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333 midterm
| author | notes |
|---|---|
| de Tocqueville On Individualism | Individualism, characteristic of modern democracy, is an erroneous theoretical doctrine that holds that each man is fundamentally alone in the world |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | lack of social security leads to higher depression rates |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | every great person we have ever known refused to be bound by the past -- embrace being misunderstood just like them |
| de Tocqueville On Individualism | Democratic man believes he must be self-reliant but feels keenly his weakness in the face of a mass of other “individuals.” The practical manifestation of individualism is man’s increasing withdrawal from public into private life. |
| de Tocqueville On Individualism | does not refer to a majority imposing will on minority, but to the propensity of democratic peoples to develop highly abstract political ideas and erect bureaucratic structures that rob them of need to act or think for themselves except on trivial matters |
| de Tocqueville On Individualism | selfishness is prominent in modern society |
| de Tocqueville On Individualism | individualism is a judgment error, not instinct |
| de Tocqueville On Individualism | selfishness is everywhere but individualism is deeply western |
| de Tocqueville On Individualism | lack of aristocracy - lack of respect for forefathers and people are independent and not part of the greater whole |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | follow in your own footsteps not someone else's -- speak your truth |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | advanced so much that we regressed |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | for everything that is given, something is taken away |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | Emerson then argues that the most important realization any individual can have is that they should trust themselves above all others |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | Emerson believes that there is a better kind of virtue than the opinions of respected people or demands for charity for the needy. This goodness comes from the individual’s own intuition, and not what is visible to society. |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | it takes a truly brave person to live out one’s own notions of goodness in the face of pressure from society |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | We should quit praying for something outside of ourselves to save us and instead act. We should quit subordinating our experiences to religions and philosophies and instead listen to our intuition. |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | One of Emerson’s goals in the essay is to help average people understand how to live out the transcendentalist ideal of confident individuality |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | Emerson’s unconventional morality focuses on what the individual is able to uncover by contemplation of the self, one of the major pathways to the truth that was celebrated by transcendentalists |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | A common complaint of most cultural elites of the day was that the U.S. lacked its own culture. By blaming conformity for this lack of originality, Emerson taps into reformist and nationalistic impulses that were rising in the U.S. during this period. |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | One can see this weakness of men from cities—“city dolls”— who quit when confronted with failure. Emerson admires “the sturdy lad from Vermont or New Hampshire” who tries at ordinary pursuits, and, rejects authority—it is he who builds the nation |
| Emerson Self-Reliance | Emerson also believes that the mania for basing our identities on what we own must stop, and people should instead understand that the truly valuable part of any person is their individuality. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | Universal human imperfection - The misery of hypocrisy - The unperceivable (and potentially awful) depths of everyone around us - The irrevocably corruptive power of knowledge - The inescapability of the past |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | Why is Goodman an effective protagonist? He is an everyman character. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | The word “goodman,” does not simply mean “a good man.” It was a form of address in Puritan New England meaning something along the lines of “Mister.” |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | prestigious ancestors, but Goodman is unremarkable. His appearance, profession, interests arent elaborated, so a New England man can slip into his white, male, protestant perspective “...of the sacred truths of our religion…” The “our” is Christian |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | Goodman has limited information about what’s happening, allowing the audience to uncover parts of the truth alongside him. The limited omniscient perspective augments this effect. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | Goodman has a somewhat naive and fragile worldview. If this were not the case, it might not have been possible for the devil/traveler to lead him so far into the woods. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | “Faith” is an allegorical name (representative of her role in the story)--In giving Faith such a name and leaving her largely undeveloped, she’s treated like more of a symbol than a real woman. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | Goodman is dependent on his wife to sustain his own faith. He puts her on a pedestal of purity, and the tarnishing of this image is what shatters his resolve--may also relate to the standards to which women were held, especially in regard to sexual purity |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | pink ribbons symbolize her complexity and foreshadow fall from grace. Puritans dressed in dull colors. Pink ribbons are frilly and ostentatious. White is purity, whereas red is impure passion (ex. The Scarlet Letter). Perhaps pink is an intermediate. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year.” Faith hopes he will stay, for then she would not be able to leave. The eyes of another upright Puritan (her husband) would keep her from acting on darker curiosities. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | In the Puritan understanding of Christianity, thoughts and actions alike were consequential. As such, Faith is genuinely afraid of her own thoughts/dreams, left unsupervised. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | There is an implication here that women are more vulnerable to sin, particularly left to their own devices. After all, it was Eve, not Adam, who fell first to the serpent. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | why is Goodman Brown doing this? Why does go the woods? Is it a matter of curiosity? The temptation of knowledge Is it a test of his faith? And, if so, did he fail? Though Goodman does not receive the devil’s baptism, the experience still corrupted him |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | We discover evil in ourselves (ex. stealing a toy, hitting a sibling, etc.) and others (ex. Realizing our parents, teachers, and heroes are flawed). The story revealed flaws in people Goodman looked up to—religious and political figures, his family |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | In this story, “adulthood” does have a ceremony, but Goodman is still caught off guard. Afterwards, he can't return to innocence, also can't thrive in this new, deeper, darker world. Instead, he drowns in his fear and miserable, self-righteous judgment |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | When Goodman snatches the child from Goody Cloyse, he is shielding her, not only from the perceived danger of this supposed devil worshiper, but from the danger of her becoming like him—of losing her innocence by taking the same path. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | Goodman’s response to these events is to double down on his reductively objectivist viewpoint and become a lonely, paranoid, self-righteous asshole His holier-than-thou attitude is the source of his misery |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | The events are, for Goodman, rather like Adam’s tasting of the fruit and subsequent expulsion from the garden. He is thrust into a hostile world by his newfound knowledge of evil. However, this “hostile world” is not literal, but altered perception |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | More than once, Hawthorne speaks of the desert. This could allude to Moses and the Isrealites wandering in the desert. It could also allude to Jesus wandering in the wilderness during which time Satan tried to tempt him. |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | Goodman walks alongside the traveler/devil in the wilderness much the same way Jesus did. However, unlike Jesus (and like all human beings), Goodman is imperfect. Thus, he succumbs |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | Hawthorne was exceptionally interested in sin and guilt as a generational concept His ancestor persecuted women in the Salem Witch Trials How does one deal with this sort of guilt? Hawthorne’s answer was to write about it |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | It is not completely clear at the end of the story whether Goodman Brown actually experienced his fateful journey through the woods. “Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?” |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | “...lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness, pealing in awful harmony together.” Hawthorne clearly sees something sinister in the wilderness, in contrast with his transcendentalist contemporaries |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | Native religions were linked to devil-worship (anything beyond Abrahamic monotheism was viewed that way) |
| Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown | “...they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.” This was rather sad and unusual for a Puritan. Though they were modest in dress and comportment, they often had beautifully engraved tombstones |
| Hawthorne The Haunted Mind | If we were to dream of ghostly inhabitants, they would certainly be unreal yet we perceive these dream ghosts to be startlingly real, “wide awake in that realm of illusions,” as Hawthorne describes. |
| Hawthorne The Haunted Mind | “You think how the dead are lying in their cold shrouds and narrow coffins, through the drear winter of the grave ….” This forces us to think we are feeling this dreadful experience with the narrator. |
| Hawthorne The Haunted Mind | Hawthorne holds us captive when his character believes he cannot be persuaded that the dead “… neither shrink nor shiver, when the snow is drifting over their little hillocks, and the bitter blast howls against the door of the tomb.” |
| Hawthorne The Haunted Mind | “Yesterday has already vanished from the shadows of the past, to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future.” Where is this poor soul? Does he awake fully in his warm bed? Do we? |
| Hawthorne The Haunted Mind | supernatural and self-discovery are common themes in his works |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | written in response to ancestral guilt |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | loss of mother was harder than wife/child |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | the romance combines what's real and imaginary in an acceptable way for the reader |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | prominence of mother figure in hester because his father died at sea when he was 3 |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | moss is a metaphor for the residue of the past on hawthorne's family tree |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | idleness is a no-no in the nineteenth century |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | hawthorne is incredibly self-conscious of his manhood--argues that he is just as manly as the men in his family who committed such evil acts |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine. |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Glancing at the looking-glass, we behold—deep within its haunted verge— the smouldering glow of the half-extinguished anthracite, the white moonbeams on the ^oor, |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Then, at such an hour, and with this scene before him, if a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances. |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | anne hutchinson and hester prynne are similar in views |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | catholics are papists and would see hester's beauty |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | dimmesdale is only concerned with his career |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | ironic that no one catches on to dimmesdale and pearl's immediate connection |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | no one would believe that dimmesdale is pearl's true father |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | chillingworth only wants to harm dimmesdale, not pearl |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Prisons are a "black flower" because though they are meant to punish sin (represented by the color black in the novel), they would not exist without sin. Prisons feed on sin in order to grow |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Next to the prison door stands a blooming wild rose bush--The prison, a "black flower," contrasts with the beautiful rose bush, which grows naturally. The prison punishes, Nature and the rose bush forgive |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | The Scarlet Letter's moral is that people must accept and forgive their own and other people's worst qualities. To deny those qualities, as the Puritans do, is to deny one's identity |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Puritans, like the prison, are supposed to hate sin, but seem to thrive on it. They gather with a kind of grim fascination to watch sinners get punished and even executed |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Chillingworth silences Hester in order to protect his reputation. He ensures he isn't associated with Hester's sin |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Though Chillingworth and Dimmesdale both sin by abandoning Hester, only Hester endures punishment for sin |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Though a "sinner," Hester is selfless |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Puritan hypocrisy: they'll employ a "sinner" to suit their own needs |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Pearl's obsession with the letter makes Hester think Pearl is possessed. But it's the secret surrounding the sin that obsesses Pearl |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | More Puritan hypocrisy. After shunning them for so long, suddenly they care about Hester and Pearls' welfare? |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Like the scarlet letter, Pearl represents her mother's sin but also her individuality |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Dimmesdale argues that Pearl was sent by God to serve as Hester's one true punishment and to guard her from sinning again--Dimmesdale "defense" of Hester paints her as a sinner deserving punishment |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | After the Puritan leaders almost take Pearl away for being a "demon-child," it turns out that Bellingham's sister is a witch |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Chillingworth, like the Puritans in general, maintains the appearance of righteousness but is actually a sinner, and feeds off the sins of others |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | The Puritans, though they are so concerned with sin, can't recognize a sinner |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | The symbol of Hester's punishment now is a mark of her personal skill as a seamstress |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Hester, the "sinner" intends to save Dimmesdale, though "innocent" Dimmesdale never tried to save her |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Chillingworth, and other Puritans, equates reputation with life. But Hester knows prioritizing reputation over the soul is killing Dimmesdale |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Pearl's fascination with the Black Man is motivated by the secrets around the scarlet letter. In this way, suppression creates what is being suppressed |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Hester gives Dimmesdale a solution to save himself that isn't confession: leave Boston and the Puritans with her. But note that this solution involves running from secrets, not confessing them |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Pearl's refusal to return to her mother suggests that sin, the scarlet letter, is a part of her mother's identity and cannot just be thrown away. It can't be run from |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Pearl won't accept Dimmesdale as her father unless he will publicly accept her. Pearl, at one with nature, always favors honesty and openness |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Chillingworth has been devoured by hate and the need for revenge. He is no longer human. His secrets and lies in the service of righteous revenge have made him worse than any "witch." |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Pearl is the daughter of the devil in the sense that she is unconstrained by Puritanism, not in the sense that she's evil |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Chillingworth was a "black flower" feeding on sin. With sin gone, he withered |
| Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | Hester accepted the scarlet letter as part of her. In death, the symbol's meaning changed again: carved in stone, the letter symbolizes her eternal union with Dimmesdale |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | The narrator of "Ligeia" cannot remember how he came to know Ligeia--Ligeia’s origins are a mystery, even to her husband |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | He knows that her figure is irregular but it seems exquisite to him in its strangeness, and he can’t quite place how it's irregular. Her features are fine, delicate, like porcelain. All of her qualities present themselves like those of Greek Goddesses |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | Her quietness, her ability to sneak up on the narrator, her low voice, and pale skin—all of these features combine to create an image of a ghostly, ethereal woman. She seems already to be haunting the narrator, in a way |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | Ligeia’s eyes are an important symbol of the story because they warn of the supernatural, superstitious. Whenever Ligeia’s eyes appear in the story, the narrator is under a spell. Whether she was beyond human, or become so after her death, is not clear |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | His memory of her is made up of ethereal qualities that are neither human nor inhuman. The objects and animals and heavenly bodies that she inspires give her an otherworldly, larger than life character that looms over the narrator and the story |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | The connection of Ligeia to the divine gives her a power not just over the narrator but over his whole world--It is possible, in fact, to see Ligeia as a kind of embodiment of grief—calm, with outbursts of powerful energy |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | Poe gives Ligeia not only a physically intimidating character but also an intellectual superiority over the narrator, so that she becomes a kind of ultimate figure, both lover, mother and teacher |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | the narrator finally sees evidence of her affection for him, a quality that he never expected. This show of love in the last hours of her life gives Ligeia more humanity that fills the narrator with sympathy, and with a sense of loss |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | Fitting Poe’s tendency to connect place and person, the narrator finds the old city tarnished by the memory of Ligeia. But his escape does not free him from this. He chooses an old, Gothic abbey, which represents the grieving, maddened state of his mind |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | The similarity between Rowena and Ligeia continues, with Rowena now falling victim to a similar condition that leaves her bed ridden. But there are tomb-like images and decorations of the abbey’s fateful bridal chamber |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | She tells him that she sees things and hears things in the tapestries but none of it appears to him--Rowena seems to have a sixth sense for the paranormal menace of this room |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | after the mysterious addition to the wine, she loses all strength. Are these the narrator’s drug-filled visions? Is something supernatural going on? Is the narrator himself half-unknowingly killing Rowena and reenacting the death of Ligeia? |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | Hours of this pass until another sign of life comes to Rowena, a sigh. The narrator rushes to her and sees her lips quiver, then the same coloration on her cheeks, even a heartbeat--It is as if the thoughts of Ligeia are bringing her back to life |
| Poe, “Ligeia” | His obsession with Ligeia, the influence of opium, and Ligeia’s larger-than-life personality have together created an unstable reality, where death and life cannot be separated, where Ligeia can return to him |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | usher's sister has epilepsy |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | house represents southern ideals and old aristocracy |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | The Gothic style is apparent from the beginning of this tale, the weather and atmosphere mirror the narrator’s dismal mood as if the physical world is connected to him or somehow aware of his presence |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | The narrator tries to use reason and science to explain the sensation that the house causes, but the scene’s horror is greater than the sum of its parts. This leads the reader into thinking that something unexplained, even paranormal, is afoot |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | Usher carries with him an inherent peculiar quality. This is exaggerated by the narrator’s memory and the fact that he only knew Usher as a child—all he knows of this man is through the lens of childhood memories and rumors of his nervous disorders |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | Another illuminating fact about the family is the purity of its lineage – it is one direct descent, with no branches into other families – so the name the House of Usher, has come to refer to both the building and the family itself |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | The degradation of the house, its fraying surfaces, represent the corresponding suffering of its inhabitants, just as the instability of the building's interior and foundations suggests the Usher's psychological frailty |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | he meets the family’s physician, who has a half cunning, half confused expression--The familiar is distorted in this house – and the menace of the doctor, a traditionally kind figure, makes the narrator vulnerable |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | Madeleine’s condition seems purely spiritual – Poe uses the horror of the unknown to enlarge and mystify Madeleine’s sickness. It is an illness beyond reason |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | Usher and Madeleine are more than twins, they are halves of the same person–to find out this doubleness at the moment of entombing Madeleine gives an added punch and implies that Usher’s grief will be more complicated than first thought |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | separated from his sister, Usher is diminished, he is unable to concentrate and unable to free himself from his lingering fears and superstitions. It is as if their bodily connection has continued after death |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | Though we have been led to believe that it is a genetic, inherited disorder, passed between building and family, sometimes it seems that if the narrator were to stay long enough, he too would succumb to the sickness |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | As the narrator reads these words, he imagines he hears an echo from somewhere in the mansion that fits perfectly with the sound described-using lists and patterns of three, Poe gradually builds the suspicion that these interruptions are real |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | it becomes clear that the genetic connection really was fatal – Madeleine literally dragged Usher down to his rightful place with her, in death |
| Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” | The spiritual connection between the Usher lineage and the House of Usher is complete – the building physically cannot stand now that the last of the Usher breed has died |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | the man represents the aristocracy that has no place in this new, industrial world |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | The narrator’s opening thoughts set the stage for the focus on dark and unspeakable secrets. They also engage the reader’s curiosity and establish the narrator as an inquisitive figure who is interested in things that he shouldn’t necessarily know about |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | He begins by observing and thinking about the masses as a whole, but then he focuses on the more intricate details of the passing individuals, completely absorbed by his sudden interest in people-watching |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | His strange mood following his illness signals that whatever’s about to happen to him is going to be unusual, or at least it might seem that way in his heightened mental state |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | they’re of the “decent” class, including noblemen, merchants, and attorneys. Ultimately, the narrator doesn’t find them very interesting |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | Next, the narrator observes members of the “gentry,” such as clerks, pick-pockets, and gamblers. |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | The clerks dress sharply and have an “affectation of respectability,” while the narrator looks unfavorably on the pick-pockets. He wonders how this class could ever be “mistaken for gentlemen,” and mentions that all great cities are “infested” with them |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | The gamblers wear a variety of outfits, but the narrator still spots them easily, noticing their dim eyes and hushed voices when talking to others. All of these people are lumped into a vague middle class by their clothing quality and occupations |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | lower down in his classification, the narrator observes peddlers, beggars, and “women of the town.” Everything in the manner of the peddlers seems humble and deferent, except for their flashing, shrewd, hawk-like eyes |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | As night begins to fall, the narrator spots one person in the crowd who defies the easy categorization that he’s been applying to everyone else |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | The expression seems to contain all sorts of conflicting emotions at once, from malice to merriment to triumph to terror and everything in between, all at the same time. The narrator compares the old man’s appearance to that of the devil himself |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | Consumed by his curiosity, the narrator immediately pulls on his overcoat and steps out into the street, beginning to follow the old man while being careful not to attract his attention |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | Beneath a small opening in the old man’s clothing, the narrator thinks he spots a glinting object, which he guesses to be either a dagger or a diamond |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | During this pursuit, the old man’s behavior changes, but is no less bewildering. He passes in and out of his state of agitation, ignoring the crowds around him and never seeming to notice the narrator following. The old man travels “without apparent aim,” |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | As the second night closes in, the narrator is too exhausted to carry on following his quarry. He finally steps right in front of the old man and stares him in the face directly, but the old man takes no notice and continues on his way, just as before |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | He concludes that the man is “the type and the genius of deep crime” who “refuses to be alone” and “is the man of the crowd.” He guesses that the old man’s horrible crimes, whatever they are, can never be brought to light |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | Despite sharing a city and sometimes an occupation, class status, or other personal traits with each other, Londoners appear isolated, unable or unwilling to form meaningful connections with one another |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | as he walks and “refuses to be alone,” the old man appears isolated from any sense of identity/purpose, smothering his existence in the activities of others. As life wears on, it’s a matter of time before more “[people] of the crowd” become alienated |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | Although the narrator spots this shining object as he follows the old man, this detail itself doesn’t actually help him answer any of his questions about the man—rather, this clue only serves to heighten the narrator’s curiosity |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | the reader—and the narrator himself—never gets to see what, exactly, the object is. Instead, the story simply highlights the way this object makes the narrator’s mind run wild with possibilities |
| Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” | Throughout the story, clothing is a motif that highlights the rise of the middle class in the 19th century following the Industrial Revolution. Detailed descriptions of clothing occur throughout the story |
| Poe, “The Raven” | Poe wrote “The Raven” while his wife, Virginia, was ill with tuberculosis, a disease that had already robbed him of three family members |
| Poe, “The Raven” | Critics consider the character of Lenore, presumably the narrator’s lost beloved, to be a representation of Virginia |
| Poe, “The Raven” | the narrator is grief-stricken over his dead love Lenore, and is trying to escape that grief by reading - casts memory (both of his dead love, and of the raven) not as something desired but as a burden the narrator wishes he could escape, but can’t |
| Poe, “The Raven” | the narrator asserts his rationality, using “nothing more” to deny the knocking could be supernatural and then acting “normal” by calling out and apologizing. But this effort show how, lost in grief, his rationality is already under siege |
| Poe, “The Raven” | Although the narrator began the poem trying to forget Lenore, in a moment of irrational hope he allows himself to wonder ifshe could possibly have returned from the dead. Suddenly it’s clear that narrator, while fearful, also wantsthe supernatural |
| Poe, “The Raven” | Pallas Athena is the Greco-Roman goddess of wisdom and learning. The bird’s landing place on the statue thereforeimplies a kind of opposition to such rationality |
| Poe, “The Raven” | note how similar the bird’s “nevermore” is to the narrator’s earlier “nothing more,” except that he used “nothing more” to assert rationality, while the bird’s “nevermore” will do exactly the opposite |
| Poe, “The Raven” | Earlier the narrator hoped to be reunited with Lenore by supernatural means. Now suddenly he senses another possibility, that he might be saved from his painful memories by supernatural means: the “nepenthe,” a mythological potion of forgetfulness |
| Poe, “The Raven” | in his fervor to understand the bird, he has lost sight that its words might be nonsense--He’s fallen down a rabbit hole, he tries to figure out the unknowable-–the raven, death–-with each failure only tries harder until he erupts in fury and despair |
| Poe, “The Raven” | The Raven’s refusal to leave parallels the narrator’s memories of Lenore, which likewise never dissipate, suggesting that death and grieving for the dead are inescapable |
| Poe, “The Raven” | it doesn’t matter whether the Raven is a supernatural visitor, a dream, or a random bird that learned one word. In each case, it is the narrator’s own doubts in the face of loss, memory, and the unknown that have driven away his rational peace forevermore |
| Poe, “The Raven” | this poem explores the effects of death on the living, such as grief, mourning, and memories of the deceased, as well as a question that often torments those who lost loved ones to death: whether there is an afterlife in which they will be reunited |
| Poe, “The Raven” | Wretch, thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee/Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!/Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore |
| Poe, “The Raven” | The narrator, upon first encountering the Raven, is amused by its stately comportment, and jokingly accuses it of having emerged from the “Night’s Plutonian shore”— the border between the worlds of the living and the dead |
| Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition” | contrast—but the true artist will always contrive, Srst, to tone them into proper subservience to the predominant aim, and, secondly, to enveil them, as far as possible, in that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the essence of the poem. |
| Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition” | Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones. |
| Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition” | That such a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis, admitted no doubt: and these considerations inevitably led me to the long o as the most sonorous vowel, in connection with r as the most producible consonant. |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | The Lawyer is an unreliable and often unspecific narrator. For example, The Lawyer tells the reader know that the story will focus on Bartleby, and then proceeds to not mention Bartleby until seven pages later |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | critique on american capitalism |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | The Lawyer provides the name of John Jacob Astor, a man who is never referenced again in the story, but fails to provide his own name |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | the description of the office having a clear view of a brick wall feels like it should be a joke, but The Lawyer truly seems proud of it. In reality, there is little difference between a window with no view and a wall |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | The concept of an employee only being productive for one half of the day, every day, is a prime example of how disconnected The Lawyer’s office is—not only do walls separate people, but so do temperaments |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | The Lawyer doesn’t overtly say it, but implies Turkey’s problems stem from heavy drinking. The Lawyer not being upfront about Turkey’s issues is example of language failing to reveal the whole truth, as is the fact The Lawyer doesnt call Turkey name |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | Nippers being victim of ambition and indigestion is not the truth: critics have argued this is a way to say Nippers is a drug addict. Therefore, his irritability is caused by not having his fix, and visits to court and prison are sites of drug deals |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | rather than Turkey and Nippers being useful for the same half of the day, the fact that they switch off at noon is a chief example of the office being a disconnected, disjointed space |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | though he is an intern, Ginger Nut is given a desk that he never uses, leaving an empty, useless space in a crowded office. Turkey using a cake as a seal and talking his way out of getting reprimanded/fired is example of language serving to obscure truth |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | The Lawyer learns some of Bartleby’s qualifications—the most he learns about Bartleby in the entire story—and he fails to share it with the reader |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | before his usefulness wanes, The Lawyer is already skeptical of Bartleby because he doesn’t take joy in his work. However, because the office is so personally disconnected, he chooses not to discuss this with Bartleby at all |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | he just assumes Bartleby will comply, never asking the scrivener if it’s okay. Here The Lawyer is alerted to the first signs of Bartleby’s deep-seated passive resistance--calling out from behind the screen, “I would prefer not to.” |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | Although Bartleby spends literally all of his time in the office, The Lawyer is unable to get to know him better, and the only member of the office Bartleby interacts with is Ginger Nut, a twelve-year-old boy |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | The Lawyer requesting Bartleby go to the Post Office must be especially off-putting to Bartleby, as he used to work in the Dead Letter Office (as we learn later) |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | The Lawyer recalls Bartleby’s lack of speaking except to answer, looks out his window (brick wall) for long periods, never drinks, never leaves, never said a word about past or family, and reserved manner, which “awed” The Lawyer into “tame compliance.” |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | Unlike earlier, when Bartleby at least acknowledges The Lawyer’s commands with a response, Bartleby’s passive resistance has evolved one stage further, so that his resting state is now total noncompliance, and Bartleby seems almost more like a zombie |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | when The Lawyer and Bartleby are the most physically connected is also when they are spiritually the furthest apart |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | this story itself is a “Dead Letter” from The Lawyer to Bartleby—it is only after Bartleby’s death that The Lawyer is able to understand even a little bit about his former employee’s history and mentality |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | “I would prefer not to,” |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | Initially, Bartleby’s resistance seems to exist within a fairly common capitalist struggle: an employer wants to get the most utility out of his employee, and the employee wants only to do the parts of his job he feels like doing |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | It’s never clear if Bartleby’s passive resistance originated simply as a refusal to perform work he didn’t want to do and grew into something more general, or was always more general but that only became clear as his situation worsened |
| Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” | Bartleby is resisting the capitalistic and materialistic culture. the story shows how cruelly society treats any nonconformist. Bartleby is resisting the aspects of human condition–lack of compassion, isolation, inability to communicate |
| Lydia Maria Child, Letters | wants reader to sympathize romanticizing immigrant’s lives before |
| Lydia Maria Child, Letters | Who could now tell with what high hopes those departed ones had left the heart-homes of Germany, the sunny hills of Spain, the laughing skies of Italy, or the wild beauty of Switzerland? |
| Lydia Maria Child, Letters | “We are disgusted when we see a woman’s mind overwhelmed with a torrent of learning; that the tide of literature has passed over it should be betrayed only by its fertility.” |
| Lydia Maria Child, Letters | men are intimidated by intellectual women |
| Lydia Maria Child, Letters | “Girls should be modest,” is the language of common teaching, continually uttered in words and customs. Would it not be an improvement for men, also, to be scrupulously pure in manners, conversation, and life? - the bible may be distorted |
| Lydia Maria Child, Letters | whatsoever can be named as loveliest, best, and most graceful in woman, would likewise be good and graceful in man. |
| Lydia Maria Child, Letters | man forces us to please them instead of god women were focused to be more than seen: caregivers seeming is also the physical appearance: wanting to wear bloomers than dressers |
| Lydia Maria Child, Letters | As man approaches to the truest life, he will perceive more and more that there is no separation or discord in their mutual duties. They will be one; but it will be as affection and thought are one; the treble and bass of the same harmonious tune. |
| Apess, “An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man,” | His father was of mixed blood, but joined the Pequot tribe and married an Indian woman, who may have also been part African American |
| Apess, “An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man,” | opens describing the “degraded” state American Indians live “…children half-starved and some almost as naked as they came into the world…the females are left without protection, and are seduced by white men, and are finally left to be common prostitutes…” |
| Apess, “An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man,” | He uses Christian religion and Bible as grounds to argue against white supremacy and ill treatment of American Indian and black Americans. it is the work of evil white members of government who disenfranchise for nothing more than skin color |
| Apess, “An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man,” | Apess discusses the ability to feel proper feelings and how skin color should not disrupt this ability |
| Apess, “An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man,” | Now suppose these skins were put together, and each skin had its national crimes written upon it- which skin do you think would have the greatest?--interesting that Apess still is using the belief that blackness or darkness is sinful |
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