Respone to Hemingway Post

Throughout his short story "In Another Country" Ernest Hemingway repeatedly brings up the machines and experiences him Whoa--don't assume the narrator/protagonist is Hemingway and the people he was with in the hospital had with the machines. Personally I think that the machines are a symbol for war in this particular work. This has potential as a thesis. I believe this because of multiple reasons. First off, doing a reading based on Hemingway's background, he went to war and was injured very early on in the war. He criticized war from that point on and really became one of the liberal artists that were extremely prevalent in this era. Hemingway wrote this short story as a criticism of war and how people mindlessly follow what their leaders tell them and go to war, not because they want to, and not because they believe in what the war is being fought over, but just because they are told to go to war. Interesting biographical element here. You could certainly use this to foreground your argument. Secondly, as I have already stated, the people who are using the machines in the short story don't believe the machines work, they don't know what the machines are doing, they are just using the machines because the doctor tells them too. You would need specific textual evidence that supports this claim that the soldiers who follow the doctor are the equivalent of soldiers following orders. Also, with this being a short story based on WWI, there weren't any wars of the magnitude of WWI that had occurred prior to WWI. It is highly likely that the machines are a symbol for not only war, but WWI because, as Hemingway repeats throughout the story, there were pictures that were supposed to be of hands that had been completely restored by the machines, although that did not follow what the doctor had told them which was that they were the first people to use the machines. This is very similar to what the world leaders were saying going into WWI. They were saying that WWI would be the war to end all wars and that after WWI the world would be at peace, but they had not evidence to base those claims on because like the men using the machines, WWI was the first time that the nearly the entire world would be engulfed in war. Like the fake pictures hanging above the machines and the doctors claims, the evidence the world leaders during WWI were using was false and unconvincing, although people still went to war. Hemingway and his friends used the machines because they were told to, and not because they thought the machines would work like people went to war in WWI because they were told to, not because they actually believed it would be the war to end all wars. Interesting conclusion. The key to proving this will be strong, convincing textual evidence. You'll need to find language from the story that supports your interpretation of the machines as a metaphor for war. Last year I had a student argue something similar about Old Man and the Sea. I'll show you her essay, if you're interested; you'd need the same kind of convincing support that she offered.

Response to Huck Finn Post

Cam, My apologies for not finding you before I left school Friday. Long story, but the gist is my ninth graders ran over taking a test, and I ran out of time before I had to get to daycare to get my kid. Anyway...
Huck Finn is a story full of satire and repeated images worth mention and further investigation. Above all, the recurring theme present throughout Huck Finn that really deserves investigation and analyzing is the developement if Huck Finn relative to Tom Sawyer throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Huck is seen as Tom's sidekick. Tom creates ridiculous adventures based on stories that he may or may not have read and Huck follows along as Tom creates his imaginary adventure that Huck doesn't understand because he looks at things from a non-romantic, realistic perspective where Tom looks at things from a very romantic perspective. This contrast in ways of thinking was a dimension of the novel that Mark Twain added as an acknowledgement that writers in his time period were moving away from romanticism and towards realism. As the story progresses, and Huck procedes to have many adventures with Jim, he develops into what he saw Tom as at the beginning of the novel. He becomes the adventurer that Tom always was in his imagination. As the novel begins to wrap up, and Tom and Huck come in contact with each other again, Huck reverts to his position as Tom's sidekick, but only in the manner that he acts. Tom is allowed to create the plan to free Jim, but instead of just mindlessly trusting Tom as he did in the beginning, Huck constantly speaks out and questions Tom. This is different because in the beginning of the novel, Huck would wonder why he didn't see the elephants that Tom did I don't recall--does Tom actually say he sees the elephants? , for example, but he wouldn't come out and tell Tom that there were no elephants and his plans were ridiculous. At the end of the novel, as Huck has developed into a wiser, more experienced adventurer than Tom, Huck constantly questions Tom and his romantic ideas. In the end, Twain not only shows the development of Huck relative to Tom based on the adventures that Huck experiences, but he also shows the progression of realism past romanticism based on the progression of Huck, the realist, past Tom, the romanticist. You're going to have to use some stellar evidence to suggest that Huck has in fact surpassed Tom. The stuff I put in green is a grammatical FYI: one goal for you is to tighten up your prose. You pair a lot of words when one would do. Also, watch those passive verbs.
This will certainly work as a topic. The way you'd structure this would likely be to show the evolution of Huck's responses to Tom. But what do you do with the fact that Tom is ultimately in charge? Huck may protest, but he still follows.

Ernest Hemingway Post

Throughout his short story "In Another Country" Ernest Hemingway repeatedly brings up the machines and experiences him and the people he was with in the hospital had with the machines. Personally I think that the machines are a symbol for war in this particular work. I believe this because of multiple reasons. First off, doing a reading based on Hemingway's background, he went to war and was injured very early on in the war. He criticized war from that point on and really became one of the liberal artists that were extremely prevalent in this era. Hemingway wrote this short story as a criticism of war and how people mindlessly follow what their leaders tell them and go to war, not because they want to, and not because they believe in what the war is being fought over, but just because they are told to go to war. Secondly, as I have already stated, the people who are using the machines in the short story don't believe the machines work, they don't know what the machines are doing, they are just using the machines because the doctor tells them too. Also, with this being a short story based on WWI, there weren't any wars of the magnitude of WWI that had occurred prior to WWI. It is highly likely that the machines are a symbol for not only war, but WWI because, as Hemingway repeats throughout the story, there were pictures that were supposed to be of hands that had been completely restored by the machines, although that did not follow what the doctor had told them which was that they were the first people to use the machines. This is very similar to what the world leaders were saying going into WWI. They were saying that WWI would be the war to end all wars and that after WWI the world would be at peace, but they had not evidence to base those claims on because like the men using the machines, WWI was the first time that the nearly the entire world would be engulfed in war. Like the fake pictures hanging above the machines and the doctors claims, the evidence the world leaders during WWI were using was false and unconvincing, although people still went to war. Hemingway and his friends used the machines because they were told to, and not because they thought the machines would work like people went to war in WWI because they were told to, not because they actually believed it would be the war to end all wars.

Huck Finn Post

Huck Finn is a story full of satire and repeated images worth mention and further investigation. Above all, the recurring theme present throughout Huck Finn that really deserves investigation and analyzing is the developement if Huck Finn relative to Tom Sawyer throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Huck is seen as Tom's sidekick. Tom creates ridiculous adventures based on stories that he may or may not have read and Huck follows along as Tom creates his imaginary adventure that Huck doesn't understand because he looks at things from a non-romantic, realistic perspective where Tom looks at things from a very romantic perspective. This contrast in ways of thinking was a dimension of the novel that Mark Twain added as an acknowledgement that writers in his time period were moving away from romanticism and towards realism. As the story progresses, and Huck procedes to have many adventures with Jim, he develops into what he saw Tom as at the beginning of the novel. He becomes the adventurer that Tom always was in his imagination. As the novel begins to wrap up, and Tom and Huck come in contact with each other again, Huck reverts to his position as Tom's sidekick, but only in the manner that he acts. Tom is allowed to create the plan to free Jim, but instead of just mindlessly trusting Tom as he did in the beginning, Huck constantly speaks out and questions Tom. This is different because in the beginning of the novel, Huck would wonder why he didn't see the elephants that Tom did, for example, but he wouldn't come out and tell Tom that there were no elephants and his plans were ridiculous. At the end of the novel, as Huck has developed into a wiser, more experienced adventurer than Tom, Huck constantly questions Tom and his romantic ideas. In the end, Twain not only shows the development of Huck relative to Tom based on the adventures that Huck experiences, but he also shows the progression of realism past romanticism based on the progression of Huck, the realist, past Tom, the romanticist.

Response to Whitman Post

The paragraph from the preface of Leaves of Grass is the strongest paragraph in the whole excerpt. And this would be why it's on a fridge magnet. Although the paragraph does not do an excellent job of using poetic devices or imagery to get it's point across, it does a great job at smacking you in the face with the ideas spread throughout the poetry. The paragraph starts of by flat out telling you what you will do. It does not recommend how you should live, it flat out says, "This is what you shall do." Fits with the second line of the poem: "And what I shall assume, you shall assume." "Assume" is a really loaded verb here-has many meanings. Anyway...This strong language does a great job of setting the author up. It helps illustrate that the author is going to give you guidelines and rules that you should live your life by. The first guideline or rule that is laid stated is, "Love the earth and sun and the animals." It is not shocking that this is the first rule stated because the romantics are all for nature and finding God in nature. Yes; many of the catalogs in sections of this poem that we did not read deal with critters in nature. Therefore it makes perfect sense that the first rule says that you should love nature, because according to the romantics, without love for nature, you will never find God. The next group of rules is "despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others." These rules are also strongly rooted in romantic ideals. Despising riches, giving alms, and devoting income are all very typical of romantics because they thought property was basically useless. Therefore you have no need for money so why not give it to others who cherish it much more than you do. If you are a true romantic you have already found God in nature and have no need for money so why not give it to people who cherish it more than anything. Since they haven't found God, let them find joy in the money that is useless to you. Standing up for the stupid and crazy could be a romantic thought because they are not priviledged enough to have found God, and since you are, you should help them in any way possible. Yes, but this sentiment is most specific to Whitman. He was (of the Romantics we read) the most concerned with societal rejects. His nickname "the Poet of Democracy" suggests his interest in societal unity, specifically post-war reunification, which involved ridding ourselves of prejudices. The next couple rules basically say that you should not bow down to any power. There is no man greater than another, and the only person who you should feel inferior to is God. But God is also something you should not argue about because arguements are not peaceful and are pointless. The only thing that matters is going out into nature and finding God. The nest very powerful rule that really stands out is "go freely with the powerful uneducated person and the young and with the mothers of families." Fits so well with Emerson. PLUS, he adds women! This rule is extremely trancendentalist. The important part is go freely with the uneducated. This is very important because an uneducated person is free of corruption. They believe what they think and not what the are taught or is popular in society. This fits in perfectly with the trancendentalist idea that being an individual is the most important thing because without individuals, everything fails. Yup. This also ties in with the next big rules which are, "re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul." This again ties in very strongly with the tracendentalist idea of being an individual. You must examine what you have been taught because if you don't, what you believe is the mush that has been spoon fed to you by society, I like your metaphor here not ideas that you have personally formulated. Dismissing what offends you brings you closer to enlightenment and makes you an individual, not just another ant marching through society. If this paragraph was something we read out of the actual preface in its entirety, this sentence would stand out because it is oddly punctuated and very long. This would emphasize the ideas present and really hit home harder than it does alone. Not sure I get your last sentence, but you did an excellent job connecting the preface to the key ideas in the movement. Neat approach.

Leaves of Grass Post

The paragraph from the preface of Leaves of Grass is the strongest paragraph in the whole excerpt. Although the paragraph does not do an excellent job of using poetic devices or imagery to get it's point across, it does a great job at smacking you in the face with the ideas spread throughout the poetry. The paragraph starts of by flat out telling you what you will do. It does not recommend how you should live, it flat out says, "This is what you shall do." This strong language does a great job of setting the author up. It helps illustrate that the author is going to give you guidelines and rules that you should live your life by. The first guideline or rule that is laid stated is, "Love the earth and sun and the animals." It is not shocking that this is the first rule stated because the romantics are all for nature and finding God in nature. Therefore it makes perfect sense that the first rule says that you should love nature, because according to the romantics, without love for nature, you will never find God. The next group of rules is "despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others." These rules are also strongly rooted in romantic ideals. Despising riches, giving alms, and devoting income are all very typical of romantics because they thought property was basically useless. Therefore you have no need for money so why not give it to others who cherish it much more than you do. If you are a true romantic you have already found God in nature and have no need for money so why not give it to people who cherish it more than anything. Since they haven't found God, let them find joy in the money that is useless to you. Standing up for the stupid and crazy could be a romantic thought because they are not priviledged enough to have found God, and since you are, you should help them in any way possible. The next couple rules basically say that you should not bow down to any power. There is no man greater than another, and the only person who you should feel inferior to is God. But God is also something you should not argue about because arguements are not peaceful and are pointless. The only thing that matters is going out into nature and finding God. The nest very powerful rule that really stands out is "go freely with the powerful uneducated person and the young and with the mothers of families." This rule is extremely trancendentalist. The important part is go freely with the uneducated. This is very important because an uneducated person is free of corruption. They believe what they think and not what the are taught or is popular in society. This fits in perfectly with the trancendentalist idea that being an individual is the most important thing because without individuals, everything fails. This also ties in with the next big rules which are, "re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul." This again ties in very strongly with the tracendentalist idea of being an individual. You must examine what you have been taught because if you don't, what you believe is the mush that has been spoon fed to you by society, not ideas that you have personally formulated. Dismissing what offends you brings you closer to enlightenment and makes you an individual, not just another ant marching through society. If this paragraph was something we read out of the actual preface in its entirety, this sentence would stand out because it is oddly punctuated and very long. This would emphasize the ideas present and really hit home harder than it does alone.

Response to Douglass Post

Hi Cam. I know it's a pain in the boopie to type the whole passage, and it isn't absolutely necessary. The benefit, though, is that you'll notice even more about the language and construction of the passage as you type it. As someone who ends up typing a lot of passages in the course of a month, I can assure you, that's true. In this case, it's such a ginormous paragraph that I can see why you didn't type it. You might want to narrow your focus a bit, look at something a little shorter so you can deal with it in more depth.

On page 24, the paragraph starting with the line, "In the same book," and ending with the line "and moved in every storm" is a very power paragraph where Douglass talks of the pain that reading brought him. He talks about how the documents were very interesting to him. He says, "The reading of these documents (one of Sheridan's speeches on Catholic emancipation) enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful than the one of which i was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers." This is an extrememly powerful couple sentences that really begin to express how much more Douglass is starting to hate slavery. Yup, diction--abhor, detest He now starts to realize that with the power of reading, he can take down arguments taht others bring up in the realm of how slavery is a good thing. Antithesis forming! Douglass really starts to realize that with reading he has knowledge, and with that knowledge he gains the power to become a very influential abolitionist later in his life. I don't get the feeling that he sees himself as an abolitionist yet; he just recounts the birth of his awareness of his condition. Later on in the quoted section, Douglass really uses parallel structure to emphasize how much pain the reading brought him, although the knowledge was beneficial, and how much he began to hate slave owners, his in particular, for the brutality that they subjected him to. Take us to a "so what" here--he discusses this to appeal to an audience that values reason, knowledge, education. To say he envied his fellow slaves' stupidity is quite surprising. He talks of how reading really opens his eyes to the brutality and makes him despise it that much more. Douglass goes on to emphasize the cruelty of slavers by comparing them to robbers who stole the slaves from Africa. This metaphor does a very good job of showing how slavers aren't people who should be making money like they do. His point is that lik robbers, slavers too should be tried and jailed for their crimes. Not paid and begged for more slaves. After his comparison of slavers to robbers, Douglass has an epiphany. He realizes that this hatred for slavery that was strengthened even more by the knowledge of reading, was the exact reason why his master didn't want him reading. He realizes that to his master, an ignorant slave is much more valuable and manageable than on full of knowledge. You're summarizing a lot in here, largely because the passage is large and you're trying to cover a lot of ground. The knowledge that Douglass has gained from his reading make him more likely to rebel or run away than when he was ignorant. He does a great job of emphasizing this point with the metaphor that slavery is like a pit, and reading had opened his eyes to the fact that slavery is a horrible pit, and though he was thankful he had the knowledge to realize this, reading also showed him that there was no ladder he could use to get out of the pit. Good job here, especially given our association of education with upward mobility. Notice just how smart this metaphor is. Instead of propelling him forth from his condition, education makes him feel further bound--irony would not be lost on his audience. He was stuck in slavery forever. His freedom was so close that he could taste it, bu tit was seemingly unreachable at the same time. Douglass finishes off this paragraph using parallel structure show it to tell how freedom was in everything he saw, touched or heard but although Douglass was so close to it, he could never reach freedom, and that is what tormented him. The knowledge that reading had brought him was like torture because although it opened his eyes to how close freedom was, he knew that it was a very unlikely, seemingly unreachable goal. This section is rooted deeply in pathos and is trying to get the audience, mostly well, including white women white women, to feel pity for him. He makes a deeper connection with the audience, allowing him to persuade them to his realm of thinking, in which slavery is terrible.

Frederick Douglass Close Reading

On page 24, the paragraph starting with the line, "In the same book," and ending with the line "and moved in every storm" is a very power paragraph where Douglass talks of the pain that reading brought him. He talks about how the documents were very interesting to him. He says, "The reading of these documents (one of Sheridan's speeches on Catholic emancipation) enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful than the one of which i was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers." This is an extrememly powerful couple sentences that really begin to express how much more Douglass is starting to hate slavery. He now starts to realize that with the power of reading, he can take down arguments taht others bring up in the realm of how slavery is a good thing. Douglass really starts to realize that with reading he has knowledge, and with that knowledge he gains the power to become a very influential abolitionist later in his life. Later on in the quoted section, Douglass really uses parallel structure to emphasize how much pain the reading brought him, although the knowledge was beneficial, and how much he began to hate slave owners, his in particular, for the brutality that they subjected him to. He talks of how reading really opens his eyes to the brutality and makes him despise it that much more. Douglass goes on to emphasize the cruelty of slavers by comparing them to robbers who stole the slaves from Africa. This metaphor does a very good job of showing how slavers aren't people who should be making money like they do. His point is that lik robbers, slavers too should be tried and jailed for their crimes. Not paid and begged for more slaves. After his comparison of slavers to robbers, Douglass has an epiphany. He realizes that this hatred for slavery that was strengthened even more by the knowledge of reading, was the exact reason why his master didn't want him reading. He realizes that to his master, an ignorant slave is much more valuable and manageable than on full of knowledge. The knowledge that Douglass has gained from his reading make him more likely to rebel or run away than when he was ignorant. He does a great job of emphasizing this point with the metaphor that slavery is like a pit, and reading had opened his eyes to the fact that slavery is a horrible pit, and though he was thankful he had the knowledge to realize this, reading also showed him that there was no ladder he could use to get out of the pit. He was stuck in slavery forever. His freedom was so close that he could taste it, bu tit was seemingly unreachable at the same time. Douglass finishes off this paragraph using parallel structure to tell how freedom was in everything he saw, touched or heard but although Douglass was so close to it, he could never reach freedom, and that is what tormented him. The knowledge that reading had brought him was like torture because although it opened his eyes to how close freedom was, he knew that it was a very unlikely, seemingly unreachable goal. This section is rooted deeply in pathos and is trying to get the audience, mostly white women, to feel pity for him. He makes a deeper connection with the audience, allowing him to persuade them to his realm of thinking, in which slavery is terrible.

Response to Patrick Henry Post

In the paragraph starting with "And what have we to oppose them?" Patrick Henry is convincing the President of the Virginia Convention (all the members, really) to go to war with the British. He uses multiple rhetorical questions in the beginning of the paragraph that really emphasize the point that for the last ten years, the people of the New World have done everything that the British have wanted them to do, and the British haven't done anything in return. You gloss over these rhetorical questions in one sentence here. In reality, what he's doing with these questions is a form of antithesis. He asks questions of his opponents to show why their solutions have failed. Patrick Henry makes the point that the people of the New World have petitioned, remonstrated, supplicated, and prostrated before the throne but to no avail. Interesting in here that he uses the analogy of an approaching storm, a force of nature which man cannot prevent but for which we must prepare. This further suggests the inevitability of war. He brings the emphasis of those last few points to another level by using parallel structure. In making these points, Patrick Henry brings himself around to his main point, war with the British is inevitable, and preparations need to be made to win the war and preserve their freedom. By the end of this segment, when Patrick Henry is really getting heated up, he repeats "we must fight!" to further emphasize and clarify his point that war is the answer and freedom is worth fighting for. You could extend this to connect the specific language he uses to the notion of freedom, or rather, to the notion of slavery. "Humble supplication" suggests such meekness, such willingness to be dominated.
It is difficult to ignore the appeal to the "God of Hosts" at the end of this passage, too. This reference suggests the Age of Reason belief in the connection between a diety and man's inalienable rights. Rhetorically aligning their fight with "glorious" aims and religious purposes obvious elevates the dignity of the cause.
This was a challenging passage for your first response. As you move forward from here, I'd like to see you engage with the specifics in the passages--get to the level of word analysis. You've definitely got it in your brain to do that.

Close Reading

In the paragraph starting with "And what have we to oppose them?" Patrick Henry is convincing the President of the Virginia Convention to go to war with the British. He uses multiple rhetorical questions in the beginning of the paragraph that really emphasize the point that for the last ten years, the people of the New World have done everything that the British have wanted them to do, and the British haven't done anything in return. Patrick Henry makes the point that the people of the New World have petitioned, remonstrated, supplicated, and prostrated before the throne but to no avail. He brings the emphasis of those last few points to another level by using parallel structure. In making these points, Patrick Henry brings himself around to his main point, war with the British is inevitable, and preparations need to be made to win the war and preserve their freedom. By the end of this segment, when Patrick Henry is really getting heated up, he repeats "we must fight!" to further emphasize and clarify his point that war is the answer and freedom is worth fighting for.