Richard Wright - The Man Who Was Almost a Man

                I enjoyed reading the short story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by Richard Wright.  I have finally got the hang of reading the slang language and I love it.  In this short story there was one theme that stuck out to me.  The theme is the search for power.  Dave is imprisoned in a world that deprives him of his personal and money-making power.  He sees his life as a series of abuses and embarrassments.  He is forced to obey his parents, work as a field hand for pay that he never receives, and endure teasing from the other field workers.  His increasing sense of poverty robs him from social and economic forces which keep him from achieving his potential and pursuing his dreams.  Dave’s outlet comes from the idea of owning a gun which is a way for him to quickly become powerful and masculine.  Dave believes that having a pistol in his hand will give him more control over others.  Jenny’s death only limits his future by forcing him to repay Mr. Hawkins the price for the dead mule.  The death of Jenny was accidental but it could be interpreted as Dave’s unconscious desire to strike out against Mr. Hawkins.  Dave could be lashing out at an economic system and social order that he will always be excluded from simply because of his skin color by destroying a symbol of Hawkins prosperity and power as a landowner.  There are at least two symbols that I noticed in this short story.  The first symbol is the gun.  The gun represents control, manhood, respect, and independence. All of these things are exactly what Dave wants.  Dave sees the gun as the solution to all his problems and a reward for all his flaws.  Dave hates the fact that the other field hands treat him like a child and thus mistakenly believes that owning a gun would instantly make a man out of him.  Despite the fact he doesn’t even know how to fire a gun.  He improperly reasons that owning a gun would somehow provide him with independence.  He thought that knowing how to fire it would keep him out of the fields and provide him with greater opportunities.  Dave fantasizes about shooting at Mr. Hawkins house, which suggests that Jenny’s death taught him nothing.  It has only made him want more power, independence, and manhood.  Another symbol is the mule.  The mule, Jenny, represents Dave himself, which fears working as an obedient field hand on another’s man’s land for the rest of his life.  He deliberately recognizes the similarities between himself and Jenny when he says that everyone “treat[s] me like a mule, n they beat me,” referring to the beating that his father had promised him.  Dave believes that all he does is labor like Jenny, hooked to a plow with little hope for reward, escape, or even becoming something better.  The mule also signifies dedication and responsibility, promises of adulthood that Dave is still unwilling to accept.  All he wants is the freedom that he visualizes adults to have without any of their responsibilities.  Jenny’s death is the symbolic death of Dave’s childhood, which he wishes to escape the community and a life of labor.  The power that Dave links with owning a gun brings change but it forces him to go aboard a journey to manhood for which he’s not yet ready for.              

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Man Who Was Almost a Man.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 17 Mar. 2011.

Richard Wright - Introduction and Biography

                Richard Nathan Wright was born on September 4, 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi.  He was the son of Nathan Wright who was an illiterate sharecropper.  His mother was Ella Wilson Wright and she was a schoolteacher.  He was also the grandson of slaves.  His father deserts the family for another woman and Ella works as a cook to support the family.  Richard entered school at Howe Institute in September 1915.  In early 1916 his mother fell ill and his father, Nathan, sent his mother to care for the family.  Richard and his brother had to live in an orphanage for a short time when their grandmother left until their mother could have them live with her parents in Jackson, Mississippi.  Wright entered school again in the fall of 1918 but he was forced to leave after a few months because his mother’s poor health forced him to earn money to support the family.  Richard entered the 5^th grade in Jackson at the age of 13 and was soon placed in 6^th grade.  He delivered newspapers and worked briefly with a traveling insurance salesman.  He managed to earn enough money to but textbooks, food, and clothes by running errands for white people.  He read novels, magazines, and anything else that he could get his hands on.  He wrote his first short story, “The Voodoo of Half-Acre,” in the winter and it was published in the spring of 1924 in the Jackson Southern Register.  He graduated valedictorian of his 9^th grade class in 1925.  Only after a few weeks in high school he had to quit school to earn money to support his brother Leon Alan had returned from Detroit.  There were times that he worked two or three jobs at a time.  After the stock market crash, he lost his job at the post office but he began a novel in 1930 which reflected his experience in the post office.  He had the opportunity to write through the Federal Writer’s Project.  He also became a member of the Communist Party and published poetry and short stories in such magazines as Left Front, Anvil, and New Masses.  His mother dies on January 14, 1959.  Wright dies on November 28, 1960 of a heart attack.  He is cremated along with a copy of ‘Black Boy’ on December 3, 1960.  His ashes remain at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris.  In 1977 his autobiographical, American Hunger, which narrates his experience after moving to the North, was published.  Some of the more open passages that dealt with race, sex, and politics have been omitted before their original publication.                                                 

"Richard Wright Biography." Mathematics Department. Web. 28 Mar. 2011.

Eudora Welty - Powerhouse

           In reading the ‘Powerhouse’ by Eudora Welty, I found it to be a very interesting short story.  The basic theme in the story is the power of the creative imagination.  Imagination is what gives Powerhouse his ability to cast a spell over his audience.  He draws his audience into reality through his voice and his piano and with the members of his band.  The energy that appears from Powerhouse is something beyond the limits of the ordinary existence.  The power that comes from him changes ordinary lives, allowing others to experience the world in a different way.  Powerhouse’s imagination enables him to give expression to his fears such as the jive story about the death of his wife and Uranus Knockwood, the singer who had taken Powerhouse’s place with his wife.  Powerhouse produces an imaginative reality that he may encounter and chase away, so that he can continue to function as a man of the world.  The setting contributes to the strength of the theme.  Powerhouse is a black musician playing in the segregated South, a place where black people cannot even come into the hall and dance to his music.  This gives added grief and gloom to the already depressing circumstances of the human condition.  Powerhouse understands the nature of his imagination, when the waitress asks him about the “real truth” of his wife and he tells her that the event didn’t happen.  He goes on to say that “Truth is something worse” – the real facts of humankind’s life are horrible.  Powerhouse believes that he has the ability to grasp the truth and then relate it to others.  The inference is that he will relate it as a musician through the medium of his music, through the jazz blues that he plays.  In this short story, Welty tries to accomplish a thoughtful version of the setting, her native Mississippi.  She uses the technique of presenting Powerhouse first through the voice of the small-town white narrator.  The narrator plainly represents the local feelings of this segregated community.  Powerhouse is a black man performing before an all-white audience.  He is the kind of person who will take one beyond the limits of his known existence and such people seem dangerous.  The word patterns are strong and lyrical in the opening section.  There is a stream of phrases and incomplete sentences that helps to create the excitement of the subject and to take the reader beyond the limits of an ordinary story.  Welty shows herself to be a master of dialogue, as the jive among the band members achieves its own kind of lyricism.  The use of language in this short story is a tribute to the creative power of the imagination.  This was a great story and I enjoyed reading it.                                          

Ronald L. Johnson. "Powerhouse." Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition. Salem Press, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. 28 Mar, 2011

Eudora Welty - Introduction and Biography

                Eudora Welty was born on April 13, 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi.  She was the daughter of Christian Webb Welty and Chestina Andrews Welty.  Eudora Welty grew up in a close-knit and loving family.  She inherited a love for instruments that instruct and fascinate from her father.  She inherited a passion for reading and language from her mother.  She had two brothers with which she shared bonds of support, companionship, and humor.  She became the most recognized graduate of the Jackson Public School system.  She graduated from Jackson’s Central High School in 1925.  She attended Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus and then at the University of Wisconsin which is where she received her bachelor’s degree.  She went on to graduate from the Columbia University School of business.  She worked at WJDX radio station, wrote society columns for the Memphis Commercial Appeal and served as a Junior Publicity Agent for the Works Progress Administration.  Welty produced seven unique books in fourteen years.  Then the rate of her production came to a startling halt.  For more than a decade her writing was placed on the back burner because of personal tragedies.  She had to care for her two brothers with severe arthritis and her mother who had suffered from a stroke.  After her mother died in 1966, she returned to writing.  In 1936 her first short story appeared and she gradually began to be published in small, then regional and general circulation magazines.  She had many rewards such as the National Medal for Literature, the American Book Award, and an 6-time winner of the O. Henry Award for Short Stories and in 1969, a Pulitzer Prize.  She is known as the first Lady of Southern Literature because her fiction was usually set in the rural South.  She was also a talented and published photographer.  She died on July 23, 2001 in Jackson, Mississippi, her lifelong home, after a short illness and as the result of cardio-pulmonary failure.  She was buried in Jackson, Mississippi.                           

"About Eudora Welty." Women's History - Comprehensive Women's History Research Guide. Web. 27 Mar. 2011.

Marrs, Suzanne. Eudora Welty Foundation | Home. Web. 27 Mar. 2011.

John Steinbeck - Flight

                In the short story “Flight” by John Steinbeck there is a lot of symbolism.  Symbolism is used to portray something beyond itself.  In this short story it is used to represent or foreshadow the ending of the story.  The symbol that is used the most often is the color black.  Black usually represents death.  There are several examples of this in the story.  Some examples include the black handle on the long blade, Pepé’s black hair and the black jerky.  Another example is when Pepé puts  on his father’s black coat, which represents death.  He is literally killing himself when he covers himself with the black coat.  The path that Pepé travels on is described as a well-worn black path.  He is in fact taking the road of death by traveling on this path.  His appearance also helps to foreshadow the ending of the story.  Steinbeck describes Pepé as having a black hat that covers his black thatched hair.  He is also described as being dark, lean and tall.  The shack in which they live is portrayed as weather-beaten and very old.  The shack casts a large shadow to the North east.  The darkness of the shadow symbolizes death in the home.  Steinbeck’s use of black symbolism tells us that the main character, Pepé, is approaching death.  Another symbol that is used in the story is direction.  Direction is used to represent positive or negative effects.  The North and East are generally “good” directions.  I feel like this came about when the early man saw the sun rise in the East.  The directions South and West generally are “bad” directions.  This is because the sun sets in the West.  Height is also a very popular way of foreshadowing the conclusion of the story.  The direction up, which is also the way to heaven is generally “good.”  The direction down is bad because it is the way to hell.  This symbolism can be found when  Pepé is returning home.  He looks at his “weathered little shack” and notices the shadow.  The shadow that he sees is heading in the direction of North East.  Although the directions North and East are “good,” the fact that the shadow is there turn them “bad.”  In this situation, this means that evil is winning over goodness.  No matter which direction  Pepé turns he will fall to evil.  Another example is when Pepé watches the sun set in the West.  The sun is the bringer of all life and it is moving towards evil as well.  This means that it will be dark out and Pepé’s death is soon to come.  Steinbeck also uses symbolism through describing the trees on the mountain.  The tops of the trees were wind-bitten and dead.  So this means that the further Pepé travels up the mountain the closer he is to his foreseeable death.  Steinbeck also uses nature as a symbol.  In this short story the nature symbol is water.  Humans require water in order to live.  Water represents life.  This symbol is found with Pepé's water bag which hung over his horse’s shoulder.  The water leaked from the water bag onto the horse’s shoulder.  This could mean that his life was actually leaking away.  When the horse was shot it was in the same shoulder as his water bag.  Another example of nature symbolism is when Pepé travels up the mountain.  When he starts out he is traveling very close to the river.  The further that he travels on the path, he seems to turn more and more from the river.  This means that  Pepé is moving further away from life and closer to his foreseeable death.  This was an awesome story and I enjoyed reading it.               

        

Trejo, Oscar. "Literary Analysis: "Flight" by John Steinbeck 1 | GroundReport." Hyperlocal News & Opinion Around the World | GroundReport. 19 Apr. 2008. Web. 26 Mar. 2011.

"Flight Summary & Study Guide - John Steinbeck - ENotes.com." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Web. 26 Mar. 2011.

John Steinbeck - Introduction and Biography

                John Steinbeck was an American novelist, story writer, playwright, and an essayist.  He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.  He is best known for the novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (1939).  This novel was generally considered to be a 20^th-century classic.  Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902.  His local region of Monterey Bay was later the setting for most of his fiction.  His father was a county treasurer and his mother was teacher.  Steinbeck learned to love books.  He attended the local high school and worked on farms and ranches during his vacations.  He had many jobs and sometimes he dropped out of college for whole quarters in order to finance his education.  In 1929, Steinbeck took a general zoology course at the Hopkins Marine station, Pacific Grove but he didn’t continue his studies any further – he always planned to be a writer.  His early poems and short stories appeared in diverse magazines.  He spent a short time as a laborer on the construction of Madison Square Garden in New York City.  Steinbeck took odd jobs while he was writing.  Some of the odd jobs that he had was an intern hood-carrier, intern painter, caretaker of an estate, surveyor, and a fruit-picker.  While he was a watchman of a house in the High Sierra, he wrote his first book, ‘Cup of Gold’ (1929).  The publisher had given him $250 in advance but the book failed to earn that much back.  In the early 1930s, Steinbeck met Edward Ricketts in Pacific Grove.  Ricketts was a marine biologist and his views on the interdependence of all life deeply influenced Steinbeck’s thinking.  His first three novels went unnoticed.  ‘Tortilla Flat’ (1935) was a humorous tale of pleasure-loving Mexican-Americans which brought him great recognition.  Steinbeck’s financial situation improved significantly.  He had earned $35 a week for a long time but now he was paid thousands of dollars for the film rights to Tortilla Flat.  Steinbeck served as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune in Great Britain and the Mediterranean area during World War II.  Steinbeck was married to Carol Henning for twelve years but their marriage ended in 1942.  The next year he married the singer Gwyndolyn Conger and they had two sons named Thom and John.  Their marriage ended with a divorce in 1949.  In 1950, he married Elaine (Anderson) Scott.  She was the independent daughter of a Texas oilman and the ex-wife of Zachery Scott, an actor.  Steinbeck served as an advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson, whose Vietnam policies he agreed with.  The president asked for him to go to Vietnam to report on the war.  Steinbeck wrote for the newspaper Newsday a series of articles that divided his readers.  The New York post attacked him for betraying his open-minded past.  On December 20, 1968, John Steinbeck dies of a heart attack in New York.  He had started the work with eagerness but he never finished it.  His son John had problems in later years with drugs and alcohol.  He died in 1991.                                                              

"John Steinbeck Biography - Life, Family, Children, Story, School, Mother, Son, Book, Information, Born, House." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Web. 26 Mar. 2011.

"John Steinbeck - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 27 Mar 2011

Langston Hughes - On the Road

In life, we are often challenged with borders that are created by society and ourselves.  In our partial understanding of what those borders represent, we find ourselves restrained by our personality.  Racism and prejudices have afflicted society for many years.  Many of us have been judged and attacked for expressing our true selves.  In the short story, “On the road” by Langston Hughes we can visualize this racism and prejudice that Sargeant is dealing with.  This story uses scenic symbolism and imagery.  Hughes offers a gift to the readers: Open your heart and life will provide boundless abundance.  Hughes uses nature to demonstrate a distinctive relationship among the blacks and whites.  The snow and the night allows the story to be less disturbing and more interesting to everyone that reads the short story.  The main character, Sargeant, is left doubting the goodness of life.  The white people have overpowered the black population for almost two hundred years.  Sargeant was tired of fighting, tired of surviving, tired of hoping, and most of all tired of the white people who have overpowered and harassed his life.  Hughes uses anger and survival in this short story as well.  When these two things are combined they can be a powerful force when it comes to taking action against the destruction of society.  Limiting our expression of ourselves often leads to anger.  Once anger kicks in, then our survival mode kicks in, and that is when we become more separated from God then at any other time.  We can clearly see that Sargeant is struggling for survival.  He is rejected a number of times for a place to stay but then he finds himself at the front door of the church with hope that he may enter and stay warm overnight.  There he is rejected again but this time at the feet of a white church.  Sargeant was a very strong-minded man.  He was starving and tired but he certainly felt that at least the church should offer him a comforting, relaxing place to stay.  I think that Sargeant isn’t only trying to survive but he was also holding onto his faith.  Hughes uses Jesus Christ as a metaphor for how we experience life.  For Christians, Jesus was a savior who carried the burden of our sins and troubles to show us that God loves his children.  In this story, Sargeant is similar to Christ in a way that he must carry a heavy burden as well.  Once the church fell down we are given the image of Sargeant walking down the street with the stone pillar on his shoulder, this is very much like Christ as he carried the cross.  When the church came crashing down so did all of its values, beliefs, and ideas.  Once the church fell Jesus was freed from the cross.  It symbolizes the same for Sargeant because he was freed from his burden of being overpowered by the whites and standing up for his own needs.  Traditional church values conflict with each other when it comes to the acceptance of every human being.  Christ is described as a man of peace and love, who pursued to invite anyone regardless of race or sex into the kingdom of heaven.  In this story Hughes challenges Christianity by showing how judgmental and self-righteous the church has been throughout the years.  Through the Great Depression America struggled enormously.  This story opens our eyes to unconditional love and respect for humanity.  Hughes pays a special thanks to people like Jesus and Sargeant who have made our world a better place.  This is a very touching story because we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. 

                                                                                  

"Analysis of Langston Hughes' On the Road." Web. 23 Mar 2011

"Analysis Of On the Road by Langston Hughes - Essays - Cmcain." Free Term Papers, Research Papers, Essays, Book Reports | OPPapers.com. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.

"On the Road by Langston Hughes Essays." MegaEssays.com - Essays, Essays and Term Paper! Web. 23 Mar. 2011.

Langston Hughes - Poetry - The Negro Speaks of Rivers - The Weary Blues - Harlem

                I enjoyed reading all the poems by Langston Hughes.  I am going to discuss three of the poems that I liked best.  The first poem that I enjoyed was “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.”  This poem is the most reflective about culture and strength.  This poem was written when Hughes was only 17 years old.  The poem is a loud suggestion of great principles as ancient as it appears timeless, preceding human existence, longer than human memory.  The rivers are part of God’s body that participates in his immortality.  There are earthly correspondents of eternity such as deep, endless, and mysterious.  All of which are named in the order of their association with black history.  The black man has drunk of their life-giving substances and therefore he has borrowed their immortality.  He and the rivers have become one.  The mysterious change of the Mississippi River from mud to gold by the sun’s brightness is reflected in the change of slaves into free men by Lincoln’s Proclamation.   As the rivers deepen with time, so does the black man’s soul.  As the waters in the river constantly flow, so will the black soul endure.  The black man in the poem has seen the rise and fall of civilizations from the earliest times.  He has seen the beauty and death-changes of the world over the thousands of years and he will survive even this America.  This poem is a magnificent reminder of the strength and fullness of history in a time and place where black life is held cheap and the days of black men appear to be numbered.  The next poem that I enjoyed was “The Weary Blues.”  It seems as though all the singer has in this poem is his moaning blues, the disclosure of “a black man’s soul,” and those blues are what helps to keep him alive.  The blues obviously helps him keep his identity.  Even though he sings of the blues, he is singing about his life and about the way that he and other blacks have to deal with the white society.  The accepted Western sound of the piano and the form of Western music are changed as his black hands touch the white keys of the piano.  The piano comes to life as an addition of the singer, and moans, changed by the black tradition to a mirror of black sorrow that also reflects the changing of power and beauty of the black tradition.  This is the tradition that helps keeps the singer alive and gives him his identity.  When he is done singing the blues, he goes to bed and sleeps like a deceased object.  The blues are echoing beyond his playing, beyond his daily cycles, and through both his conscious and unconscious states.  The last poem that I liked was “Harlem.”  This poem is asking questions throughout of what happens to people and society when millions of individuals’ dreams get deferred, or put off indefinitely.  This poem explores the risks and consequences of African Americans losing sight of dreams and hope.  The language in this poem is very truthful and down-to earth.  The narrator is asking if a dream becomes a dried-up fruit, a running sore, rotten meat, or a sweet that crusts and sugars over.  He also asks if a dream sags or explodes.  All of these questions enable the reader to see and smell the frustration of American blacks.  The theme of this poem is frustration.  Frustration characterized the mood of American blacks.  Even though, the Civil War in the previous century had freed them from slavery and federal laws had granted them the right to vote, the right to own property, and so on.  There were continuing prejudice against blacks as well as laws had been passed since the Civil War that relegated them to second-class citizenship.  Therefore, blacks had to attend poorly furnished segregated schools and settle for tedious jobs such as janitors, ditch-diggers, servants, shoeshine boys, and so on.  In several states, the blacks couldn’t use the same public facilities as whites, including restrooms, restaurants, theaters, and parks.  Access to other facilities such as taking the buses, the blacks was required to take a back seat, literally, to the white people.  By the mid-Twentieth Century, their frustration with substandard status became a powder keg, and the fuse was burning.  Hughes understood completely what the future held, as he indicated in the last line of the poem – “Or does it explode?”

Cummings, Michael J. "Harlem: Analysis of the Langston Hughes Poem." Free Study Guides for Shakespeare and Other Authors. 2007. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.

Cummings, Michael J. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers: a Study Guide." Free Study Guides for Shakespeare and Other Authors. 2010. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.

"On "The Weary Blues"" Welcome to English « Department of English, College of LAS, University of Illinois. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.

Langston Hughes - Introduction and Biography

                James Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri.  He was a member of an abolitionist family.  He was the great-great-grandson of Charles Henry Langston, brother of John Mercer Langston, who was the first Black American to be elected to public office in 1855.  He lived with his grandmother all of his life. Hughes felt hurt by both his mother and his father, and was unable to understand why he was not allowed to live with either of them. These feelings of rejection caused him to grow up very insecure and unsure of himself.  Hughes attended Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio.  In the 8^th grade he began writing poetry and he was elected as Class Poet.  Hughes’ father didn’t think he would be able to make a living at writing so he encouraged him to pursue a more practical career.  His father paid for his tuition at Columbia University on the grounds that he would study engineering.  Hughes dropped out of the program after a short period of time with a B+ average.  The entire time that he was at the University he continued to write poetry.  The first poem that he published was “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” which appeared in Brownie’s Book.  His poems, short plays, essays and short stories later appeared in the NAACP publication Crisis Magazine and in Opportunity Magazine.  One of his favorite pastimes was sitting in the clubs listening to blues, jazz and writing poetry.  In 1924 he returned to Harlem, the period known as the Harlem Renaissance.  His work was repeatedly published and his writing prospered during this period.  Later, Hughes received a scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he received his B.A. degree in 1929.  He was a productive writer.  He devoted his life to writing and lecturing.  Langston wrote sixteen books of poems, two novels, three collections of short stories, four volumes of “editorial” and “documentary” fiction, twenty plays, children’s poetry, musicals and operas, three autobiographies, a dozen radio and television scripts and dozens of magazine articles.  He also edited seven anthologies.  Money was an issue throughout his life.  He did manage to support himself as a writer which was by no means a small task.  He was never financially secure.  Langston Hughes died on May 22, 1967 from cancer after having abdominal surgery.  His residence at 20 East 127^th Street in Harlem, New York has been given landmark status by the New York Preservation Commission.  The entire block of 127^th Street was renamed “Langston Hughes Place.”                              

              

"Langston Hughes Biography: African-American History: Crossing Boundaries: Kansas Humanities Council." Kansas Heritage Group | Established 1993 | Kansas (KS) History, Old West KS, Cities, Museums, Art, Racing, Cowboy Cooking, Laughead Web. 22 Mar. 2011.

William Faulkner - Barn Burning

          The short story “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner is a simple look at the struggle of a boy trying to do what is right, or do what is best for his family during the post-Civil War era.  Sartoris Snopes, the main character, is a poor son of a traveling renter farmer.  At the beginning of the story he is questioned about the burning of a farmers barn by his father, Abner Snopes.  The young boy is torn between saying what is right, telling the truth, or lying to protect his father.  The boy was never forced to tell the judge about his father burning the barn, but is certain that he would have told if he was asked.  Abner Snopes, the father, is a soldier from the Civil War.  He was a skill for burning down the barns of those who crossed his path.  Faulkner uses the symbol of blood to explain the theme of loyalty to the family.  The theme of blood is illustrated when the young boy is to testify and is being pressured by his father to lie.   When the boy is put on the stand in the improvised courtroom he is pressured because he knows that his father will do something foolish if he tells the truth.  The young boy was also told that some things are more important than the truth and family is the most important thing.  Abner states “You would have told them” to his young son.  I believe that this statement shows how the boy feels toward his blood father and how even though it would have been a lie he should have testified in his father’s favor.  This also shows how the father feels about family.  The blood in a plain sense appears as well, highlighting the passion of the ties among family.  An example of this is when the Snopes’ left the temporary courthouse at the beginning of the story and a local boy accuses Snopes of being a barn burner and then Sartoris spins around to confront him, then the boy hits Sartoris and bloodies his face.  The blood that is dried and caked on his face during the ride out of town is a mark of pride:  Sartoris defended his family name.  Abner once again plans to burn a barn.  Sartoris understands that family loyalty comes with a great cost and a heavy burden.  Sartoris rejects family royalty and betrays his father by warning de Spain that his barn is about to be burned.  The family is finally free when Snopes is killed at the end of the story.  Snopes is presumably shot to death by de Spain.  The whole family was loyal but they still ended up alone.                                        

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Barn Burning.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.

William Faulkner - Introduction and Biography

          William Faulkner came from an old southern family.  He was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi but he grew up in Oxford, Mississippi.  He was the oldest of four sons of Murray Charles Faulkner and Maud (Butler) Faulkner.  At the age of 13, he began to write poetry.  He played quarterback on a football team and suffered a broken nose at Oxford High School.  Before graduating High School, he dropped out of school and worked temporarily in his grandfather’s bank.  Faulkner joined the Canadian, and later the British, Royal Air Force during World War I.  He studied at the University of Mississippi but he never graduated from there.  He worked briefly for a New York bookstore and a New Orleans newspaper.  He worked on the majority of his novels and short stories on a farm in Oxford.  He did take some trips to Europe and Asia and he had a few brief stays in Hollywood as a screenwriter.  Faulkner created a host of characters typical of the historical growth and later corruption of the South in an attempt to create a legend of his own.  In 1949, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.  His style is not very easy.  He has connections to European modernism.  Faulkner’s sentences are long and hypnotic and sometimes he withholds important details.  He also refers to people or events that the reader will not learn about until much later.  Faulkner failed as a poet during the 1920s because many companies rejected his work.  He has written many novels which have been successful.  His works created some of the most enduring and detailed portraits of life on the American South.  Most of his novels explore family dynamics, race, gender, and social class.  His novels has fascinated and challenged readers for over sixty years with his iconic characters, difficult plotlines, and many shifts in time.  He is known for an experimental style with detailed attention to language and accent.  Faulkner used “stream of consciousness” in his writing.  He often wrote highly emotional, delicate, clever, complicated, and sometimes Gothic or bizarre stories.  He used a wide variety of characters in his stories including slaves or descendants of slaves, poor white, agrarian, or working-class Southerners, and Southern aristocrats.  He died on July 6, 1962.                  

"William Faulkner - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 22 Mar 2011 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-bio.html

Ernest Hemingway - The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

                The short story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemingway was a great story to read.  The narration of this story is told in third person with an all-seeing narrator.  Hemingway tells the story from the views of Macomber, Wilson, Margot and the lion in which Macomber flees.  The plot of this short story is powered by personal relationships.  The use of personal relationships is a technique that is effective at exposing each character’s motivations and the reasons for their behavior.  This story is told mainly through the points of view of Macomber and Wilson.  This is a regular trend with Hemingway’s downgrading of Margot.  This story is about one man’s “coming of age” with the help of the African flatlands, a rifle, and a friendship with another man. The story is also about how Macomber’s freedom was possibly foreseen by a self-centered wife.  Hemingway was a great supporter in the power of nature to improve one’s quality of life.  He spent most of his life as an outdoorsman. He went hunting, fishing, camping, and boating in many diverse places such as Europe, the Caribbean, the United States, and Africa.  This short story was wrote by Hemingway following a 10-week safari trip in East Africa.  There are many different themes that Hemingway uses such as manhood, fear, and the “coming of age.”  All of these themes are exposed through nature and by overcoming the challenges of the wonderful outdoors.  Francis Macomber is described as a handsome man.  He is good at court games, setting fishing records and his safari clothes were practically new.  He has never had any real exposure to a raw, pure natural environment even though he was considered very athletic.  He is described as timid, submissive to his wife, cowardly and frustrated.  He becomes inspired, supported, and overjoyed once he conquers his fears and guns down three buffalo.  He has finally become a man by defeating nature.  His wife, Margot Macomber, is selfish, spiteful, disgraceful, double-crossing, cunning, and possibly murderous.  Hemingway considers Margot as a necessary criminal in this story, as an awkward but vital component of the survival of his male characters.  The main question at the end of the story is whether Margot murdered Macomber or if she was only trying to kill the buffalo.  I was astounded with the ending but in my opinion I think that Margot was shooting at the buffalo because she seen that her husband was in danger.                                                         

Evans, Sara. Wang, Bella ed. *Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Study Guide : Summary and Analysis of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"*. GradeSaver, 10 December 2010 Web. 19 March 2011.

Ernest Hemingway - Introduction and Biography

        Ernest Hemingway was one of the most famous American novelist, short-story writers and essayist of his time.  His simple style of writing influenced a wide range of writers.  In 1954, Hemmingway was awarded the Noble Prize for Literature.  Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899.  His mother was Grace Hall and she had an operatic career.  She dressed Hemmingway as a little girl in his youth and he never forgave her for that.  Dr. Clarence Edmonds Hemmingway was his father and he taught his son to love the out-door life.  In 1928 Hemmingway’s father took his own life after losing his health to diabetes and his money in the Florida real-estate bubble.  Hemingway attended the public schools in Oak Park.  Some of his earliest stories and poems were published in his high school newspaper.  After he graduated from high school in 1917, he worked six months as a reporter for the Kansas City Star.  During World War I, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in Italy.  He suffered a severe leg wound in 1918.  The Italian government acknowledged him twice for his service in their country.  During his hospital recuperation, he had an affair with an American nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky.  This affair was the basis for the novel A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1929).  This novel was a tragic love story and it was first filmed in 1932.  He worked as a journalist in Chicago after the war.  In 1921 he moved to Paris, where he wrote articles for the Toronto Star.  Hemingway’s language is very straightforward.  He uses irony and omission which make the text meaningful and rich in allusions.  When Hemingway was a reporter he had already started drinking and he could tolerate large amounts of alcohol.  For a long time, his drinking didn’t disturb the quality of his writing.  Late in the 1940s he started to hear voices in his head, he was overweight, he had high blood pressure and he had all the signs of cirrhosis of the liver.  He taught his 12-year- old son Patrick to drink along with all his other brothers.  Hemingway was hospitalized in 1960 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for the treatment of depression.  He was released in 1961.  He was given electric shock therapy for two months.  Hemingway committed suicide with his favorite shotgun at his home in Ketchum, Idaho on July 2, 1961.   

                                                    

"Ernest Hemingway." Www.kirjasto.sci.fi. Web. 19 Mar. 2011. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hemingwa.htm.

Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God

          I really enjoyed reading the novel ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ by Zora Neale Hurston.  Once I started reading this novel, I had a hard time putting it down.  This was a novel that kept me interested but at first I didn’t think that I was going to like it.  One theme that I noticed in this novel was love and relationships versus independence.  In this novel Janie reaches a strong sense of self and comes to value her independence.  Janie’s journey toward enlightenment is not started alone. The gender differences that Hurston promotes require that men and women provide each other with things that they need but do not have.  Janie considers fulfilling relationships as equal and based on mutual respect.  Janie demonstrates this by her relationship with Tea Cake which uplifts her into equality noticeably absent from her marriages to Logan and Jody.  Relationships are indicated to be necessary to a satisfying life, but Janie’s search for spiritual fulfillment is basically a self-centered one.  Even though Janie is alone at the end of the novel, she seems to be very content.  Janie frees herself from her horrible and difficult relationships with Logan and Jody.  Logan and Jody delay her personal journey.  Janie experiences true happiness and insight with Tea Cake and she becomes secure in her independence.  Janie feels a deep connection to the world around her and at the end of the novel she even feels the spirit of Tea Cake with her.  She may be alone in the world physically but she doesn’t feel alone.  Throughout this novel, Hurston makes reference to Janie’s hair.  I believe that her hair is a symbol of her power and unusual identity.  Her hair represents her strength and individuality in many different ways.  First of all, her hair represents her independence and disobedience of unimportant community standards.  At the beginning of the novel the town criticizes her hair and says that it is inappropriate for a woman of Janie’s age to wear her hair down.  Janie refuses to bow down to their norms which clearly reflect her strong, rebellious spirit.  Her braid is continuously described in phallic terms.  It is a symbol of male power and strength which distorts gender lines and thus threatens Jody.  Her hair was very straight and it symbolized whiteness.  Mrs. Turner loves Janie because of her straight hair and other Caucasian characteristics.  Her hair contributes to the normally white male power that she carries which helps her disturb traditional power relationships (male over female, white over black) throughout the novel.  I enjoyed reading this novel because it really was a wonderful love story.  The language was a little hard to understand but once I got the hang of it I was able to understand it.        

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Their Eyes Were Watching God.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 12 March 2011.

Susan Glaspell - Trifles

                The play ‘Trifles’ by Susan Glaspell is a murder mystery that explores gender relationships, power between sexes, and the nature of truth.  This is the kind of reading material that interests me and I loved reading this play.  I love mystery murder novels and TV shows as well.  This is based on actual events that occurred in Iowa at the turn of the century.  Glaspell covered the murder trial of a farmer’s wife, Margaret Hossack, in Indianola, Iowa while she worked as a reporter for the Des Moines News.  Hossack was accused of murdering her husband.  The play ‘Trifles’ is based on a story very similar to this but Glaspell used different names.  Within the play, the farmer and his wife never actually appear.  The story focuses on the prosecutor, George Henderson, who has been called in to investigate the murder; Henry Peters, the local sheriff; Lewis Hale, a neighboring farmer who discovered Wright’s body; and Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, wives of the two local men.  The three men rage and storm around the farmhouse and the barn searching for clues.  The two women discover bits of evidence in the ‘trifles’ of a farmer’s wife – her baking, cleaning and sewing.  The three men virtually ignore the woman’s world; they remain blind to the truth before their eyes.  I think that the most important theme in ‘Trifles’ is the diversity between men and women.  The two sexes are separated by the roles that they play in society, their physicality, their methods of communication and their powers of observation.  Through this play men tend to be hostile, forceful, impolite, critical and selfish.  Women are more cautious, purposeful, sensitive, and thoughtful to the needs of others.  This is why the women were able to find more clues than the men were.  The women thought and looked for things the way that a woman would.  Relating to someone can help you to better understand what they are going through and why they do the things that they do.  There is never any proof of who tied the rope around Wright’s neck so more than likely Mrs. Wright will not be charged for his murder.  I think that if the men would have found the dead bird in the red box then they would have had proof that there were problems within the home and possibly a motive for the murder.        

Susan Glaspell - Biography

                Susan Glaspell was born in Davenport, Iowa on July 1, 1876.  She graduated from Drake University.  She worked for the Des Moines Daily News as a journalist.  Once her stories began appearing in magazines such as Harper’s and The Ladies’ Home Journal, she gave up the newspaper business.  Glaspell met George Cook, a brilliant stage director, in 1915.  The two of them initiated the Provincetown Players on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  The Players were an outstanding gathering of actors, directors, and writers.  Much of her writing is strongly feminist.  Most of her writings deal with the roles that women play or are force to play in society and the relationships between men and women.  She has written more than ten plays for the Provincetown Players.  Glaspell married George Cook in 1922.  They moved to New York City and she continued to write, mostly fiction stories and plays.  In 1931, she won the Pulitzer Prize for ‘Alison’s House’ which is a play based loosely on the life and family of Emily Dickinson.  The latter part of her life was spent on Cape Cod writing.  Susan Glaspell is a very interesting late 19^th century woman writer.  She was raised in the local color tradition which totally changed her life and art, after her marriage and moved east.  About the same time American writing moved from regionalism to modernism, Glaspell “came of age.”  She helped found the modern movement in American drama.  She returned to fiction and earlier themes when her experimental period was over.  Her fiction and earlier themes were much more maturely presented.  No one can say for sure if her retreat back to regionalism was because of her husband’s death or because she felt more secure in the older tradition.  In the summer of 1948, Glaspell died in Provincetown.  She left behind a literacy legacy that includes 13 plays, 14 novels, and 50 short stories, article, and essays.  Her drama will ensure her a lasting place in Modern American literature.  Glaspell wrote honestly of women’s struggle to persecution at a time when radical female voices were hardly ever heard and even more hardly ever listen to.                       

          

Works Cited

"Susan Glaspell : Biography." Spartacus Educational - Home Page. Web. 02 Mar. 2011. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jglaspell.htm>.

McMichael, George, and James S. Leonard. "Susan Glaspell." Anthology of American Literature. 10th ed. Vol. II. Glenview: Pearson Education, 2011. 1316-318. Print.

Willa Cather - Paul’s Case

    

     I enjoyed reading the short story ‘Paul’s Case’ by Willa Cather.  I would consider Paul as a troubled child who was having a hard life. I found that the red carnations were a symbol throughout this short story.  The red carnations that Paul often wears in his buttonholes represent him.  At the opening of the story, when Paul wears a red carnation to meet his teachers and the principal, the adults correctly interpret the red carnations as evidence of Paul’s continued disobedience.  The teacher and principal would like for Paul to show some remorse, but the brisk flower proves that he feels none.  At the conclusion of the story, Paul buys red carnations.  As he is walking towards the train tracks, he observes that the carnations have wilted in the cold.  Paul then buries one of the flowers in the snow before he leaps in front of the train.  The burial of the carnations is a symbolic prelude to Paul’s actual suicide. 

     Paul never truly fits in anywhere nor does he ever feel comfortable in his own body.  He is moving through his world uncomfortably.  Paul is obsessed with art, theater, and music.  His job at Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh allows him to indulge in his obsessions.  Paul has an impractical idea that the art world is an ideal fantasyland.  He uses art as a drug to escape his miserable existence.  Paul never has a desire to join the art world that he so admires, instead, he only wants to sit back and observe other people.  Paul feels disrespect for his teachers, classmates, neighbors, and family members, all of whom he sees as completely narrow-minded. 

     Paul is also obsessed with money.  He wants to be rich and he believes that great wealth is in his future.   Paul lies constantly in order to get out of a sticky situation and sometimes just to impress his classmates and teachers because of his selfishness and desperation to escape his own understated life.  Cather makes it very clear that Paul has homosexual tendencies even though it is never clear if he acknowledges or acts upon them.  Paul feels isolated from society because of his homosexuality and his general despise for other people. 

     Paul’s self-destructive desires strengthen throughout the story.  He first wishes to escape life by submerging himself in art.  Cather’s language suggests his longing for silence, when he is standing outside of the soprano’s house and listening to the symphony.  Paul wants to let art take him away, “blue league after blue league, away from everything.”  He spend one entire night imagining what would happen if his father mistakenly thought that he was a burglar and shot him.  Paul also imagines what would happen if his father did not regret killing him.  The inference from all these images is that Paul believes that one day he will fail and disgust his father so significantly that his father will wish him dead.  Near the end of the story, we learn that Paul bought a gun when he arrived in New York because even at the beginning of his adventure, he anticipated that he might need “a way to snap the thread.”  The narrator mentions darkness in Paul several times throughout the story.  This darkness that is mentioned is a fear that he has felt since he was a child.  In the end, Paul ultimately commits suicide but not because of only one event or one character trait.  All of his causes for misery, isolation, and alienation are what leads him to leap in front of a train.                                           

Works Cited

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 2 March. 2011