Driving Home from Pomfret

Leaving school for summer last year was a great moment for me. It marked the end of exams and the end of another arduous school year. As I got into the drivers seat on this warm spring day, I pulled out of Pomfret's campus and was finally headed home for summer break after a long week of exams that seemed to drag on. When I got on the road, I rolled down the windows and put on some summer music while talking with my dad. I was so excited to be headed back home to Boston, my favorite city for the summer. I had my sunglasses on and shorts on ready for summer. I looked at the cars on rt 395 and saw I had time to merge in. My foot went to the accelerator and I was off headed back to my home. It was me and the other cars and I was on my own focusing on driving and maintaining my speed until my dad started chatting with me about my exams.

The Old Waiter's Philosophy of Life in A Clean Well Lighted Place

The older waiter does not have an epiphany at the end, he is just discussing his philosophy of life. He thinks that life is meaningless, and that the only thing that everyone needs is a pleasant well lit quiet place to sit and be happy. The man also believes that since life is meaningless we should all be patient because there is nothing in the world. There is no religion and there is no point to life so we shouldn't rush to do anything.

Alienation in the short stories we've recently read

Over the past week and a half we have read Paul's Case by Willa Cather, The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck and Barn Burning by William Faulkner. In all these short stories, the main characters feel alienated at one point during the story. They each feel isolated for different reasons.

In Paul's Case by Willa Cather, the main character, Paul, doesn't have friends at school. Everyone thinks he is weird and that he has a problem so nobody spends time with him at school or wants to sit with him at lunch. I picked a quote that is said by one of his teachers when they are all discussing his behavior towards friends and teachers. "I don't believe that smile of his comes altogether from insolence. I happen to know that he was born in Colorado, only a few months before his mom died there of a long illness. There is something wrong about the fellow." (P. 266) The teachers all know that there is something wrong with him and that would explain why he doesn't have friends.


For Paul he feels alienated from his classmates, for Sarty Snopes in Barn Burning by William Faulkner, he feels alienated by his father. His family is poor so they work for rich people. Sarty's dad burnt down one of the barns they were working at and he got caught so they held a trial in court to determine punishment. Sarty lied to the judge and the case was dismissed. The Snopes family leaves the state on their wagon. Later that night, his father wakes him up and tells him, "You were fixing to tell them. You would have told him. "He didn't answer. His father struck him with the flat of his hand on the side of the head, hard but without heat, exactly as he had struck the two mules at the store, exactly as he would strike either of them with any stick in order to kill a horse fly.." (P 330) Sarty's father just hit him in the face, this is not what a father should be doing. He should be the one caring and nurturing his own son instead of abusing him.


In The Chrysanthemums, Elisa and Henry are married. Henry does all the work outside the home and Elisa does all the women work at the home, such as gardening and cooking. Her role is shown at the beginning of the short story when the narrator says "Elisa Allen working in her flower garden looked 
down across the yard and saw Henry, her husband, talking to two men in business suits." (P. 351) Henry is the one who is dealing with all the matters outside the home and Elisa is visibly jealous that Henry can do whatever he wants to do instead of doing the same two things every day. Elisa feels alienated by her role because she is a women and at the time it wasn't common in society for women to work or have rights. All three characters in these short stories feel alienated but each for different reasons.

Attached is my Steller Story 

Multiple Escapes from Society

In both short stories,  Paul's Case by Cather and The Chrysanthemums by Steinbeck, the main characters are running away from society and their own life's. Paul is running away from society and his father for many reasons. First he is very different from everyone else so he doesn't have many friends. He also doesn't like being around his father because his father doesn't respect that Paul is different. In The Chrysanthemums, Elisa is bored of her house wife life and wants to do something other than planting every day. Both characters are fed up with doing the same thing every day and being told what to do by society so they try to escape. For Paul, he decides the only way to escape is to kill himself because then he won't be alive. For Elisa, she wants to escape societies expectations by doing what men do. When she meets the pots and pans repair man she tells him that she wants to live a life like him instead of doing the same thing every day. He tells her that is not how women are supposed to live and this makes her upset. Both authors show that there will always be people that are different from the group and that there are different ways for people to deal with these differences.

An Escape from Society

In Cather's short story Paul's Case Paul has problems with society so he decides to run away. He is different then his classmates and doesn't fit in. He feels depressed and wants to be away of his father's harsh judgement for his personality and differences. Paul plans to escape to New York City for his living spree before he commits suicide. He gets a job and steals the money he was supposed to deposit and uses it to fund his final expenses in the city. Paul later escapes everything by committing suicide, which is the only way to escape from society because his dad is after him. Cather is showing us that to escape from society means to not be alive because if one is still living then they are still in society.

Yellow Wallpaper revolt

In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the act of rebellion is when the narrator starts writing in secrecy after her husband, John and her other family members tell her not to. The narrator says, "There comes John, and I must put this away - he hates to have me write a word." (Perkins 188.)
The narrator has been told by her husband and others that writing is not good for her, and she goes against what they had told her and continues to write in secrecy.

The Storm response

Quote: "Calixta," he said, "don't be frightened. Nothing can happen. The house is too low to be struck, with so many tall trees standing about. There! aren't you going to be quiet? say, aren't you?" He pushed her hair back from her face that was warm and steaming. Her lips were as red and moist as pomegranate seed. Her white neck and a glimpse of her full, firm bosom disturbed him powerfully. As she glanced up at him the fear in her liquid blue eyes had given place to a drowsy gleam that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire. He looked down into her eyes and there was nothing for him to do but to gather her lips in a kiss. It reminded him of Assumption" Page 144

There is a storm going on and Calixta's husband and son are out running errands. Her old boyfriend stops by the house during the storm. At first Calixta is worried about her men but then Alcee starts telling her not to worry about it and starts to arouse her by playing with her hair and kissing her. This causes her to relax and allows them to switch the nervous atmosphere to the sex atmosphere. The description here foreshadows that they will make love.

Narrators Change in The Real Thing

The narrator in Henry James's story, The Real Thing changes during the story. At the beginning of the story he is happy to have the wealthy monarchs visit him. He thought they were "the real thing" that the narrator was trying to portray the models as. The only problem was that since they were high class they were selective about how they wanted to look because they didn't want to dress in something that wasn't as fancy as their normal clothes. When he found out that they didn't have skill and were just doing it for the money, he was not happy because the lower class models did a better job than the higher class models. The narrator starts showing to the Monarchs that he isn't happy with them when he tells them to fetch some tea for them. However after the monarchs come back and ask him if they need any help and the wife does the dishes and the man cleans, the narrator pities them and wants to take a photo of them because its interesting to see the roles switched. I think James ended the story with the quote "If it be true I am content to have paid the price--for the memory" because he feels that his work suffered but it was good to have the memory of the experience of working with people from a higher class.

A letter to Hawthorne

Writing is an art used to convey your thoughts and emotions towards a particular topic. You need to start adding more about the characters feelings to your short stories. In your story The Birthmark, there isn't much detail about what the characters are feeling in the story. It is mostly just about the actions that are happening. Alymer discovers the birthmark and wants it to be removed and then when he removes it but kills her in the end there isn't much about his regret for accidentally killing his wife. People's interests are captivated when the author writes about the characters feelings.

Sincerely,

Edgar Allan Poe

Benjamin and More

I read The Ephemera, an Emblem of Human Life by Benjamin Franklin.

• Stands for change in America 
• Politics 
• The wise man who has ideas on how change happens
• the old man who has seen the best and the worst 
• Integrity
• Independence 
• Morality
• Equality 
• Optimistic
• Live a purposeful life

What is American Literature?

 I define American Literature as the literary works, such as stories and poems that are written by Americans or about America as a country. The literature is important for humans to read and study because it tells the story of America and how it has changed over time. Poetry has been used to pass on the people’s feelings and views. At the start of America lots of people wrote about their experiences from being colonized by Great Britain. During the Revolutionary War, the primary writers were Ben Franklin and Samuel Adams. They were famous for writing letters. There are two well known examples of American literature that every American should know. The first is the poem Yankee Doodle, which was published in the 1770’s and was written by Richard Shuckburgh. The second example is the Declaration of Independence which was declared in 1776. During the World War’s, America resorted to its literature and lots of writers wrote about how they felt about the wars. Music later became another way for people to express their feelings.

 Resources:
 http://folkmusic.about.com/od/folksongs/qt/YankeeDoodle.htm