Journal Entry "The Awakening"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

March 3, 2011

Journal #22, Kate Chopin

"When she heard it there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore.  He was naked.  His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight away from him.  Another piece called to her mind a dainty young woman clad in an Empire gown, taking mincing dancing steps as she came down a long avenue between tall hedges.  Again, another reminded her of children at play, and still another of nothing on earth but a demure lady stroking a cat.  ...pictures of solitude, of hope, of longing, or of despair"(554).

"Chopin now found herself in a state of depression after the loss of both her husband and her mother. Her obstetrician and family friend, Dr. Frederick Kolbenheyer, felt that writing would be a source of therapeutic healing for Kate during her hard times. He understood that writing could be a focus for her extraordinary energy, as well as a source of income.^[6] She was quite successful and found many of her publications inside literary magazines. Some of her writings, though, such as The Awakening (1899), were far too ahead of their time and therefore not socially embraced. After almost 12 years in the public eye of the literary world and shattered by the lack of acceptance, Chopin appeared as a virtually nonexistent author"("Kate Chopin", Wikipedia).

 

This passage comes as Chopin describes Edna's reactions to the music being played.  Madame Ratignole had played the piano for her and it had evoke images in her mind.  This description of the images comes in as she waits for them to reappear, listening to Mademoiselle Reisz beginning to play.  The images do not appear, instead she feels as if her very soul is swaying in the gale-force breeze being stirred up by the notes.  Chopin's descriptions of the pictures that Edna had imagined tells much about her state of mind, personality, and thoughts over the past days at Grand Isle.

The way that Chopin separates Edna's visions into four parts and then lists four words to describe the emotions of them lends itself to the idea that each descriptive emotion was intended to relate to the respective image in her head.  They may all be interconnected, however, and the four words, solitude, hope, longing, and despair, may relate to all four images.  Yet, if you specify them to each respective image, they take on more specific, descriptive meanings.

The first image, of a man standing naked on the beach relates to solitude.  She is feeling solitary, and excluded in her sexuality and passion, or perhaps because of it.  She cannot stand the life with her husband, watches Robert slip away, and at the same time experiences awakenings of feeling within herself.  She is opening up to her own desires and sexuality, but either destroying or losing all outlets for it.  This leaves her feeling alone; awake in solitude.

The second image, described as hope, is of a young woman musically walking down an avenue with tall hedges on either side.  This seems like a reference to her youth, walking with blinded peripheral vision, hopefully and cheerfully headed to the future. 

The next is of children at play, corresponding to a feeling of longing.  This could mean longing for innocent and blissfully ignorant youth, or to a longing for her own children.  She has drifted away from a strong motherly relationship with them, if that was ever the case.  She cannot relate to them, cannot provide what she feels that they need, and yet feels the responsibility to fill this role.

The last image is of a lone woman stroking a cat, evoking feelings described as despair.  This is the stereotypical image of a 'cat woman'.  This represents either loneliness, as in the unmarried cat woman that has no other relationships, shut off  from the world, or it displays conforming to the social norms, losing identity, becoming 'homely' and easily content.  She feels despair, fearing this as a possible future for herself, as either shut out through her own actions towards that, or of giving in to societal pressures, dumbing herself down, and being a 'good victorian wife and mother'.

Despite her repeated claims to the reader and herself that she neither thinks of past nor present, these thoughts along with others show that she is very much aware and conscious of them pulling her back and directing her forward.

Journal Entry "The Storm"

"The society was agreeable; many of her old friends and acquaintances were at the bay.  And the first free breath since her marriage seemed to restore the pleasant liberty of her maiden days.  Devoted as she was to her husband, their intimate conjugal life was something which she was more than willing to forego for a while.  So the storm passed and everyone was happy"(534).

"Chopin had the gift of equanimity and wrote on a lapboard in the midst of a busy household.  Many of her stories were written in a single day.  She claimed that she wrote on impulse, that she was 'completely at the mercy of unconscious selection' of subject, and that 'the polishing up process ... always proved disastrous.'  This method, although it ensured freshness and sincerity, made some of her stories anecdotal or thin"(529).

This passage comes from the end of "The Storm", describing Alcee's wife's feelings after receiving a letter from her husband telling her to feel free to stay at the bay longer if she wished.  Alcee has just had sex with Calixta during a thunderstorm.  They were lovers in the past, but Alcee ran away, pride not allowing him to violate a virgin.  However, now that she is married and not a virgin, he goes ahead.  Calixta's husband and son are out in the storm and hurry back, stopping only to clean the mud off of themselves and try to look presentable for her.  Neither person tells their spouse of their cheating during the storm, and it is presumed that everyone lives on happily ever after.

This ending seems rather shallow, unbelievable, unrealistic, and silly to me.  I doubt that in real life any affair that involved as much passion as was pictured between Alcee and Calixta would have ended nearly so innocently.  They obviously have a remaining passion for each other and both are unsatisfied with their marriages.  I believe that a more accurate picture of how this situation would end includes either, admittance and guilt by one of the involved parties, or probably more likely, continued interactions between the two and/or increased stresses within their marriages. 
At the same time, this passage and the rest of the story do convey some probably very realistic issues with marriage and gender roles at the time.  The women are both constricted by their marriages, trying to escape; something that seems to be a common theme in a lot of Chopin's writings.  This may represent a possible issue within her own marriage, but also probably represents common experiences of the time.  It also points to gender inequality and issues with traditional gender roles.  The women feel pressured to marry, yet obviously are not happy with their marriages.
The reference to "the pleasant liberty of her maiden days" implies remembering the past as better than the present.  This also seems to be something common in the two women in this story as with many in "The Awakening".  The people seem preoccupied with their past enjoyments and freedoms, leading them to feel trapped in their present situations.  They forget though, that they led themselves to this place, and are responsible for their own fates.  The women complain of issues in their marriages, yet do not try to fix them or find pleasure in what they have, but simply cheat on their husbands and contribute to the negative aspects of their present situations.

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.