Job Shadowing Experience

For my job shadowing experience I went to Meloite, Morris, Leonatti, and Parker architecture firm.  Along with my fellow classmate Jessie J.  we were privileged to follow Parker around for the day and see what its like to be an architect.  I had felt like I wanted to be an architect for a long time and that it would be a good avenue for me to follow, but this experience set it in concrete.  I had a lot of fun and enjoyed being able to see what its like.  I like the layout of a normal architecture studio and what it looks like.  I noticed that Mr. Parker didn't sit and do one thing for an extended period of time which appeals to me because I get bored when doing one thing for an extended period of time.

I arrived at 8:00am and was allowed to play on their software for a couple hours while he attended a meeting.  It is the same software we use in CAD class so I feel like I am preparing well for my career which excites me.  We then went out to lunch where he talked to us about how we got interested in architecture.  A little later in the day he showed us the blueprints to one of the buildings they designed.  After that he took us to the actual site where this building was being built which was awesome because we got to see drawings turn into an actual built building.  It interest me to be able to design something on paper that you then get to tell people to build.  I like thinking that I will be designing places that people will live in, function in, and protect people from natural disasters.  I can't wait to be an architect.  This job shadowing experience definitely was beneficial to me and helped me secure my ideas that architecture would be a good career path for me.

Modernism Project

Dickinson's writing style

Emily Dickinson's writing style includes different things from many hyphen's (or dashes according to Bloom's) to  times when some of her thoughts come unspoken and the reader has to think about the story in order to figure out what she intended to have there.  In her poems she would put countless dashes, which according to Deirdre Fagan were "quite deliberate" and intended to be there.  To me, when a dash is used it means there is a brief pause in the reading to get yourself caught up on breath.  This also gives the audience time to think about what was just said and get themselves caught up.  I am not meaning pause for like five minutes and give everyone the time to go get refreshments and use the facilities, I just mean like fifteen seconds to get a quick breath of air before continuing on.  I am starting to understand that this is not what Emily intended.  From the sounds of it, she used hyphens like we use commas because they were everywhere.  In the second poem from her series Life, she used a hyphen in the poem.  If I were to say that to someone, they would not be very impressed and quite honestly I wouldn't blame them, but what is impressive about how Emily worked a hyphen into this poem is the fact that this poem was only eight lines long with roughly five words per line.  That gives her only forty words to figure out how and when to use a dash.  Granted she probably was in a habit of using them and it came easy to her like commas are for us, but still that is impressive in my eyes.  She wrote,

"OUR share of night to bear,
Our share of morning,
Our blank in bliss to fill,
Our blank in scorning.
Here a star, and there a star,	5
Some lose their way.
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards—day!"

To me, in this poem she used the dash to help in the rhyme scheme because I do not know very many people that use "Afterwards--day!" instead of "tomorrow" in their every day vocabulary.  I know that I personally have never said it that way and do not plan to anytime soon, but that is why it was so easy for me to figure out why she used the dash.  And as I already said, I believe she used the dash in this poem to help with the rhyme scheme and it made what she meant rhyme.  I think that what she meant by those two words separated by a dash was the word tomorrow because the following day after a night time is called tomorrow and after night time comes day so Afterwards day.  This makes sense to me and I hope makes sense to anyone reading this.  As I still stand strong about my theory that Emily Dickinson used dash's to create a brief moment of pause, I did not find one to show and was not what was intended by the dash in this poem.

Dickinson, Emily. "2. “Our Share of Night to Bear." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. Bartleby.com. Web. 01 May 2012.

Fagan, Deirdre. "Emily Dickinson's Unutterable Word." Emily Dickinson Journal 14, no. 2 (Fall 2005): 70–75. Quoted as "Emily Dickinson's Unutterable Word" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Emily Dickinson, New Edition, Bloom's Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2008.Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

I heard a fly buzz when I died

In this poem, Emily Dickinson acts almost as if she might have ADD because of how random her thoughts are.  In some peoples cases, they can be talking about one thing and get completely side tracked and start talking about something else in an instance.  Like in the move UP, the dog is just talking normally and then he yells "Squirl!" randomly and out of context because he got distracted.  In this poem, Emily is talking about a person lying on their death bed and about to die when a fly distracts this person from dying.  Such a generic and simplistic insect was able to draw this persons attention so much at to bring them out of death, or at least that's how I interpret it.  I figured that this type of ending could be taken two ways in that the person could be very happy about this happening or the person could be very sad about this happening.  If it were to be taken in the way that the person is happy, it would be because the person was stopped from dying and gets to live a little bit longer, but if it is taken in the way that the person or audience is mad or sad about the person dying it would be because the fly stopped this specific individual from completing all of their tasks they needed to before dying or that the person that was dying was prepared and ready to die, but thanks to the fly they didn't.  Both ways seemed reasonable to me, I feel that it is just up to the reader and the way they interpret the poem to choose how they want think and feel about the ending of this poem.  I think that most of the time the poems tend to be interpreted pretty close to the same way every time this happens except for like one little part that could be taken two completely different ways and it depends on the reader and their feelings toward the subject to choose how they want the story to end.

Life.

My favorite Whitman poem is Life.  This poem talks about going through life facing the different challenges it may throw at us and how we need to keep on pushing on.  This was what I thought it meant at first at least.  I thought that it was just a little piece of wording that was there to help encourage someone to keep on keeping on.  I liked that this poem was short because I get distracted from things easily and long things of text tend to overwhelm me and this poem did not.

As I read this poem a second time I realized that it could actually be taken a whole different way.  It could be about a soldier who gave his life or a soldier that  is returning home from a war.  Whitman uses different words in his poem to make me think both ways.  It makes me think that whatever has happened or might happen is alright because it is out of our control and is life and we have to live with it and learn to deal with it and move on.

Journal 29? maybe?

For this blog, I am being asked to figure out who I am.  At first I thought that this would be very difficult, but after thinking more, I realized that I actually already know who I am; I just haven’t written it down before. 

I am Casey Michael Young. I am the son of Debbie and Curt Trampe and the late Michael Young.  I enjoy spending my time with my family and friends.  If I’m not spending my time doing either of those two things, I am probably out meeting new people.  I love to meet new people because then I never get bored of the same people.  I work at Springfield Christian School watching little kids for their extended care program after school.  It is just like Passage at Pleasant Plains, but for SCS.  I love my job because I enjoy making little kids laugh and happy.  The one thing that I never enjoy doing, which is normal for any high school student, is doing my homework.  Although it is boring and it feels like there is no point in doing it at some times, I know that if I want to be successful in life and go to a good college to get a good education, I need to work hard in high school.  I find it ironic that I am talking about college and what it takes in order to go because tomorrow morning I am going on a college visit to Judson University up near Chicago.  Before I start rambling I am going to end this blog, but this is just a little bit of who I am.

Chanting the Square Deific

Chanting the Square Deific by Walt Whitman was an interesting piece of literature because Whitman claims there is a fourth being in the accepted Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Whitman believes that the fourth is called the Soul, or at least that is what I gathered from the poem.  Although the whole idea that there is four members of the once known Trinity did not make sense to me because I am so fixed on the three since that is what I grew up believing and always have, I did understand that Whitman thought highly of himself.  So highly that in this poem he related himself to God.  The first time I read the poem it made no sense to me actually because I was unable to make the connection that Whitman was referring to himself as God.  Another thing that I noticed about this poem is Whitman has four stanza's in the poem and there are four different figures that he is talking about.  Each stanza talks about a different one of these figures and each stanza goes into detail about it.

To me, if someone were to relate themselves to God, I would say blasphemy because no one is good enough to be related to God. This is exactly what Walt Whitman did though in this poem. Whitman said, "Relentless I forgive no man, whoever sins dies, I will have that man’s life; Therefore let none expect mercy, have the season, gravitation, the appointed days, mercy? No more have I" which shows that when he says I, he is inferring that this is something God would say, but that he is saying it because he is God which is false.(Whitman) According to Christianity, God was the one who created the universe and everything in it and God is the one who knows everything about everyone and God is the one that can strike you dead for saying your as good as Him.  The only person that I would say is worthy of being like God is Jesus and Jesus didn't even say he was like his Father.  Jesus is the only human to never cuss and the only human to never sin.  Every single person on this earth has sinned before because we were born into a sinful world and it is unavoidable.  If you claim to have never sinned you are wrong and until I find someone that has never sinned, no one is worthy of claiming to be as close to God as Walt Whitman did in his poem "Chanting the Square Deific".

Whitman, Walt. "Chanting The Square Deific." The Walt Whitman Archive. Web. 03 Apr. 2012

Since my internet was not working when I wrote this blog and I finally got it to work now, I decided that before I post this blog online I would look up a literary criticism since I was able to now.  I didn't have it factored in in my blog, but after reading this criticism the poem does make a lot more sense.

Oliver, Charles M. "'Chanting the Square Deific'." Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Partner Blog

In Emily Dickinson's poem "The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me" from her Nature series she talks about nature (obviously) and how she sees nature in her eyes. In the second stanza Dickinson says

"The brooks laugh louder when I come,
The breezes madder play." (Dickinson 5-6)

What Dickinson is trying to say is that things are always better and louder and more exciting when you are up close and not far away. The brooks in this poem are louder and bigger up close instead of looking at them without hearing a peep from a good distance away. The same can be applied to many different things in life like take a baseball game for instance. It is better to sit closer to the action than it is to sit in the upper deck at the cardinal game next to a bunch of drunk guys. When your are at an amusement park the rides seem smaller and less intimidating when far away, but when you are at the front of the line looking up at the ride or on top of the ride before the big drop, you are freaking out and about ready to poop your pants because things are scarier up close. Everyone in life experiences this type of effect in their life it is just different for everyone. Roller-coaster's are the thing that are big for me while I could stand up in front of an auditorium filled with people like it was nothing, but for some people it is the other way around.

Emily Dickinson likes to write about things that are going to apply to many readers, making her writing very universal in comparison to other writers such as Thoreau or Hawthorne who seem to have a particular audience that they are writing for. This idea of universal writing is what started her into wanting to write about nature. Nature is something generally everyone can connect with because we are all apart of nature, whether it is just something as simple as a tree or storm in the city to a wild forest or desert in the urban areas. A literary critic says, "Dickinson's love of nature painted a tremendously complex picture as she tried to find in the natural world a firm understanding of the relationship between people and God and the solutions to questions of shape and continuity of the universe that she could find nowhere in her background. "(McShesney) about Emily's poetry. Sandra is saying that Emily used nature and the actions of people to try and make sense of the world we live in and how God plays a part of it. This is a part of the religious aspect of Emily Dickinson's writing that was very evident in many of her poems. Having that Christian faith background is one of the only things that may disconnect her from some readers, although there still are many Non-Christian people who love many of Dickinson's poems. This mixture of nature, human nature, and religion makes Emily Dickinson's poetry so popular and so interesting for those who get the pleasure of reading it. 


McChesney, Sandra. "A View from the Window: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson." In Harold Bloom, ed. Emily Dickinson, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin=BCED03&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 29, 2012).


Dickinson, Emily. "58. "The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me." Part Two: Nature. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems." 58. "The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me." Part Two: Nature. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems. Bartleby. Web. 27 Mar. 2012. .

Journal 27

In the song "Amazing Grace" it talks about the amazing grace God has for us and how much he cares and Emily  Dickinson was a strong christian.  She cared about people and loved God a ton.  She obviously was impacted by God and His grace because she continually based her works off of the song "Amazing Grace" or made it fit to the tune of it.  She either loved God a ton, or she loved music and this song happened to be her favorite.  Honestly I would not judge her for liking the song because it is a very good song and I always sing along when I hear it.  Sometimes I get choked up because when I sing and hear high notes my eyes water up and it gets hard for me.  I always laugh when this happens because it looks funny and i can joke around and say that I am crying and this song always gets me.  This is really getting hard for me to write because I dont have very much information for the length of the blog I am writing and I keep getting distracted.  But I do think that Emily Dickinson liked this song and had good intentions in her life.  She probably was mature at a very young age and  understood that she shouldn't be stupid and ignorant and waste her life because each day is a gift and shouldn't be taken for granted.  This song along with our national anthem are very important to me and I have lots of respect for.  If people disrespect these songs and mock it or don't pay attention and give their respects for it I get very angry and get disappointed with these people.  If I know the person I will talk to them about it but usually thats not the case.  My step dad explained this to me when I was younger and have cared about this ever since.

Realism and Modernism

Walt Whitman's writings were in a very unique writing style because it was custom to Whitman himself.  To be completely honest I have never heard Mr. Langley call Whitman and Dickinson "the tweeners", but it would make sense because the two of them wrote in between two major writing style time periods.  These two are Realism and Modernism.  Realism writing was when an author would look at something or take something and write about how it is and not what it had potential to be in the future.  On the other hand, Modernism was about what was going on in the world at that moment and talked about different things during that time.

Obviously Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were very achieved and popular writers of the best of both periods since they were considered the "tweeners" and wrote inbetween the two writing periods.  A good example of this style, written by Walt Whitman, was "Calvary Crossing a Ford" (Whitman).  This poem talks about an army during a war and how it reacts when it comes across a river or a ford it has to pass.  The story has the war effect that is found common in Realism writings and speaks of what is going on at that time which is found common in Modernism writings (Whitman). To be honest it feels weird having to write about a different author and its hard going back to what we did.  I also have found it difficult writing 500 words because I am so use to the normal 325.  I almost started out this sentence with "Emerson and Thoreau were blah blah blah blah blah",  but then stopped myself remembering we aren't talking about them anymore.  To go back to the explanations of Realism and Modernism, a good example of Realism would be a savings bond.  In order for you to collect the amount that it is for you must wait a long period of time, but if you want the money right now you can cash it in and get it for what its worth at the time.  An example for Modernism writing is stories that come out about something that just recently happened in our history because this would mean that the author was focusing on things that were happening as he wrote the book, story, or poem.  Other than that, I cannot really think of any other good example of Modernism writing like I came up with for Realism.  I like learning about all of these different authors, but I sometimes feel that I am not learning that much and am just continuing to repeat myself and write the things that I already know and have said in all of my other blogs.  All in all, I think this writing style if it could be given a name, was interesting because it included two separate styles mixed together into one.  It had the best of both worlds (no Miley Cirus relation intended).

Whitman, Walt. "Calvary Crossing a Ford." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.


Bauerlein, Mark. "Whitman's Language of the Self." American Imago 44, no. 2 (Summer 1987). Quoted as "Whitman's Language of the Self" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Song of Myself, Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts on File, Inc. (accessed 21 March 2012)

Life:Part 1:Victory comes late

To Build a Fire

This story was interesting and felt like an adventure the entire way through it.  I didnt get bored once.  Even though it was kind of a generic story, or at least that is how I felt at first because the man was facing a tough trouble, the story kept getting interesting and left the reader hanging at the end.  That is one thing I hate and tends to happen to me a lot.  If I remember correctly we have read of a few writers who have done the same.  I think I remember reading something by Thoreau and Emerson and probably a couple more authors in English, and all of them left the reader wondering in the end in the stories.  Both Emerson and Thoreau were transcendentalism writers and both loved to talk about nature which is what this story was all about.  The man fought a prolonged battle against mother nature which he ended up losing, or at least I think since Jack London kind of leaves us hanging at the end weather the man was going to make it out alive or not and if the dog was going to get help in time.  I cant remember off of the top of my head but in me and Kirsten's project we talked about naturalism and regionalism and its one of these two that is the perfect definition of this writing.  Im leaning towards the naturalism because regionalism is about society and economy and such in a certain region while naturalism is more about natural things and relating them to an overall theme or idea the author is trying to get across.  Actually, as I continue to define both of these more in this blog, I am pretty posative that naturalism is the word or style I am looking for and what I am meaning to say as the way the author is portraying the idea he wants to get across to the reader.


London, Jack. “To Build a Fire.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 603-614. Print.



Werlock, Abby H. P. "'To Build a Fire'." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. 15 March 2012

I Will Fight No More Forever

I Will Fight No More Forever by Chief Justice, is a very real but sad story to hear.  It is about America exploring the west because they felt God had given them the land to settle, and taking over the Native American's land.  This caused many arguments and eventually battles between the two until finally the Natives gave up.  At the time, the surrender from the Native Americans was a great thing and worth celebrating, but after a while we realized that it was not fair and it was the Indian's land first so we needed to cooperate with them and share it.  Before all of the good happens though, they had to go through some very harsh times.  The Natives suffered from extreme racism against them, practically enslavement to some, and many died in the cold from fighting for their freedom or while fighting.

Thoreau was huge on nature and loved everything about it.  Since the Indians were too, I feel that he would have sided with them.  Looking back now, I think that in the moment America thought it was doing the right thing taking the Native's land, but now know that it was wrong and we needed to come to an agreement and share part of the land.  Thoreau was also a big believer in solving issues and fixing problems.  Thoreau and Chief Justice both use their writings to explain different stories and how the issues were resolved.  Edgar Masters who wrote Spoon River Anthology was also a big believer in solving issues and explaining things through the writing.  All three men would have probably been for the Natives and felt that they should have been treated fairly as would many people when looking back on the problem now including many Americans.  I know that I am happy to have Natives in America because I have a good friend who is one and don't mind having to share our land with them one bit.  It says in Constitution that "All men are created equal" and if this statement is true (which it is) then we should have no problems letting Native Americans stay here.




Chief Joseph. "I Will Fight No More Forever." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 531-533. Print.




Howells, William Dean. "My Mark Twain." In My Mark Twain; Reminiscences and Criticisms. New York: Harper, 1910. Quoted as "On the Life of Mark Twain" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Mark Twain, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House, 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Accessed 7 March 2012.

Spoon River Anthology

"The Hill", which is an excerpt from "Spoon River Anthology",  was a very good teacher of a very common lesson.  Edgar Masters talked about five main men and their occupations and how each one had to do with their life. The five characteristics were: weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, and the fighter (Masters).  Masters goes on to explain how each man died from their characteristic, most of them being a shameful death at that.  Personally, I know I would not want to be known as someone that constantly drinks heavily, but someone happy and always having a smile on their face.  He uses the characteristics or hobbies of these five men to show that "you are what you eat."  Not specifically that, but that whatever you spend the most of your time doing is how you will be known by others and if you are doing something you dont want other people to know you by, you should stop doing that and  find something else.


Thoreau's writings relate to this because Thoreau was a big believer of problem solving.  We all have read the stories of him being arrested for protesting and not paying his taxes because he was trying to fix a problem with the government.  He believed that society as a whole was way too occupied in the wrong things and the things that we enjoy, and not in the things that are important in living a healthy, everyday life.  A good example of when this happens is many young adults.  Once they graduate from college, they think they can go back to living their lives as teenagers and spending their money left and right when in reality they cant.  College cost so much money, and most of them will have student loans to pay off, but many of those students wont have any money because they have blown it all partying.  They need to get their priorities straight and start building a healthy life style.






Becker, Geraldine Cannon. "Spoon River Anthology." In Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature, Revised Edition: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, Volume 3. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. 6 March 2012.


Masters, Edgar L. "The Hill." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. Web. 6 Mar. 2012.

Miniver Cheevy

Personally, I liked this poem and didnt dread reading it.  It was kinda interesting and weird all in one.  Actually it was interesting because of how weird it was.  To me, it was about a man who was drunk at a bar telling a story of his life in the past.  He talked about being a soldier and how "he missed the medieval grace of iron clothing (Robinson)."  To me, this signified being a knight and wearing iron armor to protect himself as he saved the lives of many innocent people.  Although this poem was short and sweet, I was able to kind of visualize the scene and understand what was going on.  To the average person, this probably sounds like an old man sitting at a bar late at night all by himself when a young man walks in.  The man sits by the elderly one and starts small talk while getting a drink.  Eventually the two become friends and the old man tells him stories of his childhood. From here, I think this story could be interpreted multiple ways.  Either the young man eventually got up and left leaving the old man talking to himself, or the young man stayed there and listened to more stories the old man had to offer.  Either way, just as the poem says, "Miniver coughed, and called it fate and kept on drinking (Robinson)."

Emerson and Thoreau both wrote poems, but I'm not sure how they are directly related to this of Robinson.  Robinson's poem was really short and didn't really have a life lesson or deep meaning intertwined in it like Emerson and Thoreau normally do.  Normally I have to read Emerson and Thoreau's poems multiple times in order to understand the physical meaning of the poem let alone the lesson or idea implied in the writing.  I liked Robinson's poem though because it was so easy to read and I was able to understand it for the most part and interpret it how I thought it should be interpreted.

Cusatis, John. "'Miniver Cheevy'." In Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds.Encyclopedia of American Literature, Revised Edition: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, Volume 3. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 4 March 2012.

Robinson, Edwin. "Miniver Cheevy." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 531-533. Print.

"The Darling"

"The Darling" is a very weird story and didn't make much sense to me, but I'm going to try and write this blog on it.  It is apparently about this woman whose name is Olga and how she never settles down with a man for more than a year (Chekhov).  Whenever she would find a man he would die or something would happen to them (Chekhov).  Halfway through the story I started to wonder if I had read this story before.  I think that it is a very common one because I am almost certain that I have read this or a version of this before because I was able to guess everything that was going to happen next or at least that she was going to be with a guy that was going to die.  I found it really weird that she had a fixation on every guy she met and that she became obsessed with them and liked them so much.  Now that I am thinking more I am starting to wonder if maybe Olga killed all of her husbands because she got bored of them and wanted a new one.

I'm not completely sure how Emerson and Thoreau's writings compare to these of Chekhov, except for the tragedy that happens throughout the story.  If i'm not mistaken, both Thoreau and Emerson use tragedy in multiple stories of theirs.  I cant remember any specific examples, but both authors were accomplished writers and must have wrote about a tragic story sometime in their lifetime.  Chekhov did an amazing job with mixing tragedy with humor in this story by Olga's marriages sadly failing every time, but it was funny because it happened not once, not twice, but more than three times.  In the end, I enjoyed this story and liked reading it, but I don't really know how it relates to any writings of Emerson and Thoreau's writings in a legit and reasonable way.

Chekhov, Anton. "The Darling." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 557-565. Print.




Rayfield, Donald. Understanding Chekhov: A Critical Study of Chekhov's Prose and Drama Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999 pp. 198–200. Quoted as "Chekhov's Passion for Life" in Harold Bloom, ed.Anton Chekhov, Bloom's Major Short Story Writers. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2001. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web.  2 March 2012

Two Views of a River

At first, I didn't really understand this story because I wasn't really paying much attention, but when I took a second look, I noticed what Mark Twain was trying to show.  I knew the story was about a river and riverboats and had a lot of explanation of the nature around the river, but I didn't understand the overall meaning until the very end (Twain 504).  What Mark Twain was trying to get across was the point that we always grow out of the things we once loved (Twain).  When we would get a toy as a child, we would be super excited the day we got it and play with it the entire day, but after a week it would make its way to the bottom of our toy box and fade out of our lives forever.  That's because we didn't enjoy the toy anymore; it wasn't fun to play with because we could compare it to the day we got it and the excitement could not be matched.  I think this is what Mark Twain was trying to get across in his story.  In the story, the man had gotten a job as a riverboat captain or pilot as they said and he loved the job, but after all of the years of doing the same thing over and over, the man got bored and didn't enjoy the job anymore (Twain).  He started to realize the scenery wasn't as beautiful as he once thought, as it was dead now, and all of the possible dangers that could erupt as being a riverboat captain.  Its just like us eating our favorite foods, if we eat too much we soon get sick of it and don't want it anymore and then we realize all of the unhealthy things about it.

Emerson and Thoreau writings relate to this of Mark Twain by the scene which this story took place.  A lot of Mark Twain's writings took place outdoors as did this one which is a lot like what Thoreau did with his writings.  Thoreau loved nature and the outdoors as did Mark Twain.   Twain made sure to use detailed descriptions of the scenery to give the reader the effect of being there during the time when the story took place.

Huff, Randall. "'Two Rivers'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 1 March 2012

Twain, Mark. "Two Views of the River." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 504-505. Print.

The Red Badge of Courage

The Red Badge of Courage as read in our books, is very small and very generic.  Stephen Crane uses a person to say their thoughts while fighting during a battle in a war (Crane 493).  There are different times when he describes the scene so specifically I felt like I was in the story when in reality I had only read a half a page of this story.  A good example of this detailed setting writing is "Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the swirling battle phantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat (Crane 493)."  I figured that if half a page was as good as this was, I wonder what an entire book or story would be like.  I then started thinking and wondered how come people don't really know about this story and it isn't a very popular read in modern day society.  We are all so caught up in different love stories or murder mysteries that are all fiction while a very good and interesting story that actually has to do with America's history is right there in front of us and no one notices.  To be honest, I am actually mad that I didn't know about this story until now even though I probably wont go and read the entire story anyways.

Emerson and Thoreau both wrote many good stories and both men loved nature and had a ton in common, but I'm not really sure if either of them ever wrote about American History or on any sort of war topics.  I wouldn't put it past them though because they are both very accomplished men and have wrote many things in history that would alter society completely if we lived without.  I keep learning new things about Emerson and Thoreau each time I write a blog or am in English class and I don't plan on running out of things to learn any time soon.




Crane, Stephen. “from A Red Badge of Courage.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 492-493. Print.

Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour

In "The Story of an Hour" multiple tragic things happen that can relate it to the story of Romeo and Juliet.  Mrs. Mallard was an elderly woman that had heart problems and was ill to begin with even before she received tragic news of her husbands suspected death (Chopin).  Mr. Mallards suspected death could be related to the suspected death of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet.  When Mrs. Mallard finds out about his suspected death she then cries and weeps until her husband walks in and she has a heart attack (Chopin).  Its kind of like Juliet waking up in Romeo an Juliet and finding her lover dead at her side and her killing her self in astonishment (Shakespeare).

Ok, so what I have said about the Mr. and Mrs. Mallard story has probably been kinda confusing so I am going to explain things a little better.  Mr. Mallard was suspected dead in a train accident, Mrs. Mallard cried, Mr. Mallard showed up since the suspected death was false, Mrs. Mallard died of a heart attack in shock, end of story (Chopin).  Kate Chopin's story relates to writings of Emerson and Thoreau because both Emerson and Thoreau were tranceldentalist writers and trancidentalism includes femanism.  Kate's story is very femanist as the main character, Mrs. Mallard, realizes that her husband is dead and she is free when in reality he was alive and she died of joy since she would rather be dead and happy then alive and imprisoned to her husband.  It was a tragic story and a happy story mixed together in one.  It signified how women felt they were treated and how her life would have been changed forever.  The way Kate mixed tragedy, joy, happiness, and history together is what I think made this story so popular.

I would like to thank Chris Moore for more thoroughly explaining this story to me because without his help I would have never realized how Mrs. Mallard was actually joyed about her suspected husbands death.




Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." PBS. PBS. Web. 23 Feb. 2012. 

Kate Chopin. "The Story of an Hour"   The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 23 Feb. 12.

Shakespeare, William. "Romeo and Juliet: Entire Play." The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. The Tech-MIT Newspaper, 1993. Web. 23 Feb. 2012.

A Wagner Matinee

Reading this story, I was over-joyed to see that we were moving on to a new time period since the other one was getting old and a little boring.  One person can only read so much of one style before being bored and struggle to want to pay attention.  In the story "A Wagner Matinee", the man finds out that his aunt, who is near and dear to his heart, was on her way to visit him and spend some time with him (Cather).  When Clark heard this he was filled with joy and became very anxious to get everything ready and make a great impression on her.  He remembered that his aunt Georgian loved music and anything that had to do with vocals, instruments, percussion, etc (Cather).  He decided to take her to the opera where she could enjoy the music with him and get a sense of peace after a long travel to come visit him (Cather).

Now that I have told you the physical meaning behind the story, I am going to analyze it from a psychiatrists perspective.  In this story, Cather used the opera to show the idea that "one mans trash is another mans treasure" and how the boy in the story probably could care less about the opera and just wanted to make a good impression/see his aunt, while she enjoyed every minute of it and probably had one of the best times of her life.  Emmerson used this style of getting a point across on different occasions throughout his writings.  Emmerson will take an idea or object and will show or explain how many different people would like that object while others wouldn't and think it is stupid.  This idea that what is important to us might not be important to someone else needs to be something that we engrave into our brains and never forget about because if you make fun of someone or ask "why did you buy that its ugly" is breaking the golden rule and not a good idea if you want to make friends.



Werlock, Abby H. P. "'A Wagner Matinée'." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.  Web.  21 Feb. 12.

Willa, Cather. “A Wagner Matinée.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 521-526. Print.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

During the story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" the author takes us on a journey through the life of a young man.  The story starts out in the present and then switches gears to the past before switching back to the present and imagining a perfect scenario of escaping the wrath of the Northern army. Poor Peyton Farquhar was faced with death because he fought for the South in an attempt to sabotage the railroad (Bierce).  The railroad was a crucial weapon for the northern army during the time because it provided an easy way off transportation of goods, ammo, guns, supplies, and men to different places of battle.  Without the railroad the movement of soldiers would have been slow and difficult, but now the north could surround the south in the matter of a night without them even knowing.

Since Farquhar was declined acceptance into the Southern Army, he was determined to serve his side well by doing something that would benefit them.  By sabotaging the railroad, it would cause for disruption and serve as a distraction giving the south the upper hand (Bierce).  It is evident that Farquhar was for the South because of his attempt to join the SOUTHERN army and the fact that he was a plantation owner that farmed land (Bierce).  Thoreau and Farquhar would have never gotten along simply because of their outlooks on slavery.  Both had strong opinions and both were faithful to what they believed in.  For Farquhar this was evident when he attempted to set fire to the railroad and for Thoreau this is evident in his writings that he despised slaver and wanted it gone forever.  Most of this story had detailed descriptions of the natural surroundings and the places in nature that served as the setting of the story.  This was one thing that the two of them had in common and that was their passion for nature.



Bierce, Ambrose. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 387-396. Print.

Bruccoli, Matthew J., and Judith S. Baugman. "Peyton Farquhar." Student's Encyclopedia of American Literary Characters. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 20 Feb. 12.

Letter to His Family

To me, this story was kind of confusing.  It was a letter and it did have to do with the arising Civil War, but I never completely understood why it was "A Letter to His Family."  Lee did a good job in writing this letter as you could say because he covered all of the problems between the states (Lee).  Ironically, as I read through the letter again, it made more sense to me.  I see how it is a letter to his family now thanking them for the book they sent and then talks about the different themes in the book and how they relate to what was happening in the country at the time.  Lee talks about the different things that happened to cause the Civil War and the states that left the Union because of the slavery laws (Lee).  He understood what was going to happen and reasoned with the South about why they were mad (Lee).  If I were in the South's shoes I would be mad too because we had just started to settle down after settling more Westward in the United States and then the government springs a law banning the use of slaves on the country.  To the North, they didn't care other than the massive influx of people it would cause, the drop in economy, and space wise, about the decision because at this point in time, factories had become popular and useful in the North.  In the South though, all of the crops were grown because of the massive areas of flat land that were easy to control water amounts and hoe and plow and harvest with cattle and other machinery.  Lee explains his thoughts on the situation and how he hopes that a Civil War doesn't break out before he dies (Lee).  Emmerson and Thoreau were kind of the same way in how they didn't want to fight and just wanted enough drama to happen in the country to be able to write about, but not too much to where they couldn't live their lives in peace and it got too dangerous outside their houses.

Butler, Robert. "Harper Lee's Religious Vision in To Kill a Mockingbird" New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/. 14 Feb 2012

Lee, Robert E. "Letter to his Family". Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 382-385. Print.

"Ain't I a Woman?"

In Sojourner Truth's poem "Ain't I a Woman?", she expresses her feelings towards prissy white women that don't acknowledge the black women in the community as women.  The poem basically consists of a few lines that explain an example of one of the scenario's where a white woman is babied and "helped over puddles" or "carried in carriages" and such things, and then followed by the line "Ain't I a woman?" (Truth).  The time period can be easily guessed by the different clues within the poem that sets it off.  Truth often talks about how she worked on a plantation and would get whipped, yet still could work harder than the men, in her speech (Truth).  Another thing that she says in her speech that is horrible and should never happen was when her thirteen children got auctioned off as slaves right before her eyes (Truth).

It always gets me when I read these types of things because most of the time they are true stories and horrible things happened in them.  One thing that happens in all of the stories I read is that there are always sexist men and women and racist men and women that put this human being into slavery and treat her worse than their household pet.  I just can never believe that someone could do that and their conscience never get to them and make them wonder what they just did and what they were thinking in the first place to do such a thing.  White men and women are no different than black men and women and if a white woman gets treated like an angel or like a royal figure, there is no reason that a black woman should get the same treatment.  I hate racism and am happy that slavery is over in the United States.  I think about all of the slaves that were beaten to death and think about what their families were affected.



Truth, Sojourner. "And Ain‘t I a Woman?." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 368-370. Print.



Truth, Sojourner. "Ain't I a Woman?". New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 14 Feb 2012.

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Go Down, Moses,” “Keep Your Hand on the Plow”

All three of these poems were repetitive, but my favorite by far out of all of them was "Go Down, Moses."  I liked this one because my grade school spent a lot of time talking about the stories of Moses and his life story and it was all so interesting.  With the help of God, Moses marched the Israelite's out of Egypt and into the promised land.  Even though the job was extremely tough, Moses persevered and followed God.  He also had to have a lot of courage which I respect in him.  He brought plagues upon the Egyptians because Pharaoh wouldn't let God's people go (The Holy Bible...).  Moses' life was just so interesting and it is exciting to read about.  I enjoy learning new things every time someone teaches on him.

In the poems, I felt that they all had an earthly connection which as I made clear in my previous blog, was exactly how Thoreau operated.  In "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" it talks about a man being swept up in a chariot and taken to heaven.  To me, it cant get much earthlier than that since God was the one who created the earth and if someone is able to leave earth to go to heaven without dying, that is impressive and earthly.  Coincidentally, both poems that I have talked about can be related to a Bible character or hero.  This poems story can be related to the Bible figure Elijah and how God sent a flaming chariot to take Elijah and bring him to heaven  There were other miscellaneous accounts that I can think of that God used a chariot as either a symbol or a tool in the Bible.  The Bible contains so many entertaining and exciting stories that never get old or boring, which is why I am constantly bringing it up in this blog.  I could go on and on for paragraphs about different stories but I feel that I have already gotten off of the topic enough.  I liked all of the poems and found them all readable even though they repeated themselves a lot.

"Go Down, Moses." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 347. Print.

The Holy Bible Containing the Old Testament and the New, Etc. Cambridge: ] Printed by Tho: Buck, and Roger Daniel; London: to Be Sold by Roger Daniel, 1638. Print.

"Keep Your Hands on the Plow." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 348. Print.

"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 6. Print.

"Calvary Crossing a Ford"

In Walt Whitman's poem "Cavalry Crossing a Ford", it talks about a river on a beautiful day being swarmed to by animals and men. The third line in Whitman's poem sets the scene for the poem "Behold the silvery river—in it the splashing horses, loitering, stop to drink;". It makes the reader feel as if it is a beautiful day out even though it feels like negative -40 degrees where we are. Even though it was a short poem, it was a good one that satisfied a reader.

As it says in this literary criticism, Whitman was "a native and naive genius" (Longabucco). He loved to talk about nature and be apart of it. This is just like Thoreau and hit thoughts on nature. Thoreau lived in nature and spent as much time as possible in it. Thoreau and Whitman are one in the same to an extent because they both believed in natural stuff and wanted to spend time in nature. I found this interesting and think that if the two of them could have lunch together they would talk about a lot of the same things and agree with each other a lot and everything they wrote about. They would probably be those people that if they did get in a disagreement, it would be a huge deal over something nothing. They would hate each other one day and then the situation would get resolved and they would be best friends again the next. Since I did most of this blog during class I kind of lost track of what I was talking about and am sincerely sorry if the transition from what I just wrote and what I wrote the other day makes no sense and is extremely confusing. I meant to finish it in class, but the bell rang before I could.  Bottom line, both authors and Emerson too were fantastic and legendary.

Longabucco, Matt. "The Proof of a Poet"—Walt Whitman and His Critics" Walt Whitman, Bloom's BioCritiques. Facts On File, Inc., 2008.Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 10 Feb. 2012.

Whitman, Walt. "Calvary Crossing a Ford". Philadelphia: David McKay, Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby.com/142/. 10 Feb. 2012

Gettysburg Address

The Gettysburg Address is one of the most famous and well known speeches of Abraham Lincoln and of all time.  It was considered so important that I was required to memorize it in eighth grade.  I remember most of it or at least bits and pieces all the time.  When I was learning it though, I remember, for some reason, always reciting it in an auctioneers tone of voice and going really fast.  I guess I did that because I knew the speech really well and wanted to show off my skills to whoever was willing to listen.

When reading through some other peoples blogs as I always do before writing mine to see if they had anything that I agreed with or forgot about, I came across something in Ben's blog.  Ben brought up a good point about how Thoreau basically hated the government and pretty much despised every move they made (Civil Disobedience) unlike Abraham Lincoln in his speech at the place where The Battle of Gettysburg took place, was the government and was proud of our nation (Gettysburg Address).  His speech also talks about the pro's of our nation.  I just found it interesting and ironic that Thoreau and Lincoln were complete opposites in their view of our government.

If me and Kirsten were choosing out of a group of people we should interview for our project that liked Emerson and Thoreau and agreed with their views on life and government, Abraham Lincoln would not be a good candidate.  Although, I think that I want to use him as one of the people that we interview not only because I want to dress up and wear a beard and hat, but because he was a well respected man and his thoughts on life and Thoreau would probably be very interesting.  He most likely didn't like the man because they couldn't agree on anything, but his thoughts on Emerson and Thoreau's views could strike a good debate.

Lincoln, Abraham. "The Gettysburg Address." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 400-402. Print.

Thoreau, Henry David. "Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.

Douglass, Emerson, Thoreau

In the story "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" by Fredrick Douglass, he explains what America was like after slavery was banned and became illegal.  Many whites in the south did not like this new law and disagreed with what it said.  To me, this was a great thing and was a fair thing, but to the farmers of the plantations which they used to provide for their families, their thoughts were not the same.   All three of the authors I compared when reading this story (Douglass, Emerson, and Thoreau), felt the same about slavery and that it should be illegal and was not a humane way of treating the African Americans.  It was easy to realize what side Douglass was on by reading one simple fact.  In the story, he stated, "There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. (Douglass)"  To me, this is sickening that humans could treat other humans so horribly and easily.   I am happy that I do not have to worry about slavery in America anymore and never did for that matter.

I am going to enjoy this project for the reason in this story.  I always enjoy expressing how I feel, but when I get the opportunity to say how much I hated slavery and how horrible it was, I take it.  Even though me and Kirsten's project with interviewing famous authors will have a part for personal thoughts and beliefs, I am determined to find a way to intertwine my thoughts into our overall project.   This probably means I will add an extra small section including to our personal interviews that pertained to the different questions asked during the interviews.

Douglass, Frederick. "Africans in America/Part 4/Frederick Douglass Speech." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 06 Feb. 2012.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Nature." Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts. Web. 06 Feb. 2012. .

Thoreau, Henry David. "Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.

Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau was a very opinionated man.  He felt that our government was not needed and claimed "that government is best which governs least (Thoreau Section 1)."  For thee most part, this saying could be true, but on the contrary it could be completely wrong.  Just like every other human being on this earth, you tend to mess up and sometimes people need governing.  with having an established government, the different branches and people are able to help guide us in the right direction.  They set guidelines that we must follow for our safety and regulation of life in America.  If we choose to not follow these rules struct punishments come into effect until we decide that it is worth it to follow the rules set before us.  Paying our taxes is always a huge thing to us Americans because we feel that we are being over charged and it is unfair.  I agree 100% with this, but I wont get into it now.  Usually if you dont choose to cooperate with the state or federal's rules you will lose your belongings, be fined a significant amount of money, or even thrown in jail for an unknown amount of time before your court date.

This essay had a ton of Romanticism in it because it was all opinionated.  Thoreau went on and on about what he felt was right and wrong with our government.  Personally, I got confused sometimes with what Thoreau was saying because there was so much information he was throwing out that was against our government.  I dont get why he feels that we would be better off without a government at all, but if thats what he wants to think he has the rights and freedoms to think that way.   As of now, I dont mind our government.  Yes, there are some things I think they should do differently, but that is always going to be the case with people because someone can not be completely satisfied unless they are doing it themselves.  Overall, our government is fairly stable and strong.  I don't mind our government because it doesnt really affect my every day life at all.  If it were to change my daily routine and get outrageous and strict, I would have a problem and probably rise up with the millions of other Americans against the government and its ways.  Henry Thoreau proved to be a persistent man, but without the support of other people to back him up, he was just one out of millions of Americans that had something to say about our government.  Many tempers can strike when war is present because war is an ugly thing and can be very ugly and graphic.  Thoreau's reasoning for being so mad about the government is a fair reason.  If the United States was trying to support slavery, I too would be disappointed and find a way to protest and get the foolish acts of it to stop, but I wouldn't stop paying my taxes.  If there is one thing that I have learned about the United States government it is that they don't tolerate people that don't pay their taxes.


Thoreau, Henry David. "Thoreau's Civil Disobedience." The Thoreau Reader. Richard Lenat. Web. 1 Feb. 2012.

Breaking the Law

I feel that it is acceptable to break the rule/law, when there is a reasonable excuse to.  There needs to be a much larger amount of good reasons to break the law than reasons not to.  If someone were to safely run a red light because their pregnant wife was in the passenger seat giving birth, that is a reasonable reason and excuse to run the red light.  In the end it just matters weather or not you are willing to take the chance or if the pros are important enough to suffer the consequences for the cons.  This man obviously needed to get his wife to a hospital so he weighed the odds and if he got in trouble later on down the road, he would face the consequences, but he knew that it was most important that he got his wife to a hospital.  Some people get confused what is breaking the law and what is legal as self defense.  If someone breaks into your house, that is invading private property and the person can be convicted and sent to jail, but if they threaten you or your things, you can act in self defense and the charges against you can be dropped.  If they charged at you and tried to attack, you can do whatever it takes to stop them weather thats spraying mace in their eyes, tazing them, stabbing them with a knife, slicing them with a sword, beating them with a baseball bad (personal choice of weapon when at home), or shooting them, the jury on your case will most likely drop the charges because you wouldnt normally harm the person, they were just threatening your well being and property.  As long as you stop at whatever is necessary, you shouldnt be charged, but if you hit them with a bat in the shin and it breaks their leg and they give up, you cant continue to beat them to death.  The proper thing to do would be to duct tape their wrists and legs and watch them as the police arrive.

The Minister's Black Veil

In the short story "The Minister's Black Veil," the minister of the small town uses a black veil to symbolize the little sins in our lives.  He explains how over time the little things we do that we dont feel are a big deal at the time do become a big deal.  After a while these sins become a habbit and then get cluttered up in our lives seperating us from God and the spiritual cleanliness that we want.  The minister's goal was to have the image of the veil etched into the peoples brains so even after he died, the image of what you look like to others is stuck in their head.  What Mr. Hooper wanted to get across, but the people didn't understand at first, was that this is how we all look to each other especially God.  If we arent careful we can have a black veil over our own lives and look differently to others.  It was almost as if the minister did not want to wear the veil because it caused depression in his life.  If people were running from him because his veil was saddening and made them remember their sins and imperfections in their lives, I am pretty sure the person wearing the veil would get depressed too.  It says in the short story that when Mr. Hooper looked into the mirror he realized that he didnt want this stuff in his life, but he couldn't stop because he was trying to teach a lesson to his village.

The pastors goals were to get the people of the village to realize that they need to stop sinning and covering it up so no one notices. "'If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough,' he merely replied; 'and if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?' (Thoreau)"What they dont realize is that God sees everything no matter how secretive it is to you so whenever you sin, to God, it would be as if you are wearing a black veil over your head.  He does forgive us of our sins though, so if we were to repent and ask for forgiveness He would gladly forgive us.

The color of the veil is another big aspect in this stories analyzing.  The writer had the choice to make the veil any color, but he chose black for the emotional impact it has on a human.  It is in our nature that when we see the color black 90% of us immediately think of darkness, gloom, sadness, sins, imperfections, etc., which is exactly what the author was getting at for this story.  It was made very clear that the pastor wore a black veil ever since the title of the story was written.  The author wanted the emotional impact along with the stories impact to grab the reader.  Through the theme of the story the feeling of sorrow towards the man was gained as the feeling of happiness faded away.  This is one of the reasons I personally dont like Dark Romanicism's and am ready to start a new topic, although I can say I did learn a lot during this unit.

Hawthorne,, Nathaniel. "The Minister's Black Veil, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1836." Eldritch Press. Web. 20 Jan. 2012.

Journal over scary stories

Scary stories are oh so scary.  Suspense is a key factor in making a good scary story because you have to keep the reader or listener interested and involved in the story.  Interesting facts or different things that happen in spontaneos places always catch the reader off guard and continueing to pay attention to what is going on.  I know from personal experience that if someone trys to make a story and nothing interesting happens in it in the beginning I dont like reading it.  I always give up and dont want to finish the book.  There also needs to be a sad part or something dramatic so people feel bad about that person or thing.  That person needs to then be the bad person or scary person to scare the reader even more.  If the nicest person is the nicest person for the longest time then the reader becomes emotionally attached and feels sympathetic for the nice person.  The moment this happens they need to snap and become a scary monster.  That monster needs to eat and destroy anything in its path killing millions and becoming a horrid human being.  The reader then gets scared and hates the person.  The monster then needs to become normal again by being healed since the monster in them is not their fault and is uncontrollable.  The moment that happens the army needs to kill the monster and sad music needs to play.  The rain starts to pour and the moonlight glows on the humans face.  It is then a happy, scary, and sad movie all in one and will win a grammy award and be loved by millions making me and everyone involved famous and unable to go out in public without having our shirts ripped off our bodies by the mobs of people. This, in my opinion, would be an awesome movie, book, or story and I would love to be able to see it.

Journal over fear

Fear is a big word for its actual size.  I personally think that girls fear me the most.  When I talk to a girl I am always afraid of making her mad and getting slapped.  Even though I am always nice to girls and dont make them mad, nor have I ever been slapped before.  Its just, in the movies girls always slap the boy so hard and it sounds like it hurts so bad.  I fear many other things than girls though including heights, teachers, and growing up.  I have hated or feared heights since I was a little kid and dont think I will ever get over it.  I also fear teachers for the extra stress they can add to my life by assigning homework.  They can do so much damage by just a little bit.  The homework can make or break my day and night and that is a fear of mine.  Besides these little fears I have here and there the one that is by far the worst is growing up.  I am so afraid of going off to college and being on my own trying to survive.  I will be so excited and am ready to go and experience college, but it scares me so much to not have my mom with me if I need her.  It use to be a lot worse for people that didnt have cell phones or the internet, but now I can skype her every night if I wanted to.  I am scared having to worry about doing my own laundry and being diciplined enough to keep up with it.  Im also afraid of being responsible for myself financially and other sorts.  I dont want to have to pay bills and for my food, and I want to be able to be a kid for forever.  A kids life is so simple and always cheerful but in reality life isnt that way and sad things happen all the time.

Pit and the Pendulum

In this story a man is punished for what sounds like is not his fault. When he wakes up after falling asleep he notices that he is in a dark room and is afraid that he is mistakenly locked in a tomb and burried alive. After some more investigation his worries are behind him because he learns that it is not a tomb, but a prison chamber. It is completely dark and he must trust himself and stay calm while figuring out his escape. Since he could not see anything in the dungeon he had to use other senses to find his way out. To my suprise he had some very ingenious ways to escape the deathly tricks in this cell.

This story is not a dark romanticism, but has more of a strong story line. Dark romanicisms typically are gloomy and have a sad ending to them like most of Poe's other writings. In this one though, an innocent man is saved when a French general and his army successfuly take over the prison and its inmates. Since this is a happy poem, I would classify it as a Romanicism because it is very romantic how he gets to go home to his family after being rescued by the french army. This man continues to show lots of bravery to continue to fight for survival after knowing he is going to die. His ways of escaping their tortue was very ingenious and unique. The story almost had a fairytale ending to it, except the man isn't a princess.

When the man is strapped onto the table and is looking at the ceiling, I find it ironic that there is a clock painted there and that it is visible to every person that has been killed on that table. It must be another form of torture by antagonizing the prisoners. It basically meant "haha you can see your way out and cant get out and its only a matter of TIME untill you die and no one knows your here :)". That didnt matter though because this man continued to fight through and ended up surviving the fatal pendulum. When the walls started to come in, he knew he was going to die. He must have prepared mentally before and was ready to fall into the pit when the hero of the story came to his rescue and snatched him up before he fell in.

I like this story for many reasons, but the main one was how interesting it was. I also liked the fact that it isn't a dark romanicism and something horrible happened in it. I would like to explore more of Edgar Allan Poe's works throughout our class and see how many others I can find that are not dark romanticisms. I hope that more of Poe's short stories are this interesting and not like some of his poems. I also predict that Danny will be content with this story since he too hates being put in a gloomy mood by dark romanicisms.



Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Pit and the Pendulum." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 263-273. Print.

Journal 24

The other day I was at home extremely tired and watching the television.  When I was watching some ice from our gutters melted enough and broke free.  When it hit the ground it made a very loud BANG.  I was pretty spooked because it was dark out and I didn't know what had made the noise.  When I looked outside I didn't see anyone or anything that could explain what had made the noise.  I then got even more spooked and almost cried.  When I looked closed I finally noticed the melting ice block on the pavement in our back yard.  I put two and two together and realized that that was the explanation for the loud noise.  When I noticed that this was the reason I started to laugh and went back to watching tv.  That night the television was very entertaining and I ended up watching for way too long.  I dont normally watch that long but for this night I did.  I dont know how I remembered this story or why I chose this one but I did since our journal was suppose to be about a time when we were spooked.  This journal was not very hard and I didnt mind writing it.  I think we should have more time for blogging our journals though because it is very hard to get finished in 6 minutes.  I will admit though that todays short journal time was my fault because I added an hour jokingly and Mr. Langley did not enjoy the joke.  That is understandable though because me and Danny can tend to be pretty annoying.  I am sincerely sorry for adding the hour and I wont do that again.  I hope that we can get more time from now long and I can write some good journals.  Wow, I really got off topic this journal, my bad.

Reflection:Dark Romanicism

Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "The Happiest Day", is about what use to be and not of what would be.  Poe talks about what his  hapiest day was in the past.  It is easy to realize this when he uses the words "But they have vanish'd long, alas!" in one of his lines in his poem (Poe 6).  I would definately classify this poem as a dark romanicism because it is obvious in the first read through of the poem.  The words "hath flown" or "have been" were used in this poem to signify that the happiness was in the past (Poe 4 and 16).  I picked this poem thinking that it was going to be a light and cheery poem until I remembered that Poe wrote in the dark romanicism period and that everything has kind of a gloomy haze on everything.  Most of Poe's poem titles make the poems themselves sound appealing and have great potential for a cheery and happy poem, but once you read all of the poems you realize that is not the case.  I feel that if Poe would have wrote in a diferent time period his poems would have been enjoyed and been more appealing to a greater number and vast variety of people, but on the same note if he had written in a different time period I think that he would not be as popular because he wouldnt be known for something.  Poe's poems are known for their gloomy effect they have on themselves and the dullness that they bring upon their readers.  That is one of Poe's trademarks, which to some is an exciting thing that makes them enjoy his poems and love his works, but to me it is more of a negative outlook on life and I dont enjoy reading them.  It makes me get in a gloomy mood and I dont like that.  I like being a cheery person and being able to be in a happy mood most of the time.  When we read the poem by Poe in class I didn't enjoy reading it and it was hard for me to concentrate because of the boringness it was to me.  This boringness was because of the darkness of the poem.  I feel that Dark romanicism is an important thing to some people but it also isnt very important to some of us others.  I will read these poems in class since they are assignments but I dont plan on reading them outside of class.  What I want to find is some sort of reading materrial we talk about in class that I enjoy and want to read on my own outside of class for enjoyment and entertainment.  So far that hasn't happened because it is hard for me to find books that are appealing but I hope I can find one in the near future.

"Edgar Allan Poe: "The Happiest Day"" Poetry Lovers' Page. Web. 18 Jan. 2012.

Zimmerman, Brett. "Frantic Forensic Oratory: Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"" Facts on File. 2001. Web. 2012.

Journal22 on sledding

There once was this itty bitty small boy,
He really wanted to play with his toy.
He asked his mom but she said no,
You need to go outside and play in the snow.
He decided to go ahead and sled,
So he went to the barn and opened the shed.
He started to walk up the super high hill,
He got so scared his mom made him take a pill.
He got on is sled and started to roll,
He moved so fast he looked like a bull.
He hit a bump and started to tumble,
He moved so fast the sled started to rumble.
He lost control and veered to the right,
There were nothing but trees left in his sight.
He leaned to the right and leaned to the left,
He leaned so hard he had no energy left.
He prayed that he would not crash just in case,
He hoped that a tree would not hit his face.
With next to nothing left that he could do,
He jumped off his sled, landing in doo doo.
He cried so much his mom heard him from home,
She brought an ice pack to put on his dome.
They went back home and she let him warm up,
And brought him some coco in a big cup.

Journal 21

It was a month into winter and we still hadn't seen any snow.  Mr. Frost had still not made his appearance.  It had gotten annoying that we had cold weather but no snow.  He was holding back in joy that we were not happy.  We went on for a few more days without a sign of any snow coming.  Five days after the complaint of no snow, he came out of no where and took the little village of Hayes by surprise. We weren't prepared and had no intentions of being snowed in for a long time.  When it came we had nothing ready.  No food, no water, no wood, not even clothes had been gathered for the long winter ahead.

Many died in the coming weeks and many became very ill.  Our family suffered many losses and dilemmas.  I lost a brother and six sisters during this winter.  Although inside it was frightful, I could not stop looking out the window into the distance.  The snow and pretty whiteness always calmed me down.  I could gaze at the trees and the prairies in hopes to go play in the snow.  We got over three feet of snow and spent two weeks shoveling enough of a path to get new supplies to the village.  I could never forget that winter for its horrible sickness it brought but also the good and joy it brought to my mind.

Even though the winter brought peace to me and the visual effects of the environment was soothing to me, I would never want a winter like that one to happen again.  The losses in my family were greater than any good that came.  My mother did not speak for months after my brother and sisters death's because she couldn't believe they happened.  I felt bad for her and just wished that there was something that I could have done to help her through it.  Although all these bad things happened to my family and I don't want another winter like this to ever occur again, I still enjoy the winter and the white blanket it brings upon this earth.