Oedipa Isn't Your Typical Woman from the '60's....

Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 was written in the 1960's. There are many music and drug references from the time throughout the novel to help put it in this setting. Another staple of the 60's was the subservience of women to stay in the home and out of the work setting, caring for the children they are expected to bear. Oedipa, the main character of The Crying of Lot 49, is not the typical woman from the '60's, yet she struggles to escape from this pre-molded life.
To begin, the reader is given a glimpse of Oedipa's life with Pierce, the deceased for whom Oedipa is executing a will. She reminisces about how sad she felt standing in front of a painting, realizing that "Pierce had take her away from nothing, there'd been no escape." As mentioned in class, the second page lists three ways that Oedipa tries to "escape", they fail. These are staring at the "TV tube", speaking "the name of God", and feeling "as drunk as possible". Unlike those servile housewives from the '60's, Oedipa is searching for more.
Another fact that gives us this non-conformist view of Oedipa is how she does not have any children. At one point in the novel, she goes to visit Professor Bortz, and his wife asks Oedipa, "how did you manage to get away from yours [kids] today?" This implies that women at Oedipa's age were automatically assumed to have children. Because Oedipa does not have children, she always at least has a man, which is a necessity in this era to become pregnant. Because this was the popular feeling at this time, Oedipa is distraught when she realizes that the men in her life are gone. She says, "...they are stripping from away, one by one, my men. My shrink...has gone mad; my husband, on LSD...has passed, I was hoping forever, for love; my one extra-marital fella has eloped with a depraved 15-year-old; my best guide back to the Trystero has taken a Brody. Where am I?" It is like Oedipa is going around with this Nancy Drew business trying to find out about a secret mail carrier service only to escape the pressures of the responsibilties assumed upon women of the time. However, once there isn't a man in her life, it is almost as if she loses hope that she will ever have children. As also mentioned in class, she has sex with many men in the book, but the one time she actually does go to the gynecologist to get checked for pregnancy, she does not go back for her follow-up appointment. She simply believes that the Trystero has consumed her and that it is more a part of her than any pregnancy could be. She is a very lost and confused woman, and I just hope that with the absence of Lot 49 in her life, she will cease to make contrived connections.

So the first chapter's a little strange...

Not going to lie, I had to read the first two pages of this book three times. Reasons behind the confusing context of this book are the sentence structure and word/name choice. For example, the whole first page is practically one sentence. It begins with "One summer" and ends at "honorary" 8 lines later. In addition, the names I suppose are references, but most of them are odd. The main woman is named Oedipa, which may be a reference to Oedipus, who married his mother and shot his father. Also, Oedpia's husband is called "Mucho Mass", which is Spanish for "much more". I'm not sure what this means yet, but it all will probably have some kind of comical significance in the story. Another confusing thing is that there are many ambiguous references. For example, the deceased Pierce fellow says that Wendall Mass (Mucho Maas!) needs a visit from "The Shadow". This "shadow" is referenced to again on the next page. It says, "The shadow waited a year before visiting (12)." What does that mean?
The thing I enjoyed most about this first chapter was reading about Mucho Maas and his crazy insecurities about jobs. The way he describes the used cars he used to buy from people at the lot is poetic. For instance, Pynchon writes that maybe if he had worked in a junkyard, Mucho could have stood it because "the violence that had caused each wreck being infrequent enough, far enough away from him, to be miraculous, as each death, up till the moment of our own, is miraculous." The passion with which Mucho hates the lot is so extreme, it makes me wonder why Oedipa married him...but then again, maybe he's her son.

Roles & Meaning within Faulkner's 'There Was a Queen'

Each of the characters in Faulker's There Was a Queen, all women, have a specific role placed on them because of the absence of men in the house. The first person the audience is introduced to is Elnora, the head slave of the Sartoris household. Her role in this story is that of a guardian. She claims that she can solely care for Miss Jenny, that she "don't need no help", especially not from "no outsiders from town." When she says this, she is referring to Miss Narcissa , the woman who married and bore the son of Miss Jenny's nephew.
Miss Narcissa is the antagonist of the story, though it is not obvious at first. Her name is very close to the word narcissist, which is someone who has excessive vanity. This description plays out through her obsession with the secret love letters. Also, it is suggested that Miss Narcissa is indirectly responsible for Miss Jenny's death. As the outsider of the family, no one in the house likes her, not even her own son, as is suggested when he insists that he didn't miss her while she was in Memphis.
Miss Jenny is the "queen" that I believe Faulkner is referring to. Her silver hair is described several times in the story, as are the Carolina window panes that she first brought to Mississippi in 1969. These window panes are a symbol for Miss Jenny's own life. When she first came to Mississippi, they are of "colored glass". However, on the day that Miss Narcissa returns from Memphis, the window fades as the sun sets, and the "woman's silver head faded, too." This foreshadowing continues when Miss Jenny asks for her hat, a black bonnet that she promptly places atop her head. After this, she tells everyone to eat supper without her as she sits by the now "sparse and defunctive Carolina glass." And, finally, Elnora finds her "motionless" and "beside the dead window." Rather than saying that Miss Jenny is dead, Faulkner describes the window as dead. Because of all these things, Miss Jenny represents the life and heart of the household, and the narcissist and outsider kills it.

Meaning behind The Young Housewife

William Carlos Williams' The Young Housewife suggests many sad things about the life of the poem's main object, the housewife, through subtle detail. Also, I believe there to be a secret and intimate relationship, or "potential sexual contact" (Barry Ahearn), between the speaker and the housewife.
In the first stanza, Williams describes the housewife as moving around "in negligee". This is significant because it leaves the word "negligee" for further interpretation than just a nightgown. For instance, the sound of negligee sounds very much like neglect. Though this is not its meaning, the sounds are similar. In addition, the word right after negligee, which is also the last word of the second line, is "behind". This gives an connotation of shame and neglect, which complements the association of negligee and neglect.
Other details that add to the housewife's despondent state is how she "stands shy, uncorseted, tucking in/ stray ends of hair." In addition, the speaker compares her to a "fallen leaf", and at the end of the poem he speaks of the "noiseless wheels" of his car running over "dried leaves". This suggests that the author is metaphorically describing the housewife as a crushed and lifeless spirit.
The details and images Williams writes also allude to a possible sexual relationship between the speaker in the poem and the housewife. The very beginning of the poem reveals that the speaker is observing the housewife "at ten A.M." This is fairly late in the morning. If the housewife has children old enough for school, they would have already left. Also, her husband would probably have already left for work. Thus, 10 A.M. appears to be a time for intimate interaction between the housewife and the speaker. In addition, the things he specifically notices about her can be interpreted sexually. For example, she is "uncorseted", meaning that the speaker is noticing her upper body.
As already mentioned, the housewife is compared to a dried, "fallen leaf" that eventually gets run over by the speaker's car. Because of this, I believe that the speaker and the housewife are past lovers who were forced to end their affair because the housewife succumbed to the fear of her husband discovering her and her lover. Throughout the poem, the speaker describes a disheveled, dispirited housewife going about her daily work, yet as he passes her he bows and smiles. He still sends her a fond and warm greeting because he remembers past times.

Similarities between Twain and Chesnutt

Mark Twain's Huck Finn and Charles Chesnutt's The Goophered Grapevine share similarities in dialect, style, and certain symbols, but the two stories also have differences in setting and content.
In Chesnutt's piece, a black man named Uncle Julius tells the narrator a long, complex story about how the vineyard that the narrator is interested in buying is "goophered" or cursed. Throughout this anecdote, the dialect used is very similar to that which Mark Twain used for Jim in Huck Finn. For example, Jim often utilizes the word "dey" (they) as Uncle Julius also says. In general, the dialects are similar because of how words are chopped off inconsistently at both the beginnings and ends, replaced with an apostrophe to express its shortness. At some points throughout Uncle Julius's story, I found it more difficult to decipher than Twain's style. However, this may just be because Twain's content is more familiar to me than the voodoo practices of the south during this time period.
Another similarity between these two authors, though a small one, is in the ironic symbolism of the unconventional meaning that southern states/towns hold for the main characters in each story. For instance, in Huck Finn, Jim and Huck are actually travelling south down the Mississppi River to the town of Cairo, where Jim can be free. This is ironic because the South during this time period is associated with stricter slave laws. In The Goophered Grapevine, the main protagonish is presented with a similar predicament. His wife is sick and their doctor suggests that they relocate to the South, where the climate is warmer and less harsh. Chesnutt's story takes place after the Civil War, unlike Twain's, but there was still a strong association with the south and stricter black codes, etc. The narrator in Chesnutt's story addresses the concerns of harsh Southern living for blacks when he states, "It was a sufficient amount of time after the war for conditions in the South to have become settled".
While Twain and Chesnutt share these similarities, the time setting is different, as well as the physical setting. They both take place in the South, but Chesnutt writes the couple moving to North Carolina, whereas Huck is bred of Mississippi. Also, Chesnutt makes it a point to express in great detail the practices of Southern voodoo, whereas Twain is satirizing slavery and people in general.

Huck's Attitudes Concerning Jim

Throughout the story of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck faces an inner struggle of whether or not to turn in Jim. This issue is first explored in depth after Huck returns to his raft from the larger raft he had been eavesdropping on. Huck thinks to himself, "I begun to get it through my head that he [Jim] was most free--and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn't get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way." However, in this instance, Jim begins to rant about how good of a friend Huck is, and that he's "de only fren' ole Jim's got now." Huck just cannot take the guilt, so he protects Jim yet again by making up a lie to ward off a couple of nosy sailors.
As the novel progresses, the close bond between Huck and Jim becomes more evident. For example, while Huck is staying with the Grangerfords', his slave, Jack, shows him where Jim has been hiding. When Huck sees Jim, he automatically becomes concerned, asking why he had not told Jack to fetch him sooner. Another example occurs after the big Shepherdson-Grangerford fight that results in the demise of Buck, his brother, and his Pa. Disturbed from what he has just witnessed, Huck screams out, and just then: "It was Jim's voice--nothing ever sounded so good before." Also, Jim calls Huck "honey", a common, affectionate pet name.
While all this reflects Jim and Huck's care for each other, Huck also reveals a condescending attitude towards Jim. Several times Huck corrects Jim on things that he has no knowledge of. For instance, Jim and Huck hear a few men out on the river one night, but they comment that because they were unable to see these men, it appeared as if they were spirits. Huck narrates, "Jim said he believed it was spirits; but I says: 'No, spirits wouldn't say, 'dern the dern fog.'" Huck is not an expert on spirits, but he automatically takes on the role of telling Jim he is wrong. Another example of this occurs when the Duke and Dauphin enter the story. Huck thinks to himself, "It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings nor dukes, at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds...and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him." The fact that Huck feels obliged to hide this fact from Jim shows that he doesn't want to hurt his feelings, but it also shows that he does not think Jim to be very intelligent.
Overall, Huck and Jim have a very affectionate relationship, yet Huck's subconscious arrogance still surfaces throughout the text.

Lilacs for Abraham Lincoln

Walt Whitman's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd is almost like a stream of consciousness of the narrator reflecting on Abraham Lincoln's death. At several points through the piece, a whole day passes by in one stanza. For instance, lines 93 through 98:
[Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
[The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
[The gentle soft-born mesaureless light,
[The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon,
[The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
[Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land."
The first three lines describe the morning, the third line transitions to afternoon, and the last two lines describe the evening and night. This technique gives the reader the impression that the narrator is lost deep in thought and sitting still enough to observe all changes in the daylight.
Though this poem is like a stream of consciousness, it also tells a story. This can be seen in the sprig of lilac that the narrator breaks off. At the funeral, the narrator lays this lilac on Lincoln's grave, which is described in the last line of the sixth section, "I give you my sprig of lilac". When describing Lincoln's funeral, Whitman also writes of the "silent sea of faces", expressing how Lincoln's life touched many people.
Throughout the poem Whitman not only writes about Lincoln's death, but he also includes the death of the soldiers in the civil war, as well as the idea of death itself. In this poem, the narrator speaks of how he "saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, But I saw they were not as was thought, They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not, The living remain'd and suffer'd." Whitman claims that those who died in the war actually benefitted, and that those who were left alive were the ones who suffered, making Death appear peaceful and appealing. Whitman also does this by personifying death. For example he writes, "Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me, And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me, And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions." He speaks of these elements of death as "companions" rather than something to be afraid of.