He concludes with proof from scientific studies that the fast ways of knowledge are actually making us stupider, or changing the way we think not only psychologically but also biologically through the new formations that the neurons make to adapt to the new ways that humans live and attain information.

       On the third page of Carr's essay, he explains how the internet essentially is everything that we used to use separately but in one. For example, it is a calculator as well as a typewriter, a typewriter, a radio, and others. He writes, "When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net's image. It injects the medium's content with...digital gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with content of all the other media it has absorbed....The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration" (Carr 3). This relates to poetry because poetry is the different expressions of thoughts, emotions, and feelings. It recreates the image of whatever the poem tries to convey, yet the Internet and poetry contrast in a great way. While the Internet scatters our attention and diffuses our concentration, poetry is supposed to do the opposite. Poetry causes us to meditate more on what is being argued or depicted in hopes that we have connection, not a disbandment.

Did Nietzche ever go back to the style that he wrote in before the printing press or caution others about the dangers of writing by the printing press?

A Wave of Self-Reliance

       Emerson portrays the differences between man, the mind, and society in "Self-Reliance". He says that genius is when man believes his own thoughts about himself and the application of this truth to the rest of man. Man learns things about himself in solitude, but they become inaudible as he enters the world. "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members" (Emerson 2). He doesn't want man to conform to the world, but live by his own thoughts. When he comes to this understanding, he shouldn't pay bits of charity because he is sorry that he lives in the world. The purpose of man is to live in the world, so that he can become one with it by his own accord. When all men do this, society will be like a wave. The wave represents unity and oneness but the energy of the wave continues, leaving the pasts of men behind and acquiring the lives of men to come.

       In "Self-Reliance", Emerson continues his fancy and depiction of the unity of mankind through the soul and with the Supreme Cause, the One. He writes in the first paragraph, "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, -- that is genius" (Emerson 1). This is similar to the arguments found in Walt Whitman's poems, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and "Song of Myself". In "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", Whitman finds a connection between him and others through their thoughts and experiences on the ferry. Similarly, but more physical, Whitman connects men with each other through the atoms that make men up in "Song of Myself". He starts the poem saying, "I celebrate myself, and sing myself,/ And what I assume you shall assume,/ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you" (Whitman 8). He used the knowledge that men are all made up of the same matter to connect them and find truth within each other.

Emerson writes, "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is harder, because you will find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it" (Emerson 3). Doesn't this destroy his argument because he is telling us what he thinks our duty is (to be self-reliant)?

Purification and the Panopticon

       In his essay, "Panopticism", Focault describes a town that becomes more orderly and discipline through chaos, in the form of disease. The people of the town are always being accounted for and cannot move from their home unless they are a guard or appointed official. There's only one doctor allowed to give remedy to the sick, and he only has permission to tend to the needs of certain people that the magistrate allows him to. Ultimately, the magistrate has the power to let the sick die if he so chooses. Then, Focault describes this concept in one building, the Panopticon. It allows one person to watch all of the inhabitants, who are separated from each other, at once, but they cannot see him . Focault shows how the knowledge of someone watching a person intimidates and controls them in a way that the inhabitants will behave because they know they are watched. He relates power and knowledge in this utopia to show that more order can come to society with an understanding that people are always being watched.

       The infected town described by Focault undertook many of the precautions and mindsets as the Puritans did when they settled in New England. The infected town closed off all ways out and into the city. Even individual homes were closed off and weren't to be left or else a person would receive the punishment of death. Purification took place without leaving the town and with order. This physical purification is much like the purification and mindset of the Puritans. They viewed the outside world and Native Americans as evil, so they built up a wall around their city to separate themselves. Purification took place within a person, so that the community as a whole would be pure. They were advised not to leave the community so that they didn't have contact with evil, but they were allowed to leave in order to extend the boundaries of the community, purifying more of their evil surroundings.

How does the Panopticon work in society, if each individual isn't separate from each other because they continually live in contact with each other?

Brooklyn Ferries and Songs of Tradition

       Walt Whitman wrote many poems within Leaves of Grass and other books of his. Within poems from "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," he described the beauty that man sees, makes, and is a part of in Brooklyn and Manhattan Island. He addressed Emerson's claim that beauty and truth is found in Nature by making man part of Nature. Because truth can be found in man, it can also be found in what man makes. In "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer," Whitman shows that beauty isn't found in man trying to make Nature understandable by his own terms; he wrote "When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,/ How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick" (Whitman 6).

Instead, man can watch Nature in awe and find beauty in things like fire and smoke from a man-made chimney; man and Nature work together to be beautiful in the presence of each other.

       In the seventeenth poem found in "Song of Myself," Whitman described his thoughts as not original.  The first line of the poem argues a similar statement to that of T. S. Eliot in "Tradition and the Individual Talent." Eliot explained that tradition isn't conforming poetry to the form of other poets' poetry   or to write in a similar style. Tradition is writing about some truth known to all in a way that has never been written before. Whitman continued summarized Eliot's tradition in one line: "These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me" (Whitman 11). In his poems, Whitman writes about the thoughts that have been thought by all, but they are expressed in original ways.

What is the meaning of "Song of Myself: 1"? It seems to have no connection from stanza to stanza.

"Experience" and Melancholia

"Life is a train of moods like a string of beads"

       Ralph Waldo Emerson writes about the mystery of the experience or perception of Nature, rather than the mystery of Nature in "Experience". Although humans don't understand Nature, it doesn't mean that Nature is mysterious; instead, man's perception is limited. "Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue,and each shows only what lies in its focus" (Emerson 570). In other words, man is not limited to only see one thing, but he is limited to see whatever the focus is of his mood of perception. An example he gives is self-inflicted suffering for a hope of reality and truth. Through this mood, man learns one thing and finds one reality: that grief is shallow and it leads a person to nothingness except death if life-long. Then as man moves out of this stage, he approaches the next bead on the string or next mood-car on the train. The experience will teach him something new but won't be a perception/view of all colors (knowledge).

       Emerson describes moods "in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth" (Emerson 569). He writes that this mood is painted on by a person, meaning that it isn't his true feelings. It isn't true but superficial. The mood he describes is a close description of melancholia, which Edgar Allen Poe incorporates in "The Raven". In the poem, the man burdens himself with continuous grief because he feels guilty for falling asleep while trying to grieve the loss of his lady, Lenore. He brings the suffering upon himself, as Emerson describes in "Experience" in order to to find the reality of what he thinks should occur when someone loses his love, even though it teaches him nothing.

What does Emerson mean by writing, "all our days are so unprofitable while they pass" on page 568?

Reasonable Rebellion

       Yesterday in English class, we discussed whether man was reasonable or not and his relation to Nature on the reason totem pole. Henry Thoreau introduces his argument in "Resistance to Civil Government" with this discussion about the reason of man. He explains that for any man it's reasonable to rebel when your rights are being infringed upon. "I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but outs is the invading army" (Thoreau 855). He goes further to say that a group of people should fight the injustices within its same group of people, so that a change is brought about. He says voting against and signing petitions against injustice isn't enough; in reality, it's nothing. He uses Luke 9:24 as his example and stimulant to urge mainly Americans to act in issues, like racism, much more actively than signing a petition.

       Thoreau implored in this essay that Americans' not do the least possible to stir up trouble for themselves. "The mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies" (Thoreau 854). Americans are like robots who know how to do and choose, yet they don't use their consciences when they fight for the country. This idea, as well as Thoreau's observation of a paradox of America's foundation, are also found in Alexis de Toqueville's Democracy in America. American's tend to be lazy instead of thinking for ourselves, so we act in whichever way we are told. This includes the way we treat others, especially regarding to race, since the country is founded on freedom, yet (according to Thoreau) one sixth of the population was still enslaved. Both authors address these problems in their writings, and even today America still deals with laziness and racial barriers.

Would Thoreau be considered a Christian Transcendentalist? And are those really possible without being heretical?

Evil's Connections with Poe

       Edgar Allen Poe wrote what is now a very famous American short story in 1843. "The Tell-Tale Heart", narrated by the main character, told the story of this man murdering an older man. He explained that he was not a madman, and he claimed to not have anything against the man, except his eye. "He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever" (Poe 1). The main character explained his strategies for watching the man, treating him kindly, and, later, murdering him. He stalked around proudly as police officers came to investigate the scream, but he finally confessed as he believed to hear the pounding of the old man's heart thudding throughout the house.  

       Poe connects the romantic ideas of nature with those of the supernatural similarly in "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Raven". In "The Tell-Tale Heart", the man believed that the old man's eye was evil because it looked like that of a vulture and wasn't like other people's eyes. He gave himself the responsibility to destroy the evil living amongst him. This connection of bird-like things with supernatural evil is found in both; the raven presented a symbol of evil to the man in "The Raven", while the old man's vulture-like eye was seen as a source of evil to be removed from existence.

Do the police officers ever actually hear the heart beating, or is it just the man's conscience?

Romanticism and "The Raven"

       Edgar Allen Poe tells the story of a man's rekindled vivid sorrow in his poem, "The Raven". The man seemed to have lost his loved maiden, Lenore. He says, "Vainly I had tried to borrow/ From my books surcease of sorrow-- sorrow for the lost Lenore --/ For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore --/ Nameless here for evermore" (Poe 1). The man took to books and sleeping for distraction until he heard tapping on his door and window. He found that a raven was the source of the noise and contemplated the significance of the event. By the end of the poem, the man believed that the raven was sent by God or knew of his maiden, Lenore. He's angered and sorrowful because he asked if Lenore was in heaven, to which the raven answered, "Nevermore," and it continued to sit at his window and haunt him.

       Poe showed Romantic thought on nature and the supernatural's relation to each other in this poem. As the man contemplates the significance of the raven at his door in the fifteenth stanza, the air became denser, and he thought that it was due to some supernatural connection that the raven had. At first, he thought God and angels had sent the raven, but he veered later towards being sent by the devil. The man said of the bird, "Prophet!...thing of evil!.../ Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore" (Poe 3). This was a change from good to evil, yet the man doesn't question a relation between the bird and the supernatural. This is much like Romantic thought of nature, which was believed to point to an impersonal God and the supernatural world. The man never fully understood the purpose of the raven's coming to him, which counteracts Enlightenment thought, but he knew that a supernatural, which couldn't be fully known, existed.

Is there more significance to Lenore than just a name used in the poem?

"Rip Van Winkle" and Self-Incurred Tutelage

       Washington Irving wrote "Rip Van Winkle" during the early publishing period of his literary career. He writes the story saying that he found in the room of a man, Diedrich Knickerbocker, who had recently disappeared. This makes the short story satirical because it builds on the idea of a men who suddenly go missing. Before the Revolutionary War, Rip Van Winkle helped and cared for everyone in town, except his family. Rip Van Winkle's wife often drove him into such a state that he left the house. When his wife followed him to his asylum, he left to hunt in the woods. There he met a strange man with liquor, who took him nearby to a place where other strange people were playing nine pegs. Van Winkle began drinking the liquor, only to pass out and not wake up for eighteen years. The story ends with him returning to town and explaining who he is; he learns that his sleep lasted eighteen years and during that time his wife died and America is free from Britain's rule. Rip Van Winkle was now free to live and converse with townspeople as he pleased, instead of taking orders from his wife or from Britain.  

       The story and form of "Rip Van Winkle" remind me a lot of what Alexis de Toqueville wrote about in Democracy in America and Immanuel Kant's "What is Enlightenment?". Irving's short story is an example of bold, short American literature that presents social chaos, which Alexis de Toqueville told of American literature. The main character, Rip Van Winkle, portrays some self-incurred tutelage and later tries to force others into bonding themselves with his opinions. Rip Van Winkle faces social tutelage due to the way he treats his family and their response to it, especially Dame Van Winkle. He's forced to spend his time outside of the house, "the only side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband" because he dislikes working his farm and caring for his family (Irving 939). His wife even drove him from conversing with friends outside of an inn. After sleeping for eighteen years, Rip was free of any social tutelage caused by his wife or the British. Instead of basking in freedom with the next generation, he tried to force them to believe his story verbatim and to believe what he knew about the strange, almost magical men that drugged him. Both Kant and Toqueville warn against using others' opinions verbatim instead of a person's own because the cycle of self-incurred tutelage then continues. 

Did Irving write as being Diedrich Knickerbocker in all or others of his works, or was it just in "Rip Van Winkle"?