Category: Virtual Coffeehouse (Page 4 of 6)

Luis Fajardo

Midterm essay, English 2001

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 events in the stories fall under Todorov’s term marvelous and uncanny and the use of paradox in these stories and the change in the focal point of the narration.

A quick summary of “A very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is about a human like creature is found weak and struggling to get up. The old man has wings, and some people believe him to be an angel. The old man is kept in a cage to be profited off by Pelayo and Elisenda. The old man gets healthy and flies away. A quick summary of “A Hunger Artist” is about an artist that voluntarily enters a cage for 40 days to fast in front of people. The Artist is mistreated by Impresario and their partnership ends. The artist joins the circus and is forgotten 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” (page 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”. 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 the compassion that the old man received from Elisenda “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” one morning the old man was attempting to fly but couldn’t get the grip of the air but finally managed to fly and Elisenda was relief for the old man that was finally able to go back to where he came from. 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 we learn about how the artist fasts and is mistreated by Impresario, we the reader feel sorry for the artist at the end of the story because he dies and gives us a shocking twist that he only fasted because he couldn’t find any food he liked. The Artist neglected by society but only wanting to be appreciated by the people that would come see him. Then when he apologized and said “I always wanted you to admire my fasting” made me feel like his believe of his purpose in life was just to be entertainment and only wanted in return was for everyone to be proud of his work.

The focal point of the narration alters reader sympathy in “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” because the old man was harassed by the people and some people did not believe he was an angel. Even though some people did not believe he was an angel and more a human, no one came forward and tried to free him from the chicken hen and no one tried to stop Elisenda and Pelayo from profiting from there misdeed. This made me sympathy for the old man as he really does not have much of a choice since he is weak/hurt but to sit there and let them mistreat him.

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” Elisenda say this because the old man seems to be in so many places at the same time in their house. They treat the old man as a creature that came from hell when he is an angel. 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.

Todorov term Marvelous is used in “A very Old Man with Enormous Wings” because the old man may look human like but has damaged wings therefore making him an angel. Marvelous is defined as not possible on earth therefore this story makes it Marvelous because we have never seen an actual angel on earth.

Todorov term Uncanny is used in “A Hunger Artist” because there are people that work for circus and do thing that seem impossible. Also, there is such a thing called Guinness world record where people break records by doing incredible things. Uncanny is defined as a closet to reality therefore this story makes it uncanny because we have seen people try to attempt things that seem impossible and sometimes dying from it.

Enderson Filpo

Midterm Essay, English 2001

Oct 18, 2020

To Begin with, what do one expect when they read a gothic story? Irony. Without Irony the word gothic would not mean a thing within the story. Gothic stories can relate to the real world as death and mysteries are bound to occur. The stories, “The Black Cat” by Edgar Ellen Poe and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman demonstrates gothic and relate to one another as the characters can be compared and contrasted, both stories expresses mysteries and terror. In “The Black Cat” the narrator is known for loving his cat and wife but resulted in a denouement ending. The story reflects to Poe’s word perverse in which “makes people do things they know will be bad for themselves”, the narrator was an alcoholic who murdered his cat who he thought was avoiding him this falls under self-destruction as being an alcoholic causes mood swings even if their friendship was good. The narrator’s childhood must have been devastating. Was it possible for the narrator to get some sort of help at some point? Or did the alcohol has already taken advantage of him which it did as it resulted for him to go from this lovely and caring person to a killer. This can be compared to “The Yellow Wallpaper” which falls under the Spirit of perverseness as well dealing with terror. The narrator is a woman diagnoses with mental illness which is going under treatment for depression. Her sanity is lost as she refuses to get treated as she keeps her journal hidden from her husband. This reflects to self-destruction as her mental illness has already gotten worst by being obsessed with the wallpaper in her room as she sees a woman trapped behind bars. This resulted in her starting to feel the wallpaper and kept it all to herself instead of informing her husband, which then led to her loss of sanity as it was too late. Afterall, I will be discussing the story, “The Black Cat” gothic emotions and compare/contrast it to the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”.

Jose Flores

Midterm Essay, English 2001

Oct 17, 2020

                    Loneliness is Pretty Bad

    A lot of people are afraid of being alone. Loneliness can bring mental health, such as depression, madness, and thoughts of suicide. These ideas can be associated with gothic literature. Gothic literature are pieces of literature where the main ideas are acts of death or madness. “The House of Asterion” by Jorge Luis Borges has elements of gothic literature that portray loneliness that lead the main character to madness. Another piece of literature that portrays these elements is the prologue to “The Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison. These two gothic literatures have characters that go through madness and maybe even death.

    The Minotaur, who is also the narrator, from “The House of Asterion” is trapped in a labyrinth all by himself. He tells us his story, but for all we know he is telling himself this story because he is alone. As stated in the story “I crouch in the shadow of a pool or around a corner and pretend I am being followed.”, here you can see that him being alone has brought him to pretend things so he doesn’t feel alone. This leads to him say “that some day my redeemer would come”. He comes to the realization that his life isn’t worth much and that could be due to the fact that he is alone. The idea of someone making up imaginary people is for the insane, which is caused by the Minotaur’s loneliness. Even though in the story it is mentioned that the Minotaur can leave the labyrinth, people are afraid of him and run away from him, and this can make anyone feel alone.

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? What is truly similar is the two main characters as well as the gothic elements the two stories share. What similarities do these characters share, what gothic elements do these two very different stories share, and what element is used to help the reader feel sympathetic for these characters.  We will take a look at gothic elements such as Central gothic irony, Todorov’s theory of the fantastic, irony, redemption, and paradox. 

            THA is about Asterion (a minotaur) who is unaware that he is 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 of 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 we are introduced to main 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 does not seem to mind his situation and also does not seem to realize that he is a prisoner while the old man is not happy with his situation and is fully aware that he is a prisoner. At the end of THA, Asterion found freedom from his prison 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 and 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 some similarities that both characters and their stories shared, 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. Although Asterion was 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,” Asterion looked forward to his redemption at the hands of this mysterious man.

 The character Elisenda in story AVOMEW desired normalcy. 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, nor was he thrilled by the abuse he suffered by the townsfolk. Elisenda was happy when the old man with wings left her town, because to her, he was nothing more than an “annoyance in her life.” The gothic element of irony can be noticed in that statement considering how much money she has made 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 statement even more ironic.

Next we will take a look at Todorov’s theory of the fantastic in both stories. This theory hints that a story may go in the direction of the fantastic, the uncanny, or the marvelous. The fantastic is the questioning of the supernatural, the uncertainty of whether an event is indeed supernatural or if it can be explained by the laws of the world. The uncanny is the supernatural explained. The marvelous is the supernatural accepted as the supernatural.

            AVOMEW started out in the direction of the fantastic but then turned into the marvelous. AVOMEW had the minister (of god) who has tried to communicate with the angel but noticed that the angel did not speak their language nor did he match the majestic appearance in which they envisioned. The old man seemed far too human to be an angel, a human with disgusting wings (although they have never seen or met an angel before). It became a marvelous story when the spider with a maiden’s face was introduced and was wholly accepted by the townsfolks. 

THA seemed to be the uncanny when reading the beginning, but towards the end makes it apparent that it was the marvelous. THA seemed to explain the supernatural events, such as the townsfolks claiming that Asterion was a prisoner while Asterion himself claimed to not be a prisoner. Readers would assume that prisoners are locked up however, Asterion claimed that there were no locks to be found, thus Asterion can’t be a prisoner. This explains why Asterion believes he is not a prisoner. The paradox here is that Asterion was indeed a prisoner, but he was locked away in a maze, not behind a door, or in a cage. This explain why the townsfolks claimed Asterion to be a prisoner. At the end of the story, we come to find that supernatural creatures exist, and that Asterion himself is one of those creatures (which is why he was locked in the maze) which makes this the marvelous instead of the uncanny.

 Gothic elements were used to help the reader sympathize with the old man and Asterion.  In AVOMEW 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, which is a 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.” 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, made a circus act out of, and extorted, this made it very easy for me as a reader to sympathize greatly with the old man.            

            In THA, 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, 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.” 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 in fact a minotaur. I found it weird that although the townsfolks treat Asterion as nothing more than a monster, Borges humanizes Asterion throughout this short story. The fact that Borges made Asterion seem so human, helped me to sympathize with Asterion. This story used the gothic element of dramatic irony to showcase 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?” My knowledge as a reader made me sympathize with him, for the fact that he is but a frog in the well.

Tyler Queylin

Midterm Essay, English 2001

October 16, 2020                                           

Midterm Essay Draft

            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 lady who had just died and the story 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 characters that William Faulkner and Shirley Jackson use in their stories are quite similar, of course both stories have different plots but the similarities of the characters portray the use of the same gothic elements and techniques in their own stories.

            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.

Directions:

Students should post your draft the Midterm Essay here (minimum 250 words).  Make sure to:

1–Provide your full name and title

2–The essay should be begin by identifying the characters, stories, author names that you will explore.

3–Then students should reveal the gothic terms to be used as a frame.

4–Students should write a clear thesis and method statement.

5–Before moving to the comparison/analysis, students should provide a 1-2 sentence summary of the stories in a way that makes the comparison valid.

6–This is a formal assignment, so please proofread and use a spell/grammar check.