HE111W, Rhetoric and Introduction to Literature
Spring Semester, AY2012

Primary Texts

The Hudson Book of Fiction
Othello (Penguin)
Death of a Salesman (Penguin)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Signet)

The Longman Handbook

P   O   S   T   I   N   G   S

1. Agreement problems and paragraph development (click)

2. Assignment for Paper #1 (click)

3. Expectations for Revised Paragraphs due 3 Feb (click)

4. Sample successful paragraph from first submission (click)

5. To be verb practice page (click)

6. Assignment for Paper #2 (click)

7. Sample paragraphs from President’s Day writing (click)

8. Sample successful paragraph on “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (click)

9. Successful student paper on Assignment #2 (click)

10. Assignment for Paper #3 (click)

11. Successful student papers on Assignment #3 (click)

12. Assignment for Paper #4 (click)

WEEK	DAY	READING	TOPICS AND ACTIVITIES
WK1	Jan 10	Introduction to Course	Diagnostic writing
	Jan 11	Hudson:  "A & P," 211	Basics of reading fiction
	Jan 13	Longman: pp. 52-64	In-class writing; sharpening and shaping paragraphs
WK 2	Jan 16	NO CLASS-KING’S BIRTHDAY	Write a paragraph on something
	Jan 18	Hudson:  "Everyday Use," 239	Narrative point of view and "meaning"; read paragraphs
	Jan 20	Longman: pp. 52-64 (again); grammar problems; pp. 498-99	Sharpening and shaping paragraphs; grammar
WK 3	Jan 23	Hudson:  "Gimpel the Fool," 182; agreement problems and paragraphs (click)	More practice with reading narrative
	Jan 25	Longman: 500-01; 547-52; 560-61;564-68 (pronouns--(click here click here and click here); wordiness--click )	Assign Paper #1(click)
	Jan 27	Hudson:  "Young Goodman Brown," 1	Setting and meaning; point of view; disillusionment
WK 4	Jan 30	Bring "Ads"; Longman: Chapter 3 and pp. 213-218	Brainstorming for Paper #1
	Feb 1	Hudson:  "Araby," 58	Epiphany; imagery and setting
Paragraphs due click	Feb 3	Longman: pp. 65-67; 126-28	Work on drafts of paper #1; opening and closing paragraphs
WK 5	Feb 6	Hudson:  "The Cask of Amontillado," 11	Self-exposing (self-deceptive?) narration
	Feb 8	Hudson:  "The Bride Comes to a Yellow Sky," 29	Narrative details; tone  (Quiz)
Paper #1 Due	Feb 10	Longman: pp. 76-77; 69-70; 73-74	In-class editing (click); in class writing about your experience of writing paper #1
WK 6	Feb 13	Hudson:  "The Storm," 38; Longman: 553-63	Natural description as meaning; To be verb practice (click)
	Feb 15	Longman: 208-13 (organization of literary analysis)	Discuss Paper #2; in class writing--paragraph on passage
	Feb 17	Hudson: "A Rose for Emily," 160	Narrative organization, plot
WK 7	Feb 20	NO CLASS—WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY	Write a paragraph on something
Re-write due	Feb 22	Hudson:  "Hills Like White Elephants," 149	Dialogue as story-telling
	Feb 24	Hudson: "The Rocking Horse Winner," 137	Romance genre in the short story
WK 8	Feb 27	Longman: 192-93; 208-13	Bring to class drafts of Paper #2; avoiding summary
	Feb 29	Hudson: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," 193	Radical Christianity as realism
	Mar 2	Open	Open
WK 9 Paper #2 Due	Mar 5	Longman: 603-607, 77-80, 498ff.	Review matters of grammar and style; construct individual style and grammar lists; in-class editing click
	Mar 7	Hudson:  "The Things They Carried," 280	Story-telling as theme; war (Quiz)
	Mar 9	View Scenes from Othello	Sense of Drama
WK10	Mar12-Mar16	NO CLASS—SPRING BREAK	R&R
WK11	Mar 19	Othello (Act 1)	Love and war; insider and outsider
	Mar 21	Othello (finish reading/studying the play)	Men vs. women
	Mar 23	Othello	Ending; tragedy?
WK12	Mar 26	Othello	Dumb as dirt?; images; discuss Paper Assignment #3
	Mar 28	Othello, conclude discussion	Staging and Direction; hand in paragraphs
	Mar 30	A Streetcar Named Desire (read the entire play)	Exposition of themes; basic conflicts
WK13	Apr 2	Work on Group Projects	Study and tracing of patterns; characters; (click)
	Apr 4	A Streetcar Named Desire	Group Reports
	Apr 6	A Streetcar Named Desire	Group Reports
WK14 Paper #3 Due	Apr 9	View and discuss poker night scene	Conflict over control; Van Gogh” color guide (click )
	Apr 11	A Streetcar Named Desire	Review
	Apr 13	Open	In-class writing work
WK15	Apr 16	Death of a Salesman (complete)	Father-son issues; Imagery; self-awareness
	Apr 18	Death of a Salesman	American dream—really? Tragedy of the common man? (Quiz)
	Apr 20	Death of a Salesman	View scenes--Death of a Salesman
WK16	Apr 23	Death of a Salesman	View scenes
	Apr 25	Death of a Salesman	Review
	Apr 27	Review	What did we learn?
WK17 Paper #4 Due	Apr 30	Closing Matters	Evaluations Paper #5 Assgn. (click)

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Notes on Assignments, Routines, and Goals

1. Goals, Grading Standards, Statement on Plagiarism.  See Guidelines to HE111- HE112.

2. Assignments and Grading.

Activity	Percentage of Final Grade
Four out-of-class papers (including drafts when required	about 60%
In-class writings, quizzes (many unannounced), homework, contribution to in-class learning	about 40%

3. Course Policies.

a) You must complete and hand in all papers and announced in-class work in order to pass the course.

b) Do not assume that I will be reasonable about late papers: if you ignore the due date, I can just as easily react in an arbitrary and inconsistent way.

c) You can rewrite—not superficially revise—one essay. For an example of a successful rewrite click here. The grade for the rewritten essay will replace that of the original, provided that it is a better grade. The rewrite due dates appear in the left column on the reading schedule above. I do, of course, encourage you to re-write before you submit an essay. I’m always happy to help you with drafts before the paper’s due date.

4. Class Meetings.  Classes will unfold as discussions of assigned readings and other projects, punctuated occasionally by short, informal lectures and reports on group projects, as well as quizzes.  Expect a good deal of in-class writing, at least once a week.

5.  Office Hours.  MWF 3rd period and T, 9-11 & 2:30-3:30.  I read my e-mail frequently and I'll give you my home number, so you won't have any trouble getting hold of me.  My office phone is 36201.

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Paper Assignment #1—HE111

Instructions:  analyze carefully the workings of an advertisement from a magazine.  Discuss the way in which its parts—the wording of its captions and its illustrations, for instance, even its dependence on cultural assumptions about such matters as power, sexuality, gender—develop a certain appeal directed at a certain audience.  In making its appeal the advertisement will probably forgo careful, correct reasoning:  it will fail to define its terms; it will "beg the question"; it will flatter its audience; and it will commit some of the other "logical fallacies" mentioned in The Longman Handbook (126-29).  Be alert for those illogical techniques.  Also be alert for hidden ideological assumptions, such as the ones about progress and female attractiveness that the sample essays (click here) uncover.  See also the sample paper in The Longman Handbook on a Tropicana orange juice advertisement.

Your paper will have a narrow thesis identifying the "ad's" appeal and naming the "ad's" major methods of making that appeal.  The body of the paper will explain those methods.

Due date:   10 February

Length:  about 3 pages

Audience: your classmates and I, who—because you will attach the "ad" to your paper-- will be looking at the "ad" as you explain how it works.  Importantly, this means you do not need to describe the "ad" as if the audience has not seen it.

Other: make up an interesting, appropriate title.

Expectations: Control the following matters: 1) pronouns (click here and click here) and subject verb agreement (click here); 2) limiting the use of the "to be" verb and the passive voice (click here ); 3) writing fully developed paragraphs that have a clear idea and organization and occur within the paper in the best, most logical, and most persuasive sequence;  4) concluding your paper in a way that doesn't just restate the thesis (that's way too mechanical!); 4) eliminating misplaced and dangling modifiers (click here for a discussion of this grammatical problem); and 5) employing the comma (click here), semi-colon (click here), and colon (click here) with some finesse.

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Two sample papers follow.  As you'll see, in the first the thesis and then the topic sentences of its paragraphs appear in blue type, as an example of the kind of framework around which I would like you to flesh out your essay.  I also have highlighted in purple its rather sparing--and therefore good--use of the forms of the "to be" verb.  Try to emulate its use of mainly active verbs when you work on the final draft of your essay.

Sample #1

Progress, Happiness, and a Chevy

       The mythic foundations of American life are choice, especially the winning choice, and progress.  These ideas formed our country and made heroes of great American inventors such as Edison and Ford. Though this advertisement for the Chevy S-10 Blazer click shoves Henry Ford aside, it still depends on those two American values—and the feelings associated with them—to insinuate that the reader who does not purchase this and other Chevy products will remain utterly dissatisfied. Both the visual details and the wording of the "ad" develop this contrast between a winning choice and a losing one and between progress and stasis.

Visually, the theme of choice dominates the ad. The Chevy is a fire-engine red—lively and daring.  The Ford is a metallic-blue—lifeless and ordinary.  The lettering above the Chevy slants to the right, almost moves forward along the page in the direction our eyes automatically move.  The lettering above the Ford slants ploddingly, even stiffly "backwards."  And because the Ford's back wheels don't even appear in the picture, the ad subliminally implies that with Chevy the buyer gets a whole vehicle, while with Ford he gets only half.  In addition, the advertisers make the drivers' expressions just visible enough to emphasize the emotional quality of the choice between Ford and Chevy:  smiling and possessing a full-jawed, confident face, the driver of the Chevy looks ahead.  The poor fellow in the Fords looks behind him—he has to do this before he can engage the four-wheel drive.  But his down-turned brows, his shallow, weakly oval face betray that his choice has left him behind, made him a loser.

        This contrast between the two vehicles and their drivers is persuasive.  The eye follows the lively, "natural" images associated with the Chevy and shuns the pitiful, "unnatural" images of the other.  However, the contrast depends on the reader not recognizing a basic logical problem, the false choice or "either/or fallacy."  The market-place offers other four-wheel drive vehicles (Toyota and Nissan, for example), some of which can, in fact, be shifted on the move.  So this ad really offers a restricted choice appealing to a simple mind that wants the simple—really emotional rather than thoughtful—answer, but also wants to come out of it all feeling like the winner.

At the same time, this ad appeals to the American desire for progress.  Visually the ad displays a tension between "forward" and "backward."  Buying a Ford means having to back up ten feet in order to put it into four-wheel drive; buying a Chevy, of course, means going straight ahead.  But his basic comparison quickly becomes an ideological one:  does the reader believe--as all true-blooded Americans should—in progress or unpatriotic backwardness.  Again, the advertisers use the seduction of a false choice:  many choices exist between the extremes of progress and backwardness.  The advertisement boxes the reader in between two false alternatives so as to create in him an urgent need to avoid the negative one.

The language describing the two vehicles further builds upon this choice between an obvious winner and a loser.  The wording that captures the Ford plays on this backwardness, and it does so ingeniously.  Look, for instance, at the description of how to shift the Ford:  "Stop . . . Shift the transfer case . . . Shift into Reverse . . . Back up at least ten feet . . . Shift into Drive to go ahead."  The lack of transitions between these short, stiff commands simulates the rough, jerky, even primitively mechanical process of driving this vehicle.  The language also resembles that of the second grade reader—elementary and simple-minded.  Naturally, the Chevy requires no such fuss:  "But in the Chevy S-10 Blazer 4X4 with standard Insta-Trac, all you do is sift once."  The directness and "flow" of this sentence mirrors the ease, the simplicity of driving the Chevy.  And its graceful subordination suggests a reading level years above that of the second grade.  Clearly the ease of this sentence mirrors the simplicity of driving the Chevy.  This ease of operation in turn suggests progress, but so too does the very name of vehicle, "Chevy S-10 Blazer 4X4."  With its noisy "z" and its airplane-like "S-10," this name captures a sense of speed.  On the other hand, "Ford Bronco II 4X4," with its heavy consonants and its "horsy" associations, simply sounds slow and implies the standards of a by-gone era.  Moreover, the Chevy's name implies a great deal more refinement than that of the Ford:  the Chevy is an "F-10," having gone through, perhaps, ten whole versions before it reached this level of development; the Bronco is a "II," as in "two" and as in "old-fashioned" Roman numerals, both indicating that this vehicle remains in its early stages of development, is even ancient history, so to speak.

        All these carefully orchestrated comparisons lead up to one half of the advertisement's conclusion:  "Today's Truck is Chevrolet" (emphasis added).  It is current, up-to-date, while the other one is not.  But the ad's pitch remains incomplete without the patriotic outburst of emotion:  "The Heartbeat of America."  "Heartbeat" appears in red script and thereby ties together, at least on an emotional level, the entire advertisement.  The red "Heartbeat of America" shares its color with the Blazer; it also leans forward, even upward, full of the vital blood of life and progress.  And because, as the explanation section says, the Chevy is more popular than the Ford, it stands as an expression of the American right to choose.  No wonder the slogan at the bottom right of the page appears not only in red, but also in white and blue!

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Sample #2
Perry Ellis's Eve—All You Need in Threads

        Sex sells just about anything—we all know that.  And so even the wildest connections don 't faze us much anymore.  Cars, cigarettes, clothes, even the internet—they're all connected routinely with what Freud identified as the most basic of human drives.  But the Vanity Fair "ad" for Perry Ellis (click here), a men's clothing company, takes this standard connection to the extremes, shunning almost any gesture at rationalizing the connection between the product and desire.  And that apparent disconnect is part of its appeal, but so too are its conscious allusion to the Eden myth, its exploitation of the actual conventions of so-called "natural" beauty and sex-appeal, and even its suggestive use of black and white photography.

        First I want to deal what I just called the ad's disconnect—its reveling in the apparent ridiculousness of advertising clothing with a nude women and its shunning any display of its product. There are no clothes--if this is what it is advertising rather than, say, perfume!--to be found anywhere. It displays itself almost as an anti-advertisement advertisement.  We see nothing about fine craftsmanship, nothing about the latest styles. This ad is literally, in the perhaps unforgettable words of Right Said Fred, "too sexy for the runway."  The sophistication of the New York or Parisian fashion show is out of place in the primordial forest represented on this page.  Oddly, though, the ad, because of this "unad" approach, appeals to the sophisticated audience, to the crowd that can appreciate subtlety and allusion and that already knows—or ought to know—what Perry Ellis for Men is.  This appeal to sophistication, of course, does not exclude the basic power of sexual attraction in the ad.

       It's not difficult to discover the allusion to the Eden story.  An advanced version of our picture-book Bible stories indeed, this ad displays Eve's transgression.  There she is in the tree, reaching for the forbidden fruit (I'm assuming that this is definitely NOT an allusion to the Statue of Liberty, though the posture resembles that of the lady in New York harbor.).  The basic premise of this allusion is that Eve's transgression and of course Adam's complicity brought with it our first clothing, the infamous fig leaf.  Notice the positioning of the ad's only text right there with the fruit that "Eve" picks.  Yes, the ad's allusion implies, Perry Ellis was there with the first clothing.  That clothing company, the ad faintly suggests, has over every other company a prior claim to the job of clothing the human body.  What's more, the Eden story treats the theme of temptation, a temptation that could not by denied.  Again, in spacial terms, Perry Ellis and what that company offers is in the same location as the forbidden but, alas, unavoidable fruit.

        This allusive quality of the ad is likely not its most powerful element.  However it does make its audience part of a special group that can decode the allusion and thus interpret the ad as a sophisticated document, in spite of its apparent simplicity.  Thus the ad's audience is not just the sex-driven male ape in us but the thinking, cultured, sophisticated male.   Again, as with the ad's attempt at "anti-ad" status that I earlier discussed, the allusion to Eden works to reach a sophisticated taste.  In fact, I would suggest that even the decision to compose the photograph in black and white enhances this sense of sophistication.  Think for instance of Ansel Adams photos or uncolorized "old movies"—or modern movies whose directors have chosen to film them in black and white.  In each case black and white corresponds to the taste of the "artsy crowd," the people able to recognize lasting value in cultural products.  Not only, then, does Perry Ellis have some prior claim on all clothing, beginning with the fig leaf; he is associated with fine taste. And we ought to assume that his clothes will appeal to that taste.

       More basic than all this, you might very well argue, is the raw sex-appeal of the female in the ad.  There's something elemental in it, something fundamentally natural, you might say.  Yes, we're in Eden, but not so much to test our skills at literary allusion as to appeal to our unadorned, basic, original (as in "genesis') impulses.  And I would agree.  The ad does take the "natural" approach to sex appeal. You've seen the other alternatives: the James Bond female—red lip-stick, hair sprayed and impeccably in place, clothing accentuating cleavage; the prostitution fantasy—just think of Julia Roberts in the early scenes of "Pretty Woman," for instance, and put her in an ad for men's suits; and others I'm sure you can describe.  This ad represents "original woman" as youthful to the extreme, somewhat of the nymphet; it represents her as unadorned, as the very image of the original object of sexual desire before we got all complicated with clothing and all the other barriers of civilization.  The suggestion, then, is that Perry Ellis can produce this for men who buy his product, "this" accessibility without the complications, gratifications without much delay, and of course beauty.

        Notice once again, though, that the ad depends on a contradiction that goes unnoticed to the "panting" male observer.  What appears natural is highly conventional: underarm shaven, brows plucked, lips apparently glossed, if not enlarged by plastic surgery, even hair frosted.  Do you suspect that Revelon was there in the original garden with Perry Ellis?  Perhaps Gillette as well?  Even the leaves are strategically placed to hide the woman's breasts.  Sure that's so that the ad can in fact be published in a "for-the-general-public magazine."  But the placement of the leaves functions in two other important ways related to the ad's theme connecting Perry Ellis clothing with sophisticated taste and a certain kind of sexuality.  First, by covering up the forbidden areas of the body, the leaves serve to accent sexuality.  The assumption here is that sexuality arises more readily from suggestion than from blatant nudity.  In addition to this accenting of male desire, the leaves also, as a form of clothing, set up a series of connections more to the point:  leaves = clothing; clothing = Perry Ellis; Perry Ellis on your back=this woman in your sack, to put it crudely.

        Though "crudely" is not necessarily "inaccurately": the woman looks curiously, almost desirously at those leaves with which she covers if not caresses her herself.  Thus, although the ad plays with its audience's sense of sophistication through its allusion to Eden and its play with the whole genre of sex-appeal ads, it nevertheless comes around to the same claim as all ads make:  you buy what we offer; you get what you desire.  In the case of this ad, by purchasing Perry Ellis clothing you become the leaves in the foreground of this ad.  That's the most basic way in which Perry Ellis is "for men."

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Difference between a Moral and a Theme

Story Moral                                                       Theme

"The Lottery"	It does no good to complain when it's too late.	The tyranny of habit and convention over human (humane) behavior.
"The Lottery"	You shouldn't resort to violence to solve human problems.	The violence underlining even the most civilized, routine actions.
"The Lottery"	It's far easier than you would first think to resort to violence.	The lust for violence and brutality in human nature.
"The Story of an Hour"	Sometime the dictates of society keep you from knowing what you really want until it's too late.	The conflict between social conventions and natural incliminations.
"The Story of an Hour"	If you're weak you need to avoid taking risks because you might suffer in the end.	The emotional risks of freedom.
"The Story of  an Hour"	You need to be honest with your spouse if love is to flourish in marriage.	The gap between marital stability and individual fulfillment.
"Barn Burning"	It's better to do the right thing than to stick with family out of mindless loyality.	The tragic conflict between blood ties and justice.
"Barn Burning"	In order to mature you have to sort out your loyalties and finally make a choice.	Maturity as a process of loss and alienation, ultimately.
"A&P"	If you're going to make a decision you better know why you're doing it and what the consequences are.	Heroism as a "cover" for self-indulgence.

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Paragraphs and Agreement Problems

Agreement problems from paragraphs

1.  One has to take all the experience he or she has an use the experiences to know how to lead.  They have to watch people who are leaders and see what they do.

2.  Near the end of the story, the group of girls are checking out.

3.  Skiers, on the other hand, will traverse a slope without regard to obstacles.  This often results in collisions and injury.

4.  I notice that everyone is much better at writing than me.

5.  The song in his head goes, "Hello there you happy peepul . . . Splat." Clearly this shows that he is unhappy and needs to escape his life.

6.  Recognizing that everyone's timer are set differently, the only choice I can think of that we have in life is to pursue a quality of life.

7.  Sammy notes how his boss's repeated statement of how "this isn't a beach" makes him think about A&P being an isolated dune with Lengel as the head lifeguard.  This shows how Sammy starts to feel that the A&P is its own little world.

8.  There has bee many times where a midshipmen would ask another midshipmen to cover their duty just for that midshipmen to enjoy a long weekend.

9.  Someone was lost int heir cellphone and walked right into me.

10. We could put the blame on the three young ladies that strolled into the store half dressed, but ultimately the narrator wasn't obliged to defined them.  This is why he felt emptiness in his stomach when he realized what he had done.

Sample of paragraph revision for more development and focus

Original

In Updike's "A&P" we see that the story quickly unravels in the last paragraph.  The narrator is abruptly brought back to reality as he stands outside the store where he formerly worked.  A few minutes prior he was caught in this world of which he didn't belong, but he desperately yearned to fit into.  His need was so dire that he was blinded by his desire and stupidity to be a part of this "upper class" attitude.  We could put the blame on the three ladies that strolled into the store half-dressed, but ultimately the narrator wasn't obligated to defend them. This is why he felt emptiness in his stomach when he realized what he had done.

Revision

In Updike's "A&P" we see the narrator's confidence disappear as he abruptly returns to reality outside the store.  In fact, his standing outside the store itself suggests reality.  The store comes across in Sammy's narrations as artificial:  the women wear curlers; convention rules the way the customers progress through the isles; its lights are artificial.  Outside, the natural, actual, non-artificial sun rules.  Outside, also, the girls whom Sammy's "unreal" imagination has claimed as his own--"his girls"--are gone without, it seems, a thought about Sammy.  That fact is important because Sammy has imagined himself as their protector, their hero, even going to the extreme of fancying himself as a king, at least insofar as he named one of them "Queenie."  Perhaps most importantly, he sees a young married haggling with her child, whom she has denied a piece of candy.  The child's not getting what it wants might very well reflect Sammy's attitude of trying to get what he wanted and being denied.  This unfulfilled desire, along with the grim description of Lengyl as an unfeeling judge who also has apparently forgotten Sammy as he continues to check-out customers in Sammy's place clearly emphasizes the actual, the real world into which Sammy is born, or perhaps thrown, at the end of the narrative.

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Assignment for Paper #2

Due:	2 March
Audience:	Classmates and instructor
Length:	about 2-3 pages, double-spaced
Expectations:	See "Expectations" section in Assignment #1.
Prompt:	Write a paper that carefully analyzes the way(s) in which a small part of one of the stories we have read develops that story's main theme.  As suggested in the options below, "a small part" can be a section, a pattern that runs through the story, a single character, symbol, or characteristic of style or speech. Here's a sample click. Here are two more: click and click .
Sample subjects:	Hints of Gimple's unreliability?  Does his narration undercut itself, undercut his claim of ultimately being something other than a fool, or if a fool God's precious fool?
	What do you make of the coy remarks by the narrator of "Young Goodman Brown" about whether or not something magic occurred, or whether or not the event really happened.  Is that part of what our own Charles Knight called the "cheesy" elements in the story--the obvious allegory of "goodman," "brown," and "faith," for instance.
	A particularly central passage in "Araby" (the second pargraph, the next-to-last full paragraph on p. 60 ("When I came home to dinner . . . ")  the scene near the "stall" at the bazaar); a line of imagery such as that related to vision or that dealing with religious or knightly elements.  Perhaps you're interested in the motif of spacial display theme.
	Some basic conflict of images and/or settings in one of the short stories:  "A&P," "Araby," "A Rose for Emily," “The Bride Comes to Yellw Sky”, even "Hills Like White Elephants" are all approachable in this way.
	Argumentation.  Does Sammy learn?  Does the boy at the end of Araby really change, or is his anger on a continuum with his character throughout?  Does the mother in "Everyday Use" stunt herself and her daughter, does she, in other words, win or ultimately, lose in freeing herself from Dee?

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"Girl"—Interrupted?

        This "story" (click) involves two voices, that of the maternal figure and, twice, that of the "girl" who receives the matronly advice.  The girl's voice emerges in the two italicized clauses, each beginning with "but."  This physical fact of the story, the two frail, meek "but clauses" spoken by the girl, within the single torrent of information and instruction laid down by the other voice, expresses clearly the relationship between the two along a line drawn by a series of oppositions:  knowledge of how to "do things" vs. lack of knowledge of those procedures; bold confidence vs. meekness; experience vs. innocence; a strong voice vs. near silence.  However, no clear exchange seems to occur across that line.  On the two occasions when the girl's voice emerges, the two voices work at cross-purposes.  First the girl interrupts by telling her mother (that's what I'll call the matronly voice) that she "don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school."  This responds to the older woman's suspicious question, "is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?"  In response to the girl's claim that she doesn't sing the forbidden songs, however, the mother simply keeps on going with her list about how to sew a button, how to make the button hole, etc.  If the mother were really concerned and "connected" with her child, I would expect her to say something such as, "that's good you don't sing benna at church."  On the second intrusion of the girl's voice, once again the mother does not respond in kind, retorting instead with a rhetorical, almost accusatory question.  The girl innocently asks, "but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?"  The mother responds:  "you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?"  In a profound way, the mother's response misses the point:  the girl asks a searching question and the mother rhetorically hands down a kind of reputation-linked judgment.  All this—the shear volume of the mother's instruction and the meek entries into the stream of instruction by the girl—obliterates the daughter's identity and individuality. 

        Along with this shear volume, the actual instructions and the way in which the mother gives them, smother any chance, it seems, of the girl achieving individuality.  The instructions depend on the imperative voice, on the order confidently given:  "wash the white clothes . . . and put them on the stone heap"; "cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak . . ." and so on (emphasis added).  Command after command!  The only relief comes when the mother begins to use the "this is how" formula about a third of the way through the giant sentence:  "this is how you "iron," "sew," "grow," "set a table," "behave in the presence of men," "sweep a corner," even how to abort a fetus ("how to throw away a child before it even becomes a child").  Clearly the mother does not offer the child a choice; she simply commands her to do various things in certain ways. 

        The things about which she gives the child directions involve largely the kind of work that identifies and confines women:  sewing, cooking, laundering, and learning how to love and be loved by men.   And her advice directs the child not only to success in each one of these tasks but to respectability: "always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach"; "this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well"; and "don't squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know."  The two concerns get combined in what functions almost as a refrain in the story:  the three, perhaps four, variations on the phrase "the slut you are bent on becoming."  I say, "perhaps four" above, because the final clause of this story-sentence, the mother's response to the child's question about what if the baker doesn't allow her near the bread, closely resembles this refrain.  After all, if she is the kind of woman the baker won't allow near the bread, she is likely known as a slut.  What's more, she is likely to be known also as a woman who does not possess the passed down, traditional wisdom into which her mother indoctrinates her.  Here, as throughout, the indoctrination of the girl into woman's work and the proper way to do it merges with an almost tyrannical concern with respectability. 

        Thus, the mother's directions can become quite troubling.  Everything she tells her daughter does communicate some key about how to manipulate and control the world around her.  However, the mother's imperious, dictatorial tone and the subjects about which she gives her daughter advice—respect for tradition and respectability and close adherence to her gender role dictated by society—require the daughter to obey in an unquestioning way, to give up control over her life, in other words.  This is what I mean by two sides of the same coin:  the control of the world that the mother commands of her daughter is also a form of oppression.  Not surprising, then, that the story's title is "Girl."  This term captures not only the child's inferior position in the exchange, but the role to which she is doomed no matter what her age.  The mother's imperiousness, I would venture to say, is nothing more than a function of her having been treated as "girl" by her mother.

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To be or not to be--An Exercise on Identifying Weak Verbs

Steps to take with any paper, late in the drafting process:

1.  Circle all occurrences of to be verbs, except those in quotes.

to be

be
               being
               been
               am
               is
               are
                was
                were

's, 're (in contractions)

2.  Count all the to be verbs you have circled.

3.  Count your sentences, excluding quotations.

4.  Divide the number of to be verbs by the number of sentences.

40% and below suggests that you have probably taken the time actually to think about and choose the verbs in your sentences.  You have avoided the following structures:

the passive voice
                          the "it is . . . . that" 
                          the "There is" 
                          noun formations--"he is supportive of me" (as opposed 
                          to "he supports me")

Click here for some examples of how to turn to be sentences into active ones.  Read about the passive voice and active verbs in your Handbook, as well.

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Revising for Active Voice Verbs

a) Off the coast of Lisbon, variances of kindness are shown when a storm strikes the protagonist's boat and an earthquake strikes the mainland.
Off the coast of Lisbon, two characters display the rare but nevertheless possible--even in Candide--trait of kindness.

b) It is Candide's simplicity which entices the reader to care even a bit as to what happens to him.
Candide's simplicity, more than anything else, entices the reader to care at least a bit for him.

c) Clearly human excrement is offensive to Gulliver.
Clearly human excrement offends Gulliver.

d) Excrement for Swift is representative of part of his dislike for mankind.
Excrement signals Swift's dislike for mankind.

e) Despite the detrimental effects produced by each violation, something is gained from the horrific act which ensues . . .
Though clearly detrimental, each violation actually produces an improved balance in the world of the poem.

d) This kind of exploitation is the very essence of the Englightenment.
This kind of exploitation typifies the Englightenment

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Peer Editing Guidelines for Paper #2

Your job as peer editors is to read critically two of your classmates' papers for the following two "larger issues:  1) controlling idea and 2) development.  Below are a few more detailed guidelines for how to evaluate these to aspects of the papers.

1) Controlling Idea. AKA "thesis statement," it ought to combine a WHAT and a HOW.  The WHAT amounts to the ad's theme(s), that set of values, generally accepted feelings and ideas, and/or ideologies that the "ad" tries to activate in the viewer/reader.  The HOW identifies the techniques the "ad" uses to activate the WHAT.  Here follow several illustrations:

a)  "Bad" controlling idea because it has only a WHAT part, and that WHAT itself lacks exactness:

This "ad" for ______ appeals to male sexual desire.

b)  A better controlling idea, but one that still lacks a HOW part:

This "ad" for ______ appeals to sexual desire, yes, but a desire that seems as much a form of elitism and artsy sophistication as a primal urge that we all share.

c)  Add to the above sentence another one or two that point toward the ways (the HOW) in which the "ad" makes its appeal, and you have created a full-fledged idea to guide your discussion:

This "ad" for ______ appeals to sexual desire, yes, but a desire that seems as much a form of elitism and artsy sophistication as a primal urge that we all share.  Its almost modern art-like composition, its quirky setting, and its repetition of elitist terms, of code words for some special group, all work together to define the purchaser of _______ as special because he belongs.

2) Development. The essential question here is this:  "Does the paper explain its idea thoroughly enough so that it both informs and "fights for," or argues for, the validity of its ideas?

Does it, in other words:

a)  anticipate possible objections from the audience--instructor and your classmates?

b)  explain this "ad's" technique and appeal by suggesting what it resembles?

c)  explain this "ad's" technique by discussing how it differs from some others of its kind?

e)  give multiple examples to illustrate its claims, or if not account for why a single gesture, technique, piece of clothing, or something else is enough?

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Here's a sample paper on Assignment #2.  As you see, the paper called for in this assignment is sort of a larger version of the paragraph you wrote on The first pargraph of "Araby."  Again your aim is to analyze how a part of a story contributes to the whole--contributes to its meaning and to patterns that generate that meaning.  Notice in this paper that I have color-coded its three part structure so as to illustrate two things:  1) the way in which the controlling idea dictates its organization (the colors of the parts of the controlling idea match the colors of the corresponding parts in the body of the paper) and 2) the way in which it is organized according to an idea, not according to a need to retell the story.  As with the 'ad" papers, the controlling idea combines a WHAT and HOW, and the paper focuses on the ways in which the HOW develops the WHAT.

A Clean Well –Lighted Place (click)

The passage on the opening page of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" describing "a girl and a soldier" walking by the cafe calls attention to itself precisely because it seems so out of place.  So rare a description as this in Hemingway's bare short story must occur for a reason.  And that "reason" has three facets:  the description highlights the differences between the old and young waiter, it helps to set off the isolation represented by the old man, and finally it offers a possible alternative of meaningfulness in a story seemingly about the absence of meaning in life.

First of all, the description provides an early opportunity for Hemingway to establish the important difference between the old waiter and the young one.  The old waiter expresses concern that the soldier with the girl will get picked up by the guard if he's caught out this late at night (262).  The young one, in contrast, simply says:  "What does it matter if he gets what he's after?" (262).  The one senses consequences, dangers, forces larger than the individual and his needs--in this case the military authority.  The other exposes his self concern and disregard for dangers.  More importantly his comment assumes that the soldier has a clear want, a clear desire ("if he gets what he's after").  While the older waiter's comment suggests a world view assuming risk and forces that are hostile, with prevention of this risk being its meaningful "action," the other's comments ignore risk and frame action as a seeking and obtaining, not mere avoidance.  This sort of difference emerges time and again as the conversation between the two unfolds:  the old waiter wants to know about why the old man attempted suicide (262, 263), who found him a cut him down and why (263), and even why the young waiter doesn't wonder if he might discover  another man in bed with his wife when he arrives at home before his usual time (264).  The young man does not care about why's and how's:  he merely wants the old man out of the bar so that he can "accomplish his mission," as it were.  He senses no risks, only irritations, only delays between desire and satisfaction.  This difference between the two waiters, a difference set up in part by their reactions to the soldier and lady friend, helps to establish the story's representation of a lack of meaning:  on the one hand, the old waiter sees life as merely a process of risk aversion, without any more meaning than neatness and friendly light; on the other hand, the young man does not care about any question of meaning.  One, in other words, seems to have sought meaning without finding it; the other simply disregards any search for meaning as important.

In addition, the description of the soldier and girl walking through the street highlights the old man's solitude.  As it works in this way, the passage actually emphasizes the two bartenders' companionship rather than their contrasting outlooks.  In the same short paragraph that describes the soldier and girl, Hemingway describes the bartenders in this way:  "They sat together at a table that was close against the wall near the door of the cafe and looked at the terrace where the tables were all empty except where the old man sat in the shadow of the leaves of the tree that moved slightly in the wind" (262).   However different their world views, the one's pessimistic and fretful, the other's optimistic and confident, they at least have each other's company, while the old man sits outside alone.  The description of the soldier and girl, immediately following this passage, reinforces the old man's loneliness:  they too are a pair, like the bartenders; the old man is merely a loner.  If seen only in terms of this purpose, the detail about the soldier and woman walking by the cafe would almost be overkill:  detailing that the bartenders "sat together" and that the "tables were all empty except . . ." is enough.

However, the passage has another, though perhaps less apparent purpose:  in simple terms it suggests that love is built into the story as a possible alternative to its prevailing theme of meaninglessness.  This possibility emerges as a result of simply looking for a context for this passage, a link to other details in the story.  Such linkage might, after all, be purposeful rather than random.  One linkage depends on women, women implied at least by the narrative and dialogue.  In addition to the girl with the soldier, four women emerge faintly from the story's texture:  the young waiter's wife waiting for him at home in bed (263);  the wife the old man once had (263); the old man's niece who interrupted his attempted suicide (263); and finally the Virgin Mary (264), alluded to through the "Hail nothing full of nothing . . . (265).  Apart from the niece, a mere care taker, these other three women represent meaningful companions.  The old waiter's emptiness, in fact, seems at least coincidental with his lack of a wife or female companion.  However "bone headed," the young waiter does have a purpose in his life because of his wife, because of their implied mutual dependence.  And when the young waiter carelessly says of the 80 year old man, " A wife would be no good to him now" (263), the old waiter in fact reinforces the importance of a heterosexual companion by replying, "You can't tell.  He might be better with a wife" (263).  A wife, this comment implies, can offer more relief from darkness, can mean more, than just "a clean well-lighted place."  The passage describing the girl and soldier, she hurrying beside him, has to be understood in light of these other references to the value of loving companionship.

    Clearly the story does not romanticize heterosexual love, does not make it obvious alternative to life without meaning.  In fact, as I have pointed out, the young waiter himself lacks the sensitivity to see such meaning in love, as is illustrated by his view of the soldier as sexual predator.  Even the image of the virgin mother Mary, western civilization's perfect mother-wife, takes a cynical form in the old waiter's musings:  "Mother Mary full of Grace" has become "nothing full of nothing (265); and that cynical view is reinforced when the next image to emerge after the old waiter's musing is the purely mechanical "shining steam pressure coffee machine" (265) in the bodega. This mechanistic view of the world has replaced that of spirit finding incarnational meaning within woman.  Still, with all these suggestions of negativity, the image of the girl and soldier represents a feint alternative to the prevalent meaninglessness put forth by the older waiter, but not so clearly by the story itself.  After all, that waiter is just a character created by Hemingway, one subject to our critical view.  And one qualification to his prevalent pessimism is the image of the knightly soldier with his "lady," a traditional symbol of fulfillment in western culture that is not entirely annihilated by notion that life is nada.

"Miss Brill" as Sentence click

     I like to see Miss Brill as a sentence, particularly a compound or complex one, a sentence, at any rate, that has either a clause or phrase strongly qualifying its main idea.  Taking this personification further, I think she's a compound and/or complex sentence seeking to become a direct one.  As it turns out this claim is less an analogy than it first seems because Mansfield's style in executing this "third person limited" narration documents this search almost in terms of sentence structure, or at least in terms of the way in which Miss Brill's thoughts are patterned.  In simple terms Miss Brill begins the story as a compound or complex sentence; starts to become a direct one; and transforms, unfortunately, back into a compound or complex one at the end of the story.  These shifts in syntax document her effort to make herself a meaningful element in a world with which she is so out of step. 

     The connection between pattern of thought and character, between Miss Brill and a sentence, emerges in the very first sentence of the story:  "Although it was so brilliantly fine . . . Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur" (17, emphasis added).  And the pattern continues throughout the first paragraph, six of whose 14 sentences take on this compound or complex pattern.  The second sentence depends on a "but" to demonstrate a similar rationalization about the absurdity of wearing the fur on a warm, pleasant day:  ". . . but when you opened your mouth there was a faint chill . . ." (17, emphasis added).  In the paragraph's seventh sentence the qualification, which again hinges on "but," involves Miss Brill's excitement about seeing the fur's little eyes "snap at her again":  ". . . But the nose, which was of some black composition, wasn't at all firm" (17).  And that qualification leads to another in the following sentence:  "Never mind--a little dab of sealing wax when the time came . . ." (17).  The last two sentences of this sort in the opening paragraph demonstrate, as the editor points out in the margin, Miss Brill's suppression of "negative impressions" (17).  The first one of these describing a tingling sensation in her hand pivots on a "but":  "but that came from walking . . . " (17).  In the next and final sentence, when she feels "something light and sad," the very next words qualify that feeling:  "no, not sad, exactly" (17). 

     I linger over this pattern in the opening paragraph for two reasons:  first, its frequency signals its importance; and second it lays out the basic tendency in Miss Brill's character, which amounts to a tension between her ability to glimpse her own timidity, eccentricity, and even despair on the one hand and her desire for confidence, relevancy, and even happiness on the other hand.  That first paragraph displays the internal tension that she has to work through just to get out the door on Sundays. 

     Interestingly enough, once she begins to make some separation from her lodging, her "cupboard" or "box," the frequency of these qualifying, almost contradicting sentences or thought patterns subsides.  In all the rest of the story up to the final paragraph, they appear just 12 times, and six of those occur in other people's conversations or in descriptions of others' actions.  In the conversation between the English couple, for instance, the wife knows she needs glasses, "but" it was no good getting them "because they would break" (18, emphasis added).  Twice more the pattern occurs between the boy and girl who end up hurting Miss Brill:  the boy's desire for a kiss or some more ardent display of affection is the issue--his "But why" and her "not yet" shows this pattern of qualification and/or contradiction.  Generally though, the long middle of the story is dominated by direct rather than compound and/or complex sentences. 

     The reason for this change from the opening paragraph is that Miss Brill's optimism and positive spirit prevails during this section.  For example, when Miss Brill hears the little "flutey" bit from the band, she "was sure it would be repeated. It was; she lifted her head and smiled" (18).  Instead of a qualification and/or contradiction, we see reinforcement of her initial feeling.  This tendency is interrupted only occasionally as with the "but" in the paragraph in which Miss Brill looks at the old people who seem to have come from "cupboards" (19).  Perhaps this interruption, along with the revealing description of the kind of confining enclosure from which Miss Brill also comes, amounts to Mansfield's way of marking a spot where Miss Brill's buoyancy depends on her failure to see herself reflected in these old people.  The description of the British woman's contrariness about getting glasses occurs for the same reason: it reflects Miss Brill herself, though Miss Brill does not register that reflection.  At any rate, the general grammatical energy in this middle section is that of "and" rather than "but," a compiling of simple, direct grammatical units and observations rather than a series of observations stunted by hesitation.  This dominating stylistic tendency reflects Miss Brill's growing confidence, particularly as she engages in the long reverie about her essential role in the community at the park, which in her view represents a grand theatrical performance held every Sunday.  As a part of the play she is an actress, she imagines, on whom all the others depend (20).  No qualifications stunt this compilation of direct sentences. 

     The climax of this view--and the end of the dominance of direct sentences and the return to qualifying and contradicting structures--occurs just as the "hero and heroine" show up (21).  Actually the rude couple who insult Miss Brill and send her back into her own cupboard, this hero and heroine, as I have already mentioned, converse in terms of a contradictory structure:  he wants "it," and she says no.  Importantly, their conversation has the grammatical shape of the compound and/or complex sentence, and it has that shape precisely because of Miss Brill.  Her very existence, rather than representing an integral role in some grand, community drama, creates distance between young lovers, delays fulfillment, gets in the way of life:  "'But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?' asked the boy. 'Why does she come here at all--who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?'"  Miss Brill, both literally and figuratively, gets in the way of the direct sentence, in this case expressions of love, and of all the vitality, confidence, and youthfulness it represents. 

     Appropriately if sadly, then, the story ends with two paragraphs whose expression returns to the qualification and contradiction of the first paragraph, but with a vengeance!  Usually, we learn, Miss Brill gets her almond cake on the way home from the park, "But" (21) on this day she passes by the bakery and returns directly to her "little dark room--her room like a cupboard" (21-22).  The most important "but" in the entire story, however, occurs in the final sentence, after the description of how she "quickly, without looking" (22) returns the fur to the box from which she had taken it at the beginning of the story:  "But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying" (22, emphasis added).  The dynamic here repeats that of the first paragraph, only the stakes are higher.  In a sort of denial of all the hurt the fur now represents, she shuts it way.  However, even when she shuts it up in the box, she can't suppress the "but" within her character, the inability to shut out the despair, the vulnerability, and the sense that she's marginal to all that goes on in the world, the world of direct sentences and clear desires.  The crying is the ultimate qualifying phrase in the (death) sentence of her life. 

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Sentence Variety Exercise

Three steps:

1.  Identify all "regular sentences," those unfolding in the order subject-verb-(object).  Do this by drawing an inch-long line beneath the beginnings of the sentences.

Here are some "regular sentences":

s           v
--Dickens writes in an ornate style.

s                                         v                o
--Writing in an ornate style can confuse readers.

s                                                                                                       v
--Dickens, writing in what we think of as a conservative age, described some 
o
pretty strange relationships between men and women.

Notice that it doesn't matter how long the sentence is, what form the subject takes (the gerund, for instance, in the second one is a bit unusual), or how many words occur between the subject and verb (the long phrase modifying "Dickens" in the third example). 

2.  Identify all "irregular sentences," those delaying the subject-verb-(object) pattern.  Mark them by putting a squiggly line about an inch long beneath the beginning of each sentence.

Here are some sample "irregular sentences":
s                   v 
--Writing in what we think of as a conservative age, Dickens described some . . .

--In order to get readers to slow down and think about words and their meaning, 
s                   v                     o
poets often make their language more difficult than simple prose.

s                        v
--Without any fear at all of censors, Thomas openly displays the unconscious 
o
fantasies of his characters.

Treat all questions as "irregular sentences"
--Do you think Dickens consciously imitates Shakespeare? 

3.  Total the two kinds of sentences and figure the ratio.  You're looking for a balance in your prose, something in the area between 60:40 to 40:60.

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Write a two page paper on an element from Part 1 or Part 2 below.  Be sure that you have a clear, controlling idea and you develop its idea fully.

Part 1.  Write a paragraph explaining how one of the passages below contributes to the development of theme and technique(s) in the entire story in which it occurs.

"Young Goodman Brown"
p. 1, opening paragraph

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"The Cask of Amontillado"
p. 11, opening paragraph
p. 14, middle paragraph, beginning, "At the most remote . . ."
p. 16, last paragraph

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"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"
p. 29 opening paragraph
p. 31, paragraph beginning, "Of course, people . . ."
p. 34-35, opening paragraph of Chapter III

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"The Storm"
p. 38, Last paragraph of section 1
p. 40, the paragraph on middle of page, beginning "They did not heed . . . "

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"Araby"
p. 59, paragraph beginning, "Her image . . ."
p. 60, paragraph beginning, "When I came home . . ."

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"Gimpel the Fool"
p. 182, opening paragraph
p. 192, Paragraph beginning, "I wandered over the land . . ."

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"Everyday Use"
p. 245, paragraph beginning, "You must belong to . . ."
p. 245, paragraph beginning, "When I looked at her . . ."
p. 246, paragraph beginning, "Your heritage . . ."

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"A&P"
pp. 215-16, next-to-last paragraph of story
p. 216, last paragraph

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"The Rocking-Horse Winner"
p. 137, opening paragraph

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Part 2.  Write a paragraph in which you explore how an element of one of the short stories helps to develop its theme.  Choose from one of the following options:

The imagery of hardness in "The Rocking-Horse Winner"
The repetition of the word "know" in "The Rocking-Horse Winner"

The imagery of spatial relations in "Araby"
The imagery of darkness and light in "Araby"

Homer Barron in "A Rose for Emily"

Some element of Gimpel's narration in "Gimpel the Fool"

Clothing imagery in "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"
The wife in "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"

An element of the setting in "A&P"
The women with kids outside the store in "A&P"

The contested quilt in "Everyday Use"

The rocking-horse in "The Rocking Horse Winner"

Setting in "Young Goodman Brown"

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Group Project on A Streetcar Named Desire (15 points). Each group will be responsible for two things:  1) a short 5 minute oral report (5 points) on the thematic importance of the element it has examined and a few representative examples; and 2) a "smart list" (10 points) of the occurrences of the image, name, or language pattern.  "Smart list" means that the list ought to recognize subgroups, if appropriate.  For names, the obvious subgroups are characters and places.  For the patterns in Stanley's language, the subgroups might consist of the two, three, or four major tendencies in his language.  List the occurrences by page number and very brief annotation (p. ?, "a tender blue"; or p. ? "primary colors," for instance).  Due date for lists:  4 April.  When it comes time to write papers on this play, these lists might very well help you and your classmates, so do as thorough a job as possible.

Literary Element	Group	Lists
language patterns--Stanley		click
language patterns--Blanche		click
names--people and places		click
light imagery		click
song, lyric, music imagery		click
color imagery		click
animal imagery		click

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Peer Response Sheet--Paper #4 (10 pts)

Carefully read, even study, your classmate's paper, and then respond thoughtfully and helpfully to the following questions:

1)  Does the paper have an interesting, inviting opening?  Does that opening really make you want to continue reading?

2)  What is the paper's main idea (aka thesis statement or controlling idea).  Is it clear, narrowly conceived, and challenging?

3)  Do any of the paragraphs NOT have a clear topic / topic sentence?

4)  Is the organization analytical or chronological / summary-like / redescriptive?  Explain.

5)  Does the paper end in an interesting way, one that does not just restate the main idea but instead cinches up the analysis, adds an unexpected complexity to the main idea, or offers the "final blow" in the contest to get us readers to agree with the idea?

6)  Does the paper offer lots of evidence and explain that evidence well, rather than just enumerate it?

7)  How did reading this paper make you feel about the paper you are turning it?  Explain.

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Here's an example of a successful re-write.  The first paper, a low "C," gets transformed into a paper with thesis that controls the paper's organization.  It's a "B" paper.  Notice that the re-write amounts to a rather massive reshaping and rethinking, not just a superficial alteration of some stylistic elements. The paragraphing has improved; the recurring reminder of the main idea becomes less mechanical; and the use of of quotations unfolds more efficiently and gracefully.

Setting and Clothes Matter

     Stephen Crane’s “A Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” declares the end of the “romantic” West due to the shift of modernized eastern ideals.  The West no longer represents the wild frontier where only brave souls dared go seeking adventure.  No longer did it represent gun-shootouts, Indian battles, and saloons full of drunken men and women.  The narrator manifests this change by the tide of west flowing east by the movement of the train, the scene outside of the train, and by the clothing of the characters.  The train and clothing foreshadow the eastern ideals and institutions that modernize the west.

     The opening paragraph starts foretelling the theme of western modernization by the train, the illusion looking through the window of the train, and the meaning of that illusion.  The opening sentence reads, 

               “The great Pullman was whirling onward with such dignity of motion that a 
               glance from the window seemed simply to prove that the plains of Texas 
               were pouring eastward.” (29)

     The train immediately suggests the idea of western modernization.  Before the train, people traveled west by wagon or horseback.  The creation of the train revolutionized the west by making it accessible for eastern Americans.  With eastern Americans came eastern people, clothes, and ideas; thus altering the culture of the west. 

     The end of the first sentence mentions that, “the plains of Texas were pouring eastward.” (29)  This line describes the illusion when one is moving and looks out at the surroundings.  For a split second, one thinks that the outside surroundings are in motion.  This illusion of a shrinking gap between the east and west foreshadow the theme of eastern influence and the modernization of the west. 

     Notice that the narrator now zooms in closer into the scene describing, “…mesquite and cactus, little groups of frame houses…” (29)  This shift from a panoramic view of the scene outside of the train to the minor details of the scene calls that the reader to pay attention to the details in the story.  The foreshadowing of the details is what leads to the theme of the shift of western life. 

     The narrator remarks on the details of the scene with, “…all were sweeping into the east, sweeping over a horizon, a precipice.” (29)  The distinct symbols of western life-beautiful green grass flats, cactus, and wooden framed houses- come essentially to a dead-end at the end of the sentence with the usage of “a precipice” or cliff.  The significance of this imagery suggests the end of the west.

     By shifting the reader’s attention from a panoramic view to a more zoomed-in view, the narrator focuses on the clothes of the couple in the train.  The passage tells of the man,

                   “… he constantly looked down respectfully at his attire…The glances 
                   he devoted to other passengers were furtive and shy.” (29)  Furthermore, 
                   the narrator remarks on the clothing by of the woman by, “She wore a 
                  dress of blue cashmere, with small reservations of velvet…with steel buttons…
                  her puff sleeves, very stiff, straight, and high.” (29)

     Granted they just got married-and when people marry, they wear nice clothes- the narrator implies the clothes obviously did not represent who they were.  Jack Potter acknowledges the awkwardness of wearing a suit.  A town marshal never wears a suit.  Nevertheless, he looks down and respects (emphasis added) his new attire because he realizes this is the new Jack Potter. The sophisticated clothes anticipate the shift of eastern culture and styles to the west.

     At the opening paragraph of the third chapter, the narrator remarks on the clothing of Scratchy Wilson,

                   “…a maroon-colored flannel shirt, which had been purchased for
                   purposes of decoration and made…by some Jewish women on the 
                   east side of New York…his boots had red tops with gilded imprints, 
                   of the kind beloved in winter by little sledding boys …of New England.” (34-35)

     Again the narrator mentions the east when describing the clothes of the story’s antagonist, Scratchy Wilson.  The paradox is that Scratchy Wilson represents the ideal western man.  He gets drunk in the bar and then roams the town streets in search of a gun-fight.  Although the actions of Scratchy Wilson embody the western man, the details of his attire reflect eastern culture.  Notice how the narrator mentions that the shirt’s designer is a Jewish woman from New York.  The narrator mentions a Jewish Designer because the reader infers that there are no Jewish women currently in the west. However, the clothing represents a foreshadowing of Jewish people living in the west.  Not just Jewish people, but other eastern icons as well.  This imagery relate back to the opening paragraph where the narrator’s illusion of the closing gap between the east and west by focusing on the details.

     In the opening paragraph, the narrator starts off telling the story from a panoramic view.  His shift from a train heading west to the specific cactus that passes by outside shifts the narrator’s interest to the minor details.  The story continues its “zoomed in” perspective by constantly discussing other details such as the clothing of characters.  In the end of the story, the narrator “zooms out” from the tangible to the intangible.  When Scratchy Wilson and Jack Potter encounter each other, they remark,

                    “’I’m married,’ said Potter…’Married? said Scratchy…’No’…He (Scratchy) 
                     was like a creature allowed a glimpse of another world.” (37) 

    Jack Potter, the town marshal, violated the “code” of the west.  A town marshal never gets married because he puts himself in harm’s way when he fights the tough guys like Scratchy Wilson.  Furthermore, the tough guys don’t feel guilty killing a town marshal because it is all for sport and tradition.  However, a wife in the mix and the idea of marriage complicates everything.  If Jack returned with his eastern black clothes and without a wife, the gun-fight still takes place.  Because Jack marries, the gun-fight does not happen with Scratchy.  No more will the western event of a town marshal fighting the town tough guy occur.  Thus, no more will the west be the same due to the eastern institutions such as marriage that modernize the west. 

     The narrator’s shifts of focus throughout the story skillfully hint at a change to the west.  The symbolism of the train, the scene outside of the train, and the clothing of the characters leading to the eastern idea of marriage help depict the modernization of the west.  It is that the ideas and institutions of the west, foreshadowed by the clothing, that modernize the west.

                                     Foreshadowing the Modernization of the West

     Stephen Crane’s "A Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" portrays the end of the “romantic” west as a result of modernized eastern ideals. In the world of the story, the west no longer represents the wild frontier where only brave souls dared go seeking adventure. No longer did it represent gun-shootouts, Indian battles, and saloons full of drunken men and women.  The west changes and the narrator implies this change through the opening paragraph and clothing of characters.  Ultimately, the clothing and opening paragraph foreshadow the inevitable:  the eastern ideals and institutions modernizing the west.

     The train in the opening paragraph immediately suggests the idea of western modernization. Before the train, people traveled west by wagon or horseback.  Mass transportation was unheard of and thus limited the number of people in the west; and insured that those in the west really wanted to be there.  The creation of the train revolutionized the west by making it accessible for eastern Americans. The western, life-daring adventure, transformed into a tamer “getaway” for many Americans. With the “Pullman” (29) came eastern people, clothes, and ideals.  The culture of the east soon mixed with the west.

     The motion of the train in the opening paragraph visually suggests an end to western icons through the mixing of the west and east.  The narrator describes the motion of the train stating, “a glance from the window seemed simply to prove that the plains of Texas were pouring eastward” (29).  The narrator creates this visual image of the west literally moving east. Notice how the narrator refers to “the plains of Texas”: the gun shoot-outs, horses, and long strolls into the sunset do not go east, just the plains themselves.  Furthermore, the visual illusion of the gap closing from the east and west implies that the change is continuous.  Thus, changes have already occurred and will continue to do so as the train “whirl[s] onward” (29) to the west.  The narrator continues describing the setting,  remarking on the “dull-hued spaces of mesquite and cactus…frame houses, woods of light” (29).  In addition to the shifting of the western icons to the east, the narrator states that, “all were sweeping into the east, sweeping over the horizon, a precipice,” a cliff or ledge.  The first paragraph suggests, or anticipates, the end of western icons while simultaneously implying the shift of eastern inventions westward.  This shift, moreover, amounts to the destruction of the west and its values, as it is pictured falling to its death, in a sense, over the eastern horizen.

     The narrator also foreshadows the modernization of the west by intentionally describing closely the clothing of a western man, Scratchy Wilson.  At the opening paragraph of the third chapter, the narrator notes that he wears “a maroon-colored flannel shirt, which had been purchased for purposes of decoration by some Jewish women on the east side of New York” (34). The irony of the ideal western man--one who drinks often in town and is notorious for gun-fights--wearing clothes made by a Jewish woman from New York hints at the presence of the east in the west.  This imagery of an eastern artifact embodying a western man correlates back to the opening paragraph suggesting that eastern culture is influencing the west.  Also, notice that the narrator refers to the “flannel shirt” as mere “decoration,” suggesting Scratchy Wilson just wants to appear as a “tough western cowboy”.  Essentially, the narrator implies that by “looking like a western” figure one becomes one.  Thus, the narrator reveals the shallowness of the surviving western culture: it derives its culture from appearance rather than from ideals.   Furthermore, the narrator goes on to describe Scratchy’s boots as having "red tops with gilded imprints/ the kind beloved in winter by little sledding boys [in] New England” (34-35). The narrator’s connection with a western man to an eastern child suggests the fragile nature of the west.  Although the actions of Scratchy Wilson embody the western man, his eastern-made clothes suggest a fragile childishness and superficilaity that suggest something wquite different from the gritty, manly ideal.  The clothes of the Scratchy Wilson foreshadow eastern influence on the west.

     The opening paragraph and clothing of Scratchy Wilson clearly foreshadow the modernization of the west by eastern ideals.  Ultimately-=as is revealed in the end of the story-- the eastern institution of marriage directly changes the west.  Scratchy Wilson, the ideal western man, “walks off into the sunset” with his “funnel-shaped tracks in the heavy sand.” (37)  The clothes and view outside of a train going west alone do nothing to change western culture.  What those images do, however, is to foreshadow what eventually changes the west:  marriage, increased population, and other eastern mainstays such as clothing factories and advertising agencies that make and sell an image not a life.

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HE111-112 Information and Guidelines for Students

I. Course Description.

In Rhetoric and Introduction to Literature (HE111-112), literature is the springboard for teaching composition.  In the two courses, you study the principles of composition and apply them in written responses to your readings.  This combination of composition and literature provides you with experience in performing diverse writing tasks and challenges you to understand and appreciate the ways in which literature expresses human and cultural values.

During the first semester, instructors assign frequent writing tasks designed to help you master content, organization, diction, style, and mechanics.  They also introduce you to the principles of writing critically about the short story and drama.  In the second semester, instructors require more sophisticated essays in which you write about poetry and the novel, and they will introduce you to using the library's resources, documenting material correctly, and quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing accurately.

II.  Objectives.

1.  To improve your ability to read critically and sensitively various kinds of literature.

2.  To develop your confidence and style as a writer so that you can:

        a.  turn a general topic into a purposeful thesis;

        b.  shape your composition so that it has a beginning, middle, and end and so that its organization and content serve
        its audience and purpose;

        c.  write fully developed and coherent paragraphs employing such methods of development as summary, narration,
        description, comparison/contrast, classification, analysis, and persuasion;

        d. edit your sentences so that they vary one from the other, so that they depend mainly on the active voice and
        avoid wordiness, and so that they are grammatically correct; and

        e.  use the resources of the library to research a topic and document the results.

2.  To improve your ability to read critically and sensitively various kinds of literature.

3.  To enhance your understanding and appreciation of cultural values and basic human issues through the study of literature.

III. Evaluation of Written Work.

Your instructors will evaluate your writing to help you to achieve the objectives described above, reading your essays carefully, commenting on both their strengths and weaknesses, and expecting you to use those comments to improve your subsequent writing.

Part of the evaluating role of the instructor is to assign a grade to your work.  Although not all instructors assign grades to every paper, the Academy requires instructors to report grades about every six weeks, and you should be aware of the following guidelines.

1. Criteria for Grading Writing Assignments:

A:  The A essay shows originality of thought in stating and developing a controlling idea or thesis.  It employs the
        most suitable kind and amount of evidence, and this evidence, at every stage of the essay, has a clear purpose.
        In addition, the excellent essay is characterized by careful and effective organization of sentences and paragraphs
        and by careful and effective choice of words and phrases.

B:  The B essay has many of the traits of the A essay, but is usually lacking in one or two areas such as completeness
        of development or clarity of focus in its controlling idea.  The prose in a B essay can be flawless and clear or a bit
        careless, but its general lack of mechanical errors and its "readability" reveal some successful editing and proofreading.

C:  The C essay has a central idea and a basic plan of organization, though that organization breaks down at certain

stages and is often not the plan best suited for the controlling idea.  The C essay lacks development either because it
        does not provide sufficient evidence to support its generalizations or because it lists evidence without providing an a
        assessment of that evidence. Though it usually needs improvement in mechanics and wording, the C paper can be
        almost entirely free of mechanical errors.  Whereas the B essay can be quite impressive in an area or two, the C
        essay usually lacks an outstanding feature, though it might have outstanding potential.

        D.  The D essay shows little understanding of the topic; it usually lacks a controlling idea, and if it states an idea,
        the body of the essay does little to support that idea.  The D essay often has a random order; its paragraphs unfold
        without a plan; and its sentences, though usually understandable, show little evidence of being revised and therefore
        suffer from wordiness and a distracting number of mechanical errors.

        F.  The F essay is unsatisfactory.  It fails to state and develop a main idea, often because it does not respond to the
        assignment.  In addition, several of the major mechanical errors listed below occur repeatedly throughout the paper.

        English instructors agree that frequent occurrences of these errors characterize substandard writing:

                    (1)  sentence fragments (click here)
                    (2)  comma splices or run-on sentences (click here)
                    (3)  dangling or misplaced modifiers (click here)
                    (4)  faulty agreement:  subject-verb or pronoun-antecedent (click here click here and click here)
                    (5)  faulty use of tenses (click here)
                    (6)  substandard idioms or expressions
                    (7)  excessive misspellings of common words

See the slightly more inclusive list in The Longman Handbook (47), which adds to these the following four: faulty shifts in point of view, misuse of apostrophe, missing or misused quotations marks, double negatives.

2. Literacy and a Passing Grade:  Instructors will not automatically assign a failing grade to the paper in which some of the seven faults repeatedly occur, especially when the paper has strength in its content or ideas.  However, if you habitually commit several of these mechanical errors in your essay and do not make definite progress toward avoiding them by the end of the term, your instructor is likely to judge your semester's work as unsatisfactory.  You would do well, then, to study all your handbook has to say about these writing faults so as to avoid them in your writing.  Good ideas deserve good presentation.

IV.  Avoiding Plagiarism.

At the U.S. Naval Academy, the least severe consequence of detected plagiarism is a failing mark on the paper containing the violation.  Since plagiarism is a combination of lying, cheating, and stealing and as such constitutes a violation of the honor concept (see USNAINST 1610.3f), plagiarism could result in your dismissal from the Academy.  The moral:  do not sacrifice your personal integrity and professional potential in such high risk activity.  You would be wise to read the sections on plagiarism and documentation in your handbook, where you'll find the correct way to handle writing and ideas that are not your own.  Look carefully at the following document for more explanation:

English Department Standards for Honest Work

1. Whenever we directly or indirectly refer to the material we’re studying, we’re more persuasive.  Likewise, research—thoroughly studying and investigating a topic—helps us refine our thinking and writing.  Referring to the text and outside sources doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily out of ideas or that we’re in a position of weakness.  Rather, these references further strengthen our arguments, so it’s important that we not undermine that strength by failing in some way to acknowledge our borrowed material.  To this end, we expect you to observe the following standards and always consult the available resources—your instructor, the Writing Center, your Everyday Writer—if you have any questions.

2. The Honor Concept states that midshipmen “ensure that work submitted as their own is their own, and that assistance received from any source is authorized and properly documented.”  That is, midshipmen do not plagiarize.  What, then, is plagiarism?  Citing the Council of Writing Program Administrators, The Longman Handbook, page 333, explains that plagiarism,

“occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source.” . . . Thus, turning in someone else’s paper as your own, taking someone’s original idea or analysis from a book and passing it off as yours, and copying passages or even sentences from a source into your paper without saying where they came from—all represent plagiarism

3. At the U.S. Naval Academy, the least severe consequence of detected plagiarism is a failing mark on the paper containing the violation.  Since plagiarism is a combination of lying, cheating, and stealing, and as such it constitutes a violation of the Honor Concept, plagiarism could result in your dismissal from the Academy.

4. In order to avoid plagiarism it is necessary to document your sources to identify ideas, writings, and material that are not your original thoughts.  Not only must you identify the verbatim use of the words of others, but also those instances that paraphrase or summarize another’s material.  If your instructor doesn’t specify which style to use, you may use footnote, endnote, or parenthetical style; consult The Longman Handbook (332-67) for documentation rules and format.

5. Here are some methods of using reference material:

a. You may quote a whole sentence or more verbatim, documenting the source.

b.  You may paraphrase or summarize the writer’s idea or information, in language which is unmistakably your own, and give the writer credit for it in your documentation.

c.  You may wish to combine these methods by working into your paraphrase or summary some brief quotations of the writer’s key words or phrases and then documenting the source.  This is often the most effective way to reference material.

Remember:  all the above methods of citation require proper documentation of the source.  Paraphrasing or summarizing what you use from a source does not relieve you of the obligation to give credit where credit is due.

6.  These suggestions for using reference materials while avoiding plagiarism will also help you:

a. Quotation marks:  whatever you are quoting verbatim, whether whole sentences or merely words or phrases, must, of course, be identified by quotation marks, unless you are using the alternative method of indentation and single-spacing for lengthy quotation.

b.  Anticipating documentation:  it’s generally advisable when you cite a writer’s opinion (e.g., his or her analysis or criticism of a literary work) that you mention him or her, preferably by name, in the text as you begin your citation, making it clear to your reader beforehand that he or she is about to hear from a source other than yourself.  Don’t rely entirely upon documentation at the end of a sentence or a paragraph; establish a context for your reader.

c.  Documentation at the end of each paragraph isn’t sufficient, since it causes confusion concerning how much material is being referenced.  Avoid the practice of “lifting” sizable blocks of material by including original ideas within and varying the sources of information, producing the true research product—a blend of sources and original thought.

7.  Plagiarism encompasses more than the taking of material from published sources without acknowledgment.  It also includes submitting ideas or papers that are partially or totally the work of another person, including another student.  There is no prohibition against having someone else proofread or type a paper, but you must be sure that the corrections or changes made in your work by others do not alter the substance or style of the paper.

Expectations for Revised Paragraphs in Folders – Due 3 Feb

1. A clear, sharply focused topic sentence with a strong purpose.

2. Use of detailed examples to explain the point you’re making.

3. Control of agreement problems—subject-verb as wells as pronoun

Sample Successful Paragraph from 1^st Submission

What I have come to learn at the Academy is that a shit-screen is not a fool. Instead, shit-screens are people who just do not quite fit in with the rest. Additionally, this status is by choice or default. An individual who becomes a “screen” just does not care about doing what he is supposed to. For example, when everyone is on a chow call station or delivering laundry, the shit-screen chooses to hide in his room or walk extremely slow back from class to avoid the chore. A fool, on the other hand, is someone who for unknown reasons cannot do things right no matter how hard he tries. Fools are unable to grasp the idea that what they are doing is wrong or that it makes no sense. An example would be the cashier, Ed, in the movie “Good Burger.” Ed literally tries to watch his own butt after being told to do so by a rival food chain owner. In this context, however, Gimpel is neither a fool nor a shit-screen. Though he comes across as a fool to others, a gullible person who does whatever he is told, it is evident by his constant questioning that he does not believe all of it. Instead, Gimpel chooses to comply with everyone in an attempt to be happy. He chooses to put himself through all the mocking and deceit because doing the opposite only causes him more grief and heartache, as is the case when he hears that his wife was unfaithful to him.

To Be Verb Practice Page

1. The President is seen with his typical confident grin stretching from one dimple to the other.

2. The ad is located in a Sports Illustrated magazine, whose main audience is men of various ages.

3. There is also a slight shimmer on the caramel as well as a perfect peanut butter to nougat ratio.

4. This is the color scheme of the church that affects our view.

5. The simple fact is that if you have a statue of yourself, then you must be an important figure.

6. It’s important to note that this noise canceling functionality was only implied by the ad, and we the consumers inferred it to be true.

7. This is important because gold is a color symbolizing wealth, and similarly the wine glass alludes to sophistication and elegance above drinking beer from a can.

8. There is also another hand grabbing for a beer mug in the bottom right corner.

9. The method Camel uses is very effective because it grabs the viewer’s attention with the scenery, even before the person notices that it is a cigarette commercial.

10. The ad’s background is black leading the viewer to think thata the beer is dark and mysterious.

11. In the United States there are 430,000 – 435,000 people that die from smoking every year.

12. Buy the Camel Lights is telling the reader that when you are smoking it, you will be looking cool like the camel.

13. Though I do not personally disagree with this assumption, it is not one that is true to every man in the world, or even that read the magazine.

14. Weight loss is a topic that is widely discussed around the nation.

15. In addition, there are no phone numbers or a location written on the ad about where their product can be purchased.

With the Olympics quickly approaching, an upper class and I discussed what the toughest Olympic sport is. I told him that I believe the Biathlon remains the toughest sport in both the summer and winter Olympic games because the athletes must control their heart rate ridiculously well. A Biathlon consists of cross country skiing twelve miles on a five lap course. Before the competitors start their next lap, they must stop and shoot five times at a target 50 meters away. The targets are 45 or 115 millimeters in diameter, and competitors rotate between the prone and standing positions for the respective targets. These athletes must ski fast enough to win with an eight pound rifle on their back, and then must relax their hearts to shoot and control their rifles. Then the athletes must get their heart rates back up again to race another loop, which takes a lot of control. My only experience with this type of self-control in a game is when I play two-on-two full court basketball on the weekends. Once, when I had exhausted myself by running down the court many times, I shot the ball so poorly that it did not even touch the rim. After missing the shot, I remembered the conversation with the upper class about Biathletes, and I decided to try and relax myself before the next shot. I still missed the shot, but the ball hit the rim. Not many people can control their own heart rate. The challenges Biathletes face prove why they compete in the toughest sport.

While walking on the yard I could not help but notice all the tourist the Naval Academy attracts on the weekends. They range from all different ages, countries and races to catch a glimpse of the midshipmen’s habitat, like you would witness at a zoo. “O look honey there’s a fourth class midshipmen,” is a fraise I often here while passing a group of tourist. At first I was shocked I was being identified as a 4^th class midshipman and not looked upon as a regular human. At that point I realized that all the tourist where stopping and taking pictures like midshipmen where some type of endangered animal. The tour guides only add fuel to the fire by describing are everyday life. The tour guides explains what type of food we eat, how many calories we consume on an average meal and even the way we eat family style like a pack of hyenas would. The main attraction for tourist is noon meal formation on Friday. They proceed to herd all the midshipmen up much like sheep to get accountability. The tourist really get fascinated by the way the midshipmen species are so trained and discipline to follow commands and complete movements in sync with each other. At the end of the day you can’t put the blame on a single group of people for after all they just want a glimpse at “America’s finest.”

In the short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, the protagonist, the grandmother, is driven by the desire to maintain her image.  The grandmother wants above all else to remain a well versed and educated woman in the eyes of society.  This facade has two facets: outward appearance and the image of being knowledgeable.  First, outward appearance:  she wore extravagant clothing.  For instance, "Her collar and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and on her necklace she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet."  As far as appearing knowledgeable is concerned, during her family's journey, the grandmother would point out interesting historical facts such as a plantation where a grave yard stood.  In addition, when the grandmother realized that she was mistaken that the house was in Tennessee, not Georgia, she did not tell he family.  She wanted to maintain her appearance of being well-educated, even at the cost of lying and wasting others' time.

Sample Successful Student Paper on Assignment #2

Clothes in “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”

In reading stories, we often overlook small details the first time, and can even skip over them on our second, third, or forth read. Skilled authors situate these details with a purpose. Stephen Crane uses the smallest of detail to enhance the message he is trying to express. In “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky,” clothing is the detail many of us might disregard, yet it serves a distinct purpose. Stephen Crane uses clothing to indicate his predominant message of the cultural shift from the old ways of the west to modernization.

Crane begins developing this imagery in the second paragraph of the story, where Jack Porter wears his “new black” clothes. We know Jack Porter is newly wed to a girl from San Antonio, a city that lies east of Yellow Sky. Porter has engaged in marriage, a civilized institution. These two facts convey that the old Porter, the wild, gun slinging, untamable man of the west has been domesticated; the ways of his former lifestyle are dead. For that very reason he is portrayed wearing black. Jack Porter has given up his rough ways, and at the end of the story Porter’s bride rescues him from Scratch Wilson. Porter does not carry a gun anymore and therefore needs the intervention of his wife to make Scratchy Wilson go along his way. In the old west, not having a gun can equate to a probable death. Potter’s wife serves as a symbol of the east and modernization, which saves him from the assault of a western gunman. The image of the black wedding clothes marks the death of the old west and the modernization of Porter’s new life.

In addition, Crane uses clothes to build Scratchy Wilson's kid-like character, representing the dying west.  Crane chooses to portray Scratchy as a kid because he possesses a kid-like inability to control a foreign situation.  Scratchy's clothes foreshadow his character from the moment he is introduced.  He wears red top boots like those favored by sledding kids on the hillsides of New England in the winter.  We also learn that he dresses with a maroon-colored shirt made by some New York Jewish women.  Both articles refer to the Northeast, adding to the theme of the east overtaking the West. Scratchy is described as the last one of an old gang, as the nicest fellow in town, fairly simple, incapable of hurting a fly, but a terror when drunk (34).  In the last paragraph, Scratchy Wilson is described as a "mere child in the presence of a foreign condition, a child of the earlier plains." Scratchy Wilson's actions also reinforce his childlike character, which was foreshadowed by his child-like red boots.  On page thirty-five, he is referred to as a "small thing in the middle of the street" and having "little fingers" (35). Both details imply that Scratchy's western place within Yellow Sky is being downsized; he is now a child with little power.  Going around shooting and causing mayhem is considered his "playing with this town. It was a toy for him" (35).  Because it is his town people let him do as he pleases, but as we can see, he is losing his power. The bartender of Weary Gentleman is able to keep him out by simply locking the door.  He is disregarded; no man responds to his offer to fight.  Frustrated because nobody would play with him, Scratchy goes to Potter's house.  Ironically in his confrontation with Potter, Scratchy states, "Don't take me for no kid." Yet when he leaves, his feet make funnel shaped tracks in the heavy sand.  Scratchy leaves depressed and is dragging ! ! his feet as a child drags his feet when no one wants to play with him.  The manner in which Scratchy dresses is significant to the story because it outlines and ridicules his ties with the uncivilized and child-like wild, wild west.
In conclusion, the usage of minor detail is a vital art, an art that a writer must master and a reader must not overlook.  The use of clothing to describe the characters in "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" proves this point. We can only truly appreciate Crane's mastery of the pen when we realize that Potter's new black attire symbolizes the death of his western self and that Scratchy Wilson's boots and flannel shirt symbolize the child-like inability to accept the modernization of his West.

Potter’s life serves as a symbol of the East and modernization which saves him from the assault of a western gunman.

He persistently believes that Montresor, his friend is leading him for a little wine tasting down in the vaults, yet he does not grasp Montresor’s true character.

The image of the black wedding clothes marks the death of the old West, and the modernization of Potter’s new life.

Montresor also tells Fortunato “my dear Fortunato, you are luckily met.”

Every time Montresor brings up Luchesi Fortunato stops Montresor mid-sentence and tells Montresor he can keep going.

Prompt for Paper Assignment #3

Due Date: 9 April

Length: about 4 pages

Write an essay in which you focus on a character from Othello, A Streetcar Named Desire or one of the short stories you have read. The purpose of the paper is to explain how you, or perhaps someone you know, “relates to” this character. That means that you need to explain how your experience of reading about this character and understanding him or her offers you a new window upon your own self, your own make-up and motives and needs, or those of another person whom you know. Perhaps you might want to move in the other direction: your understanding of yourself or of another actually gives you a particularly privileged or insider-like understanding of that fictional character. Choose one of these directions as the guiding force of your paper. Important: even though this paper will depend in part on comparison/contrast—as well as the use of examples and short accounts of events in your––do not make it unfold as a paper, paste, scissors, check-the-box, comparison/contrast paper. If it unfolds in that way, it will not succeed. Click here to go to a paper of this sort based on a poem.

Out of Joint

Miniver Cheevy, in Robinson's poem, makes fun of a character who fuels his failure with excuses.  Coming from a family that thrives on laughing at each other and other people for their pretensions, for their false sense of
self-importance, I can really "get into this poem." 

        "You're wrong, Richard."  "It's your own fault, not your friends'."  "Look it up and see."  "Is that right; are you sure?" Perhaps these questions circulate through any family, but having married into a family whose members skirt confrontations, avoid debate, and thrive on what remains unsaid, I began to get a different perspective on my bringing-up. The person who made a claim that he couldn't prove or the person who made a mistake and tried to act as though he hadn't--whether father, mother, or son--became the raw meat for a pack of hungry hounds.  The appetite for ridiculing laughter was enormous.  And beyond that, even the hint that one imagined himself as something "superior" to what he in fact was brought the hounds running.  For us this imagining took "manly" shape—pretending to be Michael Jordan or Larry Bird, or imagining ourselves to be combat soldiers or great safari hunters.  Though a normal part of a person's forming identity (at least I think it is), this process had to occur in a carefully guarded form.  Any sign of an attempt to imagine oneself as the great hunter or the all-star basketball player would invite all sorts of bubble-bursting commentary—"How's the great marksman doing?"; "How many rhinoes you killed this afternoon?"; or "Hey, great rebound; I could almost see some air between your toes and the pavement!" 

        We aimed the ridicule outside the family as well, always honing in on vanity or the slightly emerging sense of
self-importance.  The President of the obscure Eastern Brewer Little League Association was one of our favorite laughing stocks for his sense of self-importance, his claiming that he "rendered this decision" about the distance to the left field foul pole or "did some soul-searching" about what time to open the snack bar before the Tuesday afternoon games.  We laughed at dinner about his name-dropping, as when he alluded to the time that he and Tony Conigliaro of the Boston Red Socks discussed hitting, for instance.  He never even came within a football field of Tony C!  Even now, when I go home to visit my parents, I reenter this world largely sustained by ridicule.  There's a 5'3" guy across the street who wears a red and black hunting shirt and who's wife bosses him around; my dad calls this guy "Paul Bunyan."  The man who walks a step or two ahead of his wife during their morning "constitutional" has been christened "lead man" as a way to call attention to what seems to be his "taking charge" in a situation where it really doesn't matter.  I could multiply these examples, but I think you get the drift.  My family was irreverent and liked to "lock onto" human vanity. 

        As I think about it more and more, I realize that two perhaps competing things were going on in our family psyche:  one, we pretended that we were the few among humanity who operated according to the unadorned truth and did not pretend to be anymore than we were; and two, we could only recognize so uncannily the vanity in others if we in fact harbored, even cherished, it somewhere in ourselves.  I for one can confess that I lived out my own fantasies, imagining myself having the moves of Julius Erving, the swing of Tom Watson, and the curve ball of Nolan Ryan.  In imagining those things I actually improved as an athlete at least and, often as not, avoided the ridicule of my family.  Nevertheless, I have come to realize how thoroughly I was, and perhaps still am, invested in an imaginary world in which I display more prowess than I actually have.  Because of this I can imagine now what I never recognized:  all the dreams that my parents and brothers must have secretly harbored.   In fact when I think of my father (a lowly plumber who revered Arnold Palmer, Ted Williams, and Rocky Marciano) and his genius for ridiculing others, especially by naming them in a way that absolutely captured their vanity, I think sadly on all the fervid but unfulfilled dreams that must have spawned that genius. 

        This is where "Miniver Cheevy comes into the picture.  The poem captures the immense difference between what Miniver identifies himself with and what he is: an unhealthy drunk (growing lean, he coughs and keeps "on drinking") who has clearly achieved no success. He rails against the times, blaming their degeneracy for his failure.  He sees himself as an ill-fit with the worsening times, imaginatively throwing himself back into the days of Thebes, Troy, Camelot, and Renaissance Italy.  In doing so, however, he doesn't seem to assume that he might be just a pee-on in these ancient and famous places where heroes, knights, and ruthless monarchs ruled.  He somehow imagines himself just those heroes, knights, and tyrants.  It's like the line from the movie Bull Durham, in which Crash Davis asks the "love interest" why it is that everyone who claims to have lived a former life always chooses the famous people--Caesar, King Arthur, Robert L. Lee--rather than a nobody.  Robinson cuts through Miniver's vanity like a knife through butter—the same treatment we would get from each other in my household.  Robinson becomes almost blatantly sarcastic in suggesting that Miniver preferred the "grace" of medieval armor to khaki pants and that he "loved the Medici,/Albeit he had never seen one."  My family, if it had to, would formulate Miniver's problem in this way:  "he can't accept the truth about himself, blames everyone else, and thus lives in an unrealistic world that has no basis in reality; he's a fool!" 

        As a "card-carrying" member of my family, I wasn't surprised that I first reacted to the poem in just that way.  But as one who has survived and through marriage gotten a different perspective, I can feel some kinship with Miniver.  I'm not a drunk; and I grow almost physically ill when I hear people talking, without any sense of historical facts, about the good days when knights were gentlemen (yea, right!).  However, I do feel as though, but for dumb luck or something that I just have not been able to identify, the balance in any of us between our imaginary worlds of accomplishment and our actual worlds of mere survival and competence could be thrown out of balance and become like Miniver's.  We could wake up tomorrow and assume that we're OK and the world's all wrong.  Or is that what we do anyway? 

Obsessive Rocking

Hutch Cunningham

The young boy named Paul, in “The Rocking Horse Winner,” by D. H. Lawrence, is driven by his own obsessive behavior. The young boy discovers his ability to predict the winning horse and he quickly becomes fixated with gambling on horse races. He continually attempts to make more and more money in an effort to win his mother’s affection until he abruptly dies after winning over eighty thousand pounds on one race. As a perfectionist myself, I easily related to Paul and I found myself viewing his obsessive behavior with a reflective attitude. This story has caused me to develop a new outlook on my own obsessive behavior. I have learned to be aware of my obsessions and to limit them in order to prevent hurting myself and others.

While growing up, I always had an obsessive nature, mostly due to my desire for perfection. From building Legos as a little kid to playing sports in high school, I always wanted to do better. Once I reached a certain goal, I swiftly strove for a new one. For instance, when I was going into my freshman year of high school, my goal was to make the varsity baseball team. Because I was a pretty good player on my previous traveling team I was confident in my ability to make the team. I spent the preluding summer working out and going to the batting cages almost every day. Not only did I want to be skilled enough to play varsity ball, I also wanted to be strong enough to keep up with players three years older than I. Every day after work, I would go straight into my intense workout routine. I would spend countless hours at the gym. I ended up doing very well during the tryouts in spring, but I did not make the varsity team. Instead, I was sent to spend most of the season on the junior varsity squad. My failure to achieve my goal, much like Paul’s failure to please his mother, caused me to become even more obsessed with baseball. I got to the point where I would be hitting at the cages until there was no more light in the day. The coaches noticed my improvements and eventually moved me up to varsity. I finally reached my goal for that year and, almost instantly, I wanted more. I once again increased my workout routine to the point where I was only hurting myself. I ended up that season injured with a pulled back muscle and I only had one at bat as a varsity player.

From the beginning of the story, I noticed Paul’s obsessive behavior. I hastily picked up on this trait when the narrator stated, “The boy saw she did not believe him; or, rather, that she paid no attention to his assertion. This angered him somewhat, and made him want to compel her attention.” The quote shows what originally motivated Paul to pursue gambling, which quickly turned into his obsession. I began to relate to Paul at this point of the story. Our similar behavior caused me to compare myself to him. As the story progressed, along with Paul’s obsession, I kept on revisiting my own obsessions. After seeing the results of Paul’s situation, I realized the wrongs that could happen from an obsessive behavior. I began to think about how my obsessive behavior has affected myself and others. It became clear to me of how many of my damaging experiences came into play because of my obsessions, such as my back injury from baseball.

The scene where Paul dies after winning eighty thousand pounds brings to light the detrimental side of his obsessions. Right before his death, Paul appears awfully desperate to earn his mother’s appreciation. Some of Paul’s last words were, “Malabar! Malabar! Did I say Malabar, Mother? Did I say Malabar? Do you think I’m lucky, Mother? I knew Malabar, didn’t I? Over eighty thousand pounds! I call that lucky, don’t you, Mother? Over eighty thousand pounds! I knew, didn’t I know I knew?” In this quote he continues to repeat his accomplishment to his mother. He also questions his mother over and over again about whether she thinks he is lucky. It is almost sad to watch him go to such extents for his mother’s affection. The extremity of Paul’s death caused me to think about myself. It is true that my perfectionistic behavior has helped me achieve great things, like getting into the Naval Academy, but it has also led me down the wrong road at times. Even today at the academy, I am still trying to improve at almost everything I do. I worked very hard during the first semester of my plebe year. I did very well academically because I made the dean’s list, and I also performed well on most of my pro quizzes. I greatly exceeded any goals that I set for myself that semester. After a brief moment of happiness with my accomplishments, I soon wanted more. My squad leader asked me what I wanted to improve on the next semester and the only response I could think of was getting better grades. I blurted this out just after the fact that my squad leader had just praised me for performing so well. So far this semester, I have already gone to twice as many review sessions as last semester. I am also spending a lot more time studying and doing my homework. The downfall to all of this is that I am not keeping in touch with my classmates. As the plebe activities are winding down, I feel like I am slowly separating from some of my company mates. I feel isolated as I become more obsessed with my grades.

Another example of how my obsessive nature is getting the best of me is the upcoming alpha inspection. Some people take only a couple of hours to strip and wax a floor, but it takes me almost twice as long. Even though I know that the inspector is probably only going to glance at the floor and will most likely pass me no matter how hard I try, I still feel compelled to have a perfect floor. I won’t even begin waxing until I have completely stripped the floor and have gotten rid of every single scrape on the floor. This past weekend, I ended up going to bed at two in the morning just so that I could get a couple extra coats of wax onto the floor. My floor might look better than a couple of my classmates, but they will definitely pass. My obsessive mindset caused me to work too hard and waste most of my time when I could have been doing homework or relaxing with my friends.

“The Rocking Horse Winner” helped me better understand myself. By seeing the connection that I had with Paul, I was able to see the effects of my own obsessive behavior. Seeing the negative effects of Paul’s behavior caused me to realize my own faults. I am more aware of my obsessive behavior and will begin to take more things with a grain of salt. I won’t stop working hard, but I will set more reasonable goals and respect them instead of making newer and more outrageous ones.

ME andThe Misfit

Joshua L. Drabløs

I was born in the heart of the south, Montgomery, Alabama, at 1:33 PM to a tall, dark and handsome father and a petite, blond mother with a beautiful smile. I went to pre-school at the first united Methodist Church, the biggest church in the state of Alabama with over four thousand members, in the center of the Montgomery suburbs. I can still remember my mother picking me up from school one day and listening to her talk to my teacher about how much she hated this “first lady,” who I later found out was none other than Hilary Clinton. Every Sunday before church my brother and sisters would always whine and complain about getting dressed in nice clothes and being forced to go to see the mean Sunday school teacher. I never understood why they complained: if they didn’t go to church and believe in Jesus they would go to “H- E double hockey sticks.”

Several years later I am sitting in Sunday school once again listening to the mean Sunday school teacher talk. She tells my class that Jesus has given us freedom and freewill, but if we don’t believe in him we will go to hell! Well, I’ve never really understood my Sunday school teacher but this time she just didn’t make any sense. I asked her, “If Jesus gives us all this freewill than why does he make me go to hell if I don’t believe in him? I don’t think that’s very “free” of him.” She told me that I do have freewill and that the only thing I have to do in order to go to heaven is believe in Jesus! “Mrs. Stanley,” I said. “But Jesus is making me believe in him! I don’t wanna go to hell so I have to believe in him!” Suddenly, it hit me like a heart attack and I began to break down and cry. “It’s not true!” I said wailing like a baby. “Jesus isn’t real! He can’t be!” Suddenly everyone in my Sunday school class gasped like I transformed into a hideous monster and tried to take away their immortal souls. I collapsed to the ground like I’d been shot and cried harder than ever. I’m thirteen years old, remember, teenagers aren’t supposed to cry in public, especially cry like I was crying, but my whole world had turned upside down.

My parents just thought I was a different breed, the kind that some people think are just born Democrats, and God has already determined they are going to hell. Again, I never understood this “freewill thing” they kept saying God gave me. I never had a personal conversation with my father again after that Sunday. Also, he stopped saying “I love you” after we finished our conversations on the phone. I listened to him finish his conversations with my brother and sisters with “I love you.” I suppose he thought I didn’t notice. The only time I spoke with him was when he came outside to tell me that I’d never get a scholarship for college by skateboarding all the time. My mother never really lost hope in me; I assume she just kept praying to Jesus, hoping he would come down from his comfortable leather chair and Grande Latte in heaven and change my mind about him. He never came.

O’Connor’s misfit is a murderer in the eyes of the Grandmother and her family, but I’m sure he’s more of a tragedy in the eyes of his parents. The misfit claims he came from good kin, the best people. His father had a “heart of gold.” I also believe my father has a heart of gold. The misfit quotes his father on page 202; “It’s some that can live their whole lives without asking about it, others that has to know why it is, and it’s this boy that is one of the latters. He’s going to be into everything!” Well my father is a smart man but he hasn’t thought this about people. He’s the type of person the misfit’s father spoke about when he said, "Some people can live their whole lives without asking about it." One piece of information the Misfit had to assuage his frustrations was that his father knew why The Misfit had gotten into everything or why he’d gone sour. My father will never understand why I’ve changed, nor if I explain to him will he listen to what I have to say. In both my circumstance or the misfits, we are not failures to our parents, especially for me being at the Naval Academy. To a southerner, military service, especially via a service academy, awards me the highest number of “Southern Gentleman points” possible. My situation makes my mother look very successful as a parent to other southerners for raising a son who decided to serve his country. The misfit and I are not failures; we are tragedies.

Looking further into the mind of the Misfit, we see a man who has more nerve and boldness than any of the people around him. The Misfit appears to acknowledge the existence of Jesus; therefore he believes in Heaven and Hell. He is also a murderer and claims that he doesn’t care what he does because one day, he’s just going to be punished for it anyway. The Misfit murderers people in-spite of the fact that he knows he is doomed to an eternity in the depths of the Christian Hell for his actions. The Misfit behaves a certain way even though he will be punished for his actions.

After comprehending the gall of the Misfit I thought about my life and what gall I had to scratch at Southern social fabric when I publicly denounced the existence of Jesus. The South to me is a factory built with a frame of satanic steel, but with side panels of Christianity to cover up its inner beast. Essentially, people appear nice on the outside and say something they claim from their heart, and then contradict themselves in their actions. Spread out in larger suburbs, southerners can limit social interactions so that they live in quite self-centered solitude for a majority of their time, and then pretend to deeply care about stranger’s well-being for two hours a week at church. The beast within is comfortably hidden for two hours a week. What I had done that memorable Sunday when I denounced the immortal Jesus was to stand up for what I believed, in spite of the fact that I would be publicly branded in the South as someone who is doomed to Hell and mentally misguided or ‘A complete whacko,” as my father would say. Although I do not believe I will be getting punished eternally for not believing in the immortal Jesus, I do understand that people I knew in Montgomery will not invite me to public events, they will not trust their children around me alone (out of fear I will try to tell them Jesus is not real), they will intentionally limit their interactions with me, and they will think of me as lesser a human-being (especially because I’m liberal). Regardless of what people think of me, I will continue to believe what I want and do what I feel is right just as the Misfit would.

In conclusion I see the Misfit as a role model. Not for being a murderer but for every aspect of his character other than that. The Misfit stands up for what he believes and acts the way he feels he should despite of the fact that he will be punished for his actions. I know it’s possible to make amends and let my family believe that I am cured of whatever “satanic disease” I have. It’s even still possible for me to re-establish relationships with people who believe that I am doomed to an eternity in Hell and an insane for not even attempting to save my soul. But I will not do either of these because I do not believe in an immortal God or son of God, and I will not do so even to fix a battered relationship with my family and friends. It is safe to assume that the Misfit lived relatively alone and that the men with him in the story did not share the Misfit’s level of gall and all of his beliefs. I have accepted the level of solitude and separation I must endure because of my beliefs and understand the consequences of my beliefs if I am wrong (Although I like to assume that Gandhi and the Dalia Lama are not in Hell). The Misfit and I share a similar tragedy in our up-bringing: audacity in our actions and beliefs, and a secluded and separate existence that we must endure.

Prompt for Assignment #4

Length: 3-4 pages

Audience: your classmates and instructor

Due: 30 April

Purpose: focus on a character in either A Streetcar Named Desire or Death of a Salesman and explore that character in terms of the proposition that we all have our own dream of how life should go, our own story that we tell ourselves about ourselves. The characters in these plays all have their own stories. Your job is to isolate, identify, and briefly lay out that story and to explore (which means explain and analyze) how it causes problems as it comes up against the other characters with their own stories.