Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Reflection: from Two Views of a River by: Mark Twain

This piece by Mark Twain was about how he was a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. He was talking about how dangerous the river is because of all the steamboat travel and how hard it is to navigate a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He says that he know the River like he knows the letters of the alphabet (Twain). He is disappointed that he does not see the River as a beautiful element of nature. He described the River as he saw it when he first started he job as the steamboat pilot. He was in awe at the beauty of the River. He loved the new world environment. After awhile, he began to not notice the wonderful elements of Nature. He is mad that he no longer sees the river as he did before. He wishes that he should go back and somehow train himself to continue to see the romance and the beauty of the river. The only things that he notices about the river is the landmarks that he needs to navigate the river at night. He is always too focused on the navigation of the dangerous river to notice all of the small details that he first noticed when he started his job on the river. The title of the book shows much significance. I think that the title actually helped me figure out what the story was talking about before I even read it. The two views of the river are both from Mark Twain, but they are at different times in his life. The first view of the river was from the point in time when he was first starting his job. The second view was after he had been working on the river for a long time and lost the ability to see the beauty in the river and surroundings. Twain grew up living by the Mississippi River, so he was very familiar with the nature and surroundings. This story kind of goes with the fact that the works of the Realism time period says that people are influenced by nature (Diamond).


Diamond, Marie Josephine, ed. "realism." Encyclopedia of World Writers, 1800 to the Present. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2011. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= GEWW480&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 21, 2012).


Hearn, Lafcadio. "On Life on the Mississippi." New Orleans Times-Democrat, May 20, 1883. Quoted as "On Life on the Mississippi" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Mark Twain, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCVMT129&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 29, 2012).


Twain, Mark. "from Two Views of the River" Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 554-555. Print.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Reflection: The Red Badge of Courage

"The Red Badge of Courage" was written in the style of Naturalism. The main character was really worried about the amount of courage that he was going to have. He wanted to be a part of the army because he wanted to share in the glory when the army was successful. When the battle actually starts the main character was worried just like he had been the whole time he was in the army. He was really worried! Washington State University listed some characteristics of Naturalism and the very first thing that they said was that the main characters are normally was frequently ill-educated or lower class. I think that in the case of this story, the man was definitely less fortunate in the area of character. He was lacking in the ares of courage. Naturalism came for Charles Darwin. Back in this time people seemed to be really pessimistic. They were not expecting the best possible outcome. He was very much against the odds of something good happening as a result of a human's actions. People in the naturalism time period were controlled by outside forces. They might not have been able to make decisions for themselves. They were influenced by other people or outside forces (Giles).  I am going to have to give this guy some credit though because I would never have to courage to fight in a battle like that in real life. I think that I would be really scared. I think that it is okay that this guy is nervous. I would be nervous too! It is kind of sad though because if he was really in the army of the right reasons, he would not be concerned about dying in the war.  The only reason that he would be in the army in the Civil War is so that he can take all of the glory when his army is successful. I think that is really ridiculous. They guy is not in the army for the same reason.



Giles, James R. "naturalism." In Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature, Revised Edition: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, Volume 3. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?


Campbell, Donna M. "Naturalism in American Literature." Washington State University. Web. 27 Feb. 2012. <http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/natural.htm>.

Crane, Stephen. "Untitled Document." The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. Web. 27 Feb. 2012.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Reflection: The Story of an Hour

The Story of an Hour is a really weird story. Mrs. Mallard was notified that her husband was killed in a train accident. She began to sob, but later in the story we find out that she was really happy because her husband was really oppressing. She secluded herself from all of the other women whose husbands in the train accident. I think the reason that she did this was because she did not want the other women to know that she was actually happy that her husband was dead and so she was not going to have to live with the oppression. She was free! At the end of the story her husband actually walks into the room. The story says that she died of great joy because she found out that her husband was actually still alive. I think that when he walked into the room, she felt oppressed again just by his presence, so she died of a heart attack. He seems to have been not a very good husband because she admitted that she did not love him all of the time. She then goes on to say that most of the time she actually did not love him. He was putting way too much pressure on her and she was getting tired of handling the situation. She became overjoyed when she found out he was dead because she was not going to have to live with that kind of pressure on her anymore.

This is a good example of the characteristics of Realism because they were telling how the situation really was. They did not try to sugar coat anything because in the Realism time period, the story was told as it really was in real life (Diamond). Realism also shows the imperfection of life (Diamond). The flaw in the marriage of the Mallards was definitely classified as an imperfection of life. It is very unfortunate that marriages have to be that way. Many marriages are like that today, but for different reasons. In the time of the Realism period the marriages went wrong because the man thought he was superior to the women.


Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour" Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 554-555. Print.

Diamond, Marie Josephine, ed. "realism." Encyclopedia of World Writers, 1800 to the Present. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2011. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= GEWW480&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 21, 2012).

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Reflection: "from O Pioneers" Willa Cather

The story, "from O Pioneers" was set in Nebraska in the late 1800s. This was when Manifest Destiny was fist introduced. People thought that God had made the entire continent of North America with the intention that Christian Americans would spread out and live all throughout the country. This was controversial at the time because it was causing people to be racist. The Christian American were moving west as God wanted, but they were taking the land of the Native Americans that were already settled there. This cause some huge problems. Eventually the Americans paid some of the Native Americans to move north into the country of Canada. This made Americans look very arrogant and selfish. For some reason, the Christian Americans were better than anyone else that was trying to live in North America.

In the story, Emil and Alexandra have an argument on whether they should move out of Nebraska when the corn crops failed. Emil thought that they should move away and find better farm land, but Alexandra believed that the land in Nebraska was good and they just needed to be patient and use different farming techniques. The story then jumps sixteen years into the future and Alexandra's beliefs have paid off. Her land has been paid off and is prospering. Emil is killed towards the end of the story because he was found laying in the orchard next to Marie. He had always had a crush on Marie even though he was in another relationship. Frank, Marie's husband finds them in the orchard laying down, so he shoots them both dead right on the spot.

One of the characteristics of Realism was that some choices or decisions were shaped by the environment (Diamond). This was shown in "from O Pioneers!" when Alexandra and Emil were making their decisions about whether to leave their fields in Nebraska and find better farm land. This story also showed life as it really was, not as it was ideally thought of (Diamond). Because the land in Nebraska terrible they thought about moving. Ideally, the land in Nebraska would have been perfect for growing crops, but in this case the story was told in the Realistic style so thing were talked about as they really were.

Cather, Willa. "from O Pioneers!." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 489. Print.

Diamond, Marie Josephine, ed. "realism." Encyclopedia of World Writers, 1800 to the Present. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2011. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= GEWW480&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 21, 2012).

"O Pioneers!" SparkNotes. SparkNotes. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. <http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/opioneers/summary.html>.



Thursday, February 16, 2012

Reflection: An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge

An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge was a very interesting story in my opinion. The combination of the flash back and the flash forward really caught me off guard. The use of the tools was very awkward. This was a sad story I thought. The story really had a touch of reality I thought. Because Ambrose Bierce actually fought in the Civil War, the story was probably pretty accurate (D'Ammassa). I thought that the story was really sad because the poor guy did not even have anyone to come to his rescue. I thought that he should at least have someone to be there and witness his death. His wife is probably still sitting at home waiting for her hubby to come back home. The soldiers that killed Farquhar were really harsh because they bribed him into doing the crime in the first place. I think that they should not have given him the death sentence because he really did not do anything that was too terribly wrong. I think that the ideas of Emerson are present in this story because he did not want slavery. I think that the ideas of Emerson said that he was not for slavery. Because the soldiers were fighting against slavery. At the very end of the story, you find out what was going at the very end of the story when he actually falls through and is strangled. I think that this was also kind of an example of Thoreau because he was also punished by the government. He was all for standing up for what you believe is right. I think that would have helped out Mr. Farquhar in the story because he was doing something that he even knew was not right to do. This was one of the first works that I have read in Realism that was set in Nature. I thought the author did a really good job of making the setting visual for the reader. Thoreau was a big fan of Nature in his literary works.

D'Ammassa, Don. "'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'." Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Bierce, Ambrose. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Online http://fiction.eserver.org/short/occurrence_at_owl_creek.html. January 18, 2011.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Reflection: Letter to His Son: Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee's letter expresses dismay at the State of the Union. He says that the country is going to split and erupt into Civil War. Robert E. Lee says that Civil War is EVIL, but he is scared because the way things are going, the country might go into Civil War. He is basically saying that if there is going to be a war, he will go back to Virginia and defend his homeland. He talks about how he hopes things are settled before the war starts because he says that Civil War is evil. I think this follows Thoreau's theory that you should do what you believe is right even if it is considered wrong. Lee wanted all of this to just go away he did not want it to end up in a Civil War. Slavery was a huge issue at the time, but Thoreau was actually an abolitionist. I think he felt so strongly about this because he felt so strongly about civil disobedience. Slavery was way too over powering. I think that both Emerson and Thoreau just wanted equality and freedom. They wanted thing to be done as they thought things should be done. Transcendentalism was mainly based on equality and freedom (Quinn). I believe that Emerson and Thoreau were right in saying they were for equality because I agree with them. Things should always be done the right way even if some people are telling you that you are doing things the wrong way. At this time in history not many people, especially in the South did not stand up for anything, and this is why our country fell to pieces and we were engaged in a great Civil War. The war could have been totally avoided if all people just did the right thing and made good decisions. I think more people should have agreed with these really smart men because they seemed to actually know what was right.

Lee, Robert E. "Letter to My Son." Weblog post. Wikispaces. 23 Jan. 1861. Web. Feb. 2012.

Quinn, Edward. "Transcendentalism." A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Reflection: And Ain't I A Woman By:Sojourner Truth

In Sojourner Truth's speech, "And Ain't I a Woman," Truth was supporting women's rights. She was talking about common arguments against women's rights.  She then goes and destroys all of those arguments by backing them up with personal experience and common sense. She was aiming her arguments at men and white women. I think the reason that she was arguing against these people is because they were the people with superiority over the African American women of the time. She wants African American women to fight together with white women for women's rights. Truth thinks that she could influence the women to all fight together for the same cause.

When she was talking about how women should be treated and how they should be lifted into carriages and over ditches, she goes to her personal experiences and says that nobody was ever there to lift her into any carriages or over any mud puddles. She then says, "And ain't I a woman (Truth)?" She is saying this because she thinks that all women should be treated the same. Just because she is an African American woman does not mean that she should not be helped into carriages.
She then goes to advocate that women can do the same quality of work that men do.  She has worked in the field and she is more than capable of working as hard if not harder than a man would. She talks about how she's had thirteen children and almost all of her children have sold into slavery. She says that she can bear the sadness and cry out, but only Jesus would listen to her because she is a woman.

This goes hand in hand with the philosophies of Thoreau because he believed that you should do what you think is right even if other people consider it as being wrong. Sojourner Truth was speaking up for women and their rights, but she knew that she was fighting a losing battle because other people considered her ideas wrong. Her ideas conflicted the ideas of others that believed that men and whites were superior to African American women.



Grant, P. B. "Individual and Society in Walden." McClinton-Temple, Jennifer ed. Encyclopedia of
Themes in Literature. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2011. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.Jan 30, 2012.

Truth, Sojourner. "And Ain't I a Woman." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 370. Print.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Reflection: Slave Hymnals




Swing Low Sweet Chariot by Anonymous is about the pitfalls of being a slave Pre-Civil war era. This hymnal expresses the endurance of the average slave who wants to escape the pains of injustices. This slave sees the hope of taking the chariot to where its friends and family member may lie.

Keep Your Hands on the Plow by Anonymous describes a slave who is forced to keep working throughout dire circumstances.
Paul and Silas, they begin to shout   
Jail doors opened and they walked out  
Keep your hands on the plow, hold on. 

This quote exemplifies what happens when a slave, for example, takes his or her hands off of the plow. Paul and Silas were two slaves who got sent to jail when they took their hands off of the plow. No one was there to bail them out.  This gives the other slaves motivation to keep their hands on the plow because if they took their hands off the plow, they would be sent to jail and they would not have anyone around to bail them out.

Go Down Moses is an African American slave hymnal that was sung during slavery times as they were working in the fields on those long, hot Southern days. It is also a song of freedom of the slaves. They are waiting for the day that Moses goes down and that they will all be saved and no longer have to live their days in slavery. Egypt in the song is symbolizing the confederate states in the Civil War (Anonymous). The songs are similar to Henry David Thoreau because the song is about slavery and freedom. Thoreau wanted the freedom. Slavery was controlled by government which is not okay with Thoreau because he was not fond of the central government.

These three slavery hymnals show the resemblance between the Civil War era and the ear of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; the philosophies being: civil disobedience and self reliance.

Emerson, Ralph W. "Self-Reliance." Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm>.

Anonymous. "Go Down, Moses." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 345. Print.


Anonymous. "Keep You Hands on the Plow." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 346. Print.

Anonymous. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 344. Print.

Reflection: Calvary Crossing a Ford

The Calvary Crossing a Ford is a poem about a group of soldiers in a battle crossing a river. The poem is very descriptive about the simple task of walking across a river.This kind of goes against Henry David Thoreau because he was not too fond of the government system. He assumed that the military was connected to the government. Thoreau even went as far to call them robots because he thought that they were becoming so automatic. Whitman wrote a whole poem about an army crossing a river(Whitman). Also most of the poems by Thoreau and Emerson during the Transcendentalism period were about self and about one person because the Transcendentalism period valued self worth over intuition(Quinn). During the war that took place in the poem, Walt Whitman was a medic in the army. I think that he probably saw the scene created in the poem multiple times everyday. Like I mentioned before, Thoreau and the other writers from the Transcendentalism period writers did not like the government. Walt Whitman must of had some sort of respect for the government because he technically worked for them. He does not have the same opinions as the other writers of his time because he must have a good feeling about the army and the government. I recall that you, Mr. Langley, mentioned that the style of his writing is going to change in the future. I suppose that his writing is going to become more about self in the later writings that we are going to read. I like Whitman's works a little bit better than Thoreau's and Emerson's because I do not agree with their idea of civil disobedience. Especially the whole idea of hating the army and calling them robots. I mean they are going to fight for your freedoms and they are going to complain about the government's affiliation with the army. Just because they are in the army does not mean that they are robots. They are actually doing a lot of good for our country, fighting for our freedom. It is a little messed up that they could look at people that I have a lot of respect for in that way.


Quinn, Edward. "Transcendentalism." A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Whitman, Walt. "Cavalry Crossing a Ford - Walt Whitman (1819-1892)." Books & Literature Classics. Web. 10 Feb. 2012.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Reflection: Abraham Lincoln: The Gettysburg Address

On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave one of the most well known speeches of all time. The Gettysburg Address. The Gettysburg Address was important to the people because it was very strong in saying that we we have declared our independence and we say that we are free, but were are not going to just keep living the lives that we are living. Great men from our country are fighting day in and day out to keep our country free. Freedom isn't free. Lincoln says that he is at the sight of the Battle of Gettysburg to honor those who gave their lives to fight for the freedoms we have in America, but he was also there to celebrate the lives of those fighting men that survived. The men that fought in the Battle were honored by a dedication of a portion of the battlefield as a resting place for those who gave their lives in the hopes that their country may live on (Lincoln). “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced” (Lincoln). This is also a very important part of the speech because Lincoln is giving all of the credit for his speech to the people that fought in the Battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln was advocating for the abolition of slavery. I think that there is a connection here. Henry David Thoreau went to jail to stand up for what he believed was right. I in this regard, Lincoln and Thoreau were very similar. They were both very strong men that were going to stand up for what they believe in. These two men had similar ideas for the full devotion of their lives to show what is right. Lincoln was fighting slavery until the day that he died and Thoreau went to jail because he was standing up for what he believed in.

Lincoln, Abraham, and Roy P. Basler. "The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln."Net INS Showcase. Abraham Lincoln Online. Web. 08 Feb. 2012.

"Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - 1." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 08 Feb. 2012.

Reflection: "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro"

I do believe that the speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro," by Frederick Douglass, was a very influential speech of the time, also a good example of what the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Both speakers and writers wanted liberty in America for all people. In his speech Douglass really wanted people to take a look at the holidays that we celebrate here in America. All white Americans take great pride in celebrating the Fourth of July, but how to the enslaved African American fell about it? Frederick surely wanted to tell everyone that slavery was awful and should be abolished, but this time he really just wanted to let people think for themselves on the topic of slavery. This is probably the best method of persuasion in my eyes because you cannot force someone to think in the same way as you. You have to propose your ideal thoughts to the people, and let them think for themselves. Also, Douglass made sure to say at the beginning, "The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too" (Douglass). This was a good way to start out his speech because he was still appealing to all of the people because they all believed in that statement. "Emerson observed that the differences among a particular race are greater than the differences between the races" (Brewton). I think that this is a great quote because it is true. The slaves were not even close to being as different from the American as they thought. Douglass said, “America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future” (Douglass). I think that this was a very important statement in the speech of Douglass because it is true. Americans are celebrating their freedom, but they are hiding the fact that they have thousands of African Americans in the worst conditions ever. This speech was more rationalistic than the works of Emerson and Thoreau because it did not involve Nature and the more romantic feel of their writings.

Brewton, Vince. "Emerson, Ralph Waldo [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 24 July 2003. Web. 07 Feb. 2012.

Douglass, Frederick. "The Meaning of July Fourth For the Negro." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Africans in America. Web. 07 Feb. 2012.