Reflection

My opinion of literature is pretty much the same, i like to read some things and some things i wish i never read. One story i didn't much care for was "Goodpherd Grapevine" but that was about the only one i really didnt like. I guess it surprised me how dark gothic literature which is just because i knew nothing about it. The work i enjoyed the most was probably "Our Nig". I liked how film was incorporated into the class. Over all i liked the glass and learned a lot about gothic literature.

Good Man, A Rose for Emily, Yellow Wallpaper

In a "Good Man" the Misfit was grotesque, he was a bad man but you almost liked him and wanted to know more about him. The grandmother was the revised southern bell. The story was definitely tragic and colorful. I think the author was trying to show that God would even accept misfits no matter what they did. The Misfit was the classic gothic archetype. It still shows that even in this time the black-americans aren't as good as white people by saying niggers never have as nice of things. I think it also shows that the new generation of the south is disrespectful and rebellious because the little kids were terrible and bratty.

In a "Rose for Emily" Miss Emily was grotesque and the revised southern bell. The new generations were trying to take over and make Miss Emily pay her taxes but she wouldn't have any of it. Homer Barron was the Yankee that came down and eventually ended up dead. It showed that the author wasn't very fond of the north and the north was thought as lower than the south. The story was written in flashbacks and kind of hard to follow. Her aunt was the crazy one went mad in her old days. The story covers so many years and yet Miss Emily's house never seems to change.

In "Yellow Wallpaper" the plantation house was characteristic of southern gothic and the women was crazy. It didn't shed a good light on doctors, they always said nothing was wrong or didn't tell you the truth. 

Jean-ah Poquelin

Cable shows the differences between the two by saying Jean was "bold,frank, impetuous, chivalric adventurer" and that Jacques was "gentle, studious, book-loving recluse. Jean went to the Governor and asked that they not put a road by his house and his brother was never seen. Jean was of "short, broad frame, with bronzed leonine face" and his "herculean breat, hard and grizzled." Jacques was described as "ghostly white...eyes cast down and labored step...a leper."    Little White was "mild, kind-hearted little man" with no fear. I think little White and Jacques have the same temperment and body frame yet White seems a little more bold. I think that Cable criticizes the ethnic stereotyping by showing that Jean didnt kill his brother when the whole town had shunned him for it. He also showed that the aristocracy wasn't so noble by showing that they killed Jean for nothing at all. 

Charles Chessnutt

The sheriff resist popular notions of racial identity because he thinks the court should find the colored guilty before hanging him, instead of just hanging him because they think he did it. He wanted the event to be fair even though it was a colored person. Readers in this time period were probably angered that the sheriff stood up for the colored person instead of going with the white people. I think that people were also probably enraged to hear about miscegenation even though they probably knew it was going on. People don't like it to be known of the dirty laundry around their community. In the Goophered I think Julius was putting on a show for the white people. Julius didn't want the white people to buy the farm because he was making money from it so he told them a story. It is obvious that in the story black Americans were thought of as commodities because in Julius's story Henry was a commodity and then in the story itself he made Julius somewhat of a commodity because he didn't care that he worked for someone else as long as he was making more that on his on. He never thought that maybe Julius wanted to work for himself instead of being looked at as an object. It's interesting that Chesnutt shows black Americans to be one with nature, just as if they were apart of the land, they weren't even human so they couldn't be part of the culture.

The House of Usher

Poe says the atmosphere "reeked up from decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn....dull sluggish, faintly discernible, and leadenhued. " "None of the house had fallen but there was a "wild inconsistency." He uses the house to explain the character of Richard Usher which is gloomy and sad and disoriented. He also uses the furniture saying it was "comfortless and tattered". Richard Usher hadn't left the house in many years and he blamed the house had taken over his spirit and then going on to say that this illness had been in his family for a long time. The painting which he saw showed the dunjon which they would eventually put Madelines body in and yet somehow she would escape just as the light that got into the dunjon without a window or candle. Madeline wasn't dead when they put her in the coffin because it said she had a faint blush upon her bosom and that she was smiling yet they put the lid on and locked her in the dunjon anyways. The house always mimics the character, I think when he went away and saw the house fall Richard Usher went mad and never was normal again.

Young Goodman Brown symbolism

Hawthorne uses a lot of symbolism in "Young Goodman Brown". He uses Faith as his wife's name and when he sees her in the forest he says he has lost faith and he actually had lost faith in God because he was giving into his evil spirit. The forest symbolizes evil with its dark and gloomy setting, also that it moves from conscious to unconscious. His name is Young Goodman Brown but he really goes to the evil side. If he really knew the catechism he would know that you can't go throw life without sinning so he wouldn't be so surprised when the people he saw at the witch gathering. I think the guide in this story is Goodman Brown's foil, he is like the devil sitting on his shoulder saying go into the forest. I think that Goodman Brown hides from everyone in the forest because he wants it to remain a secret that he has an evil side, he thinks people would disown him if they find out. I think the author calls him young because he is naive and thinks no one else does evil and also he gives into his temptations. There are probably so many symbols you could talk about it all day.

Female Gothic

In these female gothics the women seem to have no friends when they need them the most. Women back then depended on men for everything and I think the authors are saying that you need to have a close female friendship, someone you can trust, when men let you down. In "Lois the Witch" Lois needed a friend most when Prudence wrongfully accused her and she had no one to turn too. She was going to depend on Hanasseh but he had gone mad and she couldn't depend on him yet she had made no real girl friends so no one was their to help her. In the end of "Lois the Witch" Lois finds comfort in Natee ,who she once thought was a witch, because she had someone to lean on and comfort her and they could grieve together. There is some what of a Cinderella story in "Lois the Witch" but it doesn't end how it's suppose to the man doesn't get there in time. I think the author is saying once again don't depend on men for everything do it yourself. Lois was hoping that Hugh Lucy would come and save her from death yet he didn't come till after she was dead. I think their are a lot of prejudices in "Lois the Witch". In New England no one liked the Indians they were scared of them and made them slaves. I think in the end the Indian Natee was redempted because Lois became friends with her when she didn't like her at all before. Also their were prejudices between the two England and New England on religion, the Puritans thought the Catholics were wrong and the other way around also. It almost seemed as if the writer showed New Englanders to be weak and stupid. The New Englanders couldn't ward off the Indians and they were scared and then they wrongfully accused all those witches and sentenced them to death. When women support each other good things come of it but when they depend on men they let them down. These writers are supporting the women and her stand in society.

Value of Reading a Novel

I agree with Jane Austen that novels can be good as long as you don't get too lost in the idea. You have to keep in mind when reading a novel that it isn't real life even though it might deal with real life situations. I think that novels are a way for people speak out and state their opinions. If we didn't hear other people's opinions we might not have fully explored our opinion of a certain topic. I have learned a lot in class from just reading these novels, about what happened in society at that particular time period or what political ideas were being thrown about. I'm not sure that a novel today would change our society just because I feel like no one reads anymore but word of mouth could elevate that novels ideas. When I read novels I see if the moral of the story applies to me and see how I feel about it. When I read the series "Left Behind" I started to think about if I had been living my life right. Even though I am a Christian, did I really follow God's ways? This novel also scared me still to this day about the end of Earth as we know it. Sometimes I let my imagination get the best of me and think oh no, this is the end but have to reign myself back to not think about it. I think that you can learn a lot from a novel and it can teach us a great deal about society whether it be slavery, political ideas, manners, morals, or simply ideas.

Dr. Jekyle and Mr. Hyde

I think that J&H definitely served as a precursor to the detective-type books. As soon as Mr. Utterson heard the news of Mr. Hyde running into the little girl and paying with a check from Dr. Jekyll he began investigating Mr. Hyde. Mr. Utterson stayed out on the street watching the door where Mr. Hyde had been seen just to get a glimpse of him. When the letter Dr. Jekyll gave to Mr. Utterson, that was suppose to be from Mr. Hyde, he got Mr. guest to look at the handwriting in which was determined that it was the same as Dr. Jekyll just slanted the other way. Then at the end when Mr. Poole came and told Mr. Utterson about the strange person in the laboratory he busted down the door to see what was going on. Mr. Utterson would have eventually found out what happened by the letters written to him but his curiosity just couldn't wait and he had to figure it out. Mr. Utterson seemed as if he almost had terror about the thought of Dr. Jekyll giving all of his things to Mr. Hyde and he had to figure out a reasonable explanation as to why. Mr. Utterson couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that this ugly man would get all of Dr. Jekyll's inheritance and reasoned that it was because he was black mailing him. Thinking about the sublime I think Mr. Utterson saw Mr. Hyde as sublime, he thought he was grotesque but yet wanted to know everything about him and wanted to look him in the face. 

Stevenson used the laboratory of Dr. Jekyll for the kind of castle feeling i thought there was almost a feeling of terror about the laboratory. When the book talked about where Mr. Hyde lived it was "like a district of some city in a nightmare" (28), it was foggy and very dark and windy but when  it talked about Dr. Jekyll's house it was handsome and "wore a great air of wealth and comfort" (18). I think Stevenson drew the setting of the book from his home of Edinburgh where one side was old, dark and "the bad" side of town and the other was the new, bright and cheery side of town. I can see where Darwinism plays a role in the story where Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde this almost animal creature. It says to me like everybody still has an animal in them, people try to hide it but eventually it comes out. I think Stevenson believed in evolution and almost tried to say that it's impossible to be good just like Dr. Jekyll eventually couldn't go back to being himself. I don't see science as good in this book thought it seems evil because it turned Dr. Jekyll bad and he couldn't go back. Dr. Jekyll started out trying to find a potion to take away his bad side and eventually became worse than he was so in my opinion science was very bad for Dr. Jekyll.

Castle of Otranto

The female characters in the book didn't have very many options, the men in their lives chose who they were going to marry and what they were going to do with their lives. Walpole also made women out to be very angelic, he called them saintly and that they would leave the castle and spend the rest of their lives in the convent. It seems as though Walpole thought of women as a possession than a human being because men could do whatever they wanted to the women. Manfred was a tyrant to everybody around and yet Hippolita and Matilda didn't seem to notice and had such a respect for him. I don't really think the book promotes chilvalry very well in Manfred he doesn't seem to really meet the qualifications because he is so disrespectful and even wants to commit incest with Isabella. There are a lot of circumstances where the women show a romantic side like fainting on the drop of a hat and just being smitten with Theodore after just meeting him. I think Walpole definitely believed in unquestioned alliance between king and country/ kid. Manfred didn't take no for an answer whether it be the friar or his kids. Even after stabbing Matilda she immediately forgave him and didn't even bat an eye at Manfred. His own wife didn't seem moved by Manfred's suggestion of divorce. I think the moral theme might be veracity it was mentioned many times and it seemed that in the conclusion Theodore became prince because his family was honest and didn't fake a will to come into power. 

Introduction

 

My name is Rachel, I'm from Burleson, Texas and recently got married in May. I'm a senior at TCU in the nursing program. I hope to learn what gothic literature is all about and read some good books in the process. I'm not much of a reader but only because I don't usually have a lot of time to sit down and read. I don't know what gothic literature is about but I've already read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and it was pretty good. Most of the books we have to read look pretty interesting. I've read and agree with everything stated in the syllabus and I'm ready to start the class.