Journal for Whitman

Francesca Cricchio
Journal for Whitman
English 48B
March 8, 2011

“ What is it then between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? Whatever it is, it avails not- distance avails not, and place avails not,” (lines 54-56, page 23)

“Whitman had a strong belief that nature was the root of all beautiful things, whether it was the smell of a flower, or the light of the moon anything that was natural had internal beauty and thereby had the possibility to make humanity beautiful.  In many of his poems Whitman depicts that nature is what depicts the true soul of a man and has the power to both display it and control it.” (Biography of Whitman from Montana Academy.edu)

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” is a poem written to everyone and addresses the theme of time and experience. Whitman is leaning against the boats railing and observing all that is surrounding him. He talks about the natural beauty of waves, and of the beauty of man-made objects.


I thought that Whitman’s style in writing this poem was very helpful in supporting his theme of everlasting time. Overall, he is trying to emphasize that this experience he is having is a shared one among generations passed and generations to come. By addressing man-made objects vaguely, we as the reader have no real pull on the time period of when the poem was written, and so we can relate to it without feeling like it isn’t of our time because of industrialization (or lack thereof). Instead, he chooses to focus on nature because of the fact that it is never changing. He talks about the waves breaking on the boat, and how at some point another person will come along (or has already come along) and share this same observation. “The sea gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay boat in the twilight” (page 24, line 96) writes Whitman. This emphasis on water and the surrounding environment is repeated throughout Whitman’s entire poem, and it’s a useful tool in creating a common ground.
Whitman’s ability to create a bond between men and women of all ages and generations is a powerful skill. Although this was written decades ago, I feel like Whitman is talking to me in this day and age. His observation is clear and I did not envision what the people were wearing of the time or what the city looked like of the time. Instead I envisioned the sunset, and I felt the similarities Whitman was talking about.

Journal for Chopin (pt.3)

Francesca Cricchio
Journal for Chopin
English 48 B
March 4, 2011

“Madame Charleville knew all about the strongest motives of human existence: greed, power, lust, and maternal love. But the greatest lesson, one her great-granddaughter repeated so tellingly in her later stories, was that a woman had to be independent.” (From Emily Toth reading)

“Since Chopin's works contain clear elements of romanticism, transcendentalism, realism, naturalism, existentialism, and feminism, her stories can help students understand these literary modes and the directions in which American literature has developed during the last century and a half. Chopin's style offers opportunities to point out the virtues of conciseness; strong, clear imagery; symbolism; understatement; humor; and irony.” (Bio of Chopin from Georgetown.edu)

Both biographies, “Unveiling Kate Chopin” and “Kate Chopin as Feminist” reveal the life of legendary writer Chopin, and give descriptive detail about Kate’s childhood and later years. In “Unveiling Kate Chopin” Toth describes Chopin’s childhood years and discusses some of the events that helped influence and shape her stories. Toth also talks about Chopin’s ancestry of strong, independent women. After the tragic death of her father, Chopin is brought home by her mother and then on raised by her family of women. In “Kate Chopin as Feminist”, Marquand writes a comparative essay about Chopin’s story “Her Letters” and how it is influenced by French author, Guy de Maupassant.

I found Toth’s biography of Chopin to be very interesting and after reading her story I found several similarities between Chopin’s personal life and the character Edna in The Awakening. For starters, I thought it was clever how Chopin’s story was circled around a woman finding independence in herself, and rejecting societies expectations of woman of that time. Much like Kate’s mother (Eliza), Edna becomes further apart from her husband because he leaves town for business (the only contrast is Eliza’s husband dies), and from this separation both women gain a strong sense of self-respect and individualism. I also thought it was very interesting how Chopin incorporated a “mammy” (slave/nanny) much like the one she had when she was growing up into the Awakening. Chopin almost saw her “mammy” as a second mother, and the closeness between the two resonates in to The Awakening. Edna’s two children are almost always with the nanny, and not their actual mother, and I think that Chopin was really saying something about her home life when creating that character. Finally, I thought it was interesting how Chopin incorporated her love and talent for music into her story. Toth states that Chopin was very fond of music, and by adolescence she could play “any song by ear”. This love for music is clearly evident in The Awakening when Edna has a small revelation during Madame Reisz’s piano performance.
It is interesting how much you can discover about a story when reading about the author. The slightest things that almost go by notice can actually mean a lot more when you look at a story through the eyes of the author.

Journal for Chopin (pt.2)

Francesca Cricchio
Journal for Chopin (pt.2)
English 48B
March 3, 2011

“She did not look back now, but went on and on, thinking of the bluegrass meadow that she had traversed when a little child, believing that it had no beginning and no end” (625).
“Unlike many of the feminist writers of her time who were mainly interested in improving the social conditions of women, she looked for an understanding of personal freedom that questioned conventional demands of both men and women. Additionally, she did not limit her exploration of freedom to physical emancipation (i.e., husbands controlling wives through the traditional expectations of motherhood), but also intellectual autonomy (i.e., women having political opinions taken seriously).” (Biography of Chopin from Classic Literature.com)

In the second part of the Awakening Edna begins a spiral of downward selfishness when she chooses to move out of her beautiful home and in to a “pigeon house” around the block. She throws a dinner party celebrating her 29th birthday, and move into her new home. Edna pays a few visits to Madame Ratignolle and eventually finds out that Robert is planning to move back to New Orleans. Edna also discovers that Robert has been writing to Madame Ratignolle (mainly about Edna). Edna is overwhelmed with emotion, and she runs in to him a few days after his return. She confesses her love for him, and he does in return. Edna fantasizes about running away with Robert, but her dream is cut short when she is interrupted with the news that her friend, Adele, is giving birth to her child and she requests the company of Edna. She adamently goes but promises Robert a quick return. Edna stays by Adele’s side and is horrified with the painful birth she see’s. Afterwards Edna returns to Robert’s place only to find that he has gone and left a note saying he loves her and goodbye. Edna heads to the beach, undresses, and swims out to deep water where she becomes overwhelmed and drowns.

In the beginning of the story I had sympathy towards Edna, because I thought that she was just an innocent woman who had lost her sense of self with the marriage of her husband and birth of her two children, but as I finished the story I was left feeling less pity towards her because of her reckless actions and childlike decisions. I do admire Edna’s courageousness and willingness to go against the norms of society, but often times I didn’t think that Edna felt remorse or considered the repercussions of the things she did. She was almost like a child in this “awakening” and failed to consider the emotions of anyone around her. For instance, while Edna’s husband is away for work, Edna decides to have an affair with another man, and fantasize about Robert. She feels no pity or guilt for thinking about other men this way, and even writes to her husband as if everything in their marriage is A-okay! Chopin writes, “Edna wrote a charming letter to her husband, telling him of her intention to move for a while into the little house around the block, and give a farewell dinner before leaving” (599). I find it ridiculous and so selfish that Edna would send such a devastating letter to her caring husband in such “cheerfulness”. She does not at all consider the feelings of her husband, and moves out of her home without even talking to him about it. Furthermore, Edna is selfish in the sense that she never really cares for a children. In fact, the children are hardly ever mentioned in the story, and when they are...the dialogue usually consists of the children entering and Edna exciting shortly after! Without any remorse, Edna ships her children off to their grandmothers, and when she leaves after visiting them she feels a sort of cheerfulness! Any sane mother would feel devastated to have to leave her children, but like the selfish woman that she is, Edna feels happy (almost like she is fulfilling her “duty” as a mother).
Overall, I saw several instances of selfishness and immaturity through Edna, and I didn’t feel much remorse for her in the final scene of the “awakening”.

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).