Journal #22 Dickinson

Liana Laskin

English 48B

"359 [328]," "372 [341]," "409 [303]," "448 [449]," "479 [712]," "519 [441]," "591 [465]," "598 [632]," "620 [435]," "656 [520]," "764 [754]," "1096 [986]," "1263 [1129]," "1668 [1624]," "1773 [1732]" by Emily Dickinson

March 19, 2009

"The Dyings have been too deep for me, and before I could raise my Heart from one, another has come" (Dickinson, after the death of her mother in 1882 and her nephew Gilbert (her youngest and favorite) in 1883, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson)

Summary:


359 is about someone watching a bird that eats a worm, drinks dew from a “convenient Grass,” but lets a beetle go. 372 is about the narrator dying from hypothermia. 409 has a “Soul” picking and choosing who is a part of her “Society.” 448 has “Beauty” and “Truth” as equal, making a point in the last line that most of us will be forgotten long after we are dead. 479 shows the narrator riding in a carriage with Death as they pass the world of the living. 519 might be directly from Dickinson’s point of view, mentioning how her poetry is her letter to a world that never acknowledged her. 591 focuses on a fly buzzing around while a woman dies. 598 is about how the mind is so vast because humans can imagine anything at all. 620 is almost a reference to Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-paper,” when a woman is considered crazy if she does not conform. 656 uses the metaphor of the sea to talk about a sensual encounter between a woman and a male being. 764 (I believe) is about a man taking his gun and going hunting. 1096 is about someone who runs into a snake in the grass. 1263 says how the truth has to be told “gradually” and straightforward. 1668 is about the destruction of nature; 1773 is about how the narrator (as well as the audience) does not know that much about life after death.

Response:

In this set of poems, my favorites were 479 (“Because I could not stop for Death”), 598 (“The Brain - is wider than the Sky”), and 764 (“My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun”). The contrast of death and an almost pleasant tone in 479 was quite interesting. 598 and 764 became poems that I liked because the former is literally what the mind is like (this idea might have come to Dickinson because it is a creative way of talking about the mind) and the latter can be interpreted in so many different ways (i.e. religious, a love poem, literal). My personal choice for 764 is that the “Gun” is actually a weapon because of how it is described and also the fact that it can kill but never die. I think this set of Dickinson’s poems lean more toward religion and literal meanings and away from the sensual (of course, that theme is still in a few of the poems in this group). Although I did not completely understand Poem 1773, I really was intrigued by the last two lines: “Parting is all we know of heaven,/And all we need of hell” (7-8). It may be a religious reference, but at the same time, it does reflect the struggle that Dickinson may have had with her religious beliefs. If I had to choose another line from a poem that I liked, it would definitely be the last one in 372, when the narrator succumbs to death; I liked how the dashes added to the feeling of a slow death, making the line more interesting than if the dashes were not there.

Journal #21 Dickinson

Liana Laskin

English 48B

"39 [49]," "112 [67]," "124 [216]," "202 [185]," "207 [214]," "225 [199]," "236 [324]," "269 [249]," "320 [258]," "339 [241]," "340 [280]" by Emily Dickinson

March 18, 2009

"It seemed to me I should die too if I could not be permitted to watch over her or even look at her face" (Dickinson remebering the death of Sophia Holland, a close second cousin, two years later, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson)

Summary:

39 was about someone who lost something (possibly money) at least twice. After "Angels" helped the narrator get back on their feet, they were robbed and poor again. 112 is about someone who loses a battle and overhears the sound of the victorious army; of course, victory is only “sweetest” to the defeated rather than those who won. 124 and 340 talk about death, the former referring to those who have been in their graves and are now covered in snow, while 340 is about a person who has a funeral in their brain, almost making the poem from the perspective of a corpse being lowered into the ground. 202 and 236 are the religious poems. The first mocks “Gentlemen” who use “Faith” to see, whereas using a scientific instrument (like a microscope) would be better to make decisions with. In 236, the narrator mentions how it is better to “keep the Sabbath” at home rather than going to church and that she will still go to Heaven. 225, 320, and 339 are poems about pain, the first a transition from “Wife” to “Woman” and back (basically, slavery to freedom and back), the second is about the pain caused by religion, and the third is about a person who likes to cause pain and possibly death. 207 and 269 are sexually based; 207 is more about female sexuality and drunkenness. Poem 269 is very much about either heterosexuality or homosexuality and sexual intercourse, especially in lines 11-12 “Might I but moor – tonight/In thee!”

Response:

What I really love about reading all of these poems is that they are nice to read aloud because they do have a rhythm and sound nice. My favorite poems out of this group were 269 (“Wild nights – Wild nights!) and 340 (“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”) because I have read them before this class and I really love how they flow, especially 340. I also thought it was really cool to see the copy of 269 in Emily Dickinson’s handwriting because I was able to compare her version to the one in the book and see the subtle differences; the placement and different sizes of the dashes in Dickinson’s version made me think about what the other poems may have looked like in the original format. I think that the repetition of words in stanzas one and two of 340 really added to the experience of reading it. Also, when the poem just ends abruptly and without rhyming, it did remind me of how in a funeral, the casket might hit the bottom of the grave just as suddenly. I could really see Dickinson’s understanding of religion, especially in 202 (“Faith” is a fine invention”) and 236 (“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church”) because for someone to be able to intelligently mock something, I personally think that they have to know a lot about whatever that thing happens to be. Another thing about reading Dickinson’s poetry is that (for me, at least) it is not that hard to interpret the meaning of her writing and it can also be interpreted in many different ways.

Journal #20 Whitman

Liana Laskin

English 48B

"Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman

March 12, 2009

"L. of G. at last complete—after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old" (Whitman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman)

Summary:

"Song of Myself" is a mish-mash of different themes and ideas, the lines flowing like opera music or verses from the Bible. Whitman's narrator starts by saying that he and everyone in the world is the same and that the rest of his poem will be more about nature and that he will put aside "creeds" of religion and philosophy. Much like "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," this poem is very consistent with repetition and descriptive imagery. He continues with sensory images of nature and homoeroticism, combining the two so that Whitman can almost get away with the sexual implications. Religion does not only play a big part in the way the words flow, but also in the references to God as well as death, the latter most notably in section eighteen, where he talks about how he would celebrate those who have lost their battles. He also brings up death earlier in section six when a child comes up to him and asks “What is the grass?”, again bringing up nature to make sense of those who have passed on. Section fifteen shows how Whitman is truly a journalist, listing off different people going about their daily business, as if he was just walking down the street and putting the sights and sounds away in his mind to write about later. Whitman is subtle and blunt about not only the homoeroticism, but also the heterosexuality, weaving it into the imagery so that it makes the reader think twice about automatically believing that they are reading something sexually explicit.

Response:

I was quite confused about what I was reading (even after going through the poem twice). I think it was because I felt that “Song of Myself” did not have a definite plotline, and was just a bunch of smaller poems put together into one big poem. There were some sections that did seem to go with each other, but for the most part, it was very chaotic. I can understand how the lines that were more sexual in nature would be considered very scandalous when the poem was published, but when I read it, I guess I just read the lines without really reacting to them. This may be due to the fact that we do live in a much more sexually explicit world, which could have kept me from being shocked, but it could also be because the poem was not easy to read and understand. Even though I was confused by what I was reading, I did appreciate when Whitman would describe everything that was going on as the narrator walked down a street because it made me wonder about what we all miss when we go to crowded areas and are more concerned with what we are doing rather than what is going on around us. I think I tend to see sexuality in non human objects more because when I took English 1B, our class read a poem about womb images being related to something like the peach the narrator is eating as she reminisces on her sexual encounter when she goes scuba diving.

Journal #19 Whitman

Liana Laskin

English 48B

"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" by Walt Whitman

March 11, 2009

"The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." (Whitman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman)

Summary:

It is set during the trip home on the ferry from Manhattan after a work day has ended. What it is really about is how the human race is one and the same because of a shared common life experiences. The poem begins with the narrator noticing his settings more so than the other passengers, something he cannot understand. When the narrator shifts his attention, the focus becomes less about that group of people and more about every person that has ever taken the ferry home. The poem develops an ebb and flow rhythm (a contrast between stanzas one and two), the second section bringing in repetition. Stanza three gives a very detailed description of the ferry ride and has even more repetition, referencing the Bible and Shakespeare; nature and manmade objects are equal in description. The people on the ferry (past, present, and future) are separate and together for something bigger. Soon the two central images in the poem are revealed: seagulls and looking to the future. With the seagulls, the narrator feels split between the past and future. He refers to “dark patches” (shadows), saying that the birds are both light and dark. When he talks about people, he lumps them all together and they experience everything he does. He looks to the future, telling the reader what he thinks of them. He ends by going back strong imagery and repetition, almost as if he is chanting the lines so that the reader really gets them into their mind.

Response:

Although “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” did have one main plotline that continued throughout the entire poem, I still felt a little lost (even after having read it twice). After going online and reading through a close reading, I had a slightly better grasp of what I was reading. I liked how Whitman mentioned that everyone has a “dark patch” thrown on them as well as on himself, showing that we are all imperfect and that is just the way life is. I agree with the narrator’s observation of his fellow passengers (i.e. they are so near each, yet so distant at the same time) because when I am in a crowd of strangers, I most likely will not talk to any of them. Whitman’s comment about all of us being actors who can make their parts as big or small as they like was definitely something I understood because nobody is completely honest with the rest of the world. The frontal lobe of the human brain is what keeps us from doing that because it is the part of the brain that chooses between right and wrong. I thought about who the “dumb, beautiful ministers” might be, and decided that they were people who are still strangers to the narrator and the reader. They are “dumb” or silent because we have never spoken to them and “ministers” since they could have something to say that we might consider important to listen to. I definitely think that Whitman’s repetition of ideas does help the reader understand the poem better.

Journal #18 Chopin

Liana Laskin

English 48B

"The Awakening" (Chapters 24-39) by Kate Chopin

March 5, 2009

"Kate was neither a feminist nor a suffragist, she said so. She was nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously. She never doubted women's ability to be strong" (David Chopin, Kate's grandson, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Chopin)

Summary:

Edna moves into the Pigeon House, calling herself independent. She begins having an affair with Alcée Arobin, just having a physical relationship, not a romantic one and not losing her freedom. Edna and Reisz become close and Reisz tells her that being an artist requires courage. Edna visits Reisz piano often, enjoying her piano playing and reading the letters from Robert sent to Reisz. She is the only one who knows about the love between Robert and Edna, encouraging Edna to tell Robert feelings. Robert, who finds being so far away hard, comes back from Mexico and finally tells Edna how he feels. He also reminds her that because she is married, they cannot be together. Edna tells Robert that she is now free of her husband and says they can have a life together. Although the feelings are mutual, he will not have an affair with her. When told Adèle is in labor, Edna leaves Robert to go to her friend, begging him to wait for her to come back. Adèle can tell that Edna is becoming distant and sees her relationship with Robert has gotten more passionate. She tells Edna to remember her children. Doctor Mandelet begs Edna to see him, saying he will blame her if she does not come. Edna comes home and finds a note from Robert in his place, telling her he loves her. Feeling abandoned, she returns to Grand Isle. When Edna gets to the water, she strips, starts swimming, and eventually lets go. She supposedly drowns, her last thoughts settling on her youth.

Response:

Although I did not see it coming from a mile away, it really did not surprise me when Edna went into the water and "drowned" considering the formula most stories of the time follow (the woman does something unladylike, she dies). At the beginning I felt bad for Edna and did not like Léonce that much, but by the end of the story, it was Léonce that I felt sorry for because all he wants is a stable marriage and a nice wife. It is implied that Edna has an affair with Alcée and has feelings for Robert, which does not help her situation. I felt that Edna was just a little bit too annoying with the whole "I want my independence" idea; it reminded me of Samuel Richardson's Pamela, in which the main character (Pamela) goes on and on about being virtuous (after a while, it does get a little old). I found it interesting that for Edna to become more independent, she had to almost become masculine. She goes to horse races and knows more about what is going on than some of the men, she prefers brandy to hot chocolate at Reisz’s house, she moves into her own house, and she stops caring about what other people think of her behavior. Basically, to be free like a man, she has to become a man and abandon everything she has grown up learning. I personally liked her more before she had her “awakening” because I felt that she was not as annoying and was definitely better off without the knowledge she got from getting independence (I know her life was not as nice as it was after she started seeking freedom, but her character was better, in my opinion).

Journal #17 Chopin

Liana Laskin

English 48B

"The Storm" and "The Awakening" (Chapters 1-23) by Kate Chopin

March 4, 2009

"Chopin undermines patriarchy by endowing the Other, the woman, with an individual identity and a sense of self, a sense of self to which the letters she leaves behind give voice. The 'official' version of her life, that constructed by the men around her, is challenged and overthrown by the woman of the story" (Jane Le Marquand, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Chopin)

Summary:

“The Storm” starts out with Bobinôt and his son Bibi get stuck at Friedheimer's store because of a storm. After deciding to stay way they are, Bobinôt buys a can of shrimp for his wife Calixta. At home, Calixta is so caught up with sewing that she does not realize a storm is coming, but later notices and closes the windows and brings in Bobinôt's laundry in from outside. Alcée, a former lover, rides up on his horse and helps her with the clothes; he reluctantly agrees on staying because the storm gets worse. Calixta continues to sew as Alcée sits in the rocker. Calixta worries about her family as the storm gets even worse. They begin to think back to their past relationship and when the passion builds high enough, they have sex. After the storm, Alcée leave. Calixta is thrilled to see her husband and sun, and is pleased with Bobinôt’s gift of canned shrimp. Alcée writes to his wife Clarisse, telling her to stay in Biloxi as long as she wants. Clarisse feels free after reading the letter and decides to stay a while longer. “The Awakening” starts in Grand Isle, a summer resort near New Orleans. Edna Pontellier is there with her husband, Léonce, and their two sons in cottages belonging to Madame Lebrun. Although Léonce is a kind person, he is more concerned with work. Edna becomes close to Adèle Ratignolle, a married Creole; Edna also begins to feel freer with her feelings and desires which have now been “awakened.” She meets Robert Lebrun, Madame Lebrun’s elder son. Robert becomes Edna’s “attendant” for the summer and they become close. As time goes on, Edna begins to paint again, something she did when she was young and learns to swim. Edna and Robert are never open about their feelings. She becomes depressed when she feels trapped by her husband, but is happy when free. Robert begins to realize what is happening and leaves for Mexico. Edna and Léonce go back home to New Orleans. After such a transformation, Edna continues painting, disregarding all social responsibilities. This leads Léonce to go to the family physician, Doctor Mandelet. He suspects she is having an affair, but does not tell Léonce. Instead, Mandelet tells Léonce to leave her be.

Response:

“The Storm” seemed just a little bit random and did not have that much of a plot. Basically, all that happened was that Calixta’s family got stuck at a store because of the storm, her ex lover visits her at home, they have sex, and then both go on with their lives as if the whole incident never occurred. It was a bit too convenient, in my opinion, that Alcée happened to show up (on a horse when her family was not around, no less) when a storm was right on the horizon. I also thought that the story having a happy ending and life going on as it had before just seemed really ridiculous. Unlike “The Awakening,” “The Storm” was not at all realistic and that kind of detracted from the story. I liked the fact that in “The Awakening” Edna does change so drastically because it does make her a more interesting character. Also, the change does not feel weird because I think it becomes quite obvious that under the veneer of being the perfect wife and mother, she is much freer and more human. I thought it was a little bit predictable for Edna to be interested in Robert Lebrun, considering it is a known fact that each summer he chooses a lady to “attend” to. I felt as though the relationship was a bit too much of a plot device and was possibly put into the story so that Edna’s close friendship with Adéle did not come off looking homosexual. I liked how Chopin really did not elaborate too much on Léonce Pontellier because it added a sense of not being a part of the Grand Isle scene.

Journal #16 Twain

Liana Laskin

English 48B

"Letters from the Earth" and "The War Prayer" by Mark Twain

February 26, 2009

"If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be -- a Christian." (Twain, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain)

Summary:

"Letters from the Earth" starts out with God creating animals and human beings as experiments; he has three archangels, Gabriel, Michael, and Satan, who are his audience. Of course, Satan is banished into space, but decides to go to Earth to see God's creations. He writes a series of letters about how humans and angels differ in every single way. Satan points out that although humans value sex above all other pleasures, they leave it out of their heaven and instead replace it with prayer. In the "Letter to the Earth," the last sections of "Letters," humans are shown to have contradictory prayers (i.e. the prayers the say out loud conflict with the ones that are in their hearts). "The War Prayer" begins with families celebrating their male members going to war, either to come back as heroes or die valiantly in battle. An old man tells the minister leading the prayer to step down and begins his own observation; he begins by telling the stunned audience that he has "come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!" He disregards the positive message of glory and pointing out how many will die and suffer at the hands of the great soldiers. After going on for a very long time, the stranger finally pauses, and then says that if going to war is still what the people "desire," they should say so right then and there. After he leaves, the people end up believing that the man was merely a "lunatic" with no clue as to what he was going on about.

Response:

I had to read "Letters from the Earth" twice to completely understand the humor in the story (it did not jump out at me as much as “Fennimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” did). The first time through it felt very cynical and was kind of odd, but as soon as I really got what I was reading, it became quite hilarious. I think my appreciation of it had a little to do with the fact that I am an Atheist, especially when I got to “Letter to the Earth.” There are so many religious people (definitely not all) out in the world who pray for good things to happen to them and others, but unfortunately do not are not as caring or giving in their hearts or vise versa (i.e. pray for bad things to happen to others, but silently pray for good things to happen to themselves). I found it funny that Satan was the one doing the commentary on what was happening in Heaven and on Earth, specifically because I would imagine God being the narrator in that instance. Satan narrating makes more sense since the idea of sexual intercourse is brought up (the story is already blasphemous enough without God making this observation). I did not like “The War Prayer” as much because it seemed a little too depressing for my taste (the mood definitely makes the story into something quite ahead of its time). I felt like it did not fit in with the other stories I read because it was so different.