"A Wagner Matinee." Willa Cather's Short Story:. Web. 24 Feb. 2012.
"Thoreau's Walden - an Annotated Edition." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 24 Feb. 2012. .
Friday, February 24, 2012
A Wagner Matinee
"A Wagner Matinee" is told about a woman's life from the perspective of her nephew. In the story, the woman lives in the city (Cather). Then, she marries a man, and they move to the country. Where she is at in the country is away from everyone else. She went with the man because she loved him and wanted to live life with him. The woman was used to the city life and loved going to see shows in the theater, but moved to the country anyway. She did that for her husband. "A Wagner Matinee is also about regrets. This is because the woman goes back to the city and visits her nephew, and she realizes how much she misses the city life. Her nephew takes her to see a show at the theater and it sparks her memory, and she thinks of all of the good things about the city that she no longer has. In the city the people take care of themselves and look proper and presentable. she forgot about the city and the whole musical world in which she was enthralled in before she left the city. This story is about the regrets that this woman has. It is also a story about love and sacrifice (Cather). This story actually does not seem to have much in common with Emerson and Thoreau, but when you look a little deeper, there are a few similarities. In "A Wagner Matinee" the narrator of the story is very close to his aunt. He reminisces of being raised by his aunt and of all of the many things his aunt taught him in life. In "Critical Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson", Emerson tells of his own life (Wayne). In his life, his aunt had a great amount of influence, and was in fact the one who caused him to have interest in being a Christian. His father died when he was young, and his mother raised him and his brothers along with her sister. Emerson's mom and aunt held much influence in his life, were very important to him, and contributed greatly to his upbringing, just as the aunt of the narrator in "A Wagner Matinee" was (Wayne) (Cather).
"A Wagner Matinee." Willa Cather's Short Story:. Web. 24 Feb. 2012.. "Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 26 Jan. 2012. Wayne, Tiffany K., ed. "Emerson, Ralph Waldo." Critical Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2010.Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCRWE0001&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 9, 2012).
"A Wagner Matinee." Willa Cather's Short Story:. Web. 24 Feb. 2012.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In the story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", a man dies (Bierce). This man was at his home with his wife and children. It was during the time period of slavery, and he was a white man living in the South. This man was pro-slavery. While the man is at home a Northerner who is dressed like a southerner rides up to his house on a horse. He gives the man details about the Owl Creek Bridge. He tells him that if they break down the bridge, then Northerners cannot get across. the man is intrigued by this, and plans on going over to the bridge to help out. When he gets there, he realizes that it was a trap, and the Northerners had tricked him into going to the bridge. The Northerners took the man, put a noose around his neck, and have him walk out to the end of a plank, with a general balancing the plank on the other side. Then, the general steps off the plank, sending the man in an instant downward motion. The man feels instant pressure on his neck. However, soon after, the man feels coolness. He realizes that the rope had broken and he had plummeted into the creek. He broke free of the ropes constraining his hands, and began to swim down the creek. The general tries to take a few shots at him with his hand gun, but somehow miraculously misses. The man swims downstream for a long time, and is eventually hurled onto shore by a huge wave. At this point, the story seems almost too good to be true. The man is so desperately thirsty, but he presses on anyway. He searches through the jungle going the direction that he thinks his house is in. He hardly remembers his journey through the woods and concludes that he must have been sleep walking. All he remembers is getting to his house. He starts his decent to the front door, where his wife is waiting for him, when BAM! The man is shot from behind and dies. This is where the story eludes that the rope holding the man never actually broke. The escape of the man that seemed too good to be true, was indeed too good to be true. It was created in the man's imagination while he was losing oxygen because he was hanging from a noose (Bierce).
"SparkLife » True or False: You Are a Mean, Lean, GREEN-ing Machine." SparkLife. Web. 19 Feb. 2012.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Robert E. Lee - Letter to his Wife
Robert E. Lee, did have something in common with Henry David Thoreau. Robert E. Lee was against slavery, as was Henry David Thoreau (Thoreau) (Lee). Robert E. Lee states in his letter to his wife that he believes that African American people are better off in America than they would be in Africa (Lee). He says that they must endure this hardship and suffering in America, because it in the end will be more beneficial to their future generations. He knows that their hardship and long sufferings will pay off in the end. But he also knows that until it pays off, it is going to be extremely difficult for them, and he wishes that white people would stop persecuting the African American people (Lee). I am not sure what things Robert E. Lee does to stand out against slavery, but I do know his opinions and views are against slavery (Lee). Robert E. Lee may have not done anything outward to stand out against slavery, but Henry David Thoreau did. Henry David Thoreau did not pay his poll tax in an outward rebellion against slavery (Thoreau). However, even if Robert E. Lee did not do anything to outwardly stand out against slavery, he still would have accomplished just about as much as Henry David Thoreau accomplished in his anti-slavery act (Thoreau). For Thoreau in the end did not seem to accomplish too much, except being someone who speaks words against slavery. Thoreau did not seem to have as many actions to back up his words, unlike Ralph Waldo Emerson (Thoreau). Robert E. Lee must have been a great man with many great opinions. After all, in his letters to his wife, he could not help but write about the injustice towards the African American people and discuss the realities of the situation and how they can be fixed (Lee). Henry David Thoreau did not even seem to have that much evidence and knowledge of slavery to back him up (Thoreau). Thoreau seemed to act off impulse and make claims based off of his feelings and opinions (thoreau). That is unlike Robert E. Lee, from what I can tell in his letter to his wife. Robert E. Lee backed up every opinion he had with facts and had a wide knowledge of the subject he was talking about.
"Letter to His Wife on Slavery (1856): By Robert E. Lee // Fair Use Repository." Fair Use Repository: Canonical Citation for a Webbed World. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. .
"Henry David Thoreau and 'Civil Disobedience' by Wendy McElroy."LewRockwell.com. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.
"Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth and Henry David Thoreau did have some things in common. The thing that they most had in common was that they were both against slavery (Thoreau) (IHS). Sojourner Truth spoke out to a congregation of African American women to expand on her opinions on slavery (IHS). Sojourner made the claim "Ain't I a woman" (IHS). She had told of the white society and how the white men want to treat the white women well (IHS). She says that white men say that "women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere". This is when miss Sojourner asks, "ain't I a woman?". And she goes on to tell that she has never been helped into carriages. She says that she has never been lifted over ditches. And she also says that she has definitely not had the best place everywhere (IHS). In fact, she says that she has been in some of the worst places ever, had some of the worst treatment ever, and gone through some hardships so terrible that most white men have not even gone through, let alone the women (IHS). When she asks "Ain't I a woman?", she is basically asking why has she been treated so badly when the white men are saying that women should be treated well. She was making the point that she is a woman and has not been treated well (IHS). Sojourner Truth is definitely against slavery, just like Henry David Thoreau (Thoreau). Thoreau makes many claims against slavery, and even fails to pay his poll taxes as a way to stand out against slavery (Thoreau). Thoreau chooses rebellion as a way to fight against slavery, just as does Sojourner Truth (Thoreau) (IHS). Thoreau rebels in that he does not pay his taxes (Thoreau). Sojourner Truth rebels against slavery in that she literally helps lead an entire rebellion among the African American people by telling them her thought sand opinions and helps motivate them to stand up for the black man when nobody else does. and that if they all rebel together, they may be able to accomplish a lot (IHS).
"Internet History Sourcebooks." FORDHAM.EDU. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. .
"Henry David Thoreau and 'Civil Disobedience' by Wendy McElroy."LewRockwell.com. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.
"Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.
Friday, February 10, 2012
sweet chariot, go down moses, keep your hand on the plow
"Sweet Chariot: The Story of the Spirituals." Office of Teaching & Learning - University of Denver. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. .
"Henry David Thoreau and 'Civil Disobedience' by Wendy McElroy."LewRockwell.com. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.
"Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Walt Whitman - Thoreau
In "Cavalry Crossing a Ford", Whitman paints a very patriotic, manly, reverent, and hardcore picture of America. The poem is about a cavalry, or group of soldiers who are fighting for America and our rights as a country (Whitman). This cavalry is a large one, who follow in line along a path of stones through the water in a ford (Whitman). The soldiers are all one unit and are all fighting along side each other. The author refers tot them as "they" as if they are seen all together as one unit (Whitman). They represent every one on their side when they are fighting, but at the same time they are each individuals fighting for their individual rights, as the text points out when Whitman says "each group, each person, a picture" (Whitman). The text is told from a vantage point that is far away and looking down upon the soldiers as they are coming nearer (Whitman). This text is very visual, and the reader is able to picture what the troop and ford look and sound like as they are approaching (Whitman). Whitman speaks of things like "their arms flash in the sun", and "hark to the musical clank" (Whitman). Both of those things are imagery and help the reader visualize the cavalry in their mind. Walt Whitman is very straight forward about how he tells things. He is very creative in the way he portrays it, but none the less, he tells things like they are, which is very much like Thoreau (Whitman) (Thoreau). Thoreau was very straightforward about the way he presented things (Thoreau). Although Whitman had a very creative writing style full of word pictures, and Thoreau had writing that was heated and direct, they both very effectively conveyed their opinions and got their points across (Whitman) (Thoreau). Both Thoreau and Whitman write about their battles for freedom (Thoreau) (Whitman). Although the two have very different styles of battling for freedom (much to do with different time periods), they each are writing about standing up for what you believe in (Whitman) (Thoreau). Although neither directly says that, that is essentially what both are writing about. "Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 26 Jan. 2012. "118. Cavalry Crossing a Ford. Whitman, Walt. 1900. Leaves of Grass." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. |
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Abraham Lincoln and Thoreau
There are some similarities in philosophies between Abraham Lincoln and Henry David Thoreau. In the opening line of the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln says, speaking of the nation, "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" (Lincoln). Lincoln starts off his speech by stating that our nation was conceived in liberty (Lincoln). For him to start off his speech like that, shows that liberty was a standard that he expected to be upheld in the United States of America, and he was bringing that to everyone's attention to remind them of that aspect of their country (Lincoln). Henry David Thoreau was also a strong believer in liberty. He had very distinguishable opinions about liberty and believed that all men should be free, as was the opinion of Lincoln (Thoreau) (Lincoln). In the closing sentence of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, he states that the nation is "under God" and "shall have a new birth of freedom" (Lincoln). The two mentions of freedom in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address were strategically placed in the first sentence, and the last sentence to show importance. Lincoln favored freedom and placed freedom withing the address strategically to portray that the address had much to do with the matter of freedom versus slavery (Lincoln).
Both Lincoln and Thoreau spoke out against slavery (Lincoln) (Thoreau). Although both men disagreed with slavery and confronted the issue publicly, both did it in a very different manner. Thoreau was very adamant about making sure he was heard when it came to an issue of injustice (Thoreau). Thoreau was very up front about his issue with slavery and was not going to go down without a fight (Thoreau). He made a very public scene by not paying his poll taxes, he was even arrested because of it (Thoreau). Thoreau was very vocal about his opinion, but did not actually end up accomplishing much to help his cause (Thoreau). Although he, and everyone else, knew how he felt about slavery, he did not actually do much about it. He tended to be all talk, whereas Lincoln confronted his issue by directly stating the facts to his audience and expecting reactions (Lincoln). But he actually did not see much change for the cause in his lifetime either.
"Avalon Project - Gettysburg Address." Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. Web. 08 Feb. 2012. .
Borade, Gaynor. "Summary and Significance of the Gettysburg Address." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 08 Feb. 2012. .
"Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.
Frederick Douglas and Thoreau
Judging from Douglas' speech, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro", Douglas holds true to many of the same philosophies and values that Thoreau does. In "The meaning of July Fourth for the Negro", Douglas is exceptionally passionate in expressing the truth and conveying the reality of the situation of slavery to white America (Douglas). Douglas, like Thoreau, is strongly against slavery, and it does not sit well with him (Douglas) (Thoreau). Unlike the common man, Douglas calls out the injustice when he sees it, rather than pretending it is not in existence (Douglas). This same act of boldness is seen by Thoreau in "Civil Disobedience" (Thoreau). Neither man is going to let social norms stop him from standing out against what he believes is morally askew (Douglas) (Thoreau). This is seen actively throughout "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro". Douglas says:
"If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, 'may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!' To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world."
By making that claim, Douglas is stating that it would be preposterous of him to go against his moral instinct because that is what is socially acceptable (Douglas). He even states that forgetting the painful, immoral, and unjust things of this world would be treason! (Douglas). Douglas truly believes that he would be at fault with God and with the world if he let things like that slide. He is not going to go unheard.
Neither Douglas, nor Thoreau will take a back seat to injustice (Douglas) (Thoreau). Both men readily take action and will not back down for the sake of popularity, but are both bold when there is nobody else to speak up for the hurting (Douglas) (Thoreau). Both men do not just disagree with slavery, but they call people out on allowing it to happen (Douglas) (Thoreau). Douglas literally calls them out by his words, and Thoreau calls them out by his actions (Douglas) (Thoreau). Both of the men's words and actions demand a response from those who witness their civil disobedience. The two strong-willed men stand up for what they believe in.
"Frederick Douglass Speech." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 08 Feb. 2012. .
"Africans in America/Part 4/Frederick Douglass Speech." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 08 Feb. 2012. .
"Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.
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