“Nothing was happening.”

From Oedipa’s first encounter with Metzger, she was setting herself up for an affair. She was surprised by the lawyer’s looks: “[h]e turned out to be so good-looking that Oedipa thought at first They, somebody up there, were putting here on.” She was persuaded by the idea that “somebody up there,” perhaps a God-like figure, was in control on this situation and therefore waved a sign of approval to act upon her feelings. Her encounter with Metzger is far less formal than a client-lawyer relationship; their games blur the line between business and flirtation. After making a bet, Metzger takes “her hand as if to shake on the bet and kissing its palm instead, sending the dry end of his tongue to graze briefly among her fate’s furrows…” This daring move on the part of Metzger reaffirms Oedipa’s “fate” set up by “somebody up there.”

Later, Metzger asks is Oedipa was close to Pierce and she quickly responds “No.” Metzger cannot claim innocence on with this question - it’s obvious he’s Oedipa’s lawyer to help her claim Pierce’s “domicile and headquarters”. What kind of relationship would one have to have in order to be granted such a large piece of property? Perhaps Metzger knows that power seduces Oedipa.

Contrary to the powerhouses Oedipa is attracted to, her husband, Mucho, is just “trying to believe in his job.” He was sad to see his wife leave town at the beginning of the second chapter, “but not desperate.” Such a feeling would require the level of emotion expressed only by a lover. Oedipa’s actual affair with Pierce and Metzger and flirtatious nature with others (such as the Paranoid band member and hotel manager, Miles) signal her own desperation to have “something happen” in life. As she drove into San Narciso, she claimed “nothing was happening” at the time. Wanting to stir this up a bit, she eagerly fell into the arms of Metzger.

At the end of the second chapter, as she looked into the broken mirror, Oedipa saw herself shattered and broken into many fragments. These fragments represented the many layers and pieces of Oedipa. Even as she layered on clothing for the inappropriate “strip” game with Metzger, she hid deeper from her own fragmented reality.

The Crying of Lot 49

Oedipa Maas finds herself, in the first chapter, in a mess of memories triggered by the receipt of a letter claiming she had been named executor of the estate of her former boyfriend, Pierce Inverarity. She “stood in the living room, stared at by the greenish dead eye of the TV tube, spoke the name of God, tried to feel as drunk as possible” in order to escape the reality and of the situation. A present theme so far in this chapter is the process of mental thoughts disrupted by other influences, in this case: TV, God, and alcohol. Later in the chapter, other characters experience or prescribe something that disturbs the mind. Mucho Maas’ former job as a used-car salesman was noted in the novel with hints to psychological malfunctioning: “…he could never accept the way each owner, each shadow, filed in only to exchange a dented, malfunctioning version of himself for another, just as futureless, automotive projection of somebody’s else’s life.” Oedipa suggests that her husband was not quite right in the head and has since left the lot. He is currently working at the west coast radio station KCUF, reversed to spell fuck.

Pychon’s interplay with words in this chapter cleverly disguises the intent of the original word. Was the novel named after the used-car lot Maas worked at and was confused by his own reality? The latter word play suggests the tone of sexuality that is pervasive throughout the book. The first chapter hits on many of Oedipa’s relationships she’s had and continues to thwart advances from Roseman, her lawyer on the estate case. The relationship with the psychiatrist Dr. Hilarious (an odd name, perhaps a state induced by the drugs he prescribes), is not healthy in that he reaches out to her needs. Instead he recommends the use of illicit drugs to further distant herself from needs. “I’m having a hallucination now, I don’t need drugs for that,” she tells him. This first chapter seems to create scenarios in which reality is confused with many different memories, interrupted by bouts of drunkenness or drug-use, influenced by God and the TV tube, and internally corrupted by mental illness.

One particular image that confuses Oedipa is the painting of a triptych with “prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void” and hung in an exhibition of paintings by Remedios Varo in Mexico City. Oedipa’s reaction to this painting is tearful and full of sorrow. She recognizes that, like the frail girls trapped as prisoners in a tower, she too finds the want to escape her own life and does so engaging in relationships with other men and tampering in reality with influences that separate her further from her situation.

There Was a Queen

"She had not wondered where they were going, nor why, as a white woman would have wondered. But she was half-black, and she just watched the white woman..."

Faulkner inserts this line in There Was a Queen to either a) make a point regarding historical notions of the assumed capabilities of women or b) explicitly mark how untrue such beliefs of these women were. Elnora, a black servant portrayed in this short story, is anything but non-judgmental. She does claim on page 729 that “…it’s her business where she going,” in reference to Narcissa. “Same as it is her business how come she went off to Memphis, leaving Miss Jenny setting yonder in her chair without nobody buy niggers to look after her.” This statement questions indirectly Narcissa’s purpose to visit Memphis, although Elnora conceals this by claiming it’s not her business. Elnora does not like Narcissa and thinks that the family is better off without her since she will never be a Sartoris and doesn’t contribute much to the care of her dead husband’s great-aunt.

The concept of roles, beyond that of color roles (as in a white woman should behave like this or a black woman can’t think like this), permeates into the family. Caring for an older relative, even the great-aunt of your deceased husband, is preferred over leaving them with another care-taker (especially from that of another race). It is used to measure the worth and integrity of the younger relative. Yet, in this story, Narcissa sought after her own integrity. She was hiding from letters in the past that would dishonor her integrity today. Narcissa felt that she would be vulnerable to every man whose eyes read the words in the letters. She tried to protect her name and was not so much invested in protecting the name of her husband’s family, thus abandoning her role at home. In doing so, she was judged harshly by Elnora, a woman who also suffers from many doubts of her capacity. The truth of one’s capacity or role in a situation is hardly truthful from an outside perspective. Historical notions of women and their roles were often threatened by the reality of the situation.

Loveliness Lost in Anticipation

Williams, a physician-poet from the modern period 1910-1945 demonstrates in two poems the power of the mind. In Portrait of a Lady, Williams portrays a conversation between a man and a woman in praise of her loveliness and sexual appeal to the man. Williams embraces descriptions of her thighs, knees, and ankles, as if the man’s eyes descend down her body. The essayist Mordecai Marcus comments on their playful conversation, jumping from the man’s initial rejection in conversation with the woman to her inquisitive nature which propels their discussion. “With “the sand clings to my lips” the man accepts a tentative and self-mocking defeat, the sand representing her success at warding off his incipient physical gesture.” Williams values the man’s need to find composure in their exchange in “ah, yes” or simple hints at frustration in sounds like “agh.” The reality of his portrayal of initial attraction and sexual appeal generates feelings of the ascent and the occasional descent of this relationship as it seems to have a loveliness associated with Williams’ style.

The Descent, a visual expression of Williams’ later grasp on gaining something from losing is a jagged representation of loving in the anticipation of something great. The connection of Portrait of a Lady with the (perhaps evitable) descent of their relationship is expressed in this later poem. Was the man in the first poem is challenged with the love he once sought after and is later portrayed as recovering from “what [was] lost in the anticipation?” Essayist Carl Rapp claims that “Williams finds a similar way of looking at defeat and loss that enables him to see those negative experiences as positive ones with implications not yet “realized.” Perhaps the relationship formed in Portrait of a Lady was short-lived and later visualized in The Descent. Though what was gained in memory was lost in desire: “grow[s] sleepy now and drop[s] away from desire.” Sexually, an ‘ascent’ is naturally met with a ‘descent’ from pleasure and Williams captures, if anything, the memory of a lady whose “thighs [were] appletrees” with an “endless and indestructible” feeling.

Tainted Love

Kate Chopin’s Désirée’s Baby superficially portrays the protagonist Désirée as woman who seems to measure her worth by the love and acceptance of her husband. “When he frowned, she trembled, but loved him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But Armand’s dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in love with her.” Armand Aubigny, Désirée’s husband, rejects his wife and their child for their ‘color’ as a result of hatred of his own darkened skin. Désirée is gravely offended when Armand claims “that the child is not white; it means that you are not white.”

By the end of this short story, the audience is aware that it actually means Armand is not white. As a plantation owner set above slaves, Armand himself unknowingly “belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery.” This truth was never revealed to Armand since he did not know his black mother. His own reality falsely projected onto his wife leaves her with no reason to believe his accusation. “It is a lie; it is not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you know they are gray.” Then drawing an empirical comparison to that of her husband’s skin claims, “Look at my hand; whiter than yours Armand,” and then “laughed hysterically.” Her whiteness juxtaposed against his darkness made him more aware of his color by her comparison. The mockery of his own wife perpetuates Armand’s embarrassment, fulfilled by the birth of his son. The child of Armand and Désirée was the realization of their love and their genes mixed together, producing the mulatto child which Armand despised.

Désirée, in the end, seems to have felt Armand’s rejection of his own skin in the form of unrequited love. But Chopin strongly indicates that Désirée’s own happiness was threatened the greatest by Armand’s accusation that she was black. “My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me that I am not white. For God’s sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy, and live.” This reveals the sad truth that the threat of darkness in Désirée’s skin is more disturbing to her than the failure of her own marriage.

Tracing Freedom

In Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the main character Huck is juxtaposed with a slave named Jim. Their pursuit for freedom differs from their motivation and experience. The great Mississippi River is a powerful force of water that represents much of the freedom both Jim and Huck jointly feel as they float down the river. It doesn’t divide their experiences but reinforces the power the water has over them in controlling their movements and final designation. But away from the water left unguarded by civilized forces, the two find themselves facing differing motivations for seeking freedom. Huck seeks freedom from the ‘sivilzation’ attempt by Miss Watson who would say, “Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;” and “don’t scrunch up like that, Huckleberry – set up straight!” Much of Huck’s reason for jumping at the chance of an adventure stems from his desire to be free from the constraints of a society that placed him in the care of Miss Watson.

Jim’s freedom is from a traditional of slavery that marks the man by the color of his skin and the amount of labor he’s capable of. Jim’s price for freedom comes at a higher cost than Huck’s boyish flee from Miss Watson. In Chapter 37, Tom Sawyer, the adventurous and imaginative friend of Huck Finn, speaks to Jim: “Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting, and they wouldn’t think of hurting another person that pets them.” Tom continues later on about the importance of prisoners having rats: “But, Jim, you got to have ‘em – they all do. So don’t make no more fuss about it. Prisoners ain’t ever without rats. There ain’t on instance of it. And they train them, and pet them, and learn them tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies.” This conversation tends to 1) promote the image of man as superior to animal, 2) animals cared for would never hurt their owner, and 3) humans can teach animals, even rats, to go against their nature and become that which the human demands and trains of it.

Slavery, in its rough nature, takes a grown man and forces him against his nature to serve others before himself. Is Jim being compared to the very rat Tom Sawyer suggests he trains and “learn them tricks?” Jim seeks freedom from a world of servitude to others with a price sticker on his head. Huck, feeling imprisoned like a rat having to learn new tricks, despises the world of rules and etiquette. His real imprisonment was with his father kept him in the cabin. “He always locked the door and put the key under his head, nights.” Despite this cruelty, Huck describes “laying comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study.” The very freedom Huck sought after was a state of his own imprisonment.

The freedoms sought after in the Adventure of Huckleberry Finn demonstrate the motivation and experience in the characters Huck and Jim.

This is the Hour of Lead - Remembered, if outlived!

Dickinson’s words describe the body’s response to a shocking, emotionally painful event. This event could be anything humans find to be the cause of great suffering. The timeless portrayal of pain response is likened to that of Christ’s suffering in the first stanza, the ultimate suffering which bore the since the sins of the world. The first stanza writes “The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, and Yesterday, or Centuries before?” The pain in which the authors writes happened the day before and is questioned to have been one of the sins of the world that Christ died for, just as the sins/pain of centuries before. This reaffirms the timelessness of pain, in that it is blind to each generation and spares none. The readers understand the pain which Dickinson describes which will be remembered, only “if outlived.” The survivorship seems unlikely at the time of a painful event, but eventually the pain subsides and the “great pain” becomes a memory.

In psychology, we learn that the body’s response to a painful loss is depression, which removes your ability to function normally, often limiting your mobility. It is for this that we protect ourselves. If, after a painful event, we continue to carry out our daily tasks, we are more of a danger to ourselves because of an intense distraction and our reduced ability to reason. Dickson gives a somber detailed look at the body’s own reaction to the pain. “The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs.” Biologically, our nerves synapse at a rate that gives us the ability to move, think, and feel. If the nerves, cold and awaiting death like “tombs,” react in this manner to an emotional pain, how do nerves function after a physical blow – pain which uses the sympathetic system to alert the body to flee from a dangerous situation and more importantly, requires the body the heal itself. The parasympathetic system controls the restful states of the body, perhaps the one in which Dickinson describes in the first stanza.

Beat! Beat! Drums!

I agree with Neely in his claim that Whitman saw the Civil War as primarily about union, not emancipation. According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, Whitman came to see the war as a necessary step in nation-building. He admired Abraham Lincoln and later mourned his death with the elegy “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd” and the minor but famous “O Captain! My Captain!” (Wikipedia). If great influences in Whitman’s life are reflected in his poetry, the void of mentioning the Emancipation Proclamation would anticipate criticism from Civil War Historians, like Mark Neely. Perhaps he saw the executive order as a means of restoring the union which affirmed his humanist philosophy on the worth and dignity of all people (Wikipedia).

“Beat! Beat! Drums!” depicts the Civil War as challenging all people of the nation to rise up and hear the beat of the drum. No one can escape the sound of the drum; “Beat! beat! drums! -- blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows -- through doors -- burst like a ruthless force, [i]nto the solemn church, and scatter the congregation, [i]nto the school where the scholar is studying.” The Civil War tested the strength of the entire nation, divided by two. “Make no parley -- stop for no expostulation” recognizes the different voices in the war and tests the character of the American people to “[m]ind not the timid -- mind not the weeper or prayer, [m]ind not the old man beseeching the young man, [l]et not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties.” Despite natural tendencies to sympathize with the aforementioned, war tears at every soul in the nation. “So strong you thump O terrible drums -- so loud you bugles blow.” These terrible drums steal peace from the nation and rob people of our decency.

Whitman’s perspective in “Beat! Beat! Drums!” speaks to everyone in the nation and does not use illusions to describe the influence the war has on the union. In Timrod’s “The Cotton Boll,” the cotton ball is linked to the earth (from which it came) and a bird pulls the narrator up into the sky to view the confederacy. This view is difficult for the reader to understand since it challenges normal perception of the world. It is more easily understood by the reader in Whitman’s poem that the sound the drums beat at the heart of everyone in the nation, including the dead. “Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses.”

There is a sense of nationalism in both Timrod and Whitman’s poem. Timrod describes “In offices like these, thy mission lies, My Country! And it shall not end as long as rain shall fall and Heaven bend in blue above thee.” The notion of “My Country” is great and he later describes that war is hard, but worth it to fight for. In Whitman’s poem, the nation is not directly described, the people who make up the nation are. I feel there is a greater humanist view portrayed in Beat! Beat! Drums! in that it personalizes the war and the toll it takes on the people. The strength of a great nation is tested in Whitman’s depiction of the war and yet Timrod exclaims “Oh, help us, Lord! to roll the crimson flood back on its course, and, while our banners wing Northward, strike with us!” Timrod’s perspective is more aggressive and begs the Lord to take sides. Whitman depicts a passive role that individuals play in hearing the sound of the drum instead of beating the drums themselves.

"Seguid Vuestro Jefe"

Translation: Follow your leader. It seems that by the end of the story, Benito Cereno's death follows behind his leader, "the negro Babo." This conflicts with previously accepted notions of black slaves who follow the command of their white masters. Throughout the story, Melville portrays a scenario feared by whites at the time, in which the Spaniards are killed off by the slaves and the ship's command is switched and ruled by the fear invoked in Captain Delano. The concept of 'leader' is challenged as an outsider, Captain Delano, recognizes 'unjust' treatment by the slaves against the Spanish aboard the San Dominick. A white leader at the time would never have allowed such behavior by the slaves to have occured without punishment.

The significance of this text and the view Melville portrays the slaves as capable and intelligent beings who should be considered a force to be reckoned with. This is not an attempt to portray solely the evil tendencies of slaves, but rather their ability to conspire and take-over a situation in favor of their needs. In the case of Captain Cereno, he cautiously feigned sickness or mental instability in an effort to protect the life of Captain Delano, while at the ruthless hand of Babo. After reading the text, there are many indicators that Babo was in control. He never left Delano and Cereno alone; he used the razor as a tool of threat and obedience by drawing blood during Cereno’s daily shave; and he portrayed a strong character unlike other depictions of slaves, always catching the fainting Cereno. This last point draws interest in the audience since the slaves were not typically seen to be the kind of support Babo gave to Cereno. Qualities of friendship were quickly gauged by Delano though not seen to be initial indicators of a reversed role of control.

The reader is challenged by Melville's approach to the slaves. Though Babo does not hesitate to kill Aranda, the Spanish leader of the ship and take over, ordering the murder of most of the Spanish aboard, he is meant to be portrayed as a capable leader, ruthless though he may be. His intelligence far outweighs the assumed white leaders, Cereno and Delano. He is able to fool Delano into believing Cereno's tale and invokes a fear in Cereno that diminishes his ability to lead and protect the interests of the Spanish aboard the ship. Cereno is in some ways identified as the "black slave" and by the end, follows his leader of the story, Babo.

Tracing Blackness in Hawthorne and His Mosses

After reading Toni Morrison’s literary criticism Playing in the Dark, I became sensitive to the use of blackness in author’s works. Morrison discussed the theory that historically, white male authors simply ignored the role of the ‘Africanist’ in their works. But Morrison began to read the works again from the standpoint of the writer to understand better the use of blackness. On closer inspection, she began to “contemplate how Africanist personae, narrative, and idiom moved and enriched the text in self-conscious ways, to consider what the engagement meant for the work of the writer’s imagination” (15-16).
In Melville’s Hawthorne and His Mosses, is there an explicit reference to the mystery of blackness, especially in the line “but this darkness but gives more effect to the ever-moving dawn, that forever advances through it, and circumnavigates his world.” This generates the idea that blackness and Hawthorne’s whiteness are both necessary and critical to the other’s existence. Hawthorne’s use of lights and shades interplays between light and darkness, hinting at perhaps a “Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original Sin.”
Morrison explains how “whiteness, alone, is mute, meaningless, unfathomable, pointless, frozen, veiled, curtained, dreaded, senseless, implacable.” (pg. 59). Without darkness, light has no meaning. Without sin, grace is not something sought after. The use of blackness in Hawthorne’s works places an extreme emphasis on the unknown. “But there is the blackness of darkness beyond; and even his bright gildings but fringe, and play upon the edges of thunder-clouds.” This unknown, or the darkness that sin plays on the soul as well an in the world, is perpetuated in Hawthorne’s use of blackness in the darkness.

In response...

I trust that Mercy Otis Warren is using this piece as a form of propaganda since this passage seeks to anger the audience and take explicit control over their viewpoint. The character Meagre is unwavering and bold in his comments and readers would have little difficulty understanding the message between the lines. Meagre is explicitly noting the root evil behind the work of the British and those who support their rule, i.e. the Tories. “I curse the senate which defeats our bribes,

Who Halzerod impeached for the same crime. I hate the people, who, no longer gulled, See through the schemes of our aspiring clan…” This passage forces the reader to question why he should hate those no longer gulled. What games are the British and loyal supporters playing on those ‘gulled’ enough to blindly accept their schemes? Further down in the passage, Meagre speaks directly against the streak of goodness which runs through the world, “that warms the heart, and feeds the manly glow.” The idea that people inherently can love one another and strive for equal liberty, a basic capacity and need of our shared humanity, is crucial for a ruling body to support and practice. Without such understanding, the ruling overhead would crush down on those beneath them and fail to acknowledge the goodness inherently in man. In Meagre’s speech, it seems that he too was once possessed the ‘manly glow’ which has since lost its luster. He comments on how he “hated Brutus for his noble stand,” which seems innately contradictory to the rest of this passage in that Brutus murdered his close friend and once ally Caesar. Perhaps Meagre (figuratively) stabbed the back of a friend in pushing an agenda that plays on the support of fools and has since regretted his actions. But then, a second look at the cause of Brutus’ actions supports the idea he stood up against a ruling force, therefore playing the part of rebel. As Roman senators began to fear the rise of power of Caesar, following his appointment as dictator for life, Brutus joined the conspiracy against him (Wikipedia).

“Could we erase these notions from their minds,

Then (paramount to these ideal whims,

Utopian dreams, of patriotic virtue,

Which long has danced in their distempered brains).”

This again supports the notion that it is inherent in mankind to love one another and strive for equal liberty. To trick the supporters of British rule is the only way to overcome the innate goodness that runs through each of us. Meagre, once susceptible to his desire for equality in the world, has “plunged in darkness, slavery and vice” and therefore lost the ability to love and support the right cause. Yet, he mocks, somewhat jealously, those that stand up against the oppressors of a noble cause.

The Group, by Mercy Otis Warren

From Act II, Scene iii

Meagre: Let not thy soft timidity of heart
Urge thee to terms, until the last stake is thrown.
It is not my temper ever to forgive,
When once resentment's kindled to my breast.
I hated Brutus for his noble stand
Against the oppressors of his injured country.
I hate the leaders of these restless factions,
For all their generous efforts to be free.
I curse the senate which defeats our bribes,
Who Halzerod impeached for the same crime.
I hate the people, who, no longer gulled,
See through the schemes of our aspiring clan,
And from the rancor of my venomed mind,
I look askance on all the human race,
And if they're not to be appalled by fear,
I wish the earth might drink that vital stream
That warms the heart, and feeds the manly glow,
The love inherent, planted in the breast,
To equal liberty, conferred on man,
By him who formed the peasant and the King!
Could we erase these notions from their minds,
Then (paramount to these ideal whims,
Utopian dreams, of patriotic virtue,
Which long has danced in their distempered brains).
We'd smoothly glide on midst a race of slaves,
Nor heave one sigh though all the human race
Were plunged in darkness, slavery and vice.
If we could keep our foothold in the stirrup,
And, like the noble Claudia of old,
Ride over the people, if they don't give way;
Or with their fates were all involved in one;
For I've a Brother, as the Roman dame
Who would strike off the rebel neck at once.

Poor Richard's Almanac

In Part III of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, Franklin concentrates on his achievements and industry within the society, compared to his style and intent in the preceding parts of the biography. Whereas Part I explored his personal life and upbringing and Part II highlighted virtues for the sake of utility and benefit to society as opposed to being virtuous for the glory of God, Part III seems to list his contributions to society. It seems that Franklin has drifted from his original intention to record his life story for his son to solidify his memory as a founding father in America's history. Franklin explicitly writes in the first paragraph of Part I in a letter to his son “having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world…” and yet expresses superiority later in Part III on page 95 when he degrades his own by labeling the Poor Richard’s Almanac as “a proper vehicle for conveying instructions among the common people.”

Does this suggest that Benjamin Franklin has forgotten that he too emerged from the lower classes of society? It was by his hard work, determination, and virtuousness that propelled Franklin from poverty to fame. His intent to publish Poor Richard’s Almanac under a pseudonym strikes me as if he cannot include his own name next to something as common as an almanac “scarce any neighborhood in the province being without it.” Seemingly, Franklin would benefit from the fame of having his name attached to such a household item. But perhaps his reason for publishing it under a different name is a bold statement cutting the bridge from his upbringing to his celebratory status.

While he profited greatly from the almanac, his superiority would grant him a second intent in the publication: the ability to impose his thoughts on virtue within the common people. On page 95, Franklin says “I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurr’d between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality, as the means of procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue.” Franklin, in Part I in the same letter to his son, he comments on “having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the conducing means I made use of, which with the blessing of God so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.” Imitation of Franklin’s entertaining and useful proverbs may improve the status of “common people” by demonstrating his virtues as a measure of success and a means to prosperity.

Though Franklin identifies himself as separate from the lower ranks of society by publishing the almanac under a different name, he still has the greater good of the public at heart and seeks to inform them of ways to alleviate their poverty and obscurity through hard work, determination, and a virtuous nature.

"Religion"

From Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, I’d like to explore the value of religion and curiosity as a part of the declaration of rights from the convention of May 1776 as applied to our current system.

If the ability to exercise religion as a free and natural right is protected, one should not be labeled heretical if their beliefs contradict that of the majority. Jefferson mentions several acts of the Virginia assembly of 1659, 1662, and 1693, which condemned parents refusing to have their children baptized. Later in 1705, “if a person brought up in the Christian religion denies the being of God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are more Gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to hold any office or employment ecclesiastical, civil, or military; on the second by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor, or administrator, and by three years imprisonment, without bail.” This seems shocking to me that prior to the declaration of rights in May 1776, the refusal to follow the legislative ruling on religion would result in the above punishment.

Naturally, I’m comparing my own current understanding of the separation between church and state to that of Jefferson’s time period. Often, we are limited by comparing current knowledge and understanding of the times to literature from a different historical perspective. Yet, much of Jefferson’s commentary on the need for free enquiry and curiosity is warranted from his own historical understanding of the Roman government and the introduction to Christianity or later from the area of reformation to purge the corruptions of Christianity. Therefore, we should be able to apply the need for such ‘deviant’ curiosity from Jefferson’s time to better our own society. He admits that “it does [him] no injury for [his] neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god.”

To permit the ability of free thinkers to explore will purge our current system of corruption, not just within the church, but also within structures of oppression that perpetuate inequity in our society. Uniformity of opinion is not desirable, but the ability to think for oneself to challenge the current perceptions will free our minds and protect the free and natural rights granted by the convention of May 1776.

A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, Shown to be Both Scriptual and Rational Doctrine

I would like to explore the philosophical implications of this work, a sermon by Jonathan Edwards. It was strongly suggested throughout the text that those who are blessed are the objects of God's distinguishing love. Since God is the natural author of all things, he therefore maintains the right to reveal himself, by means of divine light, to humans. This divine light is not necessarily reserved men of great statue or literacy in society:

"...[F]or if this knowledge were dependent on natural causes or means, how came it to pass that they, a company of poor fishermen, illiterate men, and persons of low education, attained to the knowledge of truth; while the Pharisees, men of vastly higher advantages, and greater knowledge and sagacity in other matters, remained in ignorance?"

Those whose minds are full with "spiritual pollution" cannot perceive the divine excellency of God's light because their human capabilities and senses are blocked. Just as through human faculties we are able to perceive the light of the sun and other sensory input, God must reveal himself to us through our human senses. But, this divine light is not obtained by natural means. God is above nature in that he created it. In creating nature, God has the ability to choose any human creature able to receive his spiritual wisdom and grace. In doing this, Edwards suggesting that God bestows his knowledge on whom he will, leaving others in the dark. This elitist form of selection prevents all of God's human creations from receiving the light which “effectually influences the inclination, and changes the nature of the soul.”

Introduction

This is my first public blog! I'm excited to be enrolled in English 122 and hope that it'll be a great semester. As an introduction, I'm a senior psychology major and am currently seeking to find an answer to a very popular question: "What are you doing next year?" (Hence the photograph of me looking through a telescope in Quebec City, Canada.) I spent the last few weeks traveling the region of New England with friends (through Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Canada). I've discovered that you can travel to far away places, but never know the comforts of your own backyard (or in this case, North America). I would like to re-discover America, starting with the literature of authors, poets, journalists, and scientists from the early Puritan years, throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th century. My hope is that through their works and their interpretation of the places I now call home, I will better understand my roots. I'm an energetic spirit and want to make the most out of each day. I enjoy photography, cooking with Rachel Ray, traveling the world, the outdoors, working for social justice, and being with friends. "Be the change you want to see in the world" (Mahatma Gandhi).