Writer's Attitude in The Yellow Wallpaper

In reading Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, I was, obviously, most struck by the author's attitude throughout the story.  From the beginning, it seemed clear to me that the writer was deliberately trying to evoke pity/sympathy for herself from her readers, but because of her chronically bad attitude, she fell considerably short of successfully getting any from me.

First of all, I have to acknowledge the extreme irony in the woman's situation regarding her mental state.  In the beginning, though she complains all too much about the littlest things, she appears to be quite sane.  However, her husband and her brother are both "doctors," and both thoroughly convinced she is "sick."  She professes to us the audience herself, though, that she is fine, simply complaining all too much about the littlest things about the house and about how the simplest of things, like write freely of whatever is on her mind, or tolerate her husband, are extremely difficult and fatiguing endeavors for her.  I mean, it goes without saying that one should not spend so much time thinking (and complaining about) a wallpaper.  These huge problems in the writer's life that she alludes to, to me, appear to be a classic example of what I would call first-world problems.  The writer's attitude is dominated by a sense of "life is hopeless," "it's out to get me," as she constantly repeats the query "what is one to do?"  And this terrible attitude, coupled with her chronic complaints and constant glass half-empty mentality, is the reason that I feel no sympathy for her.

Eventually, we find out that the husband's motivation for keeping his wife in the house and encouraging her to "get better" is really to get her to look better physically.  We see this directly as the writer refers to her loss in weight and better figure, which she points out to her husband, and immediately pinches a nerve.  We also discover him to be a classically self-entitled doctor, who, being a doctor, assumes he is right about everything, as he claims his wife is getting better while we see her spiraling downwards into a clear state of insanity.  This insanity, I believe, is pretty self evident-she hallucinates women out of her windows, spends literally all of her waking hours looking at her wallpaper, and eventually convinces herself that she was birthed from it, and begins trying desperately to immerse herself back into it by clawing at it and running herself up and down the walls.  How much more evidence for insanity could even a doctor ask for?

In the end, I was almost expecting something significant (or, at least, more significant than just causing someone to faint) to come from the wallpaper.  I suppose I grew suspicious of this as the writer began to allude to her secret motivations to control people-tie them up, specifically, and we also see her becoming extremely skeptical and even afraid of her family members, John, her husband, included, as she convinces herself that they harbor similar thoughts and delusions to her own about the wallpaper.  Ultimately, though, her clear-cut insanity causes nothing more than to freak her husband out sufficiently enough to make him lose consciousness, and we are left to imagine what is to come of their meager relationship from there.

Response To an Article About Abraham Lincoln's Death (Harper's Weekly)

I feel obliged to first explain that I chose to read this particular article because I just last night saw the movie Lincoln in theaters, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.  Granted, it wasn't a "thriller" per-se, since it pretty much entirely just consisted of dialogue rather than a bunch of Hollywood action sequences, but that dialogue was compelling nonetheless.  Also, being a huge Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan, I will add that Lincoln was far from being his best performance, so ultimately I wound up liking the movie for completely different reasons than I thought I would.  So there's that.  Having said all of that, the film ended abruptly with the death of Lincoln on which it did not elaborate whatsoever, so that made this article particularly meaningful to me.  I was immediately struck by the deliberate articulateness of the writer.  "[A nation's] chosen leader was stricken down by the foul hand of the cowardly assassin.  Exultations that had known no bounds was exchanged for boundless grief."  That, to me, resonates on a level that only the likes of Shakespeare can compete with.  And the entire article was permeated by such a writing style.  However, as flowing and beautiful as the writing was, the writer didn't really have much to say about Lincoln's death aside from the typical who done it, what Lincoln had been doing immediately before the shooting, and a convoluted sounding theory on how he suspected there was also an intended hit on General Grant.  Ultimately, the article simply served its purpose as just that, a to the point (though articulately), report style newspaper article, without much creative insight on the event itself or the impact it would have, aside from the "boundless grief" it professes Lincoln's sudden death had burdened the nation with.

Aside from the article itself, I was also intrigued by the Harper's Weekly banner at the top of the page.  It was incredibly detailed and, by my judgement, really well done, featuring some perfectly sketched hands (which are really hard to draw), as well as an inviting looking sunny sky, a lute, a painter's palette, a telescope, and a globe, which lent a philosophical kind of feel to the paper.  There were also some equally detailed drawings, one of which featured an extremely elaborate rendering of Lincoln's coffin, upon which sprawled a weeping young woman who I assumed to represent America, if only because the drawing also had a soldier from each side of the war weeping, head in hands, on either side of the coffin landscape.  Overall, there were a lot more compelling things said in the artistry of Harper's Weekly than in its writing that I experienced, though I was equally impressed by how well done that reportative style writing was done.

Roaring Camp

I found Harte’s writing style in Roaring Camp to be intensely interesting and mildly annoying.  Okay, maybe it was intensely annoying too…but as an observing narrator displaced from the real-time of the events he is relating, he seemed to be presuming quite a bit about the events he discusses and the people involved in them.  For example, right from the start when we are introduced to our first developed character, Cherokee Sal, the first thing we learn about her is that “she was a coarse and, it is to be feared, a very sinful woman.”  That sounds very suspiciously more like a personal opinion than a measurable reality to me.  It also interested me how Harte portrayed his characters…they all came across as very down low, primitive, uneducated people, which certainly might be expected of the pioneers living on the frontier of civilization, not to mention the pilgrims of America.  We see this in dialogue like “see what you kin do.  You’ve had experience in them things.”  So that all may be fine and good and go down in my mind as realistic and well-written dialogue given the context, but it directly contradicted with his own writing style so much so that it made the reading process a bit abrasive.  Let me elaborate on that…dropping fancy words like “climes,” “putative,” and “extempore” right after such unsophisticated, meat-and-potatoes dialogue and the introduction of characters named “Kentuck” and “Stumpy” can only have one possible motivation written all over it…the guy is trying to sound sophisticated.  And trying much too hard, in much too inappropriate of a context.  Aye, there’s the rub for me that I alluded to earlier…in Roaring Camp, Harte’s writing just seems so abrasively self-contradictive.  It just doesn’t do to take one of the most unsophisticated subjects imaginable and try to embellish as many bells and whistles of sophistication as humanly possible.  Maybe he’s just trying to be taken seriously…but as I scratch my head over this, I just can’t bring myself to take him as anything but another pretentious author who thought he really had something in nothing.  Granted, though, it certainly doesn’t help his case that there are literally millions more of those now than there were when Harte was taking pen to paper.  Yes, pen to paper…not finger to keyboard.

Surprised Dickinson Reading

In my reading of the Dickinson poems for today (which, come to think of it, might actually be my first intensive look at Dickinson in my scholarly English career) I was really surprised to see how dark and depressing Dickinson's poems for the most part were.  Upon reflecting on it, I realized that pretty much every single thing we've read thus far (accepting Benjamin Franklin, perhaps?) has been depressing...maybe its the shaky start America got off to, or maybe its just an over-saturation of puritan ideals, but comparatively speaking Dickinson definitely isn't the most condemning of the literature we've read thus far.  Still, after the unparalleled darkness and depression of Poe and the absolute insanity of Hawthorne, for whatever reason (maybe just my former ignorance of her work) I was expecting something a little more...uplifting from Dickinson.  From the very outset of most every poem, things seemed dark..."success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed," "a certain Slant of light...that oppresses," "I like a look of agony" just shot me down out of the sky of happiness in flames so fast I didn't even know what had happened.  "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" was the only one of the poems I had already read, but it was definitely good to revisit it...this is really where Dickinson turned on a coin for me and started to sound more like I was expecting her to.  My favorite poem of the bunch, though, was definitely This world is not conclusion-despite the ominous eerieness that pervades it.  When I first read the last two lines "Narcotics cannot still the Tooth that nibbles at the soul," it seemed to come across as the most powerful line of literature I could remember reading.  It definitely produces some thought-but behind that thought that varies by the reader, powerful lines like this seem to suggest an undeniable undertone of known truth.  And for Dickinson to end a poem with a dash...I personally thought that was kind of hilarious, just because she had been ending lines with dashes the whole poem it at first glance looks like she may have just stuck it in there for good measure, but it also creates a kind of open-endedness to go with the end of the poem that pairs very well with her closing line...almost like the dash is an invitation to ponder thoughtfully on what the poem really means to you as an individual, because there are certainly a lot of conversations it opens up depending on your interpretation.  I personally think it just echoes her first line-that this world is not conclusion, because "narcotics" (a man-made entity) "cannot still the Tooth that nibbles at the soul."  What I take from this is, as powerful as we may think ourselves to be, we aren't God and we don't have all the answers, and we can't change our world or ourselves as people through our own trifling mortal creations.  There is something bigger than all of this, this world is not conclusion, and nothing we say, do, or think will change that.  And I think that's a good reminder to have, to help us take ourselves off of our high horses and give ourselves up to life and God in appreciation of this experience for what is is now and what it will be, in its elusive conclusion.

Holistic Walt Whitman Response

I have definitely been formerly acquainted with Whitman, though I haven't really ever read his poetry in-depth before.  The only one we read for class that I was already familiar with was "The Dalliance of Eagles", which I had read several times in high school and remembered liking very much.  In the reading for this class, though, I discovered that it wasn't my favorite Whitman poem, as several of the others jumped out at me as well.  Whitman is certainly a...poetic fellow, for lack of a better way of putting it, and it certainly makes an impression in his writing.  I'll now touch on a few of my favorite parts from these selected works..."One's Self I Sing" is definitely the poem that perplexed me the most. Whitman's opening phrase "one's-self" really puzzled me, as the two terms seemed kind of contradicting, and that same effect was soon employed again in the phrase "simple separate person."  What is it to be "separate," and thus different/unique, and yet still be "simple?"  (I also had a similar headache a little further down the road with "Facing West" and Whitman's calling himself "a child, very old).  The end of One's Self also really struck me...first things first, I always love it when writers refer to their muse, so Whitman definitely got a chuckle out of me there, and then I also thought it comically interesting that he writes so politically correctly with the line "The Female equally with the Male I sing."  So there's no discrimination going on in Walt's mind...good to know, Whitman.  In the end, I think Whitman has me straightened out, because I definitely think I share the image with him of his "Modern Man" living "Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine."  Definitely evidence of solid morals and ideals, and always a good goal to aspire towards, however impractical it may be.  Moving on to "Shut Not Your Doors"...I immediately thought it was hilarious that Whitman's disposition shift from one of utmost humility in "One's Self" to a hugely inflated ego, as he commands libraries to open their doors and shelves to his writing, "for that which was lacking on ll your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring."  You definitely can't argue with that confidence...and it's also ironic that he would refer to libraries as "proud," yet embody this cocky disposition.  I found my favorite line from Whitman's hand in "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer," when he writes "Rising and gliding out I wonder'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars."  This particular bit of Whitman's genius really resonated with me, because I very strongly identify with the importance of enjoying the little things in life, because despite how complex the world can be, especially when people are introduced, it really is the simplest things that makes all the difference in a life worth living.  "The Dalliance of the Eagles" is a poem I feel like I really don't need to give credit to; clearly it's a common favorite, considering how many times I've been assigned to read it while remaining ignorant of these other poems.  Still, I will say that I enjoyed revisiting it, and I loved the poem's articulate ending of "...their separate diverse flight, She hers, he his, pursuing" as much as ever.  "When Lilacs" was the only one not to make much of an impression on me.  I say that not because it is long...Milton's "Paradise Lost" is my favorite poem I've ever read...but simply because I found it so sombre and depressing.  Of course it had its moments, like any Whitman poem, but I for one am more partial to the open-ended, thoughtful optimism you find in "Astronomer," "One's Self," and "Dalliance."

Cask of Amontillado Response

Though I didn't enjoy it as much as Tell Tale Heart (which, thanks to its involvement in my childhood, I admittedly have a personal affection for), I definitely did find Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" to be an interesting short story.  Jumping straight to the ending to begin with (hooray dyslexia!), I was definitely confused by what ultimately had happened, and had to re-read the last few lines just to make sense of it.  At first, it seemed to me that Fortunato had somehow escaped his imprisonment and disappeared after he didn't respond to Montresor's "Indeed, for the Love of God" quip, and then evidenced nothing but a ring of the bells when Montresor looked in to check on him.  It of course instead turned out that Fortunato was silently protesting his own demise in an effort to not give Montresor the satisfaction of seeing him wail and plead anymore, but the way in which Poe ended this particular story of his just struck me immediately as not nearly as...concise as his other ones?  Deliberate?  Devoid of loose ends? I can't quite put my finger on it, but ultimately what I'm trying to say is that for all its darkness and bizarre makeup, "Cask of Amontillado" didn't quite seem Poean to me.  Having said that, the similarities between the killers in "Cask" and "The Tell Tale Heart" are innumerable as they are undeniable.  Both stories, obviously, are told from the perspective of the killer, and both killers seem (to me, at least) to be clearly insane in that they both have absolutely no reason whatsoever for wanting to kill their victims.  Even with that being the case, however, both narrators work themselves up into an angry frenzy over the smallest imperfection in each of their victims, and in the end they get so mad and self-rigtheous about the whole thing that there's nothing for it but to kill the son of a bitch and wipe him off the face of the earth.  SparkNotes: They're both crazy because they both think way too much and have insane (no pun intended) personal problems.  There is, however, one key aspect in which I see them as differing...Cask of Amontillado's narrator is operating from an almost family-values based mindset, as he cites his families motto that references their refusal to suffer insolence.  He paints it almost as his duty to kill Fortunato...he owes it to his elders, to his family, and to the world, because to him it goes without saying that it is righteous.  So in that regard, this story seems to embody the nature side of the nature vs. nurture debate.  Tell Tale Heart's narrator, however, seems to be slightly more aware of the wrongness of what he is undertaking in that he feels so compelled to justify himself to the reader, always saying "If you think I'm crazy now, you won't when you hear this."  Though he does his best to self-justify, this scenario seems to be a little more lacking of understood righteousness (in the mind of the killer, that is).  Instead, he is operating a little more from a self-indulged and motivated, rampaging perspective, although that certainly works its way into Montresor's motivations as well.  Still, I see this story as subscribing more to the nurture side of things...which of course fascinates me because Poe is the author of both stories.  Thus, I wonder...Nature or Nurture, Poe?

The Tell Tale Heart Response

I think that by far the most interesting thing from Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" is the narrator/killer's process of self-justification as he rationalizes his deranged thought process that is inspired by his neighbor's ominous' eerie eye.  It shocked me how frequently the narrator would say things like "you think me mad...not so when you hear this or that," and how literally every time "this or that" immediately translated into an almost perfect, Merriam-Webster dictionary caliber definition of insanity.  For example, the narrator prefaces his description of how he mutilates the body after killing the old man in an effort to eliminate traces back to himself by concealing the body in the floorboards of the house with his usual "you'll never think I'm crazy after you hear this" bit.  Taking a step back to look at that...he is literally telling us that he is not crazy because he killed his neighbor and then so carefully and deliberately covered up the crime with meticulous effort and, as he thinks, sheer brilliance.  In the very beginning of the story, the narrator also opens with a disclaimer imploring us that he is not crazy for having killed his neighbor.  He assures us that he has every righteous reason to kill him, though he himself acknowledges that he actually had no reason, no personal problem with the man, other than his somewhat excessively creepy eye.  Thus, his own argument is fundamentally flawed, and I think we can say definitively that he is mentally unstable.  I also think it is clear that the guy thinks about EVERYTHING way too much...having to kill someone because their eye bothers you so much?  Seriously, you're going to have to do a lot of thinking to get to that level of "bothersome."  And similarly, it would require a lot of thinking to develop such outrageous theories of self-righteousness that he outlines for us.  This guy may or may not be too smart for his own good, but he definitely thinks too hard and has too much time on his hands.  Moving on to the end of the story...It does seem pretty clear to me that the heart wasn't actually beating (though this is never explicitly stated; quite the contrary, in fact), but rather all just in the killer's head.  We know that he thinks too much, and this definitely looks like a classic symptom of that.  Combine that with the fact that the officers in the room with the killer show no signs of hearing anything, and, of course, the natural impracticality of the heart of a deceased person continuing to beat, and the reality of the sound our killer thinks he is hearing starts to become pretty doubtful.  However, since it was all in his head, this does clearly evidence that the killer is experiencing at least some guilt, so that suggests that though he may be generally bad by nature there is still at least some good to him.  This, perhaps, represents Poe's view of humanity in general.