Short Passage from Hard Times

The passage that we would like to elaborate on in this week’s blog post is that of the horses on the wall and flowers for a carpet dialogue from the second chapter of Charles Dickens’s Hard Times. In this chapter we are introduced to Mr. Gradgrind. He is a very fact-oriented man and a very “proper” man. The passage about the horses and flowers starts off with Gradgrind asking Sissy (or as he calls her Cecilia) what her fathers does for a living. When she is describing that her father is a “horse-rider” Gradgrind waves it off as objectionable and has Bitzer define what a horse is in a “boy’s definition of a horse” (Dickens, 9). The scene goes on further to show that Gradgrind – among others – denies the idea of having horses papered on the walls. The justification for not liking the idea of papering horses onto the wall by saying, “Why, then, you are not to see anywhere, what you don’t see in fact; you are not to have anywhere, what you don’t have in fact. What is called Taste, is only another name for Fact” (Dickens, 11). Now the three of us all had the same thoughts to this whole passage, blasphemy! For these men (especially Gradgrind) to be so against someone putting horses on their walls or flowers as their carpets is just crazy. They completely take away a person’s sense of imagination and even their creativity by shutting their minds down to these ideas. To live a life that is just completely based on facts would lead to a terribly boring and unadventurous life. If one cannot put horses on the wall or flowers on the carpet if they so please, than what kind of mindset would we be giving to our kids. Take Bitzer for example, this kid is like a robot of everything parents seem to want. He is obedient, fact-driven, and just a total bore (in our opinions at least). It seems that he has no free will or desire to stray from the course like most kids do. But that is the way that kids learn and mature, so if we were to live our lives the way that Gradgrind seems to want us to in this passage than our world would be super uneventful and lame! We must instill the ideals of learning from one’s mistakes in order to develop into the respectful and mature adults that most people become! So we must continue to keep papering horses onto the walls and to lay our carpets with flowers!

The Tell-Tale Heart

As I read through Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart I couldn’t help but notice the obsession with madness.  The first very first sentence asks, “but why will you say I am mad?” (GASS 13).  Poe starts the story by with a question of madness that leads to the rest of the story.  I started the story by questioning the credibility of the narrator.  Why would I trust someone who isn’t sure if he is mad or not?  I feel like if someone is truly having to argue that they are not mad they are probably at least a little bit mad.  As the story continues it becomes clear that the narrator is mad.  It seems like it is important that the narrator proves his innocence.  He needs to make it clear that he isn’t mad and that his actions have no effect on him.  As the story continues it becomes blatantly obvious that the narrator is crazy.  He explains in detail how every night for a week he entered “the old man’s”, who I interpreted as his master, room and watched him sleep.  What kind of normal man would sneak into another man’s room at midnight each night to watch him sleep for hours.  The narrator had some kind of perverted fixation on the old man’s eye.  It drives him to kill the old man so that the eye won’t bother him anymore.  If that doesn’t say madness I don’t know what does.  It is completely crazy that someone would argue that they aren’t mad when an eyeball drives them to murder.  I found it interesting that in the first paragraph the narrator stated “The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them.” (GASS 13) and that the final reason the narrator goes crazy is the beating of the old man’s heart.  A heartbeat isn’t something that is easily heard so I found it ironic that the beating of the old man’s heart is what drove the narrator to commit murder.  If the disease had not strengthened the narrator’s senses he wouldn’t have been able to hear the heartbeat and it might not have driven him to murder the old man.  I think that irony is one of the main themes in this story, that is why Poe included the blurb about the narrator’s senses.  Had his senses not been better than usual he never would have heard the heartbeat after he had killed the old man.  Had he not been mad he might not have killed the man at all to begin with.  This is a great example of gothic literature because it is very ominous, very strange.  I liked all of the mystery that was included in this story.

Frankenstein's Monster is.....ALIVE!!!!

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a true classic in literature. The fact that it has spawned so many different parodies and run-offs just goes to show the impact that it has had on the world. This particular version of the book – being the very first one of the Frankenstein genre – was quite fascinating to us. To see where this creature was “born” from is truly unique. The back story that we learned today in class about this book’s true origin – about Shelley writing the book because her husband and his friends bet who could write the greatest horror book – makes the book that much better in our eyes. To know that she created this book in order to trump her husband is just fantastic!

The book itself was a masterpiece in and of itself. The way that Shelley portrayed Victor Frankenstein to be so wretched and horrible toward his own creation really made us think that he (Frankenstein) was the TRUE monster in this story. We all felt that Frankenstein’s monster was the victim in this story because all he wanted was to be accepted by society and to live a normal life. This is shown during “the monster’s” story when he lived in the mountains and studied the family that lived in exile next to him. “The monster” spent months studying these people – learning their language, studying their actions, and just gaining an overall understanding of human interaction. However, even after all his time over studying them and helping them out, when he finally went to them to ask for “protection,” they screamed in horror and starting fighting him. Although he felt despair from this, he still did not kill them even though he knew he could have. If feels to me that “the monster” really just wants to have the love and support of his creator – Victor Frankenstein. This is where the dilemma comes into play though because Frankenstein only sees his creature as a murdering monster. So it is ironic in a way because Frankenstein is so ruthless toward his creature that he ends up becoming a murderer (at least through association) and the monster just wants love and connection amongst others – so he is more human than his creator is (in some ways).

Throughout this book we all felt mixed emotions about both Frankenstein and the monster. We didn’t really know at all times who the protagonist and who the antagonist were. We feel that Shelley intentionally wrote the characters out to be this way so that it left their roles up for interpretation. We all loved that Shelley left them up for interpretation because we all were able to interpret the book differently which led us to have a great group discussion about it in class.

We as a group loved this book and are wanting to explore even more into Frankenstein, as well as the author Mary Shelley. We would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants a good read (horror or not).

BRING ON THE NEXT BOOK!

Blog Manifesto

R.E.S blog is all about the bass, no tremble. We delve deep into the works of Wordsworth, Douglass, Poe, and many more of the great poetic writers of the 19th century. If you love action, we got it. If you love romance, we got it. We got it all and we don't hold back. We're just three normal guys who tolerate poetry and blog about it! And we're the three best friends that anyone can have.