The Crying of Lot 49

This novel makes a point to display the turbulence of society at the time. A major issue of the time was drugs. As Mucho Mass was on LSD it finally causes him to go crazy. His battle with drugs alienates Odepia and she has an affair with Metzger. While the story is about the mysetery Odepia is trying to put together it is also about her growing as a person in this crazy time period. Odepia is constantly hullucinating making it seem she also is always on drugs. The characters drug use, illusion, and craziness cause them to become alienated from one another, ruining marriages and relationships. This time she is living in makes her process of self discovery a rocky one. What makes her a part of society, her connection to the drug use and moral lapses, is what ultimately leaves her alienated. It distrubs her relationships and beings illusion and choas into the story. This is how drug use of that time period affected a large part of society.

The Brooch

The relationship between Amy and Howard is strange in this story. At first they seem to love each other, and cannot wait to be married, but then Howard becomes jealous and gets violent, and spanks her. It seems as though she was almost forced into marrying him because after his display of aggression she gives in and marries him, when before she had had complaints. Control is a major issue in this story. Clearly the mother is controling. Her son has absolutely no ability to make his own decisions, or even leave the house, even though he is an adult. He sacrifices his own happiness with Amy in order to keep his mother happy. The ironic part is she cannot even get out of bed. It is hard to see what he is afraid of, when she is basically powerless. It may be the guilt of her simply being his mother, as several times he says he just cannot leave her and he will not. I do not know if I could leave my mother either.
Although she clearly is the controling one, he ends up exercising control in his own way too. He decides that Amy must live in the house with his mother, even though she begs not to. In the end he basically decides the relationship is over by having her leave to the hotel. He makes her live a certain way in order to keep his mother happy. In the end he cannot bear it and ends up alone. In this story nobody wins, the mom ends up without her son, the very thing she was trying to control the entire time, Howard cannot live at all, and Amy ends up alone in a hotel. It is true in life and relationships that when one tries to control everything it never turns out well.

There Was a Queen

To me this story follows a theme pattern that has been ongoing as we move forward through American Literature. The further we go the more acceptable it is for interracial relationships to occur. Before the civil war African Americans were just slaves, even after the war racial tensions were high. For exmaple in "Desiree's Baby" when the husband believes his wife to be black he disowns her. Clearly in this story the relationship between Narcissa and her lover is not ideal, but we can see a trend in the fact that she does it anyway, although the old South would find it highly unacceptable. I do not think mixed racial relationships are the main point of "There Was a Queen", but I do think it is a huge American issue, and to me we can see our racial battle's progress through literature. Literature has a huge effect on society, causing controversy and sparking new ideas. The recurrent mixing racial relationships seen in the works we are reading, and the move toward acceptance tracks our country's journey through it, and shows how writing can make people think.

Williams

Williams’s “The Young Housewife” seems to paint an image of how dismal the life of a housewife can be. It goes along with how many modern day working women would view a housewife, making her out to be shy and working for a man.
First, the poem tells the reader that it is 10 A.M. in the morning, a time when a working woman would be at work, and the housewife is “behind the wooden walls of her husband’s house” (lines 2-3). Behind wooden walls makes her sound trapped and enclosed. And the fact that Williams calls it her husband house shows that she is living via her husband. This type of relationship does not imply equality but more that the husband owns the house, and she is confined in it, working for him.
The next stanza talks about her going to meet with various public service men and she is “shy, uncorseted, tucking in stray ends of hair” (lines 7-8). She is not confident in her own skin as she seems shy and timid around these men. Women wear corsets to shape their bodies into an ideal figure. The fact that she is shy and timid in relation to not having her body shaped right shows a lack of personality strength and makes it seems as though she is living to meet some man’s ideal, and is uncomfortable when she does not.
Williams likens her to a “fallen leaf” (line 9) and at the end of the poem speaks of his “rush with a crackling sound over dried leaves” (lines 10-11). Peter Baker of the Modern American Poetry asks “is the woman something crushed or discarded?” This is what the poem seems to be saying to me to. Today, with so many opportunities for women, a housewife does not look so glamorous, and Williams portrays her as a weak character, shy and timid, working for his husband in his house. At the end she is nothing but a fallen leaf that is crunched and discarded by the wheels of a car.

Chesnutt

Chesnutt's Goophered Grapevine has something in common with the last three storied we have read in class. This is the use of dialect, especially with racial stereotypes and words such as the "n" word. Although it can be upsetting to read it makes the story what it is, and forces readers to look at reality.
People have a hard time now days reading words like the "n" word because they are no longer politically correct. It is not acceptable to go around using them in every day conversation. Therefore, when we see them in stories we tend to cringe and are unable to say them when we read them outloud. This is because we, as a scoiety, feel a sense of shame and guilt for the rougher edges of our past. Certainly everyone does not share feelings of guilt, many also feel angerness and bitterness. But whatever the emotions, they are underlying. People are constantly making stereotypes like they used to in the past. The fact that these words are used makes people so uncomfortable because it brings back those feelings. While our society has come a long way since the time of the civil war, we have a long way to go. We have set rules that have made our stereotypes and and angry feelings become politcally incorrect to bring up often, or in the wrong way. But, they certainly still exist.
I think it is very important for authors to be able to use these words and write in the real way people used to talk. The freedom of press is meant exactly for that. So authors can have the ability to say things, even if they are hard for poeple to hear. It forces all of us to face our past. Only in facing and learning from the past can we move forward.

Huck Finn

While Huck Finn may not be completely morally evolved, he shows a wisdom and maturity that is far beyond his years. The fact that he is willing to go against societal norms shows a far greater moral maturity than could be shown from whether or not he goes along with Tom’s unnecessarily elaborate scheme to free Jim or the duke and dauphin’s silly lies. The fact that Twain writes about a character with these differing morals shows his own wisdom and bravery as an author, writing about something completely unacceptable for the time period.
Huck does go along with some of the stupid things other characters do. However, it does not always seem to be he does not have the morals to realize it is wrong. It often seems he is just passive and lets people do what they want in hopes of avoiding argument. In fact, he does have the moral visibility to see that what is going on is wrong. With the duke and dauphin for instance, Huck tells us he was aware of their lies from the beginning. He knew what they were doing but did not want to deal with the fighting that would ensue if he tried to call them out on their lies. However, when their scams get to the point where they are harming people, such as the Wilks family, and Jim, Huck tries to thwart their plan and get away from them. When he goes along with Tom’s elaborate scheme to free Jim, he still thinks he is doing the right thing by freeing Jim, if even if he going about it the hard way. The fact that Huck realizes it is right to free Jim, and is willing to take the risk to stand up for the Wilks family shows he has incredible moral understanding for someone his age. His going along with the stupid plans just shows that he is still young, not that his moral development is stalled.
When it comes to the most important matters in life Huck shows moral development that few people, at any age, could have displayed during the time period. This is in relation Jim. While everything he has been taught from day one told him black people are below him, and that he should turn in Jim is a runaway slave, he still trusts his instincts and heart instead of society. This is seen in two very important parts; when he apologizes to Jim for scaring him, making him think he disappeared, and when Huck writes the note to turn Jim in, but crumples it up, once and for all deciding he will not turn Jim in. He says “All right, then I’ll go to hell” (257), showing other people have told him he is wrong, but he is trusting his heart. To stand up for something, when everyone else says it is wrong is a moral maturity many people spend their whole lives coming to find. The fact that Huck is able to do this at such a young age shows that when it comes to morals, Huck is far beyond his years, even if in other areas of life he makes childish mistakes, such as going along with Tom’s schemes.
The character of Huck is a direct reflection of Mark Twain. Mark Twain was writing during a time period that was still extremely racist. Although blacks were no longer enslaved, white people were finding every means to suppress them. Mark Twain humanizing Jim they way he does, and using a white boy that comes to do things such a apologizing and “humbling” himself to a black man is revolutionary. Twain not only shows this through Huck’s actions, but through Jim and Huck’s relationship. Black and white people at the time were not tied by loyalty or care, but by work and payment. Jim and Huck’s relationship is almost father son, since Huck’s own white father is such a disgrace. In the story Huck’s relationship with Jim is very much against the time, and Twain’s writing about it is going very much against life’s reality. Twain does what his characters do and stands by his beliefs, even though others will criticize and disagree.

Dickinson Poem

Poems are often written in a language that makes the meaning unclear. The shorter poems are easier to read because they do not have as many words to decode. But the meaning even a short poem is hard to understand. However, it is this complex language that makes poems what they are. It forces readers to read carefully and get the message out of in a not entirely direct way of saying it. Emily Dickinson’s “The Name of it is Autumn” has a special focus on red and blood. What is going on in this poem is hard for me to figure out. The blood and veins could be a symbol of the bloodshed of war, and the thing be called autumn could be war itself.
The entire poem is focused on the color red and relates to blood. She says “the hue of it is blood” (line 2) and speaks of “scarlet rain” (line 8). This has a morbid sound to it, as it makes me imagine raining blood. The thought of a hill being an artery and vein makes me thing of bursting veins because war is full of weapons that cut veins. It could be from these “veins” that the blood in the poem is coming from. Dickinson’s use of blood and red shows how much death is a part of war and how it overtakes simple areas of life such as rain.
Poems are hard to understand because they do not follow the idea of a story. They do not introduce a character that goes through actions. They often just start with images and describe something, such as the war, without telling a story that can be followed. I like that they make readers have to think and consider what they mean. It also leaves them open to interpretation and gives the readers the ability to make them personal.