I vs. We

I have a lot of problems sometimes with poems. I absolutely love them. I love the way the words stream together to become beautiful music. I love the combinations of words that just seems to flow effortlessly together. That doesn't mean I always understand what the poet is trying to say. That was definitely the case with the short poem "The Death of the Ball Turrent Gunner" by Randall Jarrell.
On the first few readings, all I thought of it was that it was the death of the ball turrent gunner. I didn't think anything more of it than the title basically. It wasn't until almost the end of the class and everyone had been discussing it that I had a huge realization of the meaning. It was an I vs. We thing. This poem was making an individual out of something that was never really thought of in that way. The military is usually talked about as a whole. We someone dies, you don't really care unless you know that person specifically. This poem was talking about an individual death, which I thought was really powerful. It illustrates this one man last moments of life and his death. So many people in the military die, you don't really take the time to consider how scary it is for each individual person right as he/she knows he/she is about to die. As the reader, you see the instance this person is about to die and how as soon as he dies, his remains are washed out like it's nothing. Your individuality means nothing in the military. As soon as the remains were washed out, the next person probably went in.I thought it was kind of sad. Sure, you become part of bigger force in the military, but your life becomes so meaningless and unimportant. You don't matter as person anymore. The only thing that matters is the greater good which is decided by some other person.

Guilt and Blame

Compared to the last story, I really enjoyed Ernest Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Which is really weird the more I think about it because it does the same thing that I didn't like in "To Build a Fire." This story also points out a flaw in humans. But in this one focuses on one, rather than multiple. This story brings into light the fact that, as humans, we are always blaming the people around us for our flaws.
The man in this story is very bitter over the fact that he is dying and doesn't have time to write all the things he has been putting off. I can definitely relate to that, because it's actually a big fear of mine. The man in this story blames his wife for the fact that he is dying. He blames her for the fact that he stopped writing. He also blames her for the fact that his talent was dwindling away. He basically blames his wife for everything bad in his life.
I thought it was terrible that he was treating his wife like that. He said so many nasty things to her as he was dying. He called her names and he told her he never loved her. Of course I was appalled that he could treat his wife like that. Why, if he never loved her, why did he ever marry her? I was filled with disgust for how he treated her. The sad thing though, it's so true. We blame the people around us for our flaws. We don't always realize we are doing it though. We can never blame ourselves. We can never come outright and say that we are the reason that things aren't going the way we want in life. It always has to be someone else's fault. Of course, his case was more extreme. We don't always go to the extremes that Harry did. He became really nasty and was outright about it. Sometimes we don't even realize that we are doing it. But we do do it. And I think that's why I liked this story so much. It made me realize this one human flaw.

To Build a Fire

I honestly can not stand stories like Jack London's "To Build a Fire." It has nothing to do with who the author is. It's just the fact that the story line is the same. Some hot shot thinks he is going to be original and go out into the wilderness. He thinks he's going to be different and somehow have the ability to control the wilderness despite what everyone else tells him. He's arrogant and some weird God complex. He ignores what everyone tells him and that ends up being the death of him. It doesn't matter who the character is, or how well written the piece is, I still can't stand these stories. Because they all end the same and happen the same.
I'm not going to deny that Jack London hasn't done a beautiful job of writing this piece. There were quite a few things that I thought were brilliant in this story. But that doesn't stop the fact that I really don't like the story line, and I think that's the point.
I don't even know the main character's name and I hate him. I hate his arrogance. I hate how stupid he is. I hate how he thinks he can conquer pure wilderness despite all the warnings. I hate how he treats the dog. I think the thing I hate the most is the terrible name he gives to humans.
There is a huge comparison between the dog and this unknown man in this story. The dog through the whole thing is loyal to the man, but knows that in order to survive they need to keep warm. The dog knows the importance of fire. "The dog had learned fire, and it wanted fire, or else to brrow under the snow and cuddle its warmth away from the air" (652). The man, on the other hand, just continually thinks about how cold it is. The man doesn't have any other thoughts other than getting to his guy friends as quickly as possible and the mere fact that it is cold. "Once in a while the thought reiterated itself that it was very cold and that he had never experienced such cold" (652). He doesn't think about fire until it's too late.
He doesn't show any compassion to the dog at all. I'm not even sure why he brought it along in the first place. "[T]here was no keen intimacy between the dog and the man. The one was the toil-slave of the other, and the only caresses it had ever received were the caresses of the whip-lash and of harsh and menacing throat-sounds that threatened the whip-lash" (654). The only time he thinks about the dog is when he knows he's going to die and is going to kill the dog in order to try to save himself. That part made me really mad. It was the human's dumb fault for getting himself in this situation. He doesn't listen to any of the warning signs, or even the dog. If he would have took the time and the precautions, he probably would have lived. Or, if he would have even been a bit nicer to the dog, the dog would have put in an effort to try to save the man.
The man in this piece gives such a bad light to humans. It shows all our bad qualities, especially compared to the dog. It shows our selfishness, our arrogance, our ideal that we are better than everything.

Poor Alice

When I first read "The Other Two" by Edith Wharton, I had a different response than any of the ones we discussed in class. I was initially a bit mad after reading it. I'll explain why, but first I just want to state that I didn't think of any of the social aspects. I didn't think of any of the characters social rank or how that plays in society. My reaction came purely from the interaction between the characters themselves, and needless to say, I wasn't fond of it. 

What made angered me was how Mr. Waythorn treated his wife, Alice. He talks about her in a really creepy way, and it only gets worse after everything that is going on with her ex-husbands. He's very possessive over her. He acts as if she is his object to show off rather than his partner in marriage. “Waythorn felt himself yielding again to the joy of possessorship. They were his, those white hands with their flitting motions. His the light haze of hair, the lips and eyes. . . .”(526). No woman should be treated as an object. Mr. Waythorn becomes nastier after Alice’s two ex-husbands become a part of their life. When Mr. Waythorn married Alice he knew that she had two previous marriages. In the beginning, he seems to be relatively okay with that. He realizes that she’s made mistakes in her past, but the past is done and over with. All that matters is that they are married now. But that’s not the truth. Mr. Waythorn just wants Alice to be that perfect, obedient trophy wife. He can’t stand to think that she was previously another man’s wife. His overall language and demeanor towards her changes when he is constantly being reminded of her previous husbands. He acts if she’s some dirty creature who is so below him, when she really should be his equal. I understand that it was a different time period and woman were treated differently, but it still made me mad.

What is literature?

I should probably start saying hello and welcome to new semester. The second part of this will be dedicated to American Lit II.

I'm sure literature is very different to everyone. Being an English major, literature is extremely important to me. It's a connection to everyone in the world. It's a way to express our own personal thoughts and feelings. It helps us to feel less alone in the world. It helps us to understand our surroundings. It's an escape from the dullness of human routine. To you, it may be something completely different from any of the things that just happened to cross my mind.

Dickinson and Wilderness

I did a bit of research on this poem because it wasn’t really clicking with me and I saw a website use the term “wilderness of the mind.” I think that describes this poem perfectly. To me, it sounds like Dickinson was struggling with something mentally and has finally overcome it. The wilderness that she was going through in her mind, created something more beautiful, a better wilderness. She doesn’t mean the physical place of wilderness. This contrast with my idea of wilderness. I thought of wilderness as a way to escape, but to Dickinson, the wilderness was what she was trying to escape from. She had to make something out of her wilderness, while I think that wilderness should be something that just is. This also contrasts with Whitman’s ideas of wilderness. He views wilderness as a way to escape society. You need it to remain sane. It was just the opposite for Dickinson. She was trapped within her own wilderness. She had to see the “Sun” for everything to change for her. She had to escape from the wilderness not escape to the wilderness. 

Whitman and Wilderness

Walt Whitman considers wilderness an escape from the troubles of society. He uses it as a simple way to enjoy life. There are countless instances where Whitman is just sitting back and enjoying life and he is doing it while being surrounded by nature. Take part 5 for example, he is enjoying while going on and wilderness is contributing to that. He feels like he is away from the pressures of society. Wilderness also shows that we are all equal through the use of wilderness. He does it with the question “what is grass?”. He points out that he doesn’t know any more than a child would. Society forgets that we are all the same but wilderness will quickly remind us that we are. You can also see why he likes to separate from society and be with wilderness in part 32. He doesn’t have to deal with other human beings in nature. It is his escape.

His definition matches up pretty well with my own. Just like Whitman, I think of wilderness as an escape. It allows us to be away from society. We can just be where everything is free and uncontrolled. Sometimes we need that escape.