Guest Blogger: Jeanne D.

In class the other day, we got together with a group and discussed some of our findings in Ethan Frome. My group decided to analyze the relationships between the characters. Ethan and Mattie have a very interesting relationship- she doesn’t even know or seem to notice that Ethan has a thing for her until he finally starts kissing her cloth, and eventually kissing her. We begin to see how Ethan is falling for Mattie when he goes to pick her up from the dance. He waits in the shadows for Mattie and watches to see if she flirts with Denis Eady. He is a very jealous man, even jealous of the cat! On page 72, when the cat rubs against Mattie’s legs, she nearly trips saying “Why puss! I nearly tripped over you!” It goes on to say that Ethan ‘felt a sudden twinge of jealousy’. Mattie doesn’t realize that Ethan has fallen for her, because when he asks if she’s planning on moving out soon (getting married), she takes it as Zeena wanting her to leave and she starts crying and freaking out. Ethan is too love-sick to notice.
Ethan and Zeena are married, but don’t really seem to like each other. Ethan only marries her because she could talk and laugh, unlike his mother. Once she got sick, she stopped talking though. Zeena seems suspicious that something is going on with Ethan- she stays up when he comes home from picking Mattie up from the dance. She notices that he is shaving as well. She seems as if she has an idea of what is going on, but she never really expresses it. Although we always consider Ethan to be stricken with Mattie, he keeps seeing images of Zeena. When Mattie sits in Zeena’s chair, Ethan sees Zeena’s face on Mattie’s body. When Ethan and Zeena are about to kill themselves, Ethan almost dodges the tree because he see’s Zeena’s face.
Mattie and Zeena don’t seem to get along at all. Mattie doesn’t do much housework, which seems to make Zeena sicker. Mattie tries to please Zeena so that she doesn’t get kicked out of the house, since she has nowhere to go. At the end of the book, Zeena is ready for Mattie to leave. This of course, never happens.

Guest Blogger: Jen A.

Today in class, Mr. Edmund’s introduced us to our next novel, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. I am excited to read this book because it brings us a new element, the stream on consciousness. From the example we were shown in class, we realized what it was like to read the something that is a stream of consciousness. The example helped us to see the true meaning of being inside the characters minds. Everything they feel, think about, analyze.. we get to know it all. Right away in the book we see the first example of the stream of consciousness. In chapter one or “Darl”, it starts with “The path…” From this run on sentence we get to see what Darl is thinking. From what I hear about this book, we do not just enter the stream on consciousness from one person, but about 15 people!
From the discussion we had in class, I think this is going to be a very interesting book. I am excited to read about Faulkner’s use of literary modernism and how it connects with As I Lay Dying. (In case you weren’t in class today literary modernism is: the value of individuality, uneasiness about institutions (like the government, religion) and social forces that may limit or harm an individual, and the denial of any absolute truths.
As I researched more about William Faulkner, I found an interesting quote from him. "Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him." Faulkner loved to try new things, he was one of the first American writers to experiment with many things like the stream on consciousness and he was also recognized for creating a county where all of his books took place. The more I read about Faulkner the more interesting I became in his writing and I cant wait to see what As I Lay Dying brings.

Guest Blogger: Braedon W.

Acclaimed author and Pulitzer Prize winner Edith Wharton obviously knows what it takes to write a good novel. Several times this week I have heard my fellow classmates talking about how good the book was or how they were looking forward to reading more. I also found this to be true for myself when I was reading this weekend. After reading through chapter 8 on Sunday, I stopped to think about why this book is able to capture everyone’s attention so easily. It is not the main character, as the story is told through the perspective of a very boring, unanimated Ethan Frome who scarcely communicates in more than a two word grunt. I found that Edith Wharton uses the settings around the characters and unusual details to keep capturing our attention throughout the novel.

When the narrator introduces a character in Ethan Frome, she describes the lighting and its effect on unique details in their appearance to shape the reader’s attitude toward them. She portrays Zeena as a sick, constantly complaining character that Ethan is stuck with and obliged to take care of. When Zeena is first described standing in the doorway, she is put up against a dark background being “tall and angular” while the light “drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.” These descriptions of Zeena along with several others throughout the story make the reader feel negatively towards Zeena.

The descriptions of Mattie often put her in the softer light of a lamp or fireplace, introduce us to the color red in a landscape otherwise described in grayscale, and use comparable passages to shape our attitude about her. When Zeena is gone and Ethan finds the door locked Mattie answers “She stood just as Zeena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand, against the black background of the kitchen. She held the light at the same level, and it drew out with the same distinctness her slim young throat and the brown wrist no bigger than a child’s. Then, striking upwards, it threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.” This description through Ethan’s view point uses very positive diction to portray Mattie as embodying youth and innocence.

This stark contrast and definition in the way the characters are described helps create a good vs. evil scenario in our minds throughout the novel. It also makes what would be a very boring book about nineteenth-century New England into a novel that keeps you interested in reading more.

Guest Blogger: Aymen M.

Continuing on with our current topic of Gothic Romance and Verisimilitude, we have moved onto a new novel—”Ethan Frome.” Despite being only three chapters into the novel, one aspect I found quite interesting was how Wharton uses the season of winter to reveal the personality of Starkfield. Wharton describes Starkfield's climate having radiant blue skies and eye-catching snow, creating a pleasant winter wonderland of a town. However, this is not entirely so, because Wharton contrasts the seemingly pleasant climate of Starkfield with “the deadness of the community” of Starkfield. Instead of making the community and it’s residents lively, the atmosphere appears to emphasize “the sluggish pulse of Starkfield.” Introduced in the prologue of the novel, it seems as if the force of nature is at war with Starkfield during the winter, forcing the community of Starkfield to surrender without any hope to oppose it. This is definitely true because of Wharton's use of some military-like metaphors that caught my eye; “the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to their support.” Also, the imagery in “Ethan Frome” creates an impression that it is built around the coldness of winter. Characters in the novel constantly complain about the cold which appears to add to the community's “deadness.” For instance, Ethan Frome himself is described for having “been in Starkfield too many winters,” so it makes sense that winter is at fault—or at least partly—for Ethan's bland and seemingly inert attitude so far in the novel. Ethan's personal life appears to be greatly affected by winter as well. Even though he is married to Zeena, his wife, Ethan's marriage with her looks as if he just married her so he does not have to bear the recurring burden of winter year after year. So, in a sense, Ethan and Zeena's marriage is essentially buried under a pile of snow that cannot be brought up, because he is not at all attracted to her. My analysis is based on the prologue and the first three chapters of the novel, so I do not know entirely why winter is so significant, but based on what is happening so far, I would think that winter is symbolic and is a major part of the theme of “Ethan Frome.”

Guest Blogger: Drew M.

My post is done to complement turn of the screw. Before starting this book yesterday without going through the beforehand knowledge it was really confusing. Going through the power points explaining what we were looking for and what this was about was really very helpful. One thing that you have to understand about turn of the screw is that it is a ghost story. I am wondering who of the class actually believes in ghosts. I personally have not yet figured out where I stand on this issue. There are times when I feel like there is no way that ghost exist and yet there are always those supernatural occurrences that I seem to feel. I think the way that the governess describes them is similar to the way I have felt them. I always seem to feel as if someone is watching me. I then promptly turn around but I see only a little flash then nothing like whatever it was has just disappeared. This has not happened to me in a while however so I'm beginning to think that it was just my imagination. One other instance of this still semi haunts me today. It happened in Minnesota in sakatah national forest. We were on a biking trip for boy scouts. We were camped near a lake. WE were sitting around the campfire when I noticed a light coming from the lake. It was a cloudless night yet it was a new moon so there was no moon in the sky. The odd thing about this light was that if you looked directly at it you couldn't see it. You could only see it if you looked to the side of it. We put out all the lights and looked at it. At this point I was not freaked out because I thought it was just a light that must be reflecting off of the water. So to assure myself and the other scouts of this we walked down to the lake. We looked on and around the shore line for anything that could have produced this light but we found nothing. Another weird thing about this light was that it was not white but it was more a pearly white with a hint of green mixed in. As I recount the story now I'm beginning to get a lump in my throat. I do not know if anyone had drowned in the lake or had died near there but what I saw that night was no ordinary light. I have never been back to that lake but if I ever do go back on a cloudless and moonless summer night I will be sure to look for it again. The reader's belief in ghosts like mine takes a very important part in this story. This can force you to take the stand that the governess is mental because of some of the lines that she says that make absolutely no sense, or you can take the side that what she says is completely true because of hr very accurate descriptions. I believe that she is telling what she believes to be the truth. I know this is kind of an opinion less way to put it but when a person believes that something imaginary happened it actually can affect someone more than if it was real. Sorry to point at a south park episode but the imagination land episode actually points this out very well that even imaginary things have real power over life. I would just like to know where other people stand on a few questions. First do you believe in supernatural experiences? Second based on your answer to the first is the governess off her rocker or telling the truth? And finally how do you feel about the things in your imagination?

Guest Blogger: Tony S.

As we learned not to long ago, Gothic Romance and Verisimilitude are opposite sides of the spectrum. One, being dark and unrealistic, gothic romance falls under the movies such as the saw series, while the other, being bored-to-death realistic, is the exact other. One comparison is two video games (video games in AP lit? No way!). Dante’s Inferno and Heavy Rain are perfect examples of Gothic Romance and Verisimilitude.
Dante’s Inferno is a prime example of Gothic Romance, whether going by the book or the video game. In the video game, the player controls Dante through the 9 rings of Hell, using a big freaking scythe of awesome, and battling millions upon millions of damned souls to rescue Beatrice from hell and keep the Devil from escaping his prison… (Trailer) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuKIWhx9RhM
Sounds gothic to me...
But that is not the only reason why it is a prime example. In class we talked about how much time may pass in each. Gothic Romance tends to skip the smaller details of what the knight ate the morning of the battle and jumps right to the epic battle between him and the dragon. The same sort of feeling is in the game too. Besides the fact that it’s not exactly normal to visit hell once in a while, but there is something a bit off if you can fight through Hell and out the other side in a couple hours. Each level, you slash and crash your way to the boss fight, then you get to the next one with no real detail in-between.
However…
Heavy Rain is the perfect example for Verisimilitude. Heavy Rain is a game where you walk and talk your way into finding out the answers to the disappearance of a young boy, who is most likely in the hands of a killer. In class we talked about how it wasn’t so much realism as it was whether it stunned or disturbed you that made it Gothic Romance or not, but when comparing the missing boy to millions of souls damned for all time in endless torment, Heavy Rain doesn’t look all that Gothic. But the reason I chose Heavy Rain over almost any other game wasn’t because it was happy-go-lucky and fun, but the ever so crafted detail. When you walk through the game, you don’t merely walk from point A to a clue and to the exit, point B. You take your time. You could go turn on a radio, or pet a bird, or even walk outside and lean against a railing for an amazing view. It even has you draw step-by-step. (clip scene of drawing) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1dEXV0kIwo. It can take you an hour in 1 room, adding all the little details that could have easily been left out without notice.
In conclusion, Dante’s Inferno and Heavy Rain are great examples of Gothic Romance and Verisimilitude because Dante’s Inferno shows the peak of dark and disturbing ideas, while Heavy Rain’s detail and realistic setting give it something more relatable.

Guest Blogger: Brandon A.

Our out of class assignment Turn of the Screw, is a book that never ceases to confuse me ever so deeply. In fact, I had to read over it three times just to get what was happening in the book just to know what was happening. I wondered why though. Was it because of the I’s that were used every sentence that you couldn’t tell who the person was because they would never state it ninety percent of the time or was it because of the type of style that Henry James uses? What helped me out was the presentation of the point of views. The point of views gave a greater clarity to who was the I in the story. The point of view was a limited first person because, the author composed the character so we can see what their thinking at that time period but, we cannot know what the other characters are thinking during the time of the discussion. This helped me by trying to go in depth by just inferences of the characters actions and how they act towards the situation.

An example of this would be in chapter three in The Turn of the Screw. This is where the main character of the story and Mrs. Grose are having a conversation. The governess states at first that the punishment was grotesque for Miles and Mrs. Grose agreed. The governess then changes her view on Miles and says that she’ll do nothing towards the situation of Miles’ suspension which, to the reader may seem hypocritical for the governess to do. What even shocks us more is that Mrs. Grose goes along and accepts the governess’s decision and consoles her with a hug but during the hug the governess thinks of Mrs. Grose as a “friendly creature”. Just annotating this we can see that Mrs. Grose is attached to the governess and tries to follow her but the governess thinks of Mrs. Grose below a humane level sort of like a dog. The question is from annotating this is when will Mrs. Grose revolt against the ways of the governess and how will the governess change once the revolt is implemented? Any guesses or any other ways Henry James uses connotation in his story of turn of the screw can go here!