Journal for Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca

Gregory Alcala
English 48A / Lankford
December 3rd, 2009
Journal for Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca

Quote:
“I can say for myself that I undertook the march aboard, on royal authorization, with a firm trust that my service would be evident and distinguished as my ancestors‘….” Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, from the Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza e Vaca
Summary:
In the very opening to his history of his voyage to America he is already reminding the reader of is family lineage. As if that would make him so right for the job, that he was bred for the job of exploring the unknown lands. I think it’s funny that it’s on royal authorization that he was sent into the darkness of the untamed wildness of the Americas with the trust he had of himself because of what his ancestors had done. I am probably using a reader’s response with this quote. I personally think family lineage is not important when looking at a single person’s achievements. The idea of someone being from a long line famous people and that means the child will grow up with the skills that will come forth at once at birth seems like such an ancient way of thinking. It would make sense in Cabeza de Vaca’s time since a people lineage set up the rest of their natural life, but in today’s world it has been thrown out.

Quote:
“Cabeza de Vaca was the first European to describe America from Florida thru Arizona. His 1542 works are the oldest history we [the state of Florida] have. He set the stage for the Conquest of Native America.” Spanish Trails in North America (http://www.floridahistory.com/cabeza.html)
Summary:
The journey that de Vaca made through America is seen, by some, as the first for it’s time. This quote was taken from an historical website so their lens for seeing the man is a rosy one. A lens that I have avoided this whole quarter. However, I think it’s funny when I read the harsh truth behind these historical icons who are exalted with people all the bad points in their life have been left out. Only the good remains because of recent history or because we are too lazy to read a little deeper in the past.

Overall Summary:
Like everyone that was seen as a hero in some point in time, there is both good and bad. Sometimes the bad outweigh the good deeds but only the good remain in the history books. Sometimes it’s to make people have a hero they can look up too. My memory is foggy when I’m thinking back to what I was taught about de Vaca in grade school. I do remember my parents telling me how he was Spanish and how he was the first man to cut a path through America. Yet when looking at the time line of people walking around in America, rarely does anyone give the Indians/Native America credit, like the villages they make covering America before it was America counted.

Journal for Columbus

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Columbus

Quote:
“And since there was neither towns nor villages on the seashore, but only small hamlets, with the people of which I could not have speech because they all fled immediately.” Christopher Columbus, from Letter to Luis de Santangel regarding the First Voyage
Summary:
Columbus was righting to his supporter, Luis de Santangel, so he would have to write about the good. Columbus was shockingly honest about the lack of ‘great towns and cities’ on the new islands. Columbus also re named these chain of islands even though the native people had a name for their homeland. Seems like an pushy thing to do, thinking that the new name will stick. It does not shock me that the native people would run from Columbus. I have read in history texts that show the good and the bad that Columbus did oppress the native Americas so I am sure he did the same to these native people. How could he expect anything less from them? Columbus does not seem to really take in the fact that he has missed his target the Asian continent. He did discover land and when reading this I could hear a bragging tone in his voice. The only other options were returning to Spain without finding anything but sea water or dying at sea. So finding land, be it any land mass was a win.

Quote:
“Even those who loved him[Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place.” -Consuelo Varela
Summary: Columbus does have this shining reputation in some people eye’s that have not taken the time to read more into his history. Yet, when the truth of Columbus’s treatment of the Indians had come into the light, even his fans had to admit to the horrible acts that Columbus had done. I have read how Columbus would cut off Indians’ noses, a non lethal form of punishment to instill fear in the population.

Overall Summary:
I have heard the good part of Columbus’s story when in grade school. How he discovered the new world by mistake but it was a far better discovery then a new route to Asia. However, now I am hearing the crushing tales to his reputation. I did not want to use the classic image of Columbus. The one that was first on Google image search. It seems to be part of that false history told to me in elementary school. Yet I did want to pick something from the past, the image I decided to use was a imagined version of Columbus asking the King and Queen of Spain for money for his voyage. I wish I could have found something a little more mocking of the man and his deeds. It seems that his transgressions are only mentions in high school and college classes. And too many people want to not work on his holiday.

Journal for Bradford

Gregory Alcala
November 24th 2009
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Bradford
Quote:
“What could now sustain them but the spirit of God and His Grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: ‘Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness, and He heard their voice, and looked on their adversity” -William Bradford, Chapter IX. Of Their Voyage, and How They Passed the Sea; And Their Safe Arrival at Cape Cod
Summary:
This first chapter of the reading seemed to be more factual then his personal views of the world. This quote shows his belief in God’s will and how it affected everything in the world. Bradford gives credit to God that they landed in the New World safely. I wanted to see, well, more likely expected to see God appear in Bradford’s writing. However, Bradford didn’t seem to need to write about God as often as I wanted to see.

Quote:
"Bradford writes most of his history out of his nostalgia, long after the decline of Pilgrim fervor and commitment had become apparent. Both the early annals which express his confidence in the Pilgrim mission and the later annals, some of which reveal his dismay and disappointment, were written at about the same time.” -Walter P. Wenska, Bradford’s Two Histories: Pattern and Paradigm in ‘Of Plymouth Plantation
Summary:
Bradford’s writing shows emotion but nothing like Bradtsreet. Bradford, being governor, left out emotion in his early retelling of the voyage to the New World and then speaks more about God’s Will. It was the will of God that everything happened, according to Bradford. Wenska points out the time of Bradford’s writing being around the same time, I can only guess that Bradford was trying to appeal to different audiences with his cheer and commitment to the Pilgrim’s cause and the opposite view of noticing the flaws.

Overall Summary:
I could not seem the anger in Bradstreet’s writing about the ‘failure’ in the Pilgrim’s mission to the New World. Maybe it cause he was a man, I didn’t see a choice of words that made his emotions spring off the paper. How could he as a figure of power in the community write about his emotions on the lack of success of their mission. The further I travel back and read the writings of people that lived so long ago. I really have a hard time understanding their fight for life. Craving a township out of the woods. Even though Loewen says that if it wasn’t for the Native Americans that the Pilgrim’s fight would have been only harder. It would have been difficult for Bradford to imagine what the future would truly be like. His writing were more of a slice of time of life in the America before it was America.

Journal for Bradstreet

Gregory Alcala
November 19th 2009
English 1B - Lankford
Journal for Bradstreet

Quote:
“Farewell, my pelf, farewell my store/The world no longer let me love,/My hope and treasure lies above(lines 52,53,54)” -Anne Bradstreet, Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10t 1666
Summary:
Bradstreet is using poetry to describe her sense of great lose from the consuming flames. How all is lost and only the memories lying in ashes is left for her to lament over. In her final goodbye she says that her true treasures lie above. That the worldly goods she had on earth couldn’t be compared to the treasures in heaven. Part of the grieving stage even when losing a entire house in a fire is trying to come to conclusion with God. She was cemented in her faith and the saving grace of God. That she didn’t have to fear because the reward of being in heaven would quickly and easily replace anything earthly item she had with her on earth.

Quote:
“One must remember that she was a Puritan, although she often doubted, questioning the power of the male hierarchy, even questioning God (or the harsh Puritan concept of a judgmental God).” -Anne Woodlief, Anne Bradstreet, A Biography (http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/bradbio.htm)
Summary:
Anne Bradstreet got a higher then normal education for her time because her father wanted the best for her. I think it’s because of this higher then usual education, this building of her critical analyst, that she was able to question more about life and religion then her female peers. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan, however she does not seem like one in her writing.

Overall Summary:
Overall, it seems that Anne Bradstreet would not have been remember by historians and scholars if her works had not been re introduced to the public. Even though she was a Puritan she would not seem like one because of her questioning the forms of religion and the male dominated society. I blame Hollywood for being the history teacher for the general public. The image of Demi Moore playing Hester Prynne for the Hollywood feature film comes to easily to the mind’s eye. Anne Bradstreet isn’t close to that image of the Puritan that was created by someone that never was a Puritan and then put into that meat grinder of modernization. I had to forget what I thought I knew and force myself to not see Bradstreet as Demi Moore walking around with that scarlet letter on the front of her dress.

Journal for Edwards

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Edwards

Quote:
“Under all the cultivations of heaven, they brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit.” -Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards
Summary:
This quote was very early in his writing but I truly think I know what heart string Edwards is trying to pluck. The bible speaks so much about farming and fruit. The fruit of someone’s spoils and the forbidden fruit of knowledge. The labor of farming so backbreaking labor up until very recent times. So when the fruit was ready for harvest and it’s was bitter and poisonous it was wasted time, money and effort. That God was punishing you by spoiling your crops. People had to grow their own food back in Edwards time. Edwards would reminding people of the power of God. I even think of Cain, the farmer, who was punished by God and could not yield any more crops from the earth. Cain feared that if anyone met him and found out that he could not farm that he would be killed. In the footnote, it says that Edwards was referring to the fruit as from Sodom and Gomorrah.

Quote:
“When you read "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," you see quickly that Edwards was not falling into this kind of language by accident. He was laboring as a pastor to communicate a reality that he saw in Scripture and that he believed was infinitely important to his people.” -The Pastor as Theologian, John Piper (http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Biographies/1458_The_Pastor_as_Theologian/)
Summary:
Edwards wanted to reach the wider audience with his writings. He didn’t want to limit his speak to just his church. The image that is seen of Edwards today to people who only got the quick glimpse of his history might see a dark and gloomy man. Something that might turn many people away from trying to see deeper into his history to get a better understanding of the man. To read is message and understand why he wanted to share it with the world.

Overall Summary:
Jonathan Edwards really did seem like a dark individual that I couldn’t really understand quite so easier. He lived in a very different time them I do. Plus I don’t see myself as a religious person, but I still am able to get the message. I think Edwards way trying to get a deeper understanding for the religion. Edward was a man of knowledge and took his academic mind into religion.

*the syllabus had incorrect page numbers that did not match the author listed so I hope that Jonathan Edwards is the correct author for this week

Journal for Jefferson

Gregory Alcala
November 11th 2009
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Jefferson

Quote:
“…deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of the government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.” -The Autobiography, Thomas Jefferson
Summary:
I think it’s kind of funny that the founding fathers wrote about empowering the people. Which makes sense seeing how they felt so under the noose of Britain. I don’t really want to compare the America today with the America that Jefferson was fighting to free. Too many people compare to present with the past and I feel it traps or spoils the past. Like looking at a Norman Rockwell poster and thinking the past was pure and without any problems. Thomas Jefferson had a great idea of the form of government, and like most things it works perfectly on paper. Jefferson did want the government to completely have power over it’s people. He probably thought that government would become a absolute monarchy.

Quote:
“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” -John F. Kennedy
Summary:
JFK did give many great speeches while he was president, and this single quote about Jefferson does speak volumes about him. However, it’s painting a picture of Jefferson that really only shows half the man. Jefferson wrote against slavery but owned slaves himself. So if judged by today’s morals he would be seen as a racist. However, the morals of America today could not have been placed on the people from the past. It was a different America, and a very new one during Jefferson’s time. For history to remember only the good about one of the founding father’s is so common. History is written by the winners and we idolize the people that won the freedom from Britain and signed the documents that gave this country it’s foundation.

Overall Summary:
Thomas Jefferson was a great man, but I doubt he was the perfect human that many Americans would remember from high school history class. I don’t think Norton did a good effort job to show me the entire man but the introduction was not very long. Jefferson wrote about slavery that “we have the wolf by the ears; we can neither hold him, or let him go.” He did not seem to think that African Americans were equal to whites. But that was not mentioned in the Norton Anthology. I don’t want just the squeaky clean polished version of history of one of the founding fathers of America. He was also a great writer and man of knowledge. So I feel this push to learn more about him, which I got a small dose of his life from his wiki page(which I know is about worth a grain of salt).

Journal for Wheatley

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Wheatley

Quote:
"Twas not long since I left my native shore/The lands of errors, and Egyptian gloom." -Phillis Wheatley, To the University of Cambridge, in New England
Summary:
I wonder if those words really came from her. I doesn't sound like she misses her native country. Calling it the land of errors because it is considered behind by the Western world and according to the Norton Anthology her homeland was not close to Egypt. However, I can see if she was given a full Christian upbringing since childhood. She wrote and published her writings before other great African America writers and before the woman's or African American movements. She had to of known her main audience would have been whites with a very slim few of African who were in the same fortune as her to learn to read. People read the bible so much back then, the only real link to Africa to the bible was Egyptian lands. The gloom of Egypt was the curses brought down by God. One of them being the curse of darkness. Wheatley was brought to America when she was still a child, but I still think of other African America writers and wonder if any of them would have linked the curses from God to their native homeland.

Quote:
"Come, dear Phillis, be advisíd, To drink Samaria's flood/There nothing is that shall suffice, But Christ's redeeming blood" -Jupiter Hammon, An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley
Summary:
Hammon, also a African American poet, is writing about Wheatley in what looks like a positive light. To drink from a flood in Samaria, a region in Africa, might been the rich waters that helped the crops same as the other flooding river, the Nile. When Hammon says to drink Christ’s redeeming blood, I do think he talking of the holy communion. The drinking of the flood waters is nothing when compared to the Christian act of taking holy communion. Hammon thought of Wheatley as his muse, which is poetic within itself because she was able to do so much for herself by writing and while still in a male dominated society. Wheatley would only made it easier for a man to follow in her literary footsteps.

Overall Summary:
Wheatley break many different walls down. She was the first African American woman to publish a book that was financed by a group or women. Wheatley also was the first African American woman to made her living from her writing. Plus she did this before the either the women or African American movements really were in discussion for America. I had not heard of Wheatley before this and I wish I had because she accomplished so many firsts during her time. Not even white women were getting an education, however she was learning to read and write English and learning to read Latin. Wheatley was able to do so much within her lifetime, yet I have only heard of her in my college education. While googling her name, Google suggests what I might be looking for. Phillis Wheatley was the first recommendation and Phyllis Diller was the second. It looks like Wheatley is more searched for.

Journal for Equiano

Gregory Alcala
November 3rd, 2009
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Equiano

Quote: "When we went to rest the following night, they offered us some victuals, but we refused it; and only the comfort we had was in being in one another's arms all that night, and bathing each other with our tears." -Olaudah Equiano, Narrative of the Life
Summary: Equiano is speaking about the horror of being taken out of his world into slavery, and the cruelty of slavery is immediate. He was also captured with his sister and that is the other person he is talking about in this quote. I would think that anyone else with less strength of will and character would have turned against his fellow man if strangers captured you from your childhood home to make you into a slave. I'm not sure if I'm picking up on the tone of voice that he meant this work to be read in. I can see how he is showing the picture and underlining message to be that slavery treats humans as less then humans. Having his sister with him while he was being taken to his new life of slavery only provided a very small amount of comfort, but it was something that probably had a positive lasting effect on him.

Quote: "We entertain no doubt of the general authenticity of this very intelligent African's interesting story. The narrative wears an honest face ... [and] seems calculated to increase the odium [hostility] that hath been excited against the West-India planters." -The Monthly Review(critiquing Equiano's writing during his lifetime), quoted from Remembering Equiano (http://www.equiano.soham.org.uk/biography.htm)
Summary: Equiano was quickly seen as a strong writer for showing his personal view on the cruelty of slavery. Equiano being born in Africa and sharing his early life and describing the native culture which humanized slaves. No one was really doing that before and Equiano was breaking the cycle of only seeing slaves as property. He was changing the view of many people of who slaves were before they come to the western world as slaves. By him doing this it was probably harder for people to turn that blind eye to the cruelty of slavery.

Overall Summary: By opening his autobiography with a small humble speech I felt he was being truly honest. He wasn't looking for a higher status or to gain reputation. It seemed like he just wanted to share his story with people that were already interested, and if other people could read his story and be inspired to become a better person Equiano would give himself a pat on the back. Equiano was showing how his people lived because it was part of his life and couldn't leave that out of his biography. However, I felt it would have had a effect on the reader during the time of slavery. These were human beings that were being ripped out of their native lands to be forced into the lowest social status of a foreign land. To remind or enlighten the Western world that slaves were human beings that only had a different culture I think fueled the anti slavery movement.

Journal for Apess

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
October 29th 2009
Journal for Apess

Quote:
“If black or red skins or any other skin of color is disgraceful to God, it appears he has disgraced himself a great deal-for he has made fifteen colored people to one white and placed them here upon the earth.” -The Norton Anthology: American Literature 7th Ed Vol. B
Summary:
This is a deep quote written by an Native American to remark on. Apess is stating something that is still very true today, that the whites are a minority. Yet it is the white people saying that God has chosen them to lead the world. Apess, being a minister, instead of preaching just the praises of God also writes about how the design of God could be ‘disgraceful.’ The ratio of whites to non-white people in America, with African American slaves and Native Americans, and the small number of whites oppressing them both. This quote stuck out for me cause I had just read shortly before this in Apess’s biography that he was turned to Christianity during his childhood. Apess might have had these thoughts floating around his mind.

Quote:
“At a time when whites presumed Indians were dying out or being moved west of the Mississippi, Apess attacks whites' treatment of Indians using forceful language and rhetorical skill.” -William Apess, A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff (http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/apes.html)
Summary:
While the white people of America thought that Native Americas were quietly being moving into smaller and more distant lands, Apess was writing to get human rights for the Indians. He was the first Native America writer that wanted to see more happen for the Native American people. Apess is remembered for his writing that made his readers look at the oppressive force on the Native Americans.

Overall Summary:
Apess did have a very strong view and was not lacking passion in his writing. I could not really wrap my mind around the message as strongly as the reader might have when it was first published. This is all distance history for me so I feel so removed for it. However, that doesn’t make his words less powerful just I feel like the target he is aiming for is no where close to me. I can only hear the thunder in the distance that is the message Apess wants me to hear.

Journal for Irving

Gregory Alcala
October 27th 2009
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Irving

Quote:
“Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, which ever can be got with least thought or trouble…” -quoted from The Norton Anthology: American Literature Vol. B
Summary:
Irving’s writing really could have been much shorter for today’s reader to understand that Rip Van Winkle was a lazy man. But this style of writing was needed for the reader about 200 year ago. Van Winkle didn’t care what kind of food he got as long as it didn’t take work to get it. I love that sentence. I can see Van Winkle walking the shorter distance to the half eaten loaf of bread then working for a dollar to buy a fresh loaf.

Quote:
“We feel a just pride in his renown as an author, not forgetting that, to his other claims upon our gratitude, he adds also that of having been the first to win for our country an honorable name and position in the History of Letters.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow the addressing the death of Irving, Poems and other Writings, J.D. McClatchy
Summary:
It is always difficult for me to find a quote about the author that is not from a critic. However, Irving had an great impact on the American poet Longfellow who used Irving’s Sketch Book for his school studies in literature. Longfellow remarks that Irving was the first American to win a literacy award for his writing. Longfellow is remember the first American writer that would break ground in America and become popular in Europe.

Overall Summary:
People describe the stories of Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow as some of the first American folk stories or fairy tales. I think too many authors have turned to a very frank way of writing. Writers like Irving use more words to describe the surrounds and characters. Even his non-fiction work on the History of Columbus was used in American classrooms till the 20th century. Irving was a great writer who didn’t start out as a writer. It seems like the best writers of American Literature didn’t start off that way and just feel into it. Irving was slightly different from other greats like Poe and Melville cause Irving was able to support himself with his writings.

Journal for Emerson

Gregory Alcala
October 20th 2009
English 48B Lankford
Journal for Emerson

Quote: "...but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." -quoted from The Norton Anthology: American Literature Vol. B
Summary: Emerson's writing of Self-Reliance encourages his readers to stick to their guns and stay true to themselves. This quote taken from that his writing shows that even when in a mob of people who are all flowing in a single direction that it is the act of a great man who can still think for himself. The sweetness of solitude Emerson writes about in this quote is the idea that the mind in each person can be completely singular and without need of others influencing it's actions. This is the sweetness of solitude.

Quote: "The brilliant genius of Emerson rose in the winter nights, and hung over Boston, drawing the eyes of ingenuous young people to look up to that great new start, a beauty and a mystery, which charmed for the moment, while it gave also perennial inspiration, as it led them forward along new paths, and towards new hopes." -Theodore Park, fellow transcendentalist and minister
Summary: Theodore Park, who knew Emerson, saw the genius in Emerson. He could see the power in Emerson's words that had the power to influence people and change their mindsets. I'm not sure if the word of trailblazer is a correct one to use for Emerson. He did help and influence people, even other future writers of his time and later to become greater writers. He did open minds and make people question life around them.

Overall Summary:
Self-Reliance used so older English them what I am used to reading today. It was hard to follow cause it was Emerson's manifesto. Not a story like I have read in earlier classes. Emerson's work held more weight in his time them they do today. His words still hold meaning, I'm not saying it is irrelevant in modern times. He's meaning, message and moral have been said before. Other writers have taken that, and retold it to their own generation. For individuals to stand up against the grinding windmills of conformity and speak the truth.

Journal for Douglass

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Journal for Douglass
October 13th, 2009

Quote:
“Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and with it her hardship and suffering.”-quoted from The Norton Anthology: American Literature, 7th Edition Vol. B
Summary:
Douglass is speaking about his mother in this quote. Douglass could not have known much about his mother because he was taken away from her when he was still very young. Douglass was told of her death and took the news “with the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger.” He couldn’t have felt any other way with the very infrequent and brief meeting he had with his mother. His mother did not tell him who his father was. He heard whispers about who people thought it was but nothing solid. The separation of mother and son at Douglass’s early age prevented him for feeling deeper grief for the loss of his mother. Douglass wanted to show readers how this was common for slaves to be separated from their children, but he does not know the reason for doing this other then cruelty towards slaves.

Quote:
“Frederick Douglass sought to embody three keys for success in life:
Believe in yourself.
Take advantage of every opportunity.
Use the power of spoken and written language to effect positive change for yourself and society.” -quoted from the Biography of Frederick Douglass (http://www.frederickdouglass.org/douglass_bio.html)
Summary:
Douglass did believe in changing your life for the better by writing. His autobiographies showed a first hand experience of the extreme harsh and mistreatment of slaves. Douglass met hardships even as a free man in the North. He would write about those experiences also. Douglass proved to have a strong character when dealing with the oppression and set backs. If Douglass had a weaker character, he probably wouldn’t have published or been a public speaker. Both of which helped many people become antislavery.

Response:
Douglass’s writing showed American a first person view of slavery. Douglass became an speaker for African-American and women’s rights. His name is now famous among in American history because he was a educated slave who became a free man and still strived to change America into a better place.

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Journal for Poe
October 8th, 2009

Quote:
“…with a utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium…” -quoted from The Norton Anthology: American Literature, 7th Edition Vol. B
Summary:
This quote is from the opening of Poe’s more famous work, The Fall of the House of Usher. His language is more eloquent then I am use to reading were today the style of writing is not accustomed. The more literature I read from further back in history becomes more and more rich that expands my vocabulary. This quote is setting the mood and atmosphere around the House of Usher. The reader finds out the darkness that is inside the house but it also settling around the house and darkening the lake surrounding the house. The dark and depressing mood surrounding the house could not be expanded to anyone and draws a comparison to set it a realistic term.

Quote:
“The historical Edgar Allan Poe has appeared as a fictionalized character, often representing the "mad genius" or "tormented artist" and exploiting his personal struggles.” -quote from Neimeyer, Mark. "Poe and Popular Culture", The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge University Press, 2002

Summary:
Edgar Allan Poe has been characterized as the dark poet. The mood of much of his popular writing have a Gothic tone throughout. When thinking of Poe or mentioning his work to others the general idea of the macabre comes to the front of one's mind. I've seen cartoon versions of The Raven aired on TV during Halloween which seems to be very appropriate.

Response:
The name of Edgar Allan Poe is know to all English students. His stories are share with the season of Halloween in America. That is how I first heard the story of The Tell Tale Heart and The Raven. Poe's writing have been adapted to film and other genres to reach many audiences. The story of his life only makes his works interesting to people how might even know a faction of it.

Journal for Hawthorne

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Journal for Hawthorne
October 5th, 2009

Quote:
“When Mr. Hooper came, the first thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible veil, which had added a deeper gloom to the funeral…” -quoted from The Norton Anthology: American Literature, 7th Edition Vol. B
Summary:
Hawthorne keep the image of the veiled faced minister in the forefront. He reminded the reader of the weight that the simple piece of black cloth that only covered Mr. Hooper’s face changed his character completely. The town that once so him as the leader of his flock of worshipers now treated him as a pariah. Even though it pained Mr. Hooper to see this drastic change in the way the town’s people reacted to his visage he did not remove the veil. Even when Elizabeth plead with him to hold the veil aside only once. It was a self appointed penance that Mr. Hooper had placed upon himself. Through his strong character he never removed the veil and to remove all doubt that anyone saw his face Hawthorne wrote that even ‘the lawless wind’ did not swipe the veil aside even once.

Quote:
“I am always so dazzled and bewildered with the richness, the depth, the ... jewels of beauty in his productions that I am always looking forward to a second reading where I can ponder and muse and fully take in the miraculous wealth of thoughts.” -quoted from the Journal of Sophia Hawthorne [Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s wife], January, 14th, 1951. Berg Collection NY Public Library
Summary:
This quote is from the private journal of Sophia, Nathaniel’s wife, but it is not spoken with spousal pride. Most of his writings was greatly appreciated with some less acclaimed work, like most writers. Sophia counted herself among his other fans. The work of The Minister’s Black Veil did take me a couple reads before I could under the meaning of the veil. Sophia must have done the same thing as I did before she could see the lesson Mr. Hooper declared before the people surrounding his deathbed.

Response:
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s verbiage is profound yet does not drive me back. It did take me a couple complete reads of the story before I could understand the choice of words. Hawthorne was friends with Melville at one time, and like Melville, Hawthorne drive from real life to help inspire him for the story of The Minister’s Black Veil. Great artists often inspire each other. Nathaniel Hawthorne is quoted to saying “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” The style of writing Hawthorne did for this piece of literature is now seen as a classical part of American history.

Journal for Rebecca Harding Davis

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Journal for Davis
October 1st, 2009

Quote:
“…laired by day in dens of drunkenness and infamy; breathing from infancy to death an air saturated with fog and grease and soot, vileness for soul and body.” -quoted from The Norton Anthology: American Literature, 7th Edition Vol. B
Summary:
Davis had created a extremely vivid image of the industrial city through her choice of words. The speaker in Life in the Iron-Mills talks about the muddy river water filled with boats and barrages. The image is clear of the inhabitants of this town. A very real image is painted for the reader. Davis is showing the reader how the land has changed from the town turning into an industrial city. The people the narrator of this story also talks about how the change of the landscape effects the people. Drunk people staggering through the streets beneath the window of the narrator. The image of a sky that has lost it’s blue hue and is now dark and cloudy with no promise of rain. A town can change, both it’s people and the nature surround it by the industrial change.

Quote:
“When “Life in the Iron-Mills” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1861 it was immediately recognized as a pioneering achievement, a story that captured a new subject for American literature—the grim lives of the industrial workers in the nation’s mills and factories.” -quoted from the Cengage Learning Online Study Center (http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/early_nineteenth/davis_re.html)
Summary:
Readers immediately understand the underlining message in the story Davies was writing about. The major change of America from country living farming communities to cities growing and factories and mills jobs becoming more common. The pictures of fields of crops and clean rivers would be replaced by the grayish hues of billowing smoke rising from dark bricked building. The descriptive realism of Davis’s work can create the mental image in anyone’s mind. Even to a country farmer that has not seen the change of the landscape that might creep out to the edge of his town. Middle and lower classes would see this change affect them the most. They would still be performing hard labor but with different tools and in different environments.

Response:
I had no problem understand what Davis was trying to show me as the reader. A clear image of this fictional town was created. Many details from the distant view of the river and the people walking and some staggering from being drunk. The hard etched lines on the workers’ faces and dirty clothes of the factory workers. Even the canary in the story seemed to be crying for the lust green nature it had be torn from. I really enjoy this work by Davis. I’m a visual learner and with this highly descriptive choice of words I can see the image writing about. I hope her writing style of realism is something I will be able to emulate even if it is only in my eyes.

Journal for Herman Melville

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Journal for Melville
September 30th, 2009

Quote:
“’I prefer not to,’ he replied in a flute-like tone. It seemed to me that while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every statement that I made; fully comprehended the meaning; could not gainsay he irresistible conclusion…” -quoted from The Norton Anthology: American Literature 7th Edition Vol. B
Summary:
Melville short story, Bartleby, The Scrivener, is written in a narrative form. This quote shows Bartleby’s lack of excitement for his job. Melville described Bartleby as cadaver-like, I see in my mind’s eye an animated corpse doing the copying of legal documents. Without need of emotions, only doing the simple humdrum work. Melville is showing the major change in America of people moving into cities or the cities expanding further and the country side is being enveloped into cities. The jobs are changing to reflect the expansion of the cities. Farm work is being far less common and office work is normal. Bartleby is understanding of what his coworkers and employer is asking of him but Bartleby is not wanting to take part in it. Bartleby seems indifferent but when asked directly, Bartleby shows lack of interest in anything.

Quote:
“Herman created a refuge from this chaos in his second-floor library. Keeping to a regular writing schedule, he completed four novels, a collection of short stories, and 10 magazine pieces, as well as beginning work on a volume of poetry. The works Melville wrote at Arrowhead included Moby-Dick … “Bartleby the Scrivener.” Arrowhead influenced him greatly in his writing. The view of Mount Greylock from his study window, the one that brought him to Arrowhead, was said to be his inspiration for the white whale in Moby-Dick…” -quoted from the Berkshire Historical Society Herman Melville’s Arrowhead website (http://berkshirehistory.org/herman-melville/herman-melville-and-arrowhead/)
Summary:
Herman Melville was inspired by his surroundings and his past experiences in his writing. His first novel was fueled by his job on board a ship that took him around the South Seas. At his farm home at Arrowhead, a named Melville choose himself after finding an arrowhead while plowing, he wrote other novels which are rumored to have been influenced by his surroundings. Herman Melville wrote several more pieces of literature while staying at his farm, Arrowhead. It seems that without his visual aid and memories from his past he would not be able to create his literature.

Response:
Herman Melville’s works are famous around the world for their detail. The opening sentence to Moby Dick is famous for being so causal, as if he is speaking directly at the reader. I’m shocked that Moby Dick was not as famous when Melville was alive as it is seen now. It was probably ahead of it’s time and true art is not appreciated in that generation as it will be in later ones. If Melville drew from his own life experiences, Bartleby, The Scrivener, would seem to be Melville’s anger at the change of the working class in America. He wasn’t happy working in an office and Melville did have a government job given to him by his family. Melville died without getting the acclaim he was hoping his writing would bring him, but today writers and students of English see his work as inspirational.

Journal for Harriet Beecher Stowe

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Journal for Stowe
September 30th, 2009

Quote:
“Her husband and her children were her entire world, and in these she ruled more by entreaty and persuasion than by command or argument. There was only one thing that was capable of arousing her … anything in the shape of cruelty would throw her into a passion….” - quoted from The Norton Anthology: American Literature 7th edition Vol. B
Summary:
This quote from Stowe’s acclaimed novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is speaking about the character Mrs. Bird the wife of the senator. Throughout this story Stowe writes that both women and slaves could persuade their husbands or slave drivers into thinking because of their own bias towards the lower class members. Stowe wrote that Mrs. Bird thought of herself as a true Christian by feeding and sheltering a run away slave. Stowe’s passion for showing the antislavery movement with Christian values is written through Mrs. Bird’s character. Mrs. Bird is described as a small figure, no more then 4 feet, that normally did not ask her husband questions about the House of States. Stowe is telling her readers that Mrs. Bird was the meek housewife who would listen to her husband and not think about subjects outside the home. Yet when Mrs. Bird talks about the law that was passed that would make it a crime to help run away slaves even in the slave free states she seems to fire up. Mrs. Bird convinces her husband that turning away anyone from their home would be going against the word of God. Through Mrs. Bird Eliza was able to get further into the North towards freedom.

Quote:
“"Uncle Tom’s Cabin" was the first major American novel to feature a Black hero. Harriet created memorable characters who portrayed the inhumanity of slavery making her readers understand that slaves were people who were being mistreated and made to suffer at the hands of their masters. Through her novel, Harriet insisted that slavery eroded the moral sensibility of whites who tolerated or profited from it. She wrote passionately to prick the consciences of fellow Americans to end their blind allegiance to slavery. ” -quoted from History’s Women (http://www.historyswomen.com/socialreformer/HarrietBeecherStowe.html)
Summary:
Stowe shook the nation with her novel, both the North an South saw this book as shocking. Abraham Lincoln when meeting Stowe for the first time after she had published Uncle Tom’s Cabin he allegedly greeted her by saying “So this is the little old lady who started this great new war.” Stowe’s work is remembered as a turning point in people’s view of slavery. Stowe’s novel was the first to show slaves as human beings who fled the Southern states to protect their children and to escape the horrible conditions. Stowe is famously remember as a feminist fighting to stop slavery and showing women as a intelligent members of society.

Response:
Harriet Beecher Stowe is a powerfully influential member of the popular American authors who would still have a novel that is seen as important in modern times. Stowe used American slang in her novel for character’s speech. This made the character more easily linked to the past and time the novel was set in. The reader gets a clearer mental image of what these character would sound like through Stowe’s writing. Still, this doesn’t make the character any less easy to understand of their struggle and the human emotions that each character feels when Eliza interacts with them on her escape to the North. Years after Stowe’s novel was published and slavery has been had been abolished in America, her novel is still read to see the genuine human emotions in each character.

Journal for Lincoln

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Journal for Lincoln
September 29th, 2009

Quote:
“On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dread it-all sought to avert it.” -Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address, March 4th, 1865 quoted from The Norton Anthology: American Literature 7th Edition Vol. B

“’In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.’ Beneath these words, the 16th President of the United States-the Great Emancipator and preserver of the nation during the Civil War—sits immortalized in marble. As an enduring symbol of freedom, the Lincoln Memorial attracts anyone who seeks inspiration and hope.” -quoted from the US Department of the Interior, National Park Service website for the Lincoln Memorial(http://www.nps.gov/linc/index.htm)

Summary:
The first quote is by Lincoln himself when speaking to the crowd after he was voted into office for the second time. I think Lincoln is showing his true colors by talking about the North and South states as part of the whole. He didn’t talk poorly about the South or cheer the North for bringing the South to their knees. He spoke honestly about the war and the loses on both sides.
The second quote is talking about how American History will talk about the 16th president. As a president who came into office about the face the greatest threat to the Union any president before him had faced, a civil war. Lincoln didn’t falter and stayed head of the Union to see the North win the war over the South and keep the States United.

Response:
After being the leader of a Nation that was threatening to rip in half had a powerful effect on Lincoln. Even in pictures, Lincoln is showed to have greatly aged during the civil war years, probably due to a great deal of stress. He spoke about how both sides, Northern and Southern, wanted to avert the war. The beginning of the war was still in living memory so lying about how easy it would have been to win against the South might have been to great of a lie. Throughout the speech Lincoln keeps a somber tone. He doesn’t get too excited about the end of the war in the favor of the North or his victory over overwhelming odds.