Lot 49

It'd be hard for Thomas Pynchon to have ended The Crying of Lot 49 in a more ambiguous way. He leaves Oedipa at an auction, waiting to identify an important person she knows as a "mysterious client" who wants to bid on part of Pierce's stamp collection. But she doesn't actually know for sure if he will even be there in person, whether he will actually bid, or even what she will do if he does bid: "She had only some vague idea about causing a scene violent enough to bring the cops into it and find out that way who the man really was," she thinks to herself in the last chapter. She still has doubts about whether the whole Tristero conspiracy actually exists, and isn't even sure whether she has mental problems of some kind. There's nothing for the reader to even really grab onto, no real concrete information other than just hints, clues, and hunches.

Oedipa at this point is almost as hesitant about everything as are we as we follow along her story. Besides second guessing herself about what she'll even do if everything goes according to plan, she's skeptical of many other things in her surroundings and jumps to conclusions (or at least more hunches) about what she sees around her. She describes the men in the auction room as having "cruel faces" and "trying each to conceal his thoughts," while she decides in a single glance that the auctioneer is some kind of controlling puppeteer and draws several conclusions about him. Oedipa, despite obviously having much to lose from the situation and her lengthy investigation of Tristero, indulges in all kinds of wandering thoughts.

The story ends just before Oedipa expects to find out some real, concrete information and should lead to a much better understanding of the whole affair, but Pynchon could just have easily stopped the novel before any of the other epiphanies concerning Tristero that she's experienced. The only clear conclusion to make is that this isn't near the end of Oedipa's story; if it was, he would have gone on and shown the truth and concluded the novel. It seems like it'll just keep on going, which means that the author intends for Oedipa never to really understand the truth and be able to explain the mystery.

Lot 49 - Chapter 1

The style of Thomas Pynchon's writing seems, from the very beginning, wandering so much that it's almost (but not quite) incoherent. I had to stop and reread sections very frequently, not because I wasn't paying enough attention or focusing but because it seemed like the speaker isn't focusing. Her speech rambles around and mixes past memories, metaphors, and descriptions constantly. It reminds me of the way Faulkner's stories were written, except much less deliberate.

The longest paragraph, the one that ends the first chapter, sticks out as one connected thought, though it's still very convoluted. If I could only pick out one part of it to draw insight from, though there are several, it would be the when Oedipa mentions her ego. It is really just a mention, as the bit of Freud's vocabulary is only tossed in to one of many lengthy sentences: "Such a captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: that what really keeps here where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside and for no reason at all." She's talking about herself, as earlier she compared herself to Rapunzel and Pierce to her rescuer, though only the starting situation is like the fairy tale, since she describes Pierce as climbing stairs in the tower and her hair falling off like a wig, among other things. The tower is her sense of self, and what she thinks of as her ego (the tower) is actually an immovable prison. Oedipa's conflicts and personal issues are explained a bit with this analogy, as she's basically saying that the functions of her ego (decision making, controlling urges and balancing her life) aren't working properly. Freud would definitely be concerned if she was a patient of his and he read this passage.

The "magic, anonymous and malignant" she talks about is definitely her id, and she describes it much the way Freud talked about it. It's in opposition to her ego, hard to understand, and impossible for her to completely control. Earlier in her thoughts, she describes maidens in a tower "seeking hopelessly to fill the void," by creating a tapestry made up of all the objects and places in the world. Oedipa sees herself in this role, maybe as if everything she's done since she left Pierce (including marrying Mucho) is only an attempt to fill that void. Though she doesn't directly admit it to herself, she feels very alone and incomplete. Maybe her new task with managing Pierre's possessions is going to bring her some resolution.

Faulkner

"There Was a Queen" has a style that's easy to connect with As I Lay Dying, another work by William Faulkner that I read during high school. The trademark that I remember from As I Lay Dying was the way the narrator changed from chapter to chapter and eventually went around to all of the novel's characters, so that the reader could see the interpretation of each firsthand. Because of this, the change in the focus of the narrator from Elnora to elderly Virginia in chapter three is immediately noticeable and sticks out in my head from the story. Of course, it's not exactly the same kind of change. "There Was a Queen" isn't first person narration, it just tends to describe and follow one specific character at a time. For most of the story, except for chapter three and the beginning of chapter four, that person is Elnora. The section at the beginning of chapter four focuses on Narcissa for about a page before switching back to Elnora.

At first glance, it's hard to notice exactly how Faulkner is following one character in particular. The amount of dialogue seems to be comparable between Elnora and the other characters. However, he keeps jumping back to what Elnora is doing after each section of dialogue, almost as if her nonverbal movements and expressions are the last word of each conversation. All of these sentences occur immediately after an ending line of dialogue in the story: "Elnora turned now." "Elnora didn't answer." "Elnora grunted." "Elnora looked at Saddie." The dialogue is framed by these kinds of comments on what Elnora is doing. Even though the story isn't being told by Elnora (for the first, second, and fourth chapters), it's being told from her point of view.

So, when the third chapter comes around and suddenly Faulkner's focus is on Virginia, it's somewhat surprising because of how attached and devoted his narration seemed to be on Elnora. "There Was a Queen" was written in 1933, three years after As I Lay Dying was published, but the remnants of the kind of flexibility of that novel with the narrator clearly stayed with Faulkner as part of his permanent style. I can definitely notice it in this short story.

William Carlos Williams

In William Carlos Williams's poem The Descent, the mood is set from the beginning. The title and many of the words used in the poem have negative meanings, as the speaker describes the downfall. In the 3rd main paragraph however, Williams doesn't sound like he's describing a personal descent he experienced or is experiencing though; it's more like he's talking about what to expect with any personal descent. Stand-alone phrases like "No defeat is made up entirely of defeat" and "no whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory of whiteness" are more like wise idioms than statements relative to the speaker's specific personal struggle. This suggests that perhaps Williams is talking about a descent in a series of several descents, like he's talking to himself and giving reminders that he knows from prior experience.

This falls in line well with Carl Rapp's analysis of The Descent as it relates to Williams's life at the point when this poem was written. He says, "The reasons for this change of direction are, in Williams' case, fairly obvious: the heart attack in 1948, the death of his mother in 1949, and, most spectacularly, the series of crippling strokes in 1951 and 1952 that almost completely knocked him out, paralyzing his right arm and seriously impairing his speech and eyesight." The Descent was written in 1954, and so Williams's unfortunate problems with his health and personal life would have had a profound impact on his life at this point.

The poem (surprisingly) contains positive elements too. He talks of "accomplishment," and near the end mentions a "new awakening; which is a reversal of despair." To me this seems only a setup for the end of the poem, however, as the poem profoundly ends with the phrase "endless and indestructible," almost in an effort to stomp out the optimism that's been sporadically built up. On this point, Rapp disagrees, saying that "Williams himself appears to have been elevated to a life of the spirit in which he is inwardly more secure than ever before." Rapp seems to focus on the positive middle elements, seeing them as Williams's true message, and overlooks the hopeless ending.

The Passing of Grandison

In Charles Chesnutt's story The Passing of Grandison, there speaker shows a lot of deliberate manipulation in describing the plot. It seems to kind of associate itself with whatever the current mood of the people in the scene is, almost as if it's not a complete third-person voice that's detached from the characters but instead it's a 2.5-person point of view. The particular aspect that was noticeable for me was the way that the narrator describes the loyalty of Grandison.

At one point, after Grandison and Colonel Owen's first exchange in the events of the story, there's a long elaboration on how the owner feels that makes their relationship look very friendly, respectful and beneficial to both sides. "This was true gratitude, and his feudal heart thrilled at such appreciative homage. What cold-blooded, heartless monsters they were who would break up this blissful relationship of kindly protection on the one hand, of wise subordination and loyal dependence on the other!" The speaker couldn't possibly be more subjective, and is almost unreasonably biased towards the colonel's opinion at the time.

Contrast this with a section from the end of The Passing of Grandison, after colonel has learned of the mass escape undoubtedly led by Grandison: "So much valuable property could not be lost without an effort to recover it, and the wholesale nature of the transaction carried consternation to the hearts of those whose ledgers were chiefly bound in black." Just as the owner no longer feels any sentimental attachment to the slaves now that they've left, the speaker now refers to them in a shamelessly negative and unattached manner. They're described at the end as 'property' in a 'wholesale' 'transaction' instead of slaves who show 'homage' as part of a 'blissful relationship' like the were before they escaped. The drastic change in the narrator's voice is confusing to me, because it ruins the integrity of the 3rd person descriptions. The whole point of having a 3rd person in literature is to show things from an objective view in a situation where each of the characters would have his own opinion, but when the 3rd person doesn't hesitate to put a spin on what's happening, the value is lost. It's easier to read as you follow along with the story, but a lot harder to get the big picture and to understand the author's opinion.

Mark Twain

From the beginning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the speaker is illustrating a great deal about his character. Mark Twain doesn't waste any time, and shows Huck's rebellious side from the very first chapter. It's written like a child would tell it, with the very first mentions of Widow Douglas already bringing up whatever is on Huck's mind about her. Before he even explains the situation of living with her, he's already criticizing their way of life and going on about what he decided to do about it.

In the next page and a half, he tells several short stories and incidents that sum up everything the reader needs to know about her (which is not very much), but does it in a real, adolescent-sounding style of speech. Huck rambles on and on, and rarely does talk about something with saying his opinion on it by the end of the sentence. "Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there." The same thing happens again right after: "She got mad, then, but I didn't mean no harm." For Huck, that's all there is to it. Whatever other people do to and around him, his mind is always on his own opinion, and he never hesitates to say or announce whatever wild thought is in his head.

By making him both a dissident speaker and giving him such a realistic child thought process, Twain made Huck easy to connect to and rationalize with. Despite all the unusual situations he, Jim, and eventually Tom get in to, the ideas running through Huck's mind are easy to follow along with. Of course plenty of people disagreed with those ideas, but in the course of the book it's impossible to ignore them. Huck's thoughts are as much a part of the story as is the actual plot, so the two are rather inseparable. Twain couldn't have made an adult work in this role because the issues Huck faces were too serious and would be too straining to read about. By making him (in some ways) a naive little kid, and in some ways a confused, mature mind, it gives him a distinct role in the novel.

Homely anguish

In Emily Dickinson's short poem I like a look of Agony, there are very few clues to pick up on to use in analyzing the meaning of the poem. There are only fourty words, so she must have been particularly focused on each one's exact purpose if she wanted the reader to come to an understanding from it. There is one particular word that jumps out to me in this poem: 'homely,' in the last line. Most of the words are built around pain or suffering and are strongly violent, but for some reason Dickinson chose to call anguish 'homely.'

The speaker of the poem is expressing her feelings on dishonesty in this poem, though she doesn't say specifically what kind of dishonesty or whose dishonesty she dislikes. However, the word 'homely' casts a kind of light on this situation. The speaker's point is that death and extreme suffering cannot be faked. The seriousness of those situations where one is under intense pain is not something a person can manipulate or call upon to be convenient when the time comes. Ultimately, those moments are the moments that all humans can share and relate to. This is where 'homely' reveals its meaning. By mentioning "homely Anguish," Dickinson suddenly and surprisingly tones down the intensity of the whole poem. She builds up the "look of Agony" from the beginning, portraying it as the ultimate quality that cannot be controlled by the mind of an individual, and then, in the finale, calls it plain and ordinary.

Just as important to this poem as agony is honesty. Dickinson is associating anguish (which represents honesty in the speaker's eyes) with homeliness. This suggests that the reality of the world, or maybe the reality without the deception and trickery of dishonest people, is actually just simple, ordinary, and maybe even a little ugly. All of this pain stuff seems dramatic, but in reality it's only typical. When you strip down all the misperceptions, deceit, and underhanded dealings that are part of our daily lives, it boils down to just a bunch of people living and dying, and there's nothing flashy about it at all.

Whitman & the Civil War

In Beat! Beat! Drums!, from the very first time one reads it, there's obviously something complicated going on with the speaker. On the one hand, he's calling (perhaps cynically) for the drums and the bugles to continue beating and continuing to interrupt the daily activities and lives of the people in the country. The sounds are symbols of war, both the actual physical violence and the intensity and tension that it brings to the civilians. On the other hand, the speaker is criticizing the drums and bugles, calling them "shrill," "terrible," and even ordering them to drown out the cries of children to their mothers.

The question is about what Whitman's speaker represents, and what the drums and bugles represent. This particular collection of poems was published in 1865, so if Beat! Beat! Drums! wasn't written during the war it was at least written immediately afterwards. Neely says that Whitman viewed the war as a battle for unity, which could mean he favored the North and was opposed to the South. In this view, it would make the most sense for the drums and the bugles to represent the Southern armies and their push for separation. They go out and interrupt the lives and northerners who are trying to go on with their daily lives, and divide them into one side or another and force them to become involved when they don't want to. This interpretation would suggest that Whitman thinks only the South wants to fight, and the North just wants to continue as it is.

However, Neely's point could also mean that he simply wanted the war to end and be over with, and was opposed to the violence in general and not a particular side. This view is strongly supported by Beat! Beat! Drums!. One basic detail is that Whitman is talking about multiple drums and multiple bugles; he could just as easily have replaced every instance of "drums" or "bugles" with a "drum" or "bugle" and the rest of the poem would have been almost unaffected. Instead, he consciously chose to use plural. This suggests that, rather than one side being the aggressor (the South), drums are coming in from all sides to bring the country into conflict. Multiple elements are coming together to bring about the war, and neither of them is justified, at least in the speaker's mind.

Also noticeable is that Whitman only talks about the sounds of the instruments. Again, the speaker could have ordered the drummers to keep marching or to hold along the line of battle, which would have associated them a specific side or the other, but he did not. By leaving them as only sounds, they're more ambiguous, as if the North and the South aren't really that different from each other. Their sounds don't have any specific direction, but just spread their influence and their message to everyone. The beating of the drums interrupts all different kinds of life, including the rich, the poor, peaceful people, entertainers, businessmen, farmers, and they even attempt to drown out the sounds of the traffic.

There's no specific motive behind them, nor a specific purpose in front of them. They aren't fighting for slavery, against slavery, or because of economic struggles. Whitman sees them only as a voice whose message doesn't matter, because no matter how justified, the result is only going to be violence and war. His cynicism to the drums is saying that whether you're right and they're wrong, or you're wrong and they're right, it's neither of you that matters. It's the ordinary people, the ones that don't want to fight, that will be most affected. They'll be forced to choose a side, and their choice will divide them and their country in half. Neely is right, as Whitman doesn't want the war to be won by the "right" side, he just wants the war to be over so that all of these people from all their different walks of life can go back to being unified.

Melville - Benito Cereno

The character of Captain Delano in Benito Cereno is relatively easy to associate with as a reader. He, like the reader, is an outsider to the Spainard's boat, and the thoughts going through the mind of the reader as the story progresses are supposed to be roughly the same as those that are going through Delano's mind. His observations and, almost as importantly, his thoughts are open to the reader, though the story is not exactly told from a first-person perspective. He is at times curious, skeptical, paranoid, satisfied, and mystified by Don Benito's story and the condition of the boat.

At the same time, pieces of information are hinted at by the narrative voice that Delano isn't aware of at the time that they are revealed to the reader. This happens several times early in the story as Delano is boarding the ship. One example is when Babo is first introduced. There is no dialogue, but rather Babo's name is spontaneously and unceremoniously revealed in the middle of a sentence: ". . . it was not without humane satisfaction that Captain Delano witnessed the steady good conduct of Babo." Eventually the story's perspective shifts closer to that of Delano and doesn't just summarize all of the dialogue but writes some of it out explicitly, though it's not an absolute transition.

One part that seemed particularly strange to me was a paragraph of Delano talking to himself, at the top of page 2695, beginning with "What, I, Amasa Delano - Jack of the Beach, as they called me when a lad . . ." This section is unusual from the start because long blocks of spoken words are so few in the story. At first I wasn't even sure if this was Delano talking to himself, because it seemed so out of place with the rest of the way the novel is written. Also, there are again facts that, instead of being specifically introduced, are just kind of thrown about in the middle of a sentence, such as his nickname and the memories from his childhood. It sounds partly like the reader, or perhaps the narrator, is talking to Delano to try to convince him that he's not in danger. It definitely is in the narrator's best interest for Delano to be calm, because it makes the end of the story that much more surprising.

The Raven

Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven is memorable for many different elements in its mood, images, and rhyming. One of the techniques Poe uses is extreme amounts of repetition, the simplest form being the raven's spoken word, 'Nevermore.' This shows the unavoidable desperation in the narrator, as he asks the raven over and over if things will ever get better in his life. This is just the icing on the cake, though, because Poe uses many other different kinds of repetition in many different ways in this poem.

The fourth and fifth lines end the same in every stanza, sometimes repeating up to the last six words (3rd stanza and 16th stanza). This helps to build tension within each stanza, as the last line is always shorter. This turns it into a kind of conclusion, as many stanzas build a climax with the narrator posing questions and the raven unhesitatingly rejecting them in the 6th line. Poe creates suspense within each stanza, building it up and bringing it back down.

The rhyming scheme is repetitive too, both within the context of each stanza and over the whole poem. The second, fourth, fifth and sixth lines end with a word that rhymes with 'door,' and Poe never lets off or changes this scheme. As the poem continues, it's like a nail is being driven home over and over, just as unrelenting as the raven itself.

Other techniques are used too, especially alliteration. Lines like "Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before," repeat the same sounds, and even the same words, over and over. Words are repeated multiple times in the same sentence for emphasis on several occasions. Poe repeats punctuation too: he uses five exclamation marks in the second to last stanza. All of these layers of repetition add up to create an unusual level of tension and make the poem that much more creepy. It seems like such a strange way to build up stress and drama in a poem, and it's definitely not something that is used often at the level Poe uses it, but somehow it works out.

The Group & Mercy Otis Warren

The Group by Mercy Otis Warren is technically a satirical play, though it was probably not performed when it was written. It turns out to be more like a dialogue or a series of speeches, as the physical setting is unimportant and there's no actual action or plot, or even a series of events. The characters just carry out discussions between themselves about their political views on the American Revolution.

While reading a particular passage spoken by Judge Meagre near the end, I noticed how the word 'noble' is used in two contrasting ways. The speech I'm referring to is the one we are going to focus on in class on Friday, beginning with "Let not thy soft timidty of heart" and ending with "Who would strike off the rebel neck at once." The first time it is used looks like this: "I hated Brutus for his noble stand Against the oppressors of his injured country." This time, the words have some satirical undertones. It wouldn't make sense for a person to criticize someone for being noble against oppressors. Rather, this seems more like Warren is showing that she thinks what Brutus did was noble, but the character of Meagre, who is a British supporter, hates him for being a revolutionary. This statement is a lot like several others from Meagre, who uses words like generous, utopian, virtue, and ideal to describe the revolutionaries all while going on about how much he hates them and wishes they would be stopped. The speaker in the play may be a Tory, but the actual opinion of the writer is definitely not that of a Tory.

The second place where Meagre uses the word 'noble' is when he's describing someone who could beat down and suppress the American rebels: "If we could keep our foothold in the stirrup, And, like the noble Claudia of old, Ride over the people, if they don't give way." This time, Meagre is talking about someone he agrees with and supports (in other words, exactly the opposite character of Brutus), but yet he uses the same word to describe both. I don't think the word is intended to have some kind of dual meaning, but rather it just shows how there are two speakers and two opinions at every point in the play: one is the character talking, and the other is the author, Warren.

Autobiography part 2

Part 2 of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography is largely made up of Franklin's attempt at improving his own morality. He goes through a complicated, deliberate, and well documented plan to try to make himself a better person through self-examination. Included in the system is a list of 13 virtues, a calendar, and a daily journal. Part of the significance of this part of Franklin's efforts is that he's not exactly successful, however.

The brief story about Franklin's neighbor from page 88-89 of his autobiography can be summarized with the quote "Yes, but I think I like a speckled axe best." Franklin brings up the story in the context of his 'Order' virtue. His neighbor, when buying an axe from a local smith, said that he wanted the whole axe to be bright like the edge. When he and the smith set to actually polishing and grinding the whole axe, the neighbor quickly became tired and gave up after the axe was only speckled. The obvious point of the quote is that some goals take too much work to accomplish to be worthwhile (that is, that sometimes you have to make compromises with yourself and that you won't always get what you want). This relates to Franklin's overall view of his self-examination, in that it benefited his life in the long run even though he wasn't able to maintain any kind of focus on the virtues for a long period of time.

The quote itself actually goes beyond this idea, because if it was just about the benefits of compromise, it would read something more like "I think a speckled axe is fine." By saying that the speckled axe is actually "best," Franklin's neighbor is saying (even if he didn't mean it) that, even if the axe was perfectly shined, the half-grinded speckled axe would be better. Franklin goes on the elaborate on this, saying that being perfectly moral would bring about new problems and difficulties in personal relations. His message is that sometimes being the best isn't necessarily that much better than just being good, whether you're talking about being virtuous or any other aspect of one's life.

Jefferson and religion

Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, in particular what he says on the topic of religion, seems likely partly a political argument and partly like a campaign speech. He spends most of the time criticizing the state's leftover discriminatory laws on religion, but by the last page, it seems like Jefferson has other purposes in mind. Past a certain point, his argument is not even specifically directed on religion at all, but only on the purpose of having just laws in writing. Beginning with "But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government?" his argument does not even use any religious terms, but is about government in general.

The main point of what he is trying to say is that old laws that are not enforced should be rewritten even if they pose no danger because no one exists who would or could enforce them in the government at the time. Jefferson is advocating distrust of the government and skepticism about the future in a way that is a little surprising. As a major political figure who later became president, normally any effort to encourage distrust of the government system seems like a bad idea. The negative impact of something like this could be larger the way our modern, image-focused political structure works.

However, the way Jefferson writes this last section makes it sound kind of like a political rally. The thing that sticks out the most is how many short, almost rhetorical questions he throws into his writing in the last 1/3 of the religion essay. Sometimes, he immediately answers his own questions right after he asks them. It is like he is trying to get an audience excited and motivated on this issue, except the issue is not simple or easy to understand. It's hard for me to imagine a crowd applauding and showing support after Jefferson says something like, "It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united." But yet, because of the questions and the slightly animated, motivating way that it is written, that's the image that somehow pops into my mind.

Edwards and rationality

Jonathan Edwards's sermon A Divine and Supernatural Light is a description of "divine light" and also a justification of its existence. A segment where Edwards is making an effort to rationally prove how he can recognize "divine light" is particularly interesting to me. This paragraph can be found on page 9 (on the printed-out copy of the sermon), just before the #2 during the third main section. The paragraph starts with "If Christ should now appear to any one as he did on the mount at his transfiguration."

The bottom line of Edward's argument in this section is that it makes sense for God's words, acts, and writings to be instantly recognizable when they are heard, seen, or otherwise witnessed by ordinary humans. Actually, he doesn't say that it makes sense; he says that it is "rational." His line of reasoning is that, since God is superior to humans, everything he does is also superior, and (most importantly) all humans should universally be able to recognize between divine "excellency and sublimity" and ordinary human products.

The part that bothers me is the quote at the end of this paragraph from Jer. 23:28-29, a part of which reads, "what is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord. Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" I'm very doubtful of this explanation, because the thing that is separating the "chaff to the wheat," isn't something divine, it's the ordinary people. Edwards is saying that whatever a person feels is divine or is an act of God can be assumed to be that, and that nothing is more reliable than an individual's inner gut instinct. This is typically of sermons or any other kind of religious argument, but he is trying to say that this is somehow a "rational" proof of his point. To me, it seems like it's the opposite of rational; it is saying that individual, unexplainable instinct is the best way to prove something. This part of his sermon is particularly frustrating to read because of the misleading way Edwards characterizes this argument.

introduction

My name is Joe. I'm a freshman from Raleigh, NC (Enloe high school), and I'm still working on figuring out a major, though I'm leaning towards journalism right now.