#3-2. Reflective Essay: Eve's Diary, and Adam's Diary

Ye Ji Park / 111053 / 4

Mr. Richard Menard

American Literature

March 27 2012

Reflective Essay: Eve’s Diary and Adam’s Diary

Among several categories of second-class citizens, “women” often raises controversy. Despite women are given same political rights to vote and social freedom to seek for dream jobs, the society still disregards women – female presidents are quite rare, and numbers of women temporarily employed far exceed that of men. That is, the laws are not working very well in the actual society, which makes women still remain as social minors.

Considering that Mark Twain’s age was from late 19^th century to early 20^th century, when even the laws were not established to protect women’s rights, it is definite that his two short stories, Eve’s Diary and Adam’s Diary, were shown as radical attempts. The stories, written in the perspective of Eve and Adam, respectively, are narratives of how they perceive the world around them. Comparing these two stories, it is definite that Twain described Eve, the female, to be a much intellectual character. It is Eve who entitles all the animals, while Adam confuses a wildcat and dodo. Not only in aspects of knowledge, but also in aspects of emotions, Eve is much more skillful. While Adam show off all of his sentiments toward Eve – that she is annoying and bothersome – Eve knows how to hide her own feelings not to hurt that of others. For example, as soon as Eve sensed that Adam was being confused of dodo and wildcat, she quickly said “Well, I do declare, if there isn’t the dodo!”, a careful way to not hurt Adam’s pride.

Such of Eve’s intellectual and emotional superiority is definitely an unusual idea in Twain’s ages, when the majority believed females are much more dull and stupid than males. Even in Twain’s writings, however, there existed “limit” that women could never exceed men. To illustrate, Eve was described as an irritating character, who is obsessed to name every single object. This gives the impression that women always focus on trivial issues, which is sometimes quite useless and time-wasting. However, the most evident proof, supporting the claim that Twain’s writing contains the suppression and constraint of women’s ability, is regarding the apple episode; it was Eve who first ate the apple, thereby let “death … come into the world". Contrastingly, Adam is described as a wise character who “foresee trouble” and "advised [Eve] to keep away from the tree". Not only the contents of the episode, but also the fact that this episode was only written in Adam’s Diary, infers that Twain gave Adam superiority over Eve as a reliable narrator who can describe this significant event, while Eve cannot.

It is a pity that even the most revolutionary writer of his ages could not think outside the box of belief that women cannot act beyond the ability of men. Still, Twain’s two short stories, Eve’s Diary and Adam’s Diary, deserve to be left as memorable pieces, considering that Twain admitted women could be intellectually, and emotionally, superior to men sometimes (especially at the early phases of the stories). There is no doubt that such small change Twain tried to raise in majority’s perception toward women’s inferiority, when accumulated together, brought the big change – giving women rights to vote or rights to have a job – in today’s society. 

#3-1. Reflective Essay: Eve's Diary, and Adam's Diary

#2-2. Reflective Essay: Poe's Short Stories

Ye Ji Park / 111053 / 11b3

Mr. Richard Menard

American Literature

March 21 2012

Reflective Essay: The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado

Edgar Allan Poe is a renowned American author in the Gothic tradition. Gothic literature refers to one literary genre, first proposed by Horace Walpole in his novel The Castle of Otranto (1764), and is unique with its mysterious and suspenseful atmosphere, overwrought emotions such as terror, insanity or agitation, and use of dark, gloomy-imaged words.

Critics often say Poe adapted such style in his writing, based upon his unfortunate path of life. Poe was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, 1809, but his father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died a year later from tuberculosis. It was John Allan, a successful merchant, who gave Poe the name Edgar “Allan” Poe and raised him. He, however, never adopted Poe officially, and disciplined him strictly and aggressively. Grown up in forceful environment, Poe always lacked parental love. He married twice, as if he wished to supplement the insufficient affection upon him, but as his second wife died on 1847, he became increasingly unstable. He spent a lot of time drinking and behaving erratically. Within two years, he demised, which death cause is in mystery, but is assumed to be delirium tremens and/or heart disease caused by his alcoholism.

Considering that writings often reflect the writer’s own experiences, it is not a surprise that Poe’s stories are mostly dark, mysterious, and eerie. Two short stories, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado, are not exceptions; reading those stories, I found few elements that are inferable to be drawn from Poe’s personal experiences.

In the stories, narrators are being obsessive over trivial issues. In The Cask of Amontillado, for example, the narrator buries Fortunado, his friend, because Fortunado “ventured upon insult” once. There is no specific mention how Fortunado insulted him, which makes readers be suspicious whether that offend was severe enough to justify the revengeful act of burying Fortunado alive. These “obsession” toward trifling details made me guess that Poe himself might experienced revengeful thoughts upon not-that-special, insignificant events. For example, it is known that Poe was disciplined under strict, violent foster father; usually, these parents scold their children for even the slightest mistake. Among various reprimand Poe received in his childhood, one of them—even though it is just another petty issue, not largely differentiable from other similar rebukes—might irritate him especially, thereby leading him to vow a great revenge to John Allan someday. Such of Poe’s real life experiences is precisely reflected via Montresor in The Cask of Amontillado.

Narrators’ obsession to trivial things does not only contribute in leading them to commit crimes, but also, to feel sense of guilty or confess easily. This is well described in The Tell-Tale Heart. The narrator thought that he feels no guilt at all; when the policemen knocked on his door, he “smiled” with “a light heart”, and “answered cheerily” to their questions. However, as he kept talking, he started to think that he hears something – “A LOW, DULL, QUICK SOUND – MUCH SUCH A SOUND AS A WATCH MAKES WHEN ENVELOPED IN COTTON”. This sound was an auditory hallucination created by the narrator himself – the sound itself did not exist, and was meaningless. The narrator, however, was obsessed with triviality, and put too much meaning on the sound that it is “the beating of [the old man’s] hideous heart”. His delusion of grandeur made him believe that the sound was increasing, and at last, unable to bear the loudening beat, he confessed his murder. The concept of hallucination and delusion of grandeur appear frequently when one is addicted in alcohol, and it is a well-known fact that Poe was a serious alcoholic. It is inferable that Poe might use his drunken experiences when writing his novel, so to emphasize abnormal psychological symptoms of the narrators.

Reading the two stories, I found that Poe’s real life is reflected in his writing thoroughly. Not only the general view that the overall plot of crime-related story or mood created by spooky dungeon remind readers of Poe’s miserable life, but also the use of specific details are noticeable. The narrators’ features – being obsessive over trivial things, both before and after committing a crime – seem to be borrowed from Poe’s direct experiences, regarding harshly-reared childhood or alcoholism. It was an interesting experience to me, to read literature works, while connecting the details with the writer’s own life. 

#2-1. Reflective Essay: Poe's Short Stories

#1-1. Reflective Essay: The Ambitious Guest

#1-2. Reflective Essay: The Ambitious Guest

Ye Ji Park / 111053 / 11b3

Mr. Richard Menard

American Literature

March 6 2012

Reflective Essay: The Ambitious Guest

Frederick Douglass, a former slave and later an eminent leader of the abolitionist movement, wrote in his autobiography about the hardship he underwent when learning how to read. The more he learned, the more he read, and the more he suffered – because the reading “opened [his] eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out”. Books taught him that whites have no rational reason to enslave blacks, but did not suggest solutions to reform the unfair slavery system. Douglass yearned for past years when his illiteracy blinded his eyes so that he could not perceive the “horrible pit” he was inside.

This narration popped to my mind as the class mentioned the term “bliss of ignorance” while discussing The Ambitious Guest (Nathaniel Hawthorn). In this short novel, there lives a family in the “bleakest spot of all New England”, where mountains “towered above their heads so steep that the stones would often rumble down its sides and startle them at midnight”. The place is desolated; the family knows nothing of life in city, where rapid and extensive urbanization was taking place in those days. Instead of dreaming about glory, power, and wealth, the family lived in solitude, surrounded by magnificent nature.

One September night, a young traveler knocks the door of family’s cottage to ask for one night room and board. He, relaxed by warm and affectionate welcome of the family, starts talking about his “high and abstracted ambition”. The lad firmly believes that a great glory is waiting for him on his path of destiny, and refuses to live an unnamed, trivial life. Listening to his words, the family slowly starts to consent to him; the father states that “there is something natural in what the young man says”, that is, he is in favor of fervor ambition the lad holds. They then dream about things that they presently do not possess in their simple life. The father imagines that his life might be very different in city—maybe as a fair lawyer—from now. Succeeding her father, the daughter thinks about intense love and romantic adventures, which could never happen in the present monotonous and desolate life.

Once the family is inspired by the ambitious guest, and immersed by their own ambitious dreams, they do not notice the approaching catastrophe of the slide beforehand. In total confusion, the family and the guest evacuate to the refuge where they thought to be safe, but their judgment was wrong – they all crush to death in the shelter, while the house remained all right. What Hawthorn tries to say via such tragic ending is simple; that ambition is an evil, wicked emotion, and that dreaming about unattainable goal will eventually lead to destruction. Hawthorn indicates that if the family disregarded the lad’s ambition, saying that they satisfy with their ignorant life in this barren land, they would have been aware of the slide much quicker and predicts that the house is safer place than the refuge. As the Dark Romantics argue – that the truth of the world, once revealed, is dark, corrupted, and wicked – Hawthorn claims that it is better for humans not to be aware of ambition and larger world. He believes in the bliss of ignorance.

So, is ignorance really bliss?

Frederick Douglass once believed that his literacy was a curse that lead him agonize over insoluble problem of slavery. And later, he became the living symbol of an independent black American citizen, with his pungent anti-slavery writings and numbers of honor bestowed. Ignorance was definitely bliss in his early ages, but not in his whole life. If Douglass stayed illiterate during his whole life, he would have never realized that slavery is unreasonable, unfair system, thus never decided to devote his whole life as an abolitionist. His access to reading made him suffer at first, by showing Douglass a seemingly-insurmountable barrier. But by learning the existence of this barrier, Douglass could at least try to climb it, thereby contributing one step to the Emancipation Proclamation.

This is same for the family in The Ambitious Guest. Their exposure to the guest’s ambition, and desire for far-off dream, may seem futile and meaningless at first; it might make the family not concentrate on the present, thus bring them devastating end as the novel’s ending. Nevertheless, present is not everything; people need to dream grand future, so that they can endeavor to reach that goal and achieve improvement. If I were Hawthorn, I would bet on bliss of painful yet awakening enlightenment, not on bliss of ignorance – maybe my ending will not be traceless annihilation of the family, but them desperately trying to survive from the slide, to achieve their dreams of being a lawyer or falling in ardent love someday.