Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
December 2, 2009
"Conferring among themselves, they replied that the Christians lied: We had come from the sunrise, they from the sunset; we healed the sick, they killed the sound; we came naked and barefoot, the clothed, horsed, and lanced; we coveted nothing but gave whatever we were given, while they robbed whomever they found and bestowed nothing on anyone."
Internet Quotation: "By the end of his long journey, Cabeza de Vaca became transformed. The once-arrogant conquistador became a passionate defender of Indian human rights." - Texas State University-San Marcos Cabeza de Vaca Project
Summary: The first quotation comes from the point where Cabeza de Vaca meets fellow Christians in the new land he has been trekking across essentially as a native. I think it portrays the two-sided Christianity that had been accentuated by the exploration. On the one hand were people like Cabeza de Vaca who had respect and kindness for the natives, realizing their humanity and treating them as human like any good Christian would do. Opposite them were the explorers Cabeza de Vaca met up with, who display an arrogant, eurocentric perspective that fails to respect or even acknowledge the kindness of the native peoples. This dichotomy of Christianity remains today, I believe. Now it isn't so much native Americans, but gays, Muslims, atheists, and all of those other groups that some Christians can get along with and some would like to wipe from the face of the earth.
The second quotation is from a project that provides the original text of La Relacion online. It speaks to how Cabeza de Vaca changed by coming into contact and living with the natives. Experiences like Cabeza de Vaca's are still the best way to understand a group you may feel animosity or indifference towards. By seeing how they live, work, and play, their humanity becomes readily apparent.
My Ideas: Cabeza de Vaca is certainly easier to stomach than Columbus. The fact that he got naked and went around from village to village as a native is refreshing and a great look at life for the native Americans he came into contact with. What we see in these people is an overwhelming friendliness that has them foregoing food to feed these strangers. Imagine that kind of hospitality today. You'll get a stern telling off before a slice of bread from a stranger.
While I enjoy the anthropological passages that detail the daily life and customs of the native peoples, I found the end of our reading the most interesting, because we are able to see a good Christian, bad Christian interplay between Cabeza de Vaca and the settlers he meets. These settlers are here for whatever profit they can make, and what they can make are slaves. After a group of natives brings them food, they immediately think they should take some of them as slaves. How warped is that? Cabeza de Vaca's angered response shows how he came to care for the people that had taken him in. There is a passionate response to the Christians that is unlike much of what one hears about from the period.
I also find Cabeza de Vaca's name for them, usually simply "the Christians," somewhat humorous. For how can these slavers be Christians? They care nothing for the amiable natives around them, instead desiring only food and slaves. A strange type of Christianity to be sure. By repeatedly calling the Christians, Cabeza de Vaca is able to highlight the problems with Christianity in the new world. It isn't the Christianity of Spain, but rather an offshoot, a malignant growth that led to the forced enslavement of millions of people from the moment Columbus landed.
I don't know what more to say, really; this reading is quite clear. As Cabeza de Vaca says himself, "Better than to exaggerate, I have minimized all things." He gives a clear account that employs cultural relativism to display his time spent among the natives while simultaneously condemning Christian explorers. The prose is simple, the narrative clear.
This is a perfect reading, I think, to end this journal. We've encountered some of the most vile ills of American society, but this reading shows that there has been hope for goodness since the beginning. Slavery, war, and disease all came to America when America became known as America. Our country did not have the most auspicious beginnings, but that doesn't mean things cannot change for the better.
Also, the man's surname is literally "Head of Cow." That must be the most wonderful name I've ever heard, and therefore the most wonderful way to end this journal.
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Christopher Columbus
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Christopher Columbus
November 30, 2009"Of Espanola, Paria, and the other lands, I never think without weeping. I believed that their example would have been to the profit of others; on the contrary, they are in an exhausted state."
Internet Quotation: "By his toil another world emerged from the unsearched bosom of the ocean: hundreds of thousands of mortals have, from a state of blindness, been raised to the common level of the human race, reclaimed from savagery to gentleness and humanity" - Pope Leo XIII
Summary: The first quotation is the opening lines from the second letter. I find it fitting because it shows Columbus's downtrodden state after years of not only the harsh seas but also the declining state of his enterprise. What he once saw as a noble pursuit has been taken over by people hoping to make a quick buck in the New World. What is most interesting is the way such profit-driven colonization continued even after the preeminent colonizer wrote this letter against it.
The second quotation is from Pope Leo XIII, from an encyclical issued 400 years after Columbus's discovery. He essentially speaks of the explorer as a wonderful Catholic motivated by God, despite some of the policies he employed to govern in the New World. An interesting view of the explorer, in my opinion.
My Ideas: We have reached the man himself: Mr. Columbus, whose voyage in 1492 "discovered" America. This is, of course, a debatable and somewhat ridiculous claim (I think the natives may have been the proper discoverers of the continent, though what do I know) but it has also stood the test of time in elementary schools nationwide. "In 1492, Columbus sailed..." The fact that you are chanting out the rest of this jingle proves that Columbus is still alive and well in the America mythology.
But he wasn't always well. These letters are interesting peeks into his life. We get one in which he describes the beauty, the natives, and the bounty he has found. It is a picturesque vision of discovery, a piece of childlike wonder and curiosity at what the great expanse of these new lands could provide him and his people. Ending simply with "Espanola is a marvel," we see that Columbus is so totally enamored with the new lands.
Skip forward ten years to 1503 to a letter written to Ferdinand and Isabella, monarchs of Spain, as well as financiers of the voyages. His precious discoveries have been pillaged and ruined, and "are in an exhausted state." He himself has grown old and weary, tired of the constant struggle that his career has given him. Riches, once the primary reason to go across treacherous seas, mean nothing. Now, he wants only the permission to get away and go on a religious pilgrimage as his final act. The man credited with discovering America was left with nothing of value. He died three years later.
This is an interesting selection because we see the beginning and the end, the high and the low. His life isn't the sing-song fun we typically associate with the man; it is actually quite sad, especially when he tells of when he was taken prisoner and tortured after having given so much. Yet one must also remember the torture he himself used on the natives to govern Hispanola. In fact, torture may be putting it lightly; in researching this journal, genocide popped up more than once. This is who we celebrate year after year, remember.
Reading these letters makes for conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he effectively found the New World for the Europeans (read: white people like me) and we still honor that today. Such a discovery, which connected the Americas and Europe, cannot be understated. But this is also the problem. For what came from Columbus's voyages was hundreds of years continued oppression towards Native peoples, along with all of the cultural, social, and societal problems that brings. I look at Columbus, like most early explorers, with an uncomfortable ambivalence.
William Bradford
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for William Bradford
November 23, 2009"If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar and gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world."
Internet Quotation: "[The Mayflower Compact] worked because they chose Christians as their leaders and all understood that they were to be self-governing under the moral law of God." - Jay Rogers
Summary: The quotation from Bradford is one that portrays the prevailing notion of not only his time, but in our time as well for many Americans. The New World represented a vast, savage wilderness that needed to be put into its place by some good old fashioned civilization. And where was that civilization coming from? Europe, of course, for it is impossible to believe that civil society could come from anywhere but there.
The second quotation is from a man called Jay Rogers, published on a website called The Forerunner. It contains a Christian perspective of what Bradford and co. did when they landed at Plymouth. According to Mr. Rogers, they set up the Mayflower Compact, steeped in the "moral law of God," and it ruled them for some time thanks to the Christian leadership. This is mostly here because I like to sigh and say things to myself like "silly Christians." These people, in my opinion, did not uphold the values of God, but instead were spiteful, arrogant people who felt they knew best and had no qualms stealing from and killing the native peoples. Definitely Christian, right? I think Christ said something about it somewhere...
My Ideas: Here's a short summary for those not wanting to read this tract on the founding of the Puritan settlement at Plymouth. I'll even lay it out in mathematical terms for those who would rather not mess around with pesky words:
Everything good = God wills it.
Everything bad = God is testing us.
Simple, is it not? It makes life as black and white as we traditionally feel the Pilgrims were. Everything in Bradford's history of the Puritan's voyage to the New World feels touched by God. Sailor on the ship with a bad mouth and a rude mien? God hath smote him with the sickness and we hath thrown him o'erboard. Food in the homes of Indian "savages"? God hath given us this food graciously and we should taketh it; these heathens were just his chosen delivery service. (What can brown do for you, indeed.) The whole of this history is so deeply entrenched in the belief that God was actively watching the Puritan experiment play out in the New World, guiding their every word and action.
It makes for some skewed history. This is my problem with reading this type of Puritan writing. The history, which is truly valuable for the insight it gives us into our country's foundations, is so tarnished by the personal views and teleology of the Puritans. Everything here does not happen because things happen, but because God has made it happen for the benefit of his chosen peoples, the Puritans. It is a ridiculous view of history that has been perpetuated by our history books and is only just now being corrected, hundreds of years after the fact.
Plus, this view is cruel, narrow-minded, and eurocentric. I understand that you can argue that it was merely the times, that this is simply how people were and in a few hundred years people will look back at us and think of how totally backwards we were. But still, the idea that one can write off a man's suffering and death because he swore and could be a bit mean is insane. Even more insane is that the Puritans land at Plymouth and immediately believe the "savages" are out to get them. "What could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men?" says Bradford upon the Puritans' first perusal of the land in front of them. Of course, civilization could never exist in a forest, let alone without Christianity. It was as absurd then as it is today to instantly think that these people are evil, simple, and out to kill you.
This kind of writing makes me, plainly, angry. It's hyperreligious, insensitive to other cultures, and fallacious. What, for example, happened on the ship that made them turn to Plymouth, which Bradford was so eager to cut out to save the time of the reader? What happened during the periods of time not written about explicitly? One thing after another is skipped or glossed over, and you get an incomplete narrative of the early days in Plymouth. The only thing put down is that which helps the cause of the Puritans, and, thanks to history books, America itself. It's like saying the war in Iraq is a brilliant idea because it is God's plan and it will get America to where it needs to go. And where's that? It isn't justification or explanation for anything. It's a cop-out plain and simple.
American history would have been better had our persecuted religious group been non-religious peoples. Then maybe we would have more objective views of the beginnings of our nation. Instead, we got the most would-be pious bigots to ever get booted out of Europe. A shame, really.
Anne Bradstreet
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Anne Bradstreet
November 18, 2009"A corrupt carcass down it lies,
A glorious body it shall rise.
In weakness and dishonor sown,
In power 'tis raised by Christ alone."
Internet Quotation: "While it is rather easy for us to view Puritan ideology in a bad light because of it's attitude towards women and strict moral code, her indifference to material wealth, her humility and her spirituality, regardless of religion, made her into a positive, inspirational role model for any of us." - AnneBradstreet.com
Summary: The first quotation is indicative of the sort of Puritan resignation to the evil of the physical world. Across many of her poems is the theme of human life as worthless, corrupt, impure, and wrong. Only when one goes to heaven can one be cleaned and fulfilled. This creates a waiting game that I think promotes indifference to the world's problems, which I will talk about below.
The second quotation is here because I talk about her humility and spirituality below. Where the website devoted to her life points it out as inspiring, I take a rather different route.
My Ideas: As I stated in the summary, Bradstreet talks a lot about how terrible this world and its inhabitants are. Is there an image of our world so revolting as "dunghill mists"? This place is so low and disgusting that we can't even be the dunghill proper.
In a Puritan context, this is exactly what you should say. Bradstreet follows the idea that this world is a test, through things like her fever, for when they reach the Lord. It's like the original American Gladiators. If they can survive sickness, food shortages, childbirth, and savage Indians, they too can win big! This is the whole purpose of the Puritan life: to live so that you can die. Why would I want that?
This type of thinking instills in people the idea that this world isn't worth living for. Despite the ones we love, the wonders and majesty of the natural world, and the things we, as human beings, can accomplish, the Puritans see this as a temporary hellhole we wait around in, the line at the DMV writ large. This is a mindset that continues today, coming straight from the Puritan tradition. We go to war, we rape the world of its resources, we let people fall through the cracks in squalor, etc. etc. The ills never end. I don't want to believe that human beings are necessarily bad. Instead, we seem to have learned that things can't get better, so why even try. It's what Bradstreet says in her poetry, and it is what we say daily by doing nothing. Let's just wait it out, we say.
Bradstreet gives into this imperfect view of the world by looking at herself in the same way. She constantly undermines her own poetry with self-deprecating comments about how "imperfectly done" her writing is, despite being the first poet from the New World to be printed, and as a woman and in two editions at that. I'm not saying one should boast, but she could at least recognize her own talent and cross those lines out when writing. Humility is one thing; such a dim view like hers is quite another.
It is sickening to me to think that so many people lived only because they were here. It is even more sickening that we continue to live such an existence. These last two readings have really made me look at myself and think about what I'm doing to avoid the type of fatalistic life outlined by the Puritans and perpetuated by us today. Right now is a fitting time, I believe, to read something like Bradstreet to show what not to do with yourself. Don't just say God will fix everything one day. Don't say I can't do anything right, or special, or meaningful. Don't try to escape the dungheap but rather craft a bigger, more glorious dungpile that others are envious of at all times. In other words, realize that we only get one of these lives here on earth. And while you may one day go to heaven, you can make things as good as you can here and now.
Also, I may have gone a bit far on the dungheap metaphor. Apologies for those opposed to poo humor.
Jonathan Edwards
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Jonathan Edwards
November 16, 2009
"You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell."
Internet Quotation: "The first and greatest homegrown American philosopher." - Perry Miller
Summary: The first is something of a simple summary. This reading is a fire-and-brimstone sermon delivered to strike the fear of God into the hearts of the wicked -- and everyone else, apparently. Lines like the one quoted above make me, as a blasphemous heretic, laugh for a good long time, a nice little break from the constant threats of being cut by the sword of divine justice. Which sounds like a weapon from a cheesy fantasy novel, doesn't it?
The second quotation is from Perry Miller, the founder of the Yale edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards. I include it here because it is interesting to think that this Christian theologian is our first real philosopher. I think it would explain a lot about our country's religious leanings, which I look into below.
My Ideas: As if I hadn't gotten enough sermons during my forced tenure at church (love you, mom), this one proves why I stopped going the moment I could. I even wrote at the end of the reading "Why I don't practice religion, QED." To be young and atheistic.
There is a simple reason why Puritanism isn't quite the hot religion these days: nobody wants this! As if life weren't bad enough, now I have to go to church every Sunday and listen to some man pontificate about how God hates me and how it's a wonder I'm not already in hell? I'm afraid that isn't going to work. If you wanted to stick around on the religious scene, you need to tone it down a bit, maybe make the salvation a little more than a quick note at the end, as it is in this sermon. After being scorched by the fire-and-brimstone of the sermon, the only recompense we get are a few measly, uninspired paragraphs on what we can expect if we follow the rules?
The sermon isn't bad from a technical level. The writing is prototypically American, all short, declarative sentences that leave lasting impressions. They can be easily spewed back by, say, little kids. Imagine, if you would, a scene in Sunday school:
Instructor: And how long is the wrath, children?
Children: "It is everlasting wrath."
Each point that Edwards makes is delivered succinctly for maximum effect. One would think that there were many converts on the day this one was given. But then again, they were usually like this one.
While I've mostly made fun, I will admit that this is scary stuff. The idea that even your omnipotent, merciful Creator utterly despises your poor, foolish soul is one that most wouldn't be so quick to scoff at, especially not during the period. We've since, in my opinion, given the whole religion thing a bit more thought, and certain scientific theories were developed that help to explain a universe without God. Even with these, the sermon has stopping power. Maybe if this were delivered at my benign little church back when I was a young, generally rebellious little teen I would have listened a little more intently. But probably not.
I perhaps need to stop joking. Sermons like this one are a reason this country has such deep religious inclinations, despite what our founding documents say. While we aren't really supposed to be a Christian nation, there are strong Christian undertones to much of what goes on in this country, especially in politics. Do you think, for example, that cutting abortion coverage from the health care bill recently passed in the House had nothing to do with the representatives' religious beliefs? Religion is everywhere in this country, and I believe we have people like Edwards to thank for that. We tried to escape the hellfire by leaving God out of our Constitution, upon which this country is based. Yet that great magical man in the sky just won't leave this country alone.
And that's a problem for the country, especially when the type of fundamental zealotry found in this reading was the norm. When people are so concerned with the spiritual -- whether or not they will get to heaven, whether or not God wants to smite them, etc. -- they neglect the physical. How can society possibly improve if everybody is trying so hard not to screw up and go to hell? Real life problems take a back seat to whatever the popular thing is to do to rid a person of sin. If we cast off religion as a whole, I have a feeling we would suddenly take a good look around, see the innumerable problems this world has developed, and get to work fixing them. But nobody wants to hear that, because what is the purpose of life without a place to go after it? We are working for something, aren't we?
Aren't we?!
(Aside: I found a social networking site just for Satanists called MySatan.net while searching for images. You learn something new everyday.)
Thomas Jefferson
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Thomas Jefferson
November 11, 2008"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him... "
Internet Quotation: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." - John F. Kennedy upon welcoming 49 Nobel Prize winners to the White House
Summary: The first quotation comes from the section on slavery removed from the final draft of the Declaration of Independence. In this passage, Jefferson decries the system of slavery in the colonies, which he attributes to George III. While Jefferson owned slaves, he obviously had a great moral dilemma between ideals and reality. He was doubtlessly for the end of slavery, but he could not reconcile that with the needs of his life.
The second is probably one of the more famous quotations on Jefferson. From JFK, it portrays the level of respect people give to Jefferson in a very humorous little line that is worth a laugh even today. Perhaps Mr. Kennedy should have gone into standup. Maybe he wouldn't have lost his head. That was probably in poor taste. Moving along...
My Ideas: Quick aside to begin: the Norton Anthology fails to mention explicitly that Jefferson owned slaves. Unless I'm missing something, that's a major oversight in my mind. It would have been easy to spot and fix. For example, "He remained a [slaveholding] agrarian aristocrat all his life..." See, simple. I understand the man's conflict with his own slaveholding, about the need with his debts and the societal normalcy of it, but it needs to be in there somewhere.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, to the text we go. Our Declaration of Independence is the document upon which ever other government document was built. As such, it should be some strong stuff, and Jefferson's words admonish the British in the best, most ferocious way possible by directly attacking King George III himself: "He has refused, He has endeavored, He has erected," and so on. So ferocious, in fact, that the Congress had to take some bits out to water them down a bit, making the words a little less incendiary. The administration of Justice has not "totally... cease[d]," only obstructed; the "future ages" that will be unable to believe in the tyranny fostered within "the short compass of twelve years only" has been nixed completely. Many other examples follow a similar pattern of calming Jefferson's angry tongue.
What is also missing is one of the longer sections written by Jefferson: the one on slavery. Wholly removed is the inspired argument against slavery that could have ended the institution with one fell swoop, saving this country decades of ignominy and racial strife. The "cruel war against human nature itself" remained, thanks to the interests of those in the Congress, our country's "peculiar institution" for some time. Reading these crossed out lines is both upsetting and unsettling. Both our Founding Fathers and our Declaration of Independence are revered on the highest levels; I dare you to name one president in your lifetime that hasn't mentioned "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" at least once in a speech, or who hasn't channeled one of those men who helped give birth to our nation. And yet, they must have come to some majority consensus that the slaves must stay slaves. It's cause for a serious look into the men that made the country.
But, back to Jefferson. The rhetoric here is laid on thickly, with each ill of the British government spat out with contempt. It's just great, really. I can see from the beginning just how much Paine influenced Jefferson, and vice versa. These lines could be attributed to either man, I think. Though Paine probably would have fought the Congress to keep in the slavery portions, the rebel.
What I love along with the strong words is the short length. As we've mentioned in class many times, short, declarative sentences are the hallmark of American literature. This document is a quick one, moving through each transgression with the rapidity of an angry mob marching in the streets. To sum the whole thing up as hemingwayesque as I can: We are now independent because the British were bad and that is all. I wonder what the writers responsible for the British retort must have thought upon seeing this Declaration. "That's it? Really?"
Thomas Paine
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Thomas Paine
November 9, 2009"Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe...Her trade will always be a protection"
Internet Quotation: "He had lived long, did some good and much harm" - Newspaper in New York City after Paine's death
Summary: The first is included here because of the astounding foresight it contains. Paine was so overwhelmingly right about commerce being our security and source of friendship with Europe that I was actually somewhat frightened. America has long been the source of great new must-haves, for better or for worse.
The second quotation is here for humor. I love it when history proves the prevailing notions of the day wrong, especially for somebody as revolutionary as Paine. We are lucky he had "lived long" and influenced this nation as much as he had, otherwise we would still be proclaiming "God Save the Queen" like those complacent Canadians up north (I know the monarchy is mostly ceremonial, but even still). Paine's writing shook up this nation like few ever had, and we are the better, in my opinion, because of it.
My Ideas: We have reached the revolutionary period, which I am rather excited about as I've reached the "college liberal ultra-leftist radical" phase of my life. Funnily enough, I read Paine's selection on the anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia. My Saturday had me ready for insurrection, but alas, my glorious dreams of rebellion did not play out. (yet.)
I am struck by how much we can still take from Common Sense. It is still about a government that serves the interests of the people, not the status quo, which remains applicable today. Unfortunately, we don't feel we need to act against some of the problems with our government, and when people do they follow morons like Glenn Beck, who actually attempted to reinterpret Paine's Common Sense in his latest book. He failed miserably. The nerve.
What he missed was the careful reasoning that is Paine's defining feature in this pamphlet, and his entire career. As a major figure in the Enlightenment, Paine's insistence on reason shines throughout Common Sense, giving careful, logical answers to why British rule is wrong for the continent. His reasoning is so clear that it is easy to understand why it made such an impact on the American public (though it doesn't explain why Beck couldn't quite grasp it... I feel this says a lot). "Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument," he says of those who argue that the connection with Britain is essential for "future happiness." "We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat." This is one of the simpler explanations, but I think it accurately depicts the wit that makes up most of this reading.
And after showing you the revolutionary light through reason, he makes direct, powerful appeals straight to the reader: "Your future connection with Britain...will be forced and unnatural, and, being formed only on their plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first." Paine understands that for some reason isn't quite enough. By bringing you, the reader, directly into the conflict between the continent and the crown, you feel enveloped in this urgent affair that must be acted upon immediately. Even as modern readers, I think we can feel like we should go out, organize, and rise against the British tyranny... before calmly realizing that it is now 2009 and we have long since won that war. (not to mention we have them in our back pocket now. Oh the irony.)
I do wish politics was relatively more Painesian. The man is critical, judicious, and immediate, unlike the plodding, indecisive politics of our age. Prime example: health care. Does the issue of people dying daily because of jacked-up insurance prices really need to be discussed for months and months? Is the problem not plain, even for those who have a penchant for rejecting anything the other party says? Paine could shove off those who argued against him so simply and stand up for his own beliefs. It would be wonderful if our politicians could do the same today. We need to get radical again; not in the ultra-right Nazi way, but in the "this is what I think, so there" way. Relative radicalism, I suppose.
On second thought, what would C-SPAN have to show if it weren't for the back-and-forth mumbling and grumbling of our nation's Congresspeople?
Phillis Wheatley
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Phillis Wheatley
November 4, 2009
'Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land,Internet Quotation: "Some critics have been disturbed that her poetry is not more attuned to modern political and racial awareness, that she seems to have adopted a "white voice" and abandoned her own race." - Ann Woodlief
Taught my benighted soul to understand
Summary: The first quotation is from "On Being Brought from Africa to America," a tiny eight line poem written in heroic couplets that, to me at least, seems to welcome slavery as a gift from God. Wheatley claims that the "mercy" of her enslavement brought her to America, introduced her to God, and ultimately saved her. This view of slavery as good is in stark contrast to the slave narratives we have read in class, and I explore that below.
The second quotation is from a biography written by Ann Woodlief, whom I've previously quoted in my journals. I chose it because it corroborates my view, outlined in the journal proper, that these poems don't read like the typical black writings of the period. They are distinctly whitewashed, with Wheatley claiming "mercy" (read: her slavery) saved her from Africa, among other things. This quotation is here mostly to say that I'm not entirely crazy; there are other people out there who have said the same thing I have here.
My Ideas: The first eight line poem stopped me dead. Wheatley, unlike many black slaves, appears to view her slavery, her escape from Africa, as "mercy" in "On Being Brought from Africa to America." She was saved from her old "pagan land" through the Christian teachings of her white captors. Then, she goes on to say that blacks can be refined and "join the angelic train."
What exactly does she mean by refined? It comes off as incredibly pro-white, which I find astounding. Wheatley led a rather privileged life as a slave, taught to read and write by her so-called "enlightened Boston Christian" owners (which seems to me a contradiction of massive proportions). This poem, to get to the point, supports slavery as far as I can tell. Because of slavery, she has been educated, brought to the Lord, and saved from her homeland. I wonder if her stance would have been different in South Carolina, with sun and slavemaster whip on her back.
By channeling the "angelic train," there is a strong connotation of white purity that Wheatley aspires to. Angels are not usually represented as black, but sparklingly white. How can a black slave really want that, to forsake who she is? Her introduction to Christ is all fine and good, but can't one be both black and a Christian? Why does she need cast off her black identity and aspire to some angelic whiteness that would finally merit acceptance in the white Christian community? They've enslaved you, sister!
But I suppose it is good poetry if in a matter of eight lines I can get so worked up. I'm glad to see Wheatley's education paid off.
The other poems are also pleasant and beautiful, though none quite so contrary to my expectations. There is a good amount of her telling people around her to do their best, trust in God, etc. etc., which is nice of her to do, though a little boring, if I may be frank. I must say that whole periods of poetry have mostly been ruined by my own religious, or rather non-religious beliefs. But that's really neither here nor there.
The final poem in our reading, written to George Washington, is interesting in that I don't know exactly what to make of it. The poem calls for an American victory of independence over Britain in the Revolutionary War, complete with a "crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine" for Washington. She even calls him "excellency." Doesn't that sound like Britain? Her language implies that America is moving from one monarch to another. Progress doesn't seem to be the order of the day for Wheatley. I read the poem a few times thinking it might be satirical, with all of the regal imagery and lofty calls to heaven and divinity putting a grand spin on the revolution that won't change a thing. Maybe she feels that nothing will really change for slaves with Washington, and so she is therefore writing this scathing satirical poem. But that can't be it. After all, it was a tribute to Washington, and he praised her work and invited her to meet with him. I almost wish it were satire; it would have given me a great laugh to think about this intelligent black woman ridiculing Washington right in front of him. But alas, not everyone is so radical.
Olaudah Equiano
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Olaudah Equiano
November 2, 2009"We thought by this, we should be eaten by these ugly men, as they appeared to us; and, when soon after we were all put down under the deck again, there was much dread and trembling among us..."
Internet Quotation: "However, while it is true that Equiano relies to some extent on various sources that he acknowledges in his narrative, his work comes forth as the lively portrayal of a deeply spiritual and sincerely humanitarian person." - Heath Anthology of American Literature
Summary: The quotation from Equiano is from his first time being corralled onto a ship after having been kidnapped. I find this passage particularly interesting and a good starting point for discussion because it shows the antithesis to the European view of the slaves. Whites saw the African slaves as savage and in need of civilization. The funny thing is, apparently, that the African slaves saw whites in much the same way. Equiano and his shipmates sees the whites as cannibalistic brutes, constantly fearing being eaten. It is fascinating to see the opposite viewpoint, especially one as strange as this.
The second quotation comes from an American literature anthology, not unlike our own. I like this quotation mostly because of how spiritual and humanitarian Equiano feels to me. He is a kind person throughout the narrative, never exhibiting the ferocity of Douglass. Instead, he keeps within the bounds set forth by society and still manages to make it out of his bonds.
My Ideas: While I very much enjoyed the previous portraits of slavery, this one may be my favorite due to one often overlooked aspect of African slaves: how they actually became slaves. I cannot recall reading anything this year quite so disturbing as Equiano's kidnapping and subsequent travel to the New World. It is easy to forget when reading about slaves on a plantation that they must have gotten there somehow. Many times, it involves the same type of path that Equiano followed. He was outright taken from his home by greedy white brutes, never to see his homeland again. The pure terror of the moment is harrowingly presented by Equiano.
It is from this part of the story that I think the quotation I selected above is so true. The Africans were long seen by Europeans as the savages, with their strange and different customs. Whites long sought to bring civilization to these people, apparently by enslaving them. But how can civilization be civilized when it is run by slaves who were taken from their homes? Is that really the civilization these people were attempting to bestow upon the Africans, the Native Americans, and all other non-white peoples? The delusion that runs through colonialist and imperialist thought is utterly perplexing.
The little instances of inhumanity are perhaps what get me the most: the way the whites throw food away instead of giving it to the starving slaves on the ship. The false hope of freedom granted by masters. The remarks about the inferiority of the slaves. All of these culminate in a hateful groupthink of white racism and prejudice. Instead of realizing that slavery is one of the most atrocious things a person can do to another person, these people instead give into these small transgressions against the slaves, that ultimately lead the continued enslavement of an entire race. It doesn't end, even in the face of an intelligent, respectable slave like Equiano. He's well-traveled, smart, and assiduous, by all accounts a great addition to any nation. And yet he isn't because he looks different. Therefore, the whites believe they can enslave and beat him. It just boggles the mind.
I understand the profit motive behind slavery. Why should I work when I can force another to? Slavery is the epitome of American sloth. But even with this powerful incentive, I still don't understand how so many people could give into the idea of slavery instead of fighting against it. Sure, you can make money by exploiting others -- it's happening even as I write this, somewhere in the world -- but can't you see the inherent injustice in such a system? When I read things like Equiano's narrative, I wish I could go back and, for want of a better term, slap some sense into these moronic white people. It's cruel, it's despicable, and it's wrong.
This is all rather preachy. Perhaps I feel I need to make up for Equiano's deficiency of outright attacks against whites. He calls them brutes, he tells of his terror, he lucidly displays their cruelty. But he never really condemns them like, say, Douglass did. I miss that in this narrative because I think it offers valuable insight into the thoughts of the slave. I can't imagine a person like Equiano never had some sort of angered thought that blasted the whites all around him. I want to hear those! I like the details of his life, especially how he came around to capitalism to win his freedom (one of the few examples I know of capitalism being purely helpful). There isn't a whole lot of fire, though, which I think can be useful for getting a point across.
William Apess
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for William Apess
October 28, 2009
"What folly it is to try to make the state of human society worse than it is."
Internet Quotation: White men are the only persons who have imposed on us, and we say that we love our red brother, the Rev. WILLIAM APES, who preaches to us, and have all the confidence in him that we can put in any man, knowing him to be a devout Christian, of sound mind, of firm purpose, and worthy to be trusted by reason of his truth. - Three Selectmen of the Marshpee Tribe
Summary: The first quotation is one that I use in my ideas. It is for me personally the most important statement in the essay because of how direct of an appeal it is. Channelling Christ and Christianity (aside: that sounds like a self-help book, doesn't it?) is fine and well, but this one is so simple, ruthless, and effective. It's the type of rhetoric to upset people and start something.
The second is from a letter by the three Selectmen (chief administrative officers) of the Marshpee Tribe, Israel Amos, Isaac Coombs, and Ezra Attaquin. Their letter is in defense of William Apess (Apes as was more common during the period in which it was written), part of their distinctly print-based campaign for self-government. It is interesting to see the views of those Apess helped, especially when they stand so firm behind him.
My Ideas: This has to be the most scathing critique of anything we've read this year. Which makes sense, given Apess's status as a Native American, and therefore a second-class citizen. Flipping the black-white relationship on its ear by claiming that the whites have a "black principle" within them that makes them enslave the Other, whomever the Other is.
The one argument I particularly like is what I suppose I will call the "Jesus was a brown person argument." As Apess says, "you know as well as I that you are not indebted to a principle beneath a white skin for your religious services but to a colored one" (Norton 1055). Many people, Americans especially, seem to forget that Jesus Christ was born and raised and killed in -- drum roll -- what we now consider the middle east. Which makes him, as one might expect, not exactly the whitest man who ever lived. White Christian like to take Jesus and refigure him as some glorious white Messiah whose teachings some how give justification to their vile deeds. We've seen it in past readings, especially in Douglass: the white slave master reciting the word of God while he beats a slave. But it is all wrong. First, the teachings of Christ are distinctly anti-anything white people have ever done to people of color. But also, Jesus himself was a person of color. Do white people really believe that He would have condoned their actions? No wonder people believe the stereotype that Americans are stupid.
I also especially enjoyed the image of all the people of the world gathered together, portraying how much of a minority the whites are. The fact that whites have so long ruled over these people, through slavery, colonialism, wars, etc., is astounding and mathematically improbable. But it certainly happened. By asking the reader to use his imagination to see this scene, Apess is able to more accurately place the white man in the greater context of the world. This is an exercise in becoming aware of the world, a mindful thing to do in those times when people feel a little larger than life. There may be some of you with some good weapons, Apess seems to say. But there will always be more of us.
But most powerful of all, for me, is not Jesus or imagined gatherings. The most powerful part of this entire piece is a single sentence: "What folly it is to try to make the state of human society worse than it is" (Norton 1056). Such utter pessimism that perfectly encapsulates what it is the white man is doing. Human beings are essential screwed as it is -- I think this is fairly obvious, given all the evil we do to each other and ourselves. Why make it worse? It is a startling statement that makes you sit up and listen if all of the Christianity was going in one ear and out the other. You can't ignore this sentence because it is so true and so real.
I find Apess's life very interesting along with his essay. He isn't exactly the most known figure in American literature, and his complete drop off the map in the last year of his life is intriguing. He comes off as a man who didn't just want to write about problems, like so many writers, I think, do; he wanted to be actively involved in the struggle for justice. I don't view people like Apess strictly as writers, but as people whose writing was a byproduct of their commitment to their fight, whatever it might be. His life as a Christian minister and his work with the Mashpee show that his writing was done mostly because it was the natural thing for him to do to advance his cause. I have much respect for Apess in that regard. He isn't set away from his subjects, scribbling on some pad in his cozy study. His subjects are real people and his writing is set in their reality.
Washington Irving
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Washington Irving
October 26, 2009
"The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquility."Internet Quotation: "Even though there is ongoing debate, Irving's accomplishments as being the first American author accepted abroad, establishing the American short story genre, and his work as a biographer and historian are undisputed and secure Irving as a permanent fixture in American Literature." - Laura Braley
Summary: The first time Rip Van Winkle looks around his old town after his twenty year slumber, he sees these busy people fussing about endlessly. I think that this quotation is the starting point for discussing the changes portrayed in the story, as the society moves from slow and simple to fast and complex. It is all too much for Rip the first time he looks upon it, but he ultimately comes to grips with it in time, becoming a lazy old relic of a bygone era in American history.
The second quotation is from a resource site on Irving. There isn't anything particularly special about it; I put it here simply because Irving was one of the first truly (read: internationally) successful American authors, and it should be said when talking about the man. Also, as a fan of the American short story genre, I felt I should pay my respects to the person who essentially created the style. Without him, we might never have been blessed with most of the works we read for this class. Not to mention the complete lack of Ernest Hemingway, which I must say because a world without his short stories isn't a world at all.
My Ideas: This story is a very interesting way to frame the changes in American society, mostly because I do not know where Irving's sympathies lie. On the one hand, he sees this new American society as bustling and exciting, having been released from the tyranny of King George III. Even Rip is happy in this new society, mostly because Dame Van Winkle is finally off of his back all the time.
But there is also a sense of nostalgia for the old, idle Dutch town that was sleepy, half-drunk, and, using his word, tranquil. There is a natural sort of innocence in such a town, where nothing terrible happens, where there are no goings-on beyond the daily movements of the town. Even their news is old, so it means nothing substantial, just some more material to talk about with friends and neighbors. It is a very picturesque vision; indeed, I had a strong urge to follow Rip's lead and find a nice patch of grass to nap on after reading this story.
There is not really a judgement one way or the other, in my mind, on this new nation. The new Americans are busybodies, with all of their storming movement and activities. They're also cheap, shown in the portrait of King George III simply repainted from red to blue and renamed George Washington. Yet there isn't anything necessarily bad about this vision; it is simply the new way of doing things. Plus, there is a space in the new American tradition for Rip. His idle ways are eventually accepted as who he is, and he has a fine place within the community, despite not really doing anything for himself. He isn't the normal American, but he can still exist among such people.
What is more apparent is Irving's disparaging view of Dame Van Winkle, which I find a little unsettling. Everything about her is apparently negative, and Irving -- or Diedrich Knickerbocker, rather -- comes off as distinctly antifeminist. At the end, the conclusion of the story is that the old Dutch inhabitants like the story because they hope that they might one day fall asleep for twenty years and rid themselves of their wives as well. While she was perhaps a bit over zealous in her critiques of her husband, the moral of the story is seemingly not about the new America, but that a man will be happier if he can get away from his woman. The "resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliverance" when Rip hears Dame Van Winkle's name mentioned doesn't seem quite fair to women.
So the story is stuck between an imaginative, humorous look at the changes in America, complete with bearded, strangely-dressed men, and a harsh view of women as nuisances. I'm not sure what else to say, as the story itself seems to make its aims clear. It is a portrait of old and new America, mixed with some mildly misogynistic overtones. Fun, lighthearted, semi-patriotic perhaps. But also cruel towards wives who likely only have the best interests of their indolent husbands in mind.
Henry David Thoreau
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Henry David Thoreau
October 21, 2009
"I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right."Internet Quotation: "I wish to show that Thoreau, though brusque on occasions, was refined, courteous, kind and humane; that he had a religion and lived up to it." - Edward Waldo Emerson
Summary: I very much like this quotation because when speaking of government, or many traits of so-called civilization for that matter, we can sometimes forget that we are human beings. Instead, we are looked at as faceless, anonymous "subjects" to play with, coerce, send to war, et al by the government. This is not so, and Thoreau recognizes this in this quotation. We need to regain our manhood, to use a somewhat sexist term, and understand that this manhood comes before anything else. Who we are cannot be forgotten.
The second is interesting because it comes from Edward Waldo Emerson, a son of another eminent writer of the time whose name I'm quite sure you can guess. The greater passage from which this quotation comes is an account of Thoreau from the young Emerson, and it paints a portrait rarely seen of the man, or any writer for that matter. I think that while the quotation certainly applies to the person, it also applies to the philosophy. It is radical, blunt, and "brusque." But there is real substance to Thoreau's writing, and he stuck to it.
My Ideas: Government seems to be an problem that will never be solved. We humans just can't seem to get it right. Thoreau throws his own thoughts into the pot, some of which are fine suggestions when dealing with an unjust government.
I wonder in what ways we could use Thoreau's ideas today, which have influenced Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name two of the more successful in their endeavors of civil disobedience. There remain problems with our society that the government seems to do nothing about; war, poverty, corruption in the public and private sector, and unequal rights for gay and lesbian couples instantly jump to mind. While they are perhaps not as horrific as the slavery Thoreau attacked so vehemently, they are still major problems that need fixing. By not taking major, revolutionary action, we are becoming complicit in the government's actions (or lack thereof). There is something terribly, terribly wrong with this.
We become part of the machine that Thoreau talks of, moving along as a "mass of men serv[ing] the state." To act as a counter-friction to this massive machine, we must resist, realizing that only by removing ourselves from the machine can we escape the wrongs perpetuated by the government. Revolt and become a man again. It all sounds so brilliantly immediate, doubtless Thoreau's aim.
But not everything sits well with me. The famous "that government is best which governs least" line is one that I disagree with. If the recent financial catastrophe has taught us, it is that we need more, not less governance. Regulation of certain sectors of life is necessary to stop the seemingly inherent evil in those parts. Man can be a greedy animal, and when faced with doing the right thing or making loads of money, I think many would choose the latter. And those that would not choose profit over people would think for a long time about their decision. This reality necessitates some sort of watchman, which is best provided in the form of a government with real authority and power.
But, as another famous saying goes, who watches the watchmen? Thoreau's statement, in so many words, is that we do. We the people are responsible for maintaining a watch over that entity which is above all others -- government. I think that is what Thoreau's best lesson is. It isn't about subscribing to any ideology, following any set rules about what taxes to accept and decline, or anything else like that. It is to understand your power as a human being and citizen to resist against injustice. If your government is committing atrocities, fight back with what you can. It is difficult to do, as money usually equals power. But with a massive motivated force, I believe that not even the well-financed interests can silence the voices of the true and the just and the right.
It all sounds oratorical, all grandiose and majestic, which is what Thoreau used to get his point across. As a speech, a call to action, this essay is incredibly effective. Personally, whenever I'm called a machine I tend to get installed stirred up into a fit. I am not, I say, slamming my Norton Anthology on the table, upsetting my coffee cup. I remember that I am a man first. Which is why I find so much right with Thoreau. His halfway-there anarchism, if I could call it that, isn't my personal political ideology, but his declarative statement that we are people, not subjects is one that I can easily stand behind, voice raised and flag held high. Government will not watch itself; we have over two hundred years worth of it in this country alone to prove that. We must watch it, as men and women tuned to the divine goodness and desirous only of justice.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Ralph Waldo Emerson
October 19, 2009"A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other quite external event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. It can never be so. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself."
Internet Quotation: "Practically it may be another matter, but Emerson is a bit of an idealist and not terribly practical (we can't all be everything!)" - Ann Woodlief
Summary: The first quotation comes from the end of the essay, when Emerson essential writes off any external event that could potential "raise your spirits" as insignificant and false. Instead, he feels that only the private Self can bring peace to a person. It is a quick encapsulation of his doctrine, which he called the "infinitude of the private man."
The second quotation comes from an introductory essay on "Self-Reliance" by Ann Woodlief. I particularly like this one because it deals with the utter lack of practicality and reality in the essay. Emerson's ideas are fine ones, but they do not make too much sense on a practical, useable level. Where Woodlief laughs this off, however, I don't intend to be so friendly. Hence, this journal.
My Ideas: There is one thing that leapt into my mind immediately upon finishing Emerson's "Self-Reliance": this man is America! Such individualism is a founding ideal of this country, which was built upon anyone being able to do anything they please. Unfortunately, reality makes this kind of thought a big lie.
This essay, part of Emerson's Transcendentalist philosophy, stresses personal happiness through individualism. Man, he says, must "know his worth," accepting his genius as just that: genius. What a man thinks and does may seem odd to those around him, but for his true genius to thrive such societal restraints must be cast off, and nonconformity must be embraced. The greatest men, from Socrates to Newton to Jesus Christ have all gone against the grain, been themselves, and ended up better because of it. Everyman, says Emerson, should follow suit.
It all sounds so wonderful, doesn't it? The ability to be yourself, to thrive, to let your true intellect and genius shrine through from the drab humdrum of conformity and society. "I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me," claims Emerson. "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think."
Unfortunately, I cannot fully believe in Emerson's message. While individualism is indeed important to a personally fulfilled life, there are obligations we all have that sometimes must take precedence over genius. To talk of unrestrained, nonconformist individuality for everyone is to talk of the breakdown of society, which does many goods, into a worthless, unhelpful entity. As much I as sometimes disdain society, particularly in the consumerist and careerist attitudes most people today are so willing to adopt, I understand that it does so much good for everybody, and that without it humans would fail as a species. We've come too far to shed off society, and the norms that go with it, like so much dead skin. It is irresponsible and foolish.
Again, there are problems with society: the poor, the sick, and the hungry all too easily make that known. So, I feel we must sometimes forsake our own self-interests for those of the whole, for in the end we will find that a happy whole makes the individuals happy as well. Personal happiness can come from collective sources. For proof, see the myriad celebrations that occurred last November when Barack Obama was elected president. There were whole groups of people made joyous from without.
I believe, too, that certain institutions attempting to help people are worthwhile, unlike Emerson. He talks of the "miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies" as being unworthy of the "wicked dollar." Such places help people daily, and the only way of break the the generational poverty of the poor and the "sots" (not his poor though!) is through direct help and education. It isn't some great exercise in genius to withhold help to your fellow man who has been weighed down with the crushing force of poverty, it's selfishness. All of this too, I might add, coming from a man living on an annual stipend from his dead 19 year old wife which allowed him to "no longer need a steady job." I'm sure some of those poor men would have been better off had they such financial security.
This type of independence, while perfect on paper, is incompatible with human society as we know it. If we could start again, wipe both public and private slate clean, then perhaps we could follow Emerson's doctrine. As we stand now, however, such a switch would be disastrous. Genius can still be achieved with obligations to one's society. Pulling into a fully individualist private life does not alone guarantee greatness.
Harriet Jacobs
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Harriet Jacobs
October 14, 2009
"The painful and humiliating memory will haunt me to my dying day. Still, in looking back, calmly, on the events of my life, I feel that the slave woman ought not to be judged by the same standard as others."Internet Quotation: "Through her book, she gives the reader a clear picture of the life of a female house slave in the South before the Civil War." - Julie R. Adams
Summary: As a method of protecting herself from the sexual advances of Dr. Flint, Jacobs, writing as Linda Brent, pursues a relationship with Mr. Sands, a white man. He fathers two of Linda's children, much to her humiliation. She feels degraded by her choice to willingly give herself sexually to this man. She ultimately concludes, however, that slaves cannot be held to the same moral standards as free people, essentially justifying her actions with the cliche, "desperate times call for desperate measures."
The internet quotation is from Julie Adams, who maintains a page at the University of Virginia on Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The quotation is straightforward, but important. This book really was one of the best insights into the life of a slave girl. These narratives help to complete the portrait of slave life that is so vital to the understanding of our past.
My Ideas: I find in this reading and in the Douglass reading many parallels, despite the difference in gender and general lifestyle. Jacobs was not a worker, having been kept in a house most of her life and only coming to realize she was a slave at six when her mother died. As such, she developed into a much different kind of slave, one who serves their masters directly instead of the more common slave who works in the field for his or her master's economic benefit. This portrait of slavery, then, is from the inside looking out rather than outside looking in.
What is most interesting is how similar the inside is to the outside. There aren't any bloody fights or cruel beatings here, none of the brutal fury found in Douglass's narrative. But physicality is not taken out of the master and slave relationship. In the case of Jacobs, her physical torture is sexual. The advances of Dr. Flint cause her unending anxiety. She can't possibly stand the thought of the man doing anything to her. After much deliberation, she needs an escape, which drives her to a relationship with Mr. Sands.
What gets me about both of these readings is just how radicalized both Jacobs and Douglass become through their slavery. They aren't like the other slaves, who are just do their work and enjoy what little leisure time they have; instead, their time spent in the institution has caused something to break inside of them, forcing them to extreme, physical rebellion. For Douglass, it is his fight with Mr. Covey and his vow to fight any man who puts his hands on him. For Jacobs, it is her sexual relationship, and subsequent children with Mr. Sands. This isn't normal slave behavior, if there is such a thing.
Jacobs is moved to this peculiar method of rebellion because of her slave master's "special" treatment and a knowledge of the world outside of slavery. Growing up, her father was a skilled carpenter who hired himself out, and her family lived in their own house. For these first six years of her life, she may as well have been a free black girl in the South. The touch of slavery only came after her mother died, when she was sent off to a new mistress. She is also educated, with the ability to read and write. Finally, her first love interest, a free black carpenter, gives her a vision of her freedom, away from slavery and Dr. Flint. When all of these ingredients come together, you get a reaction like that of Jacobs, who used sex as a tool. There doesn't seem to be any pleasure in her description of her acts, only a staunch, if saddened, necessity.
It is this radicalization of slaves that attempted to break down and throw off the bonds slavery in the forms of escape, narratives, and speeches. It shows that ideas can only take a person so far. For Jacobs, it only gave her an intense longing, but never any relief from slavery. Relief came only when she took action physically, in her sexual relationship with Mr. Sands and her escape to the attic.
Frederick Douglass
Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Frederick Douglass
October 12, 2009
"I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture--'He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.'"
Internet Quotation: “Douglass is one of the towering figures of the 19th century. His move from slave to politician, editor and writer is extraordinary. What makes it even more impressive is that he never forgot the importance of struggle." - Richard Bradbury
Summary: The first quotation is one of the many scenes displaying the cruelty towards the slaves by their masters. In this particular example, Douglass tells of how he once saw a young woman tied up and whipped by her master who was reciting Bible verses. If that isn't hypocrisy, I don't know what is.
The second quotation comes from the Socialist Worker website. It is from Richard Bradbury, who wrote a book about Douglass's 1845 tour of Ireland, Scotland, and England. While the book relates to a specific part of Douglass's life, the quotation can be applied to the man's entire life as an orator and writer.
My Ideas: This short narrative has a brutality and gruesomeness to it that, even in our world of torture porn films and happy slapping, was deeply unsettling. Each scene revolving around the beating or killing of a slave has a stark, clear quality to it, as if the reader were in the room, forced to watch from the side and inspect afterwards. The scenes themselves are also quite repetitive, with certain images -- the whip, the cowskin, the black back besmirched with blood -- acting as constant reminders of oppression. Repeated images like this have become ingrained in my mind, so that even during Douglass's triumphs, there was the "warm red blood" and the tortured slave in my thoughts, as if to constantly remind me that just because one got away, there were many more to go, some of which are hurting at this very moment. I couldn't ever escape the images of these punishments, even when I knew Douglass was free in the North. Around every corner was another lashing, an angry master, a sick smile widening with each blow.
It is the simple, clean prose that does this for me. We don't really ever get anything beyond hard facts and apparent details, but this makes it all the more unsettling. I could get Douglass's own detailed idea of what a slave's back looks like covered in blood, or how brain matter sits in a river, but I have a picture all the more personally intense, and Douglass seems to write with that in mind.
Other recurring images had a lasting effect. Douglass habitually compares the state of the slaves to that of brutes and beasts and portrays the slave-masters as hypocritical so-called Christians. This narrative is effective because of its ability to so easily penetrate with its oft-repeated ideas. We see a pattern of abuse and forced resignation towards the slaves, which is only broken when one, like Douglass, fights back, learns a little bit, and escapes. Instead of booze, Douglass looked to books for his escape, understanding that literacy was the best path to liberation.
I think it is interesting how many parallels there are to today's society. I obviously don't mean for this kind of slavery, but for those dejected souls in wage slavery, those who rely upon nighttime drinks and games to get through the day of work that barely allows them to meet their most basic needs. They toil away the day only to receive a pitiful sum and a meager existence. It sounds like slavery, only you go home at the end of the day instead of staying on the plantation and you aren't physically beaten. Beyond the message of antislavery, there is a deeper call to look at the world head-on, and not recoil into a dark, debauched fantasy land, hidden from the grim realities of the world. Televisions may have replaced foot races, but the message remains the same. This narrative remains a powerful call to action for any cause worth fighting for, not just slavery. If we would get up, educate ourselves, and start acting, Douglass seems to say, we could make something great happen. In 1845, this would have been a revolutionary text. In 2009, it remains one.
Along with the call to arms, as it were, for the people, I also think his critique of American Christianity, with all of his white-hot, scathing remarks, still rings true today. Nearly every slave-master in the narrative uses Christianity as his justification. In the quotation above we see a downright evil slave-master quote Scripture in an attempt to prove that his actions are in keeping with Christian tradition. This tradition continues today, it would seem. While Christians no longer use physical violence (usually), they quote the Bible in an attempt to keep basic civil liberties from groups of people whose lifestyles they deem wrong. They denounce these people, spitting hateful vitriol, and then go to church on Sundays claiming they are pious and just. Hypocritical Christians didn't, unfortunately, die with slavery.
I wouldn't have expected to take so much advice on how to live from an antislavery book written in 1845. I fully anticipated a very narrowly defined, easily applicable story to help the abolitionist cause. What I got instead was an inspiring look at what it is to take back one's humanity from the clutches of an unjust society. While our society's transgressions against people are not quite so horrific as those of Douglass's time, we still have many wrongs to right. "If there is no struggle, there is no progress," Douglass once said. The struggle remains and there is still progress to be won.
Edgar Allan Poe
"...an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray walls, and the silent tarn, in the form of an inelastic vapor or gas -- dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued."
Internet Quotation: "...I assure you, he is in need of immediate assistance." - Joseph W. Walker
Summary: The first quotation comes from the beginning of "The Fall of the House of Usher" when our unnamed narrator is giving us his vision of the eponymous house. The pervading sense of gloom in the story is first established with passages such as this one, and I feel that one of the best parts of this story -- and many of Poe's tales -- is the atmosphere that surrounds the action. It is very dark and very Gothic, and you are placed within the environment for the whole of the story. There are stories where the setting feels like merely a convention of storytelling; in Poe, the setting is integral to the story itself.
Joseph Walker's quotation, to one Dr. Snodgrass, is here mostly because I can't help but find a macabre hilarity in it. Looking at Poe's tumultuous life and his unsettling works, you can see that there was, indeed, something wrong with him that required attention. The quotation itself is from Poe's final days, when he was found by Walker in "great distress" on the streets of Baltimore. It is a sad thing that Poe was ultimately taken from this world in such ignominy, but perhaps it is a fitting end for the glum writer.
My Ideas: This story is archetypal Poe: Gothic, dark, gloomy, frightening, mysterious, creepy, eerie. It has everything you need in a piece of Gothic fiction, from the dilapidated antiquity of the mansion, to the crazed Roderick Usher, to the deadly climax. It makes for intense reading, which you sometimes don't get with the so-called canon. I'm glad professors somewhere have allowed it to stay within the confines of great American literature despite its place in what can be identified as the oft-maligned (in literature at least) genre-fiction.
My first thought about the story is just how scary it is. Reading doesn't usually hold the same visceral horror as, say, movies, mostly because of the distinct lack of sound. But that's where this story succeeds. The end of this tale revolves around sounds, first perceived as imagined but later explained by the deranged muttering of Roderick Usher. The brilliant telling gave me a start with each new sound: the cracking, the shrieking, the metallic reverberation. Poe injects a sonic dimension into what is essentially a silent medium. While we do read aloud on occasion and we have devices like onomatopoeia that can attempt to capture sound on a printed page, it doesn't always have as powerful of an effect as the sounds themselves. But through these precise, expertly written sounds that are described in the story, one can hear the noises, even when reading silently, that so alarm the narrator. (not to mention ourselves!) The horror of these sounds gives an almost overwhelming suspense that ultimately leads to the shocking reveal that Madeline Usher was buried alive.
The reason she was buried alive by her twin is something that is difficult to work out, given the nameless illness of Roderick and the scarcity of appearances by Madeline. The illness of Roderick Usher appears to stem from both his family line and the house itself. From his family there is a long tradition of direct ancestry, and Usher understands that his death will end the line. From this history stems a resignation to the family's fate: "I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost." This raises questions about his illness. Is it actually real, or is he just giving into the precedent set by his family? Perhaps it is a little of both. His mental illness seems real, given the fact that he buried his sister alive and becomes increasingly unstable throughout the story. But I don't think it would have been quite so bad had his family not given him certain expectations, making him into the hypochondriac he is.
The house can't be helping him either. The big, dark mansion that stands near a decrepit tarn is, in Roderick's mind, alive. The "evidence of the sentience" is said to be the "the gradual yet certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls." The house itself is alive and acting upon Roderick's spirits, as it had his ancestors. It has become a part of him, a member of the family just like his sister. When the twins fall at the end, then, so must the house, fully terminating every remaining vestige of the Usher line. Usher's verses entitled "The Haunted Palace" weren't just thrown in for good measure.
That's where the real brilliance of the story comes from: its total connectedness. There isn't any dead weight in the story, no purposeless sentences. Poe's writing is calculated and directed, and it gives the story a pace and an atmosphere that makes for both an excellent piece of literature and a terrifying horror story. When, after you've read the last line, you go back and see all the interlocking connections coming together like so much brickwork, you begin to understand the mastery involved in this tale.
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