Presentations

Heather is linking Regionalism, Transcendentalism, and Realism to talk about how Fuller links each of the other texts back to her own text and ideas. The growth in the women show what Fuller is trying to convey in her text.

Kristi is talking about how the influences of their foil leads the main characters to stray from the constraints of society of their times.

Meredith is linking local color and Transcendentalism. She is using the American Scholar as her cornerstone. She is going to be talking about man thinking, and what man thinking shouldn’t be. She’s also going to talk about the authors and how they relate to their texts.

Michael is going to use the Gothic and Dark Romanticism. He will talk about their reactions to different societies. He’s going to compare these genres to their predecessors. He’s going to talk about how these texts would have been written if these genres would never have existed. His sources discuss how different elements changed from one to the other. He is going to give some historical background on each genre as a whole. He’s going to try to shorten it down a bit.

Jenel is linking Transcendentalism using Emerson’s circles, and The Transcendentalist, with Dark Romanticism. She’s talking about how they are creating new ideas and challenging new ideas. She is using Fuller in her argument to show how a person can break those barriers. Dark Romanticism is man looking inside of himself and is the opposite of Transcendentalism.

Deb is talking about the Civil War Era and linking together texts like Chesnut, Whitman, and My Contraband. She is saying that the war shaped the writing and the topics of these texts.

Caitlin is talking about the British and American societies and connecting local color with regionalism. She’s going to use Hardy, James, Fuller, and Freeman to discuss feminism and naturalism.

Sara is linking together The Gothic, Naturalism, and Realist texts to talk about how each text has elements of each other within the different groups. She is going to use Zola as her cornerstone and talk about the experiment in Brown’s text as well as in Dorian Grey.

Norris and Hardy

In Norris’ text “The Responsibility of the Novelist” she talks about how the novel is the great expression of modern life. He says that each for of art has its turn at reflecting and expressing its contemporaneous thought. Norris writes “Time was when the world looked to the architects of the castles and great cathedrals to truly reflect and embody its ideals. And the architects—serious, earnest men—produced such “expressions of contemporaneous thought”…”

First of all as a side note, I don’t remember it being on the fact sheet, but Thomas Hardy was an architect! Maybe it’s completely unrelated, or maybe that’s why Hardy was able to express his ideas so well through his writing! He was a “serious, earnest man” that “produced such expressions of contemporaneous thought” like Norris was talking about.

Secondly, in Hardy’s text, right from the beginning we get the about average, decent guy who doesn’t get the girl. He is described as “a young man of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and general good character”. This would be an every day, “average” man that one could meet even in these days. The problem is that most women don’t like this kind of man. The same goes for Bathsheba. She didn’t want this guy either. I think in this instance Norris would agree with the theory that Hardy has in the novel because he is making his point by expressing his characters to be more realistic to modern people. Women are hard to please, and we want either what we can’t have or what isn’t good for us. Hardy is right on the money here. We have a million options, but none that are good enough for us. For Hardy, he is expressing his art through his novel. His thoughts are clearly portrayed throughout the text.Just thought I would throw this picture in there. :-)

Longer Proposal and Tentative Works Cited

For my research paper I decided to connect Regionalism and Transcendentalism. When thinking about the paper I was trying to think of something that four different texts had in common and the one that stood out to me the most was women. So, I narrowed down four texts and thought about what could be a common theme. What I came up with was the fact that each of these texts demonstrates the importance of getting rid of the old idea that women have to conform to what society expects of them and accepting the change of the new idea that they don’t have to allow that. At this point in the 19th century American women want to move forward in life and be treated equally, but they face difficulties along the way because of the oppression of men.

In my essay I am going to use four texts. In Freeman’s short story “The Revolt of a Mother” I’m going to talk about how the wife wanted to have a new house and the husband wouldn’t listen to her. She decided to move into the barn to prove her point, and when the husband came home he realized what he had done was wrong and then yielded to her desires. In Jewett’s short story “A White Heron” the little girl first thinks that she wants to find this bird because not only did she want the money that the man had to offer her, but she wanted to do what he said and impress him. She later realizes that she doesn’t have to do it, and she figures out what is more important to her. Impressing the man and getting the money wasn’t the most important thing. In Dickinson’s poem “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain” she discusses how oppressive old ideas are, and she accepts the change of new ones. In Fuller’s text “The Great Debate” she talks about how it’s the Anti-Slave party that pleads for women. This demonstrates the idea of changing the old into something new. Fuller advocated for change to move forward and that is shown throughout the text.

Anderson, Douglas. “Presence and Place in Emily Dickinson’s Poetry.” The New England Quarterly 57.2 (1984): 205-224. JSTOR. Web. 15 Apr. 2010.

In this essay Douglas talks about Dickinson’s use of presence and place. He discusses several ideas about her uses of them, and how she meant for them to come across. He finds, however, that many lines are ambiguous and are then left for many different interpretations.

Cole, Phyllis. “Stanton, Fuller, and the Grammar of Romanticisim.” The New England Quarterly 73.4 (2000): 533-559. JSTOR. Web. 15 Apr. 2010.

Cole discusses in her text, the grammar of romanticism, which is defined to be an ideology and expressive mode affirming sensibility and self-awareness. She talks about the expectation of imminent change.

Gardner, Kate. “The Subversion of Genre in the Short Stories of Mary Wilkins Freeman.” The New England Quarterly 65.3 (1992): 447-468. JSTOR. Web. 15 Apr. 2010.

Gardner talks about the characters in which Freeman uses in her texts. She describes the typical females in the stories and talks about how the assertion of self against overwhelming odds gives us heroism.

Monteiro, George. “Traditional Ideas in Dickinson’s ‘I Felt a Funeral in My Brain’.” Modern Language Notes 75.8 (1960): 656-663. JSTOR. Web. 15 Apr. 2010.

Monteiro analyzes Dickinson’s poem “I felt a Funeral in My Brain”, and talks about how it is something more than merely a poem about a funeral. He says that the funeral is a metaphor, and involves more than Dickinson’s ability to identify her change in emotions.

Pratt, Anne. “Women and Nature in Modern Fiction.” Contemporary Literature 13.4 (1972): 476-490. JSTOR. Web. 15 Apr. 2010.

In Pratt’s text she talks about women, and the quest for self. She says that there is a large difference between the naturistic epiphanies of men and women. She discusses the girl’s view over the boy’s view.

Proposal for Final Project

Dickinson: A funeral in my brain & A certain slant of light
Jewett: A White Heron
Freeman: Revolt of a Mother
Fuller: The Great Debate
New American Literature & Regionalism & Transcendentalism

Key points from texts:
Freeman: Wife moving into barn to prove her point
Jewett: Girl protecting the bird’s hiding place
Dickinson: “Internal difference / where the meanings are”
Fuller: Advocating for women's rights (women just as smart as men)

Each of these authors use different genres like Regionalism, New American Literature, and American Transcendentalism to emphasize the fact that women are moving towards getting more rights versus other genres like The Gothic which doesn't have this focus.

The focus on women's rights are generated by the time line that these genres are written in, as time moves forward women are realizing how oppressed they are and the desire to have more rights increases.

Dickinson, Freeman, Fuller, and Jewett
Each of these authors discuss in their texts the importance and meaning of individuality and sacrificing for what they think is right because of how hard it was to be a woman in their time. They do not fit into the common expectations of women because of their outspoken ideas like moving into the barn, not giving up the heron, figuring out internal meanings, and literally advocating for women’s rights. These women paved the way for women nowadays; if it weren’t for them stepping out of their comfort zone we wouldn’t be as progressed as we are today.

Daisy Miller. P.S. There's a movie! (That's super old).

The author who wrote “Editor’s Easy Chair” talks about how Daisy Miller “represents a young American woman…and describes the unconscious manner in which she devastates the accepted usages of society, doing, with perfect innocence and pure maidenhood, what in Europe is done only by women who are not innocent. She is one of the young women who amaze European society and give a strange reputation to American girls” (Harper 780).

Winterbourne is the stereotypical European and when he notices that Daisy Miller is attractive he says "American girls are the best girls”. All he can think about is how pretty she is. He is blind to anything else except for her beauty.
He is not familiar with how American act and so he is confused by her yet charmed at the same time. James writes that “Poor Winterbourne was amused, perplexed, and decidedly charmed”. He couldn’t decide if she was just a pretty girl from the states “Or was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person”.

Through Winterbourne James paints the picture of Europeans having no instinct or reason to be able to help them decipher whether American women. Winterbourne decides that “Miss Daisy Miller looked extremely innocent” but some people had told him that they weren’t. He finally decides that Daisy Miller is “a pretty American flirt”.
Although Winterbourne is unfamiliar with Americans he compares Daisy to the relationships that he has had with European women whom were “coquettes” and were dangerous and terrible women. He says that Daisy is unsophisticated and a flirt and see where this takes him.

Daisy on the other hand doesn’t seem to notice that she is acting any different than the other girls. When Winterbourne suggest that someone stays with her younger brother so that they both can go see the monuments she naively says that Winterbourne himself can stay with him. The fact that Daisy Miller is not a coquette like some other European women astonishes and amazes Winterbourne, the classic European man. He doesn’t quite know what to do with her and he can’t figure her out.

Jewett's A White Heron

During my fact sheet I talked about how “A White Heron” could be looked at through a “coming of age” lens. At the end of my fact sheet I gave part of the text that I felt showed this, so I wanted to talk about it more here.

“There was the huge tree asleep yet in the paling moonlight, and small and hopeful Sylvia began with utmost bravery to mount to the top of it”

I think that the huge tree symbolizes life in general and Sylvia’s braveness to mount to the top of it shows her growing up and facing what life has to throw at her.

“with tingling, eager blood coursing the channels of her whole frame, with her bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held like bird's claws to the monstrous ladder reaching up, up, almost to the sky itself.”

This line describes the sexuality that this young girl is feeling at this age.
“First she must mount the white oak tree that grew alongside, where she was almost lost among the dark branches and the green leaves heavy and wet with dew; a bird fluttered off its nest, and a red squirrel ran to and fro and scolded pettishly at the harmless housebreaker.”

Getting lost among the branches shows how hard life is and how difficult it is to grow up. Sometimes it’s not easy to find our way. We don’t know exactly what we’re doing or which way is the right way to go and sometimes we will get lost. This paints the perfect picture to describe this.

“Sylvia felt her way easily. She had often climbed there, and knew that higher still one of the oak's upper branches chafed against the pine trunk, just where its lower boughs were set close together.”

This shows that coming into adulthood doesn’t have to always be hard. It can come easily in some areas and in some instances. For Sylvia, she had often climbed this area, so this particular road in her life wasn’t going to be too rough.

“There, when she made the dangerous pass from one tree to the other, the great enterprise would really begin.”

The change from familiar to unfamiliar is the toughest part. Once could say that this might be the leaving the nest part. Sylvia realizes the dangers of change and how much of an adventure life really would be from now on once she passed from one tree to the next.

Photographs

In Natalie Houston’s text "Reading the Victorian Souvenir: Sonnets and Photographs of the Crimean War", she talks about how photographs of this time look staged because they would have to pause for a few moments to take the picture. People had never seen war photographs before, and so they thought these pictures were amazing and awes-inspiring.

However, in reality, real and stage pictures of this group often times portray relaxation. She talks about how these photographs downplay the labor of war because it presents the times in which people were relaxing and not the busy stressful side of things.

Houston says that “By focusing on the officers and portraying them in this stylized manner, the real hardships faced by the troops are minimized”. This is true because instead of showing the action of what’s truly going on the viewer is painted a different picture. The picture that is painted here is one that’s saying everything is effortless and undemanding.




In this photograph that I found we are shown these things. There is a man hanging out on the back of a wagon. Nothing is really happening in the photograph besides this. We don’t get a war scene in the background or any other action, making it seem like nothing important is going on. Of course, war is more than nothing important, but these pictures don’t show this.