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Essay 4- Women Writers

Samuel Guerra

English 2, Period 2

Mr. Brown

28 May 2013

Women Writers: Hybridizing Creative Gentility and Gender

On March 29th of this year, the Daily Princetonian published a letter from alumna Susan A. Patton stating that those female students whom do not find a boyfriend by freshman year will not be successful in life. She blatantly addressed the young women, stating “For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you.” Patton claims to be giving these young women the advice no one else is willing to share with them. She goes on to say “As freshman women, you have four classes of men to choose from. Every year, you lose the men in the senior class, and you become older than the class of incoming freshman men.” Patton is encouraging the young women of Princeton to find their soon-to-be husbands before they graduate high school. This unconventional story challenges the basic fundamentals of feminism; how can women expect to be treated as equals with men when women themselves begin to change their stances on the issue? As this recent story conveys, the issues of gender equality now exist through the stereotypical lifestyle of women serving as housewives. This issue of feminism is displayed otherwise through the work of Amy Tan, Rita Dove, and Sylvia Plath. 

Like the great American writer Mark Twain, female writers have struggled, even since ancient times, to gain recognition and a receiving audience. Similar to the great man himself, Rita Dove, Amy Tan, and Sylvia Plath shared in such struggles as each of their works, For the Love of Books, Mother Tongue, and “Daddy”, were inspired by their personal lives, experiences, relationships, and cultures. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn did not initially receive the widespread appreciation that it does today; however, as the book explored the social justice issue of slavery, Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” breathes life into the issue of feminism. That poem being one of Plath’s contributions to American Literature, Rita Dove has also contributed through her work as an advocate, being named US Poet Laureate. Similarly, Amy Tan was part of a movement of Asian-American writers as she contributed to the development of modern Asian-American Literature. 

Rita Dove, Amy Tan, and Sylvia Plath each have upbringings and lives unique to her; each of these women have found success beginning in her childhood extending through her early adulthood. Rita Dove is an American poet and author who was born in Akron, Ohio in 1952. She was often motivated by her parents to read extensively and do well in school, which resulted in her being named a Presidential Scholar as she went on to attend Miami University. After she graduated she attended the University of Tubingen in West Germany, where she met her husband Fred Viebahn. One of her most famous works, Thomas and Beulah, was loosely based on her grandparents andachieved Dove the Pulitzer Prize. Also born in the United States that year, Amy Tan is an American writer known for her exploration of the difficulties of mother-daughter relationships: “I learned to forgive myself, and that enabled me to forgive my mother as a person as well” (1). Tan was born in Oakland, California on February 19th to two Chinese immigrants. Tan’s childhood was one full of strife and tragedy. Her father and oldest brother both died of brain tumors, leading Tan’s mother to move the family to Switzerland. Tan was in constant conflict with her mother, which escalated when she decided to run away with her eventual husband Louis DeMattei to San Jose State University. Her early career found success writing as a business woman, until her mother’s recovery from illness drove the two to China. There, Tan became a changed woman, and the trip inspired her to write The Joy Luck Club, which would eventually confirm her reputation as a major novelist. 

The only one among the three of these women who is dead, and has let alone taken her own life, Sylvia Plath was perhaps the most dynamic and admired of the three. As World Socialist reporter said about the late Sylvia Plath: 

Whether Plath wrote about nature, or about the social restrictions on individuals, 

she stripped away the polite veneer. She let her writing express elemental forces 

and primeval fears. In doing so, she laid bare the contradictions that tore apart 

appearance and hinted at some of the tensions hovering just beneath the surface of 

the American way of life... (1)

Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Boston to a German immigrant college professor and his student. Her life suddenly changed when her father died only eight years later, in which she later reflected in her most famous poem “Daddy”. The family then moved to Wellesley, where the undergraduate began to suffer symptoms of severe depression, including bipolar disorder: “It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative—whichever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it” (1). Soon afterward she attempted to take her own life at the young age of nineteen. After her recovery, Plath returned to Smith College where she met her husband, Ted Hughes. The end of their marriage in 1962 however, left Plath to care for her two young children. She committed suicide shortly afterward by inhaling gas from a kitchen oven. 

Before the great American writers Rita Dove, Amy Tan, and Sylvia Plath resided in the annals of American Literature, they struggled in their individual ways; like Mark Twain, these three women were influenced both positively and negatively on their roads to success. The great American writer Mark Twain was influenced by the Civil War in which he saw institutions uprooted and social life transformed: “I was a soldier two weeks once in the beginning of the war, and was hunted like a rat the whole time” (1). Rita Dove was influenced by Shakespeare, Boccaccio, and her grandparents. She took the ideas of the white literary world and interpreted them in the culture of the black people. In an interview with The Book Report on April 8, 1997, Dove discussed her “refusal to be bound by history, gender, race, circumstance” (1), and where this aspect of her character came from:

As a child, I was told by my mother and father, "Don't assume anything. Look at 

the situation as clearly as you can... then do the best you can with what you know." The point was not to rely on friends or circumstances. I also think that 

reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had 

the ability to make utter strangers come alive. That expanded my sense of what 

differences there can be in a human being. (1)

Similarly, Amy Tan was influenced by her mother and grandmother, and often wrote about feelings concerning life and death. Perhaps more interesting, however, are the not-so-known influences of Amy Tan. As Tan explained in an interview two years ago, she has had a number of different influences: fairy tales, the Bible, the writer Nabokov, and the book Jane Eyre. She saw connections between fairy tales and stories like “David and Goliath” in the Bible which fostered a wild imagination in her.  All of this is credited ultimately to the way she was raised, an intelligent literary Christian.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn delved into the issue of slavery through the character Jim; similarly, Sylvia Plath delved into the social justice issue of feminism in her poem “Daddy”. In Mark Twain’s revolutionary novel, Jim is a slave who runs away with the protagonist Huckleberry Finn to find freedom in the north of the United States of America by traveling up the Mississippi River. Through this character Mark Twain addressed the issue of slavery, pointing out that slaves are in fact people, people who have feelings and emotions. The issue of slavery was one that Mark Twain felt true disgust and misunderstanding of: “Our Civil War was a blot on our history, but not as great a blot as the buying and selling of Negro souls.” Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” is a reflection of the damaged and fearful relationship between the narrator and her late father. Plath depicts the narrator as a madwoman who confronts her own rage toward her father by later murdering him. Despite the emotionally charged phrases and strong use of words, the madwoman of this poem seems to successfully overcome the oppressing nature of her father, as shown in the last line “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through” (3) of the poem. Her hatred of her evil father becomes more and more evident as the poem unfolds, yet she struggles with her undying love for him. She does not quite understand how she can love a man who put her through years of fear and anxiety, and this same uncertainty takes hold again when she marries a man just like her father: “I made a model of you, A man with a Meinkampf look/ And a love of the rack and the screw” (2). According to Sandra A. Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s theory of feminism, “Plath was only channeling her emotions as way for her to come to terms with the oppression she has faced as a woman, and possibly struggles of being a female author” (1). Through the poem “Daddy” Sylvia Plath has shown that women do not need the help and guidance of a man, proving it when the narrator of the poem so chose to kill both her father and her newly-wed. 

Each of these women have found success in the literary world; in particular, Amy Tan and Rita Dove have each influenced and contributed in her own way to American Literature. Beginning with her astounding book The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan has achieved enormous political and critical acclaim through her stories reflecting her past. Upon the book’s publication in 1989, Tan’s work has won enthusiastic reviews and spent eight months on The New York Times bestseller list. The international bestseller has since then also been translated into 17 languages. Tan is a member of a movement of Asian-American writers, and her widespread popularity is perhaps one of her greatest contributions to the modern Asian-American literary boom. Maxine Hong Kingston, a member of this movement, believed back in 1991 that “...American fiction has gone minimalist, readers have turned to our stories for the pleasure of reading about relationships and communities” (1). It is for this reason that there was such a boom in Chinese-American literature in the spring of 1991; Amy Tan, along with her fellow Chinese-American writers, contributed to that sudden rise in popularity. Rita Dove, on the other hand, contributed to American Literature through her work as US Poet Laureate. Holding that position for two years, Rita Dove brought writers together to explore the African diaspora through the eyes of its artists. She wrote about being alive and stands as a socialist for women and African Americans. Some of her greatest contributions are through her poetry, and poetry itself. She described to The Book Report in an interview about particular experiences serving as Poet Laureate: 

I took Washington kids into the Library of Congress to read their poems and to be 

recorded for the Archives. ... I brought Crow Indian children to Washington. They 

told their Congressmen what poetry meant to them. They forced their 

Congressmen to listen to them. I had an evening of poetry and jazz to join those 

audiences. (1)

Rita Dove seemed in this position to care very little for her own interests, and rather for poetry as a whole and the continuity of its affect on people, particularly those of the younger generation. As she described in that interview, Rita Dove is a woman who attempted to nurture the growth of poetry’s relevance in the world, and will continue to do so for the rest of her writing career. 

Rita Dove’s For the Love of Books, Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue, and Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” are reflective works which describe an aspect of influence that defined what these women chose to write about throughout their careers. Rita Dove’s For the Love of Books depicts an aspect of childhood, particularly her love of books and how that made her want to be a writer.  Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue talks about a particular time Tan spent with her mother, and how she could not speak English very well. In this story Tan emphasizes that what really matters is what the words coming out of her mouth mean rather than what the words sound like. Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” recounts Plath’s memory of her father, the oppression and fear she experienced growing up under his care. Each of these works describe a particular event in that woman’s life, and how that later shaped the type of writer these women were to become. For example, Rita Dove talks about her love of books, ranging from works by Shakespeare to fairy tales like A Thousand and One Nights. This inevitably drove her to want to be a writer herself, and what it truly meant to her: “...I realized that writers were real people and how it was possible to write down a poem or story in the intimate sphere of one’s own room and then share it with the world” (1011). Similarly, Amy Tan talks about her fascination with language, and how her varying uses of language in the form of literacy drove her to be a writer. Tan talks about how language and how one speaks it can act as limitations; as she describes, this thought of having limitations only drove her to want to become a writer even more: “I started writing nonfiction as a freelancer the week after I was told by my former boss that writing was my worst skill and I should hone my talents toward account management” (1015). These three works relate in that they each reflect a certain aspect of these writers’ influences on their lives, whether it be the love of books or the abuse from a father.

Rita Dove, Amy Tan, and Sylvia Plath each contributed to American Literature in her own way; Rita Dove with her work as US Poet Laureate and advocate of poetry, Amy Tan with her astounding works such as The Joy Luck Club depicting the struggles in mother-daughter relationships, and Sylvia Plath with her work in “Daddy” showing the strength of women and the true meaning of their individualism. Like the great American writer Mark Twain, each of these women will be remembered for generations to come for their unique writing characteristics, and the mass appeal of their works. Despite these three writers being women, an inevitable state of being that has served as a limitation for much of history, Rita Dove, Amy Tan, and Sylvia Plath do so much more than write short stories and poems. Within these works lie their hopes, dreams, fears, memories, beliefs, and influences. As Mark Twain believed in equality for all during the period following the Civil War, Amy Tan believed in the power of language, Rita Dove in the affects of poetry, and Sylvia Plath in the power of women. These are undoubtedly the reasons why society, especially today, look up to these women and their lives as they serve as symbols of strength and feminism in a world that has been for the majority of its history dominated by the influence of men. 

Works Cited

"Amy Tan Biography." Achievement. American Academy of Achievement, 5 Feb. 2013. Web. 

22 May 2013.

Baker, Katie J. "Princeton Alum Tells Female Students They're Doomed Unless They Find a Princeton Prince and Get Their MRS." Jezebel. Gawker Media, 29 Mar. 2013. Web. 22 

May 2013. 

Doorly, Sean. "Interview with Ms. Dove." Interview with Ms. Dove. The Book Report Inc., 8 Apr. 1997. Web. 10 May 2013.

Dove, Rita. "For the Love of Books." American Experience. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. 2000. 1010-1011. Print. 

Fuller, Faith. "12 Tips How To Make A Documentary. Filmmaking Stuff For Independent Filmmakers. Desktop Documentaries, 11 July 2011. Web. 10 May 2013.

Haley, Elisabeth. "Old Dog/New Tricks: Reteaching "Huck Finn" and Pop Culture." The English 

Journal 85.7 (1996)\: 121-22. JSTOR. Web. 13 Apr. 2011. 

Jordan, Tina. "The Children of 'Woman Warrior'" EW.com. CNN, 21 June 1991. Web. 28 May 

2013.

Margolis, Stacey. "Huckleberry Finn: Or, Consequences." PMLA 116.1 (2001): 329-343.JSTOR. Web. 13 May 2011.

O., Lindsay. "Feminism in Sylvia Plath's "Daddy"" Web log post. Meaning of Being. Google, 23 Apr. 2009. Web. 22 May 2013.

Plath, Sylvia. "Daddy." Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 22 May 2013. Reed, Josephine. "Amy Tan On Her Literary Influences." The Big Read Blog RSS. The Big 

Read Blog, 23 Dec. 2011. Web. 10 May 2013. 

"Rita Dove." The Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 23 May 2013.

"Sylvia Plath." The Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 23 May 2013.

Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." American Experience. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. 2000. 1012-1016. Print.

Twain, Mark. "Mark Twain Quotations - Civil War." Mark Twain Quotations - Civil War. Twain Quotes, n.d. Web. 22 May 2013.

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Essay 3- Humble Origins

Samuel Guerra

English 2, Period 2

Mr. Brown

30 April 2013

Humble Origins

The lights of the Staple Center suddenly went dark. I, along with the thousands of other people in the arena, had waited what seemed like a millennium for one of the greatest bands of the generation to present its 2nd Law World Tour. Once the conventional opening act Band of Skulls concluded its presentation, every minute that passed by seemed like an hour as the suspense and excitement of what was to come next built up. Then finally, when the lights of the arena did go dark, I knew the wait was over. In what appeared to be a split second, the entire audience of the sold out show, myself included, began screaming and cheering before the bandmates actually walked on stage. Then amidst the colored strobe lights and shouting, they appeared; Matthew Bellamy, Christopher Wolstenholme, and Dominic Howard of an alternative rock band called Muse, my favorite band. For the next two hours I had the time of my life; it was an event I will always remember, an event that still brings me joy to this day. This concert not only heightened my love for the band, but for alternative rock music as a whole. 

Becoming one of the most popular types of rock music of this generation, modern alternative rock had its humble beginnings as independent underground music in the early 1980s. The term “alternative” was used during that time to characterize basically any music that descended from punk rock. This was especially true when it came time for independent record labels to “describe punk rock-inspired bands that did not quite fit into the mainstream genres of the time” (Audials). The new genre had many subcategories, as it encompassed a wide variety of music that was not quite related in terms of sound and lyrical style. Grunge music, which fostered the rise of alternative rock, featured heavily distorted guitars and emotional lyrics that were delivered in an abrasive manner. Alternative rock music did not became popular, however, until  the 1990s, in which it gained popularity with the college-student community. Afterall, “most of the genre’s airtime was given by college radio stations”(rockmusic). However, the band Nirvana’s success on the charts and its banal acceptance by the people led to the widespread popularity of grunge, and in result, alternative rock itself. In relation, bands Green Day and Muse capture the genre’s capability to deliver themes of social justice to the public, as well as represent the genre’s emotional lyric style.

Alternative rock bands such as Nirvana, Green Day, and Muse are more than just music groups that create and put out rock music. Each of these bands represents an aspect of the alternative rock genre itself, a subcategory that adds to the overall success of the genre as a whole. Nirvana was not successful in disseminating alternative rock by calling themselves “alternative”. They were grunge musicians at heart, and this was the kind of music the band publicized and had produced. Their listeners did not care about the “type” of band they were per se; Nirvana’s fan base loved the “rawness of the sound,” as it “brought a new punk-like energy to the national music scene...and matched their feelings of angst and frustration” (wiseGEEK). Just as Timothy Egan, writer for the New York Times wrote about the band almost a decade ago:

Nirvana will be remembered for revolutionizing the state of rock 'n' roll in the 1990's, pulling it away from a processed, rather synthetic sound and returning it to something more sincere...Nirvana's popularity signaled the acceptability not only of grunge but also of many other bands once considered far too raw and scruffy for the mainstream. (NY Times 1 )

Nirvana paved the way for many Alternative rock bands to come, especially those of different subcategories. Such examples are Green Day, an American Punk Rock band, and Muse, an English Progressive Rock band. These bands represent the legacy and continued success of Alternative rock, as begun by Nirvana. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, executive editor for Allmusic, wrote about Green Day’s album American Idiot: “ a chart-topper around the world, a multi-platinum Grammy winner, and easily the best reviewed album of their career.”

Arguably one of the greatest stepping stones in the history of Alternative rock, the breakthrough of the American rock band Nirvana led to the widespread popularity of the genre in the 1990s. Nirvana, consisting of bandmates Krist Novoselic, Kurt Cobain, and Dave Grohl, surprised the music industry and popularized grunge with the release of their album Nevermind, which was released on DGC records on September 10, 1991.The culturally relevant music of Alternative rock began to dominate rock music with the success of this album, “One of those rare, near-flawless works of art that only grows finer with age” (Beats Per Minute). The release of the band’s leading single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, marked the instigation of the grunge period phenomenon, which was the integration of that type of alternative rock into the mainstream music. The song earned real attention as “MTV aired the video constantly on its network” (Nirvana). The song’s lyrics describing the high felt after injection of heroin, the temporary happiness that fills the void, and the return to reality hailed the song as an anthem for a generation. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is a great example of the lyrical aspect of grunge. Grunge lyrics are often angst-filled, addressing themes such as social alienation and a desire for freedom, as seen through “Smells Like Teen Spirit:

And I forget just why I taste/ Oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile/ I found it hard; it's hard to find/ Oh well, whatever, nevermind/ Hello, hello, hello, how low (x3)/ Hello, hello, hello/ With the lights out, it’s less dangerous/ Here we are now entertain us/ I feel stupid and contagious/ Here we are now, entertain us. (Nirvana)

The injection of heroin was this freedom, this release from society, problems, reality. It gave the speaker euphoria and a temporary happiness only sought after more vigorously once the feeling elapsed.  

Being a clear example of the influence alternative rock has had on society, Green Day is one of the greatest rock bands of the genre, using its popularity and global success to display alternative rock music’s capability to disseminate social issues. Green Day, made up of band members Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, Tre  Cool, and Jason White, is “the most influential group the genre has ever witnessed, and certainly is its most well-known and best-selling act” (PopMatters). With this power of popularity, the band has, through its album American Idiot, addressed the issue of war and its harmful effects. American Idiot, Green Day’s seventh studio album was produced by Reprise and created as an anti-war album, contains many modern protest songs, such as “Holiday”, which was against George Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq. “Holiday”, released March 7, 2005 is an example of how the genre of alternative rock can, and has been used to discuss social issues such as war:

Hear the sound of the falling rain/ Coming down like an Armageddon flame (Hey!) The shame/ The ones who died without a name/ Hear the dogs howling out of key/ To a hymn called "Faith and Misery" (Hey!)/ And bleed, the company lost the war today/ I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies/ This is the dawning of the rest of our lives/ On holiday. (Green Day)

All people listen to music, and songs such as this one can call said people to action, and perhaps even serve as an eye-opener to the many injustices of this world. As leading vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong said of war, “You can’t change the wind but you can set your sails,” meaning that although it is impossible to change the past or possibly know what the future will bring, it is still possible to act now and have an affect on what is to come. 

Rising to fame and popularity while Alternative rock music itself was well on the rise, the English rock band Muse represents well the lyrical style of the genre, addressing topics of social concern as well as a reflection of the social and economic strains of society. Muse, consisting of childhood friends, Matthew Bellamy, Christopher Wolstenholme, and Dominic Howard, rose to international fame and secured a considerable fan base with the release of their first album Showbiz. Songs from this album, along with their following album, Origins of Symmetry, consisted of lyrics that dealt with reflective themes such as relationships: “Too broken to belong/ too weak to sing along /I'll comfort you my friend/ Helping you to/ Blow it all away” (Muse) . With the production of Muse’s fifth studio album, The Resistance, the band’s lyrical style took a different turn, as described by music critic Jess Harvell: "Bellamy's lyrics are an outgrowth of wanting to make his music as big and inclusive as possible, rather than any inchoate political impulses...his mush-headed vagueness is designed to inspire warm fuzzy feelings of togetherness and resistance"(1). The most popular off this album, “Uprising” indeed aspires such feelings of fellowship. Bellamy explained to The Sun newspaper that in the song one can hear the general feeling that big institutions, which are supposed to be in positions of trust, have let the people down. It is now therefore the people’s turn to overthrow these institutions:

        Rise up and take the power back, it’s time that/ The fat cats had a heart attack, you 

know that/ Their time is coming to an end/ We have to unify and watch our flag 

ascend/ They will not force us/ They will stop degrading us/ They will not control us/ We will be victorious. (Muse)

These lyrics address topics of social concern, and represent well the social and economic strains of society, which may or may not be caused by banks, politicians, etc. as described above. However, as seen as a common theme of alternative rock music, one can rise up against any issue in his or her life, whether it be a drug addiction or an unhealthy relationship.

From its humble beginnings as an underground music style enjoyed by the college crowds, alternative rock has become one of the biggest rock styles to date, giving birth to phenomenal bands such as Nirvana, Green Day, and Muse which will be remembered for ages to come. Like all music, alternative rock is more than just a genre or rock style; it is an art style. It has the ability to speak to people in different ways, appeal to different kinds of people, and do one thing humanity has been yearning for since creation: inspire. Music in and of itself can inspire all people to do something in life, whether it be sitting back and injecting heroin, protesting a war, or taking a stand against an opposing force. Music, especially alternative rock, evokes emotion that is at times indescribable; it even, at times, gives each and every person a reason to push on. All music is beautiful and exceptional; how society chooses to react to such beauty is a question only time can tell.

Works Cited

"Alternative Music." Genres Alternative Music. Audials Software, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 

2013.Armstrong, Billie J. ""Holiday" Lyrics." GREEN DAY LYRICS. Gracenote, n.d. 

Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Armstrong, Billie J. American Idiot. Green Day. Rec. Mar. 2004. Reprise, MP3.

Bellamy, Matthew. "Muse – Uprising." SongMeanings. LyricFind, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Bellamy, Matthew. "Quotes About Muse Band." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 

2013.

Bellamy, Matthew. "Uprising." Rec. Aug. 2009. The Resistance. Muse. Warner Bros. Records, 

2009. MP3.

Bobb, Maurice. "Green Day." MTV. Echonest, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Cobain, Kurt, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic. "Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit."SongMeanings. LyricFind, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Cavallari, Dan, and Bronwyn Harris. "What Is Alternative Music?" WiseGeek. Conjecture, n.d. 

Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Egan, Timothy. "Nirvana." News. The New York Times Company, 21 Apr. 2013. Web. 21 Apr. 

2013.

Harvell, Jess. "Articles." Pitchfork. Pitchfork Media Inc., 15 Sept. 2009. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

"Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit." YouTube. YouTube, 16 June 2009. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

"The History of Alternative Rock Music." Rockmusic.mu. RockMusic.mu, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 

2013.

"The History of Alternative Rock Music." The History of Alternative Rock Music. 

RockMusic.mu, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Ulmer, John. "Critic Reviews for Nevermind." Beats Per Minute. Metacritic, 5 Oct. 2011. Web. 

21 Apr. 2013.

"Uprising." Songfacts. ToneMedia, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

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Essay 2- A Sadness Between the Lines

Samuel Guerra

English 2, Period 2

Mr. Brown

25 March 2013

A Sadness between the Lines

“The boundaries,” stated seventeenth century writer Edgar Allan Poe, “which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” Edgar Allan Poe was infatuated with this question, and often sought and explored solutions through his varying poetic works. Poe’s unique writing style was based on the supernatural and other aspects of human psychology. Perhaps what he is also widely known for, Edgar Allan Poe embraced individualism and defied the confinement of neoclassicism, which was an influential movement in the arts, and religious tradition. His obsession with death, on the other hand, was apparent in countless of his works, ranging from The Fall of the House of Usher to his most famous The Raven. This quality of having a horrific, gruesome atmosphere, also known as the macabre, shaped and defined the type of poet Edgar Allan Poe was. Perhaps another quality seen in Poe’s work was the ability of his characters to ironically uncover the positive from within the negative. A group of poets also known for this type of writing were the Fireside Poets, along with the literary icon Emily Dickinson. Portrayed through the works of the Fireside Poets, the Sunshine and Shadow Effect’s themes of emotion and contrast relate to Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe, as Fireside works, Dickinson, and the macabre connect with Poe’s obsession with death as well. 

Known as the Sunshine and Shadow Effect, Edgar Allan Poe uses its theme of focusing on the contrasts of life in his astounding literary works. His works mark him as one of the originators of both horror and detective fiction. Within these works, the themes of imagination and emotion can be deduced, which relate directly to the Sunshine and Shadow Effect’s process of uncovering avail within affliction. Poe often did just that. For example, in his famous The Raven Poe presents ways in which the dead are best remembered, either by mourning or celebrating life beyond earthly boundaries. Similarly, Poe explores the question about the probability of an afterlife in which the narrator searches vainly for comfort in his books following the death of his wife:

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us  

—by that God we both adore—Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall

clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the

angels name Lenore.” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore”.(313)

For the majority of this poem, the main character, the husband, is in a state of chagrin until he is visited by a strange raven, who continues to chant “Nevermore”. One can interpret this as a sign of hope; the raven is telling the husband not to cry or mourn anymore, that he has nothing to worry about. His wife is with God in heaven, a sign of faith amongst all the grief and doubt.

Literary figure Edgar Allan Poe’s dark and horrific writing style does not compare well with the much more uplifting style of the Fireside Poets; however, the outputs of these poets and their poems’ underlying themes do have their similarities. Unlike the details and symbols of death commonly seen in Poe’s poems, Fireside poetry’s central focuses were the life, mythology, and politics of the United States. After all, these poems were meant to be read and enjoyed by families. Nevertheless, Fireside poetry did indeed deal with death, only it was addressed in a more peaceful, accepted way. Poe wrote horror stories that dealt with the pernicious side of humankind. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a considered rival of Poe, wrote a number of poems about death in which case do indeed connect with some of Poe’s. Longfellow’s The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls speaks against the belief that people are the center of existence. Longfellow infact states quite the opposite in this poem. He speaks to the Sunshine and Shadow Effect’s theme of opposition when he talks about humankind in relation to nature. With the rising and falling of the tide, Longfellow is saying that life continues after death, but also that nature will wash away the records of man, “The little waves, with their soft, white hands, Efface the footprints in the sands...”(Longfellow).  

Another Fireside poet, James Russell Lowell’s depressing The First Snowfall tells the story of the first winter since the death of the speaker’s daughter, “I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn Where a little headstone stood; How the flakes were folding it gently, As did the robins the babes in the wood”(264-265). Edgar Allan Poe has written several poems about the death of a loved one, always particularly a woman, but one poem delivers the same emotional effect as Lowell’s: Annabel Lee. Annabel Lee tells a love story between the speaker and his wife Annabel, who at the time of the poem has passed away. This poem truly captures  a deep indescribable sadness that evokes a strong emotional reaction from the reader. The poem talks about how happy and in-love the couple was in their “little kingdom by the sea”, until she was suddenly taken from him, leaving him a broken, depressed man: “But we loved with a love that was more than love—I and my Annabel Lee—With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me”(Poe). Like the father in The First Snowfall, the husband in Annabel Lee not only lost someone very dear to his heart, but even more difficult, will have to learn to live without her. 

Perhaps one of the few poets who can truly relate to Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre-esque writing, Emily Dickinson shared his obsession with death and the many depressions of life leading to it. Only seeing a handful of her poems published before her death, Emily Dickinson represented the private life of a writer. She enjoyed the privacy and peace of her home, a Shangri-la  where she could truly focus on her individualistic, moribund writing. Like Poe, Dickinson also liked to focus on the opposites of life, and how these opposites balanced each other out while coexisting. For example, In Poem 135, Water, is taught by thirst., Dickinson describes how one thing is only the result on another:

Water, is taught by thirst.

Land—by the Oceans passed. Transport—by the throe—

Peace—by its battles told—

Love, by Memorial Mold—Birds, by the Snow.(401)

There is only land where there is no water, and one can only experience ecstasy after first knowing of pain. Poe delved into a similar type of thinking in his poem The Conqueror Worm, examining how the human body decays into the very elements it was once made of. “It writhes!— it writhes!—with mortal pangs,” wrote Poe, “The mimes become its food, And seraphs sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbued.” Poe describes the harsh and not-so-subtle process of buried human flesh being devoured by a worm. This poem, however, has deeper meaning. Like Dickinson stated that peace can only be won through war and hardship, Poe affirmed that the afterlife can only be attained through death and the leaving behind of the body to this circle of life.

The American Romantic Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre-esque focus on death through the Sunshine and Shadow Effect related to those of Emily Dickinson and a few of the Fireside Poets; the macabre style, known for its depictions of death, do indeed shed life, however. The word has been associated with numerous origins from those involving the Greeks and the Jews to the Italians and French scholar Gaston Paris, as described by Robert Eisler in his article “Danse Macabre”. Its most famous association is with the Dance of Death, as was depicted in numerous paintings involving dancing skeletons during the Middle Ages. The macabre, regardless of how gruesome or ghastly it has been depicted, directly relates to the Sunshine and Shadow Effect. The macabre’s greatest endorser was undeniably Edgar Allan Poe, with references to death in his greatest works. As Poe was able to uncover hope through his poems’ speakers, the macabre itself shines some of the same. Are dancing skeletons and haunting ravens necessarily that evil and afflictive? These creations of the mind are meant to force a person to face his/her fears. This is where the hope is revealed. Once that fear is overcome, what left is there to be afraid of except for the unknown? This is perhaps the main theme behind Emily Dickinson, James Russell Lowell, Henry Longfellow, and especially Edgar Allan Poe’s use of macabre: Other than death, what is there really to be afraid of?    

Works Cited

Dickinson, Emily. “Water, is taught by thirst.” American Experience. Upper Saddle River: 

Prentice Hall. 2000. 401. Print.

Eisler, Robert. “Danse Macabre.” Traditio 6: 187-225. 25 Mar. 2013. Web. 

Longfellow, Henry W. “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls.” Poetry Foundation. The Poetry 

Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2013.

Lowell, James R. “The First Snowfall.” American Experience. Upper Saddle River: Prentice 

Hall. 2000. 264-265. Print. 

Poe, Edgar A. “Annabel Lee.” Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 Mar.

2013.

Poe, Edgar A. “The Conqueror Worm.” Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 

Mar. 2013

Poe, Edgar A. “The Raven.” American Experience. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. 2000. 

309-313. Print. 

Poe, Edgar A. “Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends, Join Book Clubs, Answer 

Trivia.” Goodreads. Goodreads Inc, n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2013.

Unrue, Darlene H. “Edgar Allan Poe: The Romantic as a Classicist.” International Journal of the 

Classical Tradition 1.4: 112-119. 22 Mar. 2013 Web. 

[samjgp2-blog]

Essay 1- Strangers

Samuel Guerra                                                                                                                     

English 2, Period 2                                                                                                               

Mr. Brown

9 November 2012

Strangers

“They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things... . They willingly traded everything they owned... . They do not bear arms ... for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want” (“A People’s History”). Renowned explorer Christopher Columbus was clever and to the point in his thinking in this journal excerpt about his encounter with the Arawak Indians; the early Spaniards had an irrefutably partial viewpoint of the Native Americans. In the Spaniards’ opinion, the Native Americans were an inferior, weak, and vanquishable race who could be utilized to the their advantage. As Columbus so bluntly pointed out, the natives would make great slaves, and it would take little effort to conquer them. 

“They celebrated our coming for three days ... . Nothing was talked about in this whole country but of the wonderful cures which God, ... , performed through us, and so they came from many places to be cured, ... . They begged us to remember them and pray ... to keep them always healthy, ... , and so they left, the happiest people ... , having given us the very best they had” (“Cabeza de Vaca”). In this excerpt from the journal of  Spanish wanderer Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the Native Americans in turn had a much more enthusiastic judgement of the Spaniards. Never failing to come to their aid, the Native Americans viewed the explorers as gods, ones who should be shown the highest forms of hospitality. Proven by the Spanish explorers’ writings, the Native Americans and the Spaniards had a definitive relationship based on influence; the natives offered aid and knowledge, while the Spaniards sought subjugation of these peoples and the riches that could be attained from them. 

Although the Spanish explorers were strangers in the Americas, the Native Americans provided for the explorers and guided them on their expeditions. The natives welcomed the Spaniards into their villages, often presenting them with gifts and other riches. Natives who approached Columbus and his men supplied them with enough water for their journey to other islands of the Bahamas. Similarly, Aztecs gave Cortez gold on his exit of their great city, before he went back and attacked the natives out of greed. The natives also provided the explorers with food, shelter, and water. De Vaca and his men came into contact with different villages and tribes, each of them providing De Vaca with food and shelter: 

... after going a league and a half we met ... the people that came to receive us, who gave us beans and many squashes to eat, gourds to carry water in, robes of cowhide, and other things. ... we found them at their homes, and they had other houses ready for us. ... There was nothing they would not give us. They are the best formed people we have seen, the liveliest and most capable; who best understood us and answered our questions (35-36).

 Lastly, the natives acted as guides for the Spaniards on their various expeditions, often providing safe passage. The Native Americans guided García López de Cardenas to the Grand Canyon through rough terrain, and told him “it was impossible to go on because no water would be found for three or four days”, which saved his life (39). Likewise, natives guided De Vaca through Texas on his journey to the Spanish settlements in Mexico City, gaining the support from other tribes of natives, which would prove useful in the eventual conquer of these peoples.

Regardless of the aid received from the Native Americans, the Spanish eventual conquer of theses peoples resulted in slavery, mistreatment, and injustice. Natives were slaves to the Spanish and their eventual establishments. De Vaca demonstrates his narrow-minded thinking during his journey through Texas: “They entreated us not to be angry any longer, because even if it was their death, they would take us where we chose. We feigned to be angry still, so as to keep them in suspense...” (35). Native Americans were forced to build and support the Spanish infrastructure in the Americas. They were also forced to work the land of the Spanish missions and many were either beaten, starved, or worked to death. The Spanish forced the Native Americans to give up their gold, even though large sums of it were already presented as gifts, as was the case with the Aztecs. Furthermore, Spanish missionaries saw the many native expressions and practices as idolatry. These aspects of the Native American culture were often prohibited under the missionaries, which deprived these peoples of their basic lifestyles and religions. This was an example of the missionaries’ vigorous attempts to convert the indigenous population to Christianity, and one of the many ways the Spanish suppressed the natives.

Regardless of the differences between the two groups’ attitudes, the Spaniards and the Native Americans influenced one another in ways that were both good and bad. The Native Americans learned from the Spanish how to use new tools, grow new food, and raise sheep for wool on the missions. The Spanish language also evolved into the replacement of some indigenous languages of the Americas. The Spanish too learned new techniques in farming such as growing crops in the desert soil, which would prove very helpful in the colonization of America. De Vaca described one of the ways the natives prepared food: “... they fill a middle-sized gourd with water, and place into a fire such stones as easily become heated ... . As soon as it boils they put into it what they want to cook, always taking out the stones as they cool off and throwing in hot ones to keep the water steadily boiling” (37). The coming of the Europeans also had a great effect on the Native American population. The Spanish exposed the Native Americans to many banes of the Old World, such as smallpox, which killed off a majority of the population. During De Vaca’s journey through Texas, he described an epidemic that struck the natives: “On that same day many fell sick, and on the next day eight of them died! ... they became so afraid that it seemed as if the mere sight of us would kill them” (35). Native American exposure to diseases devastated the indigenous peoples, making them even more prone to Spanish conquest. 

Strangers coming into contact with each other for the first time, Spaniards and Native Americans reacted differently to the situation. The Native Americans welcomed the Spaniards and showed these visitors congeniality by providing them with various provisions. On the contrary, the Spaniards had a desire to convert the Native population to Christianity as well as  exploit them. The Spanish committed infamous injustices toward the Native Americans in their colonization of the New World. The Spanish did, however, have reason for these mistreatments. Explorers and first settlers were motivated by gold, glory, and God to colonize America; the Native Americans were a force that inevitably had to be neutralized in order to fulfill this 

mission. Even greater than sheer desire was the psychological aspect of the mission. “Individuation, the continuing process of personality re-formation”, was a key reason the Spaniards felt obligated to extirpate the indigenous peoples; these conquests provided a way for the Spaniards to undergo this process of rebirth, and in general terms, complete their “quest for wholeness” in the new territory (Pike 220; 241). This psychological aspect also encompassed “ego consciousness, the sum of what individuals know and are aware of as constituting their personal identities”, which, in the form of their pride, drove them to look down upon the natives, for superiority was a prerequisite if the Spaniards were going to survive in these lands (Pike 218). So perhaps the Spanish explorers were not such an evil, egocentric kind as the North American images of the Spanish portray; perhaps subjugation was necessary to the Spaniards’ psychological survival in the New World.  

Works Cited

Bandelier, Fanny. “All Over the Land Nothing Else Was Spoken Of: Cabeza de Vaca Takes Up Residence as a Medicine Man in the Southwest, 1530s”. History Matters. George Mason University. 8 November 2012. Web. 5 November 2012.

Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar Núñez. “A Journey Through Texas”. American Experience. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. 2000. 34-37. Print. 

Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar Núñez. “A Journey Through Texas”. American Experience. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. 2000. 34-37. Print. 

Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar Núñez. “A Journey Through Texas”. American Experience. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. 2000. 34-37. Print. 

López de Cárdenas, García. “Boulders Taller Than the Great Tower of Seville”. American Experience. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. 2000. 38-39. Print. 

Pike, Fredrick B. “The Psychology of Regeneration: Spain and America at the Turn of the Century”. The Review of Politics, Vol. 43. No. 2. 1981. 218-241. JSTOR. Web. 31 Wed. 2012. 

Pike, Fredrick B. “The Psychology of Regeneration: Spain and America at the Turn of the Century”. The Review of Politics, Vol. 43. No. 2. 1981. 218-241. JSTOR. Web. 31 Wed. 2012. 

Zinn, Howard. “A People’s History of the United States”. History is a Weapon. Tumblr, 8 Nov. 2012. Web. 5 November 2012.