Two Views of the River

I have once again read the beginning of the story where they talk about Mark Twain and his type of writing and his life. I never really knew that the part that I read had that much information. I did not really know that Mark Twain had changed his name after his real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Twain 496). Here is a little bit of information on Mark Twain and his lifetime. "Samuel Clemens spent his early life in Missouri, chiefly in Hannibal on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Life there was full of adventure, but the death of Clemens's father when the boy was just eleven forced him to curtail his childhood escapades and his schooling in order to work as a printer's apprentice" (Twain 496). I would really like to focus on when the death of his father came around. If my father died at that early of an age, I would not know what to do about it. Twain was forced to work in a printing company. This company that he worked at probably gave him ideas as to continue his career in writing. To this day, there are still people reading his books and I even enjoyed reading this story that he wrote.

I find that Thoreau and Twain would have fit in nicely with each other because they both loved to talk about nature and the things around it. They loved to talk about and describe the environment and all sorts of things around them. Like in Twain's story "Two Views of the River", Mark Twain describes the river very intensely in this story, describing it as it is turning to the color of "blood, gold and also black and conspicuous when a log had floated in his view (Twain 504). Mark Twain did a great job with the description of nature in this story and he would of fit nicely with Thoreau's writings because they both looked at the beauty of nature and all the things around it (Harding). Overall, both of the authors really went into descriptive detail on each of their stories about nature and how they saw it.

Bibliography

Harding, Walter. A Thoreau Handbook by Walter Harding: pp. 131-173 (New York University Press, 1959). © 1959 by New York University Press. Quoted as "Thoreau's Ideas" in Harold Bloom, ed. Henry David Thoreau, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2003. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. 26 Feb. 2012.

Twain, Mark. "Before You Read." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 496. Print.

Twain, Mark. "Two Views of the River." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 504-505. Print.

From The Red Badge of Courage

I once again read the first page of this story and read about what we are in now. Instead of doing the Realism period we are going to do Naturalism now. Here is a quote from the first paragraph of this page, "Toward the end of the 1800's, however, a group of writers known as Naturalists, who were strongly influenced by Charles Darwin's scientific theory of evolution by natural selection, adopted the view that people had little control over their own lives" (492). I typed this quote in because it tells the reader, or us, about Naturalism. Naturalism is about how people have little control over their own lives (492). This sort of relates back to Thoreau and his writings in his story "Civil Disobedience" and how people are shaped by the behaviors that they present (Thoreau). That is what I found when I started to read the story "From The Red Badge of Courage."

I did not really understand this story at first. When I read it a second time I started to put the Naturalism period and the story together. It was about a middle class soldier who went through war as a "colorful" way. Crane described how the soldier had filled up with anger and went on the battle field and went through all the soldiers and how using his hands would have been better to satisfy his blood lust (Crane 493). This is the same as Thoreau because they both believed "human destiny was shaped by powerful forces, including heredity, social and economic pressures, and the natural environment" (Crane 492). I typed this quote because I found it interesting as to what naturalist believed in and this helped me put together the story and everything else in between. The story "from the Red Badge of Courage" it had a lot of Naturalistic things involved in it and it made the story that much more interesting. Overall, this story had a lot to do with Thoreau's writings and they both were Naturalists.

Bibliography

Crane, Stephen. "from The Red Badge of Courage." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 492-493. Print.

Thoreau, Henry David. "Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.

From The Awakening

To start out this blog I would like to say that I was reading the beginning part of the story again. I read a page ahead to maybe learn more about Realism and I did learn a little bit as to what Realists believe. Here is a quote from the beginning pages, "Romanticism's glorification of the imagination became unappealing to Realists, who wanted to explore the motivations, behaviors, and actions of real people" ( "Realism" 490). I typed this quote in this blog because it is talking about what the Realists believed in in the Realism period. I found it very helpful to me to realize what Realism was all about. It also helped me with comparing with what Realists thought and what the story was all about.

Here is what the story was about. It is about a girl crying, and why she was crying. That is what I got out of this story. I do not know about other people or how they saw this, but I could see this as a Romanticism story also. I found that this girl had a lot of description within the story. Here is a quote to demonstrate what I meaning by description, "There was no sound abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and the everlasting voice of the sea that was not uplifted at that soft hour" (Chopin 491). This story also relates to Emerson's Nature story. His Nature story talked about the behaviors of people and how they react to things and the way people should act. This is relative to "The Awakening" because it talks about the girls behavior and how she is crying over something that she does not even know why (Chopin 491). In the story, "It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood" (Chopin 491). This is just describing as to what I was saying earlier when I said she did not know why she was crying. Overall, the two author's have the same kind of relation toward human behavior.

Bibliography

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Nature." Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts. Web. 06 Feb. 2012.

Chopin, Kate. "from The Awakening." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 491. Print.

"Realism." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 490. Print.

A Wagner Matinee

I will start out this blog by saying that I was not ready to jump to the Realism period. I had not really heard of the author we are learning about now. I was not sure what to do because I did not know how I would figure out how to find out about this author. So, I looked in the beginning part of the story and read about Willa Cather. Here is a quote from the beginning sentence, "Readers best remember Willa Cather for her portrayal of the pioneer life and landscape" (Cather 519). I typed this quote down because it makes sense as to what Emerson had focused on. Emerson wrote a story on nature and how the mind works. (Emerson) and that is what Cather also wrote about in her stories. That is a key characteristic that each one of these authors shared in part of their stories.

Now for the second part of my blog I will talk about the story "A Wagner Matinee." In the beginning of the story, the author shares with the reader that she received a letter from her Aunt Georgiana (Cather 521). He is very excited at first and gives good description on how excited he is to have received this letter. Also coming with her excitement was a nervous feeling because he wanted to make sure that he showed his Aunt on how good of a person he will be (Cather 522). I have never had that problem because one, I do not live on my own, and two I really do not care on how much a person thinks of me. Here is a quote from the story, "I felt suddenly a stranger to all the present conditions of my existence, wholly ill at ease and out of place amid the familiar surroundings of my study" (Cather 521). This quote shows how nervous he was to think that his Aunt might not approve of where he is living. So since his Aunt is coming over, he decides to buy opera tickets because he knows she loves music and always will. Emerson and Cather are alike because Cather brought music as an element and brought it to a whole new meaning while on the other hand Emerson brought nature as an element and also brought that to a new meaning. Both of these writers were great writers of their time.

Bibliography

Willa, Cather. “A Wagner Matinée.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 521-526. Print.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Nature." Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts. Web. 06 Feb. 2012.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek

From reading the beginning of this story I was reading the biography page of Ambrose Bierce who was the author of this story. The first sentence says, "Ambrose Bierce did not trust people. Nor did he trust governments, businesses, or churches" (Bierce 387). This sentence is a lot different from the thoughts or beliefs of Thoreau. It is different from the writings of Thoreau because Thoreau did not like the government that they were having. He wanted to change it and not totally take it away and as you can see from Bierce he did not trust the governments. Also coming from the first sentence of this quote was that Bierce did not trust people (Bierce 387). This is also a lot different from the beliefs of Emerson. Emerson believed in people relying on each other and they form there own world. As you can tell, Bierce was not a fan of some people. Ambrose Bierce was also called "Bitter Bierce" (Bierce 387) which was probably why he was called this because from the first sentence of this paragraph it seems like Bierce did not like anything in the world which is why he was called "Bitter Bierce". I found it funny to read his biography because of just the way he seemed to act.

I found this story sad but interesting at the same time. This story had some slavery in it and it goes against Emerson and Thoreau's beliefs again because they did not like slavery and this story had to do with slavery in the South. Peyton Farquhar is a plantation owner in the South in this story. While sitting on a bench a soldier comes up to him and says that there is an attack coming and they need to do something about it. He comes up with the idea that they need to blow up the bridge in order to buy a little time for them. So he agrees with the soldier to help him out and when they are about to blow up the bridge they get caught. In the story it said "any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels or trains will be summarily hanged" (Bierce 392). Peyton died at the end and I found this story interesting but sad.

Bibliography

Bierce, Ambrose. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 387-396. Print.

A Letter to His Family

When I first started to read this story I noticed that it was a letter saying that he wished for the best. Here is a quote from the story, "I will not, however, permit myself to believe, until all ground of hope is gone, that the fruit of his noble deeds will be destroyed, and that his precious advice and virtuous example will so soon be forgotten by his countrymen" (Lee 385). This quote really started to get me thinking about this story. It got me thinking because Lee is saying he will not give up on his country. Even though Unions have left and more are about to, he will not give up until the battle is over (Lee 385). This quote I also found inspirational to me because it takes a lot of courage to stand up to what you believe and to stand up against your country like that is great. "Then, if the border states are brought into the gulf of revolution, one half of the country will be arrayed against the other" (Lee 385). This quote I also found inspirational because he is talking about how things will be bad if the Unions will not go his way. As you can see I really did enjoy reading this story. One last thing to mention about this story is that Lee talks about the government and how he wants to make it better which totally goes against Thoreau's beliefs.

Thoreau's beliefs were that he wanted know part of any government. Which is a difference in between the two stories. Lee wants to better the government and Thoreau does not want anything to do with the government (Thoreau). Here is a quote from a criticism I found on Thoreau, "Thoreau's principal achievement was not the creation of a system but the creation of himself, and his principal literary work was, therefore, the presentation of that self in the form of a self-portrait" (Harding). Here the quote is stating that Thoreau believed in the form of a self-portrait (Harding), so people shape themselves. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this story "A Letter to His Family."

Bibliography

Harding, Walter. A Thoreau Handbook by Walter Harding: pp. 131-173 (New York University Press, 1959). © 1959 by New York University Press. Quoted as "Thoreau's Ideas" in Harold Bloom, ed. Henry David Thoreau, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2003. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. 13 Feb. 2012.

Lee, Robert E. “Letter to His Son.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 385. Print.

Thoreau, Henry David. "Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.

Ain't I a Woman?

When I first read this story I was really pulled into it by all the description she was using. She was complaining how white women get all this stuff and "Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm" (Truth 370). This quote really brought me into this story because it talks about how she is standing up for herself. She will not let anyone roll over her like she is some sort of animal. She said that she had "borne thirteen children, and seen them most all off to slavery" and she was mad at how white girls are "better" than black girls. In my opinion there was no difference between white and black people and it never should of happened the way it happened. Overall the story that I read gave me inspiration to see a black woman speak out against slavery. Another point I would like to add is that she spoke of how low the women are back then. Here is a quote "Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men" (Truth 370). The black woman is stating that men thought they were better than everyone else back then. To this day still there are men out there who think they are better than women and I think it is wrong. Luckily though it is not as bad as it was back then, like the black woman stated.

I read a criticism that read that Ralph Waldo Emerson had given a women's rights lecture in Boston in 1855 (Wayne). This was a big thing for a Transcendentalist to do back in the old days. Anyway, this relates to Truth's story because they are both speaking out against slavery and how bad it is. This would still have an effect on society today as a whole because women's rights are still a problem in today's society. They are much better than they were back then though.

Bibliography

Wayne, Tiffany K. "'Address at the Woman's Rights Convention'." Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. 12 Feb. 2012.

Truth, Sojourner. "And Ain‘t I a Woman?." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 368-370. Print.