Claire Matthews

[clairematthews]

Research and Writing:

I wanted to preface this post by saying that usually I don’t struggle with research projects. I like to think that I am pretty good when it comes to finding sources and evidence for different projects or the like. However, finding research for this essay is pretty difficult. I think what makes the research part of this essay so difficult is that I am looking for pieces of writing about a piece of writing. Finding articles or text that explored criticism about The Age of Innocence that are easy to understand is not an easy task. My first idea was to use Google Scholar to find articles or papers exploring this topic. While that was fruitful the articles I was getting were all really long and confusing. And while I did find one article that I used in my essay from this source it just took me longer than I would have liked it to. Then I tried just searching the regular google search engine for literary criticism and I actually found a good paper that discussed the female characters in the book and their contradictions to real life. I am using this article in my essay as well. As for the actual writing part of this essay I actually found a nice rhythm in my writing. This part wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. Of course like all writing sometimes you run into roadblocks and that’s when I just need to take a break and come back to my writing at a different time. But as a whole I actually found this essay writing kind of enjoyable.



Contradictory Depictions of the New Woman: Reading Edith Wharton’s ...

1. Introduction Although critical accounts of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence vary in their assessment of the novel, analyses have tend

This is a link to the article that I enjoyed about the female characters! Be aware it is a long one but I just skimmed it for evidence! :)

[clairematthews]

Reading Post #4

I just noticed an interesting connection to my book and a Netflix show that I have been watching. Recently I have been watching Gossip Girls on Netflix which is about the lives of a group of teenagers from the Upper East Side in New York. It details their lives in the face of wealth and luxury and how they chose to live. But during one of the episodes their school put on a play and it was about The Age of Innocence. I was actually pretty interesting because I got to see the words that I’m reading brought to life. It helped me to further understand the plot and put some pieces together that I didn’t initially understand. But then it got me thing further into the relationship that the show and the book held. I realized that the show actually holds a lot of resemblance to the book. The show is about the lives of privileged New York teenagers and their struggles with love, self image, relationships, family, and other struggles. I came to see that I can pull a lot of parallels to the two pieces of text. I simply thought this was an interesting realization that may help me later on with my research!

[clairematthews]

Reading Post #3

This passage really stood out to me because here we see Archer and Ellen become really vulnerable with each other. This was shocking to me because since they are usually surrounded by their high society world they are never permitted to be vulnerable like they are in this intimate moment. Here Ellen and Archer are alone in Ellen’s apartment and Archer has finally expressed that he loves Ellen. To truly understand the weight of that statement we need to know that Archer doesn’t even say that to his fiancee. Bluntly saying that would be looked at as forward and inappropriate in society. But here where no one else is around to judge them the reader can see these characters in a different light. Also, I noticed this flip in personalities with these characters. Ellen is usually known to be flighty and spontaneous but here Archer is the one suggesting that they can work it out and be together. And Archer is normally the proper one who does things by the book but here Ellen is the rational one saying that because of what is going on in their lives that they cannot be together. This was an interesting turn in the book to something that the audience wouldn’t expect. This moment is really what changed everything when it comes to Archer and Ellen’s dynamic because they have now acknowledged that they have feelings for each other and they have to live without each other in their lives the want they want them.

[clairematthews]

Reading Post #2

This section caught my eye because I though it presented a unique moral impasse for Archer. Before we left school we were talking about different theories that we, as readers, can use to analyze a piece of text. Here I thought that using the moral theory may come in handy. This section is a piece of the conversation between Archer and Ellen discussing her marriage and her plea to have a divorce. Archer, who already has a conflict of interest because he has feelings for Ellen, shouldn’t have been allowed to speak to Ellen about this topic anyway if we are looking at this morally. And as I have learned while reading this book, no decision is decided without the loud opinion of New York society. Archer even alludes to this in the first sentence of the page. In trying to persuade her not to get a divorce, as instructed by his boss, he tells her that remaining in her marriage would be the bet for her and her family. Moral theory would ask if it is ethical for Ellen to consider the views of others when she is deciding her happiness. But as she well knew in high New York society family and the views of your peers are the most important things. The sentence at the end of the first paragraph is the one that stood out to me the most. Here Archer says that in typical New York fashion it is better for conversation to stay mundane than to actually dig deeper into the problem because then people would have to be vulnerable and expose their problems. Looking at this morally this not right at all. You shouldn’t let society’s guidelines stop you from helping a friend. And there is always the question of whether Archer should be the one to talk to Ellen either way since he so obviously has a conflict of interest. Over all I thought this was a good section to introduce moral theory and apply it to my book. :)

[clairematthews]

Reading Post #1

In this post I just wanted to touch on the interesting actions of the characters in the book and compare them to today’s views. I do understand that while analyzing the characters’ actions we have to take into account that this book was set in the 1870′s and as such the characters act in 1870′s fashion. However with this understood, I do feel that it is important to recognize the ways in which the characters carry themselves. With the general understanding that this book takes place in another time period and focuses on the high society lives of the characters it still shocked me just how differently they acted when it came to how society sees them and the image that they show the public. A line that caught my attention in the beginning of the book and its essence was carried throughout the book was, “...custom to attract masculine homage while playfully discouraging it.” Within this line I saw this idea of secretly leading something on only to eventually push it away. This sense of longing for something that you can’t have is obviously centered around the characters Archer and Ellen, who have feelings for each other even though May is in the way. Perhaps one of the larger social interactions that went against the usual rules of high society New York was when Archer defied the social norms and walked into  Mrs.Mingott’s box at the opera to ask to hasten the announcement of his engagement to May. This action was extremely unusual for a prominent person like Archer to do. However, I continue to marvel at the fact that society rules barred Archer from even being seen with his betrothed in public. Even his act of going into the opera box was looked at as not proper and was thought of as inappropriate. This is one of the ideals of this time period that is completely different from today where people are free to be seen with people they are dating and this has become common in society today. 

[clairematthews]

Research Project: Book Selection

When asked to select a book for this research project I had no idea what book I wanted to read. I knew I was going to be spending a lot of time with this book and I also understood that I was going to have to find scholarly criticism about the book. Knowing this, my first thought was that even though I am more attracted to modern writers and stories I would have to look at older books so that I could find literary criticism about them. After doing some research about various books I still didn’t find any that interested me. I looked at lists that had AP level books for high school students to read and found a few that interested me. I looked up each of the books that I was interested in, The Scarlet Letter and Oliver Twist were two of the books that I highly considered reading other than The Age of Innocence. However, when I asked Kreinbring about the first two books he advised that I may not find enough criticism on them which would make the paper harder to write. When I introduced The Age of Innocence to him he said that I would be able to find enough criticism about it but I may find it boring. After this information I furthered my research into this book to see if it was really something that would be worth spending so much time with. After some more review I came to the conclusion that this book was something I would be able to write about. The overall theme of love against the ridged society pulled me in and reading the summary about this book made me want to know what Archer(the main character) was going to do. This book seemed to contain the twists and turns, love, passion, money, romance, and suspense that I love to read about. The only reservation I had about this book was that it is set in the 1870′s which made me hesitate because I don’t feel that I am able to connect with books that are set so long ago. However, I knew that I had to push past that reservation because everything else about the book I seemed to love.

[clairematthews]

Mentor poet post #4

“let us call this scene a window looking out not at a paradise but as a paradise might be, if we had eyes to see”

I pulled this line out from the poem because I thought this line held the most power. Throughout this poem so far Ostriker has been describing different everyday scenes and calling them windows. But here she strays from this pattern. She talks about seeing a paradise. Or rather not directly seeing a paradise but more so altering your view so that anything you see would be considered a paradise. Maybe this line is talking about viewing everything in life as it’s own little paradise.

Reading the repetition of the word window in this poem made me remember the poem I read when I cheated on my mentor poet. I read a poem called ”Windows and Mirrors” by Rudy Francisco. In that poem Francisco talked about windows in a bad connotation but here there is a contrast with this idea of windows. See here I think Alicia is using this imagery of windows to give an allusion that she is freezing a moment in time as she is looking out of a “window”. Instead of windows being a burden Ostriker views them as a frame in which to see her own paradise.

I also quickly wanted to talk about the third stanza. I’m not quite sure what Ostriker is talking about here. She transitioned from talking about the man with his fruit stand to talking about different places and then even moved to talk about some other world. I don’t really understand what that has to do with anything else that is going on in the poem. But I do like the last line in that stanza where Ostriker uses writing techniques to craft the phrase “ stabbing tourists with malicious abundant joy”. I thought that phrase was really interesting.(313)

[madyiscool]

Cheating on my poet

Christopher Poindexter

“It takes more strength

To give a damn

Than to not.”

To not give a crap what people say or think is what people want. They want to be the girl that no can mess with. However, because this trait is so sought out for, we lose touch and connection. How could anyone possibly get close, if no one truly cares? That is why I really love the ending of this poem. Saying that in the world today it is harder to care for things than not caring. It is so true, if you don’t put in any effort and just go through your day it will be easy. However, it will get boring rather quickly.

I think what Christopher writes is so important. “Give me someone who gives a damn about what truly matters.” When you put in effort and care about something you become invested in. You are willing to make things work and if something is wrong you talk it out and get through it. Let’s say you’re with someone for a long time and you’re having a wonderful time. Then, all of a sudden the other person no longer feels the need to give effort and work to keep the relationship working. When that happens to you it truly sucks. Thinking you knew someone until they wear I don’t give a damn so well.

When cheating on my poet Chloe, I realized how upbeat the last poem I posted from her was. She was falling in love with someone. However, Christopher writes like he is sad, sad that the world is different. That no one cares about the little details. They want the bigger picture with all the glory and no affection. Also, their writing styles are different. An example is the fact that Chloe has a title for all her poems and Christopher does not. I find that interesting did he want to leave the meaning open for interpretation?

When first reading I wasn’t sure what the reason was for choosing the word damn to repeat throughout his poem. However, after a little thinking my thoughts kept going to a beaver, I know the childish side of me coming out because they build dams. With deeper thoughts on beavers I know that they build dams to keep water away. What if the reason that Christopher uses the word damn to show almost the fact when you do give a damn you are keeping all the bad things away. You’re giving in the time and effort and it pays off. Your relationship is safe. (418)

[clairematthews]

I really like how you compared your poet to the poet you cheated with. Your analysis was really good and I think it was a smart way to compare the two. I wish I would have done that in my own post. I also liked your analysis of relationships and how you have to care about things in order to be in a relationship and how you tied that into what your poem was about. It seems like you can really relate to this poem which probably made it easier to annotate and write about.

[clairematthews]

Cheating on my mentor poet!

I chose this poem by Rudy Francisco because we as a class have just recently talked about the important symbolism of mirrors. The title of this poem really caught my eye because mirrors and windows are similar yet different. They can both reflect images but windows you can see through. So I was curious about how the poet was going to connect these two different materials.

“There was a moment in my life” after reading over this poem multiple times this is the phrase that stood out to me the most. In this line Francisco used the past tense to say that they used to feel this way. Reading this made me think that the writer changed their thought process about the two materials. It made me wonder how their mind changed and what made it change.

The mood of this poem is somber at best. The author writes about how they get the same result even when they look in the two different objects. When you look through a window it is typical to not see your own reflection, but looking into a mirror you see yourself because it is reflective.

This property of a mirror being reflective means that when you look into a mirror you see your own image. The fact that the poet alludes that she doesn’t see her own image must mean that she isn’t happy with how she looks. Maybe she doesn’t like how she looks or maybe she values herself so little that she doesn’t think she means anything.

However, if we look back at the line that I quoted at the beginning we can see that the poet alludes to the fact that they don’t feel like that anymore. This makes me wonder what did they go through that changed their mind to make them realize that they mean something. (308)

[clairematthews]

“For Once, Then, Something” by Alicia Ostriker

“and a man walking alone

said ‘wow’ to himself”

I pulled this quote out from the poem because it is the only stanza that I truly didn’t understand in the poem. I know that the author is describingwhat she sees as she enters back to the real world from the subway below, but I feel like this line should mean something more than just an observation. Also this is the only line in the poem that has punctuation.

Ostriker uses specific wording to hint at the reader what time of year it is. I circled words in the poem that alluded to me that the author was talking about Christmas time. The author talks about happy shoppers and people who were leaving church. Earlier in the poem Ostriker described the snowy weather. All of this lead me to infer that the poem was being written about Christmas time.

“For Once, Then, Something” that is the title of this poem. I have been trying to relate the title to anything in the poem but I just don’t understand what it means. Maybe there hasn’t been Christmas spirit like this in a long time and finally she is having the Christmas she wants?

Ostriker also says “we” multiple times in the poem, but she never says who that describes. Readers can assume that the speaker is Ostriker herself but who is she with? Is she actually with another person or does she use “we” as a way to make the reader feel more of a part of the story?

Also, I want to note the interesting layout of the poem. Ostriker constructed this poem in stanzas each containing two lines. The way the poem has it’s line breaks makes the reader want to pause at the end of each stanza, however to understand the poem you need to continually read the poem to make it fluid all the way through. I wonder why Ostriker chose to format her poem this way when her lines and ideas are meant to connect between paragraphs. Between this and the fact that there isn’t any punctuation in the poem it adds a level of difficulty when trying to read and understand this poem. (359)

[madyiscool]

“You Told Me To Check The Facts And Read The Numbers” By Chloe N. Clark

“And still we keep kissing, passing

Our hearts back and forth like playing

Cards, Go FIsh.”

The world todays has seen such tragedy and pain. People are dying all around us, and after reading this poem I felt a sense of hope. While reading this poem there were many statistics such as every minute 265 people are born. However, every minute 115 people die. The hard truth is for everything that is good there is going to be bad. As humans we need to find it in ourselves to move on, and love eachother. That is something that is highly important in this poem. Her main goal is to make it known that you may feel hurt, but you will love again.

The title holds lot of importance within this poem. I feel this from how she speaks of love. Love cannot fit into the molds of statistics and facts. There are no boundaries. It changes the wave of truth, that is why when she speaks of all the bad there is facts. People can count death rates and know who is born. However, love is something that everyone has and can do if they choose. Her tone is very matter of fact. However, her theme comes from truth not facts. Love wins in the end, that is the truth even without a statistic. Love is experience and happiness you feel it and don’t always know what it is at first.

At first I found it was hard to understand the line “more than 99% of species that have ever lived, over all of time are extinct.” However, after looking at the bigger picture I believe that Chloe uses this line to make it straightforward what will happen to humans without love. We will become “extinct” there will be nothing to hold on to if all you care about is yourself.

Within the poem chloe uses something many people can relate to, dessert. She brings up the fact “And women have more taste buds than men do, so that chocolate is extra bitter, extra sweet.” I really like how she uses the bitter and sweet in the same line. Love is not always sweet it can be so bitter that it hurts. I wonder if within her poem she is thinking of her own experience in a relationship. She was tasting more sweets and love than the man, and then at the end all she could taste was bitterness. (429)

[clairematthews]

I really liked this poem. I thought it was really interesting that the author chose to use facts and numbers and science in her poem because you don’t see that very often. But for this poem I think she did a really good job incorporating it into the basis of her poem which is love. Also as I was reading your analysis of this poem it really stood or to me how you said that bad things can be counted like deaths and accidents but that love can’t be measured. I thought that was really smart and I like how you could use your poem to back that up. Also when I was reading the title it made me wonder who is Chloe talking about when she said “You”? Like you said in your analysis, is she talking about a past relationship or is she talking to the reader? It just made me wonder.

[clairematthews]

“White Morning” by Alicia Ostriker

“They say the Americans staged nine-one-one, he murmurs politely. We cannot believe the images in television, you are American, what do you think?”

This is the line that made me really understand what this poem is all about. When I first read the title I thought the poem was going to be about a snowy morning or something happy, but reading this quote I was able to infer that this poem was going to be about 9/11. Also something that stood out to me about this quote was that they didn’t say nine-eleven they called it nine-one-one. I just never thought that other cultures would have a different name for this historic event. Perhaps another reason that this quote stood out to me so much is because of the relation it has to all the speculation in today’s world about what is real and what isn’t, like how some people don’t believe the moon landing was real. In this poem, a Muslim guide vocalized the belief that 9/11 was made up by Americans and never really happened. Again I guess it took me by shock that another culture would think that this horrific event in American culture was fake. As the quote continues he justifies his earlier statement by saying that they can’t believe it really happened because all they have seen of it was the images on their tv screens.

Focusing more on the poem as a whole, Ostriker made many interesting writing choices that I think really made the poem have a deeper meaning. For example, in the fourth and fifth stanzas Ostriker uses similes and other descriptive wording to describe what happened on 9/11 without literally describing it. Instead she said, “slamming fist into wall, flames like giant marigold blooming”. I think she decided to describe the event this way to let the reader infer what she is actually talking about without literally giving it away. Also, to me, wording it like this gives the poem a lighter feel instead of a more serious tone like it would have if Ostriker decided to detail the exact event.

Another interesting writing move that Ostriker used was an allusion to the national Anthem. In the fifth and sixth stanza she says, “rockets’ red glare... bombs bursting”. I read this as allusion to the National Anthem because that song carries a lot of meaning and weight behind it. And that song is usually played to be a symbol of patriotism. I just thought this was a fun hidden gem that Ostriker hid in the poem.

Finally, I feel that I have always had an interesting connection to writing about 9/11 because, being born in 2002, the whole event is history to me. I have no real life connection to the event unlike my parents, teachers, and even siblings. So when I read this poem about 9/11 as opposed to Ostriker reading this poem we have two different view points. I am reading it as history but she would be reading it as someone who remembers what actually happened on that day.(492)

[madyiscool]

Mentor Poet

When assigned this unit my first thought was how can I choose from such a big list. There are so many good choices. However, all I know about poetry is that I enjoy reading ones that hold lots of meaning, and I can relate them to my life. My first poet I chose was Daniel Beaty. I actually chose him to be my mentor poet. I really liked how he had a rough upbringing and he used that to write. I felt that he would have good information and lots of intense moments in his writing. I did struggle with the fact my main point was I wanted to relate to the poems and if all his poems were about being in pain and rising above it, I may not understand all of them. However, that problem was quickly solved because it turned out Daniel Beaty is just a writer and doesn’t actually weite poetry. So after ordering and book and being set, I had to change my mind. Going into looking I knew what I had to do. I needed to make sure I read a few of my poets poems and make sure I loved them before I ordered a book. I stumbled on my mentor poet just by going down the list. Her name is Chloe N. Clark. She writes with such deep and powerful meaning that pulled me in wanting more. She writes about love, acceptance of yourself, her sister and much more. All those things I relate to. The poem that pulled me in for sure was The Escape Artist Ponders Morality. It has so much depth and imagry I can almost picture being there, struggling along side him. The line that pulled me in was “there are so many chains you wear and that wear you.” This could be real chains or the chains in the esacpe artist’s life that holds him down. There is a clear example why I love Choloe’s poems there is so much packed into one line or stanza!

[clairematthews]

It really caught my eye that you did some research about your first pick poet. I think that was really smart so that you could know a little about his backstory. I also think your new mentor is a better fit because of the connection you seem to have with her. The poem you chose from your poet is really interesting. I liked how she writes the second half of the poem with the underwater setting but related it back to real life. She also uses onomatopoeia when she is describing different sounds in her poem. And lastly, the way she organizes the first stanza really caught my eye. I don’t know why she did it that way but I thought it was really cool.

[clairematthews]

Meet my Mentor Poet- Alicia Ostriker

I don’t really consider myself a poetry person so when we were assigned to find a mentor poet I had no idea what to look for. At first I just started looking at many different poets to see what kind of writing I liked. However, the only aspect I knew for sure I wanted in my poet was that she was a woman. I ended up selecting Alicia Ostriker as my mentor poet. Since I knew I would be sending a lot of time reading and writing like my poet I thought that having a woman as my poet would give me an opportunity to be able to connect with more of her writing. One other poet that I ended up enjoying was Alice Notley. I thought her use of unconventional layouts for her poems was interesting to me and I liked how her poems seemed just like a single train of thought. But, I decided to go with Alicia Ostriker because her writing was just a lot clearer to me and I liked her take on certain life events. One of her poems that drew me in is “Red Red Rose”:

When you take off your mask, what is your true address

If you had a choice, which tree

would you like to be

Which Beethoven symphony

This poem really stood out to me because of Ostriker’s use of open ended questions that makes the reader really think about them. I also found her placement/ layout of the poem interesting. I really liked this poem in specific because Ostriker seems to ask the same question just in many different ways. And I like to think that this poem is truly inclusive of every reader because no matter who you are you can understand some part of this poem maybe not all of it but at least some portion of it will speak to you.

[clairematthews]

This passage really jumped out at me because I had never heard that Rosa Parks was reluctant to make her case public. This was completely astonishing since whenever we read about her we read about the headstrong woman who wanted to end segregation and right the wrongs that had been done. However here we see a different side one that shows that Parks was actually shy of making her case in front of the public eye. I wonder why in most accounts of her heroic story this part isn’t mentioned?

[clairematthews]

I thought this was really interesting because it shows Rosa Parks in a different light other than just a civil rights leader. Here we see Rosa as the money maker in the family and the glue that holds them together. Usually when we think about women in the civil rights times we don’t picture them as the ones who make all the money for the family. However here we can see that Rosa not only cared for her sick mother but also worked multiple jobs to support her family.

[clairematthews]

Rosa Parks' legacy in Michigan

She was inducted to the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame on this day (Dec. 1) in 1983.

For this secondary source I decided to hose something a little closer to home. This article and video talks about Rosa Parks’ legacy in Michigan. I also gained some new information from this article because I didn’t know that she lost her job as a seemstress in Alabama so she had to move up to Michigan to find work. I also found out that she was inducted into the Michigan Women’s hall of fame.