Paper 3 Proposal

For my third paper, I would like to discover the social forms of both The House of the Seven Gables and "The Fall of the House of Usher." Similarly, both these pieces reflect Gothic literature at its finest, but they also reflect the mental states of characters in Gothic literature; both show the deterioration of the mind and how that effects plot, and substance of the story. Apart from their different types of literature- one being a novel, and the other being a short story- both of these pieces contrast in social forms. For The House of the Seven Gables, the story portrays a family with old money, who can't seem to get back on their feet again and regain what the family has lost. The Pyncheons in the story struggle with the strange going-ons at the house and what that means for their social and economic welfare. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," there is still the theme of old money and the mental instability of the characters living in the house, but this time, they don't struggle with the fact that they lack money, because it is clear that they still live in a house of grandeur, but they struggle with family history and how it has affected the mental stability of Roderick and Madeline, and why it is that the narrator is needed to visit the family at that particular time. The Pyncheons also struggle with family history and its affects on the family, but there has never been a note made about the struggle with mental diagnosis like there has for the characters of "The House of the Seven Gables."
In my paper I would like to discover how all these things helps create the content of both stories and how they would be different if some of these themes were to be omitted from their content.

A Shift Away From the Gothic

Initially, what makes this passage seem not at all like a Gothic piece compared the excerpt from “Maule’s Well,” is that the scenery described here has none of the grotesque connotation that has been portrayed in that part, but as well as the rest of the book. Hawthorne deliberately wants the reader to see the darkness that the characters are living in, and to almost give the reader this sense of fear and foreboding that the characters might feel living in the house. There are just too many positive things that Hawthorne is stating about the kitchen and the house in general for there to be any context of Gothic literature in this opening of chapter seven. For example, when Phoebe is taking in the scent of the house coming from the kitchen, she describes it as such:                             

            If any volume could have manifested its essential wisdom, in the mode suggested, it

would certainly have been the one now in Hepzibah’s hand; and the kitchen, in such an event, would forthwith have steamed with the fragrance of venison, turkeys, capons, larded partridges, puddings, cakes, and Christmas pies, in all manner of elaborate mixture and concoction. (98)

from this description of the initial scent of the house that Phoebe has from her aunt cooking, the description depicts all positive smelling foods, such as “Christmas pies,” and not anything negative like that of mold cheese, or rotten eggs, both of which when describing a kitchen from the Gothic period, may give off the idea that the kitchen smells like a dead body.

In terms of interpreting the Gothic, this shift away from that format of a story, to me, could catch the reader off guard. Everything seems so sweet and happy at this point in the story and it is as if it is prepping for the worse to come, trying to catch the reader off guard by thinking that everything is okay for these two characters in the good-smelling kitchen.

Gothic Literature

Gothic literature, as portrayed in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” shows the darker side of literature. During the Gothic era, much of what was going on in the pop culture was a sort of interesting darkness in literature. Many of the things that were written in Gothic books had a dark twist to them, a tragic ending, taboo subjects, and very grotesque imagery used to describe the setting of places. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” all of these parts of Gothic literature are portrayed in the short story.

As far as imagery goes for Roderick usher’s house, it just reeks of dark, damp, and unwelcoming features. The unnamed narrator of the story describes the house as follows upon seeing it.

“I looked upon the scene before me- upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain- upon the bleak walls- upon the vacant eye-like windows- upon a few rank sedges- and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees- with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium…” (Poe 1)

From what the narrator has told the reader, this house just foreshadows doom, and hints that something tragic will happen at this place. Of course, something tragic cannot happen in a Gothic story without a twist in the tale. In the case of Usher, his twin sister Madeline, whom helps make up the taboo duo and helps create a super-closeness that tends to put people off, falls ill and dies while the unnamed narrator is still visiting the House of Usher. From there, things start deteriorating mentally for Usher, and soon has a meltdown while being read to by the narrator, reveling that Usher may have buried his sister alive. Next thing the narrator knows, the sister is behind the door, running into the room, covered in blood from her struggle of getting out of the coffin, and scaring her brother literally to death.

All in all, this story written by Edgar Allen Poe represents the very idea of the Gothic era, and the literature that this era produced.

Prompt #1

When faced with the decision to support my home country or to deny the United States my obligations to fight is a very complicated decision that I would have to face, if I ever have to face it. In the event that I am forced to make this decision, I would be very inclined to join the army and give back to the country that has protected me for so long. This decision would not come lightly though, and it would be very hard to want to leave everything behind and not be sure if I would be able to return.

If I was to be asked tomorrow to join the army and fight for my country and to protect those that I love, I would surely feel similar to Tim in “On the Rainy River” and the fact that I am too young to be preparing myself for the possibility of death. I know that I would feel less egotistical about it then Tim did, there would be no feelings that I am better then someone and since I am better then someone that they should go instead of me. More of what I would be feeling is the need live out my life before I am forced to challenge death. I would want to live out the life I had started to plan for myself, like getting married, having kids, having a career, buying my first car, my first house, going to other continents to travel, and vacationing in exotic places with friends and family.

Apart from personal feelings, and the feelings I would have towards going off to war, there would be the feelings that my friends and family would have of my departure to war. I know for a fact that my family would be so much against it, that they, themselves, would do anything to keep me from going, even if it meant moving me to Africa and giving me a new name. They would be very put out if they knew I wanted to go, that this choice was predetermined. It just is an obligation to me; I feel obligated to serve my country, just like I felt obligated to coach a volleyball team for my old middle school because I went there for ten years of my life. To me, serving my country would be an honor.

Hamlet as the "Player"

In the first video, Hamlet senses they are referring to him when they speak, “I hear him coming,” leading Hamlet to believe that they want something with him. And in this circumstance, he is a pawn because they want to see if he truly loves Ophelia. Polonius sets up the meeting to see if Hamlet’s heart was truly with Ophelia, because her father and brother were worried that Ophelia would fall for this prince that could not love her because she was basically a nobody in the royal court. Also, Polonius reads a love letter from Hamlet to Ophelia, and he reads some of the inappropriate things that Hamlet has written to Ophelia, and that is another reason why Polonius wants to be sure that Hamlet’s heart is in it, and not just there for sexual reasons.

In the second video, Hamlet speaks his “To be, or not to be” soliloquy. It is here that Hamlet dances with the idea of death to relieve himself of being this “player” in the “play” that is his life, in which he is not the director or the writer. He can no longer deal with the pain of the act that he must put on, or that he is facing, and so, his gathers that he, himself, as a player is doomed to die and that will end his part of the play, and that he everyone else in the play should also meet the same end. To him, the close of this play, when the curtain is drawn, is when every “player” meets their fateful end, and when they truly can be “players” no more. 

As well as determining death as a means to an end, he takes advantage of the fact that he cannot be one-hundred percent controlled by Polonius and Claudius, and so he uses Ophelia as a tool. He does not see it now, but this brings about her sad end, with her committing suicide , embarrassed by the fact that she thought that her’s and Hamlet’s relationship was blossoming into something more, even though Hamlet only acted that it was not. This is the start of the “players” beginning to leave the “stage” that is the production of King Cladius’ play.

Aesthetics of "Habitation" by Margaret Atwood

I love the image that this poem, by Atwood, gives. To me, she is portraying what it is like to be married, and all the hardships that the couple are facing, and then, despite all that, they still can keep the "fire," the love, that keeps them together, and helps them get through all the troubles, the "desert." The way this poem is structured, gives me the image of distorted memories of things that the couple have been through, and what they have had to overcome; each time a new line begins, a new memory begins, especially in the second stanza. There is also quite a bit of imagery in this poem, even if the images are abstract, and the only really solid image that Atwood gives the reader is the couple sitting on the back stairs, outside, eating popcorn. The images that Atwood creates, also depicts very strong emotions that the narrator is feeling, like how it can be isolating, like "the edge of the forest", or an argument can be as heated as "the edge of the desert." I also like how Atwood states that its the people that make the marriage, and all the struggles and victories that the couple shares together, not just the things that the couple seem to have, like their house, or a tent, or even the back stairs where they eat their popcorn. Overall, this poem conveys the true meaning of a marriage, and how these things can relate to nature and the world surrounding said couple.