The Devil And Tom Walker

“The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, is a tale written in the romanticism period. It displays many characteristics of romanticism. In a lot of writings during this time period, nature is a big theme. It was important in this time and you can tell by how much it is displayed in their writing. For example, in “The Devil and Tom Walker”, when Tom first ventures out into the forest, the author uses great detail to describe the appearance of the forest. “The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it dark at noonday… It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black, smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water snake, where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned, half rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire.” (Irving 242). I like all the details that authors use in this time period to describe nature, it makes the writing a lot more interesting and better to read.

When comparing “The Devil and Tom Walker” to “Rip Van Winkle”, I found a lot of similarities between the two of Washington Irving’s stories. They are both a type of legend. “The Devil and Tom Walker” is a legend that takes place in Boston, Massachusetts. “Rip Van Winkle” took place in New York. Both of these stories have the theme of the nagging wife. In “The Devil and Tom Walker”, Tom’s wife nags him about taking the devil’s deal because she is very selfish and she wants all the money for herself. The only reason that Tom does not take the Devil’s deal in the first place is because he refuses to listen to his wife. Only after she disappears does he decide to go after the Devil and take the deal. In “Rip Van Winkle”, Rip is described as a “henpecked husband” or one who is constantly nagged by his wife and is very obedient to her. Rip goes into the mountains because he wanted to get away from his wife, and that is how he ended up getting into the situation that he got into. I think that Washington Irving had kind of a messed up view of women since he keeps depicting them as nagging trouble makers.

“The Devil and Tom Walker” and “Rip Van Winkle” showed a writing style of the romanticism period. They both used a lot of detail in describing things and they also had a lot of nature themes in them. I found these tales to be a lot more interesting than any of the other things that we have been reading in this class in a while because they were a lot easier to understand than the poems of the fireside poets and they are also much more entertaining and interesting than the poems and writings of the puritan and rationalism writings.

Matthews, Washington Irving. "4. Rip Van Winkle By Washington Irving. Matthews, Brander. 1907. The Short-Story." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Bartleby.com, Apr. 2011. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. .

Cycle of Life and Death

Nature and spirituality play a very large role in the cycle of life and death. If you think about it, pretty much your whole life you live around nature. Nature is everywhere you look. It is there when you are born and it is there when you die. Nature's role in the circle of life is very important. The circle of life is the cycle that everyone goes through of being born, living your life, and then dying. When you are born, it is a natural process. You live your life and all around you there is nature. Man tries to separate from nature a lot in life, but it is not possible to completely separate your self from nature because it is literally everywhere. As soon as you walk out side of your house, you are back in nature. I enjoy spending time outside and in nature so a lot of my life is spent with nature. When you die, you return back to nature. You are buried in the ground and therefore, you return back to nature. In my environmental science class, we are learning about the circle of life and how when an animal dies, it provides food for other animals. When an animal dies in the forest, part of their body can be eaten by other animals or decomposers and the other part of the animal's body goes into the ground to become a part of the soil which provides food for trees and other plants. The trees and plants then provide food for other animals.I think that this is a good example of nature playing its role in the circle of life. I think that humans try very hard to detach themselves from nature all throughout their life, by living in houses with air conditioning and couches and televisions and indoor plumbing instead of outside in nature, but I think that in the end, we all return back to nature when we die and are buried in the ground. I think that nature is always present in the circle of life.

Romanticism

The writing style of the romanticism period is very different from the writing styles of the other periods. The writing style used in the romanticism period and in the writing of the fireside poets is very detailed. They use a lot of colorful words that add a lot to their writing. When you read these poems you have to read them a lot slower than you would read the writing of the puritan time period or of the rationalism writing. You have to think about what you are reading a lot more and you have to really analyze everything. A lot of the poetry could be analyzed differently by different people and mean different things to everyone. There were five different fireside poets. They are called fireside poets because families would sit around a fire and recite their poems. These poets told stories with their poetry and used very descriptive language to describe the New England countryside in their poetry.

One poem that I found by the fireside poet James Russell Lowell is called "The Captive". It was kind of hard for me to understand the poem and what was happening in it because it used a lot of words that I am not familiar with. The writing style of this poem was completely different than that of the rational time periods. When you compare the two, the fireside poetry of the romanticism time period uses a lot more descriptive words than the writings that we read from the rational time period. In the rational time period, a lot of thought and logic and science were used and reflected into their writings, in the poetry from the romanticism period, they did not talk about science and logic, they talked more about nature and religion. Nature was mentioned in the poem that I read more than anything. James Russell Lowell talked about and described nature a lot in his poem, "The Captive". For example, in one part of his poem, he uses an entire verse to describe how the moon was glowing on the woods and the hilltop. He uses so much descriptions that it takes up a whole verse.

"Then the great moon on a suddenOminous, and red as blood, Startling as a new creation, O'er the eastern hilltop stood, Casting deep and deeper shadows Through the mystery of the wood."

You can tell that they valued nature during the romanticism period because they talk about it a lot in their poetry. In the writings that we read from the Puritan time, you can tell that unlike the logical writings style of the rational time period and the importance of nature in the romanticism time period, they valued religion a lot. Everything that happened to them, they would bring it back to God and say how he had something to do with it. For example, in Anne Bradstreet's poem "Upon the Burning of Our House", her house burns down and she relates it back to God. She could have complained and mourned the loss of all of her earthly belongings and her home, but she does not. Instead, she says that it is not important because the things she lost were all just earthly things that did not really matter. She said that they were not her own things, but God's so it was fair that God took them away from her.

"And when I could no longer look,
I blest His name that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
Yea, so it was and so 'twas just.
It was His own, it was not mine,
Far be it that I should repine"

This poem is a very religious poem, which is very different from the writing of the romanticism style and the fireside poets.

"James Russell Lowell's Poem: The Captive." Read Book Online: Literature Books,novels,short Stories,fiction,non-fiction, Poems,essays,plays,Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize. 2011. Web. 02 Dec. 2011. .

Bradstreet, Anne. "Upon the Burning of Our House." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Co, 2009. 91. Print.

Benjamin Franklin's Apprentice

I think that being Benjamin Franklin's apprentice would be a very interesting job. Benjamin Franklin was obviously very smart and he came up with a lot of good ideas, and so I think that it would be pretty cool to be his apprentice. I would probably wake up early in the morning, because I would not want to waste any time. Then, I would shower and clean my room, because cleanliness was very important to Mr. Franklin. After that I would eat breakfast with Mr. Franklin and discuss sciency, rational type things. We would not eat too much food or more than we need because we would want to be practicing his first virtue, temperance, meaning we would not want to eat ourselves to dullness. While we are having our morning conversation over breakfast, we would have to be careful not to speak trifling conversation, because according to his second virtue, silence, we would not want to speak of anything that would not benefit ourselves or others. During breakfast, if one of us were to spill our drink, or drop a utensil on the floor or something, we would not freak out or get upset because as Franklin said in his eleventh virtue, tranquility, we would not want to become upset or disturbed at trifles or accidents common and unavoidable. We would be careful while we are eating that we do not waste any food because Franklin was all about frugality and not wasting anything as his fifth virtue would suggest. For the rest of the day we would do whatever experiment or activity that Franklin wanted to do. It would probably include a lot of logical and rational things but I am sure that it would all be very interesting. I think Franklin would be a really cool guy to work with because his virtues make him a good person in my opinion. He seems like a pretty chill guy who does not sweat the small stuff and I would enjoy being his apprentice.

Overcoming The Challenge of Long Distance

It is going to be very difficult to finish the Franklin's Virtues project with people who are not in the same area as us because it is going to be very difficult to communicate with these people. For example, it is already a challenge for me to talk to my partners just to see what part of the project each person wants to do. I have 6 people in my group. Out of the six people who are in my group, one of them gave an email address that is not valid, and out of the five others, only one emailed me back. The emails that I have received have also not been very helpful. The project is due tomorrow and none of my group members seem too concerned that we have not even started on the video. I do not want to end up doing this whole project by myself, because that is not the point of the project and also because that would be a lot of work for me to do all by myself and that is unfair to me. If my group members do not step up, I really do not know what I am going to do. So, so far the biggest challenge of this project and having partners who are a long distance away from here is being able to communicate with my partners not only their assignments and what each person needs to do in order to complete this project, but also being able to communicate to my partners that this project is important and that we need to get started on it. I am going to email my partners tonight and hope that they all realize that we really need to get to working on this project. I knew from the beginning when this project was first assigned that working with long distance partners was going to be a new and interesting challenge, but I had no idea of how frustrating and annoying it would actually end up being. I don't blame my partners that they really are not doing anything because I know that they do not have computers in their everyday classroom so that makes it a bit more difficult for them to do, but on the other hand, I know that most people have access to the internet either at home on a computer or even on their cell phones and I do not think that it is that big of a deal to just email me back and give me some ideas instead of making me come up with the whole project by myself.

Journal- A Time When I Bonded With Nature

Once upon a time I was in Florida with my friends. It was a beautiful day on the Panama City Beach. I decided to spend that day bonding with nature. I woke up early that morning with my friend Mackenzie and we went for a morning jog on the beach. It was around 6 am and we were both very tired. We almost decided to give up on our idea of a morning jog on the beach, but we overcame our tiredness and got out of bed. When we went outside, it was a beautiful morning. The sun was rising and the temperature on the beach was perfect. The beach was very empty when we got there. Usually the beach would be very crowded, but at 6 in the morning, it was just us and the beach. Our morning run turned into more of a morning walk on the beach. We walked into the ocean just a little bit. We picked up some interesting shells that we found and continued to walk along the beach. The sun was barely rising and it was very beautiful. After our morning walk, we went to breakfast. By this time, everybody was awake and either eating breakfast or out on the beach. It was weird to think that just a couple hours earlier, Mackenzie and I were the only people on the beach. Later that day, I continued my bonding with nature. I spent most of the day on the beach and it was a very good day. I spent a lot of time swimming in the ocean with all my friends and laying on the beach. I enjoyed spending time with nature. It turned out to be a really good day and maybe even one of my favorite days of the trip.

Communicating with Partners

It is going to be very difficult for us to communicate with our partners for our Franklin's virtues project. It will be easy for us to communicate with some of them, the ones that are from Plains, but it is going to be a challenge for us to communicate with the partners that are in Farmington. I think that emailing and texting and facebook would all be good ways of communicating with people from Farmington. When I did the flat classroom project last year in speech, I had a hard time communicating with the other people involved in the project. It was difficult because in the group projects that we are all used to, we are used to sitting with our partners and talking about the project. We are used to being able to discuss the problems involved with the project face to face with our partners. In the flat classroom project, it was more difficult to communicate with our partners because they were far away. The only ways for us to communicate was online. I think since I have experience with this challenge of long distance communication, that it will make it easier for me to do this project. I will be mainly communicating with my partners via email, and facebook. These will be the easiest ways to communicate with them because these are things that I will be using daily. I look at my email almost every day, and all of my partners have email, so that will be the main way of communicating with them. Another way of communicating with my partners would be facebook. This is not my first choice of communicating with them because first of all, they might not all have a facebook, also, facebook is blocked on a lot of the computers at school. Facebook would be a good way of communicating with my partners outside of school, however, because my partners are probably more likely to check their facebook after school than their email.