goldenpeach16's Journal

Wednesday, October 6, 2004

10:04PM - Daisy Miller

I can relate to Daisy in a lot of ways. She is very Americanized and free spirited. Her flirtiness reminds me of how it was to be 16. She is looking for genuine relationships but can't quite get the game of it down, so she relies on games to attract Winterbourne to her even though he is uninterested at heart due to his foreign "studies". He is an older man so he holds a certain mystery, but Daisy doesn't realize maybe she could have held his attention for a while if she had been more willing to assimilate the culture. She is struggling to overcome this line between who she has always been and who it is acceptable to be in Europe. Even though she is pretty her rough edges leave something to be desired to Winterbourne's relations so she is vetoed immediately. Family is very important to the Europeanized Americans but not the recent arrivals. It is interesting to me because I think that my family is very important to me, so I don't fit Henry James' cookie cutter mold. I think I definitely played games to get the attention of the attractive men in my life, but similar to Daisy they were never good attentions and always ended badly. I feel genuinely bad for her demise, because I can see that it was all this struggle to get his attention and he never really cared even enough to visit her first. So naturally she acted out in an immature fashion in an attempt to make him jealous, and is even more hurt he doesn't really care.

Current music: Queen - I've Got to Break Free

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Friday, September 24, 2004

9:31PM - Twain

The commentary on Twain in class was interesting. I read a Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court a long time ago and enjoyed it although the only moral I can think to give it is that knowledge is power. The same story could be retold in a less wordy more interesting manner, but Twain accomplishes it alright on the whole. If Huckleberry Finn is anything like it I imagine that it is a very American tale. I saw the movie, and I know the idea behind the story. But if the use of certain words like "nigger" are the only reasons for it's expulsion than perhaps we ought to look at the difference between censorship and realism. Would you rather have a sugarcoated idealized look or a realistic down and dirty one? The reason it is considered a classic is because other writers failed to do what Twain did, and be honest. People said nigger. So the word is in the book. It is not a good word to use now, but in the context of the times it was acceptable. The fact that it was used in the context of slavery reflects that its a negative word. Huckleberry Finn wasn't racist when it was written, it was true to life. Knowing history keeps it from repeating itself. So I see no reason to censor it so long as it is explained in the proper context; similiar to miene Kamphe. Hitler's book is full of theories he successfully used to take over europe for a time. However "with knowledge comes great responsibility" comes to mind also. Knowing a word doesn't mean you have to use it.

Current mood: i'm sick today

Current music: Silence is Golden

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Friday, September 10, 2004

6:44PM - Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson is my picture of a spinster. She is unwed, depressed, and I would classify her as the "cat Lady". She had a garden and lived alone. Her expressions are filled with disdain, like her entire life is this long lament. The complete opposite of my feelings about life. I say dive right in, and if you get hurt its a scrape that heals. Anything that seems like a big deal today won't be a blip on the radar in two weeks. She seems to foster a crush of sorts for Mr. Higginson, and reveals just what a recluse she is by her introduction to him. Dickinson's letters reveal a general meekness, insecurity, and finicky language that would drive me insane, "I enclose my name - asking you, if please-- Sir-- to tell me what is true? That you will not betray me -- it is needless to ask-- since Honor is it's own pawn--". I get A.D.H.D. just looking at all the dashes. On visiting her Higginson says she drained all his energy. She reminds me strongly of Mrs. Bates in Emma.
As a writer she represents a lot of things I hate deeply. For one she relies on other peoples' opinions, and any true writer needs no one's say so to know when they have written something truly wonderful, they should feel it from their head to their toes; it is a mastery of expression! Yours not anyone else's! It calls to mind The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, and how the Wynand Papers are evil incarnate because they are the product of collaboration and not the singular work of any one person, much like any newspaper. I will forgive her because she seems enamored, but really there is no excuse for this, and she is punished in that her work isn't groundbreaking, and isn't published.

Current music: Kenny Chesney - She's Got it All

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Friday, September 3, 2004

2:58PM - Whitman

After struggling through Whitman’s poetry, I find myself confused but interested. His language is evocative and compelling, but coming up with an exact meaning is difficult. The free form of it is easy to read, and the words themselves are enough to provide tingles of curiosity. When I read his poems it doesn’t feel like he wrote them to be reviewed, and this attitude I feel is what poetry is all about. It should be for the pure need of expression, like a journal, that is honest and raw.
On reading Children of Adam, (page 95-96, Norton Anthology) I felt swept away in a flush of sentiment. The words roll off in an ode to physical love. He talks about magnetism, of “blending”, aching, and of hunger; all familiar aspects of passionate new love. It is full of imagery, “The mystic deliria, the madness amorous, the utter abandonment” it plunges you into his lust. I like his comments in parentheses best, there are three, “(Hark close and still what I now whisper to you, I love you, O you entirely possess me, O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and lawless, two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more lawless than we;)” The idea that two lovers run off free from life is very romantic. “(O I willingly stake all for you, O let me be lost if it must be so! O you and I! What is it to us what the rest do or think? What is all else to us? Only that we enjoy each other and exhaust each other if it must be so;)” to be continued...

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