Young Goodman Brown: Verisimilitude

Verisimilitude means the appearance of being true or real. This is what Young Goodman Brown was going through during his "journey" through the woods. What business would a seemingly normal Puritan man have in the depths of the forest late at night?
Nathaniel Hawthorne's take on Goodman Brown's journey through the woods is quite a dark twisted story of Brown's past and his family secrets and his future. However, the main theme is Brown questioning his faith. The fact that Hawthorne named Brown's wife Faith, is a huge symbol/ foreshadowing to the rest of the story. "And Faith, as his wife was named..." is a huge precursor to what Hawthorne wants the reader to think as they read the story. Also this double entendre of a phrase "Faith kept me back a while...", is a very obvious clue that Hawthorne has struggled with his own faith in his family. As many people know, Nathaniel Hawthorne's family were largely involved with the Salem witch trials. Hawthorne has condemned their involvement and it shows in his writing.

As I was reading, I noticed some of the vocabulary used by Hawthorne was very telling that this entire story may in fact be a dream or hallucination of the characters. For example, the words used to describe the person Brown is meeting are "figure"and "appearance" and "shape". It's as if Brown is dreaming and this "shape" is what his subconscious has made up for him. All these symbols and hidden meanings in Young Goodman Brown are all part of an extended, intricate allegory.

Position Paper

One thing I have learned from the research writing process that I will use for future papers is that is important to prepare. The hardest part was figuring out which topic to research. I knew which side of every topic I was on I just had to pick one. In order to even begin an eight to ten page paper, you need to set up some parameters for your topic. Guidelines help lead you in the right direction in regards to your view on a topic. If the topic is too broad or general, it is easy to get lost in your own writing and nothing will make any sense. For example, if your topic is poverty in the US, there should be a theme of that topic that is going to be the focus of your paper, i.e. how much and where has poverty grown in the past decade. Once I took a position on my topic, it was easier to conduct my research because I knew what I was looking for. Before I started writing I went through books and articles about my topic and pulled quotes and statistics that supported my position. This is where my detailed outline came in handy because I could easily place my quotes in the appropriate paragraphs, then build my argument around those facts. I structured my paper so that there was a good amount of quotes from the naysayer side of my topic, but carefully selected info that enhanced my position.

The Love Song of J. ALfred Prufrock Prompt #1

I agree more with the critical essay by Charles Walcutt. T.S Eliot's poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is somewhat confusing to read but if you focus on what he is saying and where he is and what he is doing, it's really not too complicated. Referring to these line in Eliot's poem "Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets/And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes/Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?..." Walcutt says "these otherwise puzzling lines make easy sense" which they do because they are fairly straight forward. It's true you can find a hidden meaning or allusion in every line, but Eliot's poem is really just a nervous, scattered dialogue in his head. Walcutt also describes Eliot's character of Prufrock of being "so unsure of himself" as well as being shy and feeling inadequate to accomplish what he wants to do, which is presumably "propose" to this woman. "And should I then presume?/ And how should I begin?" these lines make a strong argument for Walcutts point of view because Prufrock is second guessing himself and shows little confidence in actually proposing to this woman. Also, not mentioned much in Walcutt's essay are the very descriptive lines of Prufrock describing his insecurities about they way he looks. "With a bald spot in the middle of my hair", "My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin", and "(They will say:"But how his arms and legs are thin!")". A man who wants to have a brief sexual encounter with a woman as Bruce Hayman's essay suggests, wouldn't second guess his looks for a one time encounter. However, I do agree with Hayman that Eliot did suffer from "sexual repression", but the entire poem is hardly about a one night stand. Even though Eliot was only 30 years old when Prufrock was written, these is much more meaning behind this simple yet complex piece of literature than just a sexual desire.

**above picture is one of many images of Dante's Inferno. The epigraph of Prufrock had a quote from Inferno***

3 student papers

Highlights

1. The first essay was good, easy to read and straight forward. Nothing was too off topic.

2. The second one has a lot of good facts about the authors life and ties them into their topic which allows for the reader to have good background info.

3. The last essay i enjoyed the topic of the paper, it was something that kept me reading. I like that he used current events and recognizable names and quotes.

Low lights:
1. The first one seemed like she didn't give enough of her position, but just packed the paper with research ABOUT her position.

2. Although using big portions of an autobiography, it sometimes bogs down the paper with facts that aren't important.
3. The last essay, while interesting to me personally, was a bit casual in regards to referencing gossip in Hollywood. It could have been a bit more professional and used more appropriate language.

Overall, i think i can uses these samples to guide me in the right direction in regards to structure of my position paper. It helps to know where to place quotes and how to build a paragraph around it.

What is love, baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver was a a thought provoking read i thought. I finished the story the same way the charachters did, "i could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyones heart..." (684) This story really makes you think about what your personal beliefs on love are. Does it even exist? and if so what kinds of love are there? As mentioned in the story, there is carnal love, sentimental love, and spiritual love. Or as I call them, BS, BS, and more BS. But that's just me. I walked away thinking all this love talk is crap because of the way Terri kept insisting that the man who beat her and almost ended her life, "loved her". I was getting angry just like Mel was as she kept trying to defend her relationship with that monster.

I think Mel and I am on the same page sort of because he was in shock about the old fart who was depressed " because he couldn't look at the fucking woman."(683) How does one fall in love so deeply that not having a visual of that person breaks your heart and sends you into a depression! I think this old fart needs to take some lessons from Louise Mallard in The Story of an Hour.

So in conlusion, i think Carver wrote this piece to get his feelings out about what he's talking about when he talks about love! Tres interessant!

*This is what i'm talkin bout when i talk about love!

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar

I really enjoyed Kate Chopins three short stories. As a woman, reading them, i felt i understood how she feels about love and marriage. I liked that in the end of all the stories it was all about the power women have over men.

The Storm is a story very ahead of its time I believe. The way Calixta, with no hesitation, allowed herself to have a quick sexy afternoon with Alcee is not something i would picture a woman doing given the time period. I noticed that Chopin only described what Calixta looked like and never said anything about what the man she was sleeping with felt or looked like. Also, the fact that Calixta just went about her day with her husband and child like nothing ever happened says a lot about what Chopin wants the reader to think. It made me think Calixta was thinking like a man and just wanted that one afternoon of passion. Truly a story made for a woman by a woman.

The Story of an Hour is my favorite of the three. I love that Louise was not shy about expressing how happy she was to be "Free! Body and soul free!" from her husband. It makes Mr.Mallard look like a real shitty husband if you ask me! "She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long."(660) Wow, what a slap in the face that is! I was so happy for Louise finally getting her independence and being able to start a new life all for herself! Until Mr. Mallard showed up and killed her with his presence. Unfortunately the husband will never know she died because the sight of him alive was so disturbing she'd rather be dead. But Chopin freed her anyway, death before dishonor right!!!

Desiree's Baby was interesting. First let me say that Armand must have be white as snow to not see that his skin was darker than most white folks. Anyway, again given the time period of 1892, I am not surprised that Desiree just did whatever Armand told her to do and obviously being a man he never would have believed that she was 100% white and he was the one with the black in his family. This story is a big middle finger to men. A screw you I was right all along type story. Although put much more eloquently than that, i think that was what Chopin was aiming for. I also identified personally to this story a lot because i am half black and I can't imagine someone i love, let alone have a child with, despising me for that!

Chopin was one brave chick to write these provocative,strong, sexy stories in her time.m No wonder none would publish her!

LA struggles

1. What was difficult about the Lit analysis paper? Why?

• Well first it's hard (for me) to complete a paper longer than a page.
• The real difficulty was not creating the thesis, but writing a whole paper around my thesis that made sense. It was obvious with my rough draft that weaving my ideas together into one cohesive paper was not happening.
• The story I chose Young Goodman Brown was not the easiest. I really had to sit down and read every sentence in that story as if I was writing a paper about each sentence. Reading it over and over again helped me pull quotes and find meaning in those quotes that supported what I wanted to write about.

2. Do you expect to have this difficulty with the CA paper?

• Thanks for asking! Yes i do expect to have the same difficulties. Mainly because like i said before, this has to be longer than 1 page and this paper involves analyzing 2 or more stories or poems.
• Creating cohesive ideas and focusing on one point rather than jumping from idea to idea will still be a challenge, but that is what rough drafts are for!
• However, because of what i now know from struggling with the LA, i think i will start to prepare much earlier for the CA. i.e. not was until a week before to figure out what i want to analyze.

3. How will you negotiate this difficulty?

• Read the stories over and over and over and over....and over until i know pinpoint exactly what i want to compare between the two.
• Test out several different thesis sentences. I found myself creating 1 strong thesis in the LA then thinking i had to stick to it, so it made writing the paper more difficult.
• Read MLM for some ideas on what to do and not to do in CA papers.