Fate.

Fate, the ability to control one’s future, is a common theme amongst songs and novels and is also a common and controversial topic in conversations around the world. The idea that people by nature have free will, as carm.net puts it – “freedom of self determination and action independent of external causes” – is a very popular belief. Perhaps equally popular; however, is the opposite belief, that people do not have free will at all. Illustrated by the Hermetic Philosophy Glossary: “All there is is Consciousness, there is absolutely no free will; everything is God’s will, the impersonal functions of Consciousness, manifesting as destiny, individual or otherwise; decisions have to be made so one makes them as if there is free will – the result is God’s Will.” Both sides have powerful arguments, and neither side can prove that they speak the truth.

            Slaughterhouse-Five and Forrest Gump both convey the idea that human will isn’t completely free. Slaughterhouse-Five argues that the book of life has already been written and that humans just exist on the page of today unable to foresee the pages to come and unable to change them. Forrest Gump implies that there are multiple hallways to go down, but in the end they all lead to the same place and that the only things that humans can change are the paths from major event to major event.

Evidence of the “pro-fate, lack of free will” outlook is easily evident in the quotes scattered throughout both works. Perhaps the most famous fate-related quote is found in Forrest Gump: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” This quote is both very similar and very different to the outlook in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. In Slaughterhouse-Five, the Tralfamadorians are the authority on fate. They let Billy Pilgrim know what the truth is: that the future is going to be how it’s going to be, and there’s nothing that Billy, or anyone can do about it. The future, past and present are all happening at the same time, and since the future wasn’t changed, it can’t be changed. These outlooks are essentially the same, but are surprisingly different if dissected. If there were absolutely no free choice at all, as the Tralfamadorians would promote, choosing a specific chocolate out of the box would not be a possibility because choosing exercises free will. Both outlooks have the end result the same: eating chocolate, or getting to the end result. To apply the box of chocolates analogy further: in Forrest Gump, it doesn’t matter what choices are made, i.e.; which chocolate is chosen, because the same end result will always be achieved, i.e.; eating chocolate. In Slaughterhouse-Five, choosing to do things differently is impossible, i.e.; picking a different chocolate, and obviously, the ending will be the same, i.e.; eating chocolate.

Comparing the feather in Forrest Gump to the ‘Poo-tee-weet’ by the bird at the beginning and end of Billy’s story yields similar results. The feather in Forrest Gump can float and twist any which way that the wind takes it, and it will always get to where it needs to be, but Slaughterhouse-Five’s birds will always say exactly ‘Poo-tee-weet’ at the same time, at the same place, and in the same pitch. The idea of the end result being destined shines with both the feather and the birds, but the ability for the pathways leading to destiny is only evident with the feather.

Forrest himself agrees with the analysis presented in the previous paragraphs, and he says so. “I don’t know if Momma was right or if, if it’s Lieutenant Dan. I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or If we’re all just floating around accidental like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe its both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.” Maybe it’s both happening at the same time – the ability to choose ones own path to get to where one must be. Agrees with the box of chocolates quote. Agrees with the feather. Partially agrees with Slaughterhouse-Five. They’re similar in that, they both recognize that free will is not present in every aspect of life, and they’re different in that Forrest Gump gives more power to the people – suggesting that people do indeed have some free will.

Is the future set in stone? Can it be changed? The answer depends on who gets asked, but Forrest Gump and Slaughterhouse-Five agree on one thing – that some things are indeed set in stone, and will always happen. Be it, eating chocolate or floating around in the wind people will always be where their destiny needs them to be. Can humans choose which doorways to go through, even if all them lead to the same place? Forrest Gump says yes, Slaughterhouse-Five says no.

The argument over the truth about fate, destiny and free will shall likely be an endless war because there is no way to know if choices can be made to change the would-be future. Is it possible to influence the future? Or maybe just change how to get from A to B? Or does nothing change at all regardless of the choices that are made? The truth is unknown, but there will always be great novels and song as well as persuasive arguments on every side of this volatile topic.

Metress on The Open Boat

In His editorial, “From Indifference to Anxiety: The Knowledge and the reader in “The Open Boat”, Christopher Metress makes the argument that Crane uses the structure of the story to move  the reader “from indifference over epistemological  frustrations to a point of unresolvable anxiety” (Metress 1) . He goes on to state that key moments in “The Open Boat” create an inequality in the amount of knowledge that is known by the crew versus the reader; thereby, creating anxiety for the reader.

                    Metress is absolutely correct in his argument. It is clearly evident that Crane purposely wants the reader to sit wondering exactly why he neglected to explain what the crew could then be interpreters of. To show how obvious this is, Metress uses the narrator. Early in the story, the narrator steps in to inform the reader that there was indeed no life-saving station, a key argument between the crew, within twenty miles of their location. Granting the reader this knowledge “severs the epistemological equality of the reader and the crew: the two no longer share the same anxieties over the problems of knowledge raised by the crew's struggle.” (Metress 2) He goes on to state, that this severing of the equality, as the reader had only know what the crew had known up until this point (and nobody knew the color of the sky), causes the reader a feeling of privilege. Classic irony. While the crew wastes time arguing over a life-saving station, the reader knows that it doesn’t even exist. This feeling persists until the final sentence of “The Open Boat”. In the final sentence, Crane manages to switch the inequality completely. Ending the story with "When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on the shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters" (Crane) shows the reader that they really know nothing. Metress explains how this causes frustration in the reader: “Stripped of anticipated knowledge and anxious about their own epistemological inequalities, readers must now ask why it is that the characters (and not they) have achieved interpretation.” (Metress 3) Crane likely left the reader in frustration to show them that they really have no idea what the crew went through, and reading a story about it would never allow them to fully understand the situation.

 

The Only Side

The Only Side

                One of the countless downsides of war is the emotional baggage thrust upon the soldiers involved in the war. This baggage has been the topic of many literary works, for example: Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” and Thomas Harding’s “The Man He Killed.” In “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses the literal items that soldiers bring to war as metaphors for the negative impact that war has on the war-fighters. He uses these metaphors as windows into the minds of the soldiers in his story. Similarly, Harding explores a soldier’s psyche in “The Man He Killed.” Harding uses this poem to give the reader a glimpse into the mind of a soldier, and to let the world know how killing a man can have long lasting effects on that soldier’s mind. Both of these works address how mentally challenging it is to go to war and have to kill people in the name of your country. When these two works are read together, they create a chilling feeling for the reader who now has a slight understanding of the minds of the warriors, and an ever so slight understanding of the emotional baggage that our service members must carry with them.

                “The Things They Carried” lists off the physical objects that soldiers “humped” through Vietnam. These physical things that they carry are certainly metaphors for the emotional things that they are forced to heave through this foreign land. The items they carry represent emotions that they also carry, and the emotions are always heavier than the physical weight of the item. A perfect example of this is the character Henry Dobbins. Dobbins carries his girlfriend’s pantyhose, but with them he also carries the want for affection, compassion and comfort. This longing for love is much heavier than the twenty-three pound machine gun and the ten to fifteen pounds of ammunition that he carries. It is the same for every character in this story: Cross, who carries the maps and a compass, which are symbolic of his desire for order as well as a general longing for an understanding of the mission in Vietnam, has to carry the responsibility of the lives of the rest of the soldiers in the Alpha Company. There is no burden heavier than this. Through these items, O’Brien opens up the characters in his story. The reader is now able to (begin to) understand what’s going on in the soldier’s minds.

                “The Man He Killed” makes similar claims, though does it in an entirely different way. Hardy supplies the reader with an unsettling monologue that gives a unique view into the mind of a soldier. This poem tackles the nature of war—that war is dirty and makes men do things that they wouldn’t do in any other circumstance. Hardy uses that realization to open up the mindset of a soldier and really shows how harsh the reality of war is on the psych. Take “I shot him dead because— / Because he was my foe.” (Hardy 9-10) for example. The dramatic pause, then the repetition of “because” is as if the speaker is trying to convince himself that he did nothing wrong. He goes on to say “Just so: my foe of course he was; / That's clear enough; although” (Hardy 11-12), in a further attempt to convince himself, albeit unsuccessfully. The speaker’s inability to convince himself that he did nothing wrong is evident by ending the stanza with the word “although” then going on to say “Off-hand like—just as I— / Was out of work—Had sold his traps / —No other reason why” (Hardy 14-16) he basically means “well, he was only there because he was out of work, same as me” in more poetic words. This questioning of his actions, however long after-the-fact shows that the speaker has deep psychological issues due to the emotional baggage of war.

               Thomas Hardy and Tim O’Brien would definitely agree that the emotional cost on the soldiers is one of the most tragic parts of war. When O’Brien defines “hump” as “walk[ing] or march[ing], but [with] implied burdens far beyond the intransitive” (O’Brien) he’s not just talking about the just physical weight, but also the emotional weight, that the items that the soldiers have to carry. Similarly the speaker in “The Man He Killed” expresses that war is “quaint and curious” (Hardy 7) meaning that there really isn’t anything quite like it—and that if the speaker had met the man that he killed in a bar, he’d treat him to a drink, or at least help him to “half-a-crown.” This shooting of someone that he had nothing against seems to haunt the speaker, and one can only imagine how burdening that must be.  

               While the two authors may agree in message, their eye opening tales use different styles to allow the reader to understand just how destructive and overbearing emotions of war can be on the psyche of a soldier. For example, in “The Things They Carried” O’Brien uses a wide array of literary devices. The most powerful device is easily the metaphors that he uses throughout the story. He also uses the repetition of the word carried to drive those metaphors home, as evident:

“Dave Jensen carried three pairs of socks and a can of Dr. Scholl's foot powder as a precaution against trench foot. Until he was shot, Ted Lavender carried six or seven ounces of premium dope, which for him was 2 necessity. Mitchell Sanders, the RT0, carried condoms. Norman Bowker carried a diary. Rat Kiley carried comic books. Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father” (O’Brien)

The repetition throughout the story serves as the hammer that drives O’Brien’s point home. “The Man He Killed” uses a bit of jargon, when the speaker says “but ranged as infantry” (Hardy 5) it doesn’t flow nearly as well as the rest of the poem, because they’re not really words that the speaker fully understands. This fact alone is very important, because the speaker does not care to understand exactly what the words mean, just as he never wanted to kill anybody. It also uses an alternating rhyme scheme, to help the poem flow, and to make the pauses that much more dramatic.

                “The Things They Carried” and “The Man He Killed” are two different works, by two different authors, but share a very similar view of war. Be it through the use of metaphors or dramatic pauses, these works allow readers to look into the minds of soldiers, and see how they’re emotionally affected by war, and the act of killing. These works share the theme: emotional baggage caused by war is overwhelming and forever damaging.

 

Love is a Waltz

Parents. Just thinking about them creates a waltz with nostalgia. Reminiscing about childhood memories, be it that family vacation to the far off land, dinner at six, Dad coming home from work, even that time spent in the bedroom after doing something stupid can easily invoke that warm fuzzy feeling inside. That is exactly the feeling that Roethke captures in his poem “My Papa’s Waltz.” In the poem, Roethke uses word choice, rhyme scheme and tone to emphasize the unconditional love felt for ones father.

Before getting into exactly how Roethke creates his waltz, it is first important to discuss the time in which it was written. “My Papa’s Waltz” is not a modern poem, it was instead written in the 1940’s. As such, the full understanding of this poem cannot be reached without first coming to terms with the fact that life was different back then. Mom stayed at home, raised the children and cleaned; while Dad was the bread winner. It was the father’s job to provide for the family, and the father in the poem clearly did as evident in lines nine and ten “The hand that held my wrist / Was battered on one knuckle; “. Without this understanding of the timeframe in which the poem was written, some of what’s said can be easily misconstrued as child abuse or neglectful parenting. Lines one and two are a perfect example of this: “The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy;” as without the knowledge that in the early 1900’s it was very common, and not looked down upon, for a laborer to work all day then stop by the bar before heading home, it would appear that the father was neglectful when this is not the case.

Knowing the pretext makes the theme of the poem become much clearer. Rather than a lamentation of his father’s drinking problem, lines one and two take on a whole new meaning. It instead becomes the loving memory of a boy who races to see his father as soon as he walks in the door. This becomes even more apparent when word choice comes into play. Words like “romp”, “cling”, “waltz”, and even the use of “papa” rather than father or dad, all imply a happy time. There are some negative words such as “death”, “scrape”, “beat” however in the way that they’re used, they’re not negative at all. For example, “But I hung on like death.” (Line 3) shows a son holding his father really closely, never wanting to let go. Later in the poem the “scrape” is caused by a belt buckle (Line 12) which again shows a really tight hug. In line thirteen, “You beat time on my head” doesn’t mean the father is beating the son, but rather tapping to the beat of the music. Now, Roethke did use these words for a reason. The alternating good and bad connotations create a real waltz like tone, and they also show how the father isn’t perfect but the son loves him anyway—unconditionally.

The tone of the poem is also very important in determining the theme as Roethke uses many tools to affect the flow and feel of the poem. First, he uses an ABAB rhyme scheme, which creates a verbal sway, a back and forth, like a waltz. He mixes in different rhyme patterns to add to this effect, rather than just using all one syllable rhymes (breath/death, for example) he also uses two syllable rhymes (dizzy/easy). Combine those with the alternating good and bad connotations mentioned before, and the poem reads like a happy waltz. If the poem was about anything other than happy childhood memories, then the tone would have been much different. It would have sounded harsh, or mellow, not happy. Certainly not waltz like.

                Just like in the father, there are some imperfections in the waltz-like tone.  For one, Roethke uses mostly six syllable lines, but occasionally, a line will have seven syllables. A great example of this is in line twelve “My right ear scraped a buckle.”, another example is in line two “Could make a small boy dizzy;” and interestingly both of these lines contain some of the more negative words of the poem. This is no mistake, because that pattern continues with line ten, a line that contains battered. Roethke does this on purpose; he does it to show that while nothing is perfect it doesn’t matter when it’s family. This is proven by the fact that while the pattern of six syllable lines is broken, it doesn’t have any bearing on the overall happy waltz-like tone of the poem just as while there are some bad times or negative words, they don’t have any real bearing on how unconditional a child’s love is.

Everyone loves their parents, even if they’re not perfect. Roethke would definitely agree with this statement, as evident by his poem “My Papa’s Waltz”. Be it through his use of alternating good and bad connotations, his ABAB waltz like rhyme scheme, his use of the slight mistakes in his poems layout, or just the happy tone, Roethke makes it perfectly clear how he feels about a parent child relationship.

Communication is Love

You sit at a table with the one you love. There is a problem in your relationship that you know threatens to destroy everything you have together. You know that if you talk about it your relationship could fall apart because of your opposing views. But if you let it go and ignore it the problem might become inevitably worse than if you just discussed it in the first place. So all you and your significant other have managed to do is scratch the surface and avoid real conversation about this dilemma and time is running out. This could be the death of love. This is exactly the the subject of Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants”. Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants” suggests that couples have difficulties communicating when a situation threatens to permanently change their lives.       

  

            In this short story, Hemingway opens with an american couple sitting at a table outside a train station in rural spain during the 1920’s. They are drinking beers and waiting for a train to madrid. The couple are indulging in light small talk but the conversation quickly segues into something of a much more serious nature. The man starts this new topic by telling the woman that “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig” (Hemingway 690). For the next sixty or so lines the man and woman bicker over an issue that is never revealed to the reader. The remainder of the short story, which is about five lines, consists of the man getting the bags and taking them to the other side of the station in preparation for the train which he is told, by the waitress, will be arriving in five minutes. Then he goes into the bar and has a drink before returning to his girlfriend. When he returns to the patio and she smiles at him. He asks if she is feeling better and with the last sentence she responds “There’s nothing wrong with me, I feel fine” (Hemingway 692). 

Throughout the piece there are many ways Hemingway proposes the theme of communication, namely characterization, symbolism, and tone. The characterization conveys the theme by presenting the man and the woman as relaxed and uncaring. As the story goes on though they seem to become more and more uneasy. When the woman describes the hills through the trees as looking like white elephants the speaker is symbolizing the couple’s unborn child. The tone of the story is one of reserved uncertainty and steadily increasing desperation and uneasiness. This conveys the theme by demonstrating the couple’s lake of real communication.

            The dialogue of the characters is the main attribute of characterization in this piece. We get to know the couple by what they say, not by a detailed description. The speaker does not even tell us what they look like. Yet if you read carefully, by the end of the story you feel like you know the man and woman relatively well. The dramatic shifts in conversation and toward the end, the woman’s determination to not carry the conversation any further are our best indications to the theme of communication. The fact that they are having a laid back conversation about their general surroundings and all of a sudden the man says “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig” (Hemingway 690) gives us a really clear indication that something isn’t right about this seemingly normal couple. for the first five lines of this new topic the man holds a monopoly on the conversation and the woman is hanging her head, looking at the ground. This suggests that they have had this conversation before and it was not resolved, adding to the theme of communication. For awhile the girl seems to rely on the man to carry the exchange. She is asking him if they will be okay if she has the abortion and he is reassuring her that they will be fine and everything will go back to the way it was before she got pregnant. Then at line fifty nine the girl says “Then i’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me” (Hemingway 690), speaking about the abortion. The man goes on to say that he doesn’t want her to have the operation if she is just doing it to make him happy. This chunk of dialogue, lines forty two through sixty nine, are a very strong indicator to a severe lack of real communication between the man and woman. A lot of this dialogue is very redundant with the woman asking if they will be okay and the man saying they will be. They never ask each other what they want and why, and they don’t weigh out the consequences. So they end up just talking instead of actually communicating. The same process starts again at line seventy one. The girl looks toward the mountains and says “And we could have all this” (Hemingway 691), referring to the world. The man then says “We can have everything” (Hemingway 691). For the next ten lines the couple have a very meaningless exchange of no we can’t, yes we can that just seems to upset the girl. On line eighty six the man says “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do---” (Hemingway 691) and then she says “Nor that isn’t good for me, I know.” (Hemingway 691). This exchange tells us that she wants to get deeper into the conversation and talk about both of their wants and needs but all he is doing is saying he doesn’t want her to if she doesn’t want to, which effectively gets them no where, which again ties the dialogue back to the theme of a lack of communication. This also gives us a clue that they have had this conversation before because she was able to cut him off and finish his sentence. On line ninety eight the woman effectively ends the exchange by saying “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?” (Hemingway 691). This sentence marks the end of the conversation. She is contributing to the lack of communication by refusing to open up and talk about what she really wants. From lines forty two to ninety eight both of the characters says a lot but none of it amounts to anything. He says she shouldn’t get the abortion if she doesn’t want to; she says she will get the abortion if he wants her to. Neither character wants to be selfish or make the other upset. So they spend the majority of the  piece talking but not communicating.

            The most important symbol in “Hills like White Elephants” are the hills that the woman sees through the trees. The woman is sitting at the table, drinking her beer, and looking at the hills in the distance when she says “They look like white elephants” (Hemingway 689). A white elephant is an idiom for a precious possession that is financially burdensome. In the case of the short story, the hills symbolize the man and woman’s unborn child. The couple is afraid of the uncertainty of their future and they know that getting an abortion is a huge decision. On the one hand they are afraid of the responsibility of taking care of a child. On the other hand they are afraid what might happen to their relationship if they do get an abortion. They feel that if they do get the abortion they might be damaged physically and emotionally. All of these things together contribute to the theme of Communication. Because of all their misgivings they avoid the situation by not devoting themselves to a conversation aimed at resolving the issue.

            The tone of the story is one of reserved uncertainty and increasing desperation and uneasiness. The story starts with the couple having a relaxing drink while they are waiting for their train. It is easy to discern this relaxed environment because they are commenting on the weather “It’s pretty hot” (Hemingway 689), and observing their surrounding “The girl looked at the bead curtain” (Hemingway 689). Although the conversation escalades quickly, there is a feeling of ease throughout the story. None of the character’s dialogue is rushed, angry, or packed with too much emotion. Even one of the most serious lines in the story, line eighty one “No, it isn’t. And once they take it away, you never get it back” (Hemingway 691), does not have a resentful feeling to it, it is almost playful. However, you can tell by the dialogue that both characters are trying to reassure not only each other but themselves by saying things like “I know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done it”. (Hemingway 690). This mixed feeling of ease and uncertainty demonstrates that they are trying to feel relaxed and act like everything is normal because they don’t want to face the real problem so they bypass it with self reassurance. By the end of the conversation about the abortion there is more of a feeling of desperation and uneasiness. The woman wants the man to engage her in an exchange that will have meaningful dialogue instead of just words. She demonstrates this by cutting him off and finishing his sentences, she is tired of the same old exchange of words. The man is uneasy because as the conversation progresses he is losing the ability to reassure her that everything will be okay. He is worried because she isn’t satisfied with his same responses anymore and he may have to start a conversation with some substance. She wants real communication but is afraid to engage it and he is afraid of a real conversation because he does not want the responsibility of a child.

            The theme of this Short story is that couples have a hard time communicating when it comes to issues they know could ruin everything. Through the use of characterization, symbolism, and tone, Ernest Hemmingway was able to build a perfect example of a couple avoiding things that they should really be addressing. Hemingway was able to keep the mood of the story light but by doing so he actually asserted the theme even more because this dilemma isn’t something that should be taken lightly. If you ever find yourself in a situation with someone you care about that could ruin everything, don’t turn your back, take it head on. 

After the First Death

Evidence in the novel After the First Death shows that, although at first it seems as though Ben is narrating, it is in fact General Marchand, Ben’s father, who is narrating the story. One of the first and, in my opinion, the most intriguing of the clues leading to this conclusion I have made is when Ben’s mother calls him by his father’s name. Normally a slip like this would be easily ignored and quite normal considering everybody makes mistakes, but Cormier made it quite clear when he added several sentences explaining that Ben’s mother never mixes their names up and that it was nearly impossible that she had accidentally done so.

The second most intriguing clue is the final Ben-Father chapter. Ben’s father is having a conversation between himself and the Ben that still lives deep inside of him:
Ben: But I was always here. Didn’t you know that, Dad?
Father: Sometimes I thought you were.
Ben: You just didn’t look hard enough or deep enough.

This shows that Ben wasn’t really alive and could therefore be incapable of telling the story from his point of view. This explains the clue from the first paragraph. Ben’s mother had called him by his father’s name because it was really his father doing the narrating.

Another intriguing clue supporting this conclusion is when the “doctor” is said to look like an old college teacher of Ben’s father. If it really were Ben narrating and he really was attending college, why would there be a doctor? This is really, in my opinion, Ben’s father in a mental ward, not Ben attending the same college his father attended. This would explain why there’s a doctor and why he mentions taking pills.

This is the evidence I chose to support that Ben was in fact not narrating the story and it was truly his father speaking from his son’s point of view because he is mentally ill from sacrificing his son for his country.

The power of love in Slaughterhouse-Five and House of Leaves

If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give

love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will

be empty, our loss greater.

-Unknown

Love is a powerful emotion, perhaps the most powerful of them all. It can make or break men, driving them to the brink of insanity or pushing them to the top of their game. It’s both a motivator and a deterrent; both a blessing and a curse. When bestowed upon a once humble, indifferent individual his or her life is changed, for better or for worse, forever.

Perhaps even more moving than love itself is the power love has to change people, and the central role this “changing power” plays in novels. Particularly the role this power plays in both Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. In both books the main characters are effected by love greatly, one driven to insanity and the other pushed to fame.

Navidson and Pilgrim are both heavily effected by love. Navidson and Karen are deeply in love with each other, but they aren’t loyal to each other. Navidson, a reporter always puts his adventuring spirit before his dearly beloved, and Karen responds by having multiple affairs. Pilgrim, on the other hand, never loved Valencia, his wife, but she was deeply and immensely in love with him. The situations that love puts both Navidson and Pilgrim in, making them feel empty at times and full at others, is a very large part of both character’s personalities.

In House of Leaves, Navidson’s feeling of emptiness left by his wife’s betrayal if symbolized as a house that’s bigger on the inside than on the outside; an obvious metaphor for a man distraught; his inner troubles are much larger than anything that could fit inside of a body so tiny in size when compared to his woes and inner void. The walls of the house shift more and more violently as Karen gets equally more and more upset with Navidson’s obsession with the house. Eventually, after the house, and Navidson’s obsession with it, cause them to separate the house swallows Navidson. Karen sensing that her true love is in danger rushes into the hallway that she fears and realizes how much she loves Navidson. The thought of the true love defeats the house, or fills the void, and she finds him almost instantly and when she does, the walls of the immense labyrinth dissolve. Navidson’s movie of the whole ordeal becomes a famous work of art, and its all because of the love that he and Karen share with each other. Love is crazy like that, it made the horrible situation that almost killed him, then it saved him from it and made him famous.

Billy Pilgrim has a similar story to tell. He marries Valencia, the daughter of a rich and powerful man in the line of work Billy wishes to enter: optometry. Billy never loves Valencia, even though she’s deeply and madly in love with him. When Billy’s plan crashes and he’s the only survivor she rushes to the hospital to see him and dies on the way, to carbon monoxide poisoning. Billy is never the same after this. He can no longer distinguish fact from fiction, present from memory. All he can do now is hope he can protect others from his sad fate, and he does so by prescribing corrective lenses for the soul: allowing people to peer into themselves and fill any emptiness, emptiness that
Pilgrim has to live with for the rest of his life.

These two characters have a lot of parallel aspects but are also distinctively different. While the both have pain caused by love, one’s pain comes from loving and the other’s comes from being loved without returning the love. Both men are very empty when things aren’t going their way, and Billy stays empty for the remainder of his life realizing that he should have loved his wife, a realization that came a little too late. The pain that is caused is a very central theme in both of the books, Billy’s “time jumps” and Navidson’s “house that’s bigger on the inside and on the outside” are both symbols of what love can do to men.

For better or for worse couldn’t be more accurate. It’s a vital line when getting married, and it’s the most uncertain. Will it be for better or for worse? It’s quite possible it could go either way, because love is the all powerful miracle and the malevolent execration.

I exist.

Madden claims that “The brief quotes that open this section also give you some idea of the number of compelling ethical, political, and social arguments that are connected to faith and down” and at first I was doubtful. Upon reading the quotes; however, I was easily swayed. There are many powerful quotes in the beginning of the section on faith and spirituality; they are all truthful and eye-opening. The quote that helped me understand the readings in this section the most was definitely Edmund Burke’s quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Short and profound, Crane’s A Man Said to the Universe is a complex poem of few words. Its meaning is ambiguous, but when combined with Burke’s quote, it becomes quite influential. This poem personifies the cosmos, by giving the universe a condescending personality. When in response to man saying that he exists, the universe replies “However, the fact has no created in me a sense of obligation” which basically means that just plain existence isn’t enough. To be noticed man must do more than exist, he must exist for the good of all things, not just for the good of himself. Burke’s quote is an excellent summary of the main theme of this poem: if a good man only exists, and doesn’t attempt to do good, evil wins. The same general theme exists in both the quote and the poem. Simply being there on the sidelines is no way to live and no person deserves any credit for simply being there. By contrast unlike the quote, the poem doesn’t verbally state that something more than existence would warrant the attention of the universe, though based on the condescending tone that the universe uses with the man, it’s implied. The universe is kind of saying “Yeah? Well, try harder and I’ll care.”

Crane is the youngest of fourteen children in his family. This obviously had a drastic effect on his view of the universe. Having to compete with his siblings for the attention of his parents is very similar to all of mankind competing amongst themselves for the attention of the universe. I can easily see a young child saying to their mother “Mom! I’m here! Look at me!” A mother of one would probably say something like “Yes, and you’re my special little darling,” whereas a mother of fourteen would be much too busy to give attention to her children simply because they’re there. However, if the child takes action and does something good or prevents evil from happening instead of watching, mommy is very likely to take notice—Just as the universe takes notice if a man does something good for everything.

The good versus evil theme runs deep in Crane’s poetry. In another poem, he writes “I stood upon a high place, /And saw, below, many devils /Running, leaping, /and carousing in sin. /One looked up, grinning, /And said, “Comrade! Brother!“” This poem in combination with A Man Said to the Universe, opens up a larger glimpse into Crane’s mind. In this poem, Crane is watching without evil without taking action, and the evil thanks him. Crane’s calling them “devils” shows that he isn’t one of them, and that he’s against the sin that they’re ‘carousing’ in, but by doing nothing, by just watching from his high, safe, place, the evil appreciates his not getting involved. This poem also ties in with Burke’s quote very easily—I’d wager that Burke and Crane would have been friends as they share an extremely similar view of life, the planet, and the universe.

Donald Vanouse of Georgetown University had this to say “Crane seems to encourage the reader to enrich and re-evaluate ideas about patterns of action and thought. Crane asks questions rather than providing answers.” Crane attempts to pull out the good in people by letting them know that their lack of action is very insignificant on the larger scale. Burke’s quote, by contrast offers an answer. It says that the actions of a good man will counteract evil. Burke supplies the answer to Crane’s questions.

Without the quotes at the beginning of this section, these writings would be much more difficult to understand. A Man Said to the Universe is a very open-ended poem. If I hadn’t looked at it through the lens supplied by Burke, my understanding of the poem would have been limited, at best. The compelling social issues confronted by Crane are much easier understood with the help of Burke.

The Emotional Baggage of War

One of the countless downsides of war is the emotional baggage thrust upon the soldiers involved in the war. “The Things They Carried” exemplifies the emotional luggage by using literal items that soldiers bring to war as metaphors for harsh emotions. “The Man He Killed” uses a monologue to give the reader a glimpse into the mind of a soldier, to let the world know how distraught he is over the killing of a man he may have been friends with otherwise. It’s chilling to read “The Things They Carried” and “The Man He Killed” together because they give the reader a feeling of overwhelming pity for the soldiers who now must lug around more than their fair share of burden.

“The Things They Carried” lists off the physical objects that soldiers “humped” through Vietnam. These physical things that they carry are certainly metaphors for the emotional things that they are forced to heave through this foreign land, and the theme is that the emotional sides of the items they carry are much heavier than the physical weight of the item. A perfect example of this is the character Henry Dobbins. Dobbins carries his girlfriend’s pantyhose, but with them he also carries the want for affection, compassion and comfort. This longing for love is much heavier than the twenty-three pound machine gun and the ten to fifteen pounds of ammunition that he carries. It is the same for every character in this story: Cross, who carries the maps and a compass, has to carry the responsibility of the lives of the rest of the soldiers in the Alpha Company. There is no burden heavier than this.

“The Man He Killed” makes similar claims, though does it in an entirely different way. Hardy supplies the reader with an unsettling monologue that gives a unique view into the mind of a soldier. This poem tackles the nature of war, and through that confrontation it opens up the mindset of a soldier and really shows how harsh the reality of war is on the psyche of a soldier. The dramatic pause in line 9, then the repetition of because is as if the speaker is trying to convince himself that he did nothing wrong. He goes on to say that of course the guy he shot was a foe, and the speaker expresses real doubt that this is the case by ending the stanza with the word “although” then going on to say that “well, he was only there because he was out of work, same as me” in more poetic words. This questioning of his actions, however long after-the-fact shows that the speaker may very well have deep psychological issues due to the emotional baggage of war.

Thomas Hardy and Tim O’Brien would definitely agree that the emotional cost on the soldiers is one of the most tragic parts of war. When O’Brien defines “hump” on page 1173 as “walk[ing] or march[ing], but [with] implied burdens far beyond the intransitive” he’s not just talking about the just physical weight, but also the emotional weight, that the items that the soldiers have to carry. Similarly the speaker in “The Man He Killed” expresses that war is “quaint and curious” and that if the speaker had met the man that he killed in a bar, he’d treat him to a drink, or at least help him to “half-a-crown.” This shooting of someone that he had nothing against seems to haunt the speaker, and one can only imagine how burdening that must be.

These eye opening tales use different styles to allow the reader to get the reader to understand just how destructive the overbearing emotions of war can be on the psyche of a soldier. Some of the literary elements used in “The Things They Carried” are metaphors, flashbacks, repetition and imagery. These elements used together are very effective, especially since the narrator is third-person omnipotent. “The Man He Killed” uses a bit of jargon, when the speaker says “but ranged as infantry” it doesn’t flow nearly as well as the rest of the poem, because they’re not really words that the speaker fully understands. It also uses an alternating rhyme scheme, to help the poem flow, and to make the pauses that much more dramatic.

“The Things They Carried” and “The Man He Killed” are two different works, by two different authors, but share a very similar view of war. Be it through the use of metaphors or dramatic pauses, these works allow readers to look into the minds of soldiers, and see how they’re emotionally affected by war, and the act of killing. These works share the theme: emotional baggage caused by war is overwhelming and forever damaging.

Sheeples

Sheep always follow the herd. Staying with the pack means protection; whereas, straying from the pack opens up the potential of being attacked and ultimately ending up in the bowels of a hungry wolf or other carnivore. Men too, always follow the herd. Being too different - dissenting from the norm - often lands men in trouble. Being marked as weird is the lowest of possible punishments that can range from being disassociated to being mercilessly and brutally killed. Straying from the herd is like leaving the wagon circle: it leaves you completely open to the barrage attacks that almost always ensues.

Ken Kesey makes his viewpoint on the issue of sheep quite evident throughout the text of his famed novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. According to the Kingwood College Library “Challenging symbols of conformity” is one of the predominate central themes of the novel (Goodwin). The predominance of this theme is visible in both the characters themselves and the situations the characters are put in.

The whole idea of the Asylum is a prime example of the fact that straying from the herd gets the unknowing wanderer tagged and excommunicated. Those weirdoes and freaks who decide to be different and step out of line get rounded up and tossed into a place that teaches them to stay part of the herd and to never stand out. The teaching is done by an evil natured woman who feels that she’s doing the right thing for the patients: teaching them to conform. Her method is, in essence, targeting a single patient, forcing him out of the herd, then having the rest of the herd pick on the targeted ‘crazy’. This teaches the lesson that being the target, the one outside the group, is the bad spot to be. It also teaches that one is safe while part of the big group, because you don’t get picked on when you’re not different from the others.

McMurphy goes through several stages while in the mental institute, and all of them cause a change in how sheepish he is. When he first becomes a patient in the hospital, his attitude is that he just needs to get the best of the head nurse. His efforts cause him to stray from the herd a little, which in turn amplifies the nurse’s interest in him and brings on a barrage of counter-attacks. Once McMurphy is told that he won‘t be able to leave unless the Nurse approves, he changes his chain of thought. He decides that the quickest way out of there is to just fit in, to just follow the herd and to be unnoticed. This works for a while, he manages to trick the nurse into being less interested in him while he’s just part of the group. Towards the end of the novel, McMurphy starts getting a soft spot for the other patients, and he used what he learned during the previous stages to do the best he can do for his new-found-friends. He combines being daring with being part of the group by convincing the group to do things with him, and by doing so he successfully holds the nurse off for quite some time. When he wants to watch TV; for example, he doesn’t sit down in front of the off TV by himself, he gets the patients to do it with him effectively hiding in the herd from the nurse.

Ken Kesey obviously believes that like sheep, most men just follow the herd. He also believes that men get punished for thinking outside of the norm, and he is blatantly opposed to this type of society model. Kesey would definitely agree with the quote “Most men are sheep,” and it wouldn’t be surprising if Kesey had read that quote multiple times while writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Works Cited

"FREE Study Guide-One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey." PinkMonkey. 20 Apr. 2007 . 

Goodwin, Susan, and Peggy Whitely. "Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Kingswood College Library. 01 July 2006. Kingswood College Library. 22 Apr. 2007 . 

Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Signet, 1963. 

"SparkNotes: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." SparkNotes. 24 Apr. 2007 .

The Folly of Mankind

Mankind is foolish. Mankind is ignorant. Most importantly: mankind is forgetful and unlearning. Carl Sandburg shows this in his poem “Grass.” Through the personification of nature, Sandburg suggests that mankind is incapable of learning from mistakes they make, and thus are doomed to repeat the tragic events of history. Sandburg’s use of characterization, tone and chronological events paints a gloomy picture for the future of mankind.

The most important element in defining this theme is Sandburg’s strong use of characterization. He chooses the grass to narrate the poem in first person, and through word choice and repetition, the reader gains a respect for nature. Nature’s unemotional observation of the wars of man forces this respect. Even when faced with great tragedies like Austerlitz and Waterloo the grass only says “Shovel them under and let me work— / I am the grass; I cover all.” (Sandburg, Lines 2-3) By contrast, Sandburg portrays mankind to be ignorant of their own mistakes by saying “Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: / What place is this? / Where are we now?” (7-9) The juxtaposition of the all knowing, all covering grass and the forgetful humans really makes it clear that the reader is meant to sympathize with nature’s plight.

Sandburg chooses to have nature take a very sarcastic and borderline condescending tone while narrating this poem. It seems that nature is becoming frustrated that men are unable to learn from the mistakes that they’ve made and instead just allow the grass to cover up the mistakes: band-aid after band-aid. Just picture the janitor who day after day needs to pick up all of the trash surrounding the trash can, that didn’t make it in the can even though it wasn’t full. “Oh sure, don’t put it in the can. I mean, why bother when there’s a janitor anyway, right?” Grass’s opinion on mankind is very similar. “So, even after all of the dead at Austerlitz and Waterloo, that I had to clean up after, you’re going to forget that and do it again at Gettysburg, and again at Ypres, and again at Verdun.” After all—“I am the grass. / Let me work.” (Sandburg 10-11)

The battles in this poem are listed in chronological order. This is very important. The poem wouldn’t have lost any of its impact if the battles weren’t listed chronologically; however, listing them chronologically brings the theme all together. This poem was written in 1918, just two years after the battle of Verdun. This poem is Sandburg’s way of saying to the world “have you already forgotten Austerlitz? Have you already forgotten Waterloo? Why are we doing this again, so soon?” the line “Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor: / What place is this? / Where are we now?” (7-9) is Sandburg’s way of calling out the rest of mankind. Asking how could you be so ignorant to history? He’s saying: if we let ourselves forget the battles of times past, we’re doomed to repeat them. When is the next Verdun?

The combination of characterization, tone, and historical events in this poem are expertly wrapped up into a theme that presents mankind with nature’s (and Sandburg’s) frustration with the folly of mankind. If humans continue to ignore history, continue to forget previous conflicts, continue to refuse to learn from their mistakes, then they are to be doomed to continuously make the same mistakes, which will result in many unnecessary deaths.

A River of Caring

So, uh, this one time, I had a bowl cut.

I picked other peoples flowers, because I was a jerk.

Then I saw you, with the stilts and the games,

You came over to me with some blue plums.

And life continued as normal, as it always does.

Just two of us, insignificant, and uncaring.

It wasn’t much later, we married under My Lord.

I was so bashful; never laughed.

I keep my head low, or towards the wall.

I never respond when you call to me.

By the next year, I was happy

I wanted to be part of you

Always, and forever, never ending

Why should I climb any higher?

A year later, you left.

You left for Ku-to-yen, to close to the whirlpool.

You’ve been gone for so long,

That even the monkeys cry.

It’s like you knew before you left.

The gate is s o different now, new moss has grown.

It’s too thick to clear!

Its autumn now, many leaves fall.

Butterflies everywhere and they’re yellow, because it’s August.

Just past the West garden;

Its painful to grow older.

If you ever come back,

I hope you’ll let me know before hand,

Because I will come for you

However far it may be.

As a writing exercise, it can be fun to rewrite poems that you feel deeply about. Personally, I hate "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" so here I am destroying it, while maintaining the general story.

Who and I?

In his poem, “The love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” T.S. Eliot opens with the line “Let us go then, you and I.” The meaning of this line dictates the meaning of the entire poem. It wasn’t until the third of fourth rereading of this poem that the true meaning of the line became clear. The poem is representative of an internal debate; the speaker in the poem acts as the ‘I,’ while also acting as the ‘you.’ It may sound confusing, but the device really allows for a great inner look into the psyche of the speaker.

Considering that both the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ represent the same person, they must represent different parts of Alfred’s psyche. Since ‘I’ is obviously the speaking psyche, it’s logical to conclude that ‘I’ is his inner self. Who he wants to be. That fact delegates the ‘you’ to who he really is on the outside. The evidence of this is really apparent in lines 41 and 44. The parentheses are indicative of the ‘you’ back talking the ‘I.’ The inner self is telling the body to go be outgoing, to go and do stuff, to get the chick, while the body debates this command, saying “(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”). The perspective of the ‘I’ changes as time passes in the poem. It changes from the outgoing, adventure seeking inner self, to finally recognizing that he’s too old. Line 125 is a perfect example. Eliot writes: “I do not think that they will sing to me,” not long after he had written “I grow old … I grow old …” This is probably because his outer body was actually correct, and his brain just had never caught up to his age.

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is an excellent back and forth debate between one aging man and his own psyche. T.S. Eliot masterfully weaves a tail to allow the reader to peer easily into this debate and gain an insight on what it is like to age.

Cohen on Williams, A Summary

In his article, “Stumbling into Crossfire: William Carlos Williams, Partisan Review, and the Left in the 1930s” Cohen examines Williams’ apparently awkward interactions with the political left. In the preface of the article, Cohen states that “William Carlos Williams had an almost uncanny knack for getting between warring factions and alienating power centers of the Left, particularly Partisan Review.” He goes on to cite three examples (two of which ended in humiliation for Williams) and explain some of the potential reasoning behind Williams’ actions.

In the second section of the article, Cohen explains exactly how Williams could be both a leftist, but at ends with the leftist movement at the same time. Williams was indeed a leftist, and his poems reflect this, but he was not a communist. He didn’t believe in communism nor did he believe that a communist revolution could take place in America. Also, it wasn’t until 1934 that Williams even believed that poetry could be political. Prior to this, he refused to write political poetry. Cohen quotes Williams as writing “[P]oetry is related to poetry, not to social statutes” in selected letters to Kay Boyle. It’s beginning to become abundantly clear how Williams can both agree and be at ends with the leftist movement in the early 1930s.

Cohen continues his article by explaining how as time passes, Williams does indeed become increasingly political with his poetry. He begins to write more about the working man, about servants, and about other hot-button issues among leftist circles. Then in 1936 Williams become at ends with popular leftism once again, by answering a questionnaire with an answer that rejects communism in America. He even writes “It is this same democracy of feeling which will defeat Marxism in America and all other attempts at regimentation of thought and action.” (QTD in Cohen 147) in some other letters. The printing of his disapproval of communism caused him much embarrassment.

By use of these examples, and a few others (most notably another showdown with the same group that published his anticommunism bit, Partisan Review), Cohen claims that the political battlefield leaves Williams “simply out of his depth in dealing with the labyrinthine politics of the Left.” (Cohen 153) but that argument isn’t entirely convincing. While Cohen does provide ample evidence to this claim, he neglects the possibility that Cohen was simply on the foreground attempting to mold the left to a communist free chain of thought, and thus offers no evidence of counter possibilities.