Weblog 8

“We picture the world as thick with conquering and elate humanity, but here, with the bugles of the tempest pealing, it was hard to imagine a peopled earth. One viewed the existence of man then as a marvel, and conceded a glamour of wonder to these lice which were caused to cling to a whirling, fire-smote, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb. The conceit of man was explained by this storm to be the very engine of life (943).”

I chose to talk about this quote from “The Blue Hotel” because I felt that it really shows Crane’s attitude and opinions of naturalism. Just in the first sentence Crane is letting his audience know that there are big differences between what “we picture” and what he believes is true about the relationship between earth and humanity. Though we see ourselves to be the ones in power, or as Crane writes, the ones “conquering,” the presence of the storm is demonstrating the strength of nature as opposed to that of man. I doubt that there are very many terms worse than “lice” with which to describe mankind. Firstly, lice are often associated (no matter true or false) with unsanitary, substandard conditions, as Crane implies by using terms like “disease-stricken.” Secondly, lice are invaders of a place that does not belong to them and are an extreme annoyance. Lice will essentially cling somewhere they can feed and infest, and will only survive in that place until someone decides to wash them out. Just thinking logically about what lice are makes it pretty disturbing to think of ourselves this way. Comparing humans living on the earth to lice clinging to someone’s scalp is a really harsh way to express the insignificance of life when compared to the universe. The last line of this quote basically says that we have driven our lives this far only because of our own self-importance. The only reason we are significant is because we think we are significant.

Views like these could easily make the argument that nothing anyone does matters, so people should do whatever they please. Obviously this also argues against the existence of a higher power. I wonder if Crane, along with other naturalists, angered a lot of people when these very extreme views were portrayed through their writing.

I also wonder how these views affected the way Crane looked at pursuing activities in his own life. It seems to be a “Life’s a B**** and then you die” standpoint to survival.

Weblog 7

After listening to the groups today in class, and hearing what they had to say about “The Passing of Grandison” I mulled it over a little more at home and realized that I reacted somewhat differently to the story. The group suggested that Grandison had his escape planned from the moment his master offered to send him up north with Dick. I thought that this was unrealistic, because it was probably above Grandison’s ability. I do not mean that he was not smart enough to have devised this plan, because he shows everyone his true colors when he outsmarts them in the end. I only mean that I was under the impression that Grandison was being sincere in his loyalty as he made his claims to love his master and have no notions of being a free man. I took this more as a man who had spent so many years in such a dehumanizing position that he had lost his touch with reality outside the plantation and also with his own independence.

I saw this as sort of similar to the Stockholm syndrome we see in kidnapping cases when a victim is forced to solely rely on the captor for his or her basic needs to be met and therefore eventually forms a loving bond with the same person who is hurting them. This could have easily applied to Grandison as he became most likely would have become more brainwashed while living in the plantation, grateful for every ounce of attention given to him by the one person who controlled his food and other necessities. He may have truly agreed with his master because he no longer had trust in his own strength and capabilities to succeed as a free soul.

When I read this story, I felt that it was more likely that Grandison was forced into freedom by Dick rather than that he had been plotting to leave the entire time. To explain this we can look at the many chances that he was given to escape and did not. He was eventually on his own in Canada, but he could not have been specifically waiting to cross the border because he had no knowledge that Dick would resort to traveling there. I felt that although he was abandoned instead of entering into freedom by choice, once he experienced it, he was able to see the life outside of the realm of the plantation, and that is when he decided to return, and trick his master to bring his family away with him.

Extra Weblog

We ran out of time in class today before anyone had a chance to say much about poor Joanna who lived alone on Shell Heap Island. I have been thinking about it since reading it and considering it quite a bit this afternoon, mostly because it was the story that affected me the most. Jewett spent such a considerable amount of time telling a story of a woman who was as strong willed as the others in the story when it came to making her own choices and doing what she wanted to do, but she was pretty much the only one who seemed so tragic for doing so. I couldn’t decide if she was sort of a hero standing up for what she believed in or just a sad woman who went crazy.

I think that this can be related to Elizabeth Ammons’ ideas of the strong female relationships and community in Country of the Pointed Firs while the men are portrayed as very isolated characters. Dr. Campbell concluded in class that Joanna had isolated herself by choice, much as the men like Captain Littlepage and Elijah Tilley had. However, I feel the important difference between the story we get of these men and the one that we are told about Joanna is not necessarily their own seclusion, but the reaction of the townspeople of Dunnet Landing. With Captain Littlepage, we get the sense that the other residents are content in letting him live alone with his books and his spoiled mind. The same happens with Elijah and we see it when the narrator tells Mrs. Todd that she has visited him and her hostess’ response is that she no longer likes to see him because he either talks of his dead wife the entire time or not at all.

When it comes to Joanna, who so obviously wanted to be left alone, the people of the town tried not to let her seclude herself as the others had done. They visited her without invitation, they sent her gifts and packages and many attended her funeral when she passed. We also get the scene when the narrator visits Shell Heap Island on her own and sees that the path is still worn leading to Joanna’s grave. People seemed to have accepted the “hermitage” of the men, but continue to even visit a lone woman on her island long after her death.

Weblog 6

I was glad that the group who discussed “The Vine-Leaf” brought up the different layers of narration in the story. I was impressed by the way Mena did this and how it made for such an enjoyable story. First we have the narrator telling the entire story, then the doctor telling the story of the mysterious patient and lastly, the Marques telling the story of the artist’s death. I really felt like this was a very creative story telling device. The thing that struck me the most was the differences between the narrator’s voice and tone and the doctor’s. The narrator of the story is very funny, for instance, the family secrets that the doctor keeps in his furry hat. The doctor is not as funny as he is arrogant; he reminds me of someone who would laugh at his own jokes. Reading the humorous beginning, I was expecting a much lighter story than we actually were given and I felt that the shock of it really threw me into the mystery. I liked it, I just can’t figure out why Mena would have chosen such a funny narrator for a story like this.

Also, after reading Chopin’s “At the ‘Cadian Ball” and “The Storm” I really felt as though there were some striking similarities between Calixta and Daisy Miller. I think that both of these stories try to represent class and culture differences through the tales of innocent (or maybe not-so-innocent) foreign girls. While Daisy is an American in Europe, Calixta is of Spanish (Cuban?) decent and living in Louisiana. Both girls are described as being looked down upon because of their uniqueness and flirtatiousness. Obviously, both girls in the stories are liked by the men and despised by the women. We have instances of high status men who fall for the “low culture” girls and end up getting burned. Although James never gives his readers a final answer to whether Daisy was innocent or not, his version seems a little less absolute than Chopin’s. We see in “The Storm” that Calixta ultimately does prove herself to be impure in the eyes of the reader. Daisy never does this and it seems to put a more positive spin on her character than on Calixta’s. It is hard to tell though, because knowing Chopin’s work, she does not necessarily see adultery as a bad thing, while her readers probably do, and so she may not be presenting the affair between Calixta and Alcee in the way that she means to.