The Whole Thing

Men write history. Men are history. Every significant event that has been recorded by western culture in the last 10,000 years has been documented and retold by men. Even the authors of the pieces we read in class have a 2:1 ratio of men to women. That's why, if I had to sum up this class in one word, it would be patriarchy. There are a few themes that prevalent in most of the pieces we studied, but check this out:

On Witchcraft: Women, mostly, are being accused of giving there allegiance to Satan and are being hanged in public. By men.

Women's Indian Captivity Narratives: The men of colonial England are raping the land of the natives, and the male natives are fighting back by taking the colonial natives into their society.

Conquest of New Spain: Men travel to a new land across the sea because they have run out of useful land to rape. Then they flex their muscles and destroy an entire civilization.

The Coquette: A woman must force herself to choose between two men, while the men choose whomever they want as often as they want. Then the woman dies alone and abandoned.

Self-reliance: There is not really much going on woman-wise, but this is still a piece that looks to shy away from the patriarchal ideals in place. And it's good.

Civil Disobedience: But this one's better-- because it outright rejects the ideals rather than nudging them away.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave-girl: This is initially read as a slave narrative, but is really about being a woman in the slavery system. The important word in the title is "girl" not "slave." “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women” (218).

In the Heart of the Sea: A bunch of smelly dudes board a ship to go murder a giant sea creature. 'Nuff said.

Edgar Allan Poe: He's a guy and lots of his stories are about dying women.

Dickinson: This girl was the voice of the counterculture with regard to patriarchy.

So it's obvious that the first part of American history was completely dominated by men and their ideals, but now we're better off. Just kidding. It's still there. Look at everything that is still sexist after the women's rights movements: Cheerleading, Laundry commercials, marriage, television, my grandpa, etc.

And all of the things that are still pillars of a male society: Professional sports, cars, porn, beer, advertising, Chuck Norris, and television.

Certainly we have taken a few steps, but there is still work to be done. It is nice to know that things are getting progressively better and not progressively worse, though. In this class we have gone from hanging witches and destroying civilizations to writing love poems, so something should be said for that.

emily dickinson (for real)

My apologies for the previous post. That was a list of all the things Emily Dickinson loves about marriage. But really, I hit the return key instead of the tab key. Woops.
Anyway, Emily Dickinson was a crazy. But only because she was so intelligent. Historical figures who have ideas that seem to apply perfectly to modern times have an overwhelming tendency to be overlooked in their own. After watching the wild documentary on Tuesday, I kind of thought about what Dickinson must have been like. After meditating on it randomly for about a week, this is what I have come up with:
In order to write poetry that is as truly revealing as Dickinson's, one must truly know himself/herself. In order to truly know oneself, you should spend as much time with yourself as possible. And clearly this is what Dickinson did. Now the question becomes that of the chicken or the egg: Did Emily isolate herself in order to know herself and her poetry. or did her obsession with poetry drive her to an extreme state of introversion? I am only educated on Miss Dickinson's condition to the extent of what I have learned in class, but this seems like a situation in which a vicious cycle could be at work. What I imagine (which is not necessarily true, but probably plausible -- as I am right often) is that Emily grew up with an introvert personality, which led her to express herself more through poetry than through conversation. And as she found more comfort in expressing her feelings, she became more invested in her work, which drove her further down the path of isolation as others were simultaneously drifting away from her.
And let's be honest, Emily was still living in a very patriarchal society. It's not like she could say, I'm tired of home, I'm going to go be an accountant. That stuff doesn't fly then. Either she marries someone and has his kids and tends the home, or she stays unmarried and tends the home. That would be enough to drive anyone mad. But again, I don't think she's mad, just a little introverted.

emily dickinson

e. a. poe

Poe is kind of a one-trick pony. I had a huge man-crush for Poe in the eight grade, but I haven't read much of him since then. Turns out, he wrote the same story a hundred times.
What is the definition of insanity? Well, I heard once that it is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I don't know if he was expecting something different, but Edgar certainly repeated himself quite a bit.
It's the classic gothic love story over and over again. Boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl. Boy murders girl. Boy blames girl. Give him some credit, though. He did change it up a bit. In the "Tell-tale Heart" boy murders another boy, and boy murders a few animals in "The Black Cat" too.
And while we're on the subject of "The Black Cat," I should tie in a personal story. When I was a bit younger my family got a new kitten.

No, not like that one. She was completely black and had green eyes. As we argued over the name for a few days a white spot began to fill in on her chest. Oddly enough, it somewhat resembled a gallows. Since we could not find a suitable name within the short story, we ended up calling her Poe. Two months later she began to kill birds outside. Her first was a raven.
Anyway, Edgar has a certain fascination with the dead that I find interesting. I am not a regular opium abuser, but I know that Poe was. And I know that these kinds of people in literary history (opium addicts) often have wild opium-induced visions of some kind. Thus, I think that Poe is being taught incorrectly in classrooms. Think what kind of an effect a Dare Officer could have on children if (s)he used these short stories as propaganda: Listen kids, I know that drugs seem like something cool and rebellious to do, but if you do them then you will dismember an old man and bury his remains in the floorboards underneath you. Then when the cops show up, you will be so whacked out that you will confess your crime and then go to jail.

In the Heart of the Sea

I would like to take this opportunity to rescind my response to Jesse and Brandi's exercise. I had initially said that I would rather be the killer than the killed in a situation similar to the one that the men of the Essex had experienced. However, I had not yet eaten when the question was posed and so I feel that my judgment was clouded. Taking the philosophical approach that Blaise Pascal did with regard to his belief in God's existence, I came up with this:

If I am the killed, I am going to die. Whether or not the rest of my shipmates are saved is unimportant because I am dead.

If I am the killer, I am going to eat my fellow shipmate, prolong the misery of my suffering for a few a days and then either join the ranks of the dead or be rescued and go back home so everyone can whisper about what I have done while I struggle to recuperate.

After thinking about it in the context of the sufferers of the Essex, I would much rather be put out of my misery. Then I can know that I perhaps saved someone's life and ended my suffering at the same time. Even if eating someone saved my life, there would still be an overwhelming burden on me for the rest of my life; not to mention the awful struggles to regain my health.

And many people seem to think that this narrative is a departure from what we have been reading in class; that we have been tackling patriarchal and societal issues. But you must admit that there is nothing more patriarchal than a ship full of dudes. For me, the novel splits up into two very compelling reads. First, there is the introduction before the men go out to sea, which explains in detail the way of life that the Nantucketers had. Then there is the awful tragedy of running out of food and eating your buddies. Again, if this is not a social issue, then I don't know what is. Maybe it could fall under biological science, but the definition of sociology is the study of a society. And the crew of the Essex was a small society. Which ate each other. Study that.