Author: Susan Anderson

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While I absolutely found this novella more difficult to digest than Daisy Miller, I found the messaging about love and fate fascinating. I was particularly struck by a line that I think captured the nature of Marcher’s relationship with May Bartram, in which the narrator says “She only kept him waiting, however; that is he only waited” (328). The distinction between the notion of May being in control of Bartram’s actions versus the reality of Marcher waiting without having a reason to signifies how Bartram’s own ideas of the spectacular event or catastrophe headed his way blinds him to the life and love available to him. Ultimately, the idea of May keeping him waiting in ignorance to his fate presents how his obsession with answers hindered him from taking May at her word and moving on.
I also think that this line could signify the consistent instances of miscommunication between May and John, as they both have unfinished conversations that falter and resume, such as when John failed to address the question of whether or not he was afraid, and how May avoided the question of what saves her. I also found the notion of John’s burden becoming May’s burden as particularly interesting and reflective of the closeness of their relationship, while the emphasis on differentiation between her reaction and John’s reaction to sharing a life reflects their individual perceptions of their relationship. For example, John feared opening up his life and secret to another as he regards, “His conviction, his apprehension, his obsession, in short, wasn’t a privilege he could invite a woman to share; and that consequence of it was precisely what was the matter with him”. Such a description implies that his self-restraint and guilt regarding his burden of information serves as his biggest obstacle whereas May is willing to open up to his faults in order to spend a life with him. The narrator juxtaposes John’s stress with May’s perspective, saying, “She at least never spoke of the secret of his life except as ‘the real truth about you,’ and she had in fact a wonderful way of making it seem, as such, the secret of her own life too” (315). As the omniscient narrator acknowledges the ease in which May adopts John’s experiences, her love and compassion shines through whereas John remains at arm’s length. In this way, there is irony in John supposing for the latter half of their relationship that May is withholding the truth about his consequence, since he fails to open up to her and ultimately prevents true love and happiness within his life, wasting away without really living.

Loading Likes... I thoroughly enjoyed the imagery in Dickinson’s poem 656. I was first fascinated by the similarities between poem 466 in which the voice spends time focusing on the allusions to a house. I enjoy the notion of structure and division presented by a house and its floors; the notion of Mermaids in the basement and war ships on the upper floor feels very whimsical. I was curious about the personification of the Tide as Dickinson emphasizes how the sea is male, while I typically think of the ocean and the tide being feminized in literature. I wondered if there could be a sexual interpretation of this poem, as the speaker describes the tide moving around her body and meaning to consume her entirely. However, I found beauty in the final lines: “No One He Seemed to know – / And bowing – with a Mighty look – / At me – The Sea withdrew – “ (Dickinson 22-24). The idea of the sea offering respect despite its might presents a coexistence with the speaker and the natural world. The idea of the ocean becoming timid on solid ground continues the whimsical and puerile nature of the poem.
I think that the speaker’s infusion of childlike whims and qualities to the poem in its imagery and personification of the natural world creates a curious tone throughout. The idea of being perceived by mermaids and ships as well as the tide seems to subvert the experience of going out into nature to observe and appreciate the natural world. Instead, with the speaker as the subject, humans become the focal point of interest among the world in which they inhabit. The idea of the speaker presumed to be a mouse by the “Frigates” possibly reinforces the minute importance of land animals relative to the prowess and might of the sea.
Knowing how inland Amherst is in Massachusetts, I wonder if Dickinson spent much time at all by the sea, and if not, she seems to have nailed the experience of the Massachusetts beaches.

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While reading “The Loophole of Retreat” chapter in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, I found myself interested in the scene in which Jacobs compares her experience to that of other slaves, saying that:

It seemed horrible to sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without one gleam of light. Yet I would have chosen this, rather than my lot as a slave, though white people considered it an easy one; and it was so compared with the fate of others. I was never cruelly overworked; I was never lacerated with the whip from head to foot; I was never so beaten and bruised that I could not turn from one side to the other; I never had my heel-strings cut to prevent my running away; I was never chained to a log and forced to drag it about, while I toiled in the fields from morning till night; I was never branded with hot iron, or torn by bloodhounds. On the contrary, I had always been kindly treated, and tenderly cared for, until I came into the hands of Dr. Flint. I had never wished for freedom till then. But though my life in slavery was comparatively devoid of hardships, God pity the woman who is compelled to lead such a life! (Jacobs 137-138)

I found the allusion to white people’s shock as the first striking aspect of this passage, as Jacobs frames the perpetual disconnect between white people and the suffering of slaves. The notion that her experience in slavery, marked by sexual abuse, mental torment, and extreme restrictions on her way of life could be considered “an easy one” echoes the detachment and judgement passed by non-slaves on the relative experience of those enslaved. While Jacobs then distinguishes between her limited experience with physical abuses of slavery and her own mental duress, the power in her analysis lies in the fact that both prove insufferable and inhumane. Although she concedes that she had been treated relatively well while she was young, the relativity proves that as nice as she might have been treated, she was still considered property. Such a comparison underlines the truth in the essential inhumanity and indisputable horrors of slavery, whether it takes shape in outright physical abuse or sexual and mental abuse.

I find that this scene potentially echoes our class discussion regarding Jacobs’ censorship of her own experiences; conceding that she never faced the horrors of plantation slavery abuses, such as those referenced in Douglass’s work, but still validating her own suffering. In justifying her running away and living in darkness rather than under the same roof as the abuses of Dr. Flint, Jacobs seems to be convincing the readership of the horrors of her experience without explicitly mentioning the physical abuse in her domestic setting as she doesn’t measure it to the physical abuse of other slaves.

I interpreted this scene as a claim that gauging who is more oppressed of one slave to the other distracts from the ultimate and important truth that slavery as a whole defines oppression and must be eliminated in all forms, whether physical, emotional, or mental abuses.

Loading Likes... I found the scene in which Eliza tells Tom that Mr. Shelby has sold him and Harry particularly moving, especially the apostrophe to the reader, as the narrator says:

“Sobs, heavy, hoarse and loud, shook the chair, and great tears fell through his fingers on the floor; just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries of your dying babe. For, sir, he was a man,—and you are but another man. And, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life’s great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow!” (Stowe 44)

The insertion of “sir” and “woman” serves as a stark address to the reader in an effort to appeal to their sympathy regarding the gut-wrenching sorrow felt by Tom upon discovering that his entire world has become uprooted as he has been sold to the trader. I found this approach to pathos interesting as Stowe has already developed the appeal to saving one’s child through Eliza’s actions in more subtle ways; both Mrs. Shelby and Eliza acknowledge the horror of the notion of Harry being stripped from his mother’s arms. However, Stowe refrains from drawing the reader in until she presents the pain felt by Uncle Tom upon discovering his fate. I wonder if this signifies Stowe’s recognition that a white reader might already understand the sorrows of losing a child, but could not fathom the inhumanity of discovering that one’s own flesh has been sold to another human. Stowe’s reference to the “silk and jewels” of a wealthier reader also subverts the idea of differences based on wealth in addition to race, revealing that central to humanity is a shared understanding of pain.

Loading Likes... While reading this story, I was struck by the recurring references to food. Upon initial introduction, the nicknames Turkey and Ginger Nut stood out as obvious references, and even Nippers is characterized with his indigestion. While Ginger Nut roots in his consistent task of collecting cakes for the office, I found that Turkey’s nickname was curious as it seemed to evoke his overall grubbiness and haughty personality.
The narrator regards Turkey with disdain at moments, saying, “I had much ado to keep him from being a reproach to me. His clothes were apt to look oily and smell of eating houses” (Melville 1473). While Turkey remains set in his ways, the narrator takes issue with his habits, bothered by “his moistening a ginger-cake between his lips, and clapping it on to a mortgage for a seal. I came within an ace of dismissing him then” (1474). Such potent food imagery connotes a type of greediness and obnoxiousness that forms the image of the narrator’s workers prior to Bartleby. Amid the chaos of the food habits and changing moods of his workers, the narrator finds a moment of reprieve in Bartleby as a less forward and enigmatic addition to his day.
In fact, instead of physical food, the narrator remarks that instead, Bartleby acted “as if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion” (1475). Such food-focused language reinforces a pleasant shift from the grossness of actual consumption to Bartleby’s dedication to his work compared to the others. However, as the narrator continues to interact with Bartleby and discover more about his more than reluctant nature, the food references wane. While the narrator remarks that he had never seen Bartleby actually eat, Bartleby becomes more and more distinct and inhuman compared to the rest of the workers.
Ultimately, the lack of hunger or drive represented by Bartleby’s reluctance to get dinner, as distinguished by the grub-man in prison, presents Bartleby’s stationary and immoble character. Never as greedy or intense as the other workers, perhaps the comparison to food presents how Bartleby lacked the capacity to work on Wall-Street while he instead just wanted to survive and get by. His desire to remain stationary by the end distinguishes him from the cut-throat nature of the other copiers, who were quick to call him bizarre and encourage the narrator to cut him as dead weight.
Even the narrator acknowledges that Bartleby “lives without dining” (1494), reaffirming the notion that Bartleby lacked the tendency to indulge himself more than just exist as a passive and enigmatic presence in the narrator’s office.

Loading Likes... I focused particularly on the scene in which Mr. Dimmesdale, Hester, and Pearl stand on the scaffold together, following which Mr. Dimmesdale and Hester experienced a momentary transformation of their shame into sympathy from others. While on the scaffold, Mr. Dimmesdale’s hand on his heart and Hester’s letter serve as poignant reminders of their shame, the notion of Pearl serving as a “connecting link” (510) between the two as the sun rose served as a shift in their sentiments toward their situation. Culminating with a meteorological phenomena of light (a recurring image of epiphany within Dimmesdale and Hester’s relationship) and the entrance of Roger Chillingworth, the shared experience of standing on the scaffold, once in darkness and then in light, seems to mark a release in the pent-up guilt shared by Dimmesdale and Hester.
Immediately after the scaffold scene, Mr. Dimmesdale delivers a sermon that “was held to be the richest and most powerful, and the most replete with more souls than one, that had ever proceeded from his lips” (512). Only after trying to expose himself on the scaffold and bask in his guilt does the minister reach the souls of others. The power of his words stretching into the hearts of others reinforces a margin of success in his goal of repenting such sin, but quickly dissipates when his glove is returned under the idea of Satan having put it on the scaffold. Each gain in his own experience as a minister is undercut by the persistence of his guilt. While trying to distance himself from standing on the scaffold as a “visionary” night (512), the truth of Dimmesdale’s misdeeds follows him. Ultimately, such shame and secrecy proves to factor into his end.
While Dimmesdale evokes sympathy from his congregation after facing his guilt (if only for a moment) by standing alongside Hester and Pearl, Hester’s reputation develops into a more aiding figure. The transformation of “Such helpfulness was found in her… that many people refused to interpret the Scarlet A by its original signification. They said it meant Able…” (514). While Hester remains largely unchanged in her behavior, not even acknowledging the shift around her, society transforms her from its victim to another member, a more subtle change as Hester’s suffering subsides with new sympathy rather than heighten, as Dimmesdale’s does.

Loading Likes... While reading the preface, I found myself interested in Douglass’s testimony, in which he stated that “A slaveholder’s profession of Christianity is a palpable imposture. He is a felon of the highest grade. He is a man stealer. It is of no importance what you put in the other scale” (1168). Particularly the term “man-stealer” which to me, proves more effective of a title rather than “slaveholder.” The idea of holding a slave connotes a privilege and duty being held. I remember hearing something about a movement from denoting victims of slavery as “slaves” to “enslaved people” and I find that it has a similar gut wrenching effect of emphasizing the humanity behind the titles. In a similar vein, Garrison’s questioning of the reader regarding whether or not they will side with “Human flesh-mongers” (1172) was particularly impactful. I find that such use of epithets accurately portrays a person-first discussion surrounding slavery, rather than separating the act of enslaving people from the title with terms such as “master” and “slaveholder.” Looking online, this article from the National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/language-of-slavery.htm#:~:text=or%20legal%20decisions.-,Enslaved%20Person,or%20loved%20ones%2C%20or%20death.) references the use of the terms “enslaver” and “enslaved people” as a way of putting humanity central to the identities of those involved in slavery. I find the idea of changing the narrative around slavery simply through word choice fascinating, as applied by both Garrison and Douglass in their abolitionist efforts.

Loading Likes... While initially intrigued by the title of this story (why would people ever again use the term “stolen” when they could always say “purloined”), I was engaged throughout the story as I noticed tropes of detective stories originating from Poe’s work. I particularly enjoyed the image of the calm and collected Detective Dupin, claiming immediately of the ease of the case described by the rattled and rather arrogant Prefect. Particularly the quote involving the several “puffs” out of Dupin’s cigar, the image of a calculating and cunning detective with the parallel of the gullible and discombobulated police officer immediately struck me with familiarity. Such tropes are echoed in modern works such as Knives Out. Such structure of characters allowed Poe to effectively present his own voice through Dupin’s, distinguished by Dupin’s dialogue and the narrator’s interjections and reactions, furthering the story along.
Even with Dupin as the speaker, I wonder if Poe inserted his own voice, as the detective used obscure allusions to Latin as well as historic texts, up until the very end with a reference to Classical stories in his fac-simile. In addition, Dupin’s effusive praise of poets and their cunning nature seems a bit strange for a detective to elaborate upon, but characteristic of the author. Poe also managed to insert a characteristic interest in architecture with the exchange between Dupin and the Prefect about the hotel search. While potentially effective in using exhaustive description to present the exhaustive search undergone by the police, the cluttered and largely inconsequential imagery seemed very characteristic of Poe’s writing.
Propping open the answer to the “Who dunnit” in the first paragraphs, as well as revealing the knowledge of Dupin early in the story, created an effectively entertaining piece for Poe’s audience.

Loading Likes... I am not sure if it was Emerson’s flowing, sermon-like syntax, his memorable one-liners “Goodness must have some edge to it” (219) or the fact that I still feel like a college freshman figuring out my life, but “Self-Reliance” moved me more than his other works thus far. I found myself engaged and agreeing with Emerson’s notions of self-confidence and individuality. Through his allusions to “greats” of history such as Plato and Milton, I felt Emerson’s passion in emphasizing the importance of being true to one’s own ideas despite society’s standards. I felt particularly moved by Emerson’s defense of youth. Although they may not level up to the opinions and eloquence of older generations, Emerson says to not count them out. As someone who was once (still is) “that very lump of bashfulness and phlegm for which weeks has done nothing but eat when you were by, that now rolls out these words like bell-strokes,” I appreciated this representation. Although I relate less to being a “sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont,” I am endeared by the notion of having many chances in life rather than being defined by a singular moment in the past(228). The notion of “self-trust” and certainty that things will work out also seems to come with the added perk of making “his name dear to all History” (228).
Additionally, I am a strong proponent of letting “words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward” (222). In particular, throughout the beginning of my college experience I caught myself self-editing and undercutting my own ideas before I could express them. Whether meeting new people or speaking in new situations, I found that carefully crafted ideas often hindered myself from freer expression. I interpret Emerson’s ideas as encouragement to just chat freely, which I think is liberating. Furthermore, I think I could benefit from channeling Emerson’s attitude that “What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think” (219). Part of me wonders if this essay emerged in some sort of frustrated stream-of-consciousness after Emerson spent too much time with old-fashioned or ostentatious intellectuals of the 1800s. Whether or not that is the case, I appreciate his call to subvert conformity. I can’t imagine Emerson wasn’t a bit of a quirky fella himself, and I find that idea reinforced in his direct call-out of conformists in this essay.
Perhaps I catered heavily to my “creative reading” of this essay by focusing solely on what applied to my current situation and sentiments, but I appreciated “Self-Reliance” as a reminder to remain true to myself. Emerson writes, “But do your thing, and I shall know you” (220). To that I say, “Thanks Emerson, I will.”