So, it’s been eleven weeks. We’ve read, we’ve blogged, we’ve discussed (we’ve also not done a few of those things…no? okay just me then) and now it’s time to step back and reflect. Ahh…reflection. I always struggle with that part come week eleven. So, I do what any ‘respectable’ English major with a final paper to do, would do. I stall my little ass off. I might take my pee breaks, I might clean up a little around the dorm, I might fight crime (if I could) anything to keep my mind off of this last blog I have to do, who cares if I was diggin’ the class or not? I mean work is work…right?
But amid all of these distractions I seem to invent for myself, I can’t help but recognize just how much this class interjected itself in my decision making and value system this quarter. And when I look at the collection of everything we’ve accomplished in English 250, I know that this was a worthwhile experience.
I feel like this reading list, more so than most any of my English classes, hovered around some very, VERY weighty themes and struggles. For starters: the depictions and ambiguity behind the role of masculinity, the role of religion in determining the value system of a culture and the cultures that followed it, the role of the gothic novel in early American Literature and how it, sort of poo-pooed on everything the last thing I was talking about tried to accomplish. But c’maaan, when you really look at it there was some deep, dark, weighty stuff that this era in our history was trying to come to grips with. And it didn’t let up the farther we went down that syllabus (which might have been the effing coolest looking syllabus ever, just an fyi), we sized up the literature of sexual libertines and slave masters, then the psychological costs of both survival and oppression (yes, this is straight from the course description section of the syllabus I’ll broaden out I promise), or even the human want to evade society’s countless oppressions or expectations (see? Broadened out booya!). But this era of literature and its material had no choice but to be weighty, hard-hitting, and strenuous. It exists as the representative voice of a new nation’s sins and hardships that seemed to be never-ending, like a thread from the world’s largest ball of string. But underneath each of these varying circumstances, differing themes, when we examine the emotional baggage that dragged beneath each of these cultural contexts the literature emphasizes, similar words with parallel connotations spring to mind.
Words like endurance, perseverance, and struggle. But each of these words seem to swirl around the challenged state of the self in the face of society and society in the face of the individual.
So, life’s a challenge, big deal, like I’ve never heard or felt that before this winter quarter. But had I ever really felt it in a lit class? Or from discussion? I’d say yes and no.
Let’s face it, there’s only so much personality and honesty a person can put into a research paper, or a paper that they plan to turn in to a professor. After a couple of years worth of umpteen prompts and more research topics than you could possibly try to remember, writing papers in college for an English Major can often feel like a job, and it goes from fun to tedious pretty quickly. Not to mention the fact that papers also need to tackle course content with a degree of professionalism and attention to detail. While all of this is certainly essential and valuable when expressing opinions or trying to make a point, college students (especially creative college students) also deserve the opportunity to let loose in their interpretations, FIND THE JUICE without worrying about sounding studious or lucid to such a lofty degree. This is where class discussion comes in. And yet, some discussions prove to be more productive than others.
Never before had I really seen the opportunity to go through so many mediums and portals to reinforce or stir the themes that cropped up in the literature covered in a syllabus. Not only that, but never before had I had such freedom for personal input to course subject matter.
That’s where the blogging came in.
In most classes, I’m gonna be honest, here’s the routine. Read, class discussion, paper….read, class discussion, paper…..read, class discussion, paper…..then yay it’s spring! Pile on ten pages of hell and a random final and let’s call it a quarter.
Yeah, that’s fun. That’s education.
No, this class offered guidelines, structure, but within that structure the ability to roam around creatively and find influence from each other, our group members, in addition to the reading. And this process really felt necessary to do this course’s content justice…
I am going to be honest, I did not set out to embark on this blogging project with a set agenda. Hell, I’d never blogged before I was actually slightly intimidated come to think of it.
I figured, “Okay JT, just focus on this baby one blog at a time. It probably won’t make any sense at all when you look at the finished product but damnit it’ll get done and at least each blog will stand up okay on its own.” That’s pretty much what I told myself in January when I posted my first blog.
So, I posted. I put up pictures, I wrote the blogs from an honest place with personal and critical interpretations while trying to broaden out the best I could. One blog at a time I wrote, posted, threw in a picture and called it finished, all the while feeling like I had been neglecting the fact that most blogs have a set theme and mine had to look absurdly nonsensical.
And then, something strange happened…I noticed that without even meaning to, I was re-writing essentially the same themes from blog to blog. My pictures were, actually, going together with a want to-be Andy Warhol sense of fluency. The posts actually made sense together! And there they were! All of the course literature, my own interpretation of all of the literature sitting right there in front of me, and it all made sense somehow.
Me, the literature, and then everybody else and the literature working things out together and separately all at the same time. That’s what an English class, or any class for that matter, should be all about.
I’m not saying that course material in college doesn’t have this same amount of fluency or even the same degree of impact on a student. All I’m saying is that I had never actually noticed how much a specific course’s material impacted me, impacted other students in my class, tied in to discussion, or flowed together the way this blogging experience allowed me to visualize so vividly.
So, really, it was because of this whole blogging experience that I truly had the chance to take away and internalize the course content. I had a chance to see just how important self-reliance is and how it literally ties in to just about every theme in early American Literature. I get the chance to read a sentimental story about Tony’s high school experience, how he felt like a failure because he couldn’t get in to his AP English course his sophormore year or something ridiculous like that (I love you Tony). I got to laugh at pictures that made me think of The Coquette’s Major Sanford every time I saw a “House” episode (good call on that one, Bran by the way…House really is a ‘rake’ and pretty freaking dreamy I might add). The blogs were just a cultural medium to really put on display just how many things can and do relate to literature inside a classroom or outside of a classroom setting. This is why I am thankful for taking this class Suzanne. Thank you.
And as I sit back and look at all of the blogs, the stack of torn up books on my tattered bookshelf in my dorm room (books that today I found out I can’t return anymore by the way…sad story) I understand now just how much I DID take away from this course. I know that I invested both work and play to class content that I can guarantee you, I wouldn’t have invested under other circumstances or within other classroom settings. But I did, thankfully. It was rewarding, it was fun, it was educational and, most importantly, it was IMPACTING as hell because I can see based on my blog how much it pulled out of me. I don’t know if the other students in this class felt the same amount of reward but judging by the look and the feel of their blog I’m not alone. We got the JUICE Ashworth, and the juice was most certainly worth the squeeze. Cheesy? Indubitably. Is indubitably a word? You bet it is. Good luck next quarter everybody.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Do or die, The Heart of the Sea
In the Heart of the Sea is a story of suffering men dealing with the carnage of an unpredictable and unforgiving sea. And, as you probably know, the shipwreck tale has become a recurring staple in literature and finds its way in many snit bits of pop culture.
But, I had to ask myself, why is this? Are we just suckers for boats and sperm whales?
Then I started thinking about it, what themes tend to underlie a shipwreck story? And then on down the line I went…What other storylines share the similar themes? Well you have the ship wreck, the plane crash, the deserted island, the mountain climbing expedition that goes awry, these inexplicably horrifying circumstances keep finding themselves staying in the backs of weary minds, and all the while staying all the more relevant. These settings keep reinforcing universal moral conflictions over and over again, as Suzanne mentioned in class the other day “history is repeating itself….right?” Sorry Suzanne, you know I love you. While the woes of Jacobs, The Coquette, Poe’s literature, are of a social kind of struggle, and the woes of the Essex's crew are of a natural kind.
It’s this facet of the shipwreck tale, or the deserted island, that keeps our attention. While this class touches upon the idea of self-reliance, self-preservation in societal demographics narratives like Philbrick’s provide opposition to these ideals which are much more urgent, dire, and fatal. Consequently, the reveal of the ‘self’ and the ability to remain true to ones’ self in such circumstances becomes all the more vividly exposed and challenged.
While it is all but incontestable that the initial "sacrifices" of the crew of the Essex are forced upon them I mean it isn’t like they set out wreck a boat in the middle of the ocean, there's stillthe existence of choice in the narrative. Choice to preserve the self not just in the survival meaning of the word but in the moral sense of the word preservation. Even though many die of disease or dehydration, sooner or later there moral grounds become tested either eat, be eaten.
The appeal of stories like this one might exist solely on the grounds that few can know the true character of themselves based on circumstances like this one. Consequently, the reader takes the journey with the characters in the story as opposed to looking at the circumstances as an outsider.
"If necessity forced them to act like animals, they did so with the deepest regrets. ... William Bond in Hendricks's boat was the last African American left alive. ... Bond had enjoyed a far more balanced and plentiful diet than his shipmates in the forecastle. ... [N]ow that he was the only black among six whites, Bond had to wonder what the future held." -p. 173, In the Heart of the Sea
Individual and/or group attempts at boosting morale were important to the survivors of the Essex. By encouraging each other to get things done more efficiently, but at the same time making sure to keep busy, the sailors could at least have a fair chance of shifting their thoughts temporarily away from their dire and terrible situation.
"Indeed, what appears to have distinguished the men of the Essex was the great discipline and human compunction they maintained through the whole ordeal." -p. 173, In the Heart of the Sea
As for the survivors of In the Heart of the Sea, their only real "reward," apart from living with memories of their horrific pasts, is social alienation and mental anguish. "Old age was not kind to Owen Chase. His memory of his sufferings in an open boat never left him, and late in life he began hiding food in the attic of his house on Orange Street. By 1868 Chase was judged 'insane.' The headaches that had plagued him ever since the ordeal had become unbearable. Clutching an attendant's hand, he would sob, 'Oh my head, my head.' Death brought an end to Chase's suffering in 1869." - p. 228, In the Heart of the Sea
But, I had to ask myself, why is this? Are we just suckers for boats and sperm whales?
Then I started thinking about it, what themes tend to underlie a shipwreck story? And then on down the line I went…What other storylines share the similar themes? Well you have the ship wreck, the plane crash, the deserted island, the mountain climbing expedition that goes awry, these inexplicably horrifying circumstances keep finding themselves staying in the backs of weary minds, and all the while staying all the more relevant. These settings keep reinforcing universal moral conflictions over and over again, as Suzanne mentioned in class the other day “history is repeating itself….right?” Sorry Suzanne, you know I love you. While the woes of Jacobs, The Coquette, Poe’s literature, are of a social kind of struggle, and the woes of the Essex's crew are of a natural kind.
It’s this facet of the shipwreck tale, or the deserted island, that keeps our attention. While this class touches upon the idea of self-reliance, self-preservation in societal demographics narratives like Philbrick’s provide opposition to these ideals which are much more urgent, dire, and fatal. Consequently, the reveal of the ‘self’ and the ability to remain true to ones’ self in such circumstances becomes all the more vividly exposed and challenged.
While it is all but incontestable that the initial "sacrifices" of the crew of the Essex are forced upon them I mean it isn’t like they set out wreck a boat in the middle of the ocean, there's stillthe existence of choice in the narrative. Choice to preserve the self not just in the survival meaning of the word but in the moral sense of the word preservation. Even though many die of disease or dehydration, sooner or later there moral grounds become tested either eat, be eaten.
The appeal of stories like this one might exist solely on the grounds that few can know the true character of themselves based on circumstances like this one. Consequently, the reader takes the journey with the characters in the story as opposed to looking at the circumstances as an outsider.
"If necessity forced them to act like animals, they did so with the deepest regrets. ... William Bond in Hendricks's boat was the last African American left alive. ... Bond had enjoyed a far more balanced and plentiful diet than his shipmates in the forecastle. ... [N]ow that he was the only black among six whites, Bond had to wonder what the future held." -p. 173, In the Heart of the Sea
Individual and/or group attempts at boosting morale were important to the survivors of the Essex. By encouraging each other to get things done more efficiently, but at the same time making sure to keep busy, the sailors could at least have a fair chance of shifting their thoughts temporarily away from their dire and terrible situation.
"Indeed, what appears to have distinguished the men of the Essex was the great discipline and human compunction they maintained through the whole ordeal." -p. 173, In the Heart of the Sea
As for the survivors of In the Heart of the Sea, their only real "reward," apart from living with memories of their horrific pasts, is social alienation and mental anguish. "Old age was not kind to Owen Chase. His memory of his sufferings in an open boat never left him, and late in life he began hiding food in the attic of his house on Orange Street. By 1868 Chase was judged 'insane.' The headaches that had plagued him ever since the ordeal had become unbearable. Clutching an attendant's hand, he would sob, 'Oh my head, my head.' Death brought an end to Chase's suffering in 1869." - p. 228, In the Heart of the Sea
I don't know Dickinson
I don’t know Emily Dickinson, and I don’t think anyone else really does, or maybe ever did.
I want to make this clear though, I am not saying I need or even want to know an artist to understand or appreciate their work. Case and point: it’s been noted that Salvador Dali, whenever he was in public, would literally jump up and down for the sheer hope to get attention. He also kept a piece of lucky driftwood around the house, to ward off evil spirits, and was notorious for not knowing how to count money. There’s a boundless supply of trivial information, referencing the world’s most renowned, cherished artists; information more often than not that’s unknown to the general masses when weighed against to the general recognition of their work. The point is, I don’t need a million reasons to support why I think that Dali was a nutcase, to think his art was revolutionary, or validate why I think his art was revolutionary. I don’t feel a need to try to understand Dali as a man, to feel like I now have the right to interpret his material. Hell, I can’t even understand Dali’s paintings, how could I expect myself to understand Dali?
But this personal thirst to interpret an artist based on their personal information, this unwarranted hope get to know the man/woman who created the work you love or identify with is something that I’ve noticed for quite some time now. I have this friend, for the sake of public medium, let’s call him Joe. Joe could tell you Mick Jagger’s shoe size, Mick Jagger’s bubble gum of preference, Mick Jagger’s work-out ritual (that’s actually true I found out). And yet, whenever I’m around Joe, I tend to feel like my own love for Mick as well as my love for the rest of the Stones is less legitimate somehow, just because I don’t know the tuning on Kieth’s guitar when he laid down “Brown Sugar” (it might have been open G by the way). While, getting to know where an artist is drawing inspiration from when they create, attempting to understand an artist’s psyche or possible causes that shape their psyche can be a wonderful way to better appreciate the content of their work, it shouldn’t ever be a requirement. Art is, after all, ultimately interpretive and the beauty in the eye of the beholder is just as legitimate as the beauty in the eye of the supplier.
But this is where I find myself having issues with Dickinson and her work (which, unfortunately goes hand in hand according to her fans and critics). I take away from art what comes naturally and personally based on my own perceptions on the same subject matter. So, I ask this to most Dickinson fans: why do I have to know Dickinson, or try to know Dickinson, to know her work?
This side effect doesn’t lie solely on Dickinson’s readers, considering most all of her work not only instills but I’d argue it demands a conscious or subconscious decision to delve into the psyche of Dickinson in order to ‘get it.’
It’s interesting, most any artist is complex, intriguing, their ideals easy to confuse or misinterpret. Yet, there is always one shimmering consistency for most successful artists: their work relates to the experiences of others, feeds off of the reciprocation of the reader in some form so, consequently there isn’t a need to know exactly where the inspiration was coming from. However, it’s common knowledge that most of Dickenson’s poetry had no intended audiences, no underlying wish to be shared, she shoved her poems in a desk for crying out loud. This sense of privacy, personalness is drenched all over the texts.
For starters, Dickinson rarely spends time introducing her poems, she neither provides the details of a physical setting as a conventional nature poem might do nor does she explain the poem’s occasion. The poems begin suddenly often with a declaration (“Superiority to fate/ Is difficult to learn”) or a definition (“Hope is a glutton”) As our introduction points out, “Dickinson doesn’t knock before entering, so the reader may feel swept up into the character of the poet’s thought process without knowing it. Instead of a steady run of meaning, the Dickinson poem hops from one figure to another in a kind of zigzag logic that required not just our concentration but our own agility in making imaginative and grammatical leaps.” (xiii)
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the concept of putting effort into a reading, trying to follow the author of a poe but at the same time I don’t think that Dickinson would have even wanted me to understand her thoughts, her feelings. So why make the effort? I envision Emily as that girl in school that no matter how nice you were to her, no matter how much you tried to include her, she’d look at you and try to make you feel like you were an outsider. You know who I’m talking about…
Emily didn’t want to share her genius, her art, her insights, her beauty. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to read some chick’s material if she doesn’t want me to, let alone feel anything from reading it. I’d like to feel motivated to understand an artist’s point of view in accordance with how I interpret it, rather than feeling obligated to ‘get it’ or ‘get her.’
I want to make this clear though, I am not saying I need or even want to know an artist to understand or appreciate their work. Case and point: it’s been noted that Salvador Dali, whenever he was in public, would literally jump up and down for the sheer hope to get attention. He also kept a piece of lucky driftwood around the house, to ward off evil spirits, and was notorious for not knowing how to count money. There’s a boundless supply of trivial information, referencing the world’s most renowned, cherished artists; information more often than not that’s unknown to the general masses when weighed against to the general recognition of their work. The point is, I don’t need a million reasons to support why I think that Dali was a nutcase, to think his art was revolutionary, or validate why I think his art was revolutionary. I don’t feel a need to try to understand Dali as a man, to feel like I now have the right to interpret his material. Hell, I can’t even understand Dali’s paintings, how could I expect myself to understand Dali?
But this personal thirst to interpret an artist based on their personal information, this unwarranted hope get to know the man/woman who created the work you love or identify with is something that I’ve noticed for quite some time now. I have this friend, for the sake of public medium, let’s call him Joe. Joe could tell you Mick Jagger’s shoe size, Mick Jagger’s bubble gum of preference, Mick Jagger’s work-out ritual (that’s actually true I found out). And yet, whenever I’m around Joe, I tend to feel like my own love for Mick as well as my love for the rest of the Stones is less legitimate somehow, just because I don’t know the tuning on Kieth’s guitar when he laid down “Brown Sugar” (it might have been open G by the way). While, getting to know where an artist is drawing inspiration from when they create, attempting to understand an artist’s psyche or possible causes that shape their psyche can be a wonderful way to better appreciate the content of their work, it shouldn’t ever be a requirement. Art is, after all, ultimately interpretive and the beauty in the eye of the beholder is just as legitimate as the beauty in the eye of the supplier.
But this is where I find myself having issues with Dickinson and her work (which, unfortunately goes hand in hand according to her fans and critics). I take away from art what comes naturally and personally based on my own perceptions on the same subject matter. So, I ask this to most Dickinson fans: why do I have to know Dickinson, or try to know Dickinson, to know her work?
This side effect doesn’t lie solely on Dickinson’s readers, considering most all of her work not only instills but I’d argue it demands a conscious or subconscious decision to delve into the psyche of Dickinson in order to ‘get it.’
It’s interesting, most any artist is complex, intriguing, their ideals easy to confuse or misinterpret. Yet, there is always one shimmering consistency for most successful artists: their work relates to the experiences of others, feeds off of the reciprocation of the reader in some form so, consequently there isn’t a need to know exactly where the inspiration was coming from. However, it’s common knowledge that most of Dickenson’s poetry had no intended audiences, no underlying wish to be shared, she shoved her poems in a desk for crying out loud. This sense of privacy, personalness is drenched all over the texts.
For starters, Dickinson rarely spends time introducing her poems, she neither provides the details of a physical setting as a conventional nature poem might do nor does she explain the poem’s occasion. The poems begin suddenly often with a declaration (“Superiority to fate/ Is difficult to learn”) or a definition (“Hope is a glutton”) As our introduction points out, “Dickinson doesn’t knock before entering, so the reader may feel swept up into the character of the poet’s thought process without knowing it. Instead of a steady run of meaning, the Dickinson poem hops from one figure to another in a kind of zigzag logic that required not just our concentration but our own agility in making imaginative and grammatical leaps.” (xiii)
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the concept of putting effort into a reading, trying to follow the author of a poe but at the same time I don’t think that Dickinson would have even wanted me to understand her thoughts, her feelings. So why make the effort? I envision Emily as that girl in school that no matter how nice you were to her, no matter how much you tried to include her, she’d look at you and try to make you feel like you were an outsider. You know who I’m talking about…
Emily didn’t want to share her genius, her art, her insights, her beauty. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to read some chick’s material if she doesn’t want me to, let alone feel anything from reading it. I’d like to feel motivated to understand an artist’s point of view in accordance with how I interpret it, rather than feeling obligated to ‘get it’ or ‘get her.’
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Is it bad to see yourself in a Poe narrative?
Whenever I’m reading or re-reading Poe’s work, this very familiar, very strange reaction comes over me, before I even see it coming: I find myself becoming the narrator I’m reading from.
Yeah, I know I’m a sick bastard.
And this reaction isn’t so comforting to me, especially when you look at Poe’s material (at least in the initial sense of looking at it) considering every damn plotline not so subtly sidesteps some seriously messed up acts of unprecedented viciousness, things my parents would prefer not to know I even imagined myself doing, like burying my wife alive for example, who also happens to be my cousin (creepy) then aptly ripping all of her teeth out.
But this personal investment I cherished with his texts has only lately started to harsh my mellow. Apparently, based on what I’ve heard from my classmates, I’m kind of on my own in my personal engagement to the texts. The general agreement (at least it was a few weeks ago when we first discussed these stories) was that it was Poe who was envisioned as the protagonist within his own stories. It was Jenn, or somebody else, who invited the proposal that was apparently on the tip of everybody’s tongue, “You know, when I’m reading this I envision Poe as the main character, which, is probably why I think Poe might have actually been out of his mind.”
This sent the class into a hullabaloo of responses that lasted a good ten minutes. Despite the rabble I managed to identify one consistent verdict that reigned true: “yup.” Poe’s a crazy one. Poe’s disturbed. Poe this Poe that.
Hearing all of this swirling around me, I figured it’d probably be best to just keep my big, ginger mouth shut. If I dared to share my own investment in Poe’s material (you know, the actually identifying with the text part, as opposed to being shocked by it) there was no telling where the lecture could have gone.
Yet, part of me thinks that my reaction to Poe’s texts is precisely what he had in mind when he wrote his stories. I mean, the fabric of his work is founded on such a personal landscape and within very personal perspectives of even more personal circumstances. But these personal narrations, that invoke this personal identification from the reader is just a product of the individualistic nature within each tale. In Romances like the novels of Hawthorne, conflicts occur among characters within the context of society and are resolved in accordance with society’s rules. Yet, Poe’s Gothic thrive on just the opposite, tales that present these brief flashes of chaos that flare up within lonely narrators living at the fringes of society. Before you know it, the reader is sucked in, mono y mono with his narration.
This kind of approach feels necessary to illustrate a lot of the themes Poe sought to expose: the notion thatevery mind is vulnerable, the causes and effects of the unreliable narrator, and the darker rside of self-reliance. As Meagan G.’s blog put it, “Poe tried to humanize the insane in order to counter the idea of self-reliance. How do you follow someone, or even yourself, if everyone is potentially insane? What do you trust? Do you trust your superiors? Peers? Self?” Sorry if this isn’t kosher but I just loved that so much Meagan. Essentially, the gist is that Poe’s works are about the dissolve of the human psyche and just how close to insanity we each might be my creating this very personal, isolated reading environment.
Favorite Quotes:
“In their consequences, these consequences have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but horror—to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the commonplace.”
-The Black Cat p. 230
Yeah, I know I’m a sick bastard.
And this reaction isn’t so comforting to me, especially when you look at Poe’s material (at least in the initial sense of looking at it) considering every damn plotline not so subtly sidesteps some seriously messed up acts of unprecedented viciousness, things my parents would prefer not to know I even imagined myself doing, like burying my wife alive for example, who also happens to be my cousin (creepy) then aptly ripping all of her teeth out.
But this personal investment I cherished with his texts has only lately started to harsh my mellow. Apparently, based on what I’ve heard from my classmates, I’m kind of on my own in my personal engagement to the texts. The general agreement (at least it was a few weeks ago when we first discussed these stories) was that it was Poe who was envisioned as the protagonist within his own stories. It was Jenn, or somebody else, who invited the proposal that was apparently on the tip of everybody’s tongue, “You know, when I’m reading this I envision Poe as the main character, which, is probably why I think Poe might have actually been out of his mind.”
This sent the class into a hullabaloo of responses that lasted a good ten minutes. Despite the rabble I managed to identify one consistent verdict that reigned true: “yup.” Poe’s a crazy one. Poe’s disturbed. Poe this Poe that.
Hearing all of this swirling around me, I figured it’d probably be best to just keep my big, ginger mouth shut. If I dared to share my own investment in Poe’s material (you know, the actually identifying with the text part, as opposed to being shocked by it) there was no telling where the lecture could have gone.
Yet, part of me thinks that my reaction to Poe’s texts is precisely what he had in mind when he wrote his stories. I mean, the fabric of his work is founded on such a personal landscape and within very personal perspectives of even more personal circumstances. But these personal narrations, that invoke this personal identification from the reader is just a product of the individualistic nature within each tale. In Romances like the novels of Hawthorne, conflicts occur among characters within the context of society and are resolved in accordance with society’s rules. Yet, Poe’s Gothic thrive on just the opposite, tales that present these brief flashes of chaos that flare up within lonely narrators living at the fringes of society. Before you know it, the reader is sucked in, mono y mono with his narration.
This kind of approach feels necessary to illustrate a lot of the themes Poe sought to expose: the notion thatevery mind is vulnerable, the causes and effects of the unreliable narrator, and the darker rside of self-reliance. As Meagan G.’s blog put it, “Poe tried to humanize the insane in order to counter the idea of self-reliance. How do you follow someone, or even yourself, if everyone is potentially insane? What do you trust? Do you trust your superiors? Peers? Self?” Sorry if this isn’t kosher but I just loved that so much Meagan. Essentially, the gist is that Poe’s works are about the dissolve of the human psyche and just how close to insanity we each might be my creating this very personal, isolated reading environment.
Favorite Quotes:
“In their consequences, these consequences have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but horror—to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the commonplace.”
-The Black Cat p. 230
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