2/24/08

Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills presents to the reader the harsh reality of the conditions and lives that the workers in an industrial-based economy have to deal with. The novel immediately describes the horrible conditions lived in by the workers when the narrator says that six families are crammed into two cellar rooms, and then it goes on to describe how Deb is hunchbacked from the labor. Her body starves for food while she really longs for love and some sort of spiritual connection. Hugh’s work at the furnaces of the mill causes him to lose his manliness and the other workers call him Molly Wolfe for his more girlish or feminized appearance. The sculpture of the woman Hugh Wolfe creates is one of someone who is longing for sustenance. The artist Hugh corrects a visitor to the mill who analyzes the work and says the woman longs for food and tells him that she actually is craving for something to motivate her to live. If only Hugh could recognize his talent and harness it, he could escape from the downtrodden life of an iron mill worker. Hugh ends up being sentenced to jail after Deb steals money from one of the visitors. This is after Hugh goes to a church service where the preacher’s language and message go over Hugh’s head. Here Davis is pointing out that the social problems of these types of workers may be cured by Christian salvation. Hugh, while in his cell, notices that the lowliest of society and even a dog has more freedom than him. He ends up dying in jail after committing suicide by slashing his wrist, but Deb ends up with a better life. She joins the community of the Quakers and is freed from the constraints of the life she led before. This ending is a somewhat hopeful outlook on the common worker’s situation. They may at some point in their life have the opportunity to escape the awful conditions in which they live. But it could also be viewed as a story that crushes the American Dream.

2/19/08

The reading that we had over the weekend, Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street,” was very interesting. Melville’s writing is extremely detailed and he takes a lot of time to describe just about every part of a scene so the reader can get a really good picture of the situations that take place in and around the Lawyer’s office. The length at which he goes into describing the moods of Turkey and Nippers is astounding, but it creates a very slow pace for the story to move along at. The story of Bartleby is one that I do not quite know how to interpret. The character of Bartleby enters the story and does great work for the Lawyer but refuses to examine the papers. His constant refusal of “I would prefer not to” seems just a little insubordinate at first, but soon it becomes a central phrase to the story as the Lawyer cannot stop thinking about the reason behind Bartleby’s words. As the story progresses, these words become engrained into each of the characters’ speech as they hear them so regularly from Bartleby. As to what Herman Melville was trying to say or represent by the refusals of Bartleby, I do not have much of an idea. I ended up looking this story up online and most critics disagree as to what is the correct interpretation of “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Some believe that it deals with the depression and job dissatisfaction of the middle class. The view that I find most interesting is one that says the story is somewhat related to Melville’s personal life. According to this theory, Bartleby represents the author while the Lawyer is the average reader. Melville had success with certain books, but he preferred to write stories like Moby Dick, which were more contemplative, while the reader asked him to generate more stories of the other kind.

Addition to 2/13/08

Well, it turns out that Tateh and his daughter reappear in the story after not being heard from in awhile. I am glad Doctorow brings them back, and I believe it makes for a better ending to the story. By reuniting the two families, Doctorow foreshadows the eventual marriage of Mother and Tateh. I find this interesting because much earlier in the novel, Evelyn Nesbit seemed to be in love with Tateh and the girl, and now Mother seems to have done the same. Tateh’s change of his name is also intriguing since by adding a fictitious title to the beginning of his name, he gains much more acceptance into the world and this advances his business. The arrest of Emma Goldman is an allusion to how celebrities and other famous leaders get in trouble or are unfairly accused of causing difficulties from the public just because of their influence on their followers. Mother’s Younger Brother is a perfect example of a young American who has no real purpose or drive to his life. He spends his life moving around a lot and trying different career paths and ways to feel fulfillment. Once he joins Coalhouse and his gang, Mother’s Younger Brother feels he has found his “home” where he truly belongs. This is evident by how he paints his face and that he feels good when he fights with them and helps them make bombs. He seems to have finally found his idealistic purpose and eventually dies fighting for this principle. When Coalhouse holds up Morgan’s residence, the authorities call in Booker T. Washington and Father. Washington eventually convinces Coalhouse to stop the holdout. Washington and the authorities do not see the modification that Coalhouse made to his demands, but Father does see it. He tries to convince the people of New York that Coalhouse is somewhat reasonable, but he dies anyway in a way that seems to the reader as intentional by Coalhouse. One last thing I noticed was the reaction of Father to the baseball game. He loved watching the game with the boy but he did not like the fact that the teams were made up of mostly immigrant players. This disgust might come from a feeling that baseball is supposed to be an American game and these immigrants are not yet viewed as Americans in Father’s eyes. In today’s game, there are many baseball players that come from other countries. The Dominican Republic, Cuba, Japan, Mexico, etc. contribute a large number of players to Major League Baseball. I find it interesting that this point of mixing ethnic backgrounds in baseball spans the length of its history.

2/13/08

Well, it turns out that Tateh and his daughter reappear in the story after not being heard from in awhile. I am glad Doctorow brings them back, and I believe it makes for a better ending to the story. By reuniting the two families, Doctorow foreshadows the eventual marriage of Mother and Tateh. I find this interesting because much earlier in the novel, Evelyn Nesbit seemed to be in love with Tateh and the girl, and now Mother seems to have done the same. Tateh’s change of his name is also intriguing since by adding a fictitious title to the beginning of his name, he gains much more acceptance into the world and this advances his business. The arrest of Emma Goldman is an allusion to how celebrities and other famous leaders get in trouble or are unfairly accused of causing difficulties from the public just because of their influence on their followers. Mother’s Younger Brother is a perfect example of a young American who has no real purpose or drive to his life. He spends his life moving around a lot and trying different career paths and ways to feel fulfillment. Once he joins Coalhouse and his gang, Mother’s Younger Brother feels he has found his “home” where he truly belongs. This is evident by how he paints his face and that he feels good when he fights with them and helps them make bombs. He seems to have finally found his idealistic purpose and eventually dies fighting for this principle. When Coalhouse holds up Morgan’s residence, the authorities call in Booker T. Washington and Father. Washington eventually convinces Coalhouse to stop the holdout. Washington and the authorities do not see the modification that Coalhouse made to his demands, but Father does see it. He tries to convince the people of New York that Coalhouse is somewhat reasonable, but he dies anyway in a way that seems to the reader as intentional by Coalhouse.

2/4/08

E.L. Doctorow presents an interesting story in his novel Ragtime. Based on certain events and people the reader can assume that it takes place in the first decade of the twentieth century before World War I. Doctorow writes his book in an intriguing way. He starts the narration of the book as a boy of a family that lives in New Rochelle, New York. Then, several times, he introduces new characters and writes a chapter or so from their point of view or that of someone close to them. For example, Harry Houdini, the famous magician the boy wishes he could see, ends up running his car into a pole outside the boy’s house. After two chapters of the beginning of their story, Doctorow includes a chapter about a poor immigrant family trying desperately to make ends meet. Next is the story of Evelyn Nesbit and her husband Henry K. Thaw who murdered the well-known architect Stanford White. When first reading this collection of little beginnings, I found them somewhat random and not connected. However, once you read a few more chapters, you begin to see the stories starting to interweave. The chapter that contains the story of Sigmund Freud and his visit to the United States mentions a man in Freud’s car who sees a beautiful woman holding the hand of a little girl outside on the street. You think nothing of it when you read it, but after reading the following chapters, the connection is made that the woman holding the girl’s hand is Evelyn Nesbit and the little girl is the daughter of Tateh, the man making paper cut outs as a living.
I found class discussion very illuminating when we discussed Ragtime. The quote from Scott Joplin that was included at the beginning of the book makes sense now. If you read the novel quickly and just read it to get through it, you will miss a lot of symbolism and important details. There are many hints at the conflict that immigration caused in America for instance. The boy’s father owns a flag making business that is booming because of the growing patriotism in America. This is due in large part to the growing number of immigrants in New York and the surrounding area since the immigrant population feels very patriotic and proud to be in this great country.