Blog 14

“Richard Cory” by Edwin Robinson was a short poem written about a very rich man who everyone liked. Richard Cory was young, rich, and likeable. He was very popular in his town, everyone knew him and admired him. Everyone in the town wanted to be him. In the poem it says “he was always human when he talked.” (Robinson).  I think this means that he was always nice to people and treated everybody nice. He was the richest person in the town and a lot of people in the town could not even afford to eat meat. Everyone in the town thought that since Richard had so much money, and could afford nice things, that he would also be the happiest man in the town, but that was not true. Apparently, Richard was not very happy with his life, because he ends up killing himself at the end of the poem. I was very surprised when I read this because he seemed like he was very happy. The way that he was described in the poem, he sounded like he had a very good life. He was popular and everyone loved him. The fact that Richard Cory shot and killed himself means that he probably was not very happy with his life after all. I think that he just appeared to be happy on the outside to hold his reputation. I feel bad for Richard Cory because he was so focused on having a lot of material goods and being rich that he missed out on the good things in life that you can not buy with money.

The poem “Richard Cory” reminds me of Thoreau. I think that since Edwin Robinson made Richard Cory end up committing suicide, it shows that Edwin Robinson did not value money and material items very much and that he believed that there are other things in life that can make you happy. This is definitely something that Thoreau believed in as well. He believed that “America has been ‘ruined by luxury and heedless expense’” (Grant) and he accuses American men “of being obsessed with acquiring material goods; and of having a mistaken

conception of work, which exists only to feed artificial needs.” (Grant). I think that Thoreau and Robinson had some like philosophies on wealth and material items.

Bibliography

Grant, P. B. "Individual and Society in Walden." McClinton-Temple, Jennifer ed. Encyclopedia of

Themes in Literature. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2011. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. (accessed March 6, 2012).

Robinson, Edwin. "45. Richard Corey. Edwin Arlington Robinson. Modern American Poetry." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. Web. 06 Mar. 2012.

Blog 13

Spoon River Anthology is a story written by Edgar Lee Masters. It is a collection of poems written as epitaphs for all the people living in a small town called Spoon River. This book was very interesting because since it was about a small town, it had a lot of gossip about people in it and you could trace the gossip and read what everybody thought of each other. I read one about a man named Harold Arnett. Harold was a man who was living in Spoon River. He was very unhappy and he wrote his poem about his suicide. He describes his wife yelling at him for burning some potatoes and then he shoots himself.  I thought that him killing himself over that was a little crazy. After he shoots himself, I think that he regrets it. He says that it is “too late” and he cannot go back. He also says “Of what use is it to rid one’s self of the world, When no soul may ever escape the eternal destiny of life?”  (Masters).This makes me think that Harold regrets committing suicide. Another poem that I read was one about Archibald Higbie. Higbie hated the town Spoon River. I think that he traveled a lot and he was the kind of person who would rather live in a large town full of people and a lot of culture. He says that he “loathed” Spoon River and he liked when he would go far away to places like Rome, Italy, and France because they made him forget about the small town that he came from. I think that Higbie probably did not fit in very well in Spoon River. He probably looked down on the people there because they did not value culture like he did. 

I think that the kind of small gossipy town that Edgar Lee Masters wrote about is the kind of thing that Thoreau and Emerson were trying to escape when they left society and lived in the woods. I think that is how this story relates to Emerson and Thoreau.

Bibliography

 

Masters, Edgar L. "Masters, Edgar Lee. 1916. Spoon River Anthology." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. Bartleby. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. 

Blog 12

“I Will Fight No More Forever” was a speech written by Chief Joseph in 1877. Chief Joseph’s tribe were in a war with the U.S army. The  U.S. wanted Chief Joseph’s tribe, the Nez Perce to move into a reservation. They did not want to go there, so they tried to move to Canada instead.  They crossed through Idaho and Montana having to fight the United States Army the entire way. Many of Chief Joseph’s people died and he did not believe that it was worth all of his people dying. His speech “I Will Fight No More Forever” was actually Chief Joseph’s surrender speech. He gave it on October 5^th, 1877. In his speech, he says that he is “tired of fighting”. He does not like to see his friends from his tribe dying in this war. He has seen so many people die and he says that it is up to the young people to make it stop. He knows that if they move on, they will die because they do not have blankets and they will probably freeze.  In his speech, he says that he wants to see his children. He thinks that his children may be in trouble or in danger. He is afraid that they may be freezing to death.

I think that Chief Joseph valued human life. He did not think that it was worth it to be losing so many of his men in the war. He would rather surrender the war than fight and have more of his men die. I think that Chief Joseph is similar to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau in the ways that they all value human life. They all believe that each individual person in important. I think that Chief Joseph and Emerson and Thoreau also have some conflicting opinions. Emerson and Thoreau both believe in fighting for what they believe in. They both wanted to fight the civil war and win because they did not like slavery and they wanted it to end. Chief Joseph, on the other hand believed that preserving the lives of his men was more important than fighting in the war.

Bibliography

Chief Joseph. "Chief Joseph." Welcome to Georgia State University. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.

Blog 11

“Two Views of a River” by Mark Twain refers to Mark Twain’s life when he was living on the Mississippi River. He talks about how he felt about the river when he first lived there. He talks about how his view of the river has changed over time. He says that he used to think that the river was beautiful when he first started living there. He talks about how he remembers a time when he was on the river and there was a beautiful sunset. “I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home.” (Twain).  When Twain saw this beautiful sunset, he was amazed at it and he could not believe it. As his life carried on living on the river, however, he realizes that his initial awe for the river starts to fade away after living there for a while. He describes how he just becomes accustomed to everything and he gets used to the way the river is. “I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river!” (Twain). Twain says that he had memorized every feature of the river and eventually, it stopped impressing him. The river itself had not changed, but his view of the river had. I understand what Mark Twain is saying when he says that he stops noticing the beauty of the river. He was working on the river and he began to focus so much on his job and his work on the river and he stopped thinking about how beautiful the river is. It’s like when you want something so badly and then when you get it, it turns out that it is not what you really wanted. Twain wanted to work on the river and it turns out when he got what he wanted he realized that he actually lost something very great.

“Two Views of a River” reminds me of Thoreau’s writing. Thoreau writes a lot about nature and this story by Mark Twain includes a lot of references to nature as he describes the river and the surrounding land.

Bibliography

Twain, Mark. "Two Ways of Seeing a River, by Mark Twain." About.com Grammar & Composition. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.

Blog 10

The short story "The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane is about a man who just joined in the military. He is fighting in the Civil War for the Union. The man’s name is Henry Fleming and the regiment that he has just joined has not done any fighting yet since he has joined. All that he has done so far is sit around and wait for the order to move. There have been rumors spreading that they are going to move soon and fight soon, but no official orders have been given. While he is sitting around Henry thinks about how good of a soldier he will be in battle and if he has the courage in him to fight. He fears that when the time comes, he will be a coward and run away. Finally, his regiment is called to fight. The first time that Henry fights, he feels like he is “ a cog in a machine”. He finds that even if he wanted to, he would not be able to run because he is packed in by all the other men in his regiment who are fighting alongside with him (Crane). The next time that his regiment is called to fight, Henry remembers the fear that he had in his last battle and he flees before it is too late. While he is running through the woods, he sees many wounded soldiers, even some who have familiar faces. He is jealous of these soldiers and their wounds because he feels that these wounds are “badges of courage” (Crane). He feels very guilty for leaving his regiment to fight without him, and regrets running. His regiment wins the battle without Henry and he is ashamed of himself. Henry watches the battle from a distance and when the other regiment is abandoning the battle, a soldier accidently hits Henry on the head with his gun, causing him to have a huge wound on his head. Henry pretends that his wound is a gunshot so that he does not feel like a coward. Stephen Crane and Ralph Waldo Emerson share the philosophy of freedom. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes about freedom a lot and I think that Stephen Crane also liked the idea of freedom because he wrote about a regiment fighting for the Union, which is the side that wanted to abolish slavery.

Bibliography
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. London: Penguin, 1994. Print.

Blog 9

“The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin is about a young woman, Louise Mallard, who lost her husband in a train accident. She was told the tragic news by her sister and her husband’s friend. When she heard the news, Louise was very devastated and she immediately started to sob uncontrollably. She cried a lot and then she went to her room to be by herself. As she is crying by herself in her room, a very strange feeling comes over her. She is looking out the window when she begins breathing very heavily and starts to repeat the word “free!” over and over again. At this point, Louise is realizing that now that her husband is dead, she does not have to live for him anymore. She realizes that men and women who are in a relationship are always living for each other and trying to control and change each other. Suddenly she is happy that she can now live for herself and she is looking forward to the rest of her life. She comes out of her room and meets her sister and her husband’s friend at the front door. Someone opens the door and Louise is shocked to see her husband walk through the door. Turns out, he did not make it on that train and he was not even aware that there had been an accident. Louise screams and ends up dying from a heart attack.

In the story, Louise thinks that men and women hold each other back when they are together and she looks forward to living the rest of her life for herself. Louise valued individualism and I believe that Kate Chopin also does since she writes about it. Ralph Waldo Emerson also values the individual. In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self Reliance”, he writes a lot about how it is important to be an individual and not conform to what other people are doing. “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” (Emerson). I think that Emerson’s beliefs that it is important not to conform with what everybody else is doing relates to Kate Chopin’s belief that living for yourself is better than living for someone else.

Bibliography

Chopin, Kate. ""The Story of an Hour"" Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 21 Feb. 2012.

Emerson, Ralph W. "Self Reliance." Emerson Central. Emerson Texts. Web. 21 Feb. 2012.

Blog 8

The short story “A Wagner Matinee” by Willa Cather is about a boy who takes his aunt to an opera. He receives a letter in the mail that says that his aunt is visiting and to take care of her and keep her entertained. Clark lives in the city but he grew up in the country with his aunt. Clark loves his aunt. She taught him how to read and about music and many other things. She educated him so that he would be able to go live in the city. When his aunt visits, Clark decides to take her to the opera because he knows that she likes music and was educated in it when she was younger. When she goes to the opera, she gets very emotional because it reminds her of why she had to go live in the country away from her family. She used to be very wealthy, but she left that life to elope with her husband, who her family did not approve of. Clarks aunt leaving her wealthy family to pursue her own happiness reminds me of what Henry David Thoreau left his home to live by himself in the woods. He wanted to live by himself to escape society. He left on July Fourth saying that he was “symbolically declaring his independence from society” (Grant) . Henry David Thoreau decided to leave society because he believed that society was "ruined by luxury and heedless expense." (Grant). I think that what Thoreau and Clark’s aunt did was very similar and I think that they would each approve of what the other did. I think that they had similar reasons for leaving their homes. They both wanted to be more independent. I think that Clark’s aunt wanted to achieve independence from her family because they did not approve of her husband.  She did not want to deal with their disapproval so she eloped. She left her life of luxury and wealth for a life of hard work in the country just so she would be able to be with the one she loved. Thoreau was just tired of society being so focused on material things and things that he did not find important. He did not want to be associated with society because he disagreed with a lot of their values that they had. I think that Clark’s aunt and Henry David Thoreau probably shared a lot of beliefs.

Bibliography

Cather, Willa. "A Wagner Matinee." Willa Cather's Short Story:. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. 

Grant, P. B. "Individual and Society in Walden." McClinton-Temple, Jennifer ed. Encyclopedia ofThemes in Literature. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2011. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc