All in All

I really REALLY liked this class! There was alot of reading but I enjoyed it! The blogging wasn't so bad, but I also had to do blogging for my previous English course so maybe that's why i'm not complaining. I liked the assigned readings and how we had daily quizzes so as to remind you as freshen your memory of what you had read earlier. I have known crossed over to the dark side though and still enjoy my non-fiction but I definitely have more respect and am more open to picking up a fiction book. I wouldn't change a thing in this course. What also made this course fun was the professor was always happy and always smiling which is something you don't always see. Awesome class :).

"A Rose for Emily", "A Good Man is Hard to Find", and "The Yellow Wallpaper"

After reading Charlotte's article about why she wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper", I understand now why she gave the male character in this story ignorance. In the story, John ( her husband ) is a physician and everytime she tries to tell him how she feels or that something is different about her, he rides it off by saying that she needs to strictly follow her medications, sleep more and not lift a finger, for that will make her stronger. Those were the same instrucitons given to Charlotte, but right at the brink of madness, she picked her up her pen ( which she was told not to do ), and started writing. I thought the short story was a perfect blend of patrial male-heiarchy and the wilting innocent woman plus the idea of horror because we don't really know what causes her to go mad, but we do know that she is very fascinated in this wallpaper that seems to grow more intersting each day to her.
In "Good Man", I believe the misfit is grotesque mainly because he seems to know what he is doing is wrong, yet feels no remorse for doing it. Almost like he doesn't care for anyone else but himself and will literally stop at nothing to keep his appearance a secret. In "A Rose for Emily", I believe that Emily is grotesque but i'm torn between Emily and Homer, not because they are mainly the only two characters you read about, but because it seems like they both have qualities about themselves that are different from other people. In the end, I am SURE that Emily is insane in "A Rose for Emily" because she has this dead rotting body in her bed and then the people find a silver hair, one of hers I believe, under the pillow next to the corpse. I just think that's disgusting. I do though see another revised southern belle in "Good Man", the grandmother. She has such a sweet side and sees the good side of things and never says many bad things throughout the story and even tries to talk some sense into the Misfit by telling him to pray. I know that if I had a guy with a gun who is known for murder standing right in front of me, I wouldn't do anything that might anger him! But the grandmother tries, even though she knows she keeps hearing gunshots.
I notice that time stands still in "Good Man", but in "Emily", times seems to progress rapidly and on a downward side at that. The "yankee" I believe is Homer Barron in "Emily", not jsut because it says so in the story, but because he is much different from the people in the town h's at. He's loud and disrespectful, always causing trouble. The white perceptions of Black americans in the story, I could only find in "Emily" when Homer Barron would "...cuss the riggers..".

Jean-Ah Poquelin

Consider and write about the changing South. In what ways does it change? Is there resistance? How does the subject of change influence the narrative. How is this story Southern Gothic. Do you see any of the Southern Gothic troupes. (PPT is in eCollege)

There always has to be at least one source of decay in a story, and in this story it is the plantation and pretty much everything surrounding it is decaying. Also, in this story, there is an introduction of wild animals, which is something I haven't seen or noticed in the other short stories and novels we've read. On the first page, you see that the "...shallow strips of water were hid by myriads of aquatic plants, under whose coarse and spiritless flowers, could one have seen it, was a harbour of reptiles, great and small, to make on shudder to the end of his days." The mention of animals great and small works on the readers mind because they don't tell you how big the animal is when he's "great". Also, the house of being "...the object of superstitions" is also another gothic element that is used, along with classifying the main character as being "...a symbol of witchery, devilish crime, and hideous nursery fictions..." when he didn't come back with his half-brother. There is resistance to change when the main character does NOT want a street built in front of his property. It starts on page 170 when the main character goes to the governor and says "...Strit can't pass dare" and goes on many many times to put his foot down and telling the people that he does NOT want a street built around his property and he does NOT want anymore people moving in around where he lives. This resistance is brought about because he probably does not feel comfortable with having others living around him, or that he doesn't trust anyone else, or maybe because he just wants to be alone. Throughout the story, you are used to reading about how the main character's house is falling apart and how he is lonely and only has an african mute staying with him, but the introduction of new blood in the story somewhat excites me because I thought that maybe he would come out of his shell, but then I was also worried because I wasn't too sure how the children would treat him, since they are always up to no good. There seems to be more action and more characters talking when the change happens and you get a little bit more of a sotry out of the story you are reading and it just makes it a little bit more interesting to see how other people act and react to the main character. I consider this story souther gothic because there is of course the decaying plantation, there is somewhat of a hero ( Mr. White ), there is the element of terror and mystery, and there are "ghosts" in the story. No one is ever really able to state whether or not it is a ghosts and since we never get to read the story from the main character's perspective we never know for sure if that really is his half-brother's ghost. What exactly did happen to Jacques?

Charles Chesnutt

In both "The Goophered Grapevine" and in "The Sheriff's children", the black character is not seen as inferior neccessarily, but more of an equal person ( well except for the lyncher's in "Sheriff's Children"), and are given respect. The black characters are also given a chance to speak their mind and tell their past lives ( which you see in both stories ) that are actually interesting and help give you information for the story to make sense. I do not know why Uncle Julius did not tell his story on what happened to the plantation but I rather rnjoyed hearing the story about the plantations past by someone who worked there, it's not so boring and despressing as hearing about how the character just looked out onto the fields and watched his servants work. There's no fun in that! You actually got to learn about the other characters in the story, the other workers, and how tey interacted with one another and how they were treated on the plantation. The racial identity of both the blacks in both of these stories is one that you didn't see in "Our Nig". I may be way off but in both of Chesnutt's stories, they were both intelligent n some way. The prisoner in "Sheriff's Children" tricked the sheriff by being stealthy and having very good dialect and the man in "Grapveine" knew of a past that the other two characters did not know about and actually asked him to explain instead of just brushing him off and saying that he don't know what he's talking about. the gothic elements come out in "Goophered Grapevine" with the works of Aunt Peggy and her being classified as a 'witch' by the narrator along with her goopher the grapevines. And then of course there's the element of horror in "Sheriff's Children" when the prisoner has the sheriff held up at gun point. I say this is horror because there is no way for the sheriff to get out therefore there is no resolution. Then, unlike other gothic novels, the heroine ( Polly ) comes to rescue the hero ( her father ) by shooting the prisoner in the arm.

I really don't think that readers cared for the "Sheriff's children" all that much because at some turn of events the black character is in control and has the white man's life in his hands. This is not usual to read and might not have gone over very well with those who believed that blacks were inferior and could never rise up or have the intelligence to retaliate. I rather enjoyed it though :). Along with "Sheriff's Children", in "Grapevine", the worker whos rubs the sap on his head to keep him from dying ( from the goopher Aunt Peggy set one the vines ) seems to take control of Henry, instead of Henry controlling it. The element of gothic in this story is the knowledge of the unknown, we know what happened to the vines, but we don't know exactly if that's the reason why Henry grows younger and older, or if the goopher really worked. there's many more ideas of mine I could talk about, but I think that's enough for now!

Our Nig

To me I see many reasons why this novel would be kept hidden for a number of years. First of all the title is somewhat offensive if you don't really take the time to read it and understand why it has the title that it does. Second of all, I think it was because the North did not want others to see how the slaves or their black servents were treated because they were seen as good and just people. I mean, even though you knew that there was beating and whipping and starvation going on, you didn't want to read about it! There are many parts in this story where things do get a little graphic and discussions tend to get unfair and prejudice which could anger any person who would have been reading it, I know it did me. I applaud Harriet Wilson though that she had the guts and courage to write about this and show people that even though you worked in the house and you were just a young girl, you still got the unruly treatment, worse than a dog. The Christians are actually given a good name in this novel ( except for the characters Mrs. Bellmont and Mary that is ) and I just think that many didn't want this book to be seen by the public eye because of her and they were pretty much ashamed of her and thought that she would give Christianity a bad name. The rest of the other characters treated her fairly, like she was a human being and no different from the rest of them. Christianity didn't want to look bad.
After Frado left the Bellmont's, she had a tough time getting by because she was black, thinking that her work or what she made wasn't good enough for anyone else to buy or respect. When her brother came up to her and wanted to marry her, she didn't hesitate because she finally had someone out there in the real world that cared about her, which almost reminds me of how her mother felt out in the public when Jim told her that he cared for her ( who was also black ). Even when she was wick, she was still having false rumors spread about her saying that she was a fraud and that she wasn't sick at all, which made her feel even worse. She bounced back and forth between different houses just trying to find someone who would take the time to care for her and hopefully accept her, but each time she got better, she had to leave. she never really had a home after the age of six and I think that Harriet was trying to show us that even though you are a free black, you still don't feel like you belong like everyone else. People still look down upon you and turn their noses up at you as if to show you are inferior to them and to their race just because of the color of your skin.

The Fall of the House of Usher

4)What kind of narrator is used in this piece? Is he reliable? Speculate as to why Poe would use this type of narrator for his work.

The narrator in this novella is the friend who come and visits Mr. Usher. Everything that we have read is through his eyes and also through his imagination and understanding of events. Although we do not get to fully understand what all is wrong with Roderick, we can at least get a feeling that something is not right with him when his friend states, "The now ghastly pallor of the skin...miraculous lustre of the eye...the silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity." Before this statement was made, the narrator went to explain how Usher used to look like which is why he was so astonished to find that Rocerick had some what decayed and things that used to sprakle and shine about him are now dull or even dead. For the story's sake, I believe that the narrator is reliable because it seems that Roderick is slowly but surely going mad and we wouldn't want to read the story from a madman's point of view, might not make any sense. I think Poe wanted the story to be told this way so that then we could get the full feelings from a normal sane person ( at the beginning that is ) and see what the house looked like from the outside, how grim and quiet it is on the inside, and what the characters look like compared to when he first knew him. Not much is said about Madeline, but the story seems to focus more on Roderick anyways. Now later on in the story, the narrator seems to be falling under the same dreary and decayed feeling, or feeling of madness, probably because of hos gloomy and dark and dreary thigns are around him. Might even possibly be a complete shift from what he's used to and he's still trying to make sense of it but just can't. I might even be way off right now ( thank god for class discussions!! ) but that is the way I see it.

Young Goodman Brown

I remember reading this in high shcool and actually being interested in the moral of the story. The significance in naming is one thing I noticed. The story is about the nature of sin in man and Nathaniel wrote the character's names as Young GOODMAN Brown and his wife FAITH. These two characters are unaware of the natural sin in humankind and yet are happy because they don't know how man can really be or what secrets they hide. I think the names were used to just add a little extra touch to his story. In my mind everything makes sense but when I try to type it out it just doesn't sound right so for now i'll just say that I believe Nathaniel used the names he chose because we associate the names with something good and innocent, and would never think anything beastly of them. The forest though, is where he meets the traveller who he mentions looks alot like him, but older. When Brown tries to turn around and head back, his traveller bades him to go further and further, giving in to temptation while going against what he knows is right. When his traveller lets him (Brown) sit and rest and go no further, Brown waits to see someone he knows that takes walks in the forest, but when he hears two people talking, he hides, almost like he's ashamed of where he is, guilt. The devilish communion that takes place in the forest also ( to me ) symbolizes the evil things that can happen when no one is around or when no one is there looking, pushing you even more to do things you would never do in the public eye. I may be way off track but the forest with it's tall trees and quiet atmosphere almost acts like a sescure place, letting you feel like you can do whatever it is you want to do, without being seen.