Category: Midterm Essay (Page 2 of 2)

Tyler Queylin

Midterm Essay, English 2001

October 26, 2020                                           

                                                The Lottery and a Rose for Emily

            The two short stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “A Rose for Emily” by Faulkner are stories that require deep understanding of the plot and characters. “The Lottery” is about a town of people who have an annual ritual of having a lottery, however throughout the story the audience sees that the lottery is not a regular lottery where you celebrate when you win but the person who gets picked for it dies. The town continues this ritual because of their superstition that if they don’t sacrifice an individual annually that the crops will not grow out good. “A Rose for Emily” is about a mysterious and misunderstood lady who had just died and in the beginning of the story it takes place at her funeral, she lived in a town with many other individuals who really knew nothing about her and just assumed about her but they find out the truth throughout the story when they go to her house for the first time after her funeral. Emily is shown as a very misunderstood character throughout the story after her father dies. However, the authors use the main characters to portray the social hierarchy in the setting/time period and gender dominance.

            The two well known and popular short stories share the same element of the two authors bringing up sex and gender roles/codes. Allan Lloyd-Smith explains American Gothic Fiction talking about how the genre in these types of stories bring up societal problems and “wrongdoing movement”. In Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery” the main focus is the Hutchinson family which includes Mr. Bill Hutchinson, Mrs. Tess Hutchinson, and the Hutchinson children but especially little Davy Hutchinson who is mentioned a lot in the story. Tess Hutchinson is the prime example of gender roles and how women are treated unequally to men in the the story. “Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully, thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie. Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, Wouldn’t have me leave m’dishes in the sink, now, would you, Joe? And soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson’s arrival.” (Jackson 2) This quote shows the gender roles that the town has, we see that the men are held higher and have more power than the women and they make jokes about women only doing house work. They also didn’t bother to say that they were going to wait for her, since she is a woman they didn’t mind if she was at the drawing of the Lottery or not because they could have started early without her. Later on in the story Tessie is the one that is picked for the drawing of the Lottery and she starts to complain saying that it wasn’t fair for her. The audience comes to figure that the lottery is something negative and Tessie is stoned to death at the end. Tessie is a woman and she is speaking up to the lottery saying it isn’t fair and she is confident doing so, by them killing her this could show that Jackson was trying to imply that since she was speaking against the lottery and getting out of her place in her societal/gender role in the town that it was her faith that she was the one who is picked in the lottery and stoned to death. The gothic element of questioning sex and gender roles is also shown in Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily”, throughout the story we learn about Emily’s childhood and how she has a father who likes to be in complete dominance over her life and decisions. Emily’s father continuously lives her life for her through making decisions for her and saying that no individual male would ever be enough for her and good enough.  “None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such.” (Faulkner 3) Her father didn’t allow anyone else to accompany her but himself and would prevent any male individual from being with Emily. The only company that she had and was used to during her childhood was her father’s. This shows the gender/sex role in the story of male dominance and women always being lower than men, her father has such superiority over her that she couldn’t live her life until he died later on in the story and even then she didn’t know anyone else’s company but his which is why when he died she denied his death and didn’t want anyone to take his body away because she would be alone. Later on her life Emily falls in love with a man named Homer Barron and wants to be with him for eternity but the town and she knows that he is not the “marrying type of man”. One day Emily goes to the pharmacy and asks for Arsenic which is poison and the pharmacist asks her what she needs it for and she never tells him. She purchases the poison and the town assumes that it is to kill herself with the poison because she is depressed that she cannot marry Homer. “SO THE NEXT day we all said, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing. When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron….” (Faulkner 5) However Emily uses the poison to kill Homer so that she can be with him forever physically by keeping his body in the house forever until she died. The gender roles in this scenario was the town’s perspective and assumption of how they thought Emily wanted the arsenic to kill herself, they thought since she knew Homer wasn’t going to marry her and stay with her forever that she was going to kill herself. The town thought Emily was depressed enough to kill herself because she would be alone and she had to rely on the company of a male, in this case Homer but she overcame the societal gender stereotype and made a very bold decision instead using the poison for him.

Shirley Jackson’s story is less rebellious than Faulkner’s story however because even though Tessie speaks out of her place about how the tradition of the town isn’t fair she still is executed by stones. Emily has more of an impact showing she is not dependent on another male which is what the town thought but were shocked and surprised when they found out Emily had used poison to kill Homer. Both stories show the gender dominance of males and social change which leads the audience back to reality about how female inequality and society’s views and beliefs on what stereotypes are true and if gender plays a role in dominance or power.

Cody Santana

10/17/20

ENG 2001 O525

                             The Spirit of Perverseness

               In the two stories we will be discussing today which are Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” and Melvilles “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”we have two prominent characters which both have a desire to achieve something greater and in many ways that makes them alike, but they also have a lot of characteristics which separate them, and these are shown through how they attempt to each achieve their individual goals, and how each of their decisions in this pursuit effects the other characters around them in each of their stories. I believe both these characters share one common characteristic that will be the main theme of the essay which is defined by Poe the writer of the Black Cat the ‘Spirit of Perverseness”. His definition is “”What makes people do things they know are bad for themselves”. A very simple way to define such a complicated topic but where does this relate to our two characters? Each of these characters are trying to achieve their goals by doing things that are ultimately bad for their own wellbeing, the difference between the two characters is that one of them we know what their end goal is while the other character we will have to take a deeper dive to even try to piece together what they want to achieve in the story. 

              In the story written by Kafka “The Hunger Artist” we see a man who is not named (so we will just call him Hunger Artist) being used as a circus act of sorts. He is essentially known as the Hunger Artist, a man who starves himself for several weeks at a time. He is also monitored and locked within a cage. People come out to see the hunger artist in his cage just to see what a man who doesn’t eat anything for so long looks like. He is a very popular attraction for the circus and as such the people who run the circus want to keep him maintained. They give him a strict time period where he can and cannot eat. The Hunger Artist wants to surpass 40 days, it is his ultimate goal to break his own record, but the people who run the show won’t allow him. This always infuriates him and his way of retaliating he just doesn’t speak, which heavily affects the way the show works because when people come to see him they like to talk with him in the hopes of their questions being answered. Without him speaking the show is more or less just people staring at a hungry man. This man lives and breaths the spirit of perverseness. His own goals derive from something he very much knows could kill him down the line.

              In Melville’s story “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story on Wall Street” we have Bartleby, who isn’t the main character per say, but is very much the center of the story. When he first starts working at the lawyers office as a scrivener he is very efficient at his job, gets things done very quick and is quiet, and he is not in anyone’s way. But over time he begins to just stop doing his work, whenever he gets asked to do something he simply replies “I would prefer not to” or “I would rather not”. Even when he gets fired he comes to work and just kinda sits around and gets in everyone’s way. Eventually the lawyer tries to help him but is not met with a good response so he ends up getting Bartleby arrested and sent to jail. Even when he is locked away he continues to refuse to do what anyone says, he even refuses to eat the food given to him when asked to eat it which leads to his eventual death in the story. Now there are a lot of things to cover here but what i want to look at is how Bartleby shows his own spirit of perverseness. He simply chooses not to listen to anyone and pretty much all the time it’s to his disadvantage, he gets fired, sent to jail, and then dies because of his actions. I am certain that Bartleby knows he shouldn’t be doing this, but there has to be something that drives him to do all these nonsensical things.

                          These two characters both have shown to embrace the spirit of Perverseness without knowing it, they both live their lives doing things they know will hurt them in the long run. But what makes these two characters take such drastic actions? What is it that makes them so similar yet so different. Now that we know both their stories let’s take a closer look at both of the characters together rather than separately to figure out the unifying factors of these characters. Firstly let’s talk about how Bartleby and The Hunger Artist are similar, As we have stated they are both very similar in the fact that they are both willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want even if that means it affects them negatively. In The Hunger Artists case to get what he wants it means sacrificing his hunger, which most people would complain if they didn’t eat for the day and he goes without eating for around 40 days in consecutive intervals. In the case of Bartleby the Scrivener he simply doesn’t do his job which costs him his job and ultimately his very life. Now let’s delve into what makes these characters so different. Starting again with The Hunger Artist unlike Bartleby who is very quiet and only speaks when necessary, The Hunger Artist is a rather friendly person and is willing to talk to people, it’s what I believe to be one of the things that keeps him going while he is going through one of his fasting periods, it’s usually when he doesn’t get what he wants is when he becomes quiet and keeps to himself. 

                  Bartleby is almost the exact opposite in this case, he’s completely quiet regardless if he gets what he wants or doesn’t, based on the text he’s a person who is very hard to read, he doesn’t show too much emotion in just about any conversation within the story, most of the time when he does talk it’s usually just one word or at most a simple phrase which is usually just “I would rather not” or “I would prefer not to”. These two phrases give us another detail about Bartleby, he’s not a very motivated person, yet at the same time he is so adamant about not doing the things that he is told to do that it makes you wonder what he truly wants.Since the story doesn;t directly tell us why he’s doing these crazy things it’s up to the reader to take his actions presented to us and make our own theories based on that information. With that being said let’s take a look at his more memorable actions and try to glean what it could all mean for Bartleby. For me there are 3 moments that Bartleby truly shows his character, and in each instance he does the same thing but it’s the situations that make the difference. The first one is when the Lawyer one day during work asks Bartleby to make some copies of a document which prior to this was an excellent employee suddenly decides he doesn’t want to, he responds to the lawyers request by saying “I would prefer not to” and walks away, the lawyer asks him again and he responds with the same phrase, the lawyer figures he’s in a bad mood and walks away. The second instance is during a meeting one of the employees asks Bartleby if he could quickly make some copies that are needed, Bartleby in front of everyone in that meeting says “I would rather not” and proceeds to walk away leaving everyone in the meeting astonished. The final instance I’d like to point out is when he’s in jail refusing to eat his food to the point where he ends up dying because of it. These three instances to me tell me that Bartleby seems to want more in life, he settles for the things in life he is presented with but he got the sudden realization that this simple office job life is not what he wanted and from that point onward did only what he wanted to do.

                    Through the Spirit of Perverseness we have taken a look at two characters that on the surface seem very different. We have a man that we could only go by as The Hunger Artist and Bartleby the scrivener of a lawyer’s office located on wallstreet. They both live very different lives, one can be described as one big circus act and the other a stance against corporate America. While they were both different they were very much the same through the Spirit of Perverseness. They both did things in their lives that each affected their overall well being negatively, but they did it because they both felt they were doing the right thing for themselves, and that is what I have gleaned from both of them as human beings. Their spirits live through Perverseness. 

Isiah Ellison

Midterm Essay, ENG 2001

Professor: Sean Scanlan

Oct 25^th, 2020

The Angel and the Minotaur

         For those who have read these stories, I believe there is no denying that “The House of Asterion” (THA), and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (AVOMEW) are completely different stories, however they are at the same time similar. It sounds contradictory does it not? Both Asterion and the old man share many similarities with how they are treated, especially since they were treated in a way that just makes you feel sorry for them. How do the authors of these two very different stories help the reader to sympathize with Asterion, and the old man with wings? We will take a look at how discrimination, and gothic elements such as Central gothic irony, irony, redemption, and paradox were utilized to help the reader feel sympathy for the two main characters. 

            THA is about Asterion (a minotaur) who is unaware that he is a prisoner trapped within a maze. He is sent tributes for slaughter every nine years, but one of the tributes prophesized that his redeemer would come. The redeemer, which we were introduced to at the end of the story took the life of Asterion, whom did not put up much of a struggle because he himself wanted to be redeemed. AVOMEW is a story of an old man with wings whom is found on the shore by a woman named Elisenda and her husband. The couple had a sickly child and they were convinced that the old man was an angel that was here to take their child away. Due to the strange appearance of the old man, and the fact that they could not prove he was an angel; he was imprisoned within a cage, discriminated upon, and used for financial gain by Elisenda and her husband. After the townsfolks were bored with the old man, Elisenda with no further use for the old man was more than happy to let him go, because he served no purpose to her.

            In both stories the author’s used discrimination in similar ways, and the main characters in a way parallel each other. Both are characters whom we cannot identify as human, but have humanlike features. Asterion (the minotaur), and the old man with wings (the angel) are both mythical creatures. Both main characters were discriminated upon by the humans since they themselves were not human. Both characters were imprisoned due to discrimination; one in a cage, and the other in a maze. Asterion at first does not seem to mind his situation and also does not seem to realize that he is a prisoner; while the old man with wings is not happy with his situation, and is fully aware that he is a prisoner. At the end of THA the author used the gothic element of redemption to free Asterion from his prison by being redeemed through death, which he himself was content with and dubbed his slayer as his redeemer. At the end of AVOMEW, the old man was also freed from his prison and he took off into the sky, which could have signified the rising above the ignorance of the humans.

            Central gothic irony is the return to the way of living from before there was a conflict to be had. We will call this the return to normalcy. We’ve already seen that both stories paralleled each other in terms of the discrimination suffered by the main characters, but did they desire the return to normalcy? Asterion did not desire the return to normalcy, or what he believed to be his normal way of living. Asterion was feared by the people “The people prayed, fled, prostrated themselves; some climbed onto the stylobate of the temple of the axes, others gathered stones. One of them, I believe, hid himself beneath the sea” (Borges, 1964). Although Asterion was at first happy that every nine years, nine people were sent to him to be “delivered from evil,” it was but a phrase that one of the dying men said that made Asterion not want to live his repetitive life. One of the dying men prophesized that someday Asterion’s redeemer would come, which seemed to excite Asterion. “I hope he will take me to a place with fewer galleries fewer doors” (Borges, 1964). Asterion looked forward to his redemption at the hands of this mysterious man. Redemption was carried out through the death of Asterion; thus, normalcy was not achieved for Asterion which is what he wanted.

            The person who desired normalcy in the story AVOMEW was not the old man with wings himself, but another character, Elisenda. It’s not clear what the old man himself wanted, but we can tell that he was not thrilled with being the spectacle for others entertainment “The angel was the only one who took no part in his own act” (Marquez, 1972), nor was he thrilled by the abuse he suffered by the townsfolk “the cripples pulled out feathers to touch their defective parts with, and even the most merciful threw stones at him, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers, for he had been motionless for so many hours that they thought he was dead. He awoke with a start, ranting in his hermetic language and with tears in his eyes, and he flapped his wings a couple of times, which brought on a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be of this world” (Marquez, 1972). Elisenda was happy when the old man with wings left her town; this is how normalcy was achieved. “She kept watching him even when she was through cutting the onions and she kept on watching until it was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea.” (Marquez, 1972). The author used the gothic element of irony to help the reader sympathize with the angel which is displayed with the statement mentioned above as well as the knowledge that Elisenda made money from the imprisonment and maltreatment of the old man. Some may even credit her sickly child becoming healthy to the old man with wings, which would make Elisenda’s feelings towards the old man even more ironic, thus making the reader feel even more sympathetic for the old man considering that he has indirectly helped Elisenda while she directly was the cause for his pain and suffering.

The author in AVOMEW used the gothic elements of abject and paradox to help us sympathize with the old man. The townsfolks did not believe the old man to be Angel because he did not match THEIR EXPECTATIONS on what an angel should look like (note that the townsfolk have never met, nor seen an angel before), which is the paradox. “Then he noticed that seen up close he was much too human: he has an unbearable smell of the outdoors, the back of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds, and nothing about him measured up to the proud dignity of angels” (Marquez, 1972). The townsfolks were selfish and only focused on what they believed the old man could do for them, but never have they once tried to see what they can do for the old man. The townsfolks had no sympathy whatsoever for the old man. The old man was even threatened with violence, abused, made a circus act out of, and extorted; this was the abject, and this made it very easy for me as a reader to sympathize greatly with the old man.        

            The author in THA used the gothic elements of dramatic irony, and paradox to help the reader sympathize with Asterion. Asterion, whom was also the narrator for the vast majority of the story, made it clear that he was different from others within the town; he claimed to be the son of a queen, and opened with the statement “I know they accuse me of arrogance, and perhaps misanthropy, and perhaps of madness. Such accusations (for which I shall exact punishment in due time) are derisory” (Borges, 1964). Asterion was isolated from others, but was given a tribute of nine humans every nine years, as if it’s a sacrifice to the gods to keep their town safe, or maybe, to keep Asterion from going into their town. It was not until the end of the story that we found out that Asterion was not a human but a minotaur. The dramatic irony was that although the townsfolks treat Asterion as nothing more than a monster, Borges humanizes Asterion throughout this short story. The paradox was the fact that Asterion was a prisoner, but was not aware and did not believe himself to be a prisoner “Another ridiculous falsehood has it that I Asterion am a prisoner. Shall I repeat that there are no locked doors, shall I add that there are no locks?” 

(Borges, 1964). My knowledge as a reader made me sympathize with him for the fact that he was simply a frog in the well.

References

Márquez, G. G. (1972). A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children.

Borges, J. L. (1964). The House of Asterion. In Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other 

Writings, ed. Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby, London: Penguin. pp. 170-172 

Kianna Carrington

Midterm Essay, ENG 2001 0525

October 26th, 2020

Similarities and Differences in Gothic Fictions

Throughout the semester, we’ve read several gothic fictions that have a lot of gothic elements in them. While reading these stories, it came with confusion at first and a liking to them. The stories I truly enjoyed reading the most were “The House of Asterion” by Jorge Luis Borges, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, and “The Black Cat” by Egar Allen Poe. Many of the stories we have read have a lot in common. But in “The House of Asterion” and “A Rose for Emily”, there are so many similarities between the two main characters, Asterion and Emily Grierson. Emily Grierson and Asterion really taught us about gothic violence, death, and a return to normalcy, or the spirit of perverseness in their own words and actions all while feeling at their worst, on the inside. 

       The short story “The House of Asterion” by Jorge Borges is about a Minotaur, half man half bull, named Asterion, who is feared by the people in the land of Labyrinth. He says to the readers that he is a prisoner in his castle but no restrictions are holding him by his will, just society. It’s the people who make him feel like a prisoner because they judge him and make him feel less than he is. He can leave his castle whenever he wants but when he does go out, people are scared and they run away from him. Making him feel bad. He does keep himself entertained by constantly reminding himself that one day his “redeemer” on, who passed away because of an illness and was known for being a classy woman who also keeps to herself. Throughout the story, we learned that Emily and her family were wealthy but also they thought highly of themselves, which made the townspeople talk about them in a negative way and make up rumors about her. They really didn’t like the fact that Emily hasn’t paid any taxes in almost a decade. This was because her father had died and the previous mayor, Colonel Satoris, had granted her a tax free life due to the fact that The Griersons were paying their tax responsibilities and more before. Throughout Emily’s life, her father was an overall pain but mainly a bigger pain in her love life. Up until his death, he drove all the men Emily had tried to be with away. Which made her think something was wrong with her, made her think that she wasn’t meant to be happy, which made her isolate herself from the town she was living in for many years. After her father passed away, it was like she was in shock, she couldn’t make her mind process the fact that her father was gone. She kept his body for a few weeks, until people started questioning where his body was and an awful smell that was coming from the house. After that, Emily met a character, and her love interest, Homer Barron. Homer Barron was beneath Emily. He was viewed by the townspeople as poor. He works as a contract worker. He was seen every sunday afternoon taking Emily on rides. The townspeople start to question his sexuality as well. Judging him once again. Emily is seen one day, at a drugstore buying arsenic, a poison. The townies see her with this deadly posionand immediately think she’s going to kill herself. She doesn’t. She uses it on Homer so she can be with him forever.

      Now that we’re caught up with these two fascinating stories, let’s talk about how similar these characters are. They both feel alone. Asterion, as we see in the story, he isolates himself in his castle because the people in his town are afraid of him which makes him feel bad because he thinks of himself quite differently. Emily felt alone when her father died, even though she did have a black servant in the big house with her, named Tobe. He was the only family she had left, besides her cousins that lived away from her. She felt alone, so alone she kept her father’s body because she couldn’t believe it. Another similarity they share is the spirit of perverseness. The spirit of perverseness is the theory that justifies the narrator’s actions or to go against norms. We see that in Emily’s story. When she goes to buy the poison from the druggist, which wasn’t for her. It was for Homer, her love interest. She wanted to be with him forever. At the end of the story, it’s described that Homer’s body was in a sealed room in the attic of the Grierson house, on a bed, with wedding materials on the drawer, like a suit, and a long strand of gray hair on the pillow next to Homer’s body, which was revealed as Emily’s own. In Asterion’s story, we see the spirit of perverseness work in many ways. When the nine people comes into his castle every nine years, he kills them thinking it’s okay, it’s the way he has to live. Normalcy. He feels that because people are afraid of him, keep making them afraid, and if he tries to change how the townspeople feel, they’ll fear him even more. When his redeemer came, this was the moment he was waiting for, he prepared for that moment. He killed those nine men every nine years because he was sure that his redeemer would come, and he did. They both don’t talk as much to others, well Asterion talks to himself. They live in big houses. They both died. And yet through all these similarities, they wanted to be fulfilled of their wishes. Emily, to be with the one she loves forever, and Asterion, to be redeemed by his redeemer, Theseus. 

     Although there are similarities between Emily Grierson and Asterion, there are also some differences, obvious differences at that. One difference is that Asterion is a minotaur, half bull, half man. They can live up to 150 years, whereas for Emily, she was a human. Asterion died at the hands of his redeemer, Theseus and Emily died of old age. Emily lived in a nice big house which was later redecorated in a small and quiet town, while Asterion lived in a mysterious castle in the land of Labyrinth, this also ties into the gothic element of settings. One thing I noticed that was different about these two was the fact they both wanted different things. Emily wanted the townspeople to stop with all gossip and in fact, wanted a peaceful and happy life. And for Asterion, yes he wanted his redeemer to come but he also wanted to be liked by the townspeople, deep down inside. Even though he was playing it off as if he didn’t need anyone, but as I was reading the story, he felt alone, maybe more alone than Emily. People weren’t afraid of her, they weren’t concerned for her either, they just wanted to gossip, wanted to mind her business, and put in their two cents to make them feel better and make her feel bad. Emily had a love interest, Homer Barron. The townspeople really sunk their claws into Emily’s relationship with Homer. They questioned his sexuality, saying he wasn’t really in love with Emily and was just using her. But Emily felt the complete opposite. She was in love and for the first time, without her father’s meddling, she could breathe. As for Asterion, he was too fond of himself to love anyone or to care. 

     In conclusion, after reading these two gothic fictions, I gathered that people in the world are going to talk about you, whether it’s good or bad, they’re going to make up whatever rumors, to keep themselves entertained. They’re going to say whatever, to tarnish your name. And you don’t have to engage or give them the time of day because at the end of the day, it’s your life and you should live it the best way you know how, regardless of what people say. I think that’s one of the lessons in these stories. Another lesson, I learned was that no matter how tough you look or how tough you think you are, you need people. No matter what you go through, whether it be a death of a loved one or just plain isolation, you will always need someone. 

Luis Fajardo

Midterm Essay, ENG2001 O525

Oct 26, 2020

Cruelty and Compassion

Cruelty is defined as the pleasure of causing pain which is what gothic literature is all about. In the stories “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Marquez and “A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka are very similar in terms of getting treated very poorly, and being socially distanced from society but they also have a difference in which one get compassion towards the end of the story. I will also go over the use of paradox in these stories and the change in the focal point of the narration.

“A very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is about an old man who has wings, is kept in a cage to be profited off by Pelayo and Elisenda. “A Hunger Artist” is about an artist that is mistreated by Impresario and joins the circus and is forgotten about and later dies from fasting longer than necessary.

The Two character that I will be comparing are the old man and the hunger artist who both are not given names to by their author. Both hunger artist and the old man are cruel entertainment for the people of the villages because in the “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” the old man is kept in a cage where People from all over come to see the old man and Elisenda and Pelayo charge 5 cent fee. In the “Hunger Artist” the artist is fasting in a cage where people from all over the world would come and see him. The hunger artist and the old man were both experienced by cruelty from the people that they were entertaining. In the “hunger artist” the cruelty to the hunger artist was that the butchers that would have to watch him over night would turn their back on him so that he would steal a bite to eat which annoyed the artist because it made it unpleasant for him. A quote from “ A Hunger Artist” that describes the annoyance the artist was feeling “often groups of night watchers who were very lax in carrying out their duties and deliberately huddled together in a retired corner to play cards with great absorption, obviously intending to give the hunger artist the chance of a little refreshment” (Kafka 2) he had so much pride in his work that he didn’t want people thinking he was faking his fast so he decided to sing so that the butchers would know he wasn’t eating and breaking his fast. The old man also faced cruelty from the crowd when they started to poke him, tried to get him to eat, burned hi side, and threw stones at him. A quote from “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” that showed the cruelty “the cripples pulled out feathers to touch their defective parts with, and even the most merciful threw stones at him, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing”(Marquez 2). The old man would just sit there doing nothing all day so the people would attempt to hurt him in-order to get him to do something.

A contrast between the two characters is the compassion they received from the people that looked after them. In the “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” the old man received compassion from Pelayo and Elisenda when the winter came and the chicken hen was destroyed Pelayo let the old man live in their shed and would bring him a blanket to keep him warm. A quote from “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” that shows Elisenda relieved that the old man was finally able to go back to where he came from. Although she was relieved that the old man was leaving because of how much the man annoyed her, they still showed compassion by letting him stay with them until he was ready to go even though they weren’t profiting from him anymore “Elisenda let out a sigh of relief, for herself and for him, when she watched him pass over the last houses, holding himself up in some way with the risky flapping of a senile vulture”(Marquez 4). In “A Hunger Artist” the artist did not get any compassion from Impresario when he stopped the 40-day fasting. Impresario would first let a doctor in the cage to determine the artist condition and then Impresario would announce it to the audience with a megaphone. Two women are chosen from audience to help the artist from the cage and then is forced fed in front of the audience. Another lack of compassion that the hunger artist received was from the circus he joined after leaving Impresario. The circuit forgot about the hunger artist and was only noticed when the circus overseer looks at his cage and notices he is near death and after he dies quickly replaced by a young panther. The lack of compassion he received from the circus caused his death because no would go over to his cage to check on him because he was forgotten about.

The focal point of the narration alters reader sympathy in “A Hunger Artist” throughout the story because we feel bad for the artist in terms of lack of social connection he received from the audience. The artist would voluntarily enter a cage to fast for 40 days so that he can get try to impress the audience which shows the lack of social communication he has. A quote that proves that we wanted approval from the audience ““I always wanted you to admire my fasting” (Kafka 4) is what was said by the artist. The neglection he received from the circus also shows how socially distance he was from society which might have played a role in his death in which he wanted to fast longer than 40 days to break his record so that people would be impressed by him.

The focal point of the narration alters reader sympathy in “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” in terms of socially distance. The old man is kept in a cage although people from all over come a see him they did so for their own needs. People harassed/harmed the old man to try to get his attention which he did not give them and I believe that he didn’t know how to speak to the people and that is why he didn’t say anything throughout the story. Since the angel could not speak, he might have felt distanced from people because they did not understand what he was. This made me sympathize for the old man because we can put ourselves in his situation and feel how awful that would be.

Paradox is a contradicting statement. In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” the paradox is used in the third page “Elisenda shouted that it was awful living in that hell full of angels” (Marquez 3) Elisenda say this because she’s feels like she’s living a life as a nightmare while the old man lives with them and because the old man seems to be in so many places at the same time in their house. They treated the old man as a creature that came from hell when he is an angel. Pelayo and Elisenda instead of praising the old man for being an angel they commit sins by locking him in a cage and profiting from him. In “A hunger Artist” paradox is used when the artist seems happier inside the cage rather than outside. I say this because when he was in the cage he was doing what he loves and that was fasting to please other with entertainment but whenever he was outside the cage he was being forced fed by Impresario and being humiliated in front of the crowd.

Inconclusion the old man and the hunger artist are very similar very similar and different in their own respective ways. Both the old man and the hunger artist were faced with cruelty from the people that were supposed to look after them and they also faced cruelty from the audience that they were entertaining. Paradox is used in both stories to contradict a statement. They both had a focal point to show us how socially distance they felt from society so sympathize for both the characters. The old man never spoke in the story therefore we assume he doesn’t understand their language and the hunger artist is neglected and tries to receive attention by breaking his record number of days fasting.

Aiden Rivera  

Midterm Essay, ENG 2001 O525  

Oct 26, 2020  

In the End All is Normal 

After reading and carefully analyzing the two stories, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Marquez and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, I’ve come to realize that they have more in common than I previously thought. At a first glance you wouldn’t think of many similarities. Mainly because one is occurring during the civil war and seems more realistic while the other is more mythical or fake by adding an old man who is an “Angel”. But looking deeper you see the main character and gothic element similarities that these two stories share. Bierce and Marquez both write stories where the main characters have the spirit of perverseness (SOP) that ultimately leads to their return to normalcy.   

In the story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, the main character is an old homeless man with broken/unhealthy wings who is taken in by this couple. The couple has the old man live in their shack. They let him live there because they believe he is an angel and he has some correlation to their son, who was sick, get better. The old man proceeds to live with and get fed by this couple. At first it was an act of kindness till the tourist began to come see the old man. After this began to occur the couple began to take profits from the people coming to see the old man. Turning him into a circus act. The wife didn’t want the old man there but once the money came along it became less of a problem. People would even throw things at the old man, treating him as if he was worthless. By the end of the story the old man’s wings became healthy and opened wide, where he then flew away into the sky. The question here is how does the old man relate to the other character and where does he return to normalcy?   

In the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, the main character Peyton Farquhar is standing on a bridge 20 feet above the water moments away from being hanged. In these few minutes the story takes place we basically go into Peyton’s head and view a back story on how he got into this situation. He was a southerner during the civil war who wasn’t accepted into the confederate army. But he had passion for the cause and would do whatever he could to help. The people about to hang Peyton are from the northern army. Towards the end of the story Peyton is sent off the bridge to hang but the rope snaps and he seems to get away. We end with Peyton seeing his family again and giving his wife a hug. Only to find out it was all in his head. He dreamt that he got away and saw his family again in his final moments. The fact was he didn’t get away but instead those were his final thoughts before his sad death. The question in this story is again how does Peyton relate to the old man and does this count as a return to normalcy?  

The two characters, Peyton and the old man both have the spirit of perverseness that leads to their return to normalcy. Let me explain, a small definition of the spirit of perverseness would be what makes people do things they know will be bad for themselves and others. Peyton follows this definition by being a helping hand in the war even though he wasn’t chosen as a soldier: “No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war” (Bierce 4). Peyton was a slave owner during the civil war, and he was constantly trying to help the cause of the south. He knew that the things he did would possibly be bad for him and bad to the northern soldiers. This is an exact definition of the spirit of perverseness. The old man now follows this same logic by going with the couple to their home. The old man knows this will be bad for him because in the story “angels” are fugitives so not anyone can be trusted: “Against the judgment of the wise neighbor woman, for whom angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of a spiritual conspiracy” (Marquez 1). Also, by going with the family they will be looked at differently for having an angel in their possession. The family had to deal with mobs of people: “The news of the captive angel spread with such rapidity that after a few hours the courtyard had the bustle of a marketplace and they had to call in troops with fixed bayonets to disperse the mob that was about to knock the house down” (Marquez 2). This is clear evidence of the character knowing of the harm he causes himself and others. 

Now how does their spirit of perverseness lead to their return to normalcy? Well in Bierce’s story, Peyton is about to be hanged. He is already in the normal there because it is normal for a southern soldier to be hanged by a northern soldier. They are in war so that’s why this is normal. Where Peyton returns to normalcy is when he has the dream of escaping. The dream is not normal. Although a possibility it’s not normal for him to escape that scenario. It is then where he feels a pain in his neck inside the dream and he’s now taken out and returned to normalcy as he dies: “As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence” (Bierce 9). The spirit of perverseness led him to this moment because if not for the decisions he made to help the south he would still be alive. In Marquez’s story the old man’s return to normalcy was a little different. He didn’t start out in the normal. The old man is an angel so his normal isn’t on earth. His wings were not capable of flying so he was stuck on the ground. He returned to normalcy when he became healthy and was able to fly away at the end:  

And yet he not only survived his worst winter, but seemed improved with the first sunny days. He remained motionless for several days in the farthest corner of the courtyard, where no one would see him, and at the beginning of December some large, stiff feathers began to grow on his wings, the feathers of a scarecrow, which looked more like another misfortune of decreptitude. But he must have known the reason for those changes, for he was quite careful that no one should notice them, that no one should hear the sea chanteys that he sometimes sang under the stars. One morning Elisenda was cutting some bunches of onions for lunch when a wind that seemed to come from the high seas blew into the kitchen. Then she went to the window and caught the angel in his first attempts at flight. They were so clumsy that his fingernails opened a furrow in the vegetable patch and he was on the point of knocking the shed down with the ungainly flapping that slipped on the light and couldn’t get a grip on the air. But he did manage to gain altitude (Marquez 4). 

The spirit of perverseness led to this return to normalcy because although he put himself in a bad situation by becoming a tourist attraction it ultimately gave him time to heal and fly away. It says in this quote that he knew he was getting better and hid it from everyone. He got healthy enough to fly away without any problems. This is how the spirit of perverseness led to his return to normalcy. 

In conclusion, the old man and Peyton may be two different characters, but when using the gothic elements, the spirit of perverseness and a return to normalcy, they aren’t very much different. They both have the spirit of perverseness to ultimately return to normalcy. Although Peyton’s return wasn’t as good as the old man. You still can’t help but to sympathize with Peyton and see why his SOP led him to his specific return to normalcy.  

Alicia Rajcoomar 

Midterm Essay, ENG 2001 

Oct 26, 2020 

Innocence Betrayed  

Gothic literature often pushes the limits of our form of normalcy using death, mental illness and the nature of uncertainty to address an array of our everyday issues.  In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” we witness the unnamed narrator fall victim to alcoholism and commit unexplainably violent acts that end in death, to his cat Pluto and unnamed wife. Similarly, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” we experience a series of events that makes Goodman Brown lose trust in his wife, Faith. The events that “take place” create a nature of uncertainty and pose the question, “Did these events really take place or are we witnessing a character that is descending into madness?” Both stories address the betrayal of innocence but in different ways and raises the question “Does gender play a role in the events that occurred for the women of these stories?”  

In order to answer this question, I intend to focus on the wife in “The Black Cat” and the wife, Faith from “Young Goodman Brown” by comparing their situations because in terms of the betrayal of innocence, these women were betrayed in different ways. I am going to start off by discussing in detail the events that led up to the unnamed wife’s death in “The Black Cat” and the mentality of her husband. I am then going to discuss Goodman Brown’s exchange with Faith before leaving for his journey and how the nature of uncertainty leads him to betray his wife. The betrayal of innocence will show us how individuals who don’t do anything wrong still end up getting betrayed due to a power dynamic and this is where gender comes in. This essay will be wrapped up by summarizing how these women were betrayed by their husbands because of their gender and lack of power.  

“The Black Cat” is told from a first-person perspective and early in the story the narrator admits to his alcoholism and his actions because of it. “I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.” (Poe, 4) This is a prime example of the power dynamic between the narrator and his wife. He exerts his power over her by verbally and physically abusing her. The narrator is also fully knowledgeable of his actions towards his wife but doesn’t seem to care. “The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas, was the most usual and the most patient of suffers.” (Poe, 11) Here we have the narrator acknowledge his abuse that’s usually targeted towards his wife by saying that she is patient and doesn’t complain. The narrator is again using his power to belittle his wife by making it seem as if she’s okay with being abused. We don’t get the opportunity to explore how she feels because the narrator murders her.  

“Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal, which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife.” (Poe, 11) The wife tries to stand up to the narrator in order to protect the cat, but we will see that he doesn’t like her display of power and does the extreme to reinstate his power over her, “Goaded by the interference into a rage more than demonical, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot without a groan.” (Poe, 11) The wife is betrayed by her own husband from the beginning of the story when he admits to abusing her and it gets so extreme to the point that he murders her without a second thought after she stops him from killing the cat. Now let’s look at how this form of betrayal is both different and similar to the one that Faith endures.  

Goodman Brown doesn’t hurt or kill his wife, Faith, but he does however betray their marriage like the narrator from “The Black Cat”. In both stories their betrayed by their husbands not because of something they did, but because of their husband’s personal issues. In “The Black Cat” it was the narrator’s alcoholism but in “Young Goodman Brown” it’s Goodman Brown’s uncertainty towards the events that might or might not have taken place.  Let’s first discuss when Goodman Brown and Faith say goodbye to each other before his journey. “Dearest heart, whispered she (Faith) … pr’ythee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed tonight …  Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year.” (Hawthorne, p. 1) Faith is begging with her husband to stay home for the night instead of going on his journey because of some bad thoughts she’s been having. In response Goodman Brown says “of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee” to which Faith replies “Then God bless you! And may you find all well, when you come back.” (Hawthorne, p.1) We see a bit of a display of power dynamic here with Faith giving up so easily on trying to get her husband to stay home after he states that he must go tonight. Despite this, it seems that the two love and care for each other deeply but this all changes during Goodman’s night journey.  

Before Goodman gets too far along in his journey it is important to note that he says “Well; she’s (Faith) a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven.” (Hawthorne, p.6) This is important because his actions later in the story differ from what he says and feels for Faith right now. On his journey Goodman meets an old man with a staff that is adorned with a serpent. The old man offers the staff to Goodman, but he declines and states that he’s going to return to his wife when an old woman appears. Goodman hides so that he isn’t seen with the man and witnesses the old woman referring to the old man as the “devil” and a “witch” regarding herself. He begins to hear the voices of other people in the village heading to a ceremony, and thinks he hears and sees his wife, Faith. He grabs the walking stick the old man gave him before disappearing and it transports him to the ceremony. He is then grabbed and brought in front of an unknown woman they are told that they must show themselves to each other and Goodman Brown finds out that the woman is his wife. “The husband cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him … Faith! Faith! Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!” (Hawthorne, p.11) It is unclear if Faith obeyed him or not because suddenly, he was all alone.  

It is unclear to both the reader and Goodman if these events took place or not, but they drive Goodman into a form of madness and anxiousness that leaves him not trusting his wife. “Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he (Goodman) spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at the sight of him, that she skipped along the street, and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.” (Hawthorne, p.12) Referring back to the quote about Goodman clinging to Faith when he gets back, we can see that his anxiousness is making him want little to do with his wife. Faith and her marriage are betrayed by Goodman because he no longer trusts her after the events that “occurred”. He believes that he has the power to ice out his wife and that is what he does for the remainder of his life until he dies.  

Lastly, let’s take a deeper look at both women by directly comparing their actions and scenes they were in. Using the gothic element of character stereotypes, we can categorize the wife in “The Black Cat” as a damsel in distress. Leading up to her death, the wife is verbally and physically abused by her husband. Despite the abuse and her lack of power, she still tries to stand up for the cat by protecting it from her husband, but she becomes the ultimate victim by being brutally murdered. This differs from the character stereotype of Faith in “Young Goodman Brown”. She can be categorized as a silent wife. It can be inferred that even though Goodman Brown no longer trusted his wife, they remain together until the day he dies. Even though her husband treated her coldly and it was apparent that he felt differently towards her, she still stayed with him and took whatever treatment he gave her. Different from the wife in “The Black Cat” Faith never stood up against her husband and instead lived with that kind of treatment until Goodman passed away. However even though she didn’t stand up for herself the same could be said about the wife in “The Black Cat” because when she stood up against her husband, she was doing it for the cat and not herself.  

In conclusion, the fact that Faith and the unnamed wife are women does play a role in the way their husbands treated them. Both women did nothing to deserve to be betrayed but in the eyes of Goodman Brown and the narrator from “The Black Cat” the women committed acts that they felt were wrong, so they exerted their power over them as a form of punishment. The unnamed wife was brutally murdered because the narrator didn’t like that she protected the cat and Goodman Brown lost trust and acted coldly to Faith because he thought she disobeyed him. If the gender roles were reversed the narrator would have probably made the wife stop drinking and Goodman Brown probably would have thought that Faith was mentally unwell. Gothic literature uses the extreme actions of its characters to create an allegory for our present world. We see that it addresses relationship issues such as trust and domestic abuse as well as individual and social issues like alcoholism, possible mental illness and gender roles in the sense of power dynamics.  

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