Critical Thinking Blog #5

After careful revision of the end of “Winter Dreams,” it was difficult for me to find any sort of pleasure lurking in his nostalgia. While there was a tinge of optimism in his reminiscing, the overwhelming sense of loss overpowered said tinge. His longing to be the one to have married Judy and seen her become not-so pretty is apparent. To discover that she is no longer beautiful and leads a fairly unhappy life makes his desirous of what his life could have been with her. However, in the end, there is a sense of closure and that he is finally to get over her. Since he is extremely inquisitive as to her whereabouts and situation, he is somewhat comforted, even though he longs to be the one she ended up with, due to her current state of affairs. He is finally able to take a more individualistic stance rather than just immersing himself in his work to busy himself and instead of morning his loss of Judy is relishes in himself and stops crying about the life he could have had. Therefore, in the end, there is a sense of closure, which does garner a fairly optimism and pleasurable element. He is finally free from the trance Judy put him in and is able to move on instead of letting her dictate his life. Since he would usually drop everything after one mention of Judy, his dismissal of his urge to reconnect with her shows his growth and that he is poised to live for himself, which makes the ending more optimistic, but not necessarily pleasurable per se.

Critical Thinking Blog #4

The simplicity and yet utter complexity in William Carlos Williams’ poems are what make them intrinsically beautiful. Through a quick glance at any of his poems, one can take them for their strictly literal meaning, however, after careful reading and thoughtful interpretation their deep meaning can be discovered. However, the meaning is ultimately left up to interpretation, which provides various and interesting perspectives and takes. An example of this in Williams’ work is “This Is Just to Say.” The imagery and depiction of this poem allow the readers to place themselves within this situation and evaluate their reactions to such an occurrence. While we spoke in class about the numerous meanings of the text, the one that is the most interesting to me and seems to be the most logical is the concept of forbidden fruit. While it is not necessarily about adultery, there is certainly the aspect of knowingly committing an act that is sinful in nature and one’s inability to deny temptation and give in to what they inherently know is wrong.. There is obviously no remorse by the speaker since they never apologize, but also they show no emotion in committing this act. Since it is described as “cold,” there lacks any sort of connection and is merely for the pleasure of enjoying the “sweet” and “delicious” fruit. Thus, the sex aspect comes into play because adulterous sex can oftentimes be just for the physical intimacy devoid of an emotional connection, which makes it cold.

Critical Thinking Blog #3

While Frost does not necessarily utilize modern occurrences, such as war and technology, he emphasizes the concept of individuality and exalts the everyman. Therefore, Frost uses imagery to depict common everyday life. Frost illustrates various aspects of human nature in his work, similar to other Modernist writers, but he utilizes a more classic format. Through his rejection of the more free verse and innovative formats of other Modern poets, Frost showcases the variances in Modernism and the more opened ended aspect in which the author uses the style of their choosing. In “Mending Wall,” Frost portrays the labor in building a wall and the difficulty in getting along with others, more specifically, one’s neighbor:

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is pine and I am apple orchard (1390).

In comparison to the likes of Whitman and Eliot, Frost uses less open verse and sticks with a more conventional format. More so than other Modern writers, Frost highlights the individual, which is evident in his depiction of the speaker in “Mending Wall” and their troublesome relationship with their neighbor. He glorifies simplistic and fairly mundane situations in which many people encounter and therefore reveals characteristics of human nature through imagery.

Critical Thinking Blog #2

The culmination of “Maggie: Girl of the Streets” in which the mother “fergives” Maggie is implicitly immoral because it lacks any sort of self-awareness of the fate that she and Jimmie dubbed Maggie. Instead, she finally forgives her supposed demon spawn for being so horrible after her fateful death. Since she and Jimmie do not stand up for Maggie or even try to question her endeavors, they are partly to blame for her fall from grace, but fully responsible for her inability to recuperate from it. Once Peter rejects Maggie for Nell, she attempts to return home, but is kicked out without given any chance to explain herself ( Crane 991-992). When Maggie actually is alive and attempts to return to what she has considered her home since infancy, she is fervently turned away devoid of any chance to accept or receive forgiveness. However, since her passing, it is incredibly easy for her Mother to blame Maggie for the tumultuous deals of her life.

Crane’s authorial perspective depicts the stifling nature of being born into various classes and the influence of a parent’s treatment of their children and there in by how that effects them as an adult. Jimmie and Maggie are born into an impoverished, tough family and, no matter Maggie’s longing or efforts to overcome her predestined life, she is unable to overcome it. Maggie is not taught or given an appropriate example of how to act around men and therefore her ability to handle a relationship with Peter is lackluster. Since Jimmie and Maggie lack any sort of viable parental figures in an extremely rough area, they do not possess the skills to overcome the class in which they were born.

Critical Thinking Blog #1

The first time I read The Awakening I enjoyed it far more than I expected to, mainly because of the many dimensions of the story and its characters. What I found absolutely fascinating about Edna is the individuality she has and her ability to respond to her urges and passions, which I do not think we necessarily even possess today. Self-indulgence is a topic I’m absolutely fascinated with and the various consequences and winnings one has due to their self-indulgence. One passage that depicts her journey into independence states, “Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual.” After reading The Awakening, I decided to try out such a lifestyle during my short time at USF, since I knew relatively no one and was not surrounded by family members, but sans marriage/children and still found it incredibly difficult. With a possible significant other and/or children, it seems highly implausible. Living with very little concern for others or not expressing that concern is extremely taxing. Edna does deal with a bit of guilt, but her friendship with Mademoiselle Reisz influences her to maintain her lifestyle.

The feminist undertones are blatantly obvious and certainly fitting due to the time period, but the situations within the text really apply to any gender. Men and women alike crave to indulge their intimate desires and passions, but cannot always do so due to societal, personal, and other limitations. I think we all are constantly being limited due to our various attributes and other ones that have been imposed on us. I'm not entirely sure how we are able to breakout fo this limitation in any other way than through our actions, but that makes one an outcast and, just as Mademoiselle Reisz warns Edna, it takes an extremely strong and brave person to due so without remorse. Therefore, I tend to think of Edna’s fate as extremely freeing—not just for herself to rid her of gender and societal limitations, but to also free everyone else of her (i.e. her husband from shame from other members of society, her children from her seclusion, Robert from the implausibility of their love) without having to cause more pain. We touched briefly upon this in class, but that is why I mainly think of her death as a fairly happy one and not as selfish as one might perceive. Something that I’ve always pondered, hypothetically, about The Awakening is if the “world” or “society” was better with or without Edna in it. I’m not entirely sure the answer to that, though.

Oh, word.

Allo, fellow American Literature classmates and other readers! Well, if you fall into the "other reader" category I caution that you turn back now before it's too late. Anyways, so since this is the second blog that I've done as apart of one of Jason's classes, I am going to spare you (and me) the list of my favorite things as apart of my introductory post. However, if you simply must know, feel free to journey over to my other blog, not so aptly named "Jenny Jennings," to view a somewhat comprehensive list of such things.


I don't know what else to say. . .hopefully you are enjoying the playlist thing on here. . .and if you aren't listening to it: bump it because it took me seriously 15 minutes to figure out how to put my own playlist on it and then I realized that it was mind numbingly simplistic. The least you could do it try one song on for size. You can also basically extrapolate a general sense of my musical stylings if you don't want to look at my other blog and I can't say I blame you.


I'm kind of falling short on the long winded portion of my title, but I don't have much to talk about other than myself, and I prefer not to divulge too heavily into my narcissistic tendencies. However, I suppose this will suffice for my first post.