English Midterm

Kurt Vonnegut (Welcome to the Monkey House)

From Germany
- name from Vonne river
- 1949 writing
- father and paternal grandfather - architects
- maternal grandfather - won Gold at Paris exposition for Beer which had coffee
- 8 yrs older brother - physicist in clouds
- 5 yrs older sister - Alice, denied that was her real name, died 40 from cancer, said “no
pain” last word
- 2 main themes of novels - “Here I am cleaning the shit off of practically everything”
“No pain”
- book contains writings used to finance novels - Free Enterprise
- Jobs
-- Public Relations man for General Electric
-- Slick Fiction writer - mostly science fiction
- not aware if made a moral change by switching jobs
- Ask God on Judgement Day - suspects death is close for him (next Wednesday)
- moral improvement by switching jobs
- ask sister’s real name
- when asking about moral improvement to rich college professor
- both equally bad, both buggered truth for money
- lowest brand of fiction, Science Fiction
- professor had to leave to Honolulu 3000 miles away to speak at modern
language association, caught a fan-jet
- whole family spokes, first time mentions mom, brother quit later
- girl in cocktail party asked Vonnegut what he was doing
- committing suicide by cigarettes, brand was Pall Mall - famous with
suicides
- dilettantes ask for Pell Mell - confused with brand
- relative writing history of his family
- told Vonnegut that his paternal grandfather died in 40s and happy to
be out of life in Indianapolis
- reason why people smoke - honorable form of suicide
- Vonnegut used to want to die
- has 3 children from wife and 3 children from sisters
- married happily, all writer’s wives are beautiful
- in honor of marriage a sickeningly slick love story in the The Ladies’ Home
Journal
- later entitled by journal owners - The Long Walk to Forever
- entitled by Vonnegut - Hell to Get Along With
- describes afternoon with wife to be, shameful to live scenes from
women’s magazines

- The New Yorker described his novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, as - a series of narcissistic
 giggles
- Welcome to the Monkey House might be another
- helpful to imagine Vonnegut as the White Rock Girl, kneeling on a boulder in her
nightgown adoring her own reflection or looking for minnows - allusion to Psych

Anne Bradstreet (“To my Dear and Loving Husband” ; “Upon the Burning of Our House”)
- Born in 1612 in Northampton, England
- 16 married Simon Bradstreet
- 1630 - sailed from England to Boston
- 1640 - moved to Andover
- had 8 kids
- father and husband became governors of Massachusetts - since family had rep she was able to
write
- Mistress Anne - poet-voice that reflects religious doctrine, public duty and conventional - belief
of Puritans - religious sermon
2. Anne - woman who loves, grieves, fears, feels pride and experiences the full range of
emotions and curiosities somewhat in conflict with her faith - much more human, carry over
today
3. In her poetry sometimes one voice is dominate, sometimes the other and sometimes they are
in harmony

Edward Taylor (“Huswifery” ; “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly”)

- Educated in England - he took a second degree from Harvard when he came to America
- Minister in Westfield, Massachusetts, a frontier town at the time
- Elizabeth Fitch was first wife that bore him 8 children five of whom died as infants - often have
multiple marriages
- in 1692 - he married Ruth Willys they had 6 kids
Beliefs
- Defended original faith of Puritans against more liberal religious ideas
- only ppl who experienced grace allowed to become full members of the church (the elect)
Types of Writing
- the meditations - were meant to prepare him for administering sacrament of communion to his
congregation - did it to get in the mindset of performing communion and write sermons - poems
just exercises

Washington Irving (“The Devil and Tom Walker”)

- named for George Washington - wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip VaN
Winkle - fond of writing about American experiences
- Early romantic writer

Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter ; “The Ministers Black Veil”)

-Born in Salem, Massachussets in 1804
- An Anti-Transcendentalist and Romanticist
- Inspired by Puritan and Romantic Movements
- had 3 children one who suffered from mental illness and died young
 Herman Melville (“Bartleby the Scrivener”)
- an anti-Transcendentalist -
- doesn’t see cosmic sharing - when man faced with nature/divine comes up against a white and
impenetrable wall
- the wall - a malevolent separation
- Famous for writing the great the American novel - Moby Dick -

Edgar Allan Poe (“The Haunted Palace” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”)
- Romanticism (Big part of American Romantic Movement)
-An early exemplar of Surrealism (the dreamscape)
-Born in Boston
-corresponds to grotesque and nature
-Known for his Unity of Effect (Specificity and Control)
-“The Raven” rocketed his career
-Originator of the Detective Fiction Story
-Heavy Use of Rhythm , uses a lot of descriptive words

Ralph Waldo Emerson (“Nature” and “Self-Reliance”)

-Transcendentalism!
- His Central and Revolutionary Precept
- spiritual unity of all forms of being, with God, humanity, and nature sharing a universal soul
- the Oversoul - god, humanity, and nature are all one entity

Ways of Thinking and Speaking

- Most of Emerson’s thinking and speaking was in the form of Analogies, ie something is like
something else
- layers descriptions over and over
- He thought of himself as a poet more than anything else, even though we know him best as an
essayist and public speaker
- Had a Poet’s Eye: observes the world around him intently and thinks about the
connections of things
- Framed his philosophy from observations
His Central and Revolutionary Precept
- The spiritual unity of all forms of being, with God, humanity, and nature sharing a universal
soul
- The oversoul

The Rhodora
- philosophy - Beauty and works of nature - no purpose
- charm wasted on Earth and Sky - mankind can’t appreciate things - things must be made
beautiful for mankind to appreciate solely
- things are where they are because nature puts them that way
 Henry David Thoreau (“Walden”)
- Born 1817 - Concord, Massachusetts
- Graduated from Harvard in 1833
- Father owned Pencil factory
- Built and lived for approx. 2 yrs in a small house on Walden Pond
- His work was not recognized when he died at age 44 of tuberculosis
- wanted to live out Emerson’s ideas - Turned the thoughts of Emerson’ into Actions

Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huck Finn)

- Romanticism (river) and Realism
- Social Satire towards the South
- Lots of Racial Inequality
- Great Knowledge of the Mississippi River (Transcendentalist Connections )
- Often writes in local Dialect (Uses Local Color)

Emily Dickinson
- A poet
- Use of Slant Rhyme
- reclusive in society (Has Reclusive Tendencies)
- Doesn’t Title her Poems
- Capitalizes random non-proper Nouns
- Wrote mainly Lyrics: with one focus and one voice and point
- The Dickinson Compound

Walt Whitman (“Song of Myself”, “When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer; “A Noiseless
Patient Spider”)
-1st True American Poet
- Realist
- Wrote in Free Verse
- Leaves of Grass
- Wrote about subjects that weren’t normally mentioned in Poetry (scientific)
- Used Lists for Desciprtive purposes
- american poetry shifts after his
1819 - 1892

Stephen Crane
- Realism (Naturalism and Impressionism)
- Red Badge of Courage
- Maggie Girl of the Streets – book about a prostitute
- His father was a minister
- Had issues and questions about religion
- novelist and journalist - covered wars
- wrote short poems
-
“To My Dear and Loving Husband” (Bradstreet)
 Love of God/Religion
“love more than whole Mines of gold” - religious rejection of earthly goods
-Voice of “Anne” (puritans wouldn’t normally write about love)
-Couplet Rhyme Scheme
-Repetition of “If Ever”
Love of Husband
“if ever man were loved by wife, then thee”

“Upon the Burning of Our House” (Bradstreet)

- Narrative Poem (tells a story)
-Loses everything in her House Fire
- But realizes that it is okay because all of her earthy goods belong to God
-Major Shift: She mourns over the ashes, but then realizes she has to snap out of it because her
focus needs to be on God, Heaven is her Real House now (Her Treasure is in Heaven not on
Earth)
-Use of Metonomy (bridegroom—marriage) and Synechdoche

“Huswifery” (Edward Taylor)

-A Conceit (metaphor between two very different things)
- based upon an intricate comparison between cloth making and God’s granting of Grace. Such
an extended comparison between very different things - a lowly household task and salvation - is
a type of metaphor called a conceit
- He begins by comparing himself to a spinning wheel and the bible to a distaff - part of spinning
wheel where you do the work - side women is working on - maternal side of the family
- Raw Dirty wool turns into pretty cloth like the 10 commandments make people into better
Christians
- -God starts off with the raw materials (just like the housewife), and makes them better
- Wants God to take him from his dirty wool cloth to clothes worthy of heaven

“Upon a Spider Catching a Fly” (Edward Taylor)

-Shows belief in the original Puritan statement (elect as only part of church)
- fly and wasp caught in the web
- Spider is cautious about eating the wasp because it can sting (strong)
-
- Spider sees the weak fly and eats it w/out hesitation
- The Spider is the Devil/ Satan (Web of Temptation and Sin)
- The Wasp is a member of the Elect
- The Fly is a sinner (w/out God’s Grace)
- Shows how it is better to be a member of the Elect than a sinner (Power of God is your
hands)
- lesson - shouldn’t strive beyond the strength we have
- Use of Allagory, Alliteration, and Repetition
- if he was a wasp he would be happy as a bird
“The Devil and Tom Walker” (Irving)
- Setting: Swamp and Deep Woods outside of Boston
- Highly Ironic: Wife cares more about her money than her Husband’s Soul (Tom does too
[makes a deal with the devil])
-Shows unchristian behavior of Tom: Thanks Devil for getting rid of his wife
Ambiguity: Is the Woodsman the Devil himself? What ever happened to Tom’s Wife? Are the
Trees Supernatural?
-Paradox: Tom sold his soul (everything) to the Devil, but he got nothing in return (he failed at
his strategy for happiness)
-Theme: Greed [in a negative light, how it causes failure] (Giving up everything and making a
deal with the Devil to be “Happy”)
-Tom’s Bible protects him from the Devil
“The Minister’s Black Veil
- Reverend Hooper (a praised and beloved Preacher), one day started wearing a black veil around
his face
- No one knew why, but there were many rumors going around
-He refused to take off his veil, even for his fiancé (which caused them to split up)
-Society began to view him in a negative light
- Supernatural Power: Sinners felt more comfortable confessing to him (comparable to HESTER
and the “A”)
-He dies wearing the Veil (no one ever knows why he wore it)
- Analytically, he wore the Veil to show everyone that they needed to repent for their sins (Did it
in God’s name)
- Story can relate back to Scarlet Letter (Hester and Hooper both outcast, supernatural powers
coming from a sin, similar final speeches/sermons).

“The Fall of the House of Usher” (Edgar Allan Poe)

- 1st Person Narrative
-Dark and Depressing mood established through Word Choice
-Filled with Irony:
1) Bury Usher’s Sister Alive (later re-emerges)
2) “Mansion” is actually in bad shape/Falling Apart (Cracks down the middle)
3) The “Great” Usher Family is sick and falling Apart
-Foreshadowing about the House’s Fall (physically and metaphorically)
- Shows Grotesque and Supernatural experiences
- Usher’s sister re-emerges from the dead, Usher dies of Schock, Narrator escapes the house as it
falls to the ground (Physical destruction and the Usher family line is now over)
“Bartleby the Scrivener” (Herman Melville)
-Unknown Narrator (opposite of Bartleby)
- Ginger Nut: Young boy who runs the errands of the Office
-Turkey: Old guy with a drinking problem (Bad worker in the afternoon)
- Nippers: Middle-Aged, Good worker in the afternoon
- One person is being productive at a time
-Hires Bartleby (calm, sedate, and neat)
- Bartleby starts “Preferring not too” do things
Paradox:
Tone: Humorous, Perplexed, Enlightened
Setting: Law Offices (citadel for logic-unreasonable characters in a reasonable place)
- Wall Street and NY (story about Isolation [irony])
Wall (wall within a wall) Exterior Wall of Bartlebys office and wall of another building (????)
Motif/Themes Doubles and Mirrors (Characters), Safe vs Extreme, Violence/Action vs. Passivity
(Passively resisting by saying “I Would Prefer Not Too”), Society vs. Solitude, Walls (????)
Connections: Existentialism (creatures of free will, Bartleby chooses not to choose)
“Nature”
- Transparent

o The eye

 Getting info visually

 Learn transcendentally

- Nothing

o Transparency

o Flow

- All

o Sees all

o Getting big picture

- Currents

o God is current of being that stems out all around us

- Circulate

o Comes through us

- Particle

o Share part of our being

- Nature is place for truth, revelation

- U.S. was more tame, moving toward expansion and industrialization

o Enjoy nature bc it is safer

“Self Reliance” (Emerson)

-Franklin thought you should imitate others to make yourself better
- Imitation is suicide (Emerson says to not imitate others)
- We should think Independently and not be afraid of Change
- Trust in Yourself and Divine Providence (listen to your heart)
- Distrust: Conformity and Society (Gives up liberties for betterment of group and eliminates
individualism)
From Walden
- Portraying how Emerson is living the Transcendentalist Thoughts of Thoreau by staying at
Walden Pond
- Focus on Simplicity, and how life is ruined by luxury and materialism
“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” (Walt Whitman)
- 1st Person Speaker in the Audience of a Scientists Astronomical Presentation
-Free Verse
-Uses vocab of math and science
- Becomes bored and loses interests, stands up and leaves room
- Narrator/Speaker just wants to get away in search of mental and physical solitude
- Science and Reason can give you cold raw numbers, but humans need to experience things in a
Romantic way (Romanticism)
“A Noiseless Patient Spider”
- Person comparing soul to a spider
- Comparison and Apostrophe
- The Soul is exploring the World around it
-Soul longs for something to believe and trust in
“Song of Myself” (Whitman)
a. Discarded traditional metrical patterns in favor of free verse
b. wrote about subjects that had previously been excluded from poetry as ugly or
shameful
c. used vivid and exciting language
d. used rapid shifts from vast abstractions to intimate personal revelations
e. used a brash, confident and democratic voice
f. included long lists of images and specifics
Emily Dickinson

Stephen Crane Poems

− 3
− Creatures/Animals are merely debased Humans
− Derives his energy from self-loathing
− Paraphrase: meets a man who eats his heart and says it is bitter
− connotation: Heart= soul, love
− assonance
− Naturalism
− Theme: heart is bitter
− 59
− dParaphrase: man says hello to spirit, spirit doesnt recognize
− assonance
− The Minister or Sinner in Dark Cloth is not acknowledged by God
− Shift: But the spirit knew him not
 − theme: Dont be too willing to encounter death
− 36
− paraphrase: meets a seer, child is blinded by wisdom (Too much for him to handle, or
maybe the Book itself is Blank [world has no reason or logic])
− Hubris of the Child
− connotation: book= wisdom from experience
− shift: Then he opened the book
− theme: You cannot be taught wisdom but must learn it from experience
− 45
− always fall back on tradition instead of making own decisions
− tradition guides children and man should not follow it b/c there is no gain for him but
in the end aren’t we all children
− disagrees with all previous points
− tradition is immature
− we all need tradition
− apostrophe
− talks to tradition as if it was a person
− 25
− refrain-”no flowers for him”
− maid loves a wicked man
− love transcends sin
− riddle
− connotation of flowers (metonymy)
− no grieving allowed
− spirit is formidable char
− no sympathy
− 42
− refrain “it is no desert”
− paradox
− a sandy, hot, vacant place isnt a desert
− desert is no desert
− hell?
− God cannot help him?
− perception
− not really that bad of a place
− connotation of desert is diff for both chars.

- 44
- Ignorance is Bliss (Knowing yourself is enough)
-31
-Human Hubris (Work is destroyed because they are prasing it)
- Be Modest
-Beware of Man-Made Technologies that seem good (they have negative
consequences [anti-industrialization])
 -48
- A Paradox
- There is nothing save opinion, and opinion be damned (that’s an opinion)

Early America
-Bradstreet,Taylor, Hawthorne
- Puritans: Strict Religious Discipline and Simple Lifestyles (Luxury is a sin)
-America is the “City Upon a Hill”
- free to do what you want

Romantic
-Irving, Hawthorne, Poe
-A Reaction to the Industrial Revolution
-Emotion, Grotesque, Against Reason/Logic, Supernatural
- held great faith in the goodness of the natural world and in the value of individualism – Ex: if
bad stuff is happening then nature looks that way, you can see dying trees

Transcendental
-Emerson. Thoreau, Dickinson
-Brought on by extreme population growth causing fear of conformity and destruction of
Individualism
- Basic Truths of the Universe lie beyond what we obtain from our senses
-Everyone can experience God Firsthand
- held great faith in the goodness of the natural world and in the value of individualism
- Transcendentalism - people saw how things were connected (Oversoul)
- Has elements of a Religion, a Philosophy, and a Literary Term

Anti-Transcendental
-Melville, Twain
- Anti-Transcendentalism - the disconnect and isolation, pessimistic
- Nature cant teach us everything, man has limited knowledge

Realism
-Mark Twain , Dickinson, Whitman
-in realism we meet characters in the fiction who resemble ordinary people in ordinary
circumstances, and who often meet unhappy ends
- the realists develop these characters by the use of ordinary speech in dialogue and plot and
character development become intertwined
- they rely on a first or third person limited point of view

Local Color
-Twain uses a lot of local color in Huck Finn (Dialect, Racism, Social Beliefs and Stereotypes)
- some writers use particular speech rhythms and other elements of dialect peculiar to regional
life
- they set their fictions in places that actually exist and these settings can be conspicuous as an
element of theme
- they are interests in recent or contemporary life and not distant history

Naturalism
-Stephen Crane
- man is less able to do something, on a forced path, cannot choose like “I’m going to hell then”
from Huck Finn
- An extreme form of Realism
- Completely excludes the Supernatural

I didn’t put the poetry terms in as she already defined them for us on the sheet