lmsheets’s Blog

1.  …starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets…

2.  …angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly…

3.  …who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness…

4.  …who bared their brains to Heaven under El…

5.  …Who passed whrough universities with radiant cool eyes…

6.  …purgatoried their torsos night after night…

7.  …with walking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls, incomparable blind…

8.  …who chained themsleves to subways…

9.  …children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance…

10.  …memeories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks…

11.  …whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes…

12.  …Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawl…

13.  …leaving no broken hearts…

14.  …FBI in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets…

15.  …who burned cigarette holes in their arms…

16.  Who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons…

17.  …who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight…

18.  …who howled on their knees in the subway…

19.  …dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts…

20.  …who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists…

21.  …who blew and were blown by those human seraphim…

22.  …who balled in the morning in he evenings in rose gardens and the grass of public parks and cemetaries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may…

23.  …who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob…

24.  …when the blond and naked angel came to pierce them with a sword…

25.  …who copulated ecstatic and insatiated with a bottle of beer…

26.  …with a vison of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness…

27.  …flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake…

28.  …their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion…

29.  …who cooked rotten animal lung heart feet tail borsht…

30.  …who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg…

31.  …alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade…

32.  …who cut their wrist three times…

33.  …who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits…

34.  …danced on boken wineglasses barefoot…

35.  …threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steam whistles…

36.  …who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedral praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second…

37.  …who crashed through their minds…with golden heads and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues…

38.  …their hands and a hung jury…

39.  …with shaven heads…demanding instantaneous lobotomy…

40.  …who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol eletricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupation therapy pingpong and amnesia…

41.  …returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers…

42.  …bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon…

43.  …to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head…

44.  …and blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love…

45.  …butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years…

 46.  …What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains…

47.  …Moloch whose mind is pure machinery!  Moloch whose blood is running money!  Moloch whose fingers are ten armies!  moloch whose breat is a cannibal dynamo!  Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!…

48.  …Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows…

49.  …Moloch whose name is the mind…

50.  …I am a consciousness without a body…

51.  …skeleton treasuries!  blind capitals!…

52.  …granite cocks!…

53.  …They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!…

54.  …flips and crucifixions!…

55.  …Minds!…

56.  …They saw it all!  the wild eyes!…

57.  …where the faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of senses.

58.  …where you drink the tea of the breats of spinsters of Utica…

59.  …where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the harpies of the Bronx…

60.  …where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again…

61.  …and resurrect you living human Jesus…

The motif changes a couple times in the poem.  The way that I saw the body change was at first it was being abused and broken.  There was talk about burning the body, broken parts, and sodomizing.  But at the poem continued it seemed as if the body made a comeback.  After it was beaten down the body seemed to represent a sort of desparation; falling on the knees, crying, crashing.  Towards the end of the poem it seemed like the body regained strength (resurrection); however, the body and the soul were separate unlike in the beginning of the poem.

I think that the journey that the body takes is a way of showing that the body and the soul are separate from each other.  Throughout the poem we see all these horrible things happening to the body, but different things happen when refering to the soul.  I think that Ginsberg is trying to say that people can do whatever hey want to the body, but they much search for happiness within themselves.

Most people find loyalty to be a main factor when choosing friends, family members, co-workers, etc. to trust.  Loyalty is a huge factor in making most, if not all, relationships work.  It is the comforting fact that you can depend on someone, and that person can in turn depend on you, which makes loyalty such an influencial part of our lives.  But can there be such a thing as being too loyal to someone.  Is it okay to lie to someone in order to keep them from emotional, physical, or psychological pain?  Is it okay to keep that person’s secrets from their family members if that secret is putting them in harms way?  Is it okay to be so loyal to someone that it tears you apart from your family or friends, or makes you do something stupid?  There is a limit to how loyal one can be to someone else.  Eddie Carbone figures this out in the novel, “A View from the Bridge”.  In fact, it is loyalty that kills him in the end.

Loyalty plays a very important role throughout Aurthur Miller’s novel, “A View from the Bridge”.  Every character is loyal to another character within the book; Eddie is loyal to Catherine, Beatrice is loyal to Eddie, Marco is loyal to Rodolpho (and at one point to Eddie), and Rodolpho is loyal to Catherine.  Loyalty plays such a large role in this blue collar, ethnic community because during this period of time (the 1950′s) ethnic groups had to stick together to keep from failing in America.  History shows us that when immigrants of all different races came to this country they were forced to lean on each other for support because “Americans” were very prejudice.  In the case of this story, Marco and Rodolpho relied on Eddie and his family to provide them with food and shelter until they had enough money to go back to Italy or to make a life for themselves in America.  It was important that each race was loyal to their own race so that they were not deported or victimized by other races.

This is the reason why loyalty is so difficult for Eddie.  He has to choose between being loyal to his niece, someone his loves and cares deeply about, or being loyal to two strangers that are not only family, but also part of his ethnic group.  He knows that the two men, Marco and Rodolpho, are having difficult financial times in Italy, and wants to help them find their feet in America; however, Eddie is also extremely protective of Catherine especially when it comes to finding a husband for her.  If Eddie had it his way he either wouldn’t let Catherine get married, or he’d marry her himself.  The fact that Eddie can’t let Catherine grow up and finds it to be his duty to keep her safe (when she doesn’t even want him to) leads him to betray is Italian brothers and also to his death.

“Hills Like White Elephants” is a story that involves a couple considering an abortion for their unwanted pregnancy; however, it is also a story filled with feelings that are indirectly expressed.  It is obvious that the girl is against the operation, but denies her feelings in order to make the American happy.  It almost seems as if he tries to make her feel guilty in order to persuade her to stick to the operation.  He says, “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do” seeming as if he’s sensitive to the girl’s feelings.  However, I see this as if he is “showing’ her how much he cares so that she is forced into showing him how much she cares for him by aborting her pregnancy. 

At the end of the story, it seems to me as if she is upset with the situation.  She realizes that she is being forced to numb her own feelings in order to make him happy and forced to do something she doesn’t want to do to show her love for him.  The entire converstation involves her trying to convince herself that the operation is the best thing for their relationship when she should really be in touch with her own feelings.  At the end of the story she is still trying to convince herself that she is doing the right thing.  It seems as if she’s angry with the American because he keeps telling her “not to do something she doesn’t want to do” and she is annoyed because she’s already set herself on a decision and he’s making her second guess herself when she doesn want to.  She’d rather just stay numb to the whole idea, get the operation, and have things with her and the American go back to normal.  By saying “I’m fine’ twice you can tell both that she’s annoyed that that she would jest like to stop talking about it.

Dear friend-

You can’t believe where I just went!  I just got back from a virtual field trip with my Literature class to The Armory Show of 1913.  It was amazing, with a lot of different modern paintings and sculptures.  Everything was very abstract so it was interesting to try and reveal what the artist was trying to convey.  In your last letter you asked me, “What exactly makes that sutff modern?”  and I think I can finally answer your question now that I’ve gone and seen for myself what modern art is.  First of all, modern describes something that relates to recent times or the present.  This art may not seem all that recent, in fact this art was created an extremely long time ago.  However, at the time, these various artists were liberating themselves from tradition and had a more philosophical view of the world.

I found that many of the paintings that I saw had a very geometric characteristic to them.  For example, in Charles Sheeler’s painting, Landscape, the lines were rigid and each part of the painting (the house, the tree, the pathways) was a shape.  Another painting by Marcel Duchamp called, Nude descending a staircase, used the same sort of technique.  There are corners on the mountains, the sky, and even (the the case of Duchamp’s painting) on the the person!  Realistically, these things are not pointy and rigid but in fact have a certain softness in nature, so why should the artist choose to paint it this way instead?  Mondernist try to put on canvas (or sculpt) the way that people perceive something rather than focusing on a bigger picture of how the entire world seems to work.  For instance, if you were staring at Duchamp’s painting (which, at first glance, and maybe even hundreth glace you cannot see the nude) you would know by the title there was someone or something on a staircase, but seeing how it’s very abstract it would be hard to find where the artist put the nude.  However, that’s the reall beauty to this type of art.  The nude is really whereever you put him/her/it.  It’s all about how you percieve the painting and where YOU see the nude because where you may see him/her/it may not be where another person sees him/her/it.

The painting by Sheeler can be percieved the same way.  To some people the painting, Landscape, could be dreadfully ugly.  There are trees with no leaves on them, a dark sky with gloomy mountains, and a house that looks lonely.  However, to another person this painting may be serene and beautiful; a place they actually might enjoy living in.  One person’s perception of ugly may be another person’t perception of beauty.

One of the most shocking pieces of art that I saw was the sculpture by Eberle called, White Slave.  It’s a very violent and degrading piece of work that, for me, really hits hard.  When it comes to modern art or literature of this time period you must believe that there is a meaning behind what you are seeing/reading.  Just like the poem, In a Station at the Metro by Ezra Pound, there is something more that is being said behind the words that are written; and there is more behind this sculpture than just the sculpture itself.  I think Eberle meant for this sculpture to be outrageously shocking to to public so that the human trafficking industry was looked at in a different way; to make people see the reality, the pain, and the disgusting nature of the practice.

Overall, the trip was fantastic.  The pieces definitely made you think beyond just the painting and sculpture and made you ask yourself, “why would the artist do it this way?  What is s/he trying to say?” (which was the whole general idea behind modern artwork).  Going on this little trip makes you perceive things differently and think about the way others perceive the same things that you see.  It makes me realize that everything, even in reality, is abstract.  Everyone will see the tree in the distance.  However, no one person will percieve it the same and that to me is a very interesting concept.  Well I got to go, I’m off to the MOMA now!

Love,

ME!

Dreiser’s narrator has made it a pont to play a prominent rle in the book; but why?  A lot of what he is saying may seem like jibberish, and I’m sure a lot of people have scanned  over his thoughts; however, reading his opinions and thoughts throughout the story will not only explain the events that are happening, but also the characters’ personalities and events to come.

In the excerpt given, the narrator talks about the situation that is unfolding between Carrie and Hurstwood.  At this point, Hurstwood  has just left the family Carrie has yet to find out about, Drouet now knows about Carrie and Hurstwood’s meetings, and Carrie and Hurstwood are planning to run away and get married.  However, Carrie is suddenly having second thoughts about everything; how it will affect her reputation, if she was doing the right thing, and if she is with the right person. The narrator digs deep into the psychy of women stating that they are confused when it comes to love; that they one think that they are in love.  He also talks about how men like Hurstwood are distracted by a woman’s beauty and youth. 

Dreiser’s narrator also foreshadows future events in this passage, specifically in the last paragraph.  When he talks of women being confused and men like Hurstwood becoming distracted he foreshadows that fact that Carrie and Hurstwood’s relationship will fail.  He makes it known that both are blind to the feelings of the other and that they are imagining love.  Hurstwood and Carrie and acting on a whim of lust instead of logically which contrasts with the narrator’s personality.

We find in this passage, as well as many others, that the narrator is a logical, rational, judgemental, and educated.  His sentence structure and words make his education obvious, and the way that he not only foreshadows dramatic events, but the way he looks down upon women in this passage (stating things like, “women often do this.”) shows his harsh judgements for the characters in the story.  His logical/rational senses contrasts with the characters who act so completely irrationally, making the narrator seem “better than them” or higher in power; almost like a God.  In a sense, that is what he is since he is the creator of the story.  The characters are victims in the narrators story and he can play them anyways he likes. 

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is a bedridden wife and mother who is trapped in a room within a house.  Her husband, a physician, believes that she is not physically, but mentally, suffering from a nervous disorder and orders her to be bed ridden.  The narrator passes her time with writing and trying to solve a puzzle within the yellow wallpaper that plasters the room.  Towards the end of the story it seems as if the narrator may be getting better.  She writes in a couple entries about how she’s feeling so much better than she was.  However, we also see as the readers that she is slowly heading on a downward slope to becoming even more insane.  At the end of the story it seems as if she has completely flown off the deep end and her husband is at his wits end resulting in him fainting.

However, this end scene represents both a victory and a defeat for the narrator.  She is victorious in that she is finally free both physically and mentally from the room that tourtures her so.  Physically she is finally able to do what she wants whether that be writing, walking on the long path, or taking care of her child.  She no longer has to hide her hobby in the nursery she was kept in.  She is finally away from the horrid yellow wallpaper that disgusted her. Mentally she is freed from the torment of trying to help the woman out of the wall.  She is no longer trapped and forced to stare and analyze the patterns within the paper that drive her even crazier.

The defeat is much more realistic (for lack of a better word).  In the end it is revealed that she is the same psychotic woman that she started off to be if not worse.  Her husband, who believed that she was doing so much better, faints in disbelief that she has only gotten worse.  Because of her condition we know that after the story she will have no husband or child and will most likely be sent away.  It’s a disheartening ending and i think as readers we sympathize with her because through the story we thought she was getting better, and the end reveals the complete opposite.

They shut me up in Prose–

• Prose: ordinary spoken language with no pattern; as opposed to poetry
• Poem and poetry used to tell
• How do you “shut one up in prose”?
• Shut up as in to quiet?  Shut up as in to lock up?

As when a little Girl

• When she was younger
• Why capitalization? (importance?)
• to shut up a little girl is to possibly punish

They put me in a Closet–

• In a closed and very small space (dark)
• representation of the “house”
• literally?
• symbolism for trapped

Because they liked me “still”–

• Time period: little girls were supposed to be proper, expected to sit still
• “still” in quotes because she could never be still mentally

Still!  Could themselves have peeped–

• emphasis on still because although her body is still her mind still works
• themselves meaning parents, elders, autority figures who put her in the closet
• Outside elements (people) can not see within her

And seen my Brain–go round–

• Symbolism of freedom
• She escapes the closet by using her active mind

They might as wise have lodged a Bird

• Birds symbolize freedom and flight
• She can escape/fly to where ever she wants with an active mind

For Treason–in the Pound–

• relating the bird to herself
• to put a bird in a pound for treason is like her being punished for not being still
• trapping a bird takes away it’s freedom

Himself has no will

• when bird is trapped he has no will to fly
• when she is trapped she literally has no movement

And easy as a Star

• How can something be as easy as a star?
• A star can never be trapped or caught
• No one can take away the freedom she has in her mind

Abolish his Captivity–

• The bird frees himself
• She frees herself through her mind

And laugh–No more have I–

• She no longer laughs?
• Because the bird is free he laughs but she is still trapped?

I thought that it was surprising that Dickenson’s poems, although somewhat morbid, and sad a lot of the time, still relates to Whitman and Emerson’s ideas of the house.  There is still a strong sense of being trapped in this poem just as Whitman and Emerson felt societies were trapped by culture.  Dickenson also relates her being trapped to that of a trapped bird which is a part of nature.  She emphasizes that although one may be physically trapped, mentally they are always free.  People should be able to use their minds to free themselves from the norm and to create new and orginal ideas and thoughts which goes back to Whitman’s idea of getting rid of institutions and books. 

Whitman uses “I” in two different situations throughout the poem; one to relate to the river that he is crossing, and the other to the people who are crossing with him.  The Hudson river poses difficulties for Whitman just because he is crossing from one place to the other.  He is stuck between two place; neither here nor there.  There is also something so boring, yet so interesting about the journey between these two places; Manhattan and Brooklyn.  The nature around him is always the same no matter how many times he crosses back and forth; however, there is something so serene which Whitman describes.  There is something so beautiful about the seagulls floating the in the sky, the “tall masts of Mannahatta”, and the “beautiful hills of Brooklyn”. 

Likewise, the people who are crossing with Whitman on the ferry are both boring and “normal”, but there is a certain beuaty that Whitman sees in not knowing these people; wanting to get to know each of these people.  He wonders about the people who are on this journey; where they are going, what they are like, and the similarities that are shared between all of them.  He wonders what is truely between them if not the river which they are crossing together.  He finds joy in being surrounded by these crowds of people just as he is surrounded by the river, and ultimately nature. 

In the end Whitman is not posed with a problem, but instead an acceptance.  He finds beauty in commuting, which most people just find irritating.  He opens his eyes and looks at all the nature and different, unknown people that surround him.  He longs to talk to them and share his soul, his stories, his nature with them. 

I actually really enjoyed this activity because it gave us all a chance to explore a new way to look at Whitman.  I think we all get used to not seeing pictures in books and poems especially in college, but this was a way to see everyones interpretations.  I think it also made it easier to understand Whitman’s language.  It is not always easy for people to read and interpret poetry, so this helped in a visual way.  It also wasn’t a brain dead assignment.  We all needed to put thought into the picture that we chose and then justify it.  I liked this a lot because it wasn’t like you could just put any picture up.  You really needed to read and interpret the section of your choice before you picked a photograph. 

I really didn’t dislike anything about this assignment.  There was nothing that could be considered wrong because it was all based off of how the person interpreted ther lines.  I also liked it because it was short (and considering that many of us are busy with other classes it’s nice to have an assignment that doesn’t take up all your time), but it also made people think in a creative way, which is the point that Emerson brings up. 

I didn’t nescessarily learn anything new about Whitman’s poem.  However, seeing the pictures instead of just words helped me to visualize what was happening in the poem which I think helps in interpretting the poem thoroughly.  The only thing that I would change about this assignment is that I wish that the poem (both words and pictures) were printed out and discussed in class.  I think it would’ve been really neat to see what it looked like after everyone had put in their picture. 

“Loafe with me on the grass . . . . loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want . . . . not custom or lecture, not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.”

I chose this image because of the sensual feeling I got from Emerson’s tone.  Not only did Emerson emphasize nature, but more so, he described his and actions with “you” in nature.  I thought this image captured the essence of the lines above for a couple of reasons.   First, I wanted to find a picture that conveyed the relaxed and loving feeling in this quote.  “Loafe with me on the grass…” presents a setting that is laid back and intimate between two people.  I felt that there was a strong bond between the two people laying on the grass and I felt that this picture presented that.  The fact that the rest of the quote describes how much the one person wants to just hear the others voice sets the tone for a loving relationship between the two people.  For someone to say that they want to hear nothing but the “hum of [a person's] valved voice” is a romantic and intimate to say to another person, and is usually only said to a lover.  This picture is one that captures a very intimate moment between two lovers in nature, something that I felt Emerson was describing throughout his poem.