Comments for American Literature II

Comment on As I Lay Dying by Lacey Babekuhl

Lacey Babekuhl — Sat, 03 May 2008 21:02:59 +0000

I didn’t find this style of writing all that confusing, in fact I quite enjoyed it. It kept the reader alert as to who was talking, and probably caused me to pay more attention to the story and plot themselves. I would much rather read a novel in this style than in the traditional first person method.

Comment on Modernist Poetry by Lacey Babekuhl

Lacey Babekuhl — Sat, 03 May 2008 21:01:17 +0000

The modernist poetry we read for class was extremely well thought out and beautiful. I found it to be amazing in that it does challenge one to think more extensively than the normal “Roses are red violets are blue” poems. It wasn’t all about peace love and happiness, it was about causing the reader to call into question different things, which is something that people ranging all the way back to Aristotle have been doing.

Comment on My Antonia by Lacey Babekuhl

Lacey Babekuhl — Sat, 03 May 2008 20:58:39 +0000

I think it’s interesting to see how Cather uses memory in this novel to tell the story. It is intriguing to me because the story is completely one sided, as one person remembers it, we (the readers) don’t get a sense for what Antonia was truly thinking nor what provoked her actions.

Comment on Du Bois and Chesnutt by Lacey Babekuhl

Lacey Babekuhl — Sat, 03 May 2008 20:56:55 +0000

I thought the way that Du Bois portrayed African Americans was completely ironic and slightly unexpected. His representation of what Twain considered an uneducated dialect shocked many I’m sure since he has such a strong African background. Whether he did this to show society how they were harming their fellow Americans or for shear entertainment purposes is a question better left for someone else.

Comment on Daisy Miller by Lacey Babekuhl

Lacey Babekuhl — Sat, 03 May 2008 20:53:20 +0000

Compared to Huck’s persona as a typical American who just wants to be free and experience adventure, Daisy is what many consider the typical American girl. She’s inquisitive and desires just as much as huck does to be free and experience adventure. She’s naive though and doesn’t respect the rules of authority which puts in the little bit of American hutspah that many experience.

Comment on Huck Finn by Lacey Babekuhl

Lacey Babekuhl — Sat, 03 May 2008 20:50:41 +0000

I believe that the characters in the novel make it so controversial. Throughout the novel, you’re rooting for him to evolve and realize that the way in which he looks at Jim in the beginning is wrong. The reader desires for Huck to grow up. It is in this way that we are sucked into the novel and become invested in it, yet at the end, Huck doesn’t change. He remains the same person using the same negative vocabulary that seems to so enrage critics.

Comment on Race and Identity by Lacey Babekuhl

Lacey Babekuhl — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:27:10 +0000

I find that “neither black nor white yet both” should not be a problem, as many would probably agree. However, it seems to be extremely interesting to me that this problem is being considered a new one. Somehow, I believe that in this day and age literature has a slightly more open mind than the rest of the world because in literature we focus more upon the content of the novel rather than the pigment of the author’s skin, whereas in the real world a large amount of racial discrimination still exists. Yet to be both is an anomaly that still baffles many and makes them feel uneasy, which in turn one may only slightly scoff at as it is an anomaly which has existed for hundreds of years.

Comment on The Harlem Renaissance by Lacey Babekuhl

Lacey Babekuhl — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:22:21 +0000

Within the Harlem Rennasciance, one notices the similarities between some of the works we have read. While Cather and other authors wrote about the struggles of being an immigrant and a woman, Hughes and Larsen addressed the struggles of being an African American. Upon reflection, one can see that they both suffered immensely to escape the subaltern persona in the early 1900’s.

Comment on Assimilation by Justin Heyd

Justin Heyd — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:03:53 +0000

I feel that the view point of assimilation and its negative effects on subcultures can best be described by Zitkala-Sa. She successfully describes in her story the negative effects of assimilation on subcultures. She describes how Native American families were encouraged and almost broken in like a horse to the Western ideals of the “White man”. I thought it was very unique how Zitkala-Sa described the situations that she endured as a child and how now as an adult, she realizes how she lost a bit of her own culture and heritage when she was assimilated as a young child.

Comment on Du Bois and Chesnutt by Justin Heyd

Justin Heyd — Sat, 03 May 2008 08:56:57 +0000

I found it a bit ironic that though Du Bois was a African American, he still chose to use the same ignorant vernacular that was use in Huck Finn to make Jim look ignorant, stupid, and less civilized. I really didn’t expect this initially because on how the beginning of the poem started. I think that Du Bois’s view towards a double consciousness was very deep because it was his way of describing the African American living situation and standards within America while living in America. We notice as readers that this double consciousness is something that happens to use within our culture and is at the same time different than what is happening somewhere else in America.