Summary & Analysis of "Background Information on Middlemarch"

Summary:

The pages of background information I read were pages 528-538. The background information mostly consisted of letters George Eliot wrote to people such as Dr. Clifford Allbutt, John Blackwood, and her author friend Harriet Beecher Stowe. There were also various collections from her personal writings and journals. One of these concerns the meaning of the word 'form' in regards to art and poetry; another is about how to judge an author's worth; the third is simply titled "Story Telling" and are Eliot's ideas about how a story needs to be told.

Analysis:

The last two pieces I mentioned, "Judgements on Authors" and "Story Telling", were the most interesting to me to read. I thought they were interesting because they were ideas directly from Eliot's mind on issues that pertain to literature and writing, which were obviously her areas of expertise. She wrote that in deciding an author's worth, "It requires considerable knowledge of what he has himself done, as well as of what others had done before him, or what they were doing contemporaneously; it requires deliberate reflection as to the degree in which our own prejudices may hinder us from appreciating the intellectual or moral bearing of what on a first view offends us" (537). I thought this comment was interesting given what we've been talking about in class about how some of the novels of the Victorian period offended readers. For example, we discussed how a lot of the public didn't like Mary Barton or Charles Dickens' works because they dealt with themes and ideas that readers didn't want to face (i.e. poverty, prostitution, and violence). Many novels, including these, couldn't be fully appreciated in their time because the public had too many prejudices to recognize the novels' good points. According to Eliot's view, readers have to put that aside in order to decide which authors and novels are great. In "Story Telling" it was interesting how Eliot states that stories are more interesting that do not just start at the beginning and end at the end; instead, she talks about how (for example) introducing a stranger into the plot and then slowly revealing his backstory to the reader is much more exciting. I thought that was funny since that is essentially what she is doing with Lydgate. He is a newcomer to the town of Middlemarch, and it takes awhile for the narrator to say something along the lines of, 'If you want to know a little bit about Lydgate's past, listen up!' Eliot asks, "Why should a story not be told in the most irregular fashion that an author's idiosyncrasy may prompt, provided that he gives us what we can enjoy?" (538). This remark clearly stems from Eliot's preferred way of telling a story since the telling of her story is completely different and innovative for its time. She weaves so skillfully between all of the characters' lives, and (even though it can be a little confusing at times) it keeps me interested about what kind of characters I'm going to encounter next.

Summary & Analysis of "Class Antagonism and the Sexual Plot in Mary Barton"

Summary:

The piece of criticism I read is called "Class Antagonism and the Sexual Plot in Mary Barton," written by Deborah Epstein Nord and published in 1995. Nord discusses how two of the major themes of the novel (class antagonism and women's sexuality) at first seem like they don't really interact with each other and exist separately from each other. However, Nord points out how the two work together to bring about the turning point in the book and change Mary's character. She states, "The connection between Barton's fear for his daughter's chastity and his murder of Harry Carson, the man who threatens that chastity, is one of the elements in the novel that fuses the plot of class antagonism with the sexual plot" (571). The two themes come together at this point because Harry represents all the evils of the upper class and has been horrible to the workers, but he also treats women horribly and doesn't care about ruining their innocence, so to speak. Nord argues that John Barton has a double purpose in murdering Harry: obviously because of the economic situation, but also to preserve Mary's chastity. The turning point in the novel, according to Nord, occurs when John murders Harry. She says, "Mary is transformed from the passive subject of discussions of her sexual virtue and proper role to the active agent of her own fate" (572). In other words, all of the issues fueled by the class antagonism build up into the explosion that is the murder, which in turn allows Mary to have agency for the first time, tying back into the sexuality theme.

Analysis:

Even though everything Nord argued about the interplay between class antagonism and sexuality is really interesting, a smaller issue she brings up really caught my attention. Nord talks briefly about the character of Esther, who is one of the most interesting characters in the novel I thought. While readers during Gaskell's lifetime would have been horrified by Esther's character, Gaskell tries to redeem her a little bit. Nord points out, "By playing the card of the dying child, Gaskell reclaims Esther from her status as pariah and situates her within the framework of parental devotion and bereavement that weaves classes together in the novel and binds John Barton and the elder Carson to the author herself" (570). So, even though Esther is a prostitute, we are still supposed to have sympathy for her and see her similarly to Barton and Carson (and even Gaskell) who have lost children themselves. Nord stresses the similarity especially between Esther and Barton and discusses how they both become lost wanderers, outcasts from society, who die and are buried in the same grave. The aspect of Nord's criticism that made me think the most is how she points out how Gaskell must have understood that Esther's identity as a prostitute is clearly a "role created by society, not decreed by nature or by some higher morality" (570). In other words, Esther wasn't the horrible 'fallen woman' the other characters (and probably readers of that time) thought she was; in reality, her circumstances put her in that situation. The opposite of that role is shown when she goes to visit Mary and puts on the 'costume' of a middle class mechanic's wife. Esther is able to switch between roles, which suggests that Gaskell meant for there to be much more to her character than just a lowly prostitute living on the streets. In the end, Esther's character is redeemed somewhat and able to die in her home surrounded by her family, her daily struggles finally put to rest.

Summary & Analysis of "Contemporary Reviews of Mary Barton"

Summary:

I chose to look at two different reviews for this blog entry. I read Charles Kingsley's review from Fraser's Magazine and W.R. Greg's review from the Edinburgh Review. Both of these reviews were published in April of 1849. Kingsley wrote about how he thought Mary Barton should be "read aloud from every pulpit, till a nation, calling itself Christian, began to act upon the awful facts contained in it" (381). He states that people only need to read this novel if they are wondering why members of the working class are behaving in an 'abhorrent' way, why they are murdering, drinking, taking opium, and why they hate law and order. Kingsley believes Mary Barton shows precisely why the working class was behaving in such a way, even to the point of turning their backs on God. He praises Gaskell for her realism. W.R. Greg also praises Gaskell for the realism of the novel, but his praise is short-lived. He claims Mary Barton is "calculated...in many places, to mislead the minds and confirm and exasperate the prejudices, of the general public" (383). Greg also claims the novel is filled with "false philosophy and inaccurate descriptions" and even "exaggerations" on the part of Gaskell when describing relations between the workers and the masters (383). His review is interesting because he critiques the character of John Barton, argues that the working class only have themselves to blame for their poverty by not saving their money, and ends with the statement that "their fate and their future are in their own hands, and in theirs alone" (390).

Analysis:

For my analysis, I really want to focus on W.R. Greg's criticism, with specific emphasis on how he blames the poor for their own misfortune. After reading Mary Barton, it is clear to me that the majority of the horrible things that happen to the characters are not their own fault, but the fault of the society and system in which they live.The discussion in class in which we outlined the characters' misfortune due to their economic situation also helped illuminate this for me because almost everything bad we listed happened because of their poverty. Greg tries to argue that the members of the working class could be just as well off as their masters, saying that he truly believes that "wealth and independence could speedily become the rule instead of the exception" (388) among these people. Looking at the situation from a sociological point of view, you just can't blame the poor for these issues; it's a complex topic that cannot be explained away by those in the upper classes saying that they should just try harder to save their money. Greg's whole attitude toward the poor reminds me of the Poor Law Amendment of 1834 that we discussed briefly in class. Public assistance is supposed to help those in need, but during this time, the poor were instead characterized as 'idle' and 'dissolute,' and thus were blamed for their poverty more than actually helped. I was surprised that nowhere did Greg use the argument that God chooses some to be poor in their lifetime, while their true reward will come in heaven (which is another common argument for not helping the poor). He adopts a similar attitude, though, that the poor are just poor and nothing is going to change unless they decide to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. While Kingsley shows compassion and sympathy for the characters of Mary Barton (and the members of the working class in general), Greg only questions their work ethic.

Penury, Beer, & Butchery

Even though we had a really good discussion in class about "The Gifts of War" by Margaret Drabble, there were a few issues I wanted to explore more for my blog. The story really impressed me a lot with its complexity, and to me one of its strongest themes concerns the institution of marriage. When I first read the piece and before the class discussion, I felt that "The Gifts of War" was primarily focused on marriage, and the other themes of war and class fell to the background for me. I think this is because Drabble paints such a harrowing picture of marriage--the abuse stayed in my mind long after I finished reading the story.

One of the most interesting parts to me was how Kevin's mother (nameless--just another victim of the "war" that is marriage) felt that she had no choice but to accept her "lot" as she calls it. She says that she is ignorant and doesn't "expect to know anything" (2824); the wife has to just be silent and keep living her horrible life. This makes sense because I know many people who are this way in their marriages, especially because Kevin's mother is poor and really has no chance at a better life. Another reason she says she perseveres through life is because of her son. He is the only happiness in his mother's life, and her man-hating hasn't been able to touch Kevin yet because he is still young: "He wasn't a proper man yet, he couldn't inflict true pain" (2824). Drabble equates being a man with inflicting pain on others, and uses other unsavory adjectives to describe her husband such as, "stubbly, disgusting, ill, malingering, unkind" (2827). Kevin's mother is trapped in an abusive marriage, but luckily has her son to keep her happy (or as happy as she'll ever become).

The other really interesting part of this to me is how Drabble compares and contrasts Kevin's mother with Frances and the other younger girls. They might have different views from her about class and the war, but the most important and stressed differences are in how the two generations think about marriage and men. Kevin's mother says that she was "penniless then as now, but still hopeful" (2827) when she was a young girl looking for love. Today, she is penniless but has lost all hope in the idea of marriage; she even says that she envies the young girls who have romantic ideas about men because she is so disillusioned with the whole thing. Kevin's mother wants to say to these girls, "What do you think you're playing at? Where do you think it leads you, what do you think you're asking for?" (2827). Kevin's mother goes on to compare girls like Frances to "condemned cattle and sacrificial virgins" (2827). This shows exactly how the older woman feels about marriage: it is a trap and a sacrifice of good women. While for Kevin's mother's generation of wives, "time had taught them all" (2827), Frances is young and silly about love. She says that she spends hours thinking about her emotions and feelings for her friend Michael, and protests the war for him, even though it is the last thing she would have done herself. The contrast between the two women is drastic.

Clearly, "The Gifts of War" is about many different issues, but I saw marriage for women as one of the central ideas the story explores. That being said, I understood Kevin's mother's breakdown at the end of the story as an epiphany of sorts about her life in general. I thought that she finally understood she would always be defeated in her life no matter what, the same way she is defeated in her marriage. The woman is suffering from the war in general, but she is most affected and disillusioned with the world and the people around her because of the war that is her daily life in her marriage.

Explication of "Poem" by e.e. cummings

First of all, I really wanted to have a copy of the poem in this post, but it is a little long for that. So instead, here is a link that can take you right to the poem!

http://www.nbu.bg/webs/amb/american/4/cummings/beauty.htm

Modernism is one of my absolute favorite literary periods; I love all of the radical changes occurring during the years 1900-1950. The changes were happening in every part of life: science, technology, religion, economics, and social views. One of the most drastic changes in my opinion happened with the rise of capitalism and materialism in America. This country became the place of frozen meals and barbie dolls within a matter of years, and many Modernist writers reacted to that sudden boom. e. e. cummings was merely one of many, but he is worth taking note of because he not only argued about the changing times, he performed that argument in the form of his poetry. For example, cummings broke traditional poetry norms all over the place by having irregular lines, crazy syntax, broken-up words, and punctuation that was the furthest thing from "traditional." His writing shook people out of their comfort zones, and his approach to the changing time period he lived in was unique.

This poem, which is humorously titled, "Poem, or Beauty Hurts Mr. Vinal," is set up in the typical style of cummings: no regular form at all. He breaks lines wherever he wants to (though his line breaks are highly important), uses no regular rhyme scheme, and (though not important to the form exactly) all rules of grammar go flying out the window. The speaker of "Poem" speaks in a very casual tone to readers; he even addresses readers of the poem as "kiddos" in the first line.

The plot of the poem is harder to summarize because it isn't a narrative. The speaker seems to be having a rant of some sort, and the ensuing words are jumbled and somewhat confusing. It seems strange at first because the poem is mostly made up of popular brand names, slogans, and famous songs and people's names. For example, he cites the brands Gillette razor blades, Kodak, and Wrigley gum. He also randomly throws into the poem slogans such as "Just Add Hot Water and Serve" (Campbell Soup) and "comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush" (Colgate toothpaste). What cummings seems to be doing by mixing together all of these popular symbols into a jumbled mess is critiquing the rising materialism of American society. This is revealed in the negative language he uses toward both America and the mass-produced items. cummings rewrites the lyrics to the patriotic song "My Country Tis of Thee" when he says, "my country, 'tis of/you, land of the Cluett/Shirt Boston Garter...of you i sing: Abraham Lincoln and Lydia E. Pinkham/land above all of Just Add Hot Water and Serve" (3-12). Pinkham was a popular figure during this time; she created a pill that supposedly instantly cured all kinds of 'women's ailments.' By putting someone like her next to the figure of Abraham Lincoln and equating their positions, cummings is saying that Americans value the contributions of Pinkham and Lincoln equally as much, which is ludicrous. However, it is a comment on the rampant consumer culture existent at this time.

Each of these stanzas in "Poem" is just as rich and complicated as the one before it, and it takes a lot of outside research to figure out exactly what product from the early 1920s each brand and slogan represents. The pessimism continues throughout: "A/mer/i/ca, I/love,/You.    And there're a/hun-dred-mil-lion-oth-ers" (36-42). Near the end of the poem (or collection of phrases and product names), he describes Americans as "tensetendoned and with/upward vacant eyes painfully/ perpetually crouched, quivering" (48-50). The reader expects some kind of closure in the last lines of "Poem," but cummings stays true to form and concludes with only the Colgate toothpaste slogan.

While America's materialism is the most obvious theme in the poem, I found a smaller and more interesting idea in lines 30-33: "...according/to such supposedly indigenous/throstles Art is O World O Life/a formula." Writing about art in art is a topic we've talked about a lot in class, but it was a surprising theme in a poem like this one, surrounded by discussion of "stuff" when art is so valuable and intangible (the opposite of material goods). cummings is saying that according to some people, art is an exact formula that people follow; however, to him that is not the case (and he proves that throughout all of his poetry). cummings even just proved he could create art out of the meaningless brand names and slogans and materialism. I think calling this piece "Poem" reiterates that fact; he is making a sly comment that this is art, and can simply be called what it is. Obviously, there is much more to go into with this poem (my analysis only covered the tiniest portion of this piece), but it is clear that cummings not only wanted to say something in his poetry, but also DO something different from anything readers in the early twentieth century had ever seen before.

To Strive, To Seek, To Find, & Not to Yield

Ulysses -- Alfred Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
>From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I mainly wanted to unpack this poem for my blog (even though it's quite long!) because I am currently in Mythology, and we just finished reading the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer. It is interesting to realize that Homer was writing around approximately 700 B.C.E., while Tennyson composed his poem in 1833. It's really cool when writers like Tennyson choose to build onto already existing stories, especially when they change aspects of the originals or decide to focus on different themes than the original writer. The Ulysses of the Odyssey travels for about ten years before he is able to return home; in that time, he has faced and conquered many obstacles and monsters that normal men could never survive. Ulysses in Tennyson's poem, however, has reached home and finally regained peace and quiet.

The most important themes I found in the poem were about escaping the tedium of everyday life through adventure, and how old age should not be a factor in stopping anyone from leading an exciting life. Ulysses is old in years, but he is not old in spirit; that is shown throughout many lines of the poem: "I cannot rest from travel" (6), "...always roaming with a hungry heart" (12), "Tis not too late to seek a newer world" (57). There are innumerable examples of how Ulysses wants to leave the monotony of his life at home and continue exploring the world. I thought this was a cool theme that still applies a lot to people today, since so many of us get complacent the older we get. Hungering for life the way Ulysses does is preferable to, say, the life of the Lotus-Eaters in Tennyson's other poem concerning Greek mythology. His crew is introduced to a delicious flower that causes a drowsy contentment, and they want to stay on that island forever and forget about living their real lives. That poem is in stark contrast to this one; Ulysses wants nothing more than to have more exciting experiences around the world, even if that causes his death. He states, "For my purpose holds/To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths/Of all the western stars, until I die" (59-61). His experiences in the real world have changed his life, and now he is too restless to stay somewhere in peace.

The most interesting part  about this poem for me was that Tennyson's techniques tie in nicely with what we have been discussing in my Theory and Criticism class. The story of Ulysses is not an original one to Tennyson; he obviously "poached" the ideas for this poem straight from the words Homer had already written centuries before. However, we've been talking a lot in Theory about how artists have always borrowed ideas from other artists, and how that act of stealing ideas is "good" plaigarism if the author adds to or complicates the previous author's ideas. I think that is exactly what Tennyson is doing here with Homer's story of Ulysses. Homer was a mastermind and genius who was able to create a character like Ulysses that went through many adventures and then longed for rest. Tennyson's Ulysses has acheived the rest that Homer's so desperately wanted, but now is bored with his life. His message through this poem is to remind readers (and maybe even himself) that an exciting life is worth living, old age is not the end of a great life, and that it is better to press on and continue living rather than becoming complacent and in a trance like the lotus-eaters. There are powerful messages throughout the poem, and it's interesting to see how Tennyson is able to build upon another great writer's ideas, and, in turn, make them his own.

The Wonderfully Awful Miss Clack

"Once self-supported by conscience, once embarked on a career of manifest usefulness, the true Christian never yields. Neither public nor private influences produce the slightest effect on us, when we have once got our mission. Taxation may be the consequence of a mission; riots may be the consequence of a mission; wars may be the consequence of a mission: we go on with our work, irrespective of every human consideration which moves the world outside us. We are above reason; we are beyond ridicule; we see with nobody's eyes, we hear with nobody's ears, we feel with nobody's hearts, but our own. Glorious, glorious privilege! And how is it earned? Ah, my friends, you may spare yourselves the useless inquiry! We are the only people who can earn it--for we are the only people who are always right"   (Collins 227)

Miss Clack from The Moonstone has to be one of the most-hated characters in all of literature. Not only is she nosy and judgmental, Miss Clack is clearly sexually repressed. She feels it is her personal duty to "save" the souls of everyone in her family, and puts on quite a show for the reader in doing so. Wilkie Collins obviously has a reason for including such a character in his story, and I believe she serves a largely symbolic purpose. Miss Clack is a symbol for the type of religious people who are the furthest thing from the embodiment of Christ, and are the very kind of people who turn others away from religion.

This idea of the symbolic nature of Miss Clack developed for me all throughout her narrative, but specifically when she says the quote above. It baffles me that she could say such a thing and not hear all of the things wrong with what she is saying. For example, "We see with nobody's eyes, we hear with nobody's ears, we feel with nobody's hearts, but our own." This is an awful thing to say because Christians (and decent people in general) are supposed to be empathetic, charitable, and loving to all others, and think of themselves lastly. Seeing issues and ideas from another person's point of view and understanding their opinion (whether you agree with it or not) is one of the most important parts of human interaction, and she is completely closing her mind to that. Also horrible, she goes on to say that the only people who earn the "glorious privilege" are men and women exactly like her. They are the only ones who receive this because they are "the only people who are always right." Any decent human being can see the obvious problems with this kind of mindset.

The other interesting thing about Miss Clack is the sacrifices she is willing to make in order to "share the good news" with people. She states, "Taxation may be the consequence of a mission; riots may be the consequence of a mission; wars may be the consequence of a mission: we go on with our work." What she is saying is that violence and money are necessary evils of the Christian faith (even though Jesus preached against both). Miss Clack seems to have no regard for the Jesus of the New Testament, but chooses instead to focus on the fire and brimstone hell of the Old Testament. Jesus preached about compassion, love, empathy, and mercy; Miss Clack, on the other hand, presents a superior attitude to the "sinners" around her. Sure she says she's trying to save them, but Miss Clack is a terrible example of the Christian faith. It is no wonder that all of her family members avoid her.

Miss Clack is clearly one of those narrators that readers love to hate. She is absolutely horrible, but also provides a sort of comic relief. Her superior attitude to everyone around her is quite funny at times, and the way she "clacks" on and on about how pious she is makes the reader both hate and pity her. I don't believe that Collins had a personal vendetta against religion in general; however, I think it is quite clear that Miss Clack is a symbol of the worst qualities of "religious" people in general.