Entry 66: Better Things?

Willa Cather, one of the greatest American writers of the 20th Century, celebrated the courage, strength and fortitude of the frontier settlers in many of her works, and believed that a valuable way of life was disappearing with the advance of modern times. When referring to the modern age she said, “Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things.” How does this quotation frame the dilemma of the modern age?

• This quote frames the dilemma of the modern age by pointing out the fact that the human race now no longer has the courage, strength, and fortitude that the frontier settlers had before. Willa Cather is saying that even though present day technology is improving and even though current society is improving and becoming more and more convenient, people are losing the qualities that the people in the past have - the good qualities that a society need to thrive and succeed. The quote can also be quite literal. For example, the quote "men travel faster now" may refer to technology such as trains, ships, cars, buses, and airplanes (basically, technology that increases the speed we travel with). Willa Cather is saying that even though we now travel and transport at a faster rate and with more efficiency, it might not be a completely good thing because we are moving towards laziness, as well as issues such as the depletion of resources, pollution, and ultimately, the destruction of our environment, as well as planet Earth. Cather may be suggesting us to retain part of the past in order to continue on to a better future, and not a worst one.

Entry 65: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

In the 1890s, when Kate Chopin wrote “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” women could not vote, were not financially independent, and had few opportunities for education or employment. Women’s rights activists were beginning to seek social justice, but change was slow. As you read Chopin’s story, what differences do you notice between the lives of women then and now. What connections can you make between the lives of women then and those of women in The Handmaid’s Tale? Do you think that things could ever change back to the way they were before?

• The main difference between the women then and the women in the present day is the difference in the amount of freedom. Women before didn't have the freedom to do what they want. Instead, they were limited by certain unwritten rules, and if they broke these rules, then they would be viewed as scandals and never be respected again in society. Women nowadays, however, have more rights and more property, even though only certain places have excessively more compared to before.
• The connection between the lives of the women then and those women in the Handmaid's Tale is that both of these groups are limited; they don't have any freedom. Both of these groups are oppressed by the society that they inhabit in, as well as by their respective cultures, traditions, and rules and the expectations of others from and within their cultures. These groups also have certain very specific obligations. For example, the women living in the time of Kate Chopin had the responsibilities of a housewife, and they have to take care of the house and the children. The women in the Handmaid's Tale had the obligation of being housewives as well, and the handmaids have obligations to be surrogate mothers to couples who couldn't bear children. Another important factor is that these obligations are not those that the majority of women wish to comply with, deep inside them.

Entry 64: A Reprieve

From time to time, everyone feels trapped by the humdrum duties of daily life. All of us fantasize about escaping from our boring routines. For a nineteenth-century woman of limited means trying to satisfy the needs of her family (like the character in "A Pair of Silk Stockings"), even a brief reprieve from the demands of domestic life could be a life changing bid for freedom and a temporary escape from day-to-day duties. Think about your own life. When you feel that it has become too boring, what escapes do you seek, both in reality and in your own fantasy world?

• My life is generally very plain, and you can say that it's boring in a way. I don't have much to do - it is mostly just academics that I concentrate on. I have my own interests, such as dancing and playing basketball, but sometimes, I have too much academic work and pressure that I have to give it up. However, I always find time to read novels. They can be on paper, on the internet, in Chinese, or in English. But reading novels is the thing I do when I feel bored, tired, or when I want to escape reality. Thus, I am very picky when it comes to the type and style of story I read. Another way that I escape boredom and stress is to watch TV dramas. Usually I don't actively seek TV dramas, but my mother is a huge fan. And just to let you know, I do my homework in the living room where the TV is, and my mother always watches the dramas when I am writing homework (because the playing times for the dramas happen to contrast with when I write my homework). So generally, these are the two things that I do when I seek escape from reality.

Entry 63: On Impulse

Everyone has impulses, some to do “good” things, and some to do “bad” things. Most people can control whether or not they actually act on their impulses, at least most of the time. People who can’t control their impulsive behavior often get into trouble and have problems getting along with others. Describe a time when you did something on impulse, or a time in which you had a strong impulse to do something but were able to control yourself. Try to describe what it feels like to have something pushing (or pulling) you to do something that you know might be the wrong thing to do in the situation. For example, when you know it is not right to make an inappropriate comment in class, but you do it anyway. If you can’t think of a situation in which this happened to you, try describing an example of impulsive behavior that you have witnessed in someone else.

• One of the strongest impulses that I always have, no matter at what time, is to read good stories. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing. An example of it being a good thing is when it helps me improve my reading comprehension (for example, when the story is written in Victorian English, etc.) and my vocabulary (since there is a lot of unusual vocabulary used in Victorian period stories). An example of reading stories being a bad thing is when it distracts me from work. For example, I am very tempted to open up one of my new found stories and read it, but right now, I must concentrate on my work, since this is a very busy period for me, a junior. I have the normal load of classwork, SAT, and AP exams. Therefore, I must control my strong impulses so that they don't come into conflict with my academics, amongst many other things. This sometimes becomes very hard, because even though I succeeded in preventing myself from opening up my stories, my mind is still very distracted - it continues to drift towards that idea of reading a story or the plot of a story that I was reading at that current time. This is a very annoying and uncomfortable feeling.

Entry 62: Romantics v Realists

The shift from Romanticism to realism brought about new literary forms, new styles, and, most important, new attitudes in writers and readers. Write an entry in which you compare and contrast the basic attitudes and beliefs of the Romantic writers with those of the realist writers. Consider, for example, the writers’ subjects, characters, and attitudes toward human nature and their views on the purpose of literature. Use “A Mystery of Heroism,” The Red Badge of Courage, and the information from the introduction to the Realist period in your textbook to inform your writing.

• The romanticists created works of a variety of broad and diverse topics. However, all of these works have one central, man theme, and that is nature. Romanticists focus their works on nature in contrast to civilization and the "sophisticated" society that the majority of people lived in. In contrast to the romanticists, the realists depicted realistic (as the name implies) and everyday common scenes, which focuses more on civilization and society after the Industrial Revolution.
• The characters used as subjects for romantic works, both literature and the arts, are of the youth. Why? Because the romanticists believed that the youth had most connection to nature, since they are not yet corrupted by civilization and sophistication. Instead, the youth are young and naive, and would prefer to interact with nature. The subjects of the realists conflicts with this view. Their subjects are everyday common and ordinary people, who are most likely poor and live in horrible conditions.
• Romantics are idealistic, and sometimes overly idealistic. They believe that people could find truths in nature. The realists, however, were very realistic, as their name indicates. The realists believe that everyone is essentially bad in nature, and this is why the world is cruel and realistic. The purposes of realism was to bring people's attention to the cruel reality of society and the world, which was a response to the Industrial Revolution, when many people lived in horrible squalor conditions and could barely survive.

Entry 61: Mystery of Heroism

Consider Stephen Crane’s story, “A Mystery of Heroism.” Where do you think the mystery lies? Is it in the definition of what makes a hero? Or is it relating to the motivations of people who perform heroic acts? In the story, what are the motivations of Fred Collins to risk his life to get water? How do you think he feels about his own motivations? Does he understand them? What about yourself? Have you ever done anything heroic? How well do you understand your own motivations for the things you do?

• The mystery of heroism lies in that there is no definite definition of the word heroism. What defines heroism? It varies from person to person because of people's different vocabulary. Also, we don't know what people expect from a hero: the characteristics and their actions and reactions towards different situations. Another point of view concerning the mystery of heroism is, should we consider people's motivations when we are talking about heroism? What if someone with a bad motivation accidentally did something good and was classified as a hero? What about the situation in the other way?
• Fred Collin's motivations started out as a simple need to drink water because of his body's thirst and desire for water. However, he was later motivated by peer pressure: people kept on asking him, didn't he want water, and why doesn't he get water when he wanted to drink some? To Fred Collins, his motivations are now turned into obligations and duty because of peer pressure.
• I do not believe that I have ever been a hero. Everything that I have done for my sixteen years of life was normal and not out of ordinary. I would say that most of my motivations for certain actions usually stick with selfish needs (well, not necessarily selfish, but I do things for my own good most of the time). Sometimes, however, my motivation for my actions is based off on the want to help my friends or family. I can very well distinguish what my motivations are for things.

Entry 60: Think About...

Referring to the text pages 442-461, answer the following questions:

• How and when did American writers and poets respond to the Civil War?
• What are the basic characteristics of realism?
• What did the naturalist writers believe?

• The American writers were the first ones to respond to the Civil War. After the first few attacks and battles in 1861, the American writers started to respond in the newspapers by publishing their articles. As the war continued on, more responses appeared in the forms of published poems instead of articles, but still in newspapers.
• The basic characters of realism are quite different from the basic characteristics of romanticism and other forms of literature. The style of realism differs from that of romanticism because it's literary and visual works are not "sugar coated", and are not idealistic. Instead, as its name implies, it depicts realistic things and situations in a very realistic way. Some examples of situations include suffering due to war, poverty, and hunger. Realistic works are usually about ordinary and common people who live in poverty. The realistic era mainly started because of the Industrial Revolution and the devastating effects it had on society, its people, and its environment. The realists were just trying to respond to reality and trying to gain the attention of people so that they could change their conditions.
• Naturalist writers mainly believe in the scientific disciplines of psychology and sociology. They also believe that human behavior determines individual power. The naturalists take after the rationalist beliefs.

Entry 59: A Change of Heart

Think about what you learned about the previous periods of American literature we’ve studied, and particularly the Romantic period. What were the defining characteristics? Now take a look at the pictures on pages 449-456. Based on those images, what changes in the American mentality can you predict will be evident in the period covered in "The Rise of Realism"? Explain why the pictures lead you to think that way.

• Looking at the pictures in the textbook concerning especially the Romantic pictures, then comparing them with the pictures from the realistic period, I realized that there was a large difference. The main difference is nature. In paintings from the romanticism era, there are a lot of depictions of nature, while in the realistic paintings, there is a lack of nature. As the transition between the romantic era and the realistic era occurred, people no longer romanticize about the world,
• The realist ea is one where the world seems to turn its views into very realistic ones (as realistic as possible). The adjectives that are suitable to describe the works, both literary and visual, during this period include adjectives such as gruesome, cruel, suffering, and many more. The scenes that are usually scenes that depict war, poverty and the poor, hunger, and mostly commonly, death. It shows the world just how cruel the world is, and what the lives of the poor are like while the rich live off the poor and continue to use the poor to their advantages.
• I believe that the transition into realism has to do with the people reacting to the increasing hardships in life as industrialism occurs. Nature faded. People were squeezed into small spaces called their homes. People had to work all day long without sufficient rest. People had bad sanitation. People got sick. People died. And people got tired - resulting in the realistic depictions of life as people tried to call out to people for change.