vivehodie's Blog

Spoon River Anthology- pg. 54

vivehodie — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:26:51 +0000

As I read about the Bliss family, I realized that the Bliss children ultimately have a conflicting inner and outer self. Their parents had a painful relationship and wanted to divorce, however, the Reverend Wiley urged them not to, “for the sake of the children”. Again, societal forces are at play here, molding the outer image of the Bliss children into what looks good and acceptable for the society. By keeping the Bliss parents by not divorcing, Revrend Wiley says he “kept the children free from that disgrace, to grow up into moral men and women, happy themselves, a credit to the village”. Clearly divorce is a taboo in Spoon River and the children of divorced parents are disgraceful and immoral. However, by not divorcing, are the Bliss children really “happy themselves”? The strains of divorce has clearly damaged and pained them throughout their childhood, creating a broken and pained inner persona throughout a facade of morality and happiness. Two of the kids sided with the mother, and the other two with the father and they “grieved for the one the sided with…and all were torn with the guilt of judging, and tortured in soul because they could not admire equally him and me”. Clearly, it’s very difficult for a child to love one more parent than another, but the war that is divorce led them to opposite sides of the battlefield, themselves racked with guilt and sorrow for choosing one and not being able to love the other equally. Ironically, as Mrs. Bliss points out, plants that grow in frigid environments become yellow and sickly, the preacher “advises the raising of souls where there is no sunlight, but only twilight, no warmth but only dampness and cold…”

Spoon River Anthology-pg. 35

vivehodie — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:27:08 +0000

After reading “Griffy the Cooper”, I realized how true it is that people often think they know other people very well, but don’t know their true nature, only their facade. “You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, in truth you are only looking around the interior of your tub. You cannot lift yourself to its rim and see the outer world of things”. Hence, people only see other individuals through the lens of societal rules and appearances that are imposed upon them by society, concealing the individual’s true inner nature from all around them. However, Griffy also makes the point that people also are not aware of even their own true inner nature, much less others. Seeing others follow societal rules and appearances, you also follow these rules imposed by society, cocealing yourself from yourself. Indeed it is impossible “to lift yourself to its [tub] rim and see the outer world of things, and at the same time see yourself”. We become so caught up in the whirlwind of appearances and rules that we forget who we really are deep inside, and these rules define the way we govern ourselves and our perception of others. We are ultimately “submerged in the tub of yourself- taboos and rules and appearances, are the staves of your tub”. Sadly, we are unable to be honest to our true nature and view others objectively, thanks to the superimposition of societal conformities upon ourselves and all those around us, ultimately rendering our whole society a phony facade.

Spoon River pg.24

vivehodie — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:15:05 +0000

In both poems of “Margaret Fuller Slack” and “George Trimble”, I noticed the general idea that society tries to impose their ideals upon individuals and manipulate their “outer self” without any regard to their innerself. In the case of Margaret, she was a talented writer who “would have been as great as George Eliot”. However, the (as she puts it) problem was what to with her outer image in the eyes of society: “should igt be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity”. Decieved by John Slack to marry him with the “promise of leisure for my novel”, she had no time to write with eight kids. By the time she cut herself with the needle (possibly as a suicide) while washing her baby’s clothes, it unfortunately was “all over with me”, both in the sense of being dead and pursuing her dreams. The irony of dyig from lock-jaw is symbolic: she was scilenced by indirect societal pressures to get married in a world that didn’t allow woman to pursue their dreams. WIth George Trimble, it is quite similar. Though involved in his community (”when Peerles Leader lost first battle, I began to talk prohibition and became active in the church?”)he, like Margaret was decived into doing it by his wife. She claimed that he must show his “morality” if he did not want to be destroyed, most likely by society. However, ultimately sucumbing to “outside forces” can backfire: he mentions that the radicals were suspicious of him, and the conservatices were unsure of him. Hence he died, brimming with resentment towards his life. Both, dying bitter and unfullfilled in their lives desires, were ultimately alienated from theirselves.

Moby-Dick Chapters 15-20

vivehodie — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:47:40 +0000

In these chapters of Moby-Dick, Ishmael’s narration continues to debunk a wide variety of religious and racial prejudices of sorts. As confused and perplexed and racist as the people of Nantucket are towards Queequeg, Queequeg himself actually holds similar views towards them. He sees his exposure to Christianity as contaminating, resulting in him not being able to ascend the throne of his country, rather than being “enlightening”. He shatters the prejudices of the captain and the passangers of the ferry by saving the boat and the person who falls in the water, no longer a “devil”. Ishmael’s ability with a harpoon overshadows his religion and results in Pelag and Bildad giving him a spot on the Pequod. Pelag himself realizes (though being a deeply devout and religous Quaker) “Pious harpooners never make good voyagers-it takes the shark out of ‘em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty sharkish”. Perhaps if the people of Nantucket put their own conditoned religous and racial prejudices aside, they would realize all the wonderful skills and traits Queequeg and all other “cannibals” posses.

Moby Dick Chapter 10-15 Reflection

vivehodie — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:27:07 +0000

What stood out most to me in Chapters 10-15 of Moby Dick was the growing bond of friendship between Queequeg and Ishmael. Instead of viewing Queequeg as “hideously marred” he grows instead to view him as a sort of “George Washington cannibalistically developed”. Indeed Ishmael comes to have a deep respect of sorts for Queequeg saying “[you] cannot hide the soul” underneath a exterior/facade of tattoos and cannibalism. Ishmael finds Queequeg’s sincerity and lack of “civilized hypocrisies” refreshing, finding him to be a genuinely kind person, as opposed to Christian kindness, which he states was “hollow courtesy”. Soon enough, as Ishmael states, the two of them are ” a cosy loving pair”, with a genuine friendship founded on respect and sharing, as evidenced by Ishmael participating in Queequeg’s “idol worship” and Queequeg giving Ishmael half of his money. There is something interesting to note about Ishmael’s participating in Queequeg’s idolatry. Ishmael claims that he is just participating in the idolatry just because he hopes Queequeg would join in Christian worship with him. Although Ishmael says he is Presbyterian, he never talks about the correctness/benefits of his own religion as opposed to Queequeg’s, hence making it obvious that he is concentrating on the unity of religion and human brotherhood as opposed to “converting” Queequeg.

Hello world!

vivehodie — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:08:43 +0000

Welcome to your brand new blog at Edublogs.

To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options available to you.

There’s stacks of great supporting material too! Take time to view our some helpful introductory videos, read through our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) or stop by The Edublogs Forums to chat with other edubloggers.

You can also subscribe to our brilliant free publication, The Edublogger, which is jammed with helpful tips, ideas and more.

And finally, if you like Edublogs but want to be able to simply create, administer, control and manage hundreds of student and teacher blogs at your school or college, check out Edublogs Campus… it’s like Edublogs in a box, all for you.

Thanks again for signing up with Edublogs!