Twain Journal 2

"From youth to middle age all men and all women prize copulation above all other pleasures combined, yet it is actually as I have said: it is not in their heaven; prayer takes its place," (311).

Twain, by talking through his Satan character in "Letters from the Earth", he presents the odd idea that on earth, sex is a very sought after pleasure, an obsession almost, but it does not exist in heaven. Instead there’s prayer in its place.

I found an article on commentarymagazine.com which seems to be one critic criticizing the criticism of another critic on Mark Twain. He is commenting on the first critic, Shaw, referring to Twain as a "self censoring Victorian about sex." The interesting thing about "Letters from the Earth" is that it wasn’t published until 1961, when it was written in 1909. Twain did not publish it in his lifetime and instead it was published after his death AND after his daughter’s death because she objected to its publication. She believed that it misrepresented her father’s beliefs of religion. Twain said "This book will never be published[;]. . . in fact, it couldn’t be, because it would be a felony" (Footnote No. 1 on page 307). This still does not mean the term "self censoring Victorian about sex" applies to him. The question is whether he is censoring himself. By saying the book couldn’t be published because it was a felony, he is commenting that the book would be seen as anti-religion or atheist because he does make jokes about organized religion. He talks about how these men go to church and absolutely dread it and they don’t like praying, but they do it because they believe it will get them into a heaven. He questions these beliefs or these religious practices. No one really has proof there’s a heaven and a hell and since there’s no proof of it, there’s no way of knowing how to get in. He’s commenting on how much of a waste of time these practices are. Also, by presenting this oddity that there’s no sex in heaven when it is something so obsessed over here, I think this is another comment on the weird ideas of religion. The most likely reason that I’ve heard for there being no sex in heaven is the idea that sex is to be used for reproducing. Since heaven is for people who have already lived and died, there would be no reason for sex in heaven because their way of reproduction is just by people dying and being sent to heaven. What about sex in heaven purely for pleasure? He presents this question because it’s much like religion itself. You have to do all these things you dread to get to a place where they just have these dreaded things constantly going on, and none of the greatest pleasure found here on Earth, yet they somehow believe they’d like it. There is no real logical reason behind this. He presents these questions of religion in this story, as well as the idea that prayers are constantly unanswered for a reason. In the letter from "the recording angel" to Abner, he grants only the prayers that the clouds and sun, basically continue to do what they naturally do, because by granting other prayers it would have an effect on more than just this one man. The "recording angel" says to Abner that in an attempt to make everyone happy, the prayers are basically left not granted because if anything is granted that would basically make any change, it can do much harm to others.

Twain Journal 1

By Jessica Granse
February 26, 2009

"A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of the moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail…It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn’t step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around," (Page 296).

In his criticism of Cooper’s work, Twain says that he is very repetitive in his use of the same types of tricks. One of his favorite stage tricks is making sure there is always a dry twig for someone to step on, thus giving away that person’s hiding place. Another is when he has one person follow another both in moccasins, so the follower’s tracks are then hidden in the other person’s moccasin tracks. Also, not included in this quote, but included in his criticism, Twain shows that Cooper often has one saved at the end by some miraculous event.

On his online weblog, golf writer and entertainment lawyer Jay Flemma writes a sort of critique on Twain’s "Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses", where after summarizing and commenting on it, he relates it to golf course architecture. In commenting on Twain’s criticism, he says that Twain is as well guilty of the above issues he accuses Cooper of. Now, it’s hard to be able to really tell whether this is true or not, just using the work we’ve read of Twain, so far since all we’ve read was his criticism of Cooper, his biography, and one chapter of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". This is why I’ve also done some additional research to find out what else happens in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". The way Jim is saved later in the book is because Tom Sawyer comes and reveals that his owner left him to freedom in her will and she died 2 months earlier. This is definitely not something impossible and miraculous. It’s pure luck and coincidence. Huck’s father’s death is the same thing: pure luck and coincidence. This is why I don’t believe he follows the theory set forth by Flemma that he uses miraculous events to save a character. The conclusion in this story is not at all similar to the miraculous event he mentions by Cooper where the people that shoot cover the previous person’s bullet and that he’s able to see it from so far away. In relation to the moccasins type of trip and the twig, I see evidence to back this. When Huck tries to escape the duke in chapter 31, he just waits for a good opportunity and runs for it. Later, when they try to free Jim, Huck, Tom, and Jim just run for it. There doesn’t seem to be any similar tricks to the dry twig or the mocassins. The instance in chapter 31, Huck is unnoticed as he runs away, but Jim is gone. In the later instance, they are all noticed because the farmers were already trying to catch the slave stealers, although their identities weren’t yet revealed. There doesn’t seem to be any relation between the reasons they were caught. I don’t seem to see Twain at fault for any of the issues he accuses Cooper of. His characters talk how they are expected to sound consistently, there are no miraculous events really, no repeated tricks, and none of the other issues Cooper had. This does show why Twain was such an important writer of his time. He seemed almost flawless. His dialect was good, his stories believable, and he had a wonderful way with words. Nothing like Cooper.

Wharton Journal

By Jessica Granse
February 19, 2009

"With sudden vividness Waythorn saw how the instinct had developed. She was ‘as easy as an old shoe’-a shoe that too many feet had worn. Her elasticity was the result of tension in many different directions," (841).

The fact that Waythorn’s new wife knows how to act in a way her husband would like is a direct result of experience from her previous two marriages. As he figures this out, it starts to eat away at him. This is an important observation of human nature. It is not enough for one to do things for another, but it’s also important how they know what you would like and their intention behind it or it loses all sincerity and thus is no longer a good thing.

"The Other Two" is a good portrayal of newlyweds, as well as on the complications of a new marriage after divorce. At the beginning of the story, Wharton really shows the feeling of a newly wed couple when Alice brings up that her ex-husband is demanding to come to the house for his weekly visit since the daughter’s sick. You notice that there was a little tension in the way they talk about it. When Alice brings it up, she’s very timid about it and apologetic. Waythorn seems unhappy, but says for her not to worry because there’s nothing he can really do about it and because they just got back from their honeymoon, so he didn’t want to start our their marriage fighting. From speaking with my mom, this is much like being newlyweds. You walk on eggshells so as to not start a fight the first while of the marriage and try harder than you do for the rest of it because you become more comfortable. They really present this in this instance. He’s just trying to be happy with the feeling he made the right choice because she’ll be a good wife because she’s so calm and level-headed as well as beautiful and caring. The truth is, though, she’s too good of a wife. Because she has had so much experience from her previous two marriages, she is able to put on a perfect wife appearance out of practice. She slips up by putting cognac in his coffee, which from watching her previous husband at his luncheon that day, he knows that it’s something he would do. He realizes that she was so used to putting cognac in Varick’s coffee that she was completely on auto-pilot when she put it in his. This pokes at him and pokes at him because he starts to question every single action of hers as being something she did because she was conditioned that way by her previous husbands, rather than something she did because she knew that would be how he wanted it. This drives him to grow a resentment for these kind actions because although he disliked them for them being the actions she did for her previous husbands, but he can’t say anything about it, because she plays the part so well. She is showing him this loving, caring wife whom does not get upset easily, but he resents it and it sickens him because he doesn’t feel like it’s sincere. She does these actions because she knows it’s what would please a man, not particularly that it would please him specifically. It’s enough to make one feel as if it doesn’t matter to Alice who wears the ring that matches the one on her finger. She has the dream of being happily married and being the perfect wife, but she doesn’t show any particulars as to whom the husband must be. This seems to relate a lot to Wharton’s personal life because of her own marriage. Her biographer, R.W.B. Lewis, says that she stayed in her unhappy marriage for 28 years for "moral conservatism and her devotion to family ties and the sanctities of tradition than to personal affection". This is a possibility for Alice. It’s possible that she married Waythorne in a third attempt at trying to have a perfect marriage. By doing all the right things, and what she believes Waythorne would like, because her other husbands liked these things, she believes maybe she can achieve this type of marriage. It says in Wikipedia that her writing style is characterized by a suble use of dramatic irony. In this case it’s ironic because the very things Alice does to make her husband happy, are what makes him miserable.

James Journal

Jessica Granse
February 19, 2009

"’The young ladies of this country have a dreadfully pokey time of it, so far as I can learn; I don’t see why I should change my habits for them,’" (419).

When Winterbourne brings up how improper it is that Giovanelli invites her to walk about the Pincio at night, Daisy responds by saying the she doesn’t really care how it looks. She thinks the ladies in Rome are too uptight and she would rather do as she pleases than conform to their ways. This is central theme of this book: her rebellion against the ways of the society.

Wikipedia brings up the importance of the characters’ names in the novella. Daisy is a beautiful young girl, whom talks freely and does whatever she chooses. Her name is a springtime flower, which represents the character’s beauty and youth as well as her absence of inhibition. Winterbourne, on the other hand, is more uptight and adult. Daisies die in the winter and after meeting Giovanelli, Daisy dies as she gets malaria from being out all hours of the night with him. Another thing I find really interesting is the fact that flowers represent purity a lot of the time, such as when one says to "deflower" someone would be to take their virginity. Daisy is a young girl and everyone’s concern in the story is her purity and innocence. When they see her out with a man at all hours of the night with no other chaperone, it makes them question her purity. It’s very improper for a girl to go around with gentlemen friends, let alone foreign gentlemen friends, during the night without her mother or some other chaperone. I think her name definitely also represents this question of purity which really is a main theme to the story. Her purity is questioned because of her careless actions. She does not consider the propriety of her own actions in society’s point of view. Instead, she is more concerned with having fun and simply making herself happy rather than worrying about other people, such as Mrs. Costello, and her reputation. This causes the rest of society to think she is impure because of her having so many gentlemen friends and being seen alone with them various times at night. This leads to the end where Winterbourne discovers that she is, in fact, still innocent. Daisy’s mother tells Winterbourne that she wanted him to know she wasn’t engaged. Then, Giovanelli also comments that she was "’…the most beautiful young lady I ever saw, and the most amiable.’ And then he added in a moment, ‘And she was the most innocent,’" (428). He mentions that she wouldn’t have married him. Even her mother believed she may have been engaged, simply due to her actions, but society, and her mother, was wrong. This shows how one’s actions could give the wrong impression to the rest of society. James is really known for his writing on psychological matters, such as why people do the things that they do, as well as how Europeans fit into American society and vice versa. This is an excellent example of this type of theme. He’s discussing an American girl in a European setting and how her actions and carelessness for the rules of society ultimately affects her. Due to her inability to conform to the European ways, she meets her doom. Since she ignores that the observers consider her actions very improper, in the end she dies because of those same actions. They say it’s improper for her to be walking about with a gentleman at night, but she ignores them and ends up with malaria. Her rebellion from society’s rules is the cause of her demise.

Crane The Open Boat Journal

By Jessica Granse
February 12, 2009

"None of them knew the color of the sky," (1000).

As was brought up in class, this is one of the most talked about topics of this story. Why don’t they know the color of the sky and why does he open the story this way?

This is a beautiful sentence that introduces the feeling of gloom and desolation, but the question on everyone’s mind is, what does he really mean? I like the idea that he could be using this as a metaphor for the loss of faith by the men in the dingey. By "the color of the sky" he might be referring to the intention of the sky, meaning the intention of God. It’s like he’s saying we just don’t know what’s up there. Is God or heaven up there? It can also be asking, assuming there is a God up there, what his mood is. Is he angry or happy, or does he feel like saving them or not? This I would take more from the keyword of "color", because colors stand for many different things and ultimately they stand for moods, because they can affect your mood. All professional house decorators know that rooms painted red makes one feel more stressed out. I painted my room a bright, cartoon blue and I’ve felt that since then I have felt more optimistic and always seem to have a better mood in my room. In this way, he can mean the color of the sky, like the mood of the sky. Most people see the sky, because of the vastness of it, as something bigger, something God-like. This relates back to "the color of the sky" meaning the intention or plan. This is also a probable meaning because they’re in a position to be losing hope. They’re stuck on a tiny dingey floating out at sea, trying to get themselves closer to shore, but it feels like a hopeless task and the correspondent, who seems to play the part of the narrator, expresses this loss of hope when he questions the gods of the seven seas, "If I am going to be drowned-if I am going to be drowned-if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees," (1011). He is trying to ask what the point is to all his efforts to get back to shore, if he’s just going to drown anyhow. This could also be a metaphor for the question of life. As mentioned on Answers.com, "being at the mercy of fate has demonstrated to them how wrong their previous beliefs about their own importance had been." If you apply it to life and death rather than this specific situation, it’s like asking what is the point of all the efforts and struggles you go through in life, when you’re just going to die in the end? Everyone dies and this is an inevitable fact. Some apply themselves and do great things in life like find cures for diseases, to prolong death, and some whittle their lives away in front of a TV set on the couch, but what is it all for? For the most part, we just help ease the lives of future generations and leave behind a legacy, but no one really knows what the point of it all really is. Religion often tries to apply reason behind it by saying you will get rewarded with a good afterlife, but I believe this is mostly out of the fear that all our efforts are pointless. In this story, he’s presenting these questions to us, most likely due to his fear of dying himself when the Commodore sank. He’s possible asking what the intention of God is and whether we’re just his play-thing or there’s a reason for us.

Crane Maggie: A Girl of the Streets Journal

By Jessica Granse
January 12, 2009

"Evenings during the week he took her to see plays in which the brain-clutching heroine was rescued from the palatial home of her guardian, who is cruelly after her bond, by the hero with the beautiful sentiments," (975).

During the week, Pete would take Maggie to see plays. All of them had the basic story line of this girl being saved from her guardian by this elegant hero character. This is much like them going to see plays. Pete comes and takes her from her drunken mother out to see a play, where she can forget her troubles and dream of it all being resolved.

Since the plays are much like her current situation, she enjoys them, because they always end with the heroine being saved. This helps her to imagine herself being saved. While Pete was taking her out to the theatre and the museum, she was mentally saved from the life she is stuck in, until her mother and Jimmie start saying she’s "gone the deh devil". She believes that by going with Pete, he will protect her from this life, but he ends up leaving her for a "woman of brilliance and audacity" named Nellie. Maggie believed in the story of the play, where she is saved by the "hero with the beautiful sentiments", but after all, it’s just a play. Pete seems to be this wonderful charming man to her because he is disinterested in things she thinks are absolutely unbelievable, such as plays and museums. She thinks this makes him really sophisticated because he isn’t easily amazed and he says nice things to her thus why he’s the "hero with the beautiful sentiments", because he asks her to come away and have a "hell of a time". Maggie’s main objective in this story is to escape her current situation. She is unlike her brother and mother in the way that they all drink heavily and curse at each other whenever they come home, but you’ll notice that Maggie doesn’t take part in this. She, instead, stands on the sidelines or is the one being yelled at. Because she doesn’t believe it has to be that way, she wants to escape. In the end, her escape doesn’t work out because Pete leaves her for Nellie, so she is left poor again, and ends up on the street as a prostitute until she is murdered. This is why this novella is considered an example of naturalism, as stated on Wikipedia. She tries to escape her current way of life, but is controlled by her heredity and environment, so she is stuck in the situation she tries to escape. Fate has sealed her to be in a certain situation because that is the situation she was born into. When she tries to escape, she just ends up worse than before. Her heredity and the fact that she was a kid growing up on these streets doomed her to be at the mercy of Pete for an escape, but as soon as he found someone better, she was worse than in the beginning.

Ruiz Journal

By Jessica Granse

February 6, 2009

"’I say PERHAPS, because, in my humble opinion, we ought to prefer cattle raising and fruit growing for our county. We should make these our specialty,’" (98).

Don Mariano is the one to propose a change in the line of work for the squatters in "The Squatter and the Don". He represents a change of life. This line is taken from his attempts at convincing them that it’s a better idea to raise cattle and grow fruit due to unpredictable weather that makes it difficult to grow grain crops.

On Wikipedia, under Maria Ruiz de Burton, the description of "The Squatter and the Don" the closest mention of the type of writing it would be put under is in these few sentences,

"The novel focuses on the demise of a heroic society (the aristocratic Californios), but differs from other nineteenth century romances in that it is not written from the perspective of the conquerors, portraying a "backwards" people constrained by an outmoded order and unable to cope in the modern state. On the contrary, "The Squatter and the Don" is written from the perspective of the conquered, questioning whether the new order indeed brought progress to California, and if so, at what cost considering the immorality of the invaders: the squatters, the monopolists, the corrupt political leaders, and their legislation."

There is mention that its focus is "the demise of a heroic society" and that the novel questions the new order and the immortality of the invaders. This is very much true, which is one of the reasons I would look at this piece of work as a piece of regional writing. It focuses on a change in the way of life of a group of people, which is exactly what regional writing does. It questions the change and exposes the feelings behind those that changed their way of life and whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. This is evident in the section we read. Don Mariano presents this idea of switching to fruit and cattle raising. This makes him a sort of symbol of change. Since he is already in that line of work, he represents what they could be, only since there will be no more issues of killing the cattle, they would be even better off. He is willing to loan them the money and cattle to get this new production set up, which shows that he’s pretty well-off financially, at least that was the sense I got from the reading. This is why he also represents the possible wealth they could make in switching over. They fear this change, though. Mathews, Hughes, and Gasbang are all examples of this. When they speak up, especially Mathews, they’re against this idea. They present all the problems with it. This is most likely due to a mixture. The fear that the change could be a trick and they could end up in debt, like he mentioned near the end of the reading, mixed with the fact that he just doesn’t want to agree with Don Mariano, because he’s of a different race. No matter what Don Mariano proposed, some would reject it due to the fear of change and the fear of a different race.

Jewett Journal

By Jessica Granse

February 02, 2009

"What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb? Has she been nine years growing and now, when the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a bird’s sake?" (528).

The big "action" for this story would be Sylvia’s big decision at the end of the story of whether to give away the location of the white heron, where surely the boy will shoot it for his collection, or to keep it a secret, and in doing so, save its life. It leaves you to question why she chose the bird’s life over the ten dollars the boy offered and the friendship they could have had. Was it just her innocent conscience, or was it something more?

In the story, Sylvia is described as someone very in tune with nature. She lives with her grandmother and Mistress Moolly, an old cow. At the beginning it mentions that she has no playmates, so she sees the cow’s hiding as a way to play hide-and-seek, and she plays this with joy. When she finally gets a chance to meet another kid, the boy that was hunting, she is very afraid of him, because she is generally afraid of people. This is probably why she is so dedicated to nature. You would think it strange that she chooses to remain loyal to this white heron at the end, rather than to the boy. Many critics have questioned this. I found some light on this subject from an article of criticism on this story by Cynthia Bily on Answers.com,

"Critics have offered many different interpretations about the meaning of this choice. The hunter offers a chance for money, for fulfilled womanhood, for human companionship, for sex. (Although Kelley Griffith, Jr. points out the inherent absurdity in assuming that this temporary partnership between the man and the child could become permanent.) Whatever he represents, it is clear that if Sylvia chooses him she will lose something of herself. She can remain a ‘lonely country child,’ or she can serve, follow, and love him ‘as a dog loves.’"

There is the question of whether the boy implies a continuous friendship, or he wants to pay her the ten dollars, shoot the heron, and leave. Either way, you can see within this paragraph of criticism that she is seen as a representative of nature in some sense, such as she feels she will "lose something of herself" by telling the boy the bird’s location and there is the simile of a dog being related to the possible relationship she could have with the boy. This simile is straight from the story, as you can see by the quotations. One other reason it seems she’s a representation of nature is her name. In this same article of criticism, I found out that her name is from the Latin word for "wood". These are all subtle hints by Sarah Orne Jewett that she represents nature, so by fearing people it’s much like she’s making a statement on how nature fears us. We have chopped down trees that were inhabited by animals and have shot them, so you can see why nature would be afraid of us. When you go up to a squirrel it runs away, much like as the boy came up to her, she hid from him. This story is her stating the fear that nature has for us, because like the boy, we come trampling and shoot at whatever animal we want, simply for our collection, and this is why animals run and hide from us much like Sylvia did from him.