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

Spencer Lambert

English 48A

Journal for Edgar Allan Poe

October 7, 2009

"...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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Spencer Lambert

English 48A

Journal for Nathaniel Hawthorne

October 5, 2009

"Then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and lo! on every visage a black veil!"

Internet Quotation: "The writer of these lines, who was a child at the time, remembers dimly the sensation the book produced, and the little shudder with which people alluded to it, as if a peculiar horror were mixed with its attractions." - Henry James

Summary: On his death bed, Father Hooper is suddenly granted a moment of unexplainable strength, rising up to hold down his veil and admonish those around him before falling silent. As the story's closing point, this scene is particularly powerful, given Hooper's heaving breath that "rattled in his throat." We see in his final moments the power that this symbol, the black veil, has on both Hooper and those around him.

The second quotation comes from the master storyteller Henry James, speaking about The Scarlet Letter. I think this quotation could be used for more than just that book; it certainly could be talking about this week's story, The Minister's Black Veil. Hawthorne's finest works are these chilling Gothic tales that send frightful shivers through readers, even today. Henry James, being Henry James, said this, only better than I ever could.

My Ideas: What a strange power Hawthorne has to enthrall with tales such as "The Minister's Black Veil". Despite being first published in 1836, and thereby setting the precedent for his future stories revolving around sin and Puritanism, the story remains relevant and haunting; they may be even more chilling today, given just how dark our own black veils are, with all of modern life's myriad and instantaneous sins.

Not only that has the story held up from that perspective, but also in its power to captivate someone like me, with no religious tendencies whatsoever, in what is, as said from the beginning, a distinctly religious parable. The black veil, as a symbol for the secret sin we all hide away, is sinister even for a devout atheist like myself. God or not, the stuff we hide away from everybody is dark and dank, and if it did get out, it would be the source of interminable anxiety.

My main question for this text is what the germ, to use a term of Henry James, is for wearing the veil. Obviously, as a minister such a striking symbol can spread a profound message through your laity quickly. But is there anything beyond the simply ministerial explanation, something more than Father Hooper trying to be the best reverend he can be? I've read that Poe felt that an adulterous affair with the dead lady in the story was the cause of the veil, but I'm not sure I agree with that reading. There is the reference to the spirits of the young lady and Father Hooper walking hand-in-hand, but there isn't anything beyond this implying that there was some adultery committed. Also, the image of the two walking hand-in-hand doesn't seem like a proper visual for what would have been for Hooper a sin so foul it led him to the hidden life behind the veil.

I view the veil as an ambiguous sin that we will never really know. But I also think it is a way for Father Hooper to block out life itself. By donning the veil, he is suddenly granted a silent, physically unencumbered life. He does his duty as minister, and then retires to his study and mind, presumably alone after his fiancee leaves him for not taking off the veil. The veil acts a justification for his solitude, which perhaps is what he wanted all along. But it also appears to have a negative affect, allowing him more time to mull over the thoughts of whatever sins he has committed. It destroys him from the inside out, with these thoughts about his sins perhaps being the cause of the "feverish turns" and the rattling cough that ultimately sapped the little strength he had left. The veil cuts him off from "cheerful brotherhood and woman's love." It locked him away for a lifetime, alone, dark, and gloomy until finally he was taken away by his Creator.

This could be true for all of us, physical veil or not. How many people have you actually divulged your entire self to, after all? I understand that there are secrets that I contain that only I know, and I can admit that freely, even here on this public blog. But will I ever tell them to anyone? My parents? My best friend? My significant other? I highly doubt that I ever will, following in the footsteps of Father Hooper, which effectively cuts myself off from pure connection. I may not go quite so far as Father Hooper, but there is forever a barrier between the deepest secrets I keep and the people I love. It is just human nature to put one up.

Just as an aside, perhaps bride's veils should be black instead of white, given this story's message. After all, the symbolism of moving past your partner's deepest, darkest sins to see and love the person they really are is stronger than penetrating the pure white veil representative of their... well, that one's easy enough to figure out on your own, I suppose. Just a thought.