Cross by Langston Hughes

Cross

My old man's a white old man
And my old mother's black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I'm sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder were I'm going to die,
Being neither white nor black?

© Langston Hughes. All rights res

Langston Hughes, in his poem “Cross” address the difficulty people of mixed race have of finding their identity and role in society. The title of the poem connotes a mixture of two things. For example when you cross breed you are mating two different species together to have a mixed offspring that does not exclusively belong to either group. Mulattos such as Hughes, similarly had trouble identifying themselves in times when racial tensions were high; whites didn’t accept them because they  had tainted blood and they didn’t completely fit into black society. The speaker identifies two old people in the first stanza. Besides their age, the only identifying characteristic that the speaker provides is that the man is white and that the woman is black. The differences in how he views them can be understood to be a result of their race.  I believe that the man and the woman represent his respective white and black side. The speaker condemns the old, white man which symbolizes him condemning his white background . Line 4 -5, “If I ever cursed my white, old man / I take my curses back” suggests that the speaker curses himself because he doesn’t want to be part white. However he is shown to be incapable of hating himself because he takes his curses back. This shift represents the speaker’s acceptance of himself as part white. Similarly, in the second stanza, the speaker condemns his black side through  is black, old mother on line 6 he wishes “she were in hell”. The speaker eventually accepts his black heritage on line 7-8, “I’m sorry for that evil wish / And now I wish her well”. The speaker’s reaction to his white and black side parallel each other because he first rejects both of them and also ultimately accepts both of them. However the poem ends with the speaker unclear of whether he should identify himself as black or white. The identity he assumes will cause him to lead vastly different lives. Lines 9 – 10, “My old man died in a fines big house. / My ma died in a shack” reveal that where you end up in life is skewed by your race. The last two lines of the poem, “I wonder where I’m gonna die / Being neither white nor black” create the ambiguity of which race the speaker should identify with. The lines suggest that it is not necessarily his choice of which race he will belong to but rather fate or some other external factor will decide. The last two lines could also be interpreted as suggesting that because the speaker is mulatto he will end up taking a new path in life different from a black or white person. He may neither take the path of the white man that causes him to die in the fine big house or the path of the black mother that causes him to die in a shack. This poem was written to raise questions but necessarily provide answers.

Age of Innocence Revisited

The Old New York society in The Age of Innocence is very superficial. What is ironic is that while it appears to be an orderly, peaceful, and calculated society at a glance, it is riddled with deceit, chaos, and ruled by unquestioned "conventions on which life was modeled".  Though these conventions help being order, they also hold them back from progressing and "were in fact only a humbugging disguise of the inexorable conventions that tied things together and bound people down to the old pattern".  They are described as “tribal” as they have unwavering loyalty to these customs simply because their predecessors followed them. One convention the society follows is the assumed role of women in society. The women in the novel are in a perpetual state of innocence. They are raised not to question what they do not understand and they are incapable of identifying the inequalities that face. To maintain the women's innocence, they grow up sheltered. However this raises the question which is better, innocence or experience? While the women in The Age of Innocence are presumably protected from the dangerous aspects of society, they also are caged and end up trapped in this state. Men are also allowed to have a past while women are not as Mr.Archer describes "it was his duty as a decent fellow, to conceal his past from her, and hers, as a marriageable girl, to have no past to conceal" Because the women have been "caged" for so many generation, they do not know the freedom they are missing, and thus they have no desire to change it. Mr. Archer wrestles with this thought and even exclaims "Women should be free--as free as we are". He sees many of the flaws and the hypocrisy in society. However, according to William Blake, society is doing these women a huge disservice as he believes that the “perfect state” would a balance of innocence and experience. Blake also believes human sacrifice is the basis of social organization. In The Age of Innocence, women sacrifice their freedom in order to keep social organization, even when they unknowingly do so. The restrictive nature of society strangles the imagination which Blake believes is essential to human existence.

Most of the people who live in the Old New York society firmly follow its customs as it is how they were raised. However two characters in particular, Countess Olenska and Newland Archer, seem to question things that other characters take for granted. Mr. Archer critiques the social system and specifically the way women are treated. He is angry about “the hypocrisy that would bury alive a women of her age if her husband prefers to live with harlots”, the double standard in which society overlooks the corrupt deeds that men commit but scold women if they were to do the same. Newland is actually torn between following the customs because it is what society expects him to do or speaking out against the injustice he perceives and face criticism. 

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a very unique war novel due to O’Brien’s focus in the book. The novel is centered around the emotions that revolve around being in Vietnam and not on the actual events that happened. For example in the story “The Man I killed”, the emphasis is not on the fact that someone was killed. Instead, O’Brien aims to capture the emotional response someone has after taking a life and the guilt he would feel. O’Brien admits that everything in the novel may not be true. However the importance is not on whether the events actually happened, it is based upon the emotion that the story evokes. There is difficulty in relaying the emotion of someone in a certain scenario(such as killing someone) to someone who has never been in that situation. For example in the story “Field trip”, O’Brien takes his daughter the place where Kiowa dead. Because Kathleen was not there during his death she cannot understand the significance of the place; she also does not understand the war in general.

O’Brien writes the stories because it helps him cope with the trauma he faced in the war and it helps him make sense of his past. On page 36 O’Brien states, “Stories are for joining the past to the future, Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” which reveals that O’Brien uses the stories he writes to be understand his present by learning from his past in order to hypothesize how it will affect his future. It’s ironic that O’Brien does not tell stories to share his experiences with others, but writes the stories for self-understanding.

There are also no long battle scenes that portray the intensity of war; O’Brien focuses on the mundane things. In the first chapter, “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien lists out the various things that the soldiers bring to war. In the military where soldiers face life and death the things they bring with them from home would seem unimportant. However the items the soldiers bring with them represent a connection they have to home and place they can return to after the war is over. It is this connection that gives the soldiers the drive to keep going. O’Brien shows that war is not simply about shooting the enemy and returning a hero. Much of the soldiers’ time in Vietnam is spent sitting around, waiting and being bored and it is in these times that they need something to anchor themselves with.

The final chapter of the novel, “The Lives of the Dead” takes place before the war and is seemingly unrelated. However Linda represents O’Brien’s first encounter with both love and death; O’Brien has no control over Linda’ death. Because many things are out of his control, O’Brien dwells on the decisions he makes and the things that are within his control.

The Brotherhood

The brotherhood represents the ideal of stripping yourself of your individuality in order to join a group in which everyone works toward a common goal. The brotherhood is similar to a machine that is made up of multiple parts. Each person represents a replaceable part of the machine that come together to make the machine work and achieve something. However the importance of each part is small relative the importance of the machine as a whole. The brotherhood doesn’t see its members as individuals, but means at which they can accomplish various tasks. They only tell the narrator as much information that he needs to know in order to accomplish his tasks. As a result, membership with the brotherhood leads to the stagnation of the narrator. Because the narrator loses his identity and wears the identity that the brotherhood gives him, his progression as individual is stunted. The narrator says, “You might not recognize it right now, but that part of you is dead! You have not completely shed that self, that old agrarian self, but it’s dead and you will throw it off completely emerge something new. History has been born in your brain” which suggests that the narrators seeks the strip himself of the identities that the brotherhood and the rest of society has given him and starting anew by creating his own identity based upon his own perceptions.

It is also interesting that the name of the brotherhood’s building is the chthonian which is also the name of the gods of underworld. People gave these gods sacrifices in order to appease them. Similarly, the members of the brotherhood sacrifice their individuality in order to work towards the goals of the brotherhood. The brotherhood is also god like because they have control over their members and what happens in Harlem. Many of the descriptions of the brotherhood and the chthonian involve frozen water which represents the stagnations. In the lines, “I could see the word Chthonian on the storm awning stretched above the walk as I got out with the others and went swiftly toward a lobby lighted by dim bulbs set behind frosted glass” the light represents enlightenment which covered by a “frosted glass” which prevents individuals from reaching enlightenment.  The frost on the glass can also be seen as a contaminant that prevents you from looking from the outside and seeing the light through the glass.

Not only do I see the members of the brotherhood as blind, but I also see the leaders as blind as well. One of Brother Jack’s eyes falls out which reveals that he has one fake eye. His one eye suggests that he is at least partially blind and that though he may have good ideas, he tries to achieve them through incorrect means. Eyes also symbolize a way to look into someone’s soul. The fact that Brother Jack places a fake eye to cover the crevice where his other eye would go suggests that he is covering up something within his soul that he is trying to hide. 

Invisible Man - Battle Royal

The battle royal scene represents the entire novel and Ellison used the battle royal as inspiration for the rest of the novel. In many ways, the battle royal is representative of the system itself. Firstly, it is significant that the boys were blind folded at the beginning of the battle royal. Their physical blindness is representative of their multi-layer metaphorical blindness.  The boys are blind to the system itself and to what they believe the system has become. With the erection of black colleges and the abolishment of slavery blacks believe that society has progressed and become better for blacks. However the reality is that whites still view blacks as inferior and second class citizens. The boys are also blind to the true intentions of the whites. The whites pretend to help the blacks and act as if they want to help the boys but ultimately want to control the blacks for their own benefit. The true intentions of the whites are exemplified when the narrator accidently says “racial equality” in his speech and the whites become angered and stirred up. They do not want racial equality and they will not stand to hear a black boy give a speech about. They calm down when he corrects himself and says “racial responsibility” which shows that whites can tolerate blacks when the blacks are conforming to the values of the whites. The whites are also blind to the true nature of the blacks. By stereotyping all blacks into one category, the whites fail to see each of the boys as an individual. They are also blind to the true beliefs of the narrator who follows his grandfather’s words by agreeing with the whites but retaining his internal resentment for them.

The walls of the arena are symbolic of the confinement that blacks encounter within the system. They are stuck within the system and are unable to leave or change their situation. No matter what they do, they are unable to save themselves. By fighting within the battle royal, the boys further reinforce the stereotypical views that the whites have of blacks as animalistic and violent. The reality is that these stereotypes are forced upon the blacks and perpetuated by the whites. In order to survive, they must act violently, work within the system, and the blacks end up turning on each other. By fighting each other instead of the enemy which are the whites they do nothing to change the system and they remain in the metaphorical arena.

Another prominent image in the battle royal scene is the depiction of the white woman surrounded by the black boys. This creates the image of the eye and her tattoo of the American flag suggests that she represents blinded American values that are driven by sex and greed. Like the money that the boys couldn’t have because they electrocuted before they reached it, the woman is something that the boys cannot have. The scene is very sexual and relates to the animalistic nature of the battle royal/

Sonnet 129

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.


In sonnet 129, Shakespeare suggests that lust is an animalistic urge that drives human sexual action and ultimately leads to shame. The sonnet traces the different stages of lust in order to exemplify that lust leads to one’s downfall. The first stanza identifies what lust is and it describes lust as a negative desire. The first line calls lust an “expense of spirit” which suggests that it is costly to the spirit to lust and that you must sacrifice something in order to do something. It can be seen as something that contaminates the soul. The speaker goes on to add that it is a “waste of shame” which portrays it as shameful. Lust is also a waste because it is an unnecessary evil. The last two lines of the stanza list adjectives to describe lust and that suggest that lust is extremely sinful and dangerous. Lust parallels the devil which the intense immoral descriptions of it such as “perjured, murderous, bloody, and full of shame”. Lust is portrayed more like a living entity than a controllable emotion. Lust seems to have a mind of its own that allows it to over a man and use his sexual desires to compel him commit horrendous acts. Other descriptive words for lust such as “Savage, extreme, rude and cruel” connotes that lust is very animalistic. It represents a lack of self-control and sophistication.

The second stanza describes the effects of lust after the thing that you have been lusting over has been achieved. However even after it is obtained, lust continues to be a negative force that robs the person exemplifying it of their happiness. Lust makes a person feel crazy and “mad”. By definition, feelings of lust can never be quenched because lust is the desire for something(often sexual) that you cannot obtain. As a result, if you do happen obtain, you will begin to lust over something else that is currently unachievable. The line “Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight” suggests the happiness of obtaining what you have lusted over is immediately replaced by self-deprecation and a realization that what you are doing is wrong and sinful.

The third stanza illustrates the false illusion that lust causes one live under. Lust causes the thing lusted over to appear to be something good and necessary to have. However this is a façade that results from the blocking of proper reasoning. Lust drives someone to become “mad in pursuit” so they become fully engaged in the pursuit and will do things that they wouldn’t normally do to obtain the thing that they are lusting over and they may do something “extreme”. The speaker finds paradoxical happiness in realizing that lust is “a very woe” and only leads to sadness.

The couplet compares lust to heaven and hell to portray the true nature of lust. Lust appears to be heaven by causing you to chase things you desire. However in actuality lust will drive you to hell because it taints the soul by causing you to chase sinful things. The line, “All this the world well knows; yet none knows well” points out the irony that though it is widely known that lust is evil, people neglect that and continue to lust.

The Significance of the grandfather's advice in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

One of the most important quotes in Invisible Man are the instructions the grandfather gives to the narrator at the beginning of the novel. He tells the narrator, "Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open...Learn it to the younguns". The narrator uses his grandfather's words as a guideline for his actions in the rest of book. The grandfather wants the narrator to wear a facade in which he acts as if he agrees with the whites while internally he retains his resentment for them. The grandfather calls himself a traitor because he becomes blinded by what the whites tell him. However there is no definite right or wrong and it remains ambiguous throughout the novel whether the grandfather’s words are the best way to combat inequality. The grandfather believes that in order for blacks to progress, they need support from the whites but that they shouldn’t become blinded by the vision of the whites. The whites mask their true intentions by appearing to be helping the blacks so the blacks must do the same to no become manipulated. The narrator is given similar advice by the vet later in the novel who says to him, “Come out of the fog, young man. And remember you don’t have to be a complete fool in order to succeed. Play the game, but don’t believe in it – that much you owe yourself”. The invisible man is conflicted on whether he should follow his father’s advice. The narrator says that “The old man’s words were like a curse” which connotes that the words were a burden and a standard he had to live up to rather than something he wanted to live by. As a result of following the advice, the narrator becomes invisible and unable to affect his surroundings. His invisibility protects him from being attacked by whites because they believe his views align with theirs; however in doing so he loses his own individuality. His grandfather’s words plague him as he is trying to find his own identity. The narrator says that “When I discover who I am, I’ll be free” which suggests that he feels confined within his invisibility and lack of identity because it leads to stagnation. In the brotherhood for example, he becomes a cog in a machine. Brother Jack tells the narrator, “You’re a soldier now, your health belongs to the organization” which suggests that the narrator must sacrifice his own individuality in order to progress the goals of the brotherhood and that within the brotherhood he is just a body that they use to get tasks done.

Mr. Norton

Mr. Norton represents the many ways in which whites have control over lives of blacks and glorify what they do for them. However his motives for running the college don’t stem from his desire to help blacks that need it, but because it gives him control over the lives of the thousands of students that attend the college. He doesn’t seem to view the students as human beings, but as parts of the project he has invested his life in.  He says “And it has been my pleasant fate to return each spring and observe the changes that the years have wrought” which suggests that he views the college more as an empire or a company than the home of thousands of students.  It further proves this point when he says, “That way I can observe in terms of living personalities to what extent my money, my time and hopes have been fruitfully invested”. Investing has the connotation of putting in time or money now in order to receive a profit in the long run. So rather than investing in the college in order to help other, he is hoping to get a profit which suggests he is seeking personal gain. Mr. Norton’s motives for running the college are self –centered and he is more concerned about how the college will affect his life than how it will affect the lives of his students.  He takes ownership over the fate of his students when he says, “I felt even as a young man that your people were closely connected with my destiny. Do you understand?”; in taking ownership over the lives of his students, he gives himself control over their lives. He is also only concerned with how his students’ lives affect his own rather than how he can affect the lives of his students. The irony is that Mr. Norton believes he is helping his students and the students believe that the college liberates them by giving them freedom in their fate; however the college actually has the opposite effect because it gives Mr. Norton control over the lives of the students. The fact that he asks the narrator if he understands is indicative of the condescension he has towards him.  Also, while reading Hamlet in class we discussed the idea of the fool revealing truth and that there is often times truth in madness. This theme can be seen at the end of chapter three when one of the veterans who is supposed to be crazy reveals the truth about the nature of the relationship between Mr. Norton and the narrator. The veteran tells them that Mr. Norton sees his students as a “scorecard” or an “achievement” and that he doesn’t actually care about his individual students. On the other hand, the narrator and the other students view Mr. Norton as “not a man to him, but a God” and that they look up to him. The veteran also recognizes that Mr. Norton and the narrator are invisible and blind to each other. 

Poem analysis of "The Death of a Soldier" by Wallace Stevens

‘The Death of a Soldier’

Life contracts and death is expected,
As in a season of autumn.
The soldier falls.

He does not become a three-days’ personage,
Imposing his separation,
Calling for pomp.

Death is absolute and without memorial,
As in a season of autumn,
When the wind stops.

When the wind stops and, over the heavens,
The clouds go, nevertheless,
In their direction.

~Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens, in his poem, “Death of a Soldier”, compares death at war to autumn in order to reveal the unconditional and unavoidable nature at which war always results in death.  The poem opens with the line, “Life contracts and death is expected”. Though we try not to always think about it especially if it is our own loved ones at war, we know that someone will die on the battlefield. This creates a dreary description of war which isn’t place where soldiers prove their glory, but a graveyard of fallen men. Stevens metaphorically compares a soldier to the falling leave of a tree. Every autumn, we know that the leaves will fall off of the trees; it is an unavoidable process. Similarly, it is unavoidable for men to die at war. Also, each individual leaf is insignificant in relation to the whole tree as a whole just like each soldier is only pawn to the countries at war. Additionally, after the current leaves fall off the tree in the autumn, new leaves will begin to grow in the spring and replace the old ones; when men die in battle, the military replaces them with fresh soldiers. However despite that a soldier risks his life while he is fighting on the battlefield, he does not become a “personage”; as an individual he doesn’t have much significance to the war and thus he doesn’t gain any rank or distinction.  War is shown to be high risk but low reward. While a soldier commits to a very sacred duty and puts his life on the line, he will often be unrewarded for actions. Maybe being called ruthless or a killer by the very people he is defending. In fact his accomplishments do not warrant a “calling for pomp”, or a formal ceremony of dignity and importance which suggests that being a soldier isn’t something that others look up at. The first line of the third stanza, “Death is absolute and without memorial” suggests that a soldier is forgotten when he dies. He is but a speck in history in respect to all the other millions of soldiers who have died and will die in the future. Unlike some presidents or inventors who have something to leave behind so that they will be remembered in history even in death, a soldier has nothing to leave behind. Also, because death is “absolute”, there is no coming back to life when someone dies. Similar to “When the wind stops” in autumn, death is a natural occurrence and you will forget about a soldier’s life just like you would forget about the wind after it stops blowing. Wind may also be a metaphor for the breath of life.  The last stanza further drives home the idea that a soldier’s life is insignificant in the grand scheme of the war because even “When the wind stops” which represents the death of a soldier, “The clouds go” which represents that the war will go on and that individual soldier will be forgotten. 

Or is Hamlet the villain?

Claudius is often believed to be the villain in the play. He does kill King Hamlet and marries his dead brother’s wife. And Hamlet is the hero who wants to nobly find justice for his father and rid Denmark of corruption. However Hamlet can also be interpreted as the villain of the play. Firstly, if we are looking at sheer number, Hamlet kills more people than Claudius; Claudius kills only his brother while Hamlet kills Polonius with his own hands and sends a letter that dooms Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to die. Hamlets motives are also very sinister. He compares Claudius to satyr, a half man and half goat; However the difference between human and beast is that humans are to rationalize and think which makes Hamlet is also beastlike in the sense that he is driven by his emotion of revenge which clouds his rational thought. Also, Hamlet doesn’t simply want justice, he wants violent revenge – the difference being in that justice seeks out rightfulness or lawfulness order to maintain stability while revenge is to exact punishment in a resentful or vindictive spirit. Revenge is what is sought out by the villain while justice is what is sought out by the hero. Hamlet doesn’t want to set things right in Denmark or cure it of corruption; he wants exact harm on Claudius because he feels he was indirectly wronged through the murder of his father. Evidence of this can be seen in Act III Scene iii when Hamlet says “When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,/Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed”,/ At game a-swearing, or about some act/ That has no relish of salvation in’t-/Then trip him, that his heels may kick at Heaven,/And that his soul may be damned and black/As Hell, whereto it goes” which reveals that Hamlet doesn’t want to kill Claudius, he wants to kill Claudius while he is partaking in a sinful and act so that Claudius can be sent to hell and suffer eternally.  At this point Hamlet isn’t simply in a fit of rage, he is calculated and is planning how he will kill Claudius; he appears psychopathic. Even when Hamlet accidently kills Polonius he shows no remorse; after Hamlet kills Polonius Gertrude exclaims, “Oh, what a rash and bloody deed is this!” in which Hamlet wittingly replies, “A bloody deed? Almost bad, good mother,/ As kill a king and marry with his brother” which suggests that Hamlet is not concerned with outcomes of his actions or the effect it might have on others but is only concerned with getting revenge on Claudius. Hamlet writes a new letter to England so that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will be murdered. Depending on your interpretation of the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern could be perceived as being uninformed about what was in the original letter.  This means that by killing them, Hamlet could have killed two innocent men. In the end, many people around Hamlet get hurt but if Hamlet truly is the villain to whom killing Claudius is paramount, that shouldn’t matter too much to him.  

Hamlet as the fool

          Your interpretation of Hamlet changes depending on how you interpret Hamlet's role in the play. One valid reading of the play is Hamlet as the fool. Throughout the play Hamlet embodies many different definitions of what a fool is. One definition of a fool is someone who lacks sense of judgment. By this definition, Hamlet is fool when he allows his emotions to dictate his action rather than rational thought or decision making. Hamlet is seen like this in the beginning of the play when he first encounters the ghost of his father. Hamlet had been suspicious of his mother and Claudius because they were quickly able to overcome the sorrow of King Hamlet’s death. When the ghost tells Hamlet that Claudius murdered Hamlet’s father, it enrages him. Hamlet makes a vows to avenge this father, “I’ll wipe away all trivial, fond records,/ all saw of books, all forms, all pressure past/ That youth and observation copied there,/ And thy commandment all alone shall live/ Within the book and volume of my brain,/ unmixed with baser matter”. In this state Hamlet is ruled by his emotions; he isn’t thinking of the implications that killing Claudius could have. He simply wants to rid the nation of what he perceives at the corruption in Denmark.  Hamlet is also a fool(lacking judgment or sense) when he stabs Polonius. Driven by heightened emotions, Hamlet stabs and kills him thinking that Polonius is Claudius. Hamlet envies Horatio because he is able to properly balance his emotions and his judgments, “ And blessed are those/ Whose blood and judgment are so well commedled/ That they are not pipe for Fortune’s finger/ To sound what stop she please”. These scenes where Hamlet lacks judgment contrasts Hamlet in the rest of the play when he is very calculated; He doesn’t immediately try to kill Claudius because he wants to prove that Claudius is guilty which shows that he is calculated yet he stabs at the figure hiding in the curtains before he know who it is which demonstrates his impulsiveness.

          Another definition of a fool is someone who subverts convention in order to bring about change or reveal truth. Hamlet fits this description in many ways; his goal throughout the play is to kill Claudius to not only avenge his father, but to rid the state of corruption. In doing so he would be able to bring about change by altering who is in leadership. While everyone one else openly obeys Claudius  or are manipulated by him, Hamlet chooses to appear to be mad and plans Claudius’s demise. It is ironic however that from the time he meets the ghost of his father he is bent killing Claudius; but by the time he kills him it is too late because Hamlet is already dead (he was already hit by the poison saber) and England had already began to attack Denmark.  The death of Claudius and the infiltration of England represents a new beginning and the change that Hamlet died for.

Invisible Man Chapter 1

I was planning to make my next Invisible Man blog about the rest of the prologue that I didn’t cover but I decided to skip ahead to Chapter one. Chapter one brings up many interesting themes that I think will be increasingly relevant as the novel progresses. Firstly, just like in Hamlet, we see the theme of seeming and “is’ing”/being. Seeming is what you appear to be on the outside. This is what others see or what they think they see. On the other hand, “being” is what you actually are. The old man tells the narrator that he has committed treachery when he gave up his gun in Reconstruction. In doing so, he gave up his ability to fight for the rights of blacks which meant he ultimately sided with the whites. He tells the narrator “I want you to keep up the up the good fight” but in a different, not with guns and fighting.  The narrator’s grandfather tells him to “Live in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ‘em with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree em’ to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open”. In other words, his grandfather wants the narrator to seem to be happy with the whites. Pretend like you agree and that you want to be obedient.  However deep down he wants the narrator to remember that white people are his enemy. In doing so he can work against the whites while appearing not to be. This idea reminds me of Polonius’s famous line from Hamlet in Act I scene iii, “This above all: to thine ownself be true” because the narrator must always remember to put his own intentions before the whites.

Hamlet’s relationship with his father parallels the narrators relationship with his grandfather. They are both given tasks to carry out even after the death of the person who ordered it to them. I also found it interesting that the narrator also viewed his task as a curse like Hamlet does.  

"Oh No" by Robert Creeley

If you wander far enough
you will come to it
and when you get there
they will give you a place to sit

for yourself only, in a nice chair,
and all your friends will be there
with smiles on their faces
and they will likewise all have places.

~Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley in his poem, “Oh No”, portrays the dangers of being trapped by a society that institutionalizes his citizens.  The people of such a society go out in search of a better life until they end up in a tedious job that they must maintain in order to keep up with the rest of society. As a result, they end up in a nine to five job that they go to five days a week. Eventually they end up living to work rather than working while living. The first two lines, “if you wander far enough / you will come to it” describes an innocent journey into the unknown.  People leave home or their hometown in search of a bigger life or something similar to the American dream. The word “wander” implies that those who come here are lost and don’t intentionally come here or that these people don’t know exactly where they going.  What and where “it” is not explained which makes the place appear very mysterious. I think Creeley does so to suggest that the wanders, like the readers, also don’t know what it is and unknowingly find themselves in it.  However “it” seems like a very nice place at first. They  are given a place to sit which represents the new luxuries that these people are able to afford. The chair is “for yourself only” because you are working for your own benefit, not the benefit of society as a whole. It seems great because “all of your friends will be there” so you feel safe and in communion with them. You guys are all there for the same reason which is comforting. The “smiles on their faces” suggests that they are happy to see you and happy to be there. In what appears to be a Utopian society, everyone is happy and has a place or way they can contribute to society.

However the title of the poem suggests otherwise, that this is not a Utopian society; something is wrong. The phrase “Oh No” implies that there is a sudden realization that there is something wrong. In reality, society has lured these people by promises of money, opportunities, and other luxuries to wander into their chair, or place in society. But this is a society based on the ideal of survival of the fittest and you must fight for the things society has promised.  And though “your friends will be there”, they are not your friends in this context. Just like you, they are fighting for the luxuries that society as promised. Rather than happy smiles, they wear deceitful smiles because though they appear to be your friend, they will be willing to throw you under the bus in order to help themselves in society. Now you all have places. However society has not done you a favor by giving you a place to seat. Your seat is what traps you and now you can’t get up. You have now been trapped in a tedious lifestyle that no longer benefits you, but the society that lured you there. 

Invisible Man Prologue

From very early on I could tell Invisible Man was going to be a very insightful book. The narrator introduces himself as an invisible but unlike the scientists from H.G. Well’s Invisible Man, the narrator of Ellison’s version isn't actually physically transparent. Instead, he is invisible because people “refuse” to see him for who he actually is. I marked this in my book because I think it is important to note that people chooses not to “see” him. One way people do this is that they see him through a stereotype that they think he fits into instead of for him as an individual. As a result they don’t see him, they see the stereotype. They judge him based on his surroundings and they don’t look at him as an individual “it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surrounding, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me”.   They see what they want to see and not what is in reality there. This brings up the idea of illusion vs reality. People choose the illusion that they want to see and “refuse” the reality of what is there. From the prologue it is apparent that the book will touch on some existentialist ideas.

I thought it was interesting that the narrator doesn’t believe his invisibility to be a bad thing, “I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves” ,and he even goes on to say later, “I myself, after existing some twenty years, did not become alive until I discovered my invisibility”. So does one want to be invisible? I don’t think the narrator necessarily wants to be invisible, but he accepts that he is invisible. See other people “refuse” to see him; it is there blindness that makes him invisible and not is inability to be seen. He knows that he can’t make himself be seen if others don’t want to see him and as a result he tries to remain invisible “I remember that I am invisible and walk softly so as not to awaken the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not awaken them; there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers”.

My favorite scene in the book so far is when he nearly kills a man that he “bumped” into. The man is like a sleepwalker who the narrator rouses when he bumps into him. However as a sleepwalker, the man is still sleeping/ dreaming and thus still sees the world through the illusion of the dream rather the reality of what’s there.  The narrator realizes this before he is about to slit the man’s throat and he stops himself and lets the man live, “it occurred to me that the man had not seen me, actually; that he as far as he knew, was in the midst of a walking nightmare”.   Here we see the dangers of when reality and illusion mix together.

There is so much more to analyze in the prologue. However I will leave that for another discussion or blog. 

King Hamlet's Ghost

                Many of the early scenes revolve around the ghost. The guards are frantic and become hysterical when they discover that it is the ghost of King Hamlet. However the ghost’s relevance surpasses just what it does and mainly resides in what it represents.  Firstly the ghost represents the disorder that has befallen Denmark. King Hamlet is murdered by his own brother Claudius who forms an “incestuous marriage” with King Hamlet’s wife.  As a result the current aristocracy has been built upon a throne of disorder.  Now there is a ghost to fully bring home that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. Denmark has become like a rotten apple that appears fresh from the outside. Denmark tries to “seem” like they have everything in control to other nations while in actually they are falling apart from the inside.  King Hamlet was murdered and thus unready for death so he ghost continues to walk the Earth. The dead are supposed to stay dead. The fact that the spirit of a dead person can roam and interact with the living exemplifies this chaos which is so bad that it not only affects the world of the living, but the realm of the dead.  

                

More importantly the ghost represents what Hamlet might have been looking for since the marriage of his uncle and his mom, a reason to further justify his detest for them and to take action.  He was already unhappy that Gertrude and Claudius were able to so easily get over the death of his father. He knew something was array but in his current position he was unable and didn’t have just cause to do anything about. Now the ghost of his father has come to him and tells him that he was murdered by Claudius and that he wants Hamlet himself to avenge him.  Like the God that Hamlet idolizes him to be, King Hamlet comes and gives Hamlet divine like instructions to bring order to Denmark. And like a orthodox follower of a religion, Hamlet swears to not be distracted by any other “baser matter”.  King Hamlet and Hamlet are shown to have more of God to religious follower relationship than a father- son relationship. This connects back to Act I scene ii when Hamlet refers to his father as the Sun God. I think this is why it becomes a burden for him to carry out his father’s wishes because he feels like it something a god has chosen him to do and thus it is something that he must do as he says “O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right”. It becomes his “duty” which is a recurring theme. This task becomes so important to him that it appears to drive him mad. Though we know he is likely acting/seeming mad initially as he says “As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on”, I wonder if eventually might be driven mad by his burden as the tragic hero. 

"These are the days when Birds come back" by Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson, in her poem, “These are the days when Birds come back”, comments on the uncertainty of religion and implies that religion can be neither proven nor disproven.  In the footnotes in Perrine’s, it says the time of year represented in the poem is an Indian summer. An Indian summer is a sudden heat wave that occurs in the fall. Even the time of year depicted in the poem is representative of uncertainty as even when it is supposed to be cold, there can be a sudden, unexpected shift in temperature. I think the heat wave represents any unexpected or difficult time in life.  In the first stanza, “ a Bird or two” is fooled by the Indian summer and think that summer has returned.  Birds symbolize a higher connection to God which is represented by the fact they in flight they are physically closer to God. The fact that the word Bird is capitalized indicates that these birds are connected to God in some way and may be angels. The Birds looking back could be a metaphor for religious people who in an unexpected time of trouble, don’t look to God, but “take a backward look” or look for solutions from other sources.  The reason why religious people look back is because God can be neither proven nor disproven and thus they can’t be sure if God is the solution to their problems.

In the next stanza, “The skies resume the old”, as in they return to normal when the trouble has passed. However this transition is described as “sophistries of June” because the troubles appear to have passed for misleading reasons. The religious people think that the reason that their troubles have passed is because of God, but this can’t be proven. This image is depicted in the last line of the stanza: the portrayal of “a blue and gold mistake” is representative of a summer day where the sky is clear and the sun is shining.

Even though the Indian summer fooled the birds, it is a “fraud that cannot cheat the Bee”.  In the footnotes of Perrine’s, it says that the bee is “an allusion to one of the apocryphal tales of Solomon, who distinguished between real and artificial flowers by pitting a bee in the room; the bee of course flew to the real”. According to this description, the bee represents the ability to distinguish between the real and the artificial. Dickinson says that she was “almost” fooled which “induces” or influences her beliefs.  So unlike the other followers, she wasn’t fooled to blindly believe in God, but appears to take a more neutral stance on religion. He may or may not exist.

Dickinson describes death as the moment when one discovers whether or not God exists. The “altered air” represents a kind of enlightenment.  “Oh Last Communion in the Haze” is when you become enlightened to the existence or nonexistence to God as it is when the “haze” is lifted. When we die we “partake” in “bread” and “wine”. This represents the body of Christ, and in eating, we are becoming closer to God in the afterlife after we die. However, bread and wine are also associated with the death of Christ; so possibly upon us dying and not going to the afterlife, we will realize that God doesn’t existence and our idea of God dies. Either way we won’t be sure of the existence of God until we die, but at that point it is too late. 

The Alternate Ending of A Doll's House.

The alternating ending of the play changes everything. As I wrote in my previous blog, the original ending is powerful because Nora’s fate is unclear. Will she break free of society? Can anyone break free of society? A woman leaving her husband in the 1800’s was unheard of and was societal suicide. Ibsen pushes against the boundaries of society and critics the confines that favor conformity over individuality. Of course this is the sort of stuff we love in AP Lit. We could have a seminar on this for all 6 periods if allowed and I think this is what Ibsen was aiming for when he wrote the play. He wanted to challenge the social norms of society. However the problem with that is that society at the time didn't want to be challenged. It is ironic that the very thing that Ibsen challenges, the suffocation of individuality by social conformity, ends up causing him to write a new ending. Driven by a need to make money and “survive”, Ibsen conforms to society and writes the ending that society wants. Sounds familiar? Kristine conforms to society and gets married so that she can “survive”. Nora plays along with Torvald so that she can “survive”.  In all of these cases, social conformity = survival. For Ibsen “the wonderful” would be when society is ready to read the original ending of A Doll’s House. Maybe this is another reason why Ibsen hated the alternating ending; he realized that in writing it he exemplifies that not even he can break free.

I actually like that there are two endings. It shows the impact that the final lines of a work have on the meaning of a play and it is an interesting point of comparison. However seeing the alternate ending only, as many people did when the play was released, completely changes everything. Many of the questions that the original play evokes become answered. Nora can’t break free of society, that’s why she stayed with Torvald. Also, as a woman, she wouldn't dare give up her “sacred duties” to her husband and her children because in society’s eyes, her only reason for being alive was to fulfill those duties. If Ibsen took away all the allusions to sex and alcohol, it could be a Disney movie where the loving wife tries to save her husband whose hubris won’t allow him to receive help and this gets the wife into trouble. Her husband comes to her rescue and accepts her wrong doing. Actually this sounds exactly like Nora’s fantasy. The difference is while in the original ending the doll house falls apart and Nora decides to leave it in favor of living a life based in reality, in the alternate ending Nora returns to the doll house and nothing changes.  In the alternate ending, the play loses its original purpose because the boundaries of society aren't challenged, they are accepted. Each ending represents various paths in life we must between in many decisions that we make. Do you take the path of individuality or conformity? Do you take the difficult route of uncertainty or do you take the path of least resistance and familiarity? Whether or not you know it, the conflict of the doll’s house is present in your daily decisions. 

The Original Ending of A Doll's House

The final scene of A Doll’s House dictates how you read the play. The whole plays builds up to the ending in a way.  The final scene represents a moment of enlightenment for Nora who realizes that in trying to meet the social expectations of her, she has given up her own individuality. Torvald even tells her, “you are a wife and mother before you are anything else”, which exemplifies that society expects her to put her husband and children before herself. At this point Nora probably feels like a slave to a family and society that takes her for granted; she dedicates her whole life to serving her father and her husband. Of course Torvald, a man who has strictly obeyed his gender role in society, is baffled by Nora. A woman leaving her husband was something that was unheard of in 1800 society. It is ironic that while the man is expected to be the enlightened one who guides the ignorant wife who blindly follows him, Nora is the one who is enlightened about the true nature of their relationship and thus guides Torvald who has been blindly following society. Nora leaving Torvald represents her breaking the societal chains that have kept her from developing as an individual. Yet this raises the question, can you really break free from society? I mean unless you on a mountain by yourself, everyone is shaped by the society they live in. Sure Nora has left her societal obligations to Torvald and her children, but she will still be confined by how the outside world judges her. She will be looked down upon as a woman who left her husband and she will have difficulty finding work.  So is she truly free of society? Will Nora, who has lived her whole life sheltered by the warmth of the doll’s house, be able to survive in the harsh, outside world? I think implies that she won’t. Kristine, a foul for Nora, is pushed back into marriage. Nora says for her to return, “the most wonderful of all would have to happen”.  The wonderful represents when Torvald can treat her as his equal which would allow them to have a “true marriage”, one not based on lies or pretending. However I don’t think the most wonderful thing will happen. Torvald’s last line in the play, “The most wonderful -?!” ends with a question mark, meaning that he still questions what the wonderful is.  If Torvald doesn’t even know what the most wonderful thing is, how can he ever achieve it? Though Ibsen seems to imply that Nora will be unsuccessful in breaking free of her societal expectations and possibly changing society, history tells a different story. Women’s rights was achieved by independent who forcefully went against the grain such as by entering the work force and showed the world that women can operate in society without being babied by their husbands. Some women like Kristine did so out of necessity while others like Nora did so for personal development. The unresolved fate of Nora is what makes this play so thought provoking, possibly implying that the struggle between the individual and society is forever on going. 

Analysis of Ars Poetica by Archibald Macliesh

Archibald Macleish in “Ars Poetica” uses paradoxical imagery to potray that a poem should evoke a part of human experience by tapping into our senses rather than trying to answer some philosophical question or have a deeper meaning. The first line, “a poem should be palpable” says that the purpose of a poem should be obvious and easily perceived by the senses or the mind. The reader should just be able to get it when he or she reads the poem. This suggests that poems should aim to be simple and direct without complexities that could cause the meaning to be misinterpreted and maybe that the reader should aim to find paradoxical simplicity within any complexities of a poem. Also, a poem should be interpreted through the senses by which we experience life. This understanding should be evident like “globed fruit” as no one needs to explain the taste of fruit to someone for them to be able perceive the flavors. Taste is also something that can be innately sensed.  The meaning of the poem should also be nourishing and natural like the taste of a fruit. Additionally, they should be “Dumb as old medallion to the thumb” which is contradictory as medallions are items that awarded for past accomplishments and thus have vivid memories attached to them. “Silent as the sleeve-worn stone of casement ledges” evokes the sense of touch.  Poems also should be “silent” or “wordless” which is contradictory as poems are comprised of words. However by being wordless, it implies that a poem is instead comprised of parts of human experience that influenced it rather than just by words and thus the meaning of the poem should be easily understood with any explanation.  “A poem should be motionless in time” and convey a universal meaning that will be applicable throughout time like the moon which can be seen no matter where in the world you are. Like the changing stages of the moon, poetry should also changes from one era to the next so that it always retains relevance.  In doing so, a poem “releases twig by twig the light-entangled trees” and sheds light on parts of life that otherwise would have been shrouded in night like darkness.  Similarly, the title of the poem means the Art of Poetry in Latin which is a dead yet relevant language that even today influences many of the world’s languages today. However the speaker states that “A poem should be equal to: Not true” and thus isn’t searching for truth, but instead is simply trying to capture the essence of human experience such as grief which he portrays as an empty doorway or a maple leaf or love. A poem is a representation of a certain part of life.  The poem ends with the lines that “a poem should not mean but be” suggesting that a poem should not seek to have a hidden meaning that the reader much search for or try to decipher within the text, but should  represent that meaning in way that the reader simply grasps it as he or she reads the poem.

Analysis of Ellen Olenksa

Ellen Olenska is a cultural hybrid who was influenced by French culture during her marriage with the Count but has returned to America where the social customs are very different.  French society is driven by experience and understanding while the Old New York society remains in a perpetual state of innocence which is most prominent among the women. The Old New York society is driven by old fashioned customs that society blindly obeys without understanding why or questioning them, “inexorable conventions that tied things together and bound people down to the old pattern”. The lack of understanding leads to a very superficial society. This disgusts Ellen Olenska who asks “Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!”. Because Ms.Olenska moved away with the Count, she was not conditioned to forever remain in a state of innocence like her fellow American women as Mr. Archer states, “the Polish Count must have robbed her of her fortune as well as her illusions”. As a result she is able to see parts of the society that the other women have to been taught to remain blind too. This difference as she states is the reason for her loneliness. Newland Archer also sees through the “illusions” of the American social system.  Like Countess Olenska, he is “sick of the hypocrisy that would bury alive a woman of her age if her husband were to live with harlots”. He believes “women ought to be free – as free as we are”; an unconventional viewpoint that Countess Olenska embodies in many ways.  She doesn’t need to be constantly accompanied by a man. For example, she ended a conversation with a gentlemen even though “etiquette required that she should wait, immovable as an idol, while the men who wished to converse with her succeeded each other at her side.” However she doesn’t purposely going against the customs, she was “unaware of having broken any rule”. Because of this, Newland Archer and Countess Olenska have a special bond, “there are only two people here who make me feel as if they understood what I mean and could explain things to me: you and Mr. Beaufort”. The contrast between a society based on experience(the French) and  a society of innocence(The Old New York society) is highlighted by the contrast of Countess Olenska and May Welland who are foils of each other.  Mr. Archer is fascinated with the Countess who represents the realism that is lacking in the superficial Old New York Society. In fact, when thinking of his fiancée,  Mr. Archer is “discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product”. However with Countess Olenska he knows she will say what’s on her mind and won’t be “oppressed by his creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and longdead ancentresses”. Through the countess, Mr.Archer identifies the “illusions” that everyone else is blinded to and he says she is “opening my eyes to things I’d looked at so long that I’d cease to see them”.