Uploaded by benjamin789 on Nov 2, 2006
Analysis of "The Death of the Author"
In his essay “The Death of the Author”, Roland Barthes attacks the tradition of “Classic criticism” (which he describes as being “tyrannically centred on the author” ), presenting the argument that there is no such thing as the “Author” of a text, but merely a “scriptor” whose ideas are not entirely original; the author is subject to several influences when writing, and as Barthes says we can never know the true influence because writing destructs “every point of origin” . It is not the author (whose voice vanishes at the point of writing), but language that speaks, therefore, the text requires an analysis of language and linguistics, rather than a speaking voice. Barthes emphasises that once the author is removed, it is within the reader of the text that any meaning lies, as the text is open to multiple interpretations by the reader, that the author may not have originally intended (deeming the reader as the more creative force), making the author seem an insignificant figure in literature.
Barthes enhances his theory by presenting several examples to illustrate his reasons for believing that the author is “dead”, before finally delivering his main declaration. Beginning the essay by pointing out the disappearance of the narrator in modern literature, Barthes uses the example of the story Sarrasine by Balzac to illustrate the claim that the author disappears at the point of writing, for the reader is able to distinguish more than just a solitary voice in the lines of the text. The notion of the author being merely the “medium” through which writing is presented (it is not the author’s “genius” but “mastery of narration” which is admired) is first examined in the following paragraph, as well as the conflicting Classic criticism - “The explanation is always sought in the person who produced the text…” where the belief has always been that the work is the sole responsibility of the author.
Barthes then goes on to refute this by presenting the example of Mallarme, who stressed the importance of linguistic analysis (“it is language that speaks, not the author”) , as well as Proust’s contribution to modern writing, showing the reversal of the roles of author and writing; author creates text becomes text creates author. The lack of meaning in a text (found in Surrealist works, which Barthes mentions) also emphasizes the degradation of the Classic concept of author. He states that Surrealism, along with the study of linguistics of a given text, helped contribute to the death of the author. He claims that language knows a subject not a person. So the person studying the language of a text will concern themselves more with the subject and less with the person behind the words.
His definition of the word “text” – “a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.” - emphasizes that the writer of such text is never completely original (demoting the God-like Author to a “modern scriptor” ). Bathes is saying that the author or narrator who is really the voice of the author himself is becoming less of an entity within the text itself. By drawing a contrast between the author and the narrative voice and language he succeeds in distancing the author from his work and adding to his disappearance. Barthes stresses that the author is the past to his own book. These things have already happened to the author therefore creating a gap between the author now and the narrator of the text as it occurs (the “scriptor”). Therefore, the difference between the text and the work itself becomes an issue. The text would be what would be happening to the author right then and there, as the work as a whole would be associated with the author. The distancing between the author and the narrator grows because of this and adds to Barthes argument.
The final paragraph states that reading is the true “place of writing” , using the example of the Greek tragedies with texts that contain words with double meanings that appear one-sided to the characters. However, the reader (the audience) is aware of the double meanings, implying the “multiplicity of writing” rests on the reader for open interpretation. “A text’s unity lies not on its origin but on its destination.” Pointing out the importance of the reader in literary analysis, Barthes shows that Classic criticism was “imposing a limit” on texts by only focusing on the author themselves.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Analysis of "No Ideas but in Things"
Uploaded by riquosuave on Jul 22, 2006
Analysis of "No Ideas but in Things"
I am going to show the implications of Williams’ maxim by demonstrating the effects it has on his poetry, and most notably himself. First of all I would like to divert our attention to duality as a major theme, and affecting factor of such a maxim. For my introductory explanation I would like to consider the criticism of J. Hillis Miller.
In his famous essay on William Carlos Williams in Poets of Reality (1966), J. Hillis Miller contends that the world of Williams is beyond dualism. According to Miller’s pre-deconstructive argument, "A primordial union of subject and object is the basic presupposition" of Williams’s poetry ("Introduction" 6). Citing Williams’s dictum, "No ideas but in things," and such poems as "The Red Wheelbarrow," Miller claims that–in contrast to the duality inherent in the idealism of the classical, romantic, or symbolist traditions, wherein the objects of the world signify transcendent "supernatural realities"–the objects of Williams’s poetry signify themselves and nothing more, existing "within a shallow space, like that created on the canvases of the American abstract expressionists" ("Introduction" 3), exposing the poem not as a representation of an object, but as an object in itself. Miller finds in Williams’s verse "no symbolism, no depth, no reference to a world beyond the world, no pattern of imagery, no dialectical structure, no interaction of subject and object–just description" ("Introduction" 5). For Miller, this triumph over duality represents nothing less than "a revolution in human sensibility" and an "abandonment" of the ego: "There is no description of private inner experience. There is also no description of objects that are external to the poet’s mind. Nothing is external to his mind. His mind overlaps with things; things overlap with his mind" (Poets 288 & "Introduction" 7). Accordingly, Miller echoes Williams’s claim that a good poet "doesn’t select his material. What is there to select? It is”. (Poets 306)
Clearly Williams was no symbolist; his poetry does consistently foreground the surface value of ‘things.’ And critics of Williams’s poetry owe a good deal to Miller’s essay, which, among other things, considerably solidified Williams’s position in the canon of twentieth-century American literature. As Paul Mariani notes, "However we view his approach and strategy, J. Hillis Miller’s is one of the most important and seminal encounters in the sixty-year history of Williams criticism. Miller can be argued with and perhaps substantially qualified; he cannot be dismissed" (Poet & Critics 198). Yet how can even the poet who asserts his identity with his material avoid selecting it? Is not the poet much more than meets the page? And if material is selected, consciously or unconsciously, can it truly be "just description," signifying only itself, free of associative values and psychological content for either poet or reader? Of course not. Something in Miller’s approach cries out to be "substantially qualified."
Miller’s complete denial of the psychological terrain of Williams’s poetry leads him to mistake Williams’s identification with ‘things’ for non-differentiation. Relying far too heavily on Williams’s prose criticism at the expense of his poetry, Miller confuses Williams’s goals with his achievements. This makes a world of difference, for as a psychoanalytic interpretation of his poetry suggests, Williams consistently identifies with the world around him because he longs to exist in a state of non-differentiation with it. The difference is that between Freud’s primary and secondary narcissisms, between the infant’s primordial failure to differentiate between itself and the universe and its later, even adult, attempt to recapture this primordial state by misrecognising itself in its objects, paradoxically repeating the very process by which it formed its own separate ego. This and Williams’s avoidance of overt symbolism suggest that his penchant for resolving dualisms is in fact but the flip side of a preoccupation with dualism itself, the logical hallmark of the narcissistic Lacanian Imaginary. Furthermore, as Lacan would suggest, language and therecognition of sexual difference, among other things, forever separate Williams from his promised land; he may struggle against duality and even assert his triumph over it, but he cannot transcend it. Yet it is precisely this tension between his desire and his inability to satisfy it which fuels the fires of his creativity. Perhaps this can best be seen by analysing the image of "woman" in “Portrait of a Lady” (1920,1934), and most notably in “The Lonely Street”(1921).
Again I would like to emphasise the fact that I feel in order to explain the implications of the aforementioned maxim, it would be necessary to examine Williams’ fascination with duality which after all is an integral part and resulting factor of the explanation of the maxim, “no ideas but in things”. In "The Lonely Street”, Williams betrays a obsession with dualism in his erotically charged, almost leering, portrait of schoolgirls innocently clad "In white from head to foot," who "walk the streets" with "black . . . stockings" and suggestive "sidelong, idle look[s]."
As Audrey T. Rodgers has demonstrated, this seemingly oxymoronic image of the virgin/whore is central to Williams’s poetry–a metaphor for art, America, love, and what Williams termed the "feminine principle" or life force–symbolizing not the distinction between good and evil, but rather the union of identity between the mythical figures of Kore and Demeter, between daughter and mother, between birth and death, between the pure and the defiled, between innocence and experience, between the world of the imagination and the world of the senses. Women in Williams’ poetry encompass the realisation of the proposed maxim and similarly effect some sort of duality. The insidious gender stereotypes invoked by the virgin/whore might trouble us, but Williams’s project seems, at least in part, to be to demolish precisely these stereotypes. Yet while the attempt to establish a unity out of such apparent duality is valiant–Williams even identifies himself with the figure of Kore, the daughter who through defilement and descent into Hell is resurrected as her own mother, Demeter–it is a monism of desire, not of conviction or fact. The "loneliness" projected onto the street and young girls, belongs to the unseen observer–a thinly veiled, if at all veiled, Williams. Hence, there can be no "abandonment of ego," for loneliness implies precisely the lack of and desirefor an other. "Too hot" to be "at ease," Williams, playing the voyeur, finds this other in the form of the sexually budding girls.
In his role as voyeur, Williams is paradoxically trapped between his narcissistic desire to identify with the girls and an irreconcilable need to reassert the presence of his ego. As Freud recognized, its “active” counterpart accompanies every “passive” perversion. He who is a voyeur in his unconscious is concomitantly an exhibitionist (575). And that quintessential assertion of the ego, "exhibitionism," Freud contends, "is strongly dependent upon the castration complex; it would emphasize again the integrity of one’s own (male) genitals and repeats the infantile satisfaction of the lack of the penis in the female" (569). Rather than envisioning voyeurism and exhibitionism as complimentary opposites, Lacan finds them to be fundamentally identical: "What the voyeur is looking for and finds is merely a shadow, a shadow behind a curtain. There he will fantasise any magic of presence, the most graceful of girls, for example, even if on the other side there is only a hairy athlete. What he is looking for is not, as one says, the phallus–but precisely its absence . . ." (182).
And yet what does the voyeur of "The Lonely Street" find? It is the girls who have the phalli of "pink sugar," while he, himself, has perhaps been castrated. After all, whose phalli could the girls be holding? In a sense, the male observer becomes "one of the girls," while the girls, like the observer, are paradoxically "the boys." This, however, is not so much a triumph over dualism, as it is an expression of ambiguity and anxiety over the nature of duality and the status of the ego. Confronted by his disconcerting phallic position construction of the anatomical distinction between the sexes, symbolised for him by castration anxiety, the voyeur/exhibitionist is left with two options. He can deny that the difference exists at all, narcissistically identifying with his object either by assuming a feminine role himself or phallicising the female (responses which tend to intensify the very castration anxiety against which they are supposed to defend); or he can reassert his ego by stressing the supposed "superiority" of his own equipment, further alienating himself from his object in the process. In fact, to varying degrees both options are taken, leaving the voyeur/exhibitionist in an agonistic relation to intimacy, craving it as a cure for his loneliness while dreading to give up the protective distance of the unseen observer. As Kohut suggests, the voyeur attempts to alleviate loneliness by replacing narcissistically invested lost objects; yet this attempt is ultimately frustrated by what Joel Rudinow calls the "paradoxical centre of voyeurism": the "wish to be in two places at once, both in and out of the presence of the object of interest" (177).
In "The Lonely Street," Williams projects his loneliness onto the street and his passions, which he longs to have acknowledged, onto the girls, finding them returned in "sidelong, idle look[s]" and in the way in which they touch "their avid mouths" with "pink flames." But if through this projection Williams identifies with, and misrecognises himself in, the street and the schoolgirls, there is no universe of non-differentiation. The transient moment of almost coital intimacy (and for the voyeur the act of looking can–and frequently does–represent the act of coitus), when the girls "mount the lonely street" (my emphasis), is also the moment of absolute loss. The voyeur is left alone to redirect whatever exhibitionistic desire he had once projected onto the looked-at girls. For Williams the publication of this poem was plainly an act of exhibitionism, exposing his sexual desires before the very schoolgirls who inflamed them.
Far from being the work of sexual re-pression, poetry, claimed Williams, is the product of sexual ex-pression. On the first page of his Autobiography, he announces: "I am extremely sexual in my desires: I carry them everywhere and at all times. I think that from that arises the drive, which empowers us all. Given that drive, a man does with it what his mind directs. In the manner in which he directs that power lies his secret”. Yet Williams’s distinction between repression and expression almost suggests a (much too simple) precept for distinguishing between the psychoanalytic "neuroses" and "perversions”. I would like to propose it is the natural, raw instincts that motivate Williams’ poems and thoughts, which help us identify his work as complying with the maxim “no ideas but in things”; the plain ordinary poem content has no pretence or illusion as a result. While Williams’s poetry clearly is the product of sexual expression, his argument is also the classic alibi of the voyeur/artist: "I am not looking at something forbidden; on the contrary, I am permitting myself to be looked at" (Bergler 270).
Bibliography & Referencing
-Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature 5th Edition, Volume 2. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.
-Bergler, E. "Psychoanalysis of Writers and Literary Productivity." Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences. Ed. G. Róheim. New York: International Universities Press, 1947. 247-296.
-Freud, Sigmund. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. Trans. A. A. Brill. New York: Modern Library, 1938. 553-632.
-Kohut, Heinz. The Analysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press, 1971.
-Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1978.
-Mariani, Paul. William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.
——————————. William Carlos Williams: The Poet and His Critics.: American Library Association, 1975.
Miller, J. Hillis. "Introduction." William Carlos Williams: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966. 1-14.
——————————. Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1965.
Rodgers, Audrey T. Virgin and Whore: The Image of Women in the Poetry of William Carlos Williams. Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 1987.
Rudinow, Joel. "Representation, Voyeurism, and the Vacant Point of View." Philosophy and Literature 1979: 173-186.
Stevens, Wallace. Opus Posthumous. Rvsd. ed. New York: Knopf, 1989.
Stoller, Robert. Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred. New York: Pantheon, 1975.
Analysis of "No Ideas but in Things"
I am going to show the implications of Williams’ maxim by demonstrating the effects it has on his poetry, and most notably himself. First of all I would like to divert our attention to duality as a major theme, and affecting factor of such a maxim. For my introductory explanation I would like to consider the criticism of J. Hillis Miller.
In his famous essay on William Carlos Williams in Poets of Reality (1966), J. Hillis Miller contends that the world of Williams is beyond dualism. According to Miller’s pre-deconstructive argument, "A primordial union of subject and object is the basic presupposition" of Williams’s poetry ("Introduction" 6). Citing Williams’s dictum, "No ideas but in things," and such poems as "The Red Wheelbarrow," Miller claims that–in contrast to the duality inherent in the idealism of the classical, romantic, or symbolist traditions, wherein the objects of the world signify transcendent "supernatural realities"–the objects of Williams’s poetry signify themselves and nothing more, existing "within a shallow space, like that created on the canvases of the American abstract expressionists" ("Introduction" 3), exposing the poem not as a representation of an object, but as an object in itself. Miller finds in Williams’s verse "no symbolism, no depth, no reference to a world beyond the world, no pattern of imagery, no dialectical structure, no interaction of subject and object–just description" ("Introduction" 5). For Miller, this triumph over duality represents nothing less than "a revolution in human sensibility" and an "abandonment" of the ego: "There is no description of private inner experience. There is also no description of objects that are external to the poet’s mind. Nothing is external to his mind. His mind overlaps with things; things overlap with his mind" (Poets 288 & "Introduction" 7). Accordingly, Miller echoes Williams’s claim that a good poet "doesn’t select his material. What is there to select? It is”. (Poets 306)
Clearly Williams was no symbolist; his poetry does consistently foreground the surface value of ‘things.’ And critics of Williams’s poetry owe a good deal to Miller’s essay, which, among other things, considerably solidified Williams’s position in the canon of twentieth-century American literature. As Paul Mariani notes, "However we view his approach and strategy, J. Hillis Miller’s is one of the most important and seminal encounters in the sixty-year history of Williams criticism. Miller can be argued with and perhaps substantially qualified; he cannot be dismissed" (Poet & Critics 198). Yet how can even the poet who asserts his identity with his material avoid selecting it? Is not the poet much more than meets the page? And if material is selected, consciously or unconsciously, can it truly be "just description," signifying only itself, free of associative values and psychological content for either poet or reader? Of course not. Something in Miller’s approach cries out to be "substantially qualified."
Miller’s complete denial of the psychological terrain of Williams’s poetry leads him to mistake Williams’s identification with ‘things’ for non-differentiation. Relying far too heavily on Williams’s prose criticism at the expense of his poetry, Miller confuses Williams’s goals with his achievements. This makes a world of difference, for as a psychoanalytic interpretation of his poetry suggests, Williams consistently identifies with the world around him because he longs to exist in a state of non-differentiation with it. The difference is that between Freud’s primary and secondary narcissisms, between the infant’s primordial failure to differentiate between itself and the universe and its later, even adult, attempt to recapture this primordial state by misrecognising itself in its objects, paradoxically repeating the very process by which it formed its own separate ego. This and Williams’s avoidance of overt symbolism suggest that his penchant for resolving dualisms is in fact but the flip side of a preoccupation with dualism itself, the logical hallmark of the narcissistic Lacanian Imaginary. Furthermore, as Lacan would suggest, language and therecognition of sexual difference, among other things, forever separate Williams from his promised land; he may struggle against duality and even assert his triumph over it, but he cannot transcend it. Yet it is precisely this tension between his desire and his inability to satisfy it which fuels the fires of his creativity. Perhaps this can best be seen by analysing the image of "woman" in “Portrait of a Lady” (1920,1934), and most notably in “The Lonely Street”(1921).
Again I would like to emphasise the fact that I feel in order to explain the implications of the aforementioned maxim, it would be necessary to examine Williams’ fascination with duality which after all is an integral part and resulting factor of the explanation of the maxim, “no ideas but in things”. In "The Lonely Street”, Williams betrays a obsession with dualism in his erotically charged, almost leering, portrait of schoolgirls innocently clad "In white from head to foot," who "walk the streets" with "black . . . stockings" and suggestive "sidelong, idle look[s]."
As Audrey T. Rodgers has demonstrated, this seemingly oxymoronic image of the virgin/whore is central to Williams’s poetry–a metaphor for art, America, love, and what Williams termed the "feminine principle" or life force–symbolizing not the distinction between good and evil, but rather the union of identity between the mythical figures of Kore and Demeter, between daughter and mother, between birth and death, between the pure and the defiled, between innocence and experience, between the world of the imagination and the world of the senses. Women in Williams’ poetry encompass the realisation of the proposed maxim and similarly effect some sort of duality. The insidious gender stereotypes invoked by the virgin/whore might trouble us, but Williams’s project seems, at least in part, to be to demolish precisely these stereotypes. Yet while the attempt to establish a unity out of such apparent duality is valiant–Williams even identifies himself with the figure of Kore, the daughter who through defilement and descent into Hell is resurrected as her own mother, Demeter–it is a monism of desire, not of conviction or fact. The "loneliness" projected onto the street and young girls, belongs to the unseen observer–a thinly veiled, if at all veiled, Williams. Hence, there can be no "abandonment of ego," for loneliness implies precisely the lack of and desirefor an other. "Too hot" to be "at ease," Williams, playing the voyeur, finds this other in the form of the sexually budding girls.
In his role as voyeur, Williams is paradoxically trapped between his narcissistic desire to identify with the girls and an irreconcilable need to reassert the presence of his ego. As Freud recognized, its “active” counterpart accompanies every “passive” perversion. He who is a voyeur in his unconscious is concomitantly an exhibitionist (575). And that quintessential assertion of the ego, "exhibitionism," Freud contends, "is strongly dependent upon the castration complex; it would emphasize again the integrity of one’s own (male) genitals and repeats the infantile satisfaction of the lack of the penis in the female" (569). Rather than envisioning voyeurism and exhibitionism as complimentary opposites, Lacan finds them to be fundamentally identical: "What the voyeur is looking for and finds is merely a shadow, a shadow behind a curtain. There he will fantasise any magic of presence, the most graceful of girls, for example, even if on the other side there is only a hairy athlete. What he is looking for is not, as one says, the phallus–but precisely its absence . . ." (182).
And yet what does the voyeur of "The Lonely Street" find? It is the girls who have the phalli of "pink sugar," while he, himself, has perhaps been castrated. After all, whose phalli could the girls be holding? In a sense, the male observer becomes "one of the girls," while the girls, like the observer, are paradoxically "the boys." This, however, is not so much a triumph over dualism, as it is an expression of ambiguity and anxiety over the nature of duality and the status of the ego. Confronted by his disconcerting phallic position construction of the anatomical distinction between the sexes, symbolised for him by castration anxiety, the voyeur/exhibitionist is left with two options. He can deny that the difference exists at all, narcissistically identifying with his object either by assuming a feminine role himself or phallicising the female (responses which tend to intensify the very castration anxiety against which they are supposed to defend); or he can reassert his ego by stressing the supposed "superiority" of his own equipment, further alienating himself from his object in the process. In fact, to varying degrees both options are taken, leaving the voyeur/exhibitionist in an agonistic relation to intimacy, craving it as a cure for his loneliness while dreading to give up the protective distance of the unseen observer. As Kohut suggests, the voyeur attempts to alleviate loneliness by replacing narcissistically invested lost objects; yet this attempt is ultimately frustrated by what Joel Rudinow calls the "paradoxical centre of voyeurism": the "wish to be in two places at once, both in and out of the presence of the object of interest" (177).
In "The Lonely Street," Williams projects his loneliness onto the street and his passions, which he longs to have acknowledged, onto the girls, finding them returned in "sidelong, idle look[s]" and in the way in which they touch "their avid mouths" with "pink flames." But if through this projection Williams identifies with, and misrecognises himself in, the street and the schoolgirls, there is no universe of non-differentiation. The transient moment of almost coital intimacy (and for the voyeur the act of looking can–and frequently does–represent the act of coitus), when the girls "mount the lonely street" (my emphasis), is also the moment of absolute loss. The voyeur is left alone to redirect whatever exhibitionistic desire he had once projected onto the looked-at girls. For Williams the publication of this poem was plainly an act of exhibitionism, exposing his sexual desires before the very schoolgirls who inflamed them.
Far from being the work of sexual re-pression, poetry, claimed Williams, is the product of sexual ex-pression. On the first page of his Autobiography, he announces: "I am extremely sexual in my desires: I carry them everywhere and at all times. I think that from that arises the drive, which empowers us all. Given that drive, a man does with it what his mind directs. In the manner in which he directs that power lies his secret”. Yet Williams’s distinction between repression and expression almost suggests a (much too simple) precept for distinguishing between the psychoanalytic "neuroses" and "perversions”. I would like to propose it is the natural, raw instincts that motivate Williams’ poems and thoughts, which help us identify his work as complying with the maxim “no ideas but in things”; the plain ordinary poem content has no pretence or illusion as a result. While Williams’s poetry clearly is the product of sexual expression, his argument is also the classic alibi of the voyeur/artist: "I am not looking at something forbidden; on the contrary, I am permitting myself to be looked at" (Bergler 270).
Bibliography & Referencing
-Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature 5th Edition, Volume 2. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.
-Bergler, E. "Psychoanalysis of Writers and Literary Productivity." Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences. Ed. G. Róheim. New York: International Universities Press, 1947. 247-296.
-Freud, Sigmund. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. Trans. A. A. Brill. New York: Modern Library, 1938. 553-632.
-Kohut, Heinz. The Analysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press, 1971.
-Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1978.
-Mariani, Paul. William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.
——————————. William Carlos Williams: The Poet and His Critics.: American Library Association, 1975.
Miller, J. Hillis. "Introduction." William Carlos Williams: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966. 1-14.
——————————. Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1965.
Rodgers, Audrey T. Virgin and Whore: The Image of Women in the Poetry of William Carlos Williams. Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 1987.
Rudinow, Joel. "Representation, Voyeurism, and the Vacant Point of View." Philosophy and Literature 1979: 173-186.
Stevens, Wallace. Opus Posthumous. Rvsd. ed. New York: Knopf, 1989.
Stoller, Robert. Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred. New York: Pantheon, 1975.
An American Tragedy
Uploaded by toocute03 (120) on Dec 7, 2006
Theodore Dreiser was a part of the naturalist movement. His works depicted real-life subjects in a harsh and gritty manner. Many of his novels were controversial and considered amoral. Dreiser grew up in a poor, working-class family in Terre Haute, Indiana. An American Tragedy, his most commercially successful novel, tells the story of young man searching for success and fame. An American Tragedy is told from a naturalistic and deterministic point of view. Determinism deals with an individual’s fate being determined by his environment and heredity. This ideal is based on Charles Darwin’s views. It shows the dark side of the American dream. An American Tragedy was based on a criminal case, the Gillete-Brown murder case, the drowning of a pregnant woman in a New York lake by her boyfriend in 1906. It is a story of corruption in regards to achieving the American dream, money and status. The time frame the story is set in has a great deal to do with how Dreiser builds his story. The story had multiple settings but one of the main settings is New York in the 1920s. All over the country, people saw New York as the “city of dreams.” The 1920s is a time frame that was known as “the Roaring Twenties.“ During this time, many people flocked to New York in hopes of attaining their individual dreams as Clyde did in the story. Many Americans became very rich because of the booming stock market. The Americans that possessed an average income even become wealthier in worldly goods by being able to acquire cars and indoor plumbing. During this period, morals were not important. Prostitution, bootlegging, and racketeering were a sign of the times. Dreiser portrayed the characters in the story according to what occurred, no matter what the level of immorality was. New York is associated with being fast-paced and very socially and economically inclined.
Clyde Griffiths, the protagonist of the story, has no judgments about how he achieves his American dream. Material things such as clothes meant a lot to him because they were a sign of wealth and prestige. He moves to New York in hopes of escaping his humble beginnings and starting a new life. With Clyde, everything is only a means to an end. He gets a job in a factory where he eventually gets promoted. Clyde considers his promotion to be a step up on the social and economic ladder. Dreiser centers all of the hypocrisies of the 1920s around Clyde.
Overall, An American Tragedy gives an accurate description of the people in the 1920s. Dreiser’s focus on the faults of society regarding Clyde is an excellent example of naturalism. Interestingly, Dreiser was able to intertwine deterministic views into the storyline by letting Clyde’s background ultimately determine his future. An American Tragedy has a very interesting storyline and is a great depiction of a pivotal time in history.
Theodore Dreiser was a part of the naturalist movement. His works depicted real-life subjects in a harsh and gritty manner. Many of his novels were controversial and considered amoral. Dreiser grew up in a poor, working-class family in Terre Haute, Indiana. An American Tragedy, his most commercially successful novel, tells the story of young man searching for success and fame. An American Tragedy is told from a naturalistic and deterministic point of view. Determinism deals with an individual’s fate being determined by his environment and heredity. This ideal is based on Charles Darwin’s views. It shows the dark side of the American dream. An American Tragedy was based on a criminal case, the Gillete-Brown murder case, the drowning of a pregnant woman in a New York lake by her boyfriend in 1906. It is a story of corruption in regards to achieving the American dream, money and status. The time frame the story is set in has a great deal to do with how Dreiser builds his story. The story had multiple settings but one of the main settings is New York in the 1920s. All over the country, people saw New York as the “city of dreams.” The 1920s is a time frame that was known as “the Roaring Twenties.“ During this time, many people flocked to New York in hopes of attaining their individual dreams as Clyde did in the story. Many Americans became very rich because of the booming stock market. The Americans that possessed an average income even become wealthier in worldly goods by being able to acquire cars and indoor plumbing. During this period, morals were not important. Prostitution, bootlegging, and racketeering were a sign of the times. Dreiser portrayed the characters in the story according to what occurred, no matter what the level of immorality was. New York is associated with being fast-paced and very socially and economically inclined.
Clyde Griffiths, the protagonist of the story, has no judgments about how he achieves his American dream. Material things such as clothes meant a lot to him because they were a sign of wealth and prestige. He moves to New York in hopes of escaping his humble beginnings and starting a new life. With Clyde, everything is only a means to an end. He gets a job in a factory where he eventually gets promoted. Clyde considers his promotion to be a step up on the social and economic ladder. Dreiser centers all of the hypocrisies of the 1920s around Clyde.
Overall, An American Tragedy gives an accurate description of the people in the 1920s. Dreiser’s focus on the faults of society regarding Clyde is an excellent example of naturalism. Interestingly, Dreiser was able to intertwine deterministic views into the storyline by letting Clyde’s background ultimately determine his future. An American Tragedy has a very interesting storyline and is a great depiction of a pivotal time in history.
Adultery in The Crucible and The Color Purple
Uploaded by TheNEwand Improved on May 13, 2006
Adultery in The Crucible and The Color Purple
Throughout literature, one comes across characters that are not as appealing because they are promiscuous. John Proctor, from “The Crucible”, Harpo and Albert, from The Color Purple, are all examples of men who commit adultery. Their respective wives, Elizabeth, Sofia, and Celie, all have different reactions to their infidelity. The three women have completely different ways of handling the situation.
In “The Crucible”, John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor had hired Abigail as a helper at their house. However, Abigail and John began to sleep together. Elizabeth began to notice and she approached John about it. He confesses and Abigail is kicked out of their house. After this event, there is a distance between John and Elizabeth, which is reasonable considering it was a great injustice done to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth still suspects him of misconduct and he cannot take her suspicions anymore. He says, “You forget nothin’ and forgive nothing”…I have gone tiptoe in this house all seven month since she is gone. I have not moved from there to there without I think to please you, and still an everlasting funeral marches around your heart. I cannot speak but I am doubted…as though I come into a court when I come into this house” (Miller 52).
There is great awkwardness in their relationship in the aftermath of this affair, but the big trials against Elizabeth bring them together. When Elizabeth was being arrested, John is very angry and says, “Fear nothing, Elizabeth....Damn you, man, you will not chain her!” (Miller 73-74). The calamity of the trial brings John and Elizabeth close together again.
According to Julian Klein, this affair was caused by Elizabeth. She writes, “Elizabeth Proctor, the wife whose coldness inspired Proctor's adultery with their servant, Abigail Williams” (Klein). However, this is not a justified excuse for infidelity. When a person gets married, they are agreeing to be monogamous. It does not matter how difficult a spouse may be, one is not supposed to be disloyal. If there are too many problems, then there is the option of separation. Some may believe Elizabeth was too harsh in sending orphan Abigail out, but Elizabeth was vindicated because she was only thinking of saving her marriage and protecting her children from gossip.
Elizabeth’s response to infidelity is the complete opposite of Celie’s reaction to her husband’s mistress. Their situations are also very different. Elizabeth and John seemed have had a loving relationship. Celie and her husband, Albert, did not marry for love. Albert abused Celie repeatedly, while John never hurt Elizabeth and believed Elizabeth was angelic. Albert could not stand Celie and hated her.
Shug was Albert’s lover. They had been together long before Albert and Celie had gotten married. After their marriage, Shug was ill and came to live with them. At first, Shug is weary of Celie and dislikes her. Celie, on the other hand, adores Shug and regards her as a goddess. She does not feel any anger towards Shug at all. As they get to know each other, their relationship progresses into a sexual one. Shug takes Celie to Memphis with her and gets her away from Albert.
Evelyn White writes that Alice Walker is oftentimes reprimanded for “promoting lesbianism among Black women." However, Walker did not write about lesbianism in the ordinary sense. Celie became a lesbian only because she feared men. All the men in her life abused her. Her father and her husband abused her physically, verbally and sexually. She became a lesbian because Shug was one of the very few people who cared about her. Celie was not able to have a good relationship with any males because she was scared of men.
Celie’s stepson, Harpo, is also another man who does not practice fidelity. Harpo and Sofia had had a love marriage. Sofia was a very rough girl. She was very different from Celie. She did not care about anyone. She had her own opinions and was not afraid to boss her husband around. She was very strong-willed. Harpo wanted to make her listen to him, so he begins to beat her. Sofia does not stand for this type of abuse and she fights back.
She leaves home and lives with her sister. After a couple of years, she goes back to visit Harpo at his juke joint. Harpo has a girlfriend now, named Mary Agnes. The interesting part of this scene is that Sofia has a boyfriend. Sofia is not a timid person. She does not fear anyone and she does what she wants to do. She is not easily broken.
James Hail states that Sofia was “the wife of Harpo who serves as an example to Celie of independent womanhood”. This statement is true. Celie does look up to Sofia, even though she was jealous of Sofia at first. Near the end of the book, Celie undergoes her catharsis and becomes like Sofia. She becomes loud and speaks her mind.
Some may believe that Sofia was a “bad” character, but this is not true. Sofia is one of the very few progressive women in the story. She is one of the very few women who know how to be aggressive. She is a very pleasant woman, as long as you do not disrespect her. She will treat you the way you treat her.
In these three examples of adultery, there were very different results from the wives. Elizabeth banished Abigail, Celie fell in love with Shug and Sofia also committed adultery. Each of their ways helped them cope with their feelings. Elizabeth wanted to save her marriage, which is why she got rid of Abigail. Celie is very naïve and did not know she was expected to show anger at her husband for having an affair. Sofia does not care that Harpo has a girlfriend because she has a boyfriend.
Adultery in The Crucible and The Color Purple
Throughout literature, one comes across characters that are not as appealing because they are promiscuous. John Proctor, from “The Crucible”, Harpo and Albert, from The Color Purple, are all examples of men who commit adultery. Their respective wives, Elizabeth, Sofia, and Celie, all have different reactions to their infidelity. The three women have completely different ways of handling the situation.
In “The Crucible”, John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor had hired Abigail as a helper at their house. However, Abigail and John began to sleep together. Elizabeth began to notice and she approached John about it. He confesses and Abigail is kicked out of their house. After this event, there is a distance between John and Elizabeth, which is reasonable considering it was a great injustice done to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth still suspects him of misconduct and he cannot take her suspicions anymore. He says, “You forget nothin’ and forgive nothing”…I have gone tiptoe in this house all seven month since she is gone. I have not moved from there to there without I think to please you, and still an everlasting funeral marches around your heart. I cannot speak but I am doubted…as though I come into a court when I come into this house” (Miller 52).
There is great awkwardness in their relationship in the aftermath of this affair, but the big trials against Elizabeth bring them together. When Elizabeth was being arrested, John is very angry and says, “Fear nothing, Elizabeth....Damn you, man, you will not chain her!” (Miller 73-74). The calamity of the trial brings John and Elizabeth close together again.
According to Julian Klein, this affair was caused by Elizabeth. She writes, “Elizabeth Proctor, the wife whose coldness inspired Proctor's adultery with their servant, Abigail Williams” (Klein). However, this is not a justified excuse for infidelity. When a person gets married, they are agreeing to be monogamous. It does not matter how difficult a spouse may be, one is not supposed to be disloyal. If there are too many problems, then there is the option of separation. Some may believe Elizabeth was too harsh in sending orphan Abigail out, but Elizabeth was vindicated because she was only thinking of saving her marriage and protecting her children from gossip.
Elizabeth’s response to infidelity is the complete opposite of Celie’s reaction to her husband’s mistress. Their situations are also very different. Elizabeth and John seemed have had a loving relationship. Celie and her husband, Albert, did not marry for love. Albert abused Celie repeatedly, while John never hurt Elizabeth and believed Elizabeth was angelic. Albert could not stand Celie and hated her.
Shug was Albert’s lover. They had been together long before Albert and Celie had gotten married. After their marriage, Shug was ill and came to live with them. At first, Shug is weary of Celie and dislikes her. Celie, on the other hand, adores Shug and regards her as a goddess. She does not feel any anger towards Shug at all. As they get to know each other, their relationship progresses into a sexual one. Shug takes Celie to Memphis with her and gets her away from Albert.
Evelyn White writes that Alice Walker is oftentimes reprimanded for “promoting lesbianism among Black women." However, Walker did not write about lesbianism in the ordinary sense. Celie became a lesbian only because she feared men. All the men in her life abused her. Her father and her husband abused her physically, verbally and sexually. She became a lesbian because Shug was one of the very few people who cared about her. Celie was not able to have a good relationship with any males because she was scared of men.
Celie’s stepson, Harpo, is also another man who does not practice fidelity. Harpo and Sofia had had a love marriage. Sofia was a very rough girl. She was very different from Celie. She did not care about anyone. She had her own opinions and was not afraid to boss her husband around. She was very strong-willed. Harpo wanted to make her listen to him, so he begins to beat her. Sofia does not stand for this type of abuse and she fights back.
She leaves home and lives with her sister. After a couple of years, she goes back to visit Harpo at his juke joint. Harpo has a girlfriend now, named Mary Agnes. The interesting part of this scene is that Sofia has a boyfriend. Sofia is not a timid person. She does not fear anyone and she does what she wants to do. She is not easily broken.
James Hail states that Sofia was “the wife of Harpo who serves as an example to Celie of independent womanhood”. This statement is true. Celie does look up to Sofia, even though she was jealous of Sofia at first. Near the end of the book, Celie undergoes her catharsis and becomes like Sofia. She becomes loud and speaks her mind.
Some may believe that Sofia was a “bad” character, but this is not true. Sofia is one of the very few progressive women in the story. She is one of the very few women who know how to be aggressive. She is a very pleasant woman, as long as you do not disrespect her. She will treat you the way you treat her.
In these three examples of adultery, there were very different results from the wives. Elizabeth banished Abigail, Celie fell in love with Shug and Sofia also committed adultery. Each of their ways helped them cope with their feelings. Elizabeth wanted to save her marriage, which is why she got rid of Abigail. Celie is very naïve and did not know she was expected to show anger at her husband for having an affair. Sofia does not care that Harpo has a girlfriend because she has a boyfriend.
300 Film Review
Uploaded by abrandt76 (52) on Mar 12, 2007
The graphic, gory, vile, and intense movie called 300 is about two opposing armies constantly battling each other. On one side is the sinister Persian army with thousands of soldiers ready to clobber any foe. On the other side are the audience�s heroes, the Spartans. The Persians, led by Xerxes wish to conquer all of Greece. However, the city of Sparta is in their path and the soldiers of Sparta are known for their extraordinary performance on the battlefield. With the Persians wanting to conquer and destroy Greece and the Spartans ready to defend their city, many gruesome battles take place in what is now known as the Battle of Thermopylae.
I believe this movie is accurate according to the historical event that took place in 480 B.C. The film gives a good impression of how much more massive the Persian army is compared to the Spartan army. Also, the Spartan army is known for their strong army and this is greatly expressed through out the movie. The strongest characteristic about the movie are the special effects which enhance the reality of the battles. Some of the scenes are so strongly portrayed such as disembodied body parts, obscene pictures, and disgusting images of facial expressions that it is hard to watch at times. There is one view about the movie that does not compliment the past historical battle. There were actually many Greek city-states that united to fight the Persians. In the film 300, the plot revolves around primarily on the Spartan soldiers and a little on the Arcadian soldiers. In 480 B.C. there were many other Greek city-states involved in the battles and it wasn�t until the very end of the war that Sparta was the only army left standing and willing to fight. Of course, creating a perspective of a desperate attempt to save a city by one army instead of many is much more interesting to watch in my opinion.
The two stories of the movie 300 and the play Oedipus, contain the theme of hubris. However, the theme is not displayed the same way between the two stories. Oedipus believes he can conquer any foe, but because of his mistakes in the past he is brought to wreck and ruin in his prime as a king. King Leonidas, the leader of Sparta, also believes he can vanquish any adversary. The difference between these two men is that King Leonidas thinks before he acts. He does not let his pride over take him and become foolish in his decisions. Both men are similar because each of them has a sense of pride with in them. However, they are both different by how they each choose to lead through with their decisions.
Overall, I enjoyed watching the movie. From the film�s portrayal of the story I could clearly sense the horrid environment the soldiers of that time lived in. There were many special effects added to create a world that was perceived as palpable, but sometimes they were often used too much. This was a fun movie to watch; it has shown me the horrors and the beauties of the world
The graphic, gory, vile, and intense movie called 300 is about two opposing armies constantly battling each other. On one side is the sinister Persian army with thousands of soldiers ready to clobber any foe. On the other side are the audience�s heroes, the Spartans. The Persians, led by Xerxes wish to conquer all of Greece. However, the city of Sparta is in their path and the soldiers of Sparta are known for their extraordinary performance on the battlefield. With the Persians wanting to conquer and destroy Greece and the Spartans ready to defend their city, many gruesome battles take place in what is now known as the Battle of Thermopylae.
I believe this movie is accurate according to the historical event that took place in 480 B.C. The film gives a good impression of how much more massive the Persian army is compared to the Spartan army. Also, the Spartan army is known for their strong army and this is greatly expressed through out the movie. The strongest characteristic about the movie are the special effects which enhance the reality of the battles. Some of the scenes are so strongly portrayed such as disembodied body parts, obscene pictures, and disgusting images of facial expressions that it is hard to watch at times. There is one view about the movie that does not compliment the past historical battle. There were actually many Greek city-states that united to fight the Persians. In the film 300, the plot revolves around primarily on the Spartan soldiers and a little on the Arcadian soldiers. In 480 B.C. there were many other Greek city-states involved in the battles and it wasn�t until the very end of the war that Sparta was the only army left standing and willing to fight. Of course, creating a perspective of a desperate attempt to save a city by one army instead of many is much more interesting to watch in my opinion.
The two stories of the movie 300 and the play Oedipus, contain the theme of hubris. However, the theme is not displayed the same way between the two stories. Oedipus believes he can conquer any foe, but because of his mistakes in the past he is brought to wreck and ruin in his prime as a king. King Leonidas, the leader of Sparta, also believes he can vanquish any adversary. The difference between these two men is that King Leonidas thinks before he acts. He does not let his pride over take him and become foolish in his decisions. Both men are similar because each of them has a sense of pride with in them. However, they are both different by how they each choose to lead through with their decisions.
Overall, I enjoyed watching the movie. From the film�s portrayal of the story I could clearly sense the horrid environment the soldiers of that time lived in. There were many special effects added to create a world that was perceived as palpable, but sometimes they were often used too much. This was a fun movie to watch; it has shown me the horrors and the beauties of the world
The Lesson" and African American Vernacular Engli
Uploaded by amillion12000 (76) on Apr 30, 2007
Speech Equals Class: an analysis of the correlation between African American Vernacular English in “The Lesson” and social status
"Get at me" which in short translates as "talk to you later" is just one term from many in African American Vernacular English, also known as AAVE. This language is a tool that can be crafted to take on many different forms. It may not be an easily understood tongue but once it is deciphered AAVE can be used as a tool to make more comprehendible certain life lessons. In the short story authored by Toni Cade Bambara entitled "The Lesson", the use of African American Vernacular English makes evident the inequity between social classes. AAVE does not just accompany this finding, but also makes it more presentable to an audience that can connect with AAVE due to personal situations and invites those that may be ignorant to the terminology inside the minds of characters such as Sylvia, "Fat boy" or Rosie Giraffe to name a few. Language has power to do many things and here it shines a light on various inequities that are evident between social classes within the society of this story.
The reading begins by setting a stage for the reader. We commence in an apartment complex in New York that seems to be very torn down and aged. Many of the Children around are using a quantity of slang terminology; for example [... "and pissed on our handball walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so you couldn't halfway play hide-and-seek without a goddamn gas mask."(662) anyone that hears a phrase like this coming from a youth could only imagine the upbringing that the child has or the type of household that her or she resides in. In society one is moved to believe that when anyone speaks severely broken English or is unruly that their economic ranking is on the lower end of the scale. African American Vernacular English is a language that at times does reinforce the belief stated in the previous sentence, but one could also argue that the way one speaks has nothing to do with their financial background or social status and that a person just speaks how they speak.
Next there is Mercedes, one of the children that chose to denounce the African American Vernacular English and associate herself more with the verbal communication abilities of Miss Moore. Mercedes dresses nicer than all the children and carries herself in lofty regard, though she is impoverished and nowhere near equivalent to the "wealthy" she makes an attempt to intermingle by speaking suitably and by having comprehension of certain things that the other children do not. Hearing Mercedes speech someone that does not know her may be swayed to accept as true that she belongs to a middle class family or wealthier. In this story AAVE not only illuminates the children's financial lack, it also makes clear the youth's educational disproportion. In fact on page 663 sugar says, "And the starch in my pinafore scratching the shit outta me and I'm really hating this nappy-headed bitch and her goddamn college degree." Bambara was wise in her utilization of African American Vernacular English. This idiom allowed for the reader to explicitly and vicariously take on the body of the narrator. As a reader of this story one may actually be able to understand the depth of these children’s imbalance. The use of Ebonics in this story allows the reader the opportunity to feel the injustice crowned upon the characters of this short story.
Now Sylvia chooses to speak about how much she hates Miss Moore and her degree; such rage and intensity in her voice, Sylvia inadvertently shows us the envy she holds for Miss Moore because of the education that this elderly woman has obtained. The story even tells us on page 662 that the people of the neighborhood talked about Miss Moore behind her back; this gossip was due to the fact that they also envied the intelligence that Miss Moore holds. However since they themselves were not intellectuals they spoke ill of her to compensate their inequity also surely using some AAVE of their own. One could argue that the reasoning behind Bambara's contrast of two separate types of people, one being educated and the others not so much, accompanies the information written in the second paragraph of this paper by saying people speak as they choose and social class does not determine whether or not one has been educated or not. On the other hand "The Lesson" proves the previous to be true time and time again. Even when the children reach the "upper class" neighborhood they are stunned to see people wearing posh clothing and buying expensive gifts and sorts. This later leads to more torn English as opposed to what is known as call Standard American English.
Next Janet Ruth Heller, author of Toni Cade Bambara’s Use Of African American Vernacular English in “The Lesson” and also in affiliation with Western Michigan University, introduces a type of African American speech that is torn to an extent greater than AAVE. This is known as “eye dialect”. A reading from page 282 of Heller’s essay describes “eye dialect” as […variations from normal spelling that do not indicate significant dialectal differences in pronunciation.” To many this fascist of AAVE gives characters a form of uniqueness or individuality. That amidst all of the inequality that the children are forced to face this terminology gives them something to own that others cannot have, in a sense a way of balancing out the injustice to be had in this short story. In opposition to the previously stated, Heller believes that “eye dialect can even make a character appear stupid.” Also that it may [… distance the reader form her characters and degrade them.”(282) Though Bambara does choose to use African American Vernacular English she does not go as far as authors like Holton who’s intent is to degrade or lessen the intelligence of the character. Bambara just wanted to show that there are some communal differences that need to be acknowledged and uses AAVE to do so.
Next the belief that African American Vernacular English is a sign of social or economic status is highlighted in an essay written by Craig, Holly K.; Thompson, Connie A.; Washington, Julie, A.; Potter, Stephanie L. entitled Phonological Features of Child African American English. In paragraph four the essay provides “Low socioeconomic status (SES) relates to higher levels of AAE when low SES is determined by the young student's eligibility for the free or reduced-price lunch program based on federal guidelines. This information can also find support within the story “The Lesson”. It is evident that the children were not wealthy and that even in their adolescent ages the children understood the value of money. In fact they even once took the price of a toy and broke down how long a family could live off that amount of money.
Bambara’s use of the AAVE flows so freely and a reader can so easily be engulfed in it because this is Bambara’s first tongue. Toni Cade Bambara, just as Sugar and Sylvia, spent her years of adolescence living in the slums of Harlem and was forced to stand up against the same adversities. Bambara wanted to teach the children a lesson of “anomie” this term in short means that we all have realistic goals but due to social class or economic imbalance everyone has to go about a different way of achieving those sensible aspirations.
To add in this short story, “The Lesson” it is evident that the children even recognize the economical divergence presented to them. This is evident when Q.T. says on page 665 “Must be rich people shop here.” The child’s English is broken, yes, but he knows that a “wealthy” class of people shop in this in F.A.O. Schwartz. The children are all aware of the imbalance and their dissimilar choice of words only magnifies the obvious. These characters are underprivileged and nearly poor. The narrator of this story, Sylvia, also expresses knowledge of these social differences and shows no hesitation in using AAVE to communicate her feelings. In paragraph twenty six Sylvia says in response to the price of a toy, “for some reason this pisses me off.” The reason behind her anger is that she could never afford such a plaything. In her world and that of the other children in this story only the most elite could play with this toy, and these select few live on a planet only fantasy to her; but if she were honest she would be uncomfortable in the presence of these types of people and in their world. Sylvia feeling “pissed off” is in direct relation with the fact that she is impoverished. Of course she would love one of these expensive toys but she cannot afford them.
Slang like many other languages may be hard to understand. AAVE has many terms that mean the same thing, but through emotions and situations combined with these terms we tend to become more knowledgeable of its purpose. African American Vernacular English is a language that was birth out of the slums of society, birth out through many hardships and travailing. This language is not just another large group of idioms, it expresses more than just words. AAVE reads into the trials and tribulations of societies impoverished and was created as a response to Sylvia’s concluding thoughts on page 667 “But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nothing.” Despite all of the communal disagreement that is apparent in this pocket-sized narrative Sylvia refuses to be beat and regardless of if she knows it or not her “lesson” was learned and the key component in her learning this “lesson” was African American Vernacular English.
To conclude Sylvia now sees the inequity present in her life. Rena Korb agrees and opens her essay entitled [Critical Essay on “The Lesson”] by saying “The lesson she wants to impart is the economic inequity that exists in the United States, and for the most part, she succeeds admirably in her goal.
Works Cited
Bambara, Toni C. "The Lesson." Writing About Literature in the Media Age. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005. 662-667.
Craig, Holly K., Connie A. Thompson, Julie A. Washington, and Stephanie L. Potter. "Phonological Features of Child African American English." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 46 (2003): 623-636. Literature Research Center. Lansing Comm. Coll., Lansing,Mi. 25 Mar.-Apr. 2007. Keyword: african american vernacular english.
Heller, Janet Ruth. "Toni Cade Bambara's use of African American Vernacular English in "The Lesson"." Style 37.3 (Fall 2003): 279(16). InfoTrac OneFile. Thomson Gale. Lansing Community College Library. 27 Apr. 2007
.
Korb, Rena. "Critical Essay on "the Lesson"" Short Stories for Students 12 (2001). The Gale Group. Lansing Comm. Coll., Lansing,Mi. 23 Mar.-Apr. 2007. Keyword: Toni Cade Bambara "the lesson".
Speech Equals Class: an analysis of the correlation between African American Vernacular English in “The Lesson” and social status
"Get at me" which in short translates as "talk to you later" is just one term from many in African American Vernacular English, also known as AAVE. This language is a tool that can be crafted to take on many different forms. It may not be an easily understood tongue but once it is deciphered AAVE can be used as a tool to make more comprehendible certain life lessons. In the short story authored by Toni Cade Bambara entitled "The Lesson", the use of African American Vernacular English makes evident the inequity between social classes. AAVE does not just accompany this finding, but also makes it more presentable to an audience that can connect with AAVE due to personal situations and invites those that may be ignorant to the terminology inside the minds of characters such as Sylvia, "Fat boy" or Rosie Giraffe to name a few. Language has power to do many things and here it shines a light on various inequities that are evident between social classes within the society of this story.
The reading begins by setting a stage for the reader. We commence in an apartment complex in New York that seems to be very torn down and aged. Many of the Children around are using a quantity of slang terminology; for example [... "and pissed on our handball walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so you couldn't halfway play hide-and-seek without a goddamn gas mask."(662) anyone that hears a phrase like this coming from a youth could only imagine the upbringing that the child has or the type of household that her or she resides in. In society one is moved to believe that when anyone speaks severely broken English or is unruly that their economic ranking is on the lower end of the scale. African American Vernacular English is a language that at times does reinforce the belief stated in the previous sentence, but one could also argue that the way one speaks has nothing to do with their financial background or social status and that a person just speaks how they speak.
Next there is Mercedes, one of the children that chose to denounce the African American Vernacular English and associate herself more with the verbal communication abilities of Miss Moore. Mercedes dresses nicer than all the children and carries herself in lofty regard, though she is impoverished and nowhere near equivalent to the "wealthy" she makes an attempt to intermingle by speaking suitably and by having comprehension of certain things that the other children do not. Hearing Mercedes speech someone that does not know her may be swayed to accept as true that she belongs to a middle class family or wealthier. In this story AAVE not only illuminates the children's financial lack, it also makes clear the youth's educational disproportion. In fact on page 663 sugar says, "And the starch in my pinafore scratching the shit outta me and I'm really hating this nappy-headed bitch and her goddamn college degree." Bambara was wise in her utilization of African American Vernacular English. This idiom allowed for the reader to explicitly and vicariously take on the body of the narrator. As a reader of this story one may actually be able to understand the depth of these children’s imbalance. The use of Ebonics in this story allows the reader the opportunity to feel the injustice crowned upon the characters of this short story.
Now Sylvia chooses to speak about how much she hates Miss Moore and her degree; such rage and intensity in her voice, Sylvia inadvertently shows us the envy she holds for Miss Moore because of the education that this elderly woman has obtained. The story even tells us on page 662 that the people of the neighborhood talked about Miss Moore behind her back; this gossip was due to the fact that they also envied the intelligence that Miss Moore holds. However since they themselves were not intellectuals they spoke ill of her to compensate their inequity also surely using some AAVE of their own. One could argue that the reasoning behind Bambara's contrast of two separate types of people, one being educated and the others not so much, accompanies the information written in the second paragraph of this paper by saying people speak as they choose and social class does not determine whether or not one has been educated or not. On the other hand "The Lesson" proves the previous to be true time and time again. Even when the children reach the "upper class" neighborhood they are stunned to see people wearing posh clothing and buying expensive gifts and sorts. This later leads to more torn English as opposed to what is known as call Standard American English.
Next Janet Ruth Heller, author of Toni Cade Bambara’s Use Of African American Vernacular English in “The Lesson” and also in affiliation with Western Michigan University, introduces a type of African American speech that is torn to an extent greater than AAVE. This is known as “eye dialect”. A reading from page 282 of Heller’s essay describes “eye dialect” as […variations from normal spelling that do not indicate significant dialectal differences in pronunciation.” To many this fascist of AAVE gives characters a form of uniqueness or individuality. That amidst all of the inequality that the children are forced to face this terminology gives them something to own that others cannot have, in a sense a way of balancing out the injustice to be had in this short story. In opposition to the previously stated, Heller believes that “eye dialect can even make a character appear stupid.” Also that it may [… distance the reader form her characters and degrade them.”(282) Though Bambara does choose to use African American Vernacular English she does not go as far as authors like Holton who’s intent is to degrade or lessen the intelligence of the character. Bambara just wanted to show that there are some communal differences that need to be acknowledged and uses AAVE to do so.
Next the belief that African American Vernacular English is a sign of social or economic status is highlighted in an essay written by Craig, Holly K.; Thompson, Connie A.; Washington, Julie, A.; Potter, Stephanie L. entitled Phonological Features of Child African American English. In paragraph four the essay provides “Low socioeconomic status (SES) relates to higher levels of AAE when low SES is determined by the young student's eligibility for the free or reduced-price lunch program based on federal guidelines. This information can also find support within the story “The Lesson”. It is evident that the children were not wealthy and that even in their adolescent ages the children understood the value of money. In fact they even once took the price of a toy and broke down how long a family could live off that amount of money.
Bambara’s use of the AAVE flows so freely and a reader can so easily be engulfed in it because this is Bambara’s first tongue. Toni Cade Bambara, just as Sugar and Sylvia, spent her years of adolescence living in the slums of Harlem and was forced to stand up against the same adversities. Bambara wanted to teach the children a lesson of “anomie” this term in short means that we all have realistic goals but due to social class or economic imbalance everyone has to go about a different way of achieving those sensible aspirations.
To add in this short story, “The Lesson” it is evident that the children even recognize the economical divergence presented to them. This is evident when Q.T. says on page 665 “Must be rich people shop here.” The child’s English is broken, yes, but he knows that a “wealthy” class of people shop in this in F.A.O. Schwartz. The children are all aware of the imbalance and their dissimilar choice of words only magnifies the obvious. These characters are underprivileged and nearly poor. The narrator of this story, Sylvia, also expresses knowledge of these social differences and shows no hesitation in using AAVE to communicate her feelings. In paragraph twenty six Sylvia says in response to the price of a toy, “for some reason this pisses me off.” The reason behind her anger is that she could never afford such a plaything. In her world and that of the other children in this story only the most elite could play with this toy, and these select few live on a planet only fantasy to her; but if she were honest she would be uncomfortable in the presence of these types of people and in their world. Sylvia feeling “pissed off” is in direct relation with the fact that she is impoverished. Of course she would love one of these expensive toys but she cannot afford them.
Slang like many other languages may be hard to understand. AAVE has many terms that mean the same thing, but through emotions and situations combined with these terms we tend to become more knowledgeable of its purpose. African American Vernacular English is a language that was birth out of the slums of society, birth out through many hardships and travailing. This language is not just another large group of idioms, it expresses more than just words. AAVE reads into the trials and tribulations of societies impoverished and was created as a response to Sylvia’s concluding thoughts on page 667 “But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nothing.” Despite all of the communal disagreement that is apparent in this pocket-sized narrative Sylvia refuses to be beat and regardless of if she knows it or not her “lesson” was learned and the key component in her learning this “lesson” was African American Vernacular English.
To conclude Sylvia now sees the inequity present in her life. Rena Korb agrees and opens her essay entitled [Critical Essay on “The Lesson”] by saying “The lesson she wants to impart is the economic inequity that exists in the United States, and for the most part, she succeeds admirably in her goal.
Works Cited
Bambara, Toni C. "The Lesson." Writing About Literature in the Media Age. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005. 662-667.
Craig, Holly K., Connie A. Thompson, Julie A. Washington, and Stephanie L. Potter. "Phonological Features of Child African American English." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 46 (2003): 623-636. Literature Research Center. Lansing Comm. Coll., Lansing,Mi. 25 Mar.-Apr. 2007. Keyword: african american vernacular english.
Heller, Janet Ruth. "Toni Cade Bambara's use of African American Vernacular English in "The Lesson"." Style 37.3 (Fall 2003): 279(16). InfoTrac OneFile. Thomson Gale. Lansing Community College Library. 27 Apr. 2007
Korb, Rena. "Critical Essay on "the Lesson"" Short Stories for Students 12 (2001). The Gale Group. Lansing Comm. Coll., Lansing,Mi. 23 Mar.-Apr. 2007. Keyword: Toni Cade Bambara "the lesson".
"On the Rainy River" Essay Analysis
The relationship you have with others often has a direct effect on the basis of your very own personal identity. In the essay “On The Rainy River,” the author Tim O’Brien tells about his experiences and how his relationship with a single person had effected his life so dramatically. It is hard for anyone to rely fully on their own personal experiences when there are so many other people out there with different experiences of their own. Sometimes it take the experiences and knowledge of others to help you learn and build from them to help form your own personal identity. In the essay, O’Brien speaks about his experiences with a man by the name of Elroy Berdahl, the owner of the fishing lodge that O’Brien stays at while on how journey to find himself. The experiences O’Brien has while there helps him to open his mind and realize what his true personal identity was. It gives you a sense than our own personal identities are built on the relationships we have with others. There are many influence out there such as our family and friends. Sometimes even groups of people such as others of our nationality and religion have a space in building our personal identities.
In the essay O’Brien is faced with a conflict, a moral dilemma. He had to decide whether he was either going to go to the war and fight or was he going to run away and avoid the draft. The relationship he had with Berdahl was not of friends or even regular acquaintances. Rather they were perfect strangers. That goes to show you that anyone can be a major influence on your life. Berdahl helped to open O’Brien’s heart. He realized who he was and where he had come from, his past and what he has been through. How all the events of the past helped him to become the person he was right now. How his past helped form his personal identity.
The formation of our own personal identities often begin at birth. As you grow up your parents are a major influence on you. They teach you many things and help to shape your personal identity. They teach you the basics, from knowing right from wrong to your basic moral values. Your moral values are often built upon the basic morals your parents have and what they have taught you in return. Since you are young you often believe that everything your parents say and do is always right and you look up to that. When you do something wrong your parents are always quick to correct you and show you that what you have done is not right. Your parents can only teach you so much. They do the best they can to the extent of their knowledge. Some things we have to learn on our own. That’s what makes us humans. We learn from our personal mistakes and build upon that. The many things you gain from your parents are often carried on with you throughout your life and will be passed around to other people and someday even your very own children.
You are also influenced greatly by the people around you. Such as other family members, friends, and other groups of your peers. They help to form aspects of yourself such as your personality. The type of friends you have are a major influence on your personal identity. You often try to fit into the group. They motivate you to do certain things to act a certain way. They affect not only your mental identity but also your physical identity as well. Like how your look and how you dress. How you get along with people and how you treat others is often an affected by the group of people you are around most of the time. Your friends can also help to form your personal identity in the same ways your parents do. They can teach you moral values and tell you when you are doing something wrong. Also often the more friends you have can form the type of person you are such as how you act. If you have more friends you are generally a more open person and it is easy fro you to communicate with others. If you have less friends you often become more of a shy person and keep to yourself more often. Either way your friends help build your moral character and your personal identity.
Another major influence is your nationality. Your nationality forms who you are and how other people look at you. People often treat others of different nationalities differently. This in turn forms how you look at people of different decent also. Traditions within your nationality help to form some of your moral values also. The way your ancestors lived and what kind of people the were are a major influence on Vietnamese traditions. Your traditions help you to from certain aspects of your moral value. In Vietnamese tradition, who you are is very important. You are brought up on very peaceful morals. Religion is also a major part of the Vietnamese tradition. Vietnamese families are often very religious. Whether being either Buddhist or Catholic out religious beliefs are very important to us. Religion is a very essential part of our daily lives, many of our basic morals and values come from the practice of religion. Families often keep a very strong bond between each other. You learn how to respect others such as your parents and elders. Traditions teach you many things. Even the little things like your daily habits, such as saying good bye to your parents when you leave in the morning for school and greeting them when you come home. They are all things that help to form your traditions and who you are.
No one is ever alone. Everyone is influenced by others. Our personal identities are based on the relationships with have with others. They help us to form who we are. Relationships are very vital to making us unique in our own ways. That combination of all that we learn come together to help us realize that without relationships how would we would we be able to build on our personal identity. Whether being from out parents, friends, or peers. It is clear that they all play an important role in the framework of our personal identities.
In the essay O’Brien is faced with a conflict, a moral dilemma. He had to decide whether he was either going to go to the war and fight or was he going to run away and avoid the draft. The relationship he had with Berdahl was not of friends or even regular acquaintances. Rather they were perfect strangers. That goes to show you that anyone can be a major influence on your life. Berdahl helped to open O’Brien’s heart. He realized who he was and where he had come from, his past and what he has been through. How all the events of the past helped him to become the person he was right now. How his past helped form his personal identity.
The formation of our own personal identities often begin at birth. As you grow up your parents are a major influence on you. They teach you many things and help to shape your personal identity. They teach you the basics, from knowing right from wrong to your basic moral values. Your moral values are often built upon the basic morals your parents have and what they have taught you in return. Since you are young you often believe that everything your parents say and do is always right and you look up to that. When you do something wrong your parents are always quick to correct you and show you that what you have done is not right. Your parents can only teach you so much. They do the best they can to the extent of their knowledge. Some things we have to learn on our own. That’s what makes us humans. We learn from our personal mistakes and build upon that. The many things you gain from your parents are often carried on with you throughout your life and will be passed around to other people and someday even your very own children.
You are also influenced greatly by the people around you. Such as other family members, friends, and other groups of your peers. They help to form aspects of yourself such as your personality. The type of friends you have are a major influence on your personal identity. You often try to fit into the group. They motivate you to do certain things to act a certain way. They affect not only your mental identity but also your physical identity as well. Like how your look and how you dress. How you get along with people and how you treat others is often an affected by the group of people you are around most of the time. Your friends can also help to form your personal identity in the same ways your parents do. They can teach you moral values and tell you when you are doing something wrong. Also often the more friends you have can form the type of person you are such as how you act. If you have more friends you are generally a more open person and it is easy fro you to communicate with others. If you have less friends you often become more of a shy person and keep to yourself more often. Either way your friends help build your moral character and your personal identity.
Another major influence is your nationality. Your nationality forms who you are and how other people look at you. People often treat others of different nationalities differently. This in turn forms how you look at people of different decent also. Traditions within your nationality help to form some of your moral values also. The way your ancestors lived and what kind of people the were are a major influence on Vietnamese traditions. Your traditions help you to from certain aspects of your moral value. In Vietnamese tradition, who you are is very important. You are brought up on very peaceful morals. Religion is also a major part of the Vietnamese tradition. Vietnamese families are often very religious. Whether being either Buddhist or Catholic out religious beliefs are very important to us. Religion is a very essential part of our daily lives, many of our basic morals and values come from the practice of religion. Families often keep a very strong bond between each other. You learn how to respect others such as your parents and elders. Traditions teach you many things. Even the little things like your daily habits, such as saying good bye to your parents when you leave in the morning for school and greeting them when you come home. They are all things that help to form your traditions and who you are.
No one is ever alone. Everyone is influenced by others. Our personal identities are based on the relationships with have with others. They help us to form who we are. Relationships are very vital to making us unique in our own ways. That combination of all that we learn come together to help us realize that without relationships how would we would we be able to build on our personal identity. Whether being from out parents, friends, or peers. It is clear that they all play an important role in the framework of our personal identities.
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