Journal for Chopin

Francesca Cricchio
Journal for The Storm
English 48
February 28th, 2011

“He pushed her hair back from her face that was warm and steaming. Her lips were as red and moist as a pomegranate seed. Her white neck and a glimpse of her full, firm bosom disturbed him powerfully.” (533).

“Kate Chopin went beyond Maupassant's technique and style and gave her writing a flavor of its own. She had an ability to perceive life and put it down on paper creatively. She put much concentration and emphasis on women's lives and their continual struggles to create an identity of their own within the boundaries of the patriarchy.” (Biography of Kate Chopin from Wikipedia).

The short story, “The Storm”, by Kate Chopin opens with a four-year-old boy named Bibi and his father ,Bobinot, stuck in a store while a treacherous storm emerges. Meanwhile, Bibi’s mother and Bobinot’s wife, Calixta, is at home sewing and not at all concerned with the storm heading her way. She realizes after a while that the storm is very close by and she rushes to her front porch to close the windows and retrieve the clothes that are hanging outside to dry. As she does this Alcee arrives. The sexual tension between the two is clearly evident with lines such as “His voice and her own startled her as if from a trance, and she seized Bobonet’s vest” (532). Calixta invites Alcee inside, and from then on the two are face to face with temptation for one another. Calixta grows scared as the storm approaches, and she falls into Alcee’s open arms. The two make love, and then the storm passes. The lovers part separate ways with smiles on their faces, and in the end of this short story Calixta is seen sitting at the kitchen table with her family where they “laughed much and so loud that anyone might have heard them” (534). Alcee, who is also very happy, writes to his wife Clarisse, and tells her to take her time away. Clarisse is very satisfied with this letter, and feels like she has discovered a new-found freedom.

This story was very interesting, because at first I was not okay with the affair that had happened. The two seemed so nonchalant about it all, and there was no sense of remorse for the act they committed. After cheating on their husband and wife, the two feel nothing more than a smile on their face. But after some thinking, I realized that this story was actually very pivotal to both Calixta and Clarisse’s lives.
Calixta is seen in the beginning of the story as a hard working woman. She has “no uneasiness for their safety” (531), as if she were on auto-pilot or something. With no passion or excitement in her life, she spends her night working “furiously on a sewing machine” (531). It quickly becomes evident how Calixta is so transfixed on the role of mother and wife that she has no passion, no worry, no happiness. Then Alcee arrives and everything changes. Alcee brings out her “vivacity” (532) and Chopin writes “her blue eyes still retained their melting quality” (532). Suddenly, Calixta is no longer a boring housewife, but a woman of passion who avoids all social norms! This is something that I think Chopin strived for in her writing. It’s dangerous affairs that help women like Calixta “search for selfhood, for self-discovery or identity” (quote from Kate Chopin’s biography website).
Also, Clarisse finds freedom and strength in herself when her husband writes to her. Although her husband has cheated, and she is unaware, both her and Alcee have benefited tremendously. Alcee has found passion and love that is without commitment. This new focus on Calixta has given Clarisse the freedom to focus on herself, which gives her empowerment to find out who she really is.
Overall, I thought that Chopin’s ideals were revolutionary. Although they were beyond social norms of the time, they were real and honest. To me, Chopin was saying what everyone was thinking at the time, but too afraid to come to terms with. Being risque isn’t always a bad thing. It can benefit everyone so that our lives become enriched with passion (even if they are a little sinful).

Letters from Earth

“Meantime, every person is playing on harp- those millions and millions!- whereas not more than twenty in the thousand of them could play an instrument in the earth, or ever wanted to.” (312)

"I believe that Mark Twain had a clearer vision of life, that he came nearer to its elementals and was less deceived by its false appearances, than any other American who has ever presumed to manufacture generalizations, not excepting Emerson. I believe that he was the true father of our national literature, the first genuinely American artist of the royal blood."(A quote by H.L. Mencken taken from Mark Twain’s official website).

Letters from Earth is a comical story that is a compilation of letters written from Satan (who is on earth) to St. Michael and St. George who are in heaven. After being banished from Heaven for speaking badly and sarcastically about God’s creation, Satan decides to go to Earth to see what the hype all about. The letters he sends to Michael and George are hilarious excerpts of what humans consider their “heaven” to be. The first letter Satan writes is about hypocrisy and arrogance of humans. The second letter from Satan is more of a question about humankind, and Satan also tells Michael and George that there is no sexual intercourse in their heaven. The final letters discuss different aspects of the church, such as worship, preaching, and attending church as a whole.

I found Twain’s writing to be exceptionally hysterical in this story. There wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t laughing. There are several examples of sarcasm that can be clearly seen in Twain’s letters. The first example of sarcasm and hypocrisy is when Twain writes about humans not being able to play instruments, but planning on spending eternity in a heaven full of a constant flow of music. Satan tells his friends in heaven about how almost no men can play an instrument, yet they plan to be masters of music in heaven. They grow weary and tired after an hour of worship, but in heaven they will never grow tired of “millions and millions” of harps playing! The second example of sarcasm in Twain’s writing (and in the character Satan) is when Twain writes about how men of different races on earth hate each other! “Hear in the earth, all nations hate each other, and every one of them hates the Jews. Yet every pious person adores that heaven and wants to get in to it. He really does. And when he is in that holy rapture he thinks he thinks that if he were only there he would take all the populace to his heart, and hug, and hug, and hug!” (313). This quote is full of funny lines and statements! Twain’s style is so unique, and delivered so precisely that he makes you laugh at all the right places. Like when he says “all nations hate each other”, you laugh because you can understand that point he’s making, and then when you finish laughing from that you continue to read and Twain writes “every one of them hates the Jews”, and you can’t help but laugh again. And it’s not funny because it’s the Jews, it’s funny because Twain does not hold back at all. He doesn’t censor himself, and so it’s almost like everything you think but don’t say out of politeness, Twain will say for you. That is one of the main reasons why Twain is so unique. His work is controversial, but it’s honest and relentless, and it’s what makes his work so memorable.

Journal for Twain

Francesca Cricchio
Journal for Twain
English 48B
February 21, 2011

“when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was;” (246).

“The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Satirizing a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.” (Description of Huckleberry Finn from Wikipedia).

Chapter 31 opens with Huck and Jim heading down the river with their new “friends” The King and the Duke. Huck grows suspicious with the new visitors and plans to escape on the raft with Jim the moment they reach shore. Things go awry when the King heads in to town and the Duke and Huck follow shortly after. Huck manages to slip away from the Duke and heads back to the raft, only to find that Jim is missing. Huck walks along the road and meets a boy who says that somebody (the King and Duke) told the town of Jim’s location for a reward of 40 dollars. Huck plans to write a letter to Miss Watson explaining what happened so that he feels “washed clean of sin” (246), but rips up the paper shortly after writing it. Huck then runs in to the Duke and asks what happened to Jim. Duke begins to tell Huck where he can find Jim, but the changes his mind and tells Huck the wrong place so that he can keep Huck away from him for a while. This is exactly what Huck had wanted. He pretends to head into the woods to the farm that Duke has told him to go to, but a mile into the walk he heads back to town to save Jim without the interruption of Duke and the King.

Mark Twain’s writing is very unique in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because it is told through the eyes of a young boy, but deals with very serious, and mature issues. The most important of the issues is the one of racism. Huck travels the river with a runaway slave, and in chapter 31 he is forced to make a very adult decision. He knows that society wants him to turn Jim in. Twain writes, “I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger’s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie” (246). The “clean thing” being a religious reference to being clean of “sin”, and the “sin” being coercing with a slave. But Huck makes a very mature decision when he realizes that Jim is human just like everybody else. He realizes all that Jim has done for him out of love (as quoted above), and cannot bring himself to turn his friend in. This decision is very ahead of the rest of society, and it was great that Twain chose to create someone so young to make such adult decisions.

Edith Wharton

Francesca Cricchio
English 48B
February 16, 2011
Journal for Wharton

“With sudden vividness Waythorn saw how the instinct had developed. She was ‘as easy as an old shoe’- a shoe that too many feet had worn. Her elasticity was the result of tension in too many different directions. Alice Haskett- Alice Varick- Alice Waythorn- she had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each name a little of her privacy, a little of her personality, a little of the inmost self where the unknown god abides” (841).

“She was a born storyteller, whose novels are justly celebrated for their vivid settings, satiric wit, ironic style, and moral seriousness.” (Biography of Wharton from online literature).

Mr. Waythorn, a successful New York investor, is thrown into a whirlwind when he runs in to his current wife’s (Alice) two ex husbands. After seeing Mr. Varick (Alice’s 2nd ex) on the street and in a restaurant, Mr. Waythorn is overwhelmed with these continuous encounters. Matters only worsen when Mr. Haskett (Alice’s 1st ex) comes to town to visit his daughter Lily, who now resides at Waythorn’s home (her new stepfather). Alice’s character is revealed through her ex husbands, and by the end of the story Waythorn learns to embrace his wife’s past.

It is interesting how Wharton (like James) uses writing as a tool to let people in to the minds of the characters to reveal feelings that can only be expressed through the mind. The Norton Anthology writes “she is considered a major contributor to the practice of psychological realism. In view of the inability of her characters, despite their high social status, to control their destinies” (830). This perfectly encompasses Waythorn’s inability to maintain his traditional lifestyle when he is constantly forced to speak to the two men he wants to see the least, his wife’s ex-husbands. Although Waythorn literally has everything that money could buy, he does not have control over destiny. In a number of awkward encounters Waythorn meets Mr. Haskett (Alice’s first ex) and Mr. Varick (Alice’s second ex) and by the end of the story he comes to the realization that these men were once a part of the life of the woman he loves, and in order to be happy he has to accept all of who she is now, and who she was then. This realization comes during the quote above (about the shoe). Waythorn has been through the ringer with these men and his wife. It all starts when Waythorn runs in to Mr. Varick on the street and in an upper-class restaurant later in the day. As the story continues the two men do business together and grow quite comfortable with one another. Wharton explains Waythorn’s thoughts of Varick by writing “He smiled, and Waythorn could not help noticing that there was something pleasant about his smile” (836). Waythorn eventually becomes acquainted with Mr. Haskett when he is forced (by law) to allow Mr. Haskett in to his home to visit his sick daughter who is bedridden.
Overall, this story was brilliantly put together. The irony and hilarity of these awkward encounters was so interesting to read! The references to a previous marriage to Alice between the men makes me laugh because one would never expect to see their wife’s ex randomly...and so many times...and in such a large place.....and then to see the OTHER ex. One particular moment that makes me laugh extra hard is when Alice pours cognac into Waythorn’s coffee. Waythorn is shocked that his wife would do such a thing! Their moment of mistake is met with “a sudden agonized red” (835). This moment would usually not be that funny, but one page before Wharton writes about how Waythorn observes Mr. Varick pouring cognac into his coffee and Waythorn wonders why he would do such a thing. The parallel between the marriage between Alice and Varick and Alice and Waythorn is so similar that both men are now somehow taking their coffee the same! Alice hasn’t even had time to get over the habits of an ex, and you can’t help but laugh at the fact that not enough time has even passed for Alice to get over this habit of cognac and coffee.

It must have been so hard for someone as sophisticated as Waythorn to grasp, but his love for Alice overcomes everything, and by then end of the story all four (3 men and Alice) are left sitting and enjoying a cup of tea. Waythorn embraces this new arrival of exes “with a laugh” (843).

Journal for Henry James

Francesca Cricchio
Journal for James
English 48B
February 14, 2011

“He felt very sorry for her- not exactly that he believed that she had completely lost her head, but because it was painful to hear so much that was pretty and undefended and natural assigned to a vulgar place among the categories of disorder” (423).

“The concept of a good or bad novel is judged solely upon whether the author is good or bad. His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue and possibly unreliable narrators in his own novels and tales brought a new depth and interest to narrative fiction.” (Biography of Henry James from Wikipedia).

Daisy Miller begins in Vevey, Switzerland where Winterbourne is found enjoying a meal outside and becomes acquainted with Daisy Miller (real name Annie P. Miller). She was “admirably pretty” (393) in Winterbourne’s eyes and he immediately takes a liking to her. They talk amongst one another, and at first Daisy does not pay much attention to him. “She looked another way when he spoke to her, and seemed not particularly to hear him, this was simply her habit, her manner” (394). After spending more time together they begin to get along and decide to travel the Chillon Castle together, unchaperoned. All goes well until Winterbourne informs Daisy that he will have to head back to Geneva in a day or two. She jokingly argues with him and calls him “horrid”. They head back to town, and do not meet again until winter time in Rome, Italy.
By this time Winterbourne’s aunt has been living in Rome for some time and has been able to observe and talk with others about the reputation of the Miller’s (Daisy, Randolph, and Mrs. Miller). She states that Daisy has been going out at all times of the night with different men. Winterbourne goes to meet Mrs. Walker, and runs in to Daisy in the process. They talk with Mrs. Walker about an event that Mrs. Walker has planned in a few days, and Daisy asks if she can bring “Mr. Giovanelli”. Mrs. Walker adamantly agrees even though she (or her group of upper-class friends) know nothing about this man. Throughout the rest of the story Daisy is found parading around town at all times of day and night with this new man. Winterbourne spends countless days trying to figure out if Daisy is really as innocent as she looks, or if she is intimate with these men (James never fully confines to one or the other in his writing).
The story concludes with Winterbourne strolling to the Coliseum one moonlit evening to find Daisy and Mr. Giovanelli sitting at the center of the monument at around midnight! Daisy and Mr. Giovanelli quickly scurry off, and about a week later Daisy falls ill (most likely from malaria which was very threatening at the time) and dies.


Henry James had an amazing quality and style to his writing that gave a “limited point of view” (389). The Norton Anthology writes “he became invisible in his work. The benefits of this heightened emphasis on showing rather than telling were compression or intensification and enhanced opportunity for ambiguity” (389). This is entirely what James did in Daisy Miller. The character Daisy is never actually explained through the narrators eyes, but through the eyes of Winterbourne. By doing this we don’t have a pull towards one opinion because we look through the eyes of a character, not the author. His ambiguous writing game me the opportunity to not judge Daisy right off the bat because her definition and description was never fully explained. Because of the way James wrote this story, I was literally captivated until the very end of the story. I could not put the book down, because it was through the story that I figured out who Daisy truly was, and I couldn’t figure her out until the end because no set character description was written about her. Through her actions and the things she said, I discovered that she was just a naive and innocent girl who was honestly “uncultivated” in terms of upper-class European society.

Journal for Crane & The Open Boat

Francesca Cricchio
English 48B
February 9th, 2011

“This tower was a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of nature, amid the struggles of the individual-nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did not seem cruel to him them, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise” (1013).

“Crane was himself a dashing figure, whose life was often as much of a story as anything that came from his pen.” (Biography of crane from Pearson Literature)

The story begins with four men stranded at sea. Crane depicts this unkindly event by writing, “ None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them” (Crane, 1000). Automatically the men are painted into a horrifying picture and their situation only gets worse over time. Stuck in a boat that was “not unlike a seat upon a bucking bronco” (1001) and “not much smaller”, the men take turns paddling away at the wild sea. An argument occurs between the gentlemen regarding a refuge on land that may or may not contain food and warm shelter. The men leave the result up to fate and paddle until they see the lighthouse that they think will save them. Their optimism is quickly shot down when they come closer to land, and find that there is nobody there to save them. They tirelessly turn the dingy back around and head back into the turbulent surf. As nightfall becomes close, the men see another grey shore in the distant, and this time there is somebody on land waving towards them. “Look! There’s a man on the shore!” (1007) writes Crane. The four men try to contemplate what it exactly is the figure is doing. The mens weariness quickly disappears again and their life's fate is renewed! But once again they are let down when the sun sets and nobody comes to rescue them.The men use the little energy they have left to paddle through the night, and when dawn reaches the tiny dingy in the middle of the vast sea the men decide to swim to shore with the crashing waves in sight. All four swim as hard as they possibly can, and reach shore at last. A stranger helps pull them in, but unfortunately the oiler has died on the swim in.

This story brought about a lot of grief, mainly because the situation the men were in was one that is uncontrollable. The type of writing Crane uses can be described as naturalistic because his story portrays “humans as helpless of nearly helpless victims of natural and social forces” (a quote describing Naturalism Mark Canada’s website). The battle the men face at sea is one that is against nature, and their struggle to survive pushes them to their breaking point. Their minds are constantly toyed with because in almost all situations, sailors who become shipwrecked don’t usually survive, so naturally the men in this story were struggling to maintain their composure in such a life-threatening moment. Just like realism which creates characters that are believable and in honest situations, naturalism also focuses on the thoughts of the characters. Crane did exactly this with all four men in the open boat. He writes, “He thought: ‘I am going to drown? Can it be possible? Can it be possible? Can it be possible?’ Perhaps an individual must consider his own death to be the final phenomenon of nature” (1015). It’s simple lines like these that are found throughout the entire story that are what make this event so real and honest. The simple question of asking if one is going to survive is enough to make us understand. At some point in our life we’ve all felt a moment of insecurity...of worry...of fear. Crane does an excellent job of displaying not only every emotion of the men, but also every thought of the men, so that we the readers can grasp all that is really happening, and find the story believable and true to the core.
Crane also repeats the same line several times to emphasize the importance of man reaching his breaking point. “If I am going to be drowned- if I am going to be drowned- if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?” (1011). This goes back to Crane’s style of naturalistic writing. It is the environmental factors that shape the character in naturalistic writing. By putting the men in dire situations that fight mother nature, we can determine a person’s character. The quote above is used by all the men to describe the helplessness they’ve encountered. But, the men also still have a small amount of hope instilled in them when they say “why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far”. Anyone who has given up would not waste their energy questioning the reason behind why they were where they were...they would simply give up. But because the men still wondered, it was enough to show that they still had a small amount of hope-even if they didn’t realize it.
Using naturalism and sharing everything that is thought, heard, and said, we as the readers can completely understand the realism behind these indelicate situations. I think that part of the reason why Crane was such a praised and successful writer was because books like “The Red Badge of Courage”, “Maggie”, and “The Open Boat” are honest, and real. And what’s better than reading a book that makes you feel like you are right there with the character?

Journal for Stephen Crane

Francesca Cricchio
English 48B
Journal for Crane

"Maggie"


"With lingering thoughts of the woman of brilliance and audacity, the bartender raised his head and stared through the varying cracks between the swaying bamboo doors. Suddenly the whistling pucker faded from his lips. He saw Maggie walking slowly past." (993)

"Stylistically, Crane's writing is characterized by vivid intensity, distinctive dialects, and irony. Common themes involve fear, spiritual crises and social isolation." A biography of Stephen Crane from Wikipedia.

The story opens with Jimmie, a young boy who is caught in a fight between a couple of other boys. His older buddy Pete comes along and breaks off the fight, and almost immediately after Jimmie gets in to another altercation with another boy. Jimmie’s father comes along, breaks up the fight and takes him home. On the walk home we are introduced to Jimmie’s older sister Maggie and younger brother Tommie. Maggie sees what happened to Jimmie and grows extremely worried because she knows that her mother will not be happy with him, and ultimately punish the entire family for his wrong doings. As the four enter (Father, Jimmie, Maggie, and Tommie) we are introduced to Mary who is the head of the household and also a belligerent drunk. She beats Jimmie for getting in to a fight, then later on punishes Maggie for breaking a plate, and finishes off the evening by yelling at her husband Pete until the night ends with the two parents passed out on the floor, and the children huddling for safety in the corner. The next chapters skip forward to about ten years later when the children are grown up. The father has died, and so has little Tommie. Jimmie is now a drunk and car driver, and Maggie works in a sweatshop making cuffs. Mary is now an even worse drunk and Maggie has begun dating Pete. One night Maggie and Mary get in a fight, Mary tells Maggie to “go to hell”, and Maggie leaves with pete, whom she becomes entirely dependent upon. Pete and Maggie date for a while, but then one day at the bar Pete sees an old acquaintance and leaves with her. Maggie is stunned and heads back to her home to talk to her mother and brother, but they ignore her and shun her from the home. Hopeless, she disappears on to the streets, and chapters later it is implied (but never actually stated) that Maggie is a prostitute. By the end of the novel Maggie dies, and when Jimmie goes to tell his mother of the fatal new, Mary falls into a deep pain of regret and forgives her daughter for everything she has done. Unfortunately, she forgives her too late.

I found this story to be such a tragedy. There were so many ironic situations that it almost broke my heart every time I turned the page. For starters, it was so sad what happened to Maggie and Pete. After leaving her own family to be with Pete, he leaves her for some woman, and Maggie is literally left hopeless. Ironically, Pete got his payback when his new girl, Nellie, left him all alone and hopeless as he lie passed out drunk on the floor. There was also an interesting parallel between what happened to Maggie, and what happened to Jimmie’s girlfriends. It is stated that Jimmie seduces and impregnates two women, and then leaves them without offering any support. Congruently, Pete left Maggie with no support. It was strange how both men were depicted as villains, even though one was a family member of the main protagonist. It just made the entire story even worse because Maggie’s own family members were the bad guys.
I also grew very upset with the entire irony of the argument between Maggie and Mary. Maggie, who is left homeless, heart-broken, and dirt poor, begs her mother for forgiveness and is shown no remorse. Maggie has to force herself into prostitution to stay alive, and ultimately dies from living in this environment. It isn’t until after her death that her mother shows sympathy, and by then Maggie is already gone.
The entire story is a melting pot of alcoholism, abuse, and neglect. All of the characters suffer in one way or another and many lessons are to be learned from this story. Mainly, I think that Maggie is an example of romanticism and the realities of life battle against her quest for “an upper-class life”. Her death is an example of real-life forces taking over her romantic imagination.