Herland

In Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, three male characters define masculinity and a man's perspective of the world, females, and himself. Two of the men, Terry O. Nicholson and Jeff Margrave, represent the two extremes of the male personality. They are polar opposites and their actions throughout the tale display such opposition. Terry epitomizes the proud, brutish, and sometimes selfish side of man who may have too much courage and too little belief. When it comes to an army of women and land full of nothing but females, Terry at first seems pleased. Terry's reaction to the idea of such a large amount of femininity and what he believed would be (as he put it later) womanliness, displays the males view of women as their to earn and keep due to a strong attraction they assume women will return. Terry soon becomes unimpressed and rude to these women however when he decides that none of them meet his standards, standards many men seem to have. From them on Terry refuses to cooperator accept anything that the women present him and his fellow explorers with, constantly searching for an escape or a method of defeating these women. Terry boasts of his manly strength and believes he can overcome any woman simply because she is a female.Gilman portrays this negative side of men which females tend to see through the decisions and comments Terry makes throughout the story.

Jeff Margrave is portrayed throughout Herland as the soft, understanding, and intelligent side of man. Jeff begins the journey with his colleagues as a follower. He has vast knowledge of ecological science and interests in a number of the natural elements the men find along the way. Jeff's issue is his quiet nature and submission to Terry at the start of the story. Jeff follows Terry's orders to try and fight off the women that Jeff believed were kind and innocent. Jeff does not let his own ideas and choices come through. This is somewhat peer pressure, and it is a characteristic of men that Gilman is trying to explain through Jeff. Later in the story however, Jeff begins to speak his mind as he realizes that Terry cannot do anything to him if he disagrees with him. When the men are teaching their Herland native tutors about the world outside of their home Jeff tells the tutors the harsh truth about male and female relationships with each other and with the world, even though Terry always tries to defend men. Jeff finally allows his true feelings to be known to those around him and blocks the "brutish" influence of Terry. Gilman presents an extreme contrast of the self-centered, thug-like man through Jeff and his gradual acceptance of himself and his ideas.

The Snake

I believe that both the poem, "The Snake", and the image of the actual snake both fit into the category of American Literature known Transcendentalism, while the poem seems to show the snake in a romantic way and the image in a realistic manner. In the poem, the author describes the snake in a fairly detailed manner, almost showing its thoughts and emotions through its position and its actions. The attention to detail the writer shows is a trait of romantic writing and the attempt I feel the writer is trying to make to reveal the snakes emotions is also a common trait of romanticism.

The traits of Transcendentalism are evident however not only in the fact that the poem is written about an animal, a part of nature, and its natural actions of life, but also in the way that the writer mentions wanting to be like the snake. The last three lines of the poem,

"I longed to be that thing.

The pure, sensuous form.

And I may be, some time."

reveal the writers reason for describing and attempting to understand the snake in such a detailed way, and that is due to his desire to become calm and refined like the snake. Transcendental writers and thinkers were invested in nature and wished to understand it, connect with it, and become one with it. The image of the snake has less evidence of transcendentalism, as it is only an image of nature and the snake in its natural stance, but that is still relevant and can connect the two works. 

The image of the snake however seems to present realistic ideas to me due not only to the background and natural habitat of the image, but the stance and solidness of the snake. The image seems to be saying that this is the snake, this is what is does, there is no backstory. Everything seems simple and yet, realistic. The writer of the poem looks at the snake from a different perspective and tries to see so much more, but the image seems to just look at it on the surface and take that to be the full extent of what is there. 

Depression after Modernism

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway contains characters who all seem to be almost redeveloping their social skills, personalities, and confidence after the World War that had taken place right before the plot begins in America. Large events in American history influence the changes and development of literature in America and the first World War was one event that was particularly damaging. The ideas present in literature became much more somber and complex, making the effects of the war evident. American authors had been impacted by the war and their writing, the style, characters, plot, setting, and overall methods of writing had changed creating a writing period of depression in American literature.

Modernism is the period that these changes were most easily seen in as the period started following the war. I studied the Modernism period in English at the start of the semester and with that research now present in my mind I am able to notice characteristics of modernist writing in the literature we read inside class and outside of class. When reading Hemingway's book, not only the style and techniques used in his writing are obviously modern, but the characters feelings and struggles with their own view of themselves and self-confidence are examples of the depression they were involved in following the war they had fought in before the book began. This connection was interesting for me to understand and helped me to realize what the Hemingway was trying to express through his characters personalities and actions.

Do We Have To Be "American" to Be American?

A question brought up quite often recently in English class due to our task of defining American Literature is, does an author have to be from America to be an American author and therefore qualify their literature as American Literature? I took this question and changed it to better my curiosity by asking, do the characters in a book have to be from America to qualify a book as American Literature, even if the author is American themselves? This question came up because in the book The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, all the characters are traveling or living in countries outside of America such as Paris, South America, Spain, Scotland, and Greece. The difference that is made in this storyline is that all the characters are united through their involvement in World War I, the majority of them having fought in the war for America. Even the female character Brett is involved through her work in the hospitals of the war and other characters are friends of war veterans. The setting of the book however is not America and the characters are obviously expatriates. Therefore, can the book still be categorized as an American piece of literature or do the characters and plot of the story have nothing to do with the book's qualification in such a category?

I believe that the author's own status as American is a large factor. The author himself being from America and having knowledge about World War I and its effects evident in the characters who are said to have been present shown through his descriptions of them contribute to the books American genre. I also think that the since the main characters in The Sun Also Rises were all united by the same conflict in America, their efforts in World War I, that even if they're lives take them elsewhere in the world they have the American background and the American identities that are needed. Therefore I do think that we have the characters had to be American in order for the book to be a piece of American literature, but they do not have to spend their entire lives in America as long as they know where they came from and that background affects them and is evident in their actions and beliefs wherever they do go.

Losing Masculinity to Modernism

The results of World War I had a large influence on literature and its ideas, themes, and plots. All of these changes and new styles are shown through the literature written in Modernism, the time period I studied early in English class this year and now have knowledge about as we read various books in class or outside of class. The Sun Also Rises is written in a Modern setting and contains these new ideas brought on by the war and its destruction of those involved physically, mentally, and emotionally. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway involves a group of male characters who all seem to be redefining themselves as men due to their recent involvement in World War I in America. Whether Hemingway directly points to the loss of manhood or indirectly points to such ideas through the narrator, Jake's, descriptions of the characters and the contrast between the men and the main female character Brett, the idea is present. Connections can be are between my research of the Modernist period and the characters actions, thoughts, feelings, dialogue, portrayals, and personal views of themselves. An easy connection to draw however is the large amount of redefining, whether it be the redefinition of tangible things, emotions, or characters, that took place in The Sun Also Rises as well as in Literature transitioning from Realism to Modernism.

Jake, the narrator and a former fighter in the US during World War I, is affected by change due to the war itself and the pure terror it was for those fighting in it. Following the end of the war, John's feelings and confidence seems to be shaken and "feminized" as you can see through his descriptions of other as well as a few points where you can see into his own personal descriptions. Hemingway mentions this loss of John's "manhood" specifically through the loss of his ability to have sex, a setback in his life especially when involving female characters such as Brett. Brett, the female protagonist who is easily defined as an independent woman searching for love that she cannot see to hold on to, is another sign of various male character's loss of masculinity. Robert Cohn in particular, a friend of John's who was not involved in World War I due to his Jewish background and life in Paris instead of America, is affected by his interest in Brett and the actions he take to try and please her. These actions are seen as feminine to Cohn's friends and foes and they weaken him as you can see from Jake's narration of him. Directly, Brett is more obviously made a character who has greater masculinity than all make characters due to her short haircut, boyish name, and the tendency to call herself "chap". Brett being a woman and yet still having greater masculinity than all of the men around her, redefines the typical and previously known beliefs about gender, just as war redefined the literature in the American Modernism period from that of peace, fantasy or joy to that of depression and sorrow.

Simplicity over Detail

I am reading Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises this quarter for my outside reading book. The storyline is fairly interesting so far and seems to be revolving around the main character, who speaks in first person, and his friend Robert Cohn as he retells what must be a dramatic life full of complications with women that he and Robert have experienced. In blog however I'm not going to focus on the plot of the book, but rather the style of writing Hemingway has, and how he describes his characters, setting, and basic scenes using it. Ernest Hemingway uses an extremely simplistic style of writing. To compare I have looked at the style of writing used by the author of Billy Budd, a novella we recently read in English class, Herman Melville. Instead of simple writing Melville uses a more detailed and drawn out technique.
Herman Melville is a romantic writer whose style is exceedingly exact, giving attention to every detail necessary in providing a clear image of the setting, characters, and plot of books he has written. This style is common in romantic writing and is used to enhance the often fantastical ideas incorporated in romantic stories. Reading Billy Budd in class was sometimes difficult because of the incredible amount of detail when simply talking about an area of the ship or the feelings expressed by a certain sailor. This style is remarkably different from Ernest Hemingway's genre and techniques, which were lesser in general. Hemingway used simple, short sentences to explain his characters and setting and these methods produce the same level of understanding and imagery that Melville's writing does. These contrasting styles are vastly different but they produce the same quality of literature, just in different ways.

Puritanism in The Scarlet Letter

     The harsh and strict society of Puritan America that is the setting of The Scarlet Letter creates the basis for the ultimate plot and problems of the novel. I have been studying the Puritanism period of American Literature for the month of September give or take a week, in English class at Episcopal and all of the knowledge I have gained regarding social, cultural, and religious persona of Puritanism has come in handy when reading The Scarlet Letter. I have been able to recognize and understand points in the story, opinions of various characters, and the overall scandal and reasoning behind the main problem in the novel. 

      Nathaniel Hawthorne lived and wrote his stories in years following the Puritanism, but his birthplace of Salem, Massachusetts gave him the background information and overall curiosity and interest in Puritan ideals and society. Hawthorne presents readers of The Scarlet Letter with a character who embodies "sin" in a model Puritan society, Hester Prynne. Adultery is the scandal that creates the plot of the story and various details and characters develop the novel. This believed horrible act of adultery and the pride and uncaring manner in which Hester seems to react to her scandalous behavior enhances gossip and extremely opinionated Puritans to speak their beliefs and give readers the perspective and information of a true Puritan society. The Puritan town, in their attempt to disassociate themselves with Hester and her sinful behavior, are repressive and overwhelmingly rude and strict, almost contradicting the religion and culture which they were originally trying to protect. Hawthorne gives this almost backwards outlook of Puritan society and culture in order to entertain readers while keeping them informed. The storyline being seen through the eyes of a sinner creates a much more intriguing story that readers want to know more and more about, while still giving information through the surrounding characters and the actions they take.