Chestnut

Chestnut's short stories The Passing of Grandison and The Wife of His Youth both deal with the African American condition in both the pre and post civil war era. In The Passing of Grandison it was interesting how Grandison was set up throughout the novel as a simple servant who no matter what was loyal to his master above all else. However, his true motivation was that of keeping his family together. He was in love with Betty the maid and he just could not leave her behind as well as the rest of his family. The reader is lead to believe throughout this story that Grandison is a simpleton who doesn't understand the value of freedom, but he is smart enough to set up his families escape to freedom without getting caught proving he was very intelligent. Also in this story it was interesting how Dick set about freeing Grandison and just couldn't figure out why he refused to go free. This misunderstanding of African Americans by whites is indicative of how whites viewed blacks as selfish stupid creatures, where in reality they are intelligent and selfless. It was also interesting how Dick set out to free one slave but because of his attempt to free just Grandison he paved the way for eight to escape together. This theme of importance of family is also evident in the second story, The Wife of His Youth. This story once again shows the selflessness of an African American as she waited for 25 years to find the husband she had when she was still a slave. She wandered America to find this man and he too chose his old bride to the one he was about to make advances toward. This is the type of love that is rare and beautiful and is great that Chestnut set it up between two older African Americans instead of the usual young people that most stories revolve around. It should also be pointed out that just because Mr. Ryder had planned on furthering his courtship of Mrs. Dixon. He too had waited a very long time before even considering another woman and like most people after 25 years he must have assumed she was dead.

Huck Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a wonderfully rich novel by Mark Twain. I greatly enjoyed the usage of different dialects throughout the novel. Each one designated a different social class with the wealthier class of people having a more fluent way of speaking, what would be called proper English. The next class is the lower or working man's class which is often spelled wrong but when sounding it out it still comes across as fairly close to proper English without the use of big words or rhetoric. Finally the African American class is completely misspelled and words run together so that it seems they are almost speaking a different language to be interpreted at times. These three modes of speaking add color and add to the appeal of the novel. It brings the reader into the story to the point that one feels like they are a part of the story, plus it gives even more personality development to the characters.
Also important throughout this novel is the interplay between religion, superstition and Huck Finn. Huck Finn begins thinking that both superstition and religion are nothing real and unimportant. Huck needs proof of everything and he finds both to be lacking in the proof area. Of the two he believes in superstition more because he has seen evidence of the bad luck that follows touching a snake skin for instance. However he doesn't believe in all superstitions and still is more of a rationalist. Religion he finds complete fault in because he has no proof of it at all. In fact he feels like he has evidence against it in that during the feuding section of the book they go to church and the sermon is about brotherly love and everyone says how good the sermon was but very soon afterwards they are almost all dead because of the feud. So Huck's reliance on reason is also how he decides what is morally right. As long as it doesn't hurt anybody and it helps him it is ok to do it.

Three Poems

The Three Poems for today were "After A Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes"; "I LIKE a look of agony"; and "It Sifts From Leaden Sieves". There is an interesting progression in these three poems that I liked when reading. In the "Agony" poem the focus is on liking pain because it is the only true emotion, the second "Pain" poem is about the pain of dying in the snow, and the third is about the beauty of the snow. However with the background theme of pain and snow being together may mean there is something more to the third poem then it seems. In "It Sifts From Leaden Sieves" the surface reading of the poem is that the snow falls from gray clouds and it covers all the trees, fills in the cracks of the road, makes everything flat and even in every direction, it covers fences and stumps and fields all alike, and fills all the area summer had been making it like it had never existed, so there is no record of life and even people don't move. If one looks at this from a different vantage snow could very easily represent death in this poem. Death comes and covers everything. All things will die eventually and it is the great equalizer just like it says about it flattening everything, mountains and valleys alike. It also covers and eliminates any evidence that the living had ever been, especially with time. And it also stops people from moving about because once one dies time is spent in morning.

BEAT BEAT DRUMS!!!!!!!!!

As a side not: First of all the Emancipation Proclamation really did not have an impact on American society. Before jumping all over this assertion hear me out as I have been told this on numerous occasions by my history professors. While hailed by abolitionists as a wonderful thing and we can all agree ending slavery is a wonderful thing, it had little real impact. The nation was at war and in the places that Lincoln had control over there were already no slaves because they had been freed. The places that did have slaves were in revolt and obviously wouldn’t obey a proclamation from what they considered a foreign government. On top of this, slaves were already being freed in the places that the union was taking over during the war so it was really just putting down on paper what was already in practice. The really important document was the amendment to the constitution outlawing the practice of slavery which was passed after the war. All of that is necessary to understand why it is the Whitman would not have made a big deal out of the Emancipation Proclamation because the war was really about maintaining the Union and not to free slaves. Freeing slaves resulted because the North won not because the North was freeing slaves and the south didn’t like it.

As a democratic nationalist it is natural for him to focus on the real importance of the war of maintaining the Union in his poetry. He was an ardent supporter of the abolitionist cause and was certainly happy that freedom was going to be assured but the uncertainty of war was still upon the nation and that is what the nations bard needed to speak out about, which is exactly what Beat! Beat! Drums! is about.

As can be seen before hand I do agree with Neely that Whitman did see the war as mainly a war for Unification of the states. Three main points about the war are made in this peace including intensity, the disruption, and the uncertainty of the war. To begin with, the intensity of the war can be seen in the language and the structure of the poem. Throughout the poem, Whitman uses language that portrays the strength and destructiveness of the war. For instance he speaks of the sound of the drums and bugles bursting with ruthless force and the shrillness of the blowing bugles. He speaks of the war making no apology or stopping for no reasoning and just how terrible the sound of the drums is. The drums and the bugles represent the war and are interesting choices as each represents a different part of battle, drums for army and bugle for the cavalry. Each of these musical instruments is beautiful in the music they create but they have been turned into weapons of war for they signal attacks on the battlefield. This is just like the people in the war who are beautiful in themselves but have become destructive as they fight against one another. The exclamation at the beginning of each stanza helps to continue this theme of intensity but also to the sense of disruptiveness that is presented. It seems to break of the first line and make it not flow like the rest of the stanza. Disruptiveness can also be seen in the daily lives of citizens in this poem because of the war. All life has come to a stand still as no one can do what they are supposed to. Husbands can’t be with wives, farmers can’t be peaceful, and no commerce can commence because of this war. Happiness has stopped and it is presented here that no normalcy can return until the end of this war has been reached. Whitman then encourages the army to fight harder and better than ever before. May the fight be so loud that even the dead are awakened is on sentiment he presents and wishes for. In the last stanza especially it is seen how even though the civil war has changed everything it is important for it to be fought and won for the union to remain.