Signs of the Times

Given Norris’ account of The Responsibility of the Novelist as the purpose to tell the truth and use novels as the architecture of life at the time it is written, I begin to understand more Wilde’s purpose and outcome of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde has captured life at the time he wrote this novel, portraying the vanity of the people and their desire to retain youth and beauty even at the cost of their own soul. Though his depiction is quite exaggerated, he definitely communicates his message by connecting Dorian to his portrait. Wilde builds for us a character that in his time achieves what his peers most desire, but reveals it to be the absence of true life and therefore the most detestable of desires. Dorian’s peers begin to not recognize him for his actions, because they are so far from who he truly was. In Wilde’s text Lord Henry gives us a glimpse into this perspective, “As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested. If you want to mar a nature, you have merely to reform it,” (p. 79). Here I believe Wilde is plainly being truthful with the reader, that you are only spoiled if you do not grow. This contradicts the desire of those around him and faces directly the will of Dorian Gray to stay eternally youthful. Dorian wants to arrest that very growth that would give him wisdom and a realistic place in the world.
Wilde, through the work of a novel, has secured his place and his opinion in the world and placed his stamp of disapproval on the vanity of his time. He was rebuked and misunderstood, possibly because he called out the detestable nature of what he saw. This gives his work the measure of truth and therefore he has fulfilled the responsibility of the novelist to call it like it is.

Go Forth, Youth in Denim

The Levi’s campaign celebrates Whitman’s poetic project by giving visual life and perspective to his words. The imagery they chose to tie his words to the symbols of American life set his ideas into a form that gave us a specific use for them. By comparing his perspective to go forth and set up a nation with the wild will of youth and raw beauty limits what Whitman was calling us to do.
My reaction to these ads was inspired. In my opinion they did a great job at capturing the power of Whitman’s words and using people in a naturalistic and real way to excite the innate passion for triumph and progression of our society. They use imagery of friendship, love, pride and glory to speak to those places in each of us that hold onto these ideals, and by that they definitely spoke to the masses. I think it was a great way to tie notions of the past, Whitman’s political poetry, with desires and stagnation of our current generation. A call to “Go Forth” to an otherwise apathetic generation using sensual and pure imagery I think succeeded in just that. Even if the excitement to act only lasts as long as the commercial.
The themes of consumption and promotion obviously are prompted in the product display of the Levi’s jeans on almost each character. Other than their product placement, the remainder of the environment is vastly nature, in which there is no other source of advertising.
As far as the claim that advertisers play the role of poets in our society, I could be easily swayed to believe exactly this. They have gained the place in our culture of providing quick yet rich and deep messages to vast numbers of people, in all walks of life. Whether it be a one liner on a billboard or a 15 second commercial, they have the ability to not only use words, but images and music to invoke emotion and ideals into their observers. This in itself is far more than simple poetry could do even 100 years ago. So yes, I think they have taken that place in a large way, but it has also been revamped and supercharged.

Beware of the Rest of the World

Dark Romanticism is a strong element in Hawthorne’s short story “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Although the story was very mystical and elusive as to the mystery behind the veil itself, it was clear in communicating it’s use of the powers of sin and the overwhelming passion in the lives of it’s characters. For instance we will start with the minister, Mr. Hooper, the wearer of the black veil. He suddenly appears in his life with this shroud that hides him from the rest of the world, without a clear explanation. We learn right away that this veil strikes fear and gloom into the hearts and minds of everyone who happens to glace upon the appearance of Mr. Hooper. His parishioners awestruck, hardly able to speak to him and others convinced he had gone mad, all due to this sheer piece of cloth that covered his face. The idea that he was hiding from something, was enough to cause those he knew to be terrified and shudder in fear from him. This shows the perspectives of Dark Romanticism that Hawthorne added in his story. There is no realistic reason a person should appear with fear and gloom just by wearing a shroud over their face, but it was written to convey that was the perspective of the characters. Early in the short story the preacher Mr. Hooper gives a sermon while wearing the veil for the first time and his parishioners are struck deeper by the words of his message due to his altered image. They seem to imagine his temperament askew, just because his appearance is so, “A subtle power was breathed into his words,” there was no more power present than the message given prior without the veil, but they placed a power of darkness and doom in the image the beheld.
In the end we learn why the preacher has veiled his face for the remainder of his life, and the insistence he places on keeping it thus. He used it as a means to see everyone else in the world with veiled faces to cover the sin they all keep inside. This idea of inherent sin and wickedness is a big theme in Dark Romanticism.
I personally liked this story, and enjoyed the strange interactions that were produced because one man did something out of the ordinary and the change in caused in all those he encountered.

Island of Adventure

Upon first review of the Floating Island by Dorothy Wordsworth it didn’t seem to relate much to Romanticism and the aspects therein. However, once I really dug deep and tried to understand what else the author could be using this “island” to represent I began to see how it did possess those aspects. A few examples of where we see these typical Romanticism characteristics are in imagination, freedom and worship of nature.
Wordsworth used imagination to create a new world out of this island that has broken away from the land it was once attached to. It becomes a ground where life is sustained and given room to grow (ln. 12-16). She develops a sense of freedom by revealing this land that has escaped the grasp of the overwhelming world, “loosed from its hold” (ln. 7). It now has the ability to roam in freedom and adventure, to create its own destiny. We can definitely see how she portrays a worship of nature, the whole poem is about a floating island! The first line tells of the uniting power between the forces of this powerful nature. How it controls and directs the paths of life, “But Nature, though we mark her not, Will take away – may cease to give, (ln. 19-20). This line clearly shows the power given to Nature and Wordsworth’s choice to personify it as an entity of fate.
This poem shows the roots of being driven from the overflow of emotion. Wordsworth writes with such intensity about the adventure this “floating island” undergoes. From birth to travel to sustaining life and then eventually its death that takes it to the bottom of the lake and turns it into fuel for another life, it lacks no feelings of excitement for what lies ahead. I think she uses these ideals to create an appreciation of the spontaneity that comes with everyday life, and the possibility of what may happen, even when we least expect it.

Writing a Picture

Edgar Huntly is astoundingly full of nature imagery, that fact was painfully clear. I think it was at the point when Edgar is following Clithero through the woods and cave which took 3 full pages in description of the environment around them, that I began to skim forward to the next paragraph with plot details. What I’m trying to say is it was a LOT! I tend to get lost, or bored in these kinds of literature, I just want them to get to the point! It is interesting because like this blog assignment states, it is not a very picturesque novel. Even with all that description, I struggled to actually imagine the surroundings. All that aside, I thought we could definitely feel the impact and threat the surroundings produced. One such event is when Edgar has gone back to his makeshift bridge in some opening of a rock area (again, this is where I’m not so clear what the place actually looked like) and attempts to find where Clithero has escaped and reach him, pg. 118-120. He describes the panic of facing the grey panther and how he expects death at any moment. In this aspect he is very detailed about every emotion and thought that passes through his being as he struggles with the environment which is seemingly always out to get him.
If another author more focused on building a clear picture of the surroundings had written this scene I believe they could have taken away the readers ability to connect on such a strong emotional level with Edgar’s plight. Though they would have gained a better understanding of the setting, we may have lost the pure and unclouded intensity of this moment of horror.

The Terrible and Horrible, Oh My!

Yes, my blog is late. I would like to start off by saying that if I am unsure or unclear about what to do for an assignment or fear that I will not do it perfectly, I put it off. I’m going to call that being a perfectionist. So, now feeling like it is the last minute I will take a stab at it.
Terror is apparently the feeling you have when you think something bad is about to happen. That, stomach in your throat, hold your breath, tense every muscle in your body type of experience. This feeling can last for a few seconds before the horrible thing actually happens, or it can last days, in anticipation of something dreadful. Since I tend to steer clear of movies and literature that possess these type of terror related circumstances, it’s hard for me to think of examples. One that sort of fits this category is in the novel The English Patient when the nurse finds a man in a mine field and he cant move because he has stepped on a mine, and he urges her to not come any close, but she is set on helping him. So she walked through the mine field casually and carelessly as the man is yelling at her because she may die any second, but she makes it safely. That I think would constitute as terror.
Horror seems to be the scared feeling you experience once you are have encountered the thing that has elicited your terror. To actually come face to face with your fear. This can be seen in movies like scream, when the man in the mask jumps out from behind the door or under the bed and the victim experiences horror and reacts in a negative way to the aversive experience and the fear of what is happening to them.
And that’s all I have to say about that.

A new semester...

Hello everyone,
This is my second sememster at WSU, and I am an English major, and thus far I'm really enjoying it. I took Julie's class last sememster and had a blast. She's an awesome teacher and I'm sure you will all enjoy it just as much as we did. I really like having this blog to discuss the books we read, I tend to not say as much in class as I do on here, due to having more time to reflect, and my thoughts start developing around 2 am. I'm looking forward to getting to know you all. Good luck!