Journal #26

This blog is about snooow! I think my opinion of snow changes depending on what I'm doing. If I'm sitting in my house looking outside, I like it. Snow is pretty, and fun to run around in even though I'm not a little kid anymore. If I'm driving, however, I hate snow with a fiery passion. My car is not four wheel drive, and it doesn't weigh a whole lot. I think I hate the ice on the roads that comes from snow even more than snow itself. Nobody likes to slip and slide around on the road. I also hate snow when I drive because I live on a country road, so when it snows a lot you can't see where the road is. The road is just one big blanket of snow, and it blends with the snow from the cornfields so it's all perfectly flat. I have lost track of how many people I have seen get stuck on my road because they think that the road is somewhere it isn't, so they drive right off of it and into the ditch. I think that's what I most afraid of this winter. Another reason I dislike snow is that I don't like the salt that is placed on the roads. It speeds up the corrosion of the metal under the car! I dislike that quite a lot.
I know it seems like I hate snow at this point, but I actually really like to watch snow and make snowmen. I made a 6-foot tall snowman last year! It was pretty cool. I would make snowangels, but that's a little bit too cold. You lay down in the snow, then it just goes into every opening of your coat and melts. And when you stand up, you mess up the snowangel!
I think overall, snow is a little bit more trouble than it's worth. Little kids love it, anybody who can drive hates it with a passion.

"The Minister's Black Viel" - Dark Romanticism

I liked "The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne a little more than "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe. I believe the psychological aspect of the story and the way that it depicts Dark Romanticism is much more affective than the doom and gloom found in "The Pit and the Pendulum." It was much more easy to relate to than Poe's story.
The main affect felt by "The Minister's Black Veil" was the way that humans are inherently evil by nature. Each one has all kinds of dark secrets and things they are ashamed of, which is what the pastor is trying to prove by wearing the black veil. His veil is used as a symbol of the evil and sins that separate people from one another, which is a characteristic of romanticism, specifically Dark Romanticism in that it talks about the evil tendencies of humans rather than goodness (Hawthorne).
Not only are humans naturally evil, but they are also prone to hiding their evil and closing it off from the rest of the world because they are ashamed. Most people are too afraid to do what the pastor did, which is showcase his sins and sadness to the world in the form of his veil. By doing this he took responsibility for his sins and the way they separate a person from the people around them if they are ignored and never addressed (Hawthorne).
The last thing I saw out of the story was that humans are naturally prone to judging each other rather than looking at their own faults, and they are scared by things that they do not want to address because they hit home way too closely. While yes, the pastor did wear his sins upon his face quite literally, the truth is that every person is just as guilty as he was. The people of the town knew him and his character, and they knew that he was a very good man, yet they chose to shut him out of their lives because he actually took responsibility for his sins and that scared them (Hawthorne).
The truth is we all have our own black veils. Whether they are deep dark secrets of things we have done it our past or simply evil thoughts we have entertained at times, we all possess them. The fact that we all possess them should teach us to be understanding of one another and the fact that we all have our faults. But instead of doing that we all choose to hide our own faults and point fingers at others in order to take t he attention away from ourselves. In this way we all suffer our own form of personal torture as the things that bother us slowly eat us up inside. If only we could all stop acting so high and mighty and admit that none of us are perfect, the world would be a much happier place. The fact that the pastor, one of the most holy men in that town, was the one able to step up and acknowledge that he is a sinner says a lot about our society. All of these dark truths that are revealed about society through this writing is a classic example of Dark Romanticism (Hawthorne).

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Minister's Black Veil." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature. Ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill. 2010. 280-289. Print.

Journal #25

Honestly, I think everyone has at least a little bit of a mask, if that makes sense. I don't know very many people that are comfortable with just openly speaking about their problems, they're all guarded. Maybe that's because that's just how my friends are, I don't know. I don't think that they are purposely pushing people away, though. I do not know if this would count as an example of "wearing a mask", but a while ago my friend got dumped by his girlfriend of over a year, and he would not talk about it with anyone. Like I said, I do not know if that counts as wearing a mask, but he was not being open about it, and he was holding in all of emotions. By doing that I guess he was kind of pushing people away, which is sort of like wearing a mask.
I can not remember the last time that I realized that I was wearing a mask. I am sure that I wear one just subconsciously to sort of help keep my personal life in my own mind, if that makes sense. I do not like when people talk endlessly about themselves and everything that is going wrong in their life openly to other people, so why would I want to do that to people? I wear that mask so that I do not annoy people with my personal issues. I wear a mask whenever I am feeling sad so that I do not get bombarded with questions because to me, asking questions makes the issue worse. I can not remember when the last time I was really sad, though. I suppose I just do not like to talk about my problems to others because I like solve them myself, and I do not want to be judged by other people. I do not mind listening to other peoples' problems though, as long as they do not talk about them constantly. I know a few people who only ever talk about themselves and how "sucky" their life is, and I hate it.

The Pit and the Pendulum - Dark Romanticism

There are just a few main, distinguishing characteristics of dark romanticism that I found repeated over and over when researching the topic. These are as follows: dark romanticists believe people are naturally prone to sin and evil, they believe the world is dark, decaying and mysterious, they believe that nature reveals truth about the world but that when nature reveals things about life they are mysterious and evil, and dark romanticists didn't ignore evil, but they acknowledged it and the horror of it. I also believe an aspect of dark romanticism is exploration of the darker side of the spiritual realm and the way that it clashes with our own in points that we can see on certain occasions. The belief in the evil and supernatural is very evident in some works of dark romanticists.

The Pit and the Pendulum, written by Edgar Allen Poe, a distinguished dark romanticist, is a clear example of many ideas of dark romanticism. The first place in which this is showcased is in the mood as the story opens. The feeling of the story is immediately set with the foreboding words of the first sentence: "I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me." So already, as the story opens, the narrator has managed to settle an air of depression and hopelessness upon the scene. Later in the same paragraph the narrator describes his judges as though the very lips on their faces were some great symbol of evil and finality. Through these examples the author has illustrated the characteristic of the horror of evil(Poe).

The way the world is decaying and mysterious is illustrated when the narrator awakens in a dark, disgusting prison. Upon further exploration he deduces that he is in a circular prison with a deep pit in the center which it is intended for him to fall into. At one point rats enter his prison and attempt to eat his food. This disgusting filth and these vile living conditions show the decaying and mysterious nature of the world(Poe).

The prison the narrator is in is very inhuman in the way it punishes him. The pain inflicted upon him is both physical and mental. He is tormented both by the grotesqueness and unhygienic nature of the prison and the prospect of falling to his death or being sliced open by the scythe, physically, and he is tormented mentally by the constant, slow descent of the scythe and eventually the slow progress of the walls of the prison as they push him inwards towards the pit. The combination of these many torments, rather than a slow, quick death, prove that humans are naturally evil and prone to do bad things to one another(Poe).

The tale of the pit and the pendulum is both a horror story for the ages and a lasting example of the era of dark romanticism. As described above, the fundamental ideas of dark romanticism are all represented within the short story. It is truly a classic sample of the genre that is dark romanticism.

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Pit and the Pendulum." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature. Ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill. 2010. 263-273. Print.

The Raven Criticism Analysis

"The Raven" is one of Edgar Allen Poe's most famous poems. It draws in it's readers with deep inner thoughts of the mind, put out into the open by grief, suffering, and insanity. Edgar Allen Poe was a dark romanticist, and in being this, he wrote many things about the darker side of human nature, of mystery, of the psychological mind, and of darker spiritual phantasms. "The Raven" is a dark tale of a man going practically insane from the grief of his lost love, Lenore, and talking to a raven--a symbol of death--who only replies to the man, "Nevermore." The tale has many different references in it making the symbolic and figurative meaning stronger. It can be interpretted many different ways: a grieving man losing his mind due to the suffering from the loss of his beloved, a dark tale revealing the author's own feelings toward love, or a historical meaning, such as Dave Smith, author of a criticism of "The Raven," believes. "If we read "The Raven," despite its absence of specific local details, as an "awareness" of the life of America in 1845, we see that Poe has conjectured the nightmare of the individual cut off from history, abandoned by family, place, and community love. He experiences personally what the South will experience regionally and the country will, down the long road, experience emotionally. Though he means to celebrate Lenore, what he most intensely celebrates is the union with community, the identity of place and people which Poe simultaneously has and has lost" (Smith). Dave Smith believes that Poe's poem is Edgar Allen Poe's portrayal of the country at the time, something that I had never thought of, but that is interesting and also relevant. This idea would be accurate with the Romanticism Period characteristics, in which they wrote of emotions, nature, and patriotism. Smith's connection of the poem to the South does seem logical and it seems to fit the Romanticism time period."In this, in 1845, he speaks for the Southern white and, paradoxically, for the slave paralyzed in his garden and also dispossessed" (Smith). However, even though this does make sense, I do not agree with David Smith. I think that Edgar Allen Poe is mainly coming across and giving a story of how grieving and not doing anything to stop one's suffering of a loved one eventually makes that person go insane. He or she loses their minds to the grief and anguish caused by the loss of the loved one. "It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven "Nevermore" (Poe, 260). I think that the poem is merely the suffering of a loved one, Lenore. Edgar Allen Poe's very articulate ryhming scheme and his use of words to create a dim and bleak, yet sincere tone, tell the story of a lonely, sad, loveless man, rather than an analogy to the South and historical United States, as David Smith believes.

Works Cited

Smith, Dave. "Edgar Allan Poe and the Nightmare Ode," Southern Humanities Review 29, no. 1 (Winter 1995): pp. 4-5, 9-10. Quoted as "Poe as a Southern Writer" in Harold Bloom, ed. Edgar Allan Poe, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1999. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMPEAP26&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 23, 2010).
Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Raven." American Literature. Columbus, Ohio: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 257-260. Print.

The Raven

A man is sleeping from reading a book, and he hears a small tapping noise on his chamber door. He shakes it off thinking it is only a visitor. He sleeps again, but wakes to the same tapping noise again. He goes to the door opens it, but he finds no one there. Then he hears a tapping noise on the window, and as he opens up the window, a raven flies into his room and sits on a bust of Athena, the greek goddess of wisdom and war. He asks the raven what his name is and it replies. "Nevermore." He asks of Lenore, his dead wife whom he grieves, and the raven again replies, "Nevermore." He then asks if his suffering for Lenore will ever go away, and the raven replies, "Nevermore." He tells the raven to leave him, but the raven, alas, says, "Nevermore."

This poem is dark and mystical, and from the literal translation, one would not know this. However, Poe uses many literary devices to make this poem how Poe intended it to be. For one, he uses illusion, or referencing something of another piece of work or art. "But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--Perched, and sat, and nothing more." (Poe, 258). Here, Pallas refers to Athena. Athena was the protector of wisdom and innocence, and in the poem, she is used as protection of the man's mind. A raven was commonly used as a symbol of death. As the raven flies and sits on the bust of Athena, it symbolizes that the innocence, the wisdom, and essentially, the man's mind, dies, or he goes insane.

Poe also uses repetition in his poem to set the dark theme. The raven continues to say, "Nevermore," and only that word. The raven says nothings else but that. And as the man asks the questions to the raven, and the raven gives him these terrible replies, the man perishes in his anguish and grief.

Poe's poem is a symbol of darkness and death. The man, suffering from the loss of his beloved Lenore, loses his mind in his grief. He talks to a raven, believes the answers from the raven, and goes insane. The man loses himself in his sadness and suffering. The Raven symbollically shows us that when one wallows around in his or her grief and suffering and does nothing to escape it, they eventually lose themselves, and their innocent selves die in their anguish.

Journal #24

This blog is about a time when my mind scared me or played tricks on me. I must say, now that I'm older this does not happen very much. Today I thought I saw someone standing by my dad's car for just half a second, but no one was actually there. I was not scared though, I just figured it was a piece of hair in my eyes that look like a shadowed figure. I think the last time that my mind actually tricked me and made me scared was when I was seven or something. I used to afraid of walking through my house at night when all the lights were off because I thought that there were little ghosts and a t-rex in my house somewhere. I was actually legit scared that there were because I would see the shadows of things, and my mind would morph the shape into something I feared. I cannot recall anytime recently that my mind has scared me or played tricks on me. Unless optical illusions count as a mind trick! I was just looking at optical illusions yesterday of sidewalk chalk drawings (those cool ones in cities that are detailed and look real) and for a moment I actually thought that there was a spiral staircase going down into the ground from the sidewalk. My mind tricked me, ahhh! Of course I knew what it was two seconds later, but my mind got me, none the less. My mind also frequently tricks me into thinking that there is a person standing somewhere when there isn't, just like how I explained up there ^. I think that happens to a lot of people, though. I do not see actual full blown, detailed people. My mind just sees a shadow or a blur and immediately thinks, "OOH PERSON" without actual analyzing it and thinking, "oh, lamp". I do not think I have actually been really scared because of my mind recently, though; just mildly confused.