Whitman

When you read these poems you notice the vocabulary that Whitman uses. In each of the poems he use such great description of what he is describing. But some of the words I haven’t even seen before. I even had to look up a few like the word dalliance, which means a waste of time in frivolous action or in dawdling. This poem in particular has such fiery words and portrays such passion in just a few sentences. For example, “ The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel, four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling” (Whitman 1067) That’s only one of the sentences that I picked out. He makes these situations come to life with such imagery you become enthralled in what he is describing.           

 I mean I am not one for science and or lectures but in the poem “When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer” I felt something different; I wasn’t bored. The first two sentences I was a bit skeptical when I saw the words proofs, figures, charts, and diagrams. I thought o wow here comes another poem trying to make school fun or funny. But this poem is jus the opposite. I connected with Whitman when he said “How soon Unaccountable I became tired and sick” I feel that almost every math or science class I have ever taking. I imagine Whitman just daydreaming in this professor’s class just ignoring basically everything the teacher is saying. Thinking to himself how stupid this guy is. Whitman even goes to his own set of stars to get away from this lecture.

Whitman writes about all sorts of different subjects from wildlife, education, and the geography. He truly did answer the call from Emerson. Whitman is the first of his kind in American poetry he was the first of his kind. His poetry is a different than any other poet I have ever seen. These short right to the point poems are a unique blend that Whitman perfected. Emerson would be proud of Walt Whitman work.

           

Tell Tale Heart & Cask of Amontillado

Edgar Allen Poe is probably the most famous dark writer in American history. I fell like I have studied his works or almost every year at this time: Halloween. His stories are filled with such descriptive terror it makes you tremble at what was going through his head. He also thinks of these realistic demented situations that you could relate too. These situations are the ones we fear the most like getting buried alive, trying to get away with murder, murdering a friend, and or trying to escape a pendulum.

            The Tale-Tale heart is probably the Poe’s most recognized piece of work. Everyone knows of the beating heart that the man cannot stand. The funny thing is that the young man doesn’t despise the old man just his blue eye. “ I loved the old man. He had never wronged me, He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! -yes, it was this!” (Poe 702). We do not know exactly what relationship the old man and the younger man have together but all we know is that they live together maybe possibly work together. As I said in the opening paragraph Poe uses such descriptive to words to gain your trust and kind of right the wrong that is about to take place. “ He had the eye of a vulture-a pale blue eye, with a film over it”(Poe 703). I do not know about that the rest of you but that eye sounds like the worst looking eye of all time.  When he decides to take the old mans life he has to see that eye to perform the act. As he waits in the old man’s chamber he startles the old man and we have all been there in the middle of the night and we hear a sound. The old man tries to play it off like it was from the wind, a mouse, and or a cricket. That is one of my biggest fears not knowing what’s lying in the dark shadows at 4 am.  Eventually he does the does the deed and dismembers the old man and stuffs him under the floorboards. This was his friend, his mentor, and maybe even a relative. After he puts the floorboards he starts to hear the pounding of the old man’s heart, which leads him to go crazy and tell the police where he had hid the old man’s body.

            The ironies in the Cask of Amontillado stick out in my mind quite distinctly. The fact that the victims name is Fortunato, which sounds similar to the word fortunate, is an irony by itself. This guy is anywhere near fortunate. This story is a revenge story it says in the opening line. But reading this story it sounds more like a jealousy issue that the Montresor has with Fortunato. In both stories Poe try to gives explanation for the murder plots trying to make you feel sympathy for the murderer. When he tricks Fortunato to come to his house with no servants or anyone to be seen you know the plan is in effect. He then takes him underground where they continue to walk for several minutes. To Fortunato’s credit he was drunk and I bet did not take in account his surrounding like the bones and old members of the Montresor family on the walls. Finally at the end of the tunnel he chains him up and closes the wall in with bricks. Even with one brick to go Fortunato tries one last ditch effort to escape thinking that this was all of a joke trying to persuade him to let him out. “Ha! ha! ha! --he! he! he! --a very good joke, indeed --an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo --he! he! he! --over our wine --he! he! he!" (Poe online). This last ditch effort would do no good for Fortunato. 

Narrative of the Life

The opening chapter is Fredrick Douglas’s narrative caught my attention and saddened me quickly. It talks directly about his mother and how she was non-existent in his life not by choice but by the slave owners. But he goes on to tell how he was not alone in this matter and that every slave was separated from his/her mother at about 12 months of age. One quote that caught my attention was this, “ For what this separation has done I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child” (Douglas 931). I really could not imagine who or where I would be today if I didn’t have my mom’s influence of my life. It is scary/sad to think about what these slaves went through.  These slave owners had a “system’ of doing things to keep control of the slaves for example mother being separated and no slave was allowed to learn to read and write. It was all about control.

            The most disturbing part of this story was when he was just seven years old and had to watch the brutal beatings of his Aunt. The scene where he is in the closet watching the Captain hoist her onto a hook and continued to beat her in the chest while Fredrick watched hopelessly. Hearing this just makes me sick kind of embarrassed that our country has this in our history books. It was such an inhumane setting in America at this point. With Civil rights act of the 1960’s only being a short while ago racism is still present in America today. But the fact it took such a long time and such detailed stories like this one to end slavery. Switching gears a little bit. I just thought of a part that a cracked a little smile at which might be a tad bit dark. When the drunkard Mr. Severe died I was kind of happy. That man must have been the most ill-minded, sadistic creature I have heard of in a long time. I like how Fredrick Douglas out in there that most of the slaves thought that it was an act of virtue that he died. That’s how bad of a guy this guy was to the people and they thought it was an act of God that sent this crazy man away.

            When Fredrick arrives in Baltimore I thought it was going to be the end of the story and a happy ending. It is and it isn’t. He does get to leave the dreaded Great House Farm and the horrible beatings he witnessed. He gets assigned to a new family and he immediately falls in love with them. At first the mistress is a nice, full-hearted women who starts to teach Fredrick his ABC’s. Of course, Fredrick loves this woman who is teaching him but gets his heart broken once again. Her husband one day tells her to stop teaching him how to read and write. At first she is hesitate and can’t bare to be mean to Fredrick. But over time you start to see her heart change for the worst. She starts to yell and rip newspapers out of Frederick’s hands. It goes back to my earlier point even in the so call nice Baltimore that all the white slave owners went by the same system to control the slaves.