Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

About the authoress: Emily was the second of the 3 Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Anne, and Emily). She published her only novel, Wuthering Heights, in 1847 under the

androgynous pen name Ellis Bell. It is worth knowing that both of her sisters also used pen name Bell in order to escape prejudice against female authors. In 1850, due to some acclaim, it was published under her real name, but by this time Emily was dead of TB.

About the novel: Wuthering Heights is known as a Gothic novel. Its plot is pretty complex (and a lot of characters with shared names doesn’t help), so my plot overview will be very brief. I figure a more indepth one would only be confusing.

Basically, Mr. Lockwood (the narrator) hears the story of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff (only one name – I personally find that significant; think Derrida) from his landlady when visiting some lonely moors in the north of England. Catherine (Cathy) and Heathcliff knew each other since children, when Heathcliff was found by Catherine’s father and adopted into her privileged family. Heathcliff was always surly and rude. Cathy and Heathcliff were in love but were stubborn, but Cathy married rich and Heathcliff left in despair and anger. Things happened, they re-met, it was emotional, she died. Her husband blamed Heathcliff and vice-versa, things got ugly for years. Heathcliff wanted revenge on everyone because he felt alone without Catherine. He complained of being haunted by her, which was both a torture and a blessing.

Having recently re-read the book, I think that an anonymous reviewer from 1848 explained its popularity very well when he/she (presumably he) wrote “Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book,—baffling all regular criticism; yet, it is impossible to begin and not finish it; and quite as impossible to lay it aside afterwards and say nothing about it”.1 In a sense, I left feeling strongly that of all the criticisms, the book most strongly defies post-structuralism: Heathcliff, after losing Cathy, desires to destroy beyond anything, yet his very connection to humanity will not allow him to do so. This very fact seems to hold some philosophical weight: he cannot be wholly evil, even if he wants to be.

I really want to wax philosophical about this (honestly, when I have time, I want to write a paper on this very subject), but I don’t have the space here. Let it merely be said for now that I think anyone who ever reads this should take the time to consider how important it is that an authoress (to all appearances) endeavored to create the ultimately evil human being and yet she was forced to inculcate in him instances of empathy, mercy, and consideration for others. Humans cannot be ‘completely evil’ in the philosophical sense that we use in my philosophy classes.

Two other interesting things worth noting: in the reviews I was reading from 1848, one critic praised effusively Brontë for being so manly in her choice of topics: “We detest the affectation and effeminate frippery which is but too frequent in the modern novel, and willingly trust ourselves with an author who goes at once fearlessly into the moors and desolate places, for his heroes; but we must at the same time stipulate with him that he shall not drag into light all that he discovers, of coarse and loathsome, in his wanderings, but simply so much good and ill as he may find necessary to elucidate his history”.1 Well, firstly, one must wonder whether this reviewer felt a bit foolish when he discovered that the writer he praised for avoiding effeminacy was, in fact, a woman (and those of us interested in feminist criticism must naturally consider the relevance of comments like these). Additionally, however, it is worth pointing out that Emily’s novel gained widespread attention for the very thing that this reviewer mentions: its focus on the cruelty and degradation of Heathcliff. That, of course, is a question still fully relevant today, although Wuthering Heights no longer appalls us. What standards should we hold in literature – should we portray the world as we see it, or as we wish to see it? What should be censored, and what should not?

What is the purpose of literature? For the wannabe theorists out there (myself included), it’s evident this question has been around for awhile, and Wuthering Heights was a part of the struggle.

1. Thompson, Paul. "Contemporary Reviews of 'Wuthering Heights'". The Readers Guide to 'Wuthering Heights'. 19 July 2010 http://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/reviews.htm

 

John Milton and His Oh So Heavenly Insights

    He’s at the very top of the “Recommended Reading List for the GRE Subect Test in Literature”  because he appeared 27 times in 5 tests. In other words, know him or fail, my world weary readers.

   John Milton. He was blind, as I have no doubt you know, and he lived in the early-mid 17th century, rubbing elbows with greats like Oliver Cromwell and Galileo. His most famous work, the epic poem “Paradise Lost”, was published in 1667, but don’t you go making the mistake of thinking that was all Milton is famous for. Not only did he work for Cromwell, but he also wrote some heavy stuff other than “Paradise Lost”, both poetry and prose. In poetry, he is known for his “Lycidas”, “L’Allegro”, “Il Penseroso”, and “Paradise Regained” (which, as you might guess, is about Jesus undoing what Adam and Eve do with the devil’s allurement in Paradise Lost). In prose, he is most famous for Areopagitica, a speech delivered to parliament praising freedom and demanding free rights of press.  However, he also wrote avidly in support of legitimizing divorce, he wrote much theology, and he wrote a History of Britain. For a man who blind, he made his daughters write quite a bit for him!

Influence: Milton influenced EVERYONE. Seriously, he deserved to be worshipped, and he got what he deserved. John Dryden commented on John Milton as “the poet of the sublime” (in reference to his subject matter). Later, in the 18th century enlightenment, he gained popularity amongst critics and poets such as Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson. William Blake (in the Romantic age) considered himself Milton’s poetical son (such a Blake thing to do!) and used Milton as a character in
“Milton: A Poem.” The list could go on and on…

“Paradise Lost” is an epic poem in blank verse, separated into 12 ‘books.’ (Blank verse is a type of poetry distinguished by having regular meter but no rhyme). The poem recounts the Christian Bible’s account of the creation of the universe and the fall of Adam and Eve, ending with God’s promise to restore them to their former favor through the sacrifice of His son. Milton states his purpose in Book 1 as an attempt to “justify the ways of God to man” (1.26), making the poem a clear examination of the Problem of Evil.pdf. 

A couple things to know: like any good epic poem (think Virgil and Dante), Milton starts of his poem “in medeas res” (in the middle of things) and he invokes a muse. Because Milton is so popular on the GRE, I recommend reading at least 10 pages or so of his work, so as to recognize his style.

To get my nerd going for a bit: I love love LOVE “Paradise Lost” because Milton addressed such a difficult philosophical question with so much daring. Let’s ignore the fact that he’s speaking for God (a big enough task in itself). Let’s even ignore the guts it takes to try and explain God sending all of humanity to hell for eternity. Milton’s sheer temerity is most clearly evident in the books dealing with the plight of Satan and Satan’s angels, because in these books we are forced to come face-to-face with the idea that, according to the Christian Bible, God foreknew that these angels would sin and be eternally cursed and yet he created them specifically for this reason. With the humans, Milton comes up with a sort of explanation – that is, that God created humans perfect but free, so that they could choose to fall. However, God explains that they are entitled to redemption “because they were deceived.”

And so, as I put down “Paradise Lost”, I was haunted by the question, “Why not the devil’s angels?” It seems clear in the poem that these devils were in true doubt as to the omnipotence of God. If they weren’t, they would never have rebelled (after all, God must have made them either lacking in intelligence or knowledge, since they would never have joined a helpless cause).

A Long Day's Journey Into Night, Eugene O'Neill

“A Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is an autobiographical 4 act play by America’s first major playwright Eugene O’Neill. Published posthumously in 1956 (he died in 1953), O’Neill was honored with a Pulitzer Prize in Drama for the play in 1957.

    Eugene O’Neill was one of the first America playwrights to use realism (think Chekhov [Russia], Ibsen [Norway], Strindberg [Sweden]). His first published play, “Beyond the Horizon,” opened in 1920 and was successful enough to win the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. It was the beginning of a lengthy and successful career, but “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is widely recognized as his best. Another well-known play that you will probably come across is his “Mourning Becomes Electra,” which is based on the Oresteia cycle of the classical Greek playwright Aeschylus.

    Summary of the plot: As the title implies, the plot only covers one day, from around 8:30 am to midnight in August, 1912. It presents to the audience a dysfunctional family of four: a “dope-fiend” mother, Mary Tyrone, an alcoholic and miserly ex-actor father, James Sr., and two alcoholic sons, James (33 yrs old) and Edmund (23 yrs old). The latter is dying of TB, a diagnosis confirmed in the course of the play midst the passionate denials of the mentally unstable mother. Edmund, one realizes as one reads about the play, is supposed to be O’Neill himself; and so the one character thought to be dying in this long journey into night is the sole survivor of the ‘true story,’ O’Neill’s life. The other three characters—mother, father, and older brother—indulge in their respective vices unto

What is Realism?

Realism is a 19th and early 20th century literary (and theatrical) form that focused on depicting life as it “really was.” With this goal, realist authors often described banal or everyday activities. It is known for having started in literature in France in the 19th century (think Balzac and Flaubert). In theater, it began in 19th century Russia (think Chekhov). George Eliot’s novel “Middlemarch” stands as a milestone in realism.

death.

    Little really happens in the play, besides dialogue. The mother, Mary, opens the play with her husband, having recently returned from treatment for her willful self-delusion. The entire family spies on her, fearful that she will return to morphine, and she resents their lack of trust, constantly haranguing her husband for his cheapness and his belief that the shelter he provides is “a home” when it is “not a home.” James Sr., meanwhile, verbally abuses his older son, James Jr., for being a drunken failure with nothing to show for his life. Edmund, the baby of the family, is ill, sensitive, and intellectual, poetic but despairing. He constantly begs his mother to be strong, pleads with his brother to forgive his father for allowing his phobia of the poorhouse to destroy their family, and urges his father to show kindness to his brother despite mutual disappointment. Throughout the course of the day, each member of the family discloses memories, treasures, and hurts to Edmund, revealing their regrets but also revealing the hand of fate that forced them to do what they did. For example, Mary was planning to become a nun, but the Head Mother told her she must go into the world and enjoy life before taking her vows. When she did this, she met James Sr. and married him. She became addicted to morphine during the birth of Edmund, when James Sr. hired a cheap doctor who gave her bad drugs. Edmund’s father, in turn, explains his cheapness by telling how his father deserted his mother and 3 siblings when he himself was only 10 years old:

                TYRONE “My mother was left, a stranger in a strand land, with four small children,        

                me and a sister a little older and two younger than me. My two older brothers had

                moved to other parts. They couldn’t help. They were hard put to it to keep

                themselves alive. There was no damned romance in our poverty. Twice we were

                evicted from the miserable hovel we called home, with my mother’s few sticks of

                furniture thrown out in the street, and my mother and sisters crying. I cried, too,

                though I tried hard not to, because I was the man of the family. At ten years old!

                There was no more school for me. I worked twelve hours a day in a machine shop,

                learning to make files. A dirty barn of a place where rain dripped through the roof,

                where you roasted in summer, and there was no stove in winter, and your hands got

                numb with cold, where the only light came through two small filthy windows, so on

                grey days I’d have to sit bent over with my eyes almost touching the files in order to

                see! You talk of work! And what do you think I got for it? Fifty cents a week! It’s the

                truth! Fifty cents a week! And my poor mother washed and scrubbed for the Yanks

                by the day, and my older sister sewed, and my two younger stayed at home to keep

                the house.     We never had clothes enough to wear, nor enough food to eat. Well I

                remember one Thanksgiving, or maybe it was Christmas, when some Yank in whose    

                house mother had been scrubbing gave her a dollar extra for a present, and on the

                way home she spent it all on food. I can remember her hugging and kissing us and

                saying with tears of joy running down her tired face: “Glory be to God, for once in

                our lives we’ll have enough for each of us!” [He wipes tears from his eyes.] A fine,

                brave, sweet woman. There never was a braver of finer.

                EDMUND [moved]   Yes, she must have been.

                TYRONE  Her one fear was she’d get old and sick and have to die in the poorhouse.    

                [He pauses—then adds with grim humor] It was in those days I learned to be a miser. A

                dollar was worth so much then. And once you’ve learned a lesson, it’s hard to

                unlearn it. [. . .] Yes, maybe life overdid the lesson for me, and made a dollar worth

                too much.1

And that’s where this play leaves us: aside from all the brilliance, the sheer emotional beauty that makes you want to cry for O’Neill and his sorrow, apart from the part of you both angry and glad that his orders to keep the script of the play private for 25 years after his death were completely ignored, there is also the cold hard Aristotelian tragedy with a post-modern twist. Welcome to the 20th century says Eugene: we’re still bemoaning tragic flaws, twisting and writhing in the hands of fate, but deep down, there is a sinking conviction that perhaps (only perhaps, and mayhap the question is worse than anything... the foghorn constantly leading us nowhere but to a home that isn’t a home...) we are merely Frankenstein’s of fate (please watch the clip above to understand this reference).

The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne

About the author: Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in the early-mid 19th century and made his living as an American novelist and short story writer, now most famous for The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, as well as for his collection of short stories, Twice-told Tales. He was born in the city of Salem, MA, and attended Bowdoin college, where he met future poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He wrote his first novel, The Scarlet Letter, in 1850. During much of that decade, he and his family lived in Concord, where he was acquainted with transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau.

About his work: In Twice-told Tales can be found many classics which we still read today in introduction to American literature classes such as “The Minister’s Black Veil” and “The May-Pole of Merry Mount.” Other famous short stories (which I recommend reading before the GRE subject test in literature, if you don’t have time to include more of Hawthorne on your reading list) are “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” and “Young Goodman Brown.” Hawthorne’s works belong to dark romanticism

and are filled with history, references to ancestry and its effects on the present. In short, his major themes are psychological guilt, sin, and redemption, played out in families over time (often with romance included). Additionally, his stories are almost always historical in nature and are in or around Salem. They often discuss class issues, reflect negatively on harsh Puritanical beliefs, and his later works similarly reflected harshly on transcendentalism.

What I thought: I just re-read The House of the Seven Gables and I guess I should be glad that Ralph Waldo Emerson (who I LOVE LOVE LOVE) purportedly said of Hawthorne: "Nathaniel Hawthorne's reputation as a writer is a very pleasing fact, because his writing is not good for anything, and this is a tribute to the man."1 Apparently, critics have spent the last 60 years focusing on his symbolism, which I can understand the doing, since he is SO boring that there isn’t much else to think about. However, his symbolism is so shockingly obvious that I would get bored with that, too.

Anyway, the novel essentially covers the story of the Pyncheons and the Maules. The first Pyncheon stole the land on which the house of the 7 gables is built from the first Maule by having him executed in the Salem witch trials, and so a curse has haunted the Pyncheon blood ever since (“May you choke on your own blood” said the dying Maule).

Now, in 1851, in the time during which Hawthorne writes, the house is owned by Hepzibah Pyncheon, an old maid who worships her brother Clifford, unjustly imprisoned for ‘murder’ by his cousin, a judge. At the beginning of the story, this Clifford is released and comes back to live in the 7 gabled mansion with his sister and Phoebe, a young and merry country cousin of the siblings who is happy and naive. The three live together in one gable while an artist, Holgrave, rents another gable. The character of this artist is fashioned on Hawthorne himself, and the romance twixt him and Phoebe is based on the romance between Hawthorne and his future wife, Sophia.

In the end, after practically nothing happening except for the judge dying by choking on his own blood, the siblings inherit all of the judge’s riches. Phoebe and Holgrave get married. Hawthorne gets to postulate about psychology a load. I got to put the book aside forever. We were all happy.

1. Nelson, Randy F. (editor). The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 150. ISBN 0-86576-008-X.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston

About the Authoress:

     Zora Neale Hurston was an author of the Harlem Renaissance, writing plays, short stories, and four novels, the best known of which is Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston was also an anthropologist, and her well-rounded brilliance ought to have earned her great fame and respect. Unfortunately, many of Hurston’s contemporaries criticized her for her use of idiomatic “African-American” dialect in her books, and her works fell into obscurity. She died in a welfare home in 1960 and was buried in an unmarked grave, unrecognized for her contributions to society at large. In the 1970s, Alice Walker visited the cemetery and chose an unmarked grave to be called Hurston’s, but it is not known which grave is actually the great writer’s. Today, Hurston is respected largely for the very technique for which she was once criticized. Today, she is praised for her inclusion of speech patterns such as this one, in which Janie Wood speaks about her love for Teacake: "Love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore.”1

About the novel:

    Published in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God is an African-American novel, and that’s unmistakably important. Just as important, however, is the fact that it’s a novel about an African-American woman, Janie. Now, before I say anything more about the book, I want to beg you to please read this book

if you have the chance. I read it maybe 10 years ago, as a child, and it was one of my favorite books. Having read it again this weekend, I feel justified in my youthful tastes. It’s truly one of the best pieces of literature I have had the pleasure of experiencing; further, it is meaningful and relevant to a contemporary audience, as it touches on all sorts of bigotry.

The brilliance of Hurston is that she wrote about what she knew, and she writes with a sort of voice that makes her believable. Not having lived when she lived, I can’t claim that what she describes is true, but she convinces me, and that makes her story powerful in a way that captures the horrible racism of the whites as well as the counter-cultural “fighting-back” racism of the blacks that often did as much damage to innocents (oftentimes women). Paraphrasing Janie’s grandmother: “As far as I have been able to tell, it’s a white man’s world, and he tells the black man to do the work. But the black man doesn’t do it, he tells his n*** wife to do it. I’ve been trying to get a different life for you, Janie. I did what I thought was right.” Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of Janie’s attempt to get that life; she leaves one country husband, Logan (who her grandmother forces her to marry), for a rich and ambitious second husband, Jody, who gives her all that she could want in the way of material things for  almost 15 years. Yet Janie, much to the mystification of poor African-Americans around her, is dissatisfied; her husband will not allow her to speak with the others. He forces her to put on airs, he does not understand her longing for life as opposed to things.

When Logan dies, she refuses to mourn and she refuses to look for another man. But then she meets Tea Cake (actual name, Vergible Woods), who is more than 10 years younger than she, but who tells her that “she has the keys to the kingdom.” Theirs is the sort of love one cannot describe in a blog summary, and I beg you to read the book. I hate to spoil the ending, but Tea Cake dies in a way that is symbolic of oppression, and Janie goes back to live with a new wisdom and a desire fulfilled. She has known love, and she is wiser for it. She is a real woman, a real human, and no one can take that away from her.

The narrative style of the book is very intriguing, as Janie is purportedly telling the story to her friend Phoebe, but the entire narrative is given in 3rd person (and many thoughts and experiences are related which Janie could not have known). Essentially, there is an omniscient third person narrator supposedly speaking through Janie. Rather odd, and just begging analysis from those of us who are interested in narratology, narrative theory, or semiotics (such as myself).

Anyway, I definitely recommend knowing a bit about Zora Neale Hurston and Their Eyes Were Watching God for the GRE Subject Test in Literature. And even if you can’t fit it in on your reading list for the test, please read it eventually! It’s so worth reading, and isn’t all that long.

1. http://www.novelguide.com/theireyeswerewatchinggod/toptenquotes.html

The Awakening, Kate Chopin

About the author:

    Kate Chopin was an American author of short stories and novels, publishing the majority of her work in the 1890s (think the Gilded age) and setting most of it in Lousiana, where she spent a majority of her life (mothering 5 children). Chopin’s short stories were very well received and were published in many prestigious magazines such as Vogue and The Atlantic Monthly. She wrote two novels, At Fault (1890) and The Awakening (1899). The first was little noticed, but the second was widely criticized for its morbidity. In fact, Chopin was widely forgotten until later in the 20th century, when she was rediscovered and her work recognized as a precursor to that of modern feminist authors.    

In a 1969 biography, Per Seyersted summarizes Kate Chopin’s achievements, writing that she "broke new ground in American literature...She was the first woman writer in her country to accept passion as a legitimate subject for serious, outspoken fiction. Revolting against tradition and authority; with a daring which we can hardy fathom today; with an uncompromising honesty and no trace of sensationalism, she undertook to give the unsparing truth about woman’s submerged life. She was something of a pioneer in the amoral treatment of sexuality, of divorce, and of woman’s urge for an existential authenticity. She is in many respects a modern writer, particularly in her awareness of the complexities of truth and the complications of freedom."1

        Chopin’s Work:

    Chopin is well-known for many short-stories; these may be included on the GRE subject test in literature, but it is more likely that you will be asked to identify/analyze a passage from The Awakening (exception: “Desiree’s Baby” is so famous that you can expect the GRE subect test writers to think literary people should know it). If you have time to make Chopin a part of your reading list, I would honestly recommend choosing an excerpt (or the entire) novel, as this will familiarize you with her writing style, the plot, and the names of the major characters. However, if you prefer short-stories, these might be included, and will at least help you get to know her style. I repeat, however: THE GRE LIKES CHOPIN AND THEY WILL PROBABLY ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT THE AWAKENING, NOT HER SHORT STORIES! If nothing else, you should at least know the names of the main characters in the novel: Edna Pontellier and Robert Lebrun. (And by the way, names are your biggest ally on the test; whenever you see a name in a question, do a quick brainscan to see if it lights any bulbs.)

    Short stories to read, if you choose:

    “Desiree’s Baby” (extremely famous), “The Storm.” 

    Summary of The Awakening:

    Edna Pontellier is a 28 year old married woman with 2 children, spending the summer with her husband, Leonce, on the Gulf of Mexico. While there, Edna meets and falls deeply in love with young Robet Lebrun, a gentleman who treats Edna with enough respect to escape the danger of their increasing intimacy by leaving. This point in the novel, presumably, is Edna’s figurative awakening: she begins to realize that never before in her life has she truly been in love or been happy. She understands that she has been wanting something but has been playing a role, acting out the game of wife and mother while quelling her true desires.

    Simultaneous to these troubled thoughts, she strikes up a friendship with Mademoiselle Reisz, an incredible pianist who is only welcome to society for her musical talent, due to her strangeness as a person. Reisz and Edna seem to understand each other through music and their mutual dissatisfaction with society; additionally, Reisz receives letters from Robert, filled with passionate claims of love for Edna, which Reisz surreptitiously allows Edna to read.

    As these changes take place, Edna begins to emulate Reisz’s lifestyle, alienating herself from the high society her beauty once made her queen of. Her husband is troubled (and angry at her for damaging his business prospects by refusing to play the role of a proper wife), but he takes a doctor’s advice and lets her alone, going on a business trip to New York.

    This is the point at which things really go downhill for Edna, who moves out of her house into an adjoining bungalow and begins to have an affair with Alcee Arobin, a notorious player for whom Edna cares little. At around this time, Robert Lebrun returns to New Orleans (where Edna and her husband reinstalled themselves at the end of summer) and eventually declares his love for Edna in a tumultuous scene interrupted by the paturition of Edna’s best friend, Adele. Edna is forced to leave, and Robert flees, thinking that he is saving Edna from a ruined marriage and the shame of society. When Edna returns, she finds only a note saying he will never return.

    The novel ends with a scene in which Edna returns to a spot where she was taught to swim by Robert. She dons bathing clothes and swims out and out and out, until her strength fails her and she has nowhere to go but down.

    Thoughts:

    I just read this novel for the first time, and I was repelled, troubled, and irritated by Enda Pontellier. Firstly, I related to her, but I also disliked her odd lack of backbone. I really wanted her to communicate, to say “Hell no!” to Alcee, and to tell Robert that he wasn’t destroying her, she was already nigh destroyed. But, of course, that is why the novel is important: because Edna was a woman who could not do those things. Perhaps that sounds ridiculous (and maybe those reading this would disagree with me and say that I have a false perception of society at that time), but it seems to me that what Kate Chopin was trying to relate was that Edna’s awakening was bleary-eyed and befuddled. She felt herself to have been in a sort of false reality, but knew nothing about how to behave or succeed in the new one. Without he who awakened her, she could do nothing but put herself back into eternal sleep... and so we find the tale of Sleeping Beauty revisited.

Tom Jones, Henry Fielding

About the author:

    Henry Fielding was an early-mid 18th century English playwright and novelist, known for his (often political) satirical wit and humor. He was a Tory, and his political satires are similar to the satirical works of famed Tory satirists of the previous generation such as Jonathan Swift (think Gulliver’s Travels and “A Modest Proposal”). The most important thing to know about Fielding is that his novel Tom Jones is one of the first actual “novels,” in that Fielding unashamedly propounded it as fictional (whereas others in his time period, such as Daniel Defoe, tried to pretend that their works were based in fact).

About his work:

    The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (commonly known as merely Tom Jones) is Fielding’s most famous work, published in 1749 and recognized as one of the earliest works of prose that can be described as a novel. It merits this claim largely because (as already stated) Fielding made no attempt to disguise it as fact, instead deliberately drawing attention to its fictional status.

    It’s worth noting that questions about Tom Jones have appeared on all of the GRE subject tests in literature that I have taken thus far, so the novel is worth covering, although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend adding Henry Fielding to your reading list. The novel is composed of 18 separate parts and is somewhat lengthy, but the general idea behind the novel is fairly simple and should prove all you need for the test.

    The novel tells the comic story of Tom Jones (big surprise!), who grows up in the home of Squire Allworthy as though he were that squire’s son. Unfortunately, Tom has no parents and is, in fact, a bastard. Additionally, Tom is extremely wild, and his sexual escapades play a large part in the 18 parts of the novel. (In fact, the novel’s lewdness and dealings with prostitution drew much censure at the time publication). Tom’s experiences are tongue-in-cheek and filled with puns, both sexual and ridiculous. There are always women hiding in his bedroom to escape the discovery of other women, and so on. The twist comes when Tom tries to hide his impurity from his “true” love, Sophia Western, a young woman of high birth and great purity whose father wishes her to marry Tom’s unofficial cousin, Squire Allworthy’s nephew. Sophia refuses to do this, declaring love for Tom, but Squire Allworthy kicks Tom out of the house because of his rascally behavior just as Sophia is locked up for her refusal to marry.

    Sophia, of course, runs away, and they both end up in London. Tom continues to hook up with every woman in sight (they all find him incredibly handsome), meanwhile declaring endless love for Sophia. In the end, he and Sophia do marry, Tom finds he is in fact of high birth, and he is allowed to marry Sophia, who reforms him. It’s a true comedy.

     And Tom is kind of a douche bag, albeit supposedly goodhearted and kind to the poor. Whatever. He is still a douche bag.

Sex, God, and Katy Perry... Hypocrisy, OCD, or a sad, sad, sorry as old as time?

Teenage Dream - a Modern Day Lolita?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alright, so, first of all, I have to admit that this is way off topic. Katy Perry has very little to do with the GRE subject test in literature (basically nothing, as far as I can see). However, I’m taking a break from my normal topics because I read the Rolling Stones article yesterday while sitting through my 8 hour shift with nothing to do, and it inspired an amount of empathy that surprised me.

    Here’s the deal: I think “California Gurls” is only slightly more obnoxious than “I Kissed A Girl”, judging both for vapid lyrics and painful tonality. “Teenage Dream” makes me want to have more nightmares, and (let’s face it) “Hot N’ Cold” is the worst of them all. Further, I’m quite a fan of Lady Gaga, who I think is a feminist in her own right (“Teeth” is empowering in an altogether unique way; less about bondage and more about criticizing the idea that a man is the answer to everything, it’s both musical and poignant, as is the more famous, popular, and easily understandable commentary on sexism, “Bad Romance”). To my mind, Lady Gaga has heart in her music whilst Katy Perry has the desire to sell in hers. Just once, compare “Speechless” by Gaga to the casual experimental tonguing described by little miss rebellious.

    However, I was bored yesterday, and I wanted to find out whether or not Katy Perry is really as blonde as she comes across, so, while ‘working at’ (sitting at the desk of) my undergraduate library, I read the piece done by Rolling Stones. I came to the conclusion that journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis, at least, believes her to be that blonde: the article is most definitely not flattering. Katy is portrayed as a slightly insecure attention whore who knows her music to be sub-par but is willing to do what it takes to be famous after suffering through the I-did-Christian-music-and-failed-years. Further, Katy is dumb and more eager to manipulate the media than most other stars; in fact, there is a subtle attempt on Vanessa’s part to imply that Katy’s relationship with star Russell Brand is a faux romance created for media attention. Not that this is true of her music. After all, says Vanessa, “though some may consider [Perry’s] music to be highly processed pop, for Perry, it’s the most edgy and dangerous art she can think of making... that’s because Perry, for all her talk about her porn name, has embraced a version of femininity that is more innocent than any other female pop star except for Taylor Swift” (Rolling Stones, August 2010, pg 42).

    So I have to admit that what I’m about to say is inspired by Vanessa’s write up: her talk of innocence compelled me to sympathy for this girl that I previously disliked. What is it that drives Katy Perry to speak of kissing girls and then say that she has never done it? Why do her songs contain the sweetness of teenage love together with the odd creepy (pedophiliac?) undertones of being a man’s “teenage dream”? (I mean, I’m surely not the only person in America who thought of Humbert Humbert and his teenage dreams about Lolita, right?) And why does she take offense at her fiancé's rude discussion of sexuality and Jesus, or Lady Gaga’s oral use of a rosary, when she is willing to pose suggestively with the same piece of jewelry? 

    Ultimately, what I saw between the lines was a Katy Perry who is much like many of the people I have met who have grown up in extremely conservative homes: questioning. I went through that stage, certainly, but my rebellion was different, with appeals to the ontological argument, months of immersion in deeply troubling theories of various natures, and appeals to the most strictly rational aspects of logic, mathematics, and neuroscience that I could find. I wanted the concrete eventually if it meant pain immediately. Katy Perry, however, seems to have gone where her talents (and the encouragements of those she knew in her youth) led her: towards pop stardom, the catchiness of empty statements that hit the numb button somewhere.

      Writes Vanessa of the singer: “Perry even gets afraid at disaster movies, because they remind her of the apocalypse she was taught to fear, though she doesn’t know whether that exists anymore. ‘I still believe that Jesus is the son of God,’ says Perry. ‘ But I also believe in extraterrestrials, and that there are people who are sent from God to be messengers, and all sorts of crazy stuff...I’m just mindfucked.’” 

  

    And I feel pity for this woman speaking these words. I’ve known girls like the Perry I read about in this article, and in too many ways, I am one of them. I don’t say that with pride, or with the feminist side of me roaring, or anything like that. I just read about her and thought “Wow. She is vulnerable and she doesn’t know what to believe anymore, but she is scared of the stuff she used to believe.”

      What I see in Perry is a feeling I have felt myself: a sort of desperation that drove her to make the only choice she saw, and go crazy to save herself from going mad. If those don’t sound different to you, read the sentence again. She is a wild girl, losing herself in her music, “finding her Jesus,” to quote Gaga, but she has not hit rock bottom like she admits she was once going to. She had to reject the fear and desperation she felt at one point, and so she turned away from the beliefs that were driving her towards insanity. In other words, obsessive compulsive disorder and the threat of hell are a dangerous mix; the strictness of religion and the looseness of the world drive every conservative youth I have known to question on some level, at some point. Katy Perry is one of us.

    Is this article relevant? Perhaps not, but so be it.  I respect Lady Gaga, because she tells the world that a woman deserves respect, and she is not afraid to be herself. But I also want to acknowledge a pity and respect for Katy Perry that knows sometimes you have to work with what you’re given, even if it is only naivete and doubt and fear and the will to survive somehow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms - Basically the Twilight of that generation - made Gary Cooper a star only four years after it was published

Earnest Hemingway; the name probably immediately inspires foggy images of old fishermen, perhaps together with dying men on Kilimanjaro and knowledge about his succinct writing style. In short, he’s a famous dude, and he should be. To be honest, I never really loved him until reading ‘The Sun Also Rises’ (as a novel, it should be in italics, but this font lacks that option, so for ease I put it in single quotations), but that text has captured my heart.

    Hemingway is, as aforementioned, famous for ‘The Sun Also Rises,’ ‘A Farewell to Arms,’ (a purportedly semi-autobiographical novel about his own experiences as a WWI soldier), the novella ‘The Old Man and the Sea,’ and several short stories, the best-known being “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Hemingway is one of the famous expatriate American writers that comprised “The Lost Generation” that set up in Europe during the 1920s; there he hobnobbed with Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound, simultaneously getting to know those artists we now hold dear, Picasso and Joan Miro and the like. Somewhat ironically, if you’ve ever read Joyce, Hemingway liked to go on alcoholic sprees with his new friend J.J. (I guess if it’s not in Dublin, it’s not worth writing a pathos-ridden story about?), but I guess this is allowed since Hemingway must have been scarred from his experiences as an ambulance driver in WWI.

    Speaking of WWI, it’s worth mentioning it in connection to Hemingway’s ‘fiction.’ This is the thing: we remember Hemingway as someone who influenced American writing due to an entirely new style, with scarcely any description midst quantities of dialogue. And, while that does add a certain flavor to his book (maybe, in a sense, it makes his characters more true to life, since, when speaking to someone, we’re less aware of “their chocolate brown eyes flashing” and more aware of what they’re saying), there is something in his books that transcends a new style. You can see it in his attempts to address his status as an expatriate, speaking to lostness while still being lost. And this lostness, mayhaps, came from Hemingway’s time in the army, when he was injured and spent 6 months in a hospital. There, he fell deeply in love with Agnes Von Kurowsky, who he planned to marry, but who surprised him by marrying another.

    There are clear similarities to this story in his fiction, both explicit and implied. ‘A Farewell to Arms’ is the story of Henry and Catherine, soldier and nurse who meet in a hospital and fall in love as Henry heals. By the time Henry is ready to return to active duty, Catherine is pregnant with his child and things are more serious than they ought to be in a time of war, where -- apparently -- the personal comes second to the societal. In the end, the future of society is stillborn and his mother dies. Need I point out what it seems Hemingway was trying to say here: that the war being fought for the protection of mother, child, and future, killed them all and left man a cripple?

    ‘The Sun Also Rises’ is also about the losses of war, albeit in a less candid way. This 1924 novel, Hemingway’s first, tells the story of Jake Barnes, an expatriate journalist living in Paris during the 1920s. Barnes suffers from impotence inflicted by a war wound, and this impotence has lost him his true love, Lady Brett Ashley, who assures him she cannot live happily without him in the fullest sense. The novel features the seemingly endless and often almost mundane rising and setting of Jake’s suns, as he travels from Spain to Paris with Brett and other full-time partiers, watching bull-fights, seeing Brett seduce and discard man after man, and struggling with times of apathy, contempt, and depression.

   

    While we may be tempted to write of Lady Ashley as a selfish and silly woman who claims to love Jake fully but who clearly does not, I don’t think this is really the point of Hemingway’s novel. In fact, I feel that her need to have a ‘whole’ man speaks in a way that we can understand in light of PTSD and other war traumas that we are now aware of. Jake was physically scarred, yes, but in the novel he is also aimless: he goes from day to day, drinking and fishing and bull-fighting and drinking and maybe hiring a girl and drinking and arguing with Brett and drinking. He is missing something that we like to believe in when we fall in love: he is missing belief itself. And, in fact, Brett is missing this too. She is just as aimless, and she can’t live with a man who can’t complete her because, as Jake hates her for doing, she tries to use men to do just that.

    In the end, Hemingway seems to be writing about the human search for something solid. In this way, he is the exemplary writer of “The Lost Generation.” And yet, when saying this, it cannot be forgotten that ‘The Sun Also Rises’ takes its title from a Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 1:5, “The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." And Hemingway himself said that the point of the novel was that “the earth abideth forever” (the epigraph of his book is the full quote from Ecclesiastes: “What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh:  but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose”).

    Hemingway also stated his belief that his characters may have been “battered,” but were not “lost.” This, I feel, is the paragraph I should end with.

Study Suggestions for the GRE Subject Test in Literature

   Okay, so someone from my Youtube channel emailed me and asked me some questions about preparation for the test, and I thought I would share my advice publicly, in case it was valuable. So if you’re wondering about how to study, and you don’t feel prepared, please read on.

   

    Firstly, having read a lot of books is probably more important than taking a lot of classes. Do you have a general idea about famous novels? (i.e. do you understand who I'm referencing when I say something like "It is commonly accepted that a young gentleman of fortune will be in want of a wife"? [Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, btw]). If not, it's easy to come by in quick form in certain memorable ways:

     a) movies! You remember them, and (as the study books will tell you), NAMES are a gift on the GRE. What book is Heathcliff in? Tom Jones? Lily Bart? Edna Pontellier? You can learn this stuff easily (and remember it) by watching a movie adaptation such as A Farewell to Arms, The House of Mirth, etc. (movies are also really good for brushing up on knowledge of plays!)

    b) audio books. These are also a real blessing, since you probably spend time driving, and you might as well spend that time studying too. I get them at my local library. Before doing this, I suggest you take a practice test to find out where the largest gaps in your knowledge lie. That way you can address those gaps with the audio books.

   c) Greek legend! Okay, so the Princeton GRE book tells you that you only need to know the basics of the Greek goods (Hera and Apollo and all that), but really, you want to know the legends too. Get a lecture on it and listen! The lectures are usually helpful because the professors will usually drop information about other time periods, thus contextualizing the lecture in ways that will help you during the test.

   d) Shakespeare. Know his major stuff.

   e) Be able to identify Paradise Lost. 

   f) Use the Princeton Lit GRE book to help you study the poems! It seriously does tell you the most important ones.

   g) For poetic structure and literary theory, I don't suggest the Princeton GRE book at all. If you can, find a lecture series and listen to it while driving. If you can't, find a couple of youtube videos to cover poetic forms (once you understand the basics, memorizing them won't be difficult). For literary theory, I know of a really good text book that i used in my lit theory class. I don't have it in front of me right now, but if you email me at GREchicks@gmail.com, I can send you the title. I also have my old notes from that class, which provide fairly good summaries of the major theories.

   I know this sounds absurd and overwhelming, but believe me, you can absolutely do it. Add variation to your studying so that your brain doesn't fry, try to talk it out with someone (I'm game, over email!), and when you read a book/poem, think about it as though you're analyzing it. That way it doesn't seem like a chore so much as an opinion you're formulating. Within a week or two, you'll begin to realize how much you've learned.

   Oh, and a great way of studying for the regular GRE at the same time?? Well, a lot of 'older' literature uses uncommon language. So whenever you find a word you don't know, look it up and write down the definition in the margin. If you actually copy down the definition, you're much more likely to learn it. Also, doing that helps you to notice certain quirks about the author you're reading, which helps you to identify him/her on the GRE. (You begin to notice that a certain author is very stilted, or very ironic, or very lucid, or less prone to adjectives and thus not given over to much detail [think Hemingway]).

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

   

   Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian author and poet who is still alive today. Why is this useful to know? Well, it’s kind of an obvious question: if you see a question asking when Achebe wrote something, you’ll know it probably wasn’t more than 60 years ago. In fact, his most famous book was written just about that, in 1958, and deals with all of the subjects Achebe has achieved renown for: colonialism, the clashing of cultures, and the effects that Christianity had on African tradition.

    “Things Fall Apart” is easily Achebe’s best-known novel. Today, according to wikipedia, it’s the archetypal African novel, and is read throughout African schools as well as European and American ones. The novel is set in Nigeria, and it tells the story of Okonkwo, a powerful member of the Igbo, who live and love in Umuofia.

    The novel has been described as a “modern day tragedy,” and I found this line haunting me as I read. Ukonkwo is the son of a lazy farmer who never has enough yams to fill barns, and so Ukonkwo, and he grows and starts his own family, is determined to be different. A wrestling hero, Ukonkwo works night and day to support his hard-own wives and to build more barns for his ever growing supply of yams. For Ukonkwo, luck is something you create.

    Yet Ukonkwo meets trouble after trouble, despite his prosperity. For one thing, his son is a weakling. When Ukonkwo is made the caretaker of a boy from another village, given as a peace settlement, the two lads become too close for Ukonkwo’s comfort. He feels that his own son is like a girl -- like the wives that he beats regularliy -- while the boy from the other village, Ikemefuna, is a real man, and someone he can love. Thus the first tragedy comes when the village rulers in Umuofia decide that the peace settlement boy must die.

    Ukonkwo is torn between love, honor, and pride. For one thing, the boy loves and trusts him. How can he betray the boy by killing him? In point of fact, all of the villagers agree that Ukonkwo must not be at the death. But Ukonkwo feels that to shirk his duty is a shame. And so he goes, laying a trap for the young man who has come to love him: the memory of his father is too much for him, and so he kills the boy who could have been a son.

    This is the first of Ukonkwo’s troubles. After Ikemefuna’s murder, his own son turns away from him and becomes more ‘feminine’ than ever. Ukonkwo becomes more and more angry and drunken, until he accidentally kills someone in a ceremony and is forced to flee with his family, losing everything.

    When he returns to his village years later, he begins to rebuild and make himself rich once again. But things have change in Umuofia. For one thing, Christian Missionaries have come to descry his ‘pagan’ traditions -- the ones for which he has lost so much. Worse, Ukonkwo’s own son has converted. Determined to start an uprising against the white people, Ukonkwo is left alone by his own people, who are no longer convinced by the traditions he is so determined to uphold. And so, in the end, Ukonkwo gives in: he kills himself, betraying the very tradition he loves. For, to the Igbo, there is little as appalling as suicide.

        Maybe we all don’t need this huge summary, but I really loved this book. Sure, the colonialism and all that is interesting, but I really love the story of Father and Son, of Male and Female, of Self-Destruction based on Self-Protection. It is truly a story of tragedy. Take, for example, Ukonkwo’s daughter, Ezinma, who he loves because she understands him. He constantly wishes that she were a boy, because she would be the perfect boy -- and while this seems sexist to us, in a way, it also shows his love for her, because he knew that her life would be better as a man. Think, too, of the way in which Ukonkwo, determined to forever escape the shame of a father who did not live up to the tradition of the Igbo man as hard-working, impaled himself on his own dread of shame. Trying to escape the thing he feared the most, Ukonkwo could do nothing but kill himself with it.

         Ukonkwo, without knowing it, committed suicide long before he hung himself. In truth, he committed suicide in allowing himself to be ruled so much by his own dread of weakness that his life was an attempt at putting everyone else under his thumb.