Central Passage in Ch. 1

"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these races will have control of things."

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

"You ought to live in California - " began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

"This idea is that we're the Nordics. I am and you are and you are and -" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again, "- and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization-oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?"

The man talking is Tom Buchanan.

This is the man that is so wealthy and successful that he has enough money to buy a "string of polo ponies from Lake Forest". This is the man that lives in a "Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay, [with a lawn that] started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile." And men like Tom Buchanan, they are the people that inhabit the wealthiest and most fashionable community in the nation.

What does it say about society when the best among us, as judged by wealth and possessions, are the worst among us, as judged by moral values. Fitzgerald portrays Tom as prosperous, powerful, and successful. But this admirable outward personality is contrasted with a deplorable moral character. Tom cheats on his wife openly, breaks his mistresses nose, and professes the natural superiority of the white race. How can these two opposing personalities be inhabited by the same man? Tom, Daisy, and the rest of East Egg are walking contradictions. Their financial success does not match their moral failure.

Thus it is only rational to come to the conclusion that this combination of characters is not an accident. It is too early in the novel to conclude the correct order of causation, but there is definitely a correlation between financial success and moral failure. Is Fitzgerald trying to send the message that financial success leads to corrupt morals or that corrupt morals are necessary for financial success or both?

Self-Reliance

As evident by the title, Self-Reliance is Emerson's call for everyone to "be wholly his own man". The entire essay is a glorification of individualism.

However, throughout the entire essay Emerson mentions God, a spirit, or various religious aspects.

Clearly, a belief in the traditional God would contradict Emerson's goal of self-reliance. So what is the meaning of the religious references throughout the essay?

Trace and analyze the usage of the words "God", "Spirit", or "Religious" throughout the entire essay. What religion is Emerson talking about?

Response to Housekeeping Discussion

One of the biggest problem's that I have with Housekeeping is that Ruth is such a weak protagonist. In the first half of the book, she is glued to Lucille. Ruth is the follower, not the leader, in all of the choices that she and Lucille make together. Then later in the book, Ruth clings to Sylvie and adopts her life as a transient, in the same parasitical fashion. Throughout the entire book, Ruth never makes a decision based on her own principles, probably because she never had any.

Now, when I brought this up during the discussion, people responded and Parrish emphasized that Ruth did make a choice to join Sylvie. I argue that such a decision is not actually a choice.

Ruth's life is defined by non-action. She is a drifter, a transient. Transients, by nature, don't make decisions. Ruth did what was easiest for her at that moment in time. And non-action, the choice to just keep things the way they are and not change, was considerably easier than leaving the crazy, but familiar, world of Sylvie.

Think about Ruth's entire life. When Lucille was cutting school, Ruth didn't do what was right and go back to school; she stayed with her sister. When Lucille makes the choice to focus on school and leave Sylvie, she asks Ruth if she wants to join and Ruth decides not to do anything and remain the same. Then at the conclusion, Ruth chooses to follow Sylvie and not leave with the Sheriff.

All of these actions are really non-actions. Obviously every moment of life is a choice. Even choosing to sleep all day is can be classified as a decision. But considering the academic and intellectual meaning of the word, Ruth never made a decision throughout Housekeeping, including the choice to join Sylvie in transiency.

Hawskypng Literrairey Tradishin

It must be said that the entirety of this response depends on the subjective and controversial definition of the American literary tradition. The basis of this essay on the American Literary Tradition of Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping will be supported by the views of T.S. Elliot in “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and Ralph Waldo Emerson in “The American Scholar”.

Elliot states that in order to be traditional, a writer must have a “feeling that the whole if literature... of his own country… has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order” (Elliot 1). Only by knowing where he stands in “relation to the dead poets and artists” can a writer achieve significance (Elliot 1). Because of the inescapable reality that others have come before him, a writer must consider and react to existing literature. A writer can truly benefit from developing a “historical sense” and knowing what has come before him (Elliot 1).

However, contemplating the past does not mean copying the works of others. “Novelty is better than repetition” (Elliot 1). In order to gain true significance in the literary tradition, a writer must study “the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have give” but understand that these views are “nothing but to inspire” (Emerson 3). The writer must know about the views of the men before him and then form his own ideas and opinions. The most important attribute is the ability to produce originally.

On the basis of this definition of literary tradition, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping fits in perfectly. Robinson provides a completely new perspective on the extensively explored topic of the American hero. In the novels before her, the American hero has usually been male but Robinson broadens that one-sided definition by portraying a female protagonist. Instead of having a strict set of convictions that lead him to glory, Robinson’s hero defies the typical portrayal of a hero. Through Ruth, Robinson suggests that a hero is one who defies social conventions, with or without a set of morals herself. By means of Ruth’s decision to forgo the standards of Fingerbone and become a transient with Sylvie, Robinson argues that heroism is individualism and the freedom to travel the open frontier. This new heroic behavior is illustrated when Ruth decides to skip school, when she breaks away from Lucille’s attempt to change her, and symbolically when Ruth walks blindly over the bridge and away from normal society.

Robinson is successful in contributing to the American literary tradition because her novel provides an original viewpoint on a historic topic. Through Housekeeping’s different standpoint, Robinson has altered and added to the vast literary past about American heroes. This is what Elliot and Emerson would argue is the basis of literary tradition —employing the ideas of previous writers to inspire new and original pieces of art. Robinson adopted the ideas of so many writers before her and wrote from her own perspective. The ideas of Housekeeping are derived from the past, but what makes Housekeeping a part of the literary tradition is the new contemporary spin that Robinson provides.

The Raven: Rhetorical Analysis

In his essay “The Philosophy of Composition”, Edgar Allen Poe provides a complete account of the steps he took in writing his most famous poem “The Raven”. When describing how he begins the process for each of his pieces, Poe said that he “prefers commencing with the consideration of an effect”. The effect is the focal point for the rest of the poem. The purpose of “The Raven” then became to use the chosen effect of beauty to “excite the sensitive soul to tears”. To do this, Poe employs rhetorical devices to allow the reader to sympathize with the protagonist’s situation before the poem’s end, where the protagonist, along with the reader, is then emotionally devastated.

Because “The Raven” is a poem and not a more formal piece of writing, Poe only utilizes pathos as a means of connecting with the reader; Poe’s artwork is completely an emotional experience. Immediately, Poe helps the reader identify with the protagonist through the description of the emotions that the bereaved lover is experiencing. He portrays the protagonist as lacking sleep and filled with pain and sorrow over his loss. The lover is “weak and weary” but is still awake at midnight in “bleak December” examining Lenore’s book collection. This paints a picture of a man that is very heart broken. Furthermore, when the protagonist opens his chamber door, hoping to see Lenore on the other side, Poe displays the longing that the lover has for his deceased maiden.

By illustrating the protagonist as heart broken, Poe achieves two critical goals in the process of leaving as big an effect as possible on the reader. First, he establishes a feeling of pity for the protagonist. After discovering of all the pain that the lover has already gone through, no reader will want the protagonist to experience any more tragedy. Second, Poe appeals to the reader’s sympathetic side to ensure that the reader feels emotionally invested in the protagonist. Poe assumes that nearly all of the readers will have dealt with some sort of loss in their life and that the emotions they felt are similar to those of the bereaved lover. By having something in common with the protagonist, the reader is expected to sympathize with the protagonist and ultimately feel closer to the character as an actual person. This connection between the emotions of the lover and the emotions of the reader allows Poe to create a much more powerful effect at the conclusion of the poem. Because the reader is now invested in the situation of the protagonist, any pain that the protagonist feels will also be felt by the reader. The reader will be more shocked, more saddened, and more effected by the conclusion of the poem because Poe has employed pity and sympathy to make the reader more involved in the poem.

Through this emotional technique, Poe has successfully established a bond between the protagonist and the reader. Thus, Poe has made it easier to accomplish the goal of the entire poem, which was to “excite the sensitive soul to tears.” When the raven reveals that the soul of the protagonist will remain on the floor and never be lifted into heaven, the reader is greatly affected. The reader shares the tragedy of the protagonist more significantly. There is even a slight moment where the reader wonders if something like this could ever happen to them. All of this was possible because of the rhetorical technique that Poe employs at the beginning of the poem.