Journal Entry "Tahoe Beneath The Surface"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

February 25, 2011

Journal #20, Scott Lankford 

 

"For better or for worse, however, both floating odysseys ultimately end with the death of freedom.  Huck's friend Jim, an escaped slave, is ultimately returned to his 'rightful' owner, while Huck himself can only dream of 'lighting out for the territories' someday.  For Clemens and Kinney, catastrophe strikes.  Returning to their Tahoe timber camp one evening, Sam lights a campfire, turns his back to retrieve a frying pan, and finds that his campfire's sparks have ignited a massive forest fire. ... Now here's an even stranger point to ponder: in a letter to his mother describing the fire's 'devastation,' Twain constantly chooses military metaphors to describe the towering flames"(125).

 

This passage comes out of a description of the remarkable similarities between the experiences of Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain's first trip to Lake Tahoe, then Lake Bigler, an those of his famed future character, Huck Finn.  Sam Clemens and his friend set out for Lake Bigler, looking for virgin timber to claim and make a fortune with, but when Sam accidentally sets their trees ablaze, they watch their hopeful fortune go up in smoke from a raft on the lake.  Huck Finn and Jim float down the Mississippi River, hoping for freedom and fortune, but eventually have a similar outcome.

 

It is interesting and easy to see the correlation between the two; the descriptions of what it's like to be on a raft are remarkably similar.  In my view, it is believable that when Sam Clemens later returned to the Mississippi, seeing from the water the destruction on shore that was left behind by the Civil War, his mind wandered back to the experience in Tahoe.  He saw his old town, his old state, and his old ways of life literally and figuratively burned to ashes.  The wake of destruction left from pillaging soldiers, and failed attempts to truly free the slaves was, in a sense, the timbers that the future was banking on, were burning in an uncontrollable blaze.  This experience, if Huck Finn is meant as a metaphor for failed attempts at anti-racism, undoubtedly brought the metaphor to Twain's mind.  

On the question of why he consistently used military metaphors in his description is complicated.  He may have seen ahead to later destruction caused by the Civil War.  He may have seen it taking place and felt that both his old home, the South, and his new claims at freedom, wealth, and success (the timber claim) were going up in flames simultaneously.  Or he may simply have been surrounded by talk of war and enjoyed the comparison or even merely had the related vocabulary on his mind.  Either way, I believe, even with my limited scope of his work, that his experience on Lake Bigler or Lake Tahoe influenced his descriptions of floating the Mississippi in Huck Finn, probably drawing the correlation, consciously or unconsciously drawing the connection between the destruction that he witnessed in the post-Civil War south, and in his own accidental disaster, the flaming hopes of the past and the bitter reality of the present.

"It is not in the least likely that any life has ever been lived which was not a failure in the secret judgment of the person who lived it."

- Mark Twain's Notebook

Journal Entry "Letters From The Earth"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

February 24, 2011

Journal #19, Mark Twain

"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read."

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."

"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't. " -Mark Twain

“…yet they have tranquilly accepted this kind of a heaven—without thinking, without reflection, without examination—and they actually want to go to it! …they dream of it, they talk about it, they think they are going to enjoy it—with all their simple hearts they think they think they are going to be happy in it!  It is because they do not think at all; they only think they think.  Whereas they can’t think; not two human beings in ten thousand have anything to think with”(313).

The above is a portion of one of the letters sent back to St. Michael and St. Gabriel from Satan describing Earth.  He specifically focuses on the human’s religious beliefs, poking fun at their ridiculous nature, having seen and spoken with the creator himself.  In Twain’s story, humans are an experiment of God’s and our biblical stories and Christian practices are not true and come across as simple minded.  In particular, in this passage Twain, or Satan, is describing the follies of our human definition an description of heaven; it is full of harps, singing, and prayer which we do not enjoy on earth, and lacking any form of sexual intercourse, which the angels hold above all else. 

            This passage and the entire story, “Letters From the Earth” seem to continue one of Mark Twain’s big themes, the description of the ridiculousness of man.  He points out how silly it is for us to believe in, and even look forward to, dream of, a heaven consisting almost solely of things that people do not enjoy here on earth.  Twain, similar to his pointing out Fenimore Cooper’ literary offences, is highlighting the contradiction and ridiculousness in some of our traditional religious beliefs. 

            Twain obviously holds thought high on the list of important qualities.  However, he makes the distinction between thinking one is thinking and actually thinking.  In his exaggerated style, he states, “not two human beings in ten thousand have anything to think with”.  Twain seem to be one of these in his own mind, and in truth as history proves.  He sees through the curtains of pretence that we use to explain why certain things are held in popular belief.  His systematic discounting of each aspect of heaven, breaks this curtain down and shows that we were simply told to like it, to believe it, to dream of it, and we do not actually.  They way that he lays out the arguments, almost lawyer-like in its argumentativeness, clearly shows a high value for reason.  Twain consistently sets up what we believe as true, only to apply truly common sense and basic logic and reason to it, shattering its appearance of validity.  He seems to be at once laughing at and mocking the utter ridiculousness of our behaviors and beliefs, while almost annoyed at our ignorance and stupidity letting it go unnoticed, unquestioned for so long.  Not that he was the first, or the last to highlight the absurdity of people, but one of the great minds to do so.  It is as if he is saying, ‘wake up people.  Come on, just open your eyes, and try to think, just give it a shot.  You’re all crazy’.  And I tend to agree.

Journal Entry "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

January 26, 2011

Journal #18, Twain

"The reader will find some examples of Cooper's high talent for inaccurate observation in the account of the shooting match in The Pathfinder.  ...for this nail head is a hundred yards from the marksmen and could not be seen by them at that distance no matter what its color might be.  How far can the best eyes see a common house fly?  A hundred yards?  It is quite impossible.  Very well, eyes that cannot see a house fly that is a hundred yards away cannot see an ordinary nail head at that distance, for the size of the two objects is the same.  It takes a keen eye to see a fly or a nail head at fifty yards--one hundred and fifty feet.  Can the reader do it?"(299).

"On Nov. 30, 1835, the small town of Florida, Mo. witnessed the birth of its most famous son. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was welcomed into the world as the sixth child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. Little did John and Jane know, their son Samuel would one day be known as Mark Twain - America's most famous literary icon"(Bio, "The Official Website of Mark Twain, http://www.cmgww.com/historic/twain/about/bio.htm).

Mark Twain is in the middle of making it either painfully or humorously clear, depending on whose side you are on, that Fenimore Cooper's writings are not accurate, in any way, shape, or form.  Twain has listed multiple examples of Cooper's mistakes which range from poor word choice, to inconsistencies in his characters, to simple physical impossibilities.  In this particular situation in Cooper's novel, Deerslayer, three men are engaged in a contest, shooting at a nail head from a hundred yards, calling each shot from this distance.

Twain's scathing criticisms seem well grounded and backed with plenty of evidence.  At first, as the reader, I felt some sympathy for Cooper, being publicly challenged and given the dunce hat to wear.  However, Twain quickly points out numerous examples of his inept writing, and decidedly names his failures in a confident voice, although with only a slight air of authority or arrogance. 
The most meaningful and telling parts of Twain's critique seem to be his emphasis on accurate observation and true possibility in the details.  Twain exemplifies realism, chastising Fenimore Cooper specifically for his inaccuracy in observation.  Cooper's story lines do not come off as believable, because they are not, as Twain says. 
The natural restrictions of what is physically possible, what is truly reasonable, and what sort of speech is realistic for the situation, are obviously on the forefront of Twain's mind, clearly influencing not only his opinions of the contemporary hailed literature, but also his own work.  These criticisms surely helped Twain grow as a person and as a writer into what he became.  They shaped what his picture of quality writing was, and they inspired him to accurately observe. These ideals come across in all of Twain's writing.  His ability to observe, record, and accurately reproduce dialect, physical features, and natural tendencies on top of his outstanding ability to create brilliantly humorous, flowing, elegant, natural, story lines and characters while incorporating meaningful social commentary in his novels, short stories, and satires are what led him to his post as one of the greatest, if not the greatest writers of American Literature to have ever lived.

Journal Entry "The Other Two"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

January 26, 2011

Journal #, Wharton

 "...to ask himself if it were not better to own a third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy than a whole one who lacked opportunity to acquire the art.  For it was an art, and made up, like all others, of concessions, eliminations and embellishments; of lights judiciously thrown and shadows skillfully softened.  His wife knew exactly how to manage the lights, and he knew exactly to what training she owed her skill"(841).

 "In 1885, at 23 years of age, she married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years her senior. From a well-established Boston family, he was a sportsman and a gentleman of her social class and shared her love of travel, although they had little in common intellectually.^{[citation needed]} From the late 1880s until 1902, he suffered acute depression, and the couple ceased their extensive travel.^[2] At that time his depression manifested as a more serious disorder, after which they lived almost exclusively at The Mount, their estate designed by Edith Wharton. In 1908 her husband's mental state was determined to be incurable and she divorced him in 1913.^[2] In 1908 she began an affair with Morton Fullerton, a journalist for The Times, in whom she found an intellectual partner"(Edith Wharton, Wikipedia).

Waythorn is wondering to himself what it means to be married to a woman who is twice divorced.  He has just met both of her former husbands.  His boss is ill and Waythorn has to fill in for him, dealing with the business of Mr. Varick, his wife's second husband.  Her first husband, Mr. Haskett has come to see his daughter who lives with Waythorn and his wife, but is too sick to go see her father as before.  Now that Waythorn has met the two of them, her past is beginning to unravel, and the answers to some of the questions in Waythorn's head are hinted at.  He is contemplating on what it means to "own a third of a wife".


The first thing that struck me was his sense of ownership of his wife.  In today's world this would be a clear example of sexism and extreme misogyny, but in the contemporary society this was probably in line with the prevailing attitudes about marriage, gender, and sexuality.  If we hear his words with a more romantic tone to them, he is simply thinking natural things; does his wife still 'belong' to her ex-husbands?
He comes to the conclusion, whether he actually believes it or merely convinces himself for his own peace of mind is hard to say, that he can actually benefit from his wife's past.  It seems more likely that, in an attempt to justify, and find satisfaction in, his current situation he convinces himself that the result of his wife's divorces is that she has learned how to treat a man; he is happily, now this man.  These are natural ways for him to think about his wife.  There is disharmony in his mind as he thinks of her past lovers, and to restore harmony, he changes his attitude rather than behavior.  He stays with her, continuing their marriage at least for the time being, and begins to think about the situation differently.
The image of light and shadow as the medium for the art of performing in this hyper-rich 'high' society is far-reaching in its implications.  Light is clearly associated with 'good', in this case meaning socially acceptable behavior.  The shadows represent parts of her, parts of her past, and parts of their life together that do not fit into this highly conservative and judging society.  The art that she performs of "judiciously throwing" this light, this respectability and pose, while "skillfully soften[ing]" the shadows of her past is a delicate balancing act.  The presence of both the light and the shadow is telling.  Even in this strict social setting, there are shadows.  She is not, he is not, and in fact no one is just light.  Everyone seems to be some combination of the two, and it becomes how they show and cover, and what they choose to project or hide, that is the art of, in context, being his wife, but translated to a slightly larger scale, the performing art of surviving in this culture of class.

Journal Entry "Daisy Miller: A Study"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

February 15, 2011

Journal #16, Henry James

"... it occurred to him, as a lover of the picturesque, that the interior, in the pale moonshine, would be well worth a glance....  Then he passed in among the cavernous shadows of the great structure, and emerged upon the clear and silent arena....  One-half of the gigantic circus was in deep shade; the other was sleeping in the luminous dusk.  As he stood there he began to murmur Byron's famous lines, out of "Manfred"; but before he had finished his quotation he remembered that if nocturnal meditations in the Colosseum are recommended by the poets, they are deprecated by the doctors....  Winterbourne walked to the middle of the arena, to take a more general glance, intending thereafter to make a hasty retreat"(426).

 "James's works, many of which were first serialized in the magazine The Atlantic Monthly include narrative romances with highly developed characters set amongst illuminating social commentary on politics, class, and status, as well as explorations of the themes of personal freedom, feminism, and morality. In his short stories and novels he employs techniques of interior monologue and point of view to expand the readers' enjoyment of character perception and insight"(The Literature Network, "Henry James", http://www.online-literature.com/). 

In this passage, Winterbourne is walking home from dinner, past the moonlit Colosseum in Rome.  He decides to gaze inside at the beautiful contrasts highlighted by the moonlight.  He steps inside and recites to himself a poem, "...the night / Hath been to me a more familiar face / Than that of man; and in her starry shade / Of dim and solitary loveliness, / I lean'd the language of another world. ..."  His eyes grow accustomed to the darkness and he begins to make out the dim image of people at the foot of a cross hidden in the shade cast from the Colosseum walls.  It is Daisy and Mr. Giovanelli, whom he eventually approaches, warning Daisy to get home quickly to avoid the Roman Fever, caught in just such damp, shadow-filled, ambiguous places as this.  He suddenly sees her as immature, the distinctions between right and wrong, so clear and exits the shadows back to the light.

James uses the imagery of light, shadow, and the border between the two as metaphors for the thin line between youthful innocence and social acceptability, and that of "inconduite"(397) and socially unacceptable behavior.  The arena in the Colosseum is simply the setting for the final meeting of the two sides, both for Winterbourne and for Daisy.  In his case, Winterbourne has been drawn to the edge of socially acceptable behavior, dabbled in improper conduct and meant to hastily retreat.  This edge, this beauty, dimly lit in the moonlight, somewhere between the deep shade and luminous dusk, was Daisy.  He was drawn to her, ventured into the arena to get a better look at the goings on in the shade.  He goes to the castle with Daisy, unattended, tiptoeing dangerously in the shadows of what the hyper-rich society would accept.

The poem he recites speaks of being more familiar with the dark, starry night than with the faces of men, and through the "dim and solitary loveliness" of the shade, the language of another world is learned.  He has seen tastes of this 'immoral' side of society, through Daisy, but now, in a sense, can speak the language of both that world and his, of high society's snobbery. 

He walks to the middle of the arena to get a more general glimpse, an illumination to spending time with and chasing after Daisy, hoping to get a better view of the other side.  He plans to retreat hastily, hurrying back from the darkness to the light of high society.  But he is drawn in by Daisy, following her on and on, deeper into the shadows.  He then realizes the distinction, as if all of a sudden emerging from the shaded side to see him self lit up, between right and wrong, falling back to his old circles and no longer seeing Daisy as important.  She is not worth worry, she sits in the shadows with Mr. Giovanelli as Winterbourne watches from the luminous dusk.

Journal Entry "Emigrants from Erin"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

February 11, 2011

Journal #15, Ronald Takaki

"Victims of English prejudice and repression in Ireland, the Irish in America often redirected their rage in a pecking order.  'They [the Irish] have been oppressed enough themselves to be oppressive whenever they have a chance,' commented an observer, 'and the despised and degraded condition of the blacks, presenting to them an very ugly resemblance of their own home circumstances, naturally excites in them the exercise of the disgust and contempt of which they themselves are very habitually the objects"(151, Takaki).

"His initial teaching experience was at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he taught the first Black History course offered at that institution.^[1] One of his students on the first day asked what the class was going to learn about "revolutionary tactics," and he later recalled that his immediate response was to suggest that he hoped students would learn skills of critical thinking and effective writing—and that these could be quite revolutionary"(Ronald Takaki, Wikipedia).

Takaki uses the words of an observer to help describe the basis for the Irish view of blacks at the time.  That time, was after the destruction and ruin that the potato famine had wrought sent thousands of Irish to America in a desperate flea for survival.  They arrived in America to find a land in stark contrast to what they had heard, and expected; the typical example of them being surprised at the lack of gold paving the streets provides a good metaphor for the general feeling of arriving to a new life and land that does not live up to the immigrants great expectations.

The quoted observer points gracefully points out the roots of much of the Irish anti-African American feelings at the time.  They stemmed from lack of space and jobs, just as many white Americans, nativists,  turned this fear to hatred towards immigrants such as the Irish, they saw the black population as threatening to their jobs, houses, money, and share at success in America.  However, the Irish also gained important 'whiteness' from scapegoating blacks and joining in with an unfair majority.  They were angered at seeing what they saw as an ugly, but similar creature.  The Irish were constantly compared to apes and to blacks in the white media, they lived in similar financial, spacial, and geographical situations, and were excited to racism by this.

The idea of a people being "oppressed enough themselves to be oppressive whenever they have a chance" is interesting and relates to many other situations.  Specifically to the story "Maggie" by Stephen Crane, in which the mother clearly shows the manifestation of this thought pattern.  She has dealt with horrid conditions for much of her life, the story hints and history tells, and she changes into a terribly oppressive figure because of it.  She routinely beats her children, chases her husband out of the house, and destroys anything resembling nurture in the household.  She rips curtains down, up-ends the furniture and drunkenly curses at the children.  This idea of being oppressed as a cause for oppressive behavior also applies to her children's behavior.  Her son is constantly in fights in the streets and tries to oppress, or conquer and control others.  Her daughter becomes a prostitute, no doubt feeling the strains of oppression from her surroundings.  It does not take too big of a leap to see her, in the future, in her mother's position, with violent, oppressive bursts of anger caused by her past and current oppressive circumstances.

Journal Entry for "The Open Boat"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

February 8, 2011

Journal #14, Stephen Crane

"The correspondent wondered if none ever ascended the tall wind-tower, and if then they never looked seaward.  This tower was a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants.  It represented in a degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the individual-nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men.  She did not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise.  but she was indifferent, flatly indifferent"(pg1013, "The Open Boat").

"In 1896, Crane endured a highly publicized scandal after acting as witness for a suspected prostitute. Late that year he accepted an offer to cover the Spanish-American War as a war correspondent. As he waited in Jacksonville, Florida for passage to Cuba, he met Cora Taylor, the madam of a brothel with whom he would have a lasting relationship. While en route to Cuba, Crane's ship sank off the coast of Florida, leaving him adrift for several days in a dinghy"(Stephen Crane, Wikipedia).

The correspondent dreamily observes as he sits in the lifeboat heading towards shore.  He has just woken up from a night of waiting offshore, unable to navigate the waves on the coast at night.  The day before one of the people on shore had seen them and signaled by waving his coat, but had failed to help them or run to get help, he had simply faded into the gray dusk.  He awakes to see the shoreline spotted with black cottages and they find themselves forced to brave the crashing waves until the tiny boat can take no more, then swim into shore.  He, in a surprisingly calm state for the situation that he is in, the correspondent draws a connection between the tower of wind over the breaking waves and nature itself.

The first thing that stands out in this section is the correspondent's seemingly ridiculous, calm and speculative mood in the midst of a critical, life-threatening experience.  He does not focus on the significant challenge ahead of him: dragging his own thoroughly exhausted body to shore, avoiding the perilous surf separating him from safety, but rather on the enormous tower of wind, hovering above this scene, presumably with its back turned on humanity and its eyes gazing seaward.  The wind-tower is compared to nature, serenity in the midst of the futile struggles of the ants.  The language used and the description of nature as indifferent to human-kind, focused away from rather than towards the comparably tiny and insignificant humans, clearly display a determinist view of the world.  The people's, or 'ant's' struggles are useless, and even unnoticeable in the presence of this great towering invisible force of Nature.
This indifference that nature displays towards the human race is central to the correspondent's unusually calm attitude, as he now sees this wind-tower from the other side.  He sees the insignificance of the day-to-day struggles and attempts of people in comparison to the vast expanse of nature, specifically the wind and the sea.  Through a newly found, or simply awoken lens of determinism, the correspondent now has to need to nor any reason to worry about, or fight back against his situation.  He sees the coming events from a bird's eye view, perceiving the scale and his own, in fact all of humanities, actions.  From atop this wind-tower, nature sees the ants run around senselessly and ineffectively behind her back, as she gazes seaward into the distant, pervasive power of the ocean, of the wind, and of herself.