I will post some an analysis made from my classmate and I want you to read and make a comment about what you read, is a discussion post, 1 paragraph per each and you can said I am agree because this etc, do it like if you were reading the story no my classmate work.
1-The Guitar
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In Sarah Orne Jewett’s “The Foreigner,” Mrs. Todd is an elderly Maine Yankee, and she is one of those incredible human beings who is real and genuine. She is able to transition beyond the narrow reality in front of her. I think that this is a story that invites all of us to go beyond our normal zones of life and comfort. Jewett used a guitar in the story to push this idea home. There is a reference to a guitar in “The Foreigner” that caught my attention because of my own musical history. My mother wanted me to play piano and my father favored the violin, but at 12 I found the electric guitar. It was not a popular choice with my parents. My experience has not been a great one. I was surprised by Jewett’s reference to the guitar in “The Foreigner.” As the wind moves over it in the story, the guitar becomes a symbol of the world beyond this material world. I find a certain spiritual air in Sarah Orne Jewett’s story, especially in the ending of “The Foreigner.” When Mrs. Todd talks about life after death, she recognizes that the spirit of a dead person remains alive. The sound of the wind passing over the strings of the guitar that Ms. Toland played reveals that she is still near the place of her death. My own Colombian/Spanish Catholic family also believes in this. Mrs. Todd says, “ there’s somethin’ of us that must still live on, we’ve got to join both worlds together an’ live in one but for the other.” This could be a form of religious belief somewhat different from what can be found in “A White Heron.” In that story, the element of spirituality is related to nature in a total sense. Here, the image of the guitar, a man made instrument, is one of the means by which the spiritual is revealed. However, the wind is a natural force that makes the music of the guitar. The guitar shows Mrs. Todd the realm of spirit. It merely frightens those who are looking for treasure or are fixed in the material world. Jewett just folds the guitar into the story in a sort of seamless way that ties the two main women into the greater pattern of things and us along with them. I think that Mrs. Toland and Mrs. Todd are just so beautiful. I guess that I can relate to this because I am “a Foreigner” myself and I have a guitar. Now I wonder about what I might be like with a non-electric guitar.
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2-The Artist
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The true realism of Howells’ vision in “Editha” is shown in an ironic way by the Artist who is introduced into the story after all the damage has been done. The Artist who appears at the end of “Editha” is nothing like the artist narrator in “The Real Thing” by Henry James. In the James story the artist sees the truth about his sitters, the Monarchs, and he tells it clearly and convincingly. The artist in “Editha” does not see the truth and her shallow view of Editha’s experience reveals her inexperience with life and her lack of knowledge. Howells has allowed us to see the encounter with the wonderful Mrs. Gearson, and we realize how perceptive, intelligent and truthful she is. Editha is incapable of seeing the truth totally. She knows at some level that she is guilty of what Mrs. Gearson has charged her, but she has to find a way out of this truth. She is so shallow and superficial that she immediately grabs at the assessment that Mrs. Gearson is “vulgar.” This effectively makes Mrs. Gearson the one at fault. She is not to be taken seriously because she is common, does not have money, or does not have the same manners as the Balcoms. The artist is ignorant of reality. It is doubtful that she can be any good as an artist. Editha also does not want to live in reality. She wants her foolish dream world or ideal world. She takes one word and finds the excuse for what she did. Actually, she finds that she does not need an excuse. Howells sees this kind of person and this kind of artist quite well. He is a realist. After reading the ending, I have come to the conclusion that George was fortunate to die in the war. It would have been a living hell to have been married to someone like Editha. This is a great attack on conventional ideas about war and violence. It is also a strong argument for Realism as a literary form and movement.
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3-Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass
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The opening chapters of Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington contrast remarkably with the only other slave narrative that I have read: The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. I read Douglass once in American Literature and once in an American History course I took last year. Although both works deal with the same reality, the difference between them is enormous. There is some commonality to both accounts in that both give emphasis to the fact that the authors do not even know their birthdays, know nothing of their fathers, are separated from their mothers for periods of time in the day because the mothers must work, live in poverty, and had no opportunity for schooling or education. Many of the facts are the same, but there is one fundamental difference. Douglass is filled with accounts of the ways in which he and other slaves were physically abused and brutalized by their masters. There are numerous accounts of whippings, beatings, and, even, murders. Douglass lives in a culture of stark violence. There is none of this in Washington. The relationship between the masters and the slaves is much more benevolent. At no point does one encounter anyone like the Mr. Covey of Douglas’s Life who is a notorious slave-breaker. In this vein, Washington points out that members of his race bore no bitterness toward the whites if the slaves were treated with “decency.” His account of the day in which he was granted freedom, which ends his opening chapter, begins with the remark that “there was no feeling of bitterness. In fact, there was pity among the slaves for our former owners.” He then ends the chapter with a reflection on the “great responsibility of being free.”
The account of Douglass, now that I look back on it, is filled with a rage and an anger that I at first did not recognize. I thought that it was a straight, factual account of his life with little obvious emotion. Washington’s account of his life is characterized by a tone of mildness and gentleness toward everything he records, and that includes his masters. It seems to me that one should account for these differences. It could be that Douglass was in the hands of terrible people, and Washington was not. It could be that one man was angry by nature and the other was not. It could be that one told the truth and the other did not. It could be that one wrote to help abolish slavery, and that one wrote after it was abolished, and that each had a different audience in mind when he wrote. Although I think that all of this is or may be possible, the real explanation comes down to the fact that each man had a different temper, a different way of looking at life. Both were very strong men, but one was more serene than the other. Washington was more serene. He had not suffered the horror that Frederick Douglass had.
4-Chapter III Criticism
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After reading Chapter III in “The Souls of Black Folks”, it is realized that W.E.DuBois sharply disagrees with Booker T. Washington and his philosophies. There were three major concerns in which the men were on different ends of the spectrum regarding their beliefs. They included the topic of suffrage, the need for obtaining equality and higher education.
Washington believed that the Negro should lay low and remain somewhat submissive concentrating on learning a trade and becoming an “artisan businessman”. Working hard and accumulating material prosperity as well as becoming a landowner would elevate the African American.
DuBois highly contended these notions in that if one was to follow Washington’s recommendations the results would include disfranchisment of the Negro, a legal creation of civil inferiority as well as a steady withdrawal of aid for institutions, which is something he fully valued. DuBois makes it clear that ignorance will hold a man back. One needs to be politically involved, insisting civil rights and strive for higher learning which in the end will level out the “playing field” between Black and White.
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5-The GAR and Sand City
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The people who live in Sand City remind me of the people who inhabit the river towns of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. By and large, these are mean people. Their natures are revealed at the very beginning of the story. I was interested by the opening of Cather’s story. I used Google and checked the reference to “The Grand Army” that appears in the opening of “The Sculptor’s Funeral.” The term refers to the name given to the Northern Army in the American Civil War. It was specifically called “The Grand Army of the Republic” or the GAR, for an abbreviation. In the post Civil War period it was an important political force in the country for many of the American Presidents of the period up to 1900 were veterans of the war. In Cather’s story the GAR Veterans are not viewed favorably. They are just described as old men hanging around. They are not doing anything. The dead body of Harvey Merrick is just an excuse to pass the time away. It probably gives them the opportunity to talk about all the bloody events they were involved in. Cather does not give us any details to suggest that they were or are noble. It is just one more horrible detail added to this place which Harvey was fortunate to escape. These are men who have done little or nothing with their lives. Harvey Merrick, by way of contrast has become an artist. He has given beauty to the world. It is very ironic that Harvey was born in a place of this kind. The reception at the train is merely a prelude to the horror that will come later.
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6-modernism
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In the history of art, the term ‘modern’ is used to refer to a period of time between the 1860’s and the 1970’s. I didn’t know the term modern was referring to that time, which I find really interesting. In a simple way to define modernism is that it is a cultural movement that changed many things including literature. It was very popular at the time because modernism rejected tradition and it sought out new ways of doing things. Another thing that I read that I didn’t know and found interesting is “The suppression of progressive modernist art in favor of a propagandistic Socialist Realism also occurred at the other end of the political spectrum in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
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