Gaston Mclemore
Dr. Tatia Jacobson
AML 3041-02
September 24, 2009
"The Manly Man"- (Hemingway Blog Question 1)
Subtlety, Implication, Inadequacy, sufficiency, attachment yet detachment, inferiority and superiority, Misogyny or misandry? On the periphery this may appear as a conjunctive placement of antonyms to make up an introduction, which is debatable. Although, I ask to gaze into the substance of those terms in relation to Hemingway’s protagonists. It is factually known that this novel “The Sun Also Rises” was published in 1926 approximately seven years after World War I. During this era there was a concoction of issues such as gender, racial as well as cultural. As this blog proceeds take note of the distinction yet relation, and significance.
Jake is obviously the narrator and protagonist. It’s clear the central shaping of Jakes role surrounds his post-war intellect mentally, physically, and psychologically. You have to take notice of the subtlety of the distinction he draws. He’d rather talk around topics than speak directly or specifically unless he’s comfortable or initiated especially when dealing with his injury or the war. In chapter I, it states “What’s the matter with you, anyway? (Georgette)” I got hurt in the war,” (Jake said) “Oh, that dirty war.” We would probably have gone on and discussed the war and agreed that it was in reality a calamity for civilization and perhaps would have been better avoided. I was bored enough (24-25). After heavy consumption of bottles of wine with Georgette was he comfortable or “bored enough” to discuss it.
In addition, Hemingway portrays Jake as an individual who’s very insecure about his masculinity, which Jake embodies. Hemingway’s method of graphing is to say little with a lot of communication. For instance, in chapter VII Jake questions “Couldn’t we live together Brett? “ Couldn’t we just live together?” said Jake. Brett firmly answered “I don’t think so. I’d just tromper you with everybody. (62)” This shed lights on the heart of the novel as well as Jake’s characterization. He pleads for Brett to be with him but she rejects exclaiming she would always “tromper” him. My interpretation is that she’s promoting bluntly that she’ll crush his heart or cheat on him. Jake’s assumption is that it’s because of his injury, which follows Hemingway’s depiction of male insecurity.
Interestingly, Hemingway shows another dimension into Jake’s personality by acknowledging the barrenness of the lost generation way of life. He tells Robert Cohn in Chapter II “you can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. (62)” He’s able to recognize the harsh behavior that he and his friends constantly engage in, showing the awareness and open mind that Jake can have.
Hemingway introduces Robert Cohn, which brings us to the second protagonist. His characterization almost deviates from the rest of the crowd humorously, seeming like a “lost character” amongst the “lost generation”. Cohn is non-veteran and comes from a wealthy, Jewish family. Commonly as Jake, Hemingway constructs Cohn with insecurity issues as well. In Chapter I Jake describes Cohn emotionally as feeling like an outsider and inferior. It states “He cared for nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton. (62)” Ironically this quote visually set the stage for the theme and pattern for the story that builds on competitiveness and resentment between men and insecurity.
In closing I believe the uniqueness of the portrayals of Robert and Jake is that there very much as alike as well as different? I say that because of the common feeling of insecurity shared yet Cohn was more of the romantic of the novel.
Hemingway, Ernest “The Sun Also Rises” Pgs 11-61
Friday, September 25, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
The Scarlet Letter Blog-
Gaston Mclemore
Dr. Tatia Jacobson Jordan
AML 3041-02
September 4, 2009
Real Romantics
Romanticism is a movement in the latter half of the 18th century that emphasized strong emotions and reaction against reason and logic. It was apart of the rebellion towards people during the elitist or aristocratic social and political norms during the Age of Enlightenment. It stressed symbolism, supernatural components as well as feelings of awe, horror and love. It particularly challenged the sublimity of nature and romantic sensibility or aesthetics. It elevated the thought of idealistic perspective as opposed to realistic, and valuing the plot over character. This form of the literary canon appears frequently in the Scarlet Letter.
Immediately in chapter one there’s metaphorical terminology used in correlation with untamed nature. It states “But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rosebush, covered, in the month of June, with its delicate gems, which might imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of nature could pity and be kind to him (Nathaniel Hawthorne pg 117-118.) The one impropriety in this scene is the rose bush that sprouts next to the prison. The surveyor or narrator is inferring that the rose bush offers a reminder of nature’s forgiveness or kindness to the scolded ones. He points out and exclaims that it will either “provide a sweet moral blossom” or ease in the stadium of suffering and obscurity. Symbolism also takes place in chapter two in the market place where the crowd watches Hester Prynne as she proceeded from prison with the embroidered letter “ A” sewed in gold and scarlet on her chest. I can assume from the criticism by women in the crowd as well as the misbegotten child embraced by Hester, that the letter “A” is personifying her as an adulterer. This was the narrator evoking her as a symbol of disgrace, discredit, humiliation and evil. Her crime is even compared to that of a “witch” in the text who was executed for witchcraft in 1656. The text says “It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanor on the part of the spectators (Nathaniel Hawthorne pg. 119).
Additionally, strong representation of the Puritan doctrine screams profoundly (in a subliminal sense) through this language of the narrator. In opposition of the romanticism era came “realism” which was the literary movement of the nineteenth-century. This canon took an approached that attempted to describe everyday life without idealization or subjectivity. It was introduced to America by William Dean Howells. Now considering the Scarlet Letter took place during the eighteenth century, one could argue there was a literal snap shot of realism here and there. If you blinked, while reading then you probably missed it, but let’s remember that this a time of strong religion particularly puritan doctrine.
Early on it’s pointed out the type of society that we’re dealing with. As it states “As befitted a people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful (Nathaniel Hawthorne).” Now I agree the reading itself, the category of the literature movement that its falls under is romanticism. Although if one hypothetically speaking put him/her self in the timeline and mindset of a character it could be as normal to wear “A” on your chest then as it is to wear a tattoo on your chest today. I could be speaking hypotheticals or philosophizing but just think about it.
Dr. Tatia Jacobson Jordan
AML 3041-02
September 4, 2009
Real Romantics
Romanticism is a movement in the latter half of the 18th century that emphasized strong emotions and reaction against reason and logic. It was apart of the rebellion towards people during the elitist or aristocratic social and political norms during the Age of Enlightenment. It stressed symbolism, supernatural components as well as feelings of awe, horror and love. It particularly challenged the sublimity of nature and romantic sensibility or aesthetics. It elevated the thought of idealistic perspective as opposed to realistic, and valuing the plot over character. This form of the literary canon appears frequently in the Scarlet Letter.
Immediately in chapter one there’s metaphorical terminology used in correlation with untamed nature. It states “But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rosebush, covered, in the month of June, with its delicate gems, which might imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of nature could pity and be kind to him (Nathaniel Hawthorne pg 117-118.) The one impropriety in this scene is the rose bush that sprouts next to the prison. The surveyor or narrator is inferring that the rose bush offers a reminder of nature’s forgiveness or kindness to the scolded ones. He points out and exclaims that it will either “provide a sweet moral blossom” or ease in the stadium of suffering and obscurity. Symbolism also takes place in chapter two in the market place where the crowd watches Hester Prynne as she proceeded from prison with the embroidered letter “ A” sewed in gold and scarlet on her chest. I can assume from the criticism by women in the crowd as well as the misbegotten child embraced by Hester, that the letter “A” is personifying her as an adulterer. This was the narrator evoking her as a symbol of disgrace, discredit, humiliation and evil. Her crime is even compared to that of a “witch” in the text who was executed for witchcraft in 1656. The text says “It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanor on the part of the spectators (Nathaniel Hawthorne pg. 119).
Additionally, strong representation of the Puritan doctrine screams profoundly (in a subliminal sense) through this language of the narrator. In opposition of the romanticism era came “realism” which was the literary movement of the nineteenth-century. This canon took an approached that attempted to describe everyday life without idealization or subjectivity. It was introduced to America by William Dean Howells. Now considering the Scarlet Letter took place during the eighteenth century, one could argue there was a literal snap shot of realism here and there. If you blinked, while reading then you probably missed it, but let’s remember that this a time of strong religion particularly puritan doctrine.
Early on it’s pointed out the type of society that we’re dealing with. As it states “As befitted a people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful (Nathaniel Hawthorne).” Now I agree the reading itself, the category of the literature movement that its falls under is romanticism. Although if one hypothetically speaking put him/her self in the timeline and mindset of a character it could be as normal to wear “A” on your chest then as it is to wear a tattoo on your chest today. I could be speaking hypotheticals or philosophizing but just think about it.
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