Chapter 3 of 6

Still on the story of Lennie and George, we have arrived at chapter 3. I discussed what I thought the themes were in my last post and said the themes were friendship and loneliness. These continue onto the third chapter, but is more on the side of trust and standing up for themselves. George says: “He ain’t no cuckoo”. Making a stand for his friend and in the process gaining the trust of Slim.

The third chapter contains quite a different mood than the others, it goes from a mood which focuses on what has happened to the aggressive mood in the end where a fight happens.

Of all of the different actions which are happening throughout chapter three there are a few which stands out and drives the story forward. George and Lennie achieves the trust of both Slim and Candy, which can be an important thing later in the story. The fight between Lennie and Curly is definitely one of the main actions which drives this story forward.

A few of the different quotes stood out for to me during this chapter. The first was: «We’d jus’ live there. We’d belong there.». George talks about the farm, or rather the dream he has. The quote makes me believe he seeks after a place where he can feel at rest, and not travel all the time. A place where he is the boss, where he can decide what needs to be done. These people travel their whole life, never gaining anything other than food and money to spend on their leisure. Its an evil circle which most does not break. Ending up broke and in need of work.

Another quote is when Slim and Carlson is trying to get Candy to let his dog die. Slim says: “I wisht somebody’d shoot me if I got old an’ a cripple”. In this time and place, there is no place for a cripple if you are in the position as these men are. There is no place to go after you are canned. They would starve to death if they were not lucky or as fortunate as Candy who has worked at the ranch for so long that he was allowed to become a swamper.

The last quote I noticed was: «I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog». Candy said that after his dog was shot. He regrets his decision of having his dog killed by another man than himself. He is probably ashamed that the dogs last moment was not the sight of him, his owner who have had him his whole life. As well as the cowardice of not doing it himself.

Mouses or mice? At least Of mice and men

Of mice and men is a novel by John Steinbeck. He published his work in 1937. This novel starts off with a page and a half with purely nature descriptions. This can be recieved differently by different people. Me for instance loves such introductions. From how the details of how the rocky mountains are described to the limbs and branches of the sycamore tree is reaching over the warm pool of water. For others, it might be a drearily read. The descriptions are detailed and more or less constant through the first chapter. So, as far as grabbing the reader’s attention it can both succeed and fail. For me it was clearly a success.

George is introduced in the novel as: “small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Every part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose.”. He is later in the first chapter seen as a bit aggravated and my first impression is that  tired of the constant battle of dealing with his opposite Lennie and getting reliable work. 

Lennie is described as George’s opposite, “a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, and wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely”. I felt like he acts like a “goldfish” (even though they are found to be smarter than commonly thought, see: Important goldfish facts). I found him to be an interesting character, he pets a mouse to find comfort which can correlate to his lack of human interaction of his younger days. I hope to maybe find out about this later in the novel.

I feel like the novel is going to be about the hardship a “hobo” can have, especially with comradeship. Or even family, because George mentions Lennie’s aunt. I hope to find out more soon!

The mood throughout the chapter is first one of peace and quiet before the two men appear. Then the mood goes from peace to a sense of desperation from George. He is quick to complain over Lennie’s behaviour and is constantly thinking of the negative aspects of his experiences till this point.

The relationship between Lennie and George seems to almost be one of family. At least of a caregiver, Lennie mimics the movements that George does to try to fit in and George tries to hold his attention and teach him to do correctly. They are both trying to find their way in the world.

Modernistic short stories

Write a blog post where you try to compare the two short stories in terms of:

The two stories «Eveline» (1914), by James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway’s «The Sea Change» (1933) are two modernistic short stories. Here I will compare them, starting off with the theme.

Both of the short stories has similar themes in terms of breaking free of their man and being a modern woman. “Eveline” tries to break free, but fails. However the woman in “The sea change” manages this.

The moods in both short stories are pessimistic, which is a characteristic of the modernistic literature.

How we can see that both these literary works are from the modern era is by the way that they write and the content. In moderistic literature they will usually write about everyday problems, reaching out to the common folk. They want to change the society for the better by highlighting the problems in their works.

The writing style of «Eveline» (1914), had much more text than “The sea change”, Hemingway’s short story is much more based on dialog which can be harder to understand. It was also much more vague in the terms of events that happened. They both use the Iceberg style, however Hemingway has used it much more than Joyce.  

«Eveline» (1914), by James Joyce, was my favorite short story. This is because i understood it, the short story of Ernest Hemingway was very subtle for me and did not communicate directly with me. “Eveline” made it clear to me what was going on by how he wrote and told the story.

“…”

Untitled, by E.E Cummings is a seemingly simple poem. It has four stanzas which contains three full words and a number. We interpenetrated the poem to become: once a leaf falls loneliness. We all came together and concluded that the most striking features about Untitled is that Cummings makes the reader struggle in a sense with reading it, so you kind of have to work for it yourself in order to see what it actually says. As well as the structure of the poem, which Cummings was known for. The structure of the poem makes is seem as though it is resembling a leaf falling to the ground. The structure helps the poem in the way of setup, the loneliness in the end of the poem.

The letter l is set up to be used in two spots in the word. The number stands out, it is not a word and is why its special. It catches the eyes of the reader. The word “one” stands out maybe as to connect to the theme of loneliness that he writes about in the poem. Because “one” is the only whole word you can see in the whole poem. The effect it has on the reader is that it enhances the loneliness of it being a single leaf or one in many. Since a leaf is one of a thousands leafs in a tree, as are we humans.

We enjoyed This is just to say, by William Carlos Williams. He captures the wonder of plums by trying to save them for later, but he does not manage to have control of himself. It captures the essence of being human

 -Johanne-Marie, Lise and Jannike.

The great or perhaps not so great Gatsby.

My initial impression of the characters in the sections we read, were that Nick was an impressionable character, but also acts like an guardian angel of Daisy. He comes on like a man who is open minded who bears a thoughtful mind. Daisy, however, acts dumber than she is. She is molded by society to be oppressed. Her natural instinct is to play foolish to hide her intellect. She knows about the affair of his husband.

Tom, Daisy’s husband has a pure hunger for power, he has everything he needs to accomplish the American dream, yet he has a mistress and is possessive of his wife.

Jay, is driven by love. All I could get from the selections is that he wants to have Daisy, but is met by Tom who does not want this to happen.

2. What opinions do these characters have of each other, do you think? Try to explain your view with examples from the text.

Jay and Tom are clearly enemies. Jay wants Tom’s wife, this he does not enjoy. They stay unfriendly towards each other throughout the selections as far as I know. They act petty towards each other, while denying the real problem they both have towards each another.

Nick and Tom does not know each other in the start, but later in the books they reconnect. However, since they went to the same school he had developed a negative impression towards him. In the end of the book the dislike has turned to disgust. The affair made the relationship sour.

What’s the matter, Nick? Do you object to shaking hands with

me?”

“Yes. You know what I think of you.”

“You’re crazy, Nick,” he said quickly. “Crazy as hell. I don’t know what’s the matter with you”

 

In the film Fitzgerald seems to portray wealth by symbolism. Connecting yellow with wealth, yellow house, yellow car, lots of yellow in general. He also shows in the books that the wealth that the characters are in possession of was earned in an not so honest way.

“The transactions in Montana copper that made him many times a millionaire found him physically robust but on the verge of soft – mindedness, and, suspecting this an infinite number of women tried to separate him from his money.”

The themes to the novel seems to be selfishness, power and wealth. This is a major difference from the 19th century America. It differs from the everyday “hero”, were normal people’s problems were discussed. There were no survival of the fittest, and it builds expectations, but does not contain a lot of foreshadowing.

The american dream is that anyone, no matter religion or ethnicity can be rich or famous, as long as they work for it. This includes having a wife and a few kids

“He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.”

This shows that the dream is actively chased throughout the novel. The interesting thing about the American dream, is that its the same. All of it. The dream of getting rich and famous, getting kids and having a beautiful wife.

I can’t think of any other works which is similar. Unfortunately, I do not read or watch a lot of films or books that is based on drama.

Because of John Green’s crash course I understood more of the excerpts. Such as that the green light symbolizes Gatsby’s love for Daisy.

Gatsby believed in the green light.

 

Where is Walden?

Walden is a story about the life as an minimalist. It reflects on the simple life, an existence without any complexities and the difficulties of modern living.

 

Walden did not live life as it was “intended to be lived” during his time of age, because he went to live alone in the woods without contributing to society by working and taking a wife and have children etc. The society he lived in during the 1800’s expected every man to make himself useful, and Walden did not bend to the expectations, which likely did not make him into such a popular man amongst the locals.

 

Modern devices such as phones and computers has played a huge role in making us seek to quick and convenient solutions for everyday problems. They have been integrated to such a extreme degree, that removing these devices will resolve in both personal and societal disorientation. Those who rely on technological gadgets often do so with the intention of being a more useful member of society, or simply to kill time or communicate with their acquaintances.

 

We agree with the claim that life can be as simple as living in the wild. You have a choice to remain in the modern world or follow your instincts and turn to the more natural surroundings. As well as the aesthetics you bring into your life. If you feel like living in the woods, nobody should stop you from doing that. Unless you are endangering somebody else. 

 

We thought about it differently, but some of us disagree with the euphoria he seems to be experiencing. We think he came out of the woods thinking about it as if it was an incredible experience when he probably just entered a strange mindset as a consequence of being alone for too long. During the time he was alive it was normal to write things in a more dramatic manner even if it was maybe not as dramatic as they made it seem. We believe he exaggerated a bit more than he needed to. 

 

Literature is an educational force which can give inspiration and insight on your own habits. Since books and textwork often has a huge influence on the reader’s mindset, literature in this context might create an audience who wants to associate themselves to the beliefs of Walden. Being exposed to different lifestyles also give people more choice when it comes to wanting to leave their footprint on the world- through sustainable or damaging behaviors.

The British Victorian Age and Myself

The British Victorian Age has been quite fun. While going through pride and prejudice, I had rather mixed feelings. The concept was enjoyable, but the content was cliche and boring at times. The humor Mrs. Bennet managed to bring, helped creating the mood. Onward to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It has to be my favorite part during this era, as in my interpretation, it is a metaphor for the constant battle inside every one of us. It especially reminded me about a story which I truly love;  Story of two wolves. Dr. Jekyll feeds his greed, trying to make himself better than others. Which in the end goes horrifically wrong.

I will dare to say that the Dover Beach poem was my least enjoyable part of the Victorian era. It was not simple to understand, and confusing to read. I find enjoyment in poems with feeling and nature in their mind. It was dreadfully long with context which I could not understand until anyone actually told me. So, that is the reasoning behind me disliking Dover beach.

What would you think Robert Louis Stevenson would think of today’s society?

Pride and prejudice

The most important message in pride and prejudice, which i perceived, is that everything will solve itself if one includes their heart in the decisions one makes in ones life. To give to examples: Lydia, who is young and impulsive ran away to have a chance on love. Which in the end paid off, as she ended up marrying Mr. Wickham. Elizabeth followed her head in Mr. Darcy’s first proposal, denying his request of marriage. After Elizabeth denied Mr. Darcy’s proposal, she lived in agony and denial of her feeling after they kept blossoming. She tried to push her feelings away until Mr. Darcy again proposed and they both accepted the love that resides within them.

Jane Austin wrote Pride and prejudice as a novel of manners. She rewrote society as it was at the time she lived. Stating the facts, values, morals and manners of the time. Especially how marriages were settled. Elizabeth is followed through the film, being the protagonist. She has several problems with the social system, which gives an interesting concept, as well as a great novel of manners.

My favorite secondary character has to be Mrs. Bennet. She drives the story greatly, pushing her children to marry. Which is the whole reason behind this film, without Mrs. Bennet there would not have been a novel. She adds humor and spice to the story. She is essentially the father of the family, making decisions for the family. She also tells us the difficult story of a mother of only daughters at that time. Having no security for her daughters, making her marry them off before her husband dies to give them financial security.

Pride and prejudice may still be popular considering how this culture is still preserved in some places in the world. The pressure of marrying, having male children and to be the perfect woman, these statements are not to take lightly. Places like Jordan, Egypt, India and Nepal (as we learned in VG2, when we watched Girls rising in international English). Not at least that she uses stone cold facts, she does not dwindle with the truth, but relays it in an understandable approach. To look at Pride and prejudice at another angle, one can say it is the perfect romance, saying that a man from the high class asks a woman who is in a much lower social class than him. I however believe it is foolish to think such thoughts, Austin had much deeper thoughts for this novel than its mere look. Something deeper has its roots deep into the story which I cant comprehend yet, but I am fascinated to know what it is.

Edgar Allan Poe, The tell-tale heart

The tell-tale heart is a short-story by Edgar Allan Poe. The title refers to the beating of the old mans heart, the heart that drives the narrator to confess his crimes. The interesting thing is that I believe the heart the narrator hears during the story is his own. The stress of his endeavors to kill this man is rising his heart-beat, which again he conceives as the old mans heart. His logic is that he is sane, so in his mind he cannot grasp the reality whereas it is his own heart beating. Just an interesting thought to add.

The first sentence of the short-story is interesting:

True! –nervous –very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”.

The narrator asks us, the recipients: “Why will you say that I am mad?”. He is foreshadowing, telling us that he is in fact mad. However, he catches our interest and keeps us absorbed by keeping us on a constant level of stress as the story goes on. He makes us nervous about what the story will contain, why is the narrator dreadfully nervous? Having this in mind, we cannot stop reading. We have to keep reading, to find out what will happen later. We also get a sense of what will happen, “dreadfully” it is a word which is negative, which can only mean something bad has happened.  What has happened, we can not know before we continue reading.

Poe’s story can be described as Gothic because of it contains madness and the sense of horror, and Poe’s short-story still have a strong appeal even though it has gone several hundred years. The supernatural and the macabre is still relevant as we still want an escape from reality, and Edgar Allan Poe will still be relevant for several hundreds of years to come.

 

Task 3, The power of literary devices

A text, especially a poem, cannot be great without literary devices. Without these, you cannot capture the meaning or the soul of the text. They literally convey the message the author is trying to present to the reader, also known as the receiver. I will go deeper into how literary devices can have an impact on literature. To help you in your further understanding of these literary devices, I will use an extract from Charlotte Eriksson as an example. Therefore, this text will explain how Charlotte Eriksson used the literary devices in her favour and her message to the recipience.

The message of the poem is presented to us throughout the entire poem. The “I” in the poem is a person trapped in a façade. We learn that the character declines the façade, telling us that they are “not a Sunday morning inside four walls”. Meaning they will not be seen as the cheerful person they act as. Almost as if she is a doll in her own house. However, the poem then adds: “I am the hurricane setting fire to the forests at night when no one else is alive or awake”. They speak as if they can only be their true self when they are alone at night, because then nobody is watching them. They want to escape, so then they do. Telling us in the process. “Run run run”. In conclusion, the poem’s meaning is that escaping and experiencing pain exceeds a life without meaning and true joy.

Alliteration is the art of empowering one’s text, it is made up by the occurrences of words with the same consonant sounds. A good example could be: “Fleeing a ferocious fight feeling finished”. Normally it will amplify the essence of the text, or in this case the poem. However, in this example can one read and feel the flow of the sentence, which can aid one’s understanding of alliteration. In Eriksson’s poem, one of the alliterations are placed in the ninth verse. “Burning too bright”, making the alliteration short, but effective.

Repetition is one of the more obvious literary devices in any literature, they are easily detected, but extremely productive. They empower the text to a certain degree where the audience is not only growing more passionate as they listen to the author, but it makes the reader remember the message clearer. In this poem, we can find repetition in the fourteenth verse. “Run run run”. By adding repetition to literature, the poem will be easier learned. However, spaced repetition will be much more effective than cramped repetition as we can see in the example. It makes the repetition seem less important, and the meaning will falter later in the poem.

An author can create everything they can imagine on a paper with the help of words. That is what an author does when they create imagery. They create a mental image for the receiver to imagine for themselves. This image can vary from reader to reader as the perception of a text is not the same for each individual. By looking at the poem you can find several examples, but the one example I will extract is: “I live in my own flames”. My image of this scenario is a person standing within a boarder of flames. Not being afraid, but rather being able to live to their fullest, even dancing fiercely on her own terms.

Another literary device which were used in the poem are metaphors. This device is easily identified by helping the receiver think and read between the lines. Forcing the reader to interpret the underlying subject by themselves, being no right or wrong answer. “I am not a Sunday morning inside four walls”, is a metaphor from Eriksson’s poem. I personally interpret this metaphor as somebody being trapped in a life they do not want. A life where you have to act happy, as a Sunday morning.

Symbols is a more subtle way of capturing the reader. A meaning beneath several layers is a good way of describing this literary device. “I am the slave and ruler of my own body
and I wish to do with it exactly as I please”, is an example from Eriksson’s poem. It gives the reader insight in the author’s view of the world. Specifically, for this poem I would say that this example is a symbol of being a free spirit, being able to do whatever you want.

Rhetorical questions are not as frequently used in poems, but they are practiced. They are practical to use, especially if you want to emphasise a point. They make the recipients think about the topic at hand, and not only that, but to consider the different aspects of the text. In Charlotte Eriksson poem, the “I” asks: “Hear that people?”, it emphasises the elements of the poem and what the “I” person is trying to reveal. The emphasis is the fact that the person in this poem sounds like they are out of their mind, but they simply do not care, they just want to be heard and to be noticed.

Charlotte Eriksson did not create a huge revolution, but she manages to initiate emotion out of nothing by using black ink on a piece of paper. It is an art to be able to create something as beautiful as this, one should never underestimate the effects literary devices can do. The message of the poem relies on the different literary devices. Telling us, the receivers, that we can all escape imprisonment and live freely.

Sources:

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1314353-i-am-not-a-sunday-morning-inside-four-walls-with (retrieved: 22/01, 2019)

https://literary-devices.com/ (retrieved 05/12, 2019)