What a feeling.

"Ellen leaned her arms on the window-sill, and tasted the morning air; almost wondering at its sweetness and at the loveliness of field and sky and the bright eastern horizon" (Warner, 158).

So in class today, I pointed out this passage as one of my favorite in the book. I wanted to talk about it more here because I wanted to talk about why I particularly adore this passage (in a transcendentalist sense).

I feel as though Warner has aptly put into words my most favorite feeling in the entire world.

Regardless of date, or weather, or general moods, I often have these moments where I stop whatever it is I'm doing, take a deep breath, and just appreciate how fantastic and beautiful our earth is.

I'm sure this has happened to each of you before. You're driving in your car, playing some music and singing along, and you cross over a bridge to see a tangerine sunset in the horizon and you think, "Holy crap, the world is freaking beautiful."

Ellen, in her own way, has these moments too. Throughout the book Ellen sees nature and the earth as a beautiful creation of God. While I may not be religious, I can appreciate the idea of creationism. Whoever made this earth, whether it was a God or merely millions of years of evolution, they did a damn good job.

This habit or perception is probably one of my most transcendental. I say that because unlike yoga or meditation, which are based on the decision to act, my (let's call them) Nature Revelations are naturally occurring. They are triggered by real sights, real moments, unforced and captivating and wholefully delicious.

Like a small child tasting candy for the first time, I crave these moments. Whenever I am feeling stressed out, our overwhelmed, or just generally unhappy, I like to either hop in my car or go on a walk to a nearby beach or city overlook or something, anything really, that will trigger this flood of happiness.

It's my natural drug of choice. Thoreau would be proud.

Is Ellen a real girl?

I'll admit. I am not too terribly far into Wide Wide World, but I have to ask. When does this book stop being depressing? All of the characters that we have met so far have been either totally obsessed with their sorrow at leaving each other behind of a little indifferent about the whole thing. I was especially struck by the indifference of the father. I mean, does he not see that this might be the last time his little girl and his wife are together? The whole thing is just so sad, and not seeing any other sides of the characters makes them a little one dimensional.

Also, the father comes off as kind of a jerk. I mean, doesn't he see all of the pain he's causing? At the same time though, logically, his decisions make the most sense. It makes sense not to wake her up, to surprise her with the fact that she's leaving, but it still seems so cruel. Since we only see one side of the father it makes him easier to hate, making it easier to assume a sympathetic attitude towards Ellen.

On the boat Ellen continues to be angelic, bearing up against adversity and revealing to the stranger that her fatal flaw is loving her mother more than she loves God, understandable for a young girl.

It is only once she gets to the farm that we see anything other than the sad pale angel we've been pining with all these chapters. The girl doesn't want to make her own bed and doesn't think of her dirty socks causing her aunt any grief. She comes off, not as an angel, but a spoiled brat. Even though the change was kind of abrupt, when it happened I sort of sighed in relief. Finally there was something about this character that I could maybe see as real.

sentimental or sad.....

In the commentary I researched while reading a Wide Wide World there was a commentary about the sentimentality that there was present in the writing. The story is that of explaining the depressing story of her personal situation and how horrible her life keeps getting.  This idea of discussing the depressing and sadness of her life could be consider sad.  But if we look at it the tone in which she takes is that of emotional and torn.  She feel that she is in a hard place because she wants to love her family but they treat her poorly and never make her feel like she is worthy or valued. This causes an interesting growth process for her. She learns to accept her circumstance and to not let it affect her. We could feel sorry for her and like her audience feel that she is being abused and deserves better or we can learn from her life.

This book gained a lot of praise and had fourteen editions printed in two years but why? I feel that the reason for this is because this book gave a real understanding of how hard life was at the time. The character not only survives these hardships but she also finds god and gains confidence. This would resonate in the audiences of the time who would read about a person in a similar circumstance surviving a harder time then their own and still keeping faith.  I felt that after the many repetitive themes the one that made me the most understanding is the idea that at the end of the day you must continue on and find peace in yourself and if that means being sentimental and only think about the small positive things then whatever gets you through the day.           

A Faulty Basis of Actions

It was nice for a change to read a novel that was easy to be drawn into. I enjoyed the writing style of the novel where conversations drove the novel forward. However, the novel was quite different from what I expected it to be.
What was surprising to me as I read the novel was Ellen’s character. I had never read the novel before, but I had been anticipating a stronger, feminist character. As the novel was written by a woman in the 19th century, who must have been discriminated against because of her gender, I expected to find a protagonist who resisted the traditional characteristics that were required of women. (Obviously, I had not known much about Susan Warner’s life when I thought this). I was surprised to discover otherwise.
The mother-daughter relationship obviously serves as the central topic for the first chapters of the novel. I know this novel was written in a different time, and therefore the settings are inevitably unfamiliar to us. I tried to keep this in mind while reading, but I found it hard to relate to their relationship. Ellen is weak and submissive most of the time. She relies greatly on her mother and bends her will completely to her mother’s wishes. Ellen strives to behave in the “right” way, which should make her an admirable character. However, I couldn’t help but think—is she doing this because she really believes she should, or just blindly following her mother’s orders? One passage that I found bothering was: “Every now and then I think of something I want to learn; I can’t remember them now. But I’m doing nothing,” said Ellen sadly,--“learning nothing—I am not studying and improving myself as I meant to; mamma will be disappointed when she comes back, and I meant to please her so much!” (Warner 140). Even though this passage suggests a need for women’s education, its power is made doubtful by Ellen’s last statement. Also, a child trying to please their parent wouldn’t seem nearly as bad if Ellen’s mother had been portrayed differently. I felt as if that Ellen’s mother was seen as a strong character primarily only to Ellen. Even though Ellen’s mother is meant to be portrayed as the “stronger” of the two, and acts as a mental stronghold for Ellen, she is ultimately also under the influence of Captain Montgomery. The “strength” from which the protagonist draws upon is merely another victim of a patriarchal society. It reflects the limits women had to face during that time.

The American Girl?

“Well my child, my gifts will serve as reminders for you if you are ever tempted to forget my lessons. If you fail to send me letters, or if those you send are not what they ought to be, I think the desk will cry shame upon you” (Warner 37).

Those are not words I would want to hear from my deathly ill mother. I was largely shocked by the demeanor of Mrs. Montgomery, who does not stray too far from her morals and upbringing when faced with the fact that she must soon abandon her daughter (perhaps for good). Instead of trying to cultivate a deeper bond with Ellen and give her knowledge that will help her survive, Mrs. Montgomery instills within her the notion that her love ultimately belongs with God and that she should never stray from the proverbial path. While some might see this gesture as noble and thoughtful, I found it to be completely ridiculous and incredibly cruel. Instead of trying to get to know Ellen better, Mrs. Montgomery simply buys her things. It looks like certain stereotypes about the inner-dynamics of wealthy American families have a long history.

Ellen clearly is an impressionable girl who does not want to disappoint her mother. It is a bit disturbing to see Ellen try to reconcile with the fact that her mother loves God more than she loves her. I was kind of hoping Ellen would become resilient and demand that her mother and father take her with them, or at least be more honest with her, however she was far too loyal and obedient to allow her personal feelings to take her over. These initial occurrences in the book regrettably give me hints of the various ways in which Ellen will continue to be oppressed to meet the standards of a Christian patriarchic society.

I think, to a certain extent, this traditional model of familial behavior still exists today –especially when it comes to the treatment of young girls. Having never grown up female and without sisters, much of my “education” regarding the development of girls into women has come from my mother, who has shared multiple stories of her childhood with me. In a very personal sense, I see part of my mother in Ellen. Without getting bogged down in the specifics, my mother’s biological father left her and her two brothers and mother when she was very young. My grandmother soon remarried a man who did not love my mother and her brothers, but would demand that they love him. He never spent any money my mom and uncles –each of them had to work their way through college. One of my uncles had it lucky, one night he got into a fight with his step-father and was able to leave the house, while my mom and her other brother had to remain. The worst part about her childhood, my mom would admit to me, was that she hated that her mother never stood up for her own children. Instead, she would always side with her husband. My mom would later state that these experiences she had as a young girl greatly affected her maturation into a woman –for both better and worse. I suppose thinking about my mom’s upbringing has made me view Ellen’s in a particularly skeptical way. I honestly hope something unexpectedly good happens to her character, but I have my doubts.

Epic Battle! Ellen Montgomery vs. Jane Eyre

When I read the first page of Wide, Wide, World, I immediately compared it to Jane Eyre. Wide, Wide World was published three years after Jane Eyre. Both are by women writers. I think both were very successful when they were first published (it says that Wide, Wide, World was a best seller and I’m pretty sure Jane Eyre sold well). Both are about orphaned or abandoned girls who are sent away from home. Both begin with the heroine sitting by a window on a rainy day. Both girls want to be educated. That’s where the similarities end, however. Ellen is polite and proper, and even though many people in the book are jerks to her, lots of other people react positively. She doesn’t ask questions unless she senses that it’s alright to do so. She is not defiant. She cries a lot. Jane is nothing like this: she’s skinny and often described as plain and even disconcerting looking, like she’s a ghost or spirit (kind of like Priscilla, but alarming instead of charming). She reads all the time and has an intense imagination. She asks so many questions she crosses the line into rude and annoying. When people are mean to her, she fights back—the novel opens with her attacking her cousin after he throws a book at her. When adults chastise Ellen for not being forgiving and for loving her mother more than God, she accepts the criticism and tries to do better. When an adult tells Jane that she could go to hell for disobeying her aunt and cruel cousins, she says she guesses she’ll go to hell, then.

I love Jane. I love everything she does in that book. I feel bad for Ellen. She and her mother are in an impossible situation. They live in a world where women don’t have much leverage. But even though I feel bad for Ellen, and even though I like her—she’s so nice, how can you not like her?—I often want to shake her. I wish she would stop crying and being such a goody-two shoes (seriously? You won’t take your shoes off to walk over a slimy log, even though it would be safer, because “Mama wouldn’t like it?” Nancy shouldn’t have pushed her, but she deserved to fall into the water). I wish she’d stop saying, “Mama! Oh, Mama!”

The more of Wide, Wide, World I read, the more I think that Jane Eyre must have been kind of radical. Ellen stands up for herself, but in very small ways. She seems to rely on the kindness of others to get through life. I know she’s only eleven, but that’s still a bad and potentially dangerous policy. I liked that Jane was so independent, so able to care for herself, so assertive. She’s fiercely on her own side and not afraid to be different. I think she’s amazing. I wish I had those qualities in bigger quantities than I do. I think that Ellen annoys me, even as I feel sympathy for her, because she seems like an instructional character rather than a rounded-out one. Jane is written to be a whole person, Ellen, to be a lesson. I think this book might have been designed to teach little girls to be good and passive under adverse circumstances. It’s amazing how much the message sent to girls has changed. Now, most people want their daughters to be Janes, smart and independent, instead of passive Ellens.

Frustrations, Agency, and Some 'Musings about Shakespeare

February 22, 2011
As a twenty first century women who often reads feminist theory and works, I find the first part of the novel very frustrating. The women possess a great weakness and willingness to submit to the will of others. Even though Zenobia was stuck and written in a time period where women weren’t necessarily treated with equality, she was still a powerful, thoughtful decisive character. I find much of The Wide, Wide World boring and heart breaking for its lack of a “Zenobian.” It is under my impression that the only “cause” or “conditions” the women in this book have complete loyalty to be Christianity. However, I will admit that I’m possibly giving the novel enough credit. There is something to be said about Ellen’s drive to keep busy and yearn for an education. When Miss Fortune challenges that women should not be bookworms, Ellen becomes very upset and protests (Warner 140). However Ellen only defends her mother, but not her personal right to learn how to read. Granted she is a child, and I may have too many expectations on her. Either way, the novel may have been a bit more interesting if Ellen had more agency. I predict that Ellen will possess a new “power” and outlook once her relationship with Alice is more developed. I’m hoping for some type of personal revelation, but this may not be the novel for that type of story. Right now this seems more like a story of just a girl suffering, rather than fighting against that suffrage.
One aspect I found especially intriguing and enjoyable were each chapter’s epigraph. They were perfectly chosen and set up the chapter beautifully. What I found the most interesting was that approximately nine of them were from Shakespeare. We spoke that this era highly valued the classics, but I didn’t realize just how much they were incorporate into art. The quote that I found worked the best was from Romeo and Juliet and served as the epigraph for Chapter 5. The line is delivered by Lord Capulet in response to Paris’ proposal of marriage to Juliet. The scene further discuss Juliet’s duty a woman to her family, and, despite her young age, the expectations that she will soon bare children and remain the dutiful quiet wife. The epigraph forced me to draw a comparison between Juliet and Ellen. I don’t think this is what the author intended due to leaving the play’s title out of the epigraph, but I could not help myself. The two heroines are initially very similar. They are expected to act in accordance with their father’s wishes and have a strong loyal bound to their mother or in Juliet’s case a mother figure (the nurse). However, Juliet willingly thinks for herself, is quite witty, and has a strong sense of agency. This is what Ellen is lacking and I hope earns more of throughout the novel. I would like to say that as much as I find this story frustrating and far too preachy, I really am enjoying reading it.

Nature vs. Technology

The presentations on Monday were really enlightening. I liked the different ideas our class came up with and seeing their interpretations of what a utopia would be. Their ideas, ranging from trailer caravans to complete isolation, were inventive and very original. The prospects of travelling, living off the land, and living everyday by a set of core values seemed to be a common theme throughout each of the presentations.

Although my group decided upon a farming community, it is not what I personally imagine a utopia to be like. The transcendentalists and those very close to nature would disagree, but I can’t see being very happy surrounded by nature and without technology for very long. Obviously, when the transcendentalists were prominent, there were no cell phones or internet; a great majority of the technologies we use every day and take for granted did not exist back in their time. So although it was only for a class project, none of the presentations seemed terribly realistic (except for the Canary Collective). If asked, I am sure half the class would not actually give up their lives and live on any of the utopias, myself included. I am far too used to having the everyday amenities and luxuries of this modern era. I do not have a perfect vision or idea for my personal utopia; however I know it would not be without technology or modern innovations.

This got me thinking about the debate between rejecting nature and rejecting technology, and the pros/cons of both sides.

One of my favorite bands, The Talking Heads, actually produced a song called “Nothing But Flowers” which satirizes those who forgo technology and try to reconnect with nature. “Once there were parking lots / Now it's a peaceful oasis / This was a Pizza Hut / Now it's all covered with daisies / I miss the honky tonks, / Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens / And as things fell apart / Nobody paid much attention / We used to microwave / Now we just eat nuts and berries …” I think this song speaks to the extreme side of rejecting innovation and getting back to our roots, however it brings up a valid point.

Like the transcendentalists have expressed, embracing nature has its perks. You feel more spiritual and in touch with the earth. However, it is not practical. On the opposite side of the spectrum, being completely consumed by technology may seem rewarding, but it can turn you into a mindless consumer.

Dave Loveless, in a blog in The Prodigal, said “Of course, the obvious answer is neither an utter rejection of these advances nor an outright embracing. I feel that the correct path is in the middle…I don’t have a smart phone, I don’t get online but when I have to, and I do my best to restrict my Internet usage to the weekdays while I’m at work…I know that I could easily spend every moment of every day consuming for the sake of consumption, and so I fall much closer to refusing technology than embracing it.”

He talks about finding a balance between forgoing all technology and rejecting nature. I think his blog ties in well with my own thoughts on the matter; I agree that there should be a balance. Life is not much of a utopia without the best of both worlds.

Hard Hearted

This phrase of being "hard hearted" occurs several times within the first sixty or so pages of Susan Warner’s “ The Wide Wide World.” One passage that struck me in particular was found on page 71, when Ellen speaks with the gentleman she met at the party, who tells her, “We are all blind by nature, Ellen;-we are al hard-hearted; none of us can see him or love him unless eyes and touches our hearts; but he has promised to do this for those that seek him.” What’s most interesting is that even tough he says that she has a hard heart, it is clear that she does not, and is the main reason why this particular gentlemen, who noticed her heavy and tender heart stopped and tried to sooth her.
There were many instances in this particular chapter of hard heart, and broken hearted. I felt that there was a bit of tension, since those who seemed to accept “Him” seemed rather cold, especially with Ellen. During the first few pages Warner depicts the relationship between Ellen and her mother. During these passages I grew more and more uncomfortable as the scenes were unraveling between Ellen and her mother. Her mother seems fairly distant for a fair part of the first few chapters, especially when she discusses that she loves God more than everything else, even her child. It is clear that Ellen rejects this notion and once can only imagine that she is hurt by this honest and fairly puritan statement. I also thought it rather interesting that it seemed that Ellen, even if she’s a young child- understands human emotions more than her own mother, she demonstrates a great empathy towards others, especially her mother when she is taking care of her. I felt that the most tender moments in the narrative was when Ellen would take the time and talk about the food, and how much she relied on the food for a connection with either somewhat reserved and cold mother, “How careful Ellen was about that toast…and she was very careful to put in, just the quantity of milk and sugar that her mother liked…she had the greatest satisfaction in seeing that the little her mother could eat was prepared for her in the nicest possible manner; she knew her hands made it taste better.” (13) This stream of thought that Ellen is experiencing throughout the first part of the novel is very emotionally mature. This also shows how turned toward other Ellen is, she has a purity (one that is not affiliated with religion) that is very rare for someone her age. I found myself frustrated with the mother, even if she shows some moments of tenderness; she is overall a naive and cold woman. How she handles affection and proclaims it to her daughter seems fairly underdeveloped and I began to think that Ellen was the adult in such a relationship. After all she is the one taking care of the mother (the father remains fairly passive throughout the first few chapters) and is open with how much love and affection she gives her mother. It is clear at the end of the chapter with the gentleman, that Ellen is still hurt that her mother isn’t more open with affection and pleasure. And she simply rejects the notion of one loving Jesus more than her mother, or anyone close to her. She cannot understand how this is even humanly possible. Leaving her heart completely melted—

winning as losers.

So …. Priscilla won. But did she really win? What kind of a prize is Hollingsworth? He has given up his philanthropy up a little for now in the guilt of Zenobia's death, but will he not abandon Priscilla in a little while to take up his philanthropy again? Even if he doesn't what kind of life can she have now, caring for Hollingsworth? And in winning Hollingsworth she has lost the half-sister that she always wanted and initially loved.

And of Zenobia? Is losing Hollingsworth really worth the drowning that she gives herself? It is a terrible thing to think. And yet, Silas Foster is a little ridiculous in his search for her body. What are we to think of this decision? Is it as ridiculous and stupid a notion as he makes it seem? I feel that her decision was as silly as Foster believes. I mean, she has known Hollingsworth for a few months, right? And she was so much admired, Coverdale himself talked of her as if talking of a goddess.

And yet I think that her death preserves her character. She “had no more to hope for” as Coverdale says, and I don't think that her beauty would not have waned as Westervelt claims, and perhaps the drama of her suicide is more appropriate to her character than the slow wasting away that might have been her fate.

The question still remains though, is the novel in the least bit feminist? Surely Zenobia is a strong female character, but in the end the only avenue of change afforded to her is her own death. Priscilla, on the other hand, is the weakest sort of girls, but yet she gains Hollingsworth and becomes his only supporter. Not only did she win Hollingsworth, but, we find, Miles Coverdale too. Is Hawthorne trying to tell us that the real power in women is their being the sort of frail creatures in need of support that men would have them be? Or is he just expressing the idea that strong women like Zenobia, no matter how full or womanliness they are, will never win the love of a man due to the very masculinity of their strength?

Uninspiring ending

"I exaggerate my own defects. The reader must not take my own word for it, nor believe me altogether changed from the young man who once hoped strenuously, and struggled not so much amiss. Frostier heads than mine have gained honor in the world; frostier hearts have imbibed new warmth, and been happy. Life, however, it must be owned, has come to rather an idle pass with me"(Hawthorne, 121).

Class is currently in session and I am not there. The reason for this is actually mildly hilarious. I woke up this morning, went downstairs to the gym in the basement of my apartment, and ran on the treadmill for an hour--and then when I stopped running and attempted to walk over to the water fountain, I vomited everywhere.

Gross, I know, but also hilarious. What is not hilarious is the fact that I have just finished scrubbing vomit off of the basement rug for 30 minutes--so naturally, not feeling so good about sprinting over to class in my sweat and vomit stained gym clothes.

This post, therefore, is going to be my means of participating in today's discussion.

Today we are analyzing the ending of The Blithdale Romance, and I have a lot to say about it.

First of all, let me just begin by saying I did not completely hate this book (I know my responses to the material we've read so far in class have been mildly pessimistic, so I purposely approached this novel with an open mind). That being said, while not much happened within the first half of the book, I found it to be much stronger then the extremely dissappointing second half.

The part I would like to talk about specifically is the books' ending. Hawthorne seems to be utterly confused about his purpose for writing this novel. He cannot decide what genre it is, he can't pick a consistent language to use throughout the chapters, and he certainly can't decide if it's meant to be well written. The passage at the beginning of this blog post is a good example of the authors bi-polar tendencies. Here we have an excerpt of Miles Coverdale's Confession chalked full of beautiful language and metaphor. When Hawthorne writes in the voice of Coverdale that, "Frostier heads than mine have gained honor in the world, frostier hearts have imbibed new warmth, and been newly happy," I, as a reader, was touched by the concept of change. A person, no matter how cold, still has the opportunity to find warmth and be happy. Hawthorne writes that life must be owned, and that Coverdale's understanding of life is at an "idle pass."

The reason why I point this passage out is because it accentuates a literary tendency that Hawthorne has implemented throughout the novel that has, up until this point, not bothered me. Hawthorne, in the midst of plot, throws around these concepts and transcendentalist ideas that intrigue me as a reader. He includes on snippets of these ideas, veiling them in story development, and leaving the reader eager for more. The only problem with this, however, is that the story isn't strong. Throughout my time reading this novel, I found myself knowing that had this novel lacked transcendentalist idealism, I would not read it based on plot alone.

This is the reason I am choosing to focus on the ending. For me, this was the peak of my criticism. In Miles Coverdale's Confession Hawthorne includes large concepts about life like the ones listed above that get the reader thinking. He talks about the self, the system, truth, unhappiness as it relates to prosperity, human purpose, morals, emptiness, death, and at the end of it all, concludes with an elementary plot proponent written in the style of a twelve year old. "I-I myself-was in love-with-PRISCILLA."

We knew this. We guessed it. We read it. This is not Coverdale's confession. Coverdale's confession is the deep and sentimental analysis of his own being--the fallacies, the truths--Coverdale contemplates the purpose of human living and finishes the novel as well as his testament to inner exploration with caps lock? Why?!?

I wanted to talk about why an author would choose to end a novel in such an uninspiring way.

Hawthorne and Feminism

Aside from Hawthorne’s commentary on collectivity versus the individual, did he also use the Blithedale Romance to discuss feminism and women in the 19th century. I think Hawthorne uses the two main female characters, Zenobia and Priscilla, to discuss his views on women. Priscilla and Zenobia are polar opposites, while Priscilla is meek, timid, and easily manipulated, Zenobia is strong willed and opinionated. It is as if Hawthorne wrote these characters in such a way that Zenobia is the embodiment of the feminist ideal and Priscilla is a representation of the misogynistic view of women at this time. However, Zenobia does give up her feminist views for a time when she is under Hollingsworth’s spell. This part, for whatever reason, reminded of the lyrics of a Bobby Caldwell song “What You Won’t Do For Love”, mainly the part where he sings “What you won't do, do for love/You've tried everything/But you won't give up/In my world only you/Make me do for love/What I would not do” I thought these lyrics, however abstractly connected with Zenobia’s willingness to change her staunch feminist for Hollingsworth.

However, when Zenobia and Priscilla leave Blithedale, her feminist beliefs return. I was struck by Zenobia and Coverdale’s conversation in the drawing room before she and Priscilla depart with Westervelt to a mysterious location. Zenobia scorns Coverdale for using the “stale excuse of duty”, she mentions that she has heard it before (presumably from men). In contrast, Coverdale questions Priscilla about returning to Blithedale and she states that she has no free will and will return when she is asked, not on her own accord. I believe Hawthorne intentionally placed these two very different exchanges right next to each other. In addition, Priscilla does not even know where she will be going with Westervelt and Zenobia.

While reading, I was trying to figure out where Hawthorne stood on the issue of feminism. In my opinion, I don’t believe he is a misogynist. Considering his history with Brook Farm and his support of collectivity, I think he is supportive of strong women and equality between the sexes.

I’m not much of a feminist at all, to be honest I never even notice that sort of thing unless it is glaring obvious, maybe this is why I found Zenobia fascinating. I can only immediately recall a few instances in my life where I felt treated differently because of my gender. Once when I was about 16 or 17 and my mom forced my sister and I to help her peel potatoes. I sarcastically asked why she hadn’t asked my brothers to help her and she gave me the dirtiest look ever. Then she launched into her speech that she gives every so often tell my sister and I that because we were women we would have to learn how to cook so we could do this for our families. I always ignore her, considering her views have a great deal to do with her growing up in Ghana, West Africa in the ‘60s and ‘70s where gender roles are more rigid than they are here.

How did I forget Zenobia dies?

I’m not sure how, but I completely forgot that Zenobia dies. The only thing I remembered clearly when I started rereading this book was Zenobia greeting Coverdale when he first arrives at Blithedale, with a hothouse flower in her hair. The rest of it started to come back to me as I read. Until Coverdale, Hollingsworth, and Silas Foster go down to the river, however, I completely forgot the suicide. This seems odd to me, because I think that’s where the book really gets good.

I know that sounds morbid, and maybe silly (the suicide made the book SO MUCH BETTER!!!) but I think it did. For me, Blithedale improves when Zenobia dies because it finally starts to feel like Hawthorne is doing something interesting, challenging, and honest with his writing. Most of the book reads like a satire, both of Brook Farm and of a gothic novel. That’s fun in a short piece, and it was probably funny at the time, but it’s not very satisfying to read a novel mocking parts of culture that have long since faded away. After Zenobia dies, the book moves away from satire and into a real story about something that is actually tragic. It’s not easy or fun to read, but those last chapters have more substance than anything at the beginning of the book.

Coverdale finally becomes a whole person at the end of the book, instead of a figure the reader wants to mock. Sometimes main characters who are also jerks are compelling—Little Alex in A Clockwork Orange is a good example. But Coverdale isn’t a horrible person with one beautiful, compelling quality, he’s just ridiculous, nosey, and horny (which is fine, but it’s annoying that he won’t just admit it). Basically, he’s like most people are when the volume is turned up on their less likeable qualities. When he realizes Zenobia has died, he stops being ridiculous. His fear for Zenobia, and his fear of what she has done, his desperation, his despair and certainty that she has died, combined his hope that maybe he’s wrong, are all real emotions you feel when you know something horrible has happened and can’t do anything but clean it up.

His resignation at the end of the book was also compelling. The line “more and more I feel that we had struck upon what ought to be a truth” broke my heart a little (120). It’s so hard to find out that something that should be true—because it would make the world so much better, because it would be fair, because it would redeem a lot of horrible things—isn’t true, or is only true under specific, delicate conditions. I think it’s a big part of growing up, losing your innocence. In his novel Until I Find You, John Irving says, "In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss." Hawthorne and Irving are saying essentially the same thing. Blithedale also deal with the fact that, sometimes, learning these lessons makes people give up entirely. It seems like Coverdale has done that. He’s a casualty of the world, and it’s heartbreaking. It makes me feel bad for disliking him so much for most of the novel, because at least at the beginning he was innocent and hopeful.

That being said, the last line kind of makes me want to slap him (or maybe Hawthorne?)—“I—I myself—was in love—with—PRISCILLA!”

Way to ruin a great ending, Hawthrone. Good job.

Defining Failure

The class discussion we had Monday relating to the video we watched as well as the reading “Transcendental Wild Oats” got me thinking about how we, both individually and as a society, perceive and define failure. I realized that for me personally, I think of failure much differently than I think of success.

Firstly, for me failure is easier to attain than success. Getting a B on a test might be a failure if my goal was an A, but yet if I were to get an A, I might not consider it a success but rather just something that needed to be done. Another problem with failure for me personally is that it sticks out in my mind much more so that success does. In high school, I was a standout athlete and looking back I still remember more of my bad games and negative statistics more than the positive ones. My mom kept every single sports article that had my name in it and when I go back and re-read the articles, I’m amazed at some of the positive things I did. The same thing applies to grades; I still remember one test that I failed in sixth grade and had to get it signed by my parents. I couldn’t tell you if I did well on the next test or not, though I do remember I did well in the class overall. A piece of advice my father gave me that I will never, ever forget and which he mostly applied to sports, but it definitely can apply to life is: the most important thing to do when you make a mistake is focus on the next play (or in life, the next situation that comes your way).

From a societal point of view, I think the perception is similar. People tend to look at those who “fail” and say that person must be weak or incompetent. However, if people do well or “succeed” we say that is what they are supposed to do so we tend not to recognize them as much. I do think there are people who like to focus on the positives, but in general we will remember a person for their downfalls instead of theirs successes, no matter the ratio.

In Transcendental Wild Oats, they perceived their society as a failure, which by their description it clearly was. The interesting part to me is what they did after they left this community; I wonder whether they tried to experiment with this again, but making changes or modifications or if they just gave up the idea completely and continued to live with the rest of society. My dad’s advice could have come in to play towards the end as they were all sitting around discussing their failure. It may have been positive for them to hear that, while they did make a mistake, life was going to go on and they needed to focus on that future that was to come their way.

Blithedale Drama

I enjoyed finishing the Blithedale Romance. However, I did not enjoy it as much as Hawthorne’s other works, the novel was still a nice change of pace from the philosophical readings were had been discussing.

Hawthorne criticizes the lifestyle of the Transcendentalists who reject urbanization and material goods for a simpler, more romanticized way of life. He depicts a group of utopians set out to reform humanity. However, members of the group are powerful and strong-willed in their ambitions for the community, which inevitably lead to conflict. Instead of changing the world, the group members pursue individual, and often egotistical, goals that ultimately end in tragedy. Clearly, the novel both laments and satirizes the rural idyll that dominated nineteenth-century America at large.

Hawthorne weaves complex background stories and characters to form a dramatic plot. Although I really enjoyed this aspect, I was nonetheless confused by his character Coverdale. He is the main character, as well as the narrator. Coverdale becomes good friends with Hollingsworth, Priscilla, and Zenobia. We, the reader, are led to believe that Coverdale is madly in love with Zenobia.; he praises her beauty endlessly and describes her as an angelic goddess. However, we learn at the end of the novel that Coverdale was in love with Priscilla the entire time. I was greatly confused by this “confession” he makes at the very end. Although it was a shock and a twist of sorts, I found it held no emphasis on what occurred in the novel or how it altered the course of the plot and character development. I found it to be unnecessary and arbitrary

Although his character confused me at times, I still become attached to Coverdale. He seemed to be established as one of the few sane characters throughout the novel. He was the voice of reason when everyone surrounding him was acting, to be frank, insane and utterly ridiculous. For example, when Coverdale tells Hollingsworth once that he does not know if he will ever be a philanthropist and asks if Hollingsworth can bear with him if such proves to be the case, Hollingsworth does not know if they can be lifelong friends if Coverdale does not strive with him for a great reformation. Coverdale explicitly tells Hollingsworth that his ambition of reforming criminals is unfathomable and impossible; instead of taking this as constructive criticism, Hollingsworth completely cuts off their friendship. Additionally, many of the characters deeply confide in Coverdale. He is a grounded, trustworthy person for them to share their darkest secrets with. Zenobia and Coverdale, for example, are very good confidants. It is to him that she expresses her plan to commit suicide and it is he that tries to save her.

On the topic of Zenobia’s suicide, I was also confused by this action. Zenobia is described as such a strong role model for women. She has her own thoughts and is actually intelligent, yet she falls head over heels for a misogynist. Furthermore, she kills herself over him. Thus I found an obvious disconnect between how her character was established and her actual actions. I suppose Hawthorne wanted to further satirize love, but I felt it would be more believable if Priscilla was the one to commit suicide.

An Art School Education

After Monday’s class, I kept thinking about the mainstream education in America. The video shown had a huge impact on me throughout the day and I literally sent the link t most of my art school friends. I attended public school from the age of six till I was thirteen in a small, privileged town way up north in Michigan. There I was the only foreign student and was teased endlessly for wearing scent that blushed my wrists (French women start prepping the young girls with perfume from a very early age). Along with constantly being reminded that I did not fit in with my peers, I was put in the slower level reading classes because the teachers were concerned that I was not at the normal level. (Not once did they consider the fact that I was bilingual –French & English- could have an influence on this little reading “problem”). I went through the system without doing much actual work, but did the bare minimum to not be noticed by my teachers. When I was thirteen, I got extremely sick and missed three months of school, and after returning to school I never did much work to catch up, yet managed to get by with decent grades. This attitude of doing the bare minimum is one that most students in my town also adopted, and the teachers never pushed us to change this sort of “ideal.” After my English professor was gone for a week, a substitute teacher noticed that I was not following with the rest of the class, and instead spent my time writing short little stories. She took my stories away and read it, and told me to meet her after class. She then gave me an exam and concluded that I was at least four years ahead of my peers, which it wasn’t because I was simply lazy, but because I was bored, I needed to be stimulated. She told me about the boarding art high school just an hour away. After that I applied and got in. It was in this school that I progressed the most. Interlochen was highly selective, only accepting the most passionate and devoted young artists. Though once there we learned we learned that having our noses in the books would not be enough to do well in the school. My workload was overwhelming, reading only the finest of poets and fiction writers- pulled three all-nighters a week was fairly normal and my professors stimulated me by having me to write poem after poem. I didn’t have any real requirements other than take a certain number of classes. The classes where I learned most from where the ones where there were no tests or essays, simply I read plenty of books and we engaged in class discussions. Sometime we would go into the river and fly fish, or canoe while reading the poems outside, and at other times one professor especially thought we needed to get in touch with our wild selves to fully comprehend certain texts, and so we burned sage, drummed and ran through the woods and howled at the moon. I felt simply brilliant, and had plenty of collaborative and creative ideas. Coming to Carnegie Mellon has been a huge and somewhat difficult adjustment. I go to every class, I spend hours doing of homework, overloading, yet I don’t think I’ve ever felt so bored and terribly down that I am not being intellectually stimulated. I’m not being pushed in my creativity, and instead of progressing and being challenged I find myself regressing. Odd concept since the goal of higher education is to be challenged and stimulated not left feeling burnt out and completely bored. I think that there needs to be other ways, other than just the traditional schooling method that stimulate certain people, who do not fit the social norms of education.

Blithesdale Romace + Transcendental Wild Oats

We said that The Blithesdale Romance was a satire. I think that, as a satire, Transcendental Wild Oats almost works better. I think that The Blithesdale Romance kind of gets caught up in the romance. I mean, the story leaves the collective for a good while near the middle of the end, and becomes for the most part about the mystery that involves Zenobia and Priscilla. Coverdale is obsessed with it, obviously. And he even romanticizes the city, when he goes back to it. He says, “Whatever had been my taste for solitude and natural scenery, yet the thick, foggy, stifled elements of cities, the entangled life of many men together, sordid as it was, and empty of the beautiful, took quite as strenuous a hold upon my mind” (73). He seems to be a romantic – his status as a poet is mentioned more than once, and in his last scene with her Zenobia tells him to write a ballad about what just happened (110) – and he mentions too how he had “[…][suffered] his colorless life to take its hue from other lives” (120). Although I guess you can say that allowing your life to be affected by others is part of the collective, I still think the story, in the end, was more about individual people, the individual romance.

In Transcendental Wild Oats, it is obvious that Louisa May Alcott is making a statement against the sustainability of collectives and against the beliefs of her father, which we talked about in regard to other readings. But it seemed to me that she loved her father too, as she does strive to redeem him at the end of the story. She understands Abel’s pain in Fruitlands not succeeding, saying, “Deep waters now for Abel, and for a time there seemed no passage through. Strength and spirits were exhausted by hard work and too much thought. Courage failed when, looking about for help, he saw no sympathizing face […]” (7). And she does redeem the character at the end, as he realizes that he must survive in order to provide for his family (7). I can’t remember from other readings if Alcott’s father ever truly came to this realization, but I do remember reading at some point in the Buell book that Alcott provided for the family with her writing. But I do know from my knowledge of the reality behind the story of Little Women – thank you, middle school research paper / grade-school book – that she loved her family a lot. But the father in that story, if he was based on her father like the other characters were based on her family, was off at war. So I think she kind of avoided interjecting any feelings beside love and fear for his safety.

But with Transcendental Wild Oats, I think Alcott made clear her stance on collectives. I think Hawthorne did too, but he also had the whole Veiled Lady thing going on, which was mentioned in class. That scene with the witchcraft in the woods really threw me off. It actually reminded me of “Young Goodman Brown,” which I read in 9^th grade. Just looked it up, and Hawthorne wrote that too! But it was hard to see how that scene fit into the satire.

Responsibility to Reform

Our discussion in class today left me inspired to share with you all a passion of mine that has taken a backseat since my freshmen year of college: Vegan living. I was devastated when I got sick my Freshmen year and was told by doctors that my vegan diet was critically effecting my health. My mother and father no longer supported my diet and begged me to give it up. After eight years of being a vegetarian and two years of being a vegan, it's safe to say that I went through a brief identity crisis before being able to adapt to my new way of living.

That being said, reform in the meat packing industry is still a huge passion of mine. The following is an abbreviated version of an article I wrote for The Tartan arguing for reform in the meat packing industry and a limit in meat consumption here at CMU. The article was republished by USA Today in their Gallery of Exceptional College Journalists and was part of the inspiration behind CMU's new "Meatless Mondays."

Meat packing industry has responsibility to reform

Since we were young, we were taught to recognize the common barnyard animals: A cow says “moo” and a pig says “oink,” and the two are by no means related to our hamburger dinner or our BLT sandwich. But at what point did these animals stop being animals and start being food?

We are in the midst of what many consider to be a green revolution; however, few seem to realize the true impact that meat production has on our environment and our bodies. If this nation were to realize these social, economic, and environmental impacts, we could consider possible industry and social reforms to improve the efficiency of meat production and, with this knowledge, stimulate change.

Very few individuals recognize the consequences that the meat-packing industry has had on our economy, environment, and society. As CNN correspondent Jonathan Sanfran Foe says in his article on All-creatures.org, “If the way we raise animals for food isn’t the most important problem in the world right now, it’s arguably the No. 1 cause of global warming: The United Nations reports the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.”

The meat industry is one of the largest in the world and, according towww.earthtrends.com, over 280 million metric tons of meat were produced in 2009 alone. Though it is one of the largest modern industries, the meat production process has also proven to be one of the most inefficient industries today. According to one estimate done by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the ratio of fossil-fuel energy needed to produce one unit of food energy is 35:1 for beef production, compared to 3:1 for all U.S. agricultural products combined.

As an economic industry, the meat industry is extremely inefficient. An Iowa State study estimated that the “external costs” of agricultural production in the United States — in terms of natural resources, wildlife and ecosystem biodiversity, and human health — amount to between $5.7 billion and $16.9 billion annually. Livestock production alone is estimated to contribute $714 million to $739 million in damages. The meat industry, when considered economically, is not only extremely expensive, but the majority of the money being spent is on waste and methods of production that have not been updated in years.

The production of livestock for meat harvest can be linked to almost every environmental catastrophe confronting our planet. Rainforest destruction, the spreading of deserts, the loss of fresh water, increasing air and water pollution, destructive acid rain, and soil erosion are all linked to the industrialized production of meat.

Possibly the most commonly understood side effect of the meat packing industry is the intense amounts of carbon dioxide released from the production of meat. The FAO has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. But what can be done to prevent these terrifying statistics from growing? While it is true that global industry contributors could create more sustainable methods of livestock feeding and crop production, develop proper methods of manure and methane management, or enlist better grazing methods to prevent erosion, these improvements can only be implemented by industry heads. These leaders, more likely than not, are unwilling to act due to economic factors, and as a population we cannot rely on them.

The ball is in our court — it is up to the people to take control of this situation. With no higher powers to take on the responsibility, the typical Carnegie Mellon student is the one who needs to make a difference. The solution is easy: Cut down on meat consumption.

By eating lower on the food chain, individuals can reduce the amount of land needed to support their existence, thus minimizing their ecological footprint. If less land is cultivated for the production of crops or the grazing of livestock, that much more wilderness is left untouched. As a result there will be less soil erosion, less water pollution, less pesticide use, less carbon emission, and less energy use.

Even just cutting one’s meat consumption in half can be a personally healthy and seemingly effective way to minimize the impact of meat production. Predictably enough, however, a plant-based diet is the best alternative. Plants are healthy for the body and a proper vegetarian diet has proven effective in reducing heart disease, cancer, and other diet-related diseases. However, while it may be the best solution, a society of vegetarians is largely unrealistic.

Keeping reality in mind, this is a plea from me to the students of Carnegie Mellon and the campus administration: Limit your meat consumption. As an individual you can cut out that burger for an Evgefstos! alternative maybe once or twice a week; even this small initiative will make a difference. Meanwhile, Carnegie Mellon may consider instituting a day of the week where Resnik only serves animal-friendly products. You may even choose to do more to cut meat out for some period of time. Whatever you choose, get educated. Research the subject, discuss it with friends, browse the Internet — when considering your next eco-alternative, remember this article. Change is before us but no one is going to hand it over; it’s up to us to reach out and grab it.

When To Call It Quits

“With the first frosts, the butterflies, who had summed themselves in the new light through the summer, took flight… Precious little appeared beyond the satisfaction of holy living. At first it seemed as if a chance to try holy dying also was to be of-fered them” (Alcott 6).

After reading that passage from Louisa May Alcott’s “Transcendental Wild Oats,” I thought a lot about to what extent people could be devoted to a lost cause. Even though I cannot personally identify with Alcott’s character “Abel Lamb,” I still wanted him to come to his senses and remember his obligations to his family instead of slowly fading from existence. I wondered if readers generally regarded him as a foolish hypocrite and a quitter. From the details that Alcott gives the reader, it’s clear that Abel is in a state of despair upon learning that the utopian community he wanted to create has failed. After its collapse, Abel wallows in his own misery and does not accept consolation from his family (which is somewhat indicative of his transcendental beliefs). I found it interesting that God was the catalyst that made him come to his senses. While I do not doubt the power of spirituality, I do think it is a little absurd to believe God cares about the death of a transcendentalist (or anyone for that matter). While I was pleased with Abel’s ultimate decision, I still found his logic to be a bit flawed (perhaps Alcott would agree)

To put Alcott’s narrative in perspective, I tried to think of an instance in which I was forced to give up or set aside a dream that I thought I needed to see fulfilled. While I haven’t been forced to give up a dream because it was killing me, I was able to think of at least one example. When I was ten years old, I started learning how to fence (with weapons, not putting up deer fences, etc.). I became very devoted to the sport and consistently tried to improve during every lesson. Even at a young age, the pressure I felt while I was fencing was enormous. Usually, I would fence kids older, taller, and skinnier than I was. There were even times, in general competitions, where I had to fence adults that perhaps had some sick fascination with slashing down young-teens and making them feel submissive. By comparison, I was average height and had a broader chest and little more muscle, which made me an easy target to hit. I battled (literally) through these adversities and tried to be the smarter, faster fencer. I sacrificed a lot for that sport: welts covered my arms, chest and legs, my knuckles were constantly bandaged and bleeding, I have a scar on my left had from an errant lunge, I’ve been electrocuted by faulty electronic machines (which keep track of the scoring in official competitions), and I’ve been stabbed below the belt one too many times. I was constantly scrutinized by Russian and Ukrainian trainers that could barely speak any English, but whose disapproval was enough to make me want to quit altogether. I was lucky to have one friend who fenced with me for a couple of years. I mostly could never connect with the other fencers at my club or at school; I just found them to be very narcissistic.

So why did I keep fencing for as long as I did? Basically, because it was fun to win against arrogant jerks and my parents thought a good fencing record would help me get into a good college. I found that the former was no longer fun when I started becoming arrogant myself. As for the college recruitment, I never could deal with the intense pressure of large competitions in order to rank significantly high. In short, I couldn’t simply fence for the fun of it any more. In my opinion, no one (in their right mind) fences because it’s enjoyable and relieves stress. Instead, I picked up the fun (but even more brutal sport) of hockey instead because it’s mainly a team sport and I didn’t have to feel like all eyes were scrutinizing me when I played. Also, instead of taking my anger out on someone with a flimsy blade, I could just run into them really hard. I do miss fencing from time to time, but I did realize that it was making me into a person I didn’t want to be.

One man's heaven is another man's hell

One man's heaven is another man's hell

Utopian living, it seems ideal, a group of people living together benefiting from the skills each person has. Living for what really counts family and love. Each person working as hard as the other to carry the responsibility of the community to survive on the outskirts of a society that doesn't have the values that this given community has. We see sixty some people working together to live harmoniously. Except in reality we are selfish people no one ever works as hard for someone else as they do for themselves. So here we have a group of possibly lazy people not equally distributing the work. So then resentment builds and we get to deal with the really dramatic deal of forcing everyone to "suffer equally"(ny department of edu). I feel that the goes against the principles of utopian society. Its about living in a peaceful and calm and nature filled life. But one man's heaven is another man's hell, I would hate that kind of living. I am not a fan of collaboration because i am the one normally who gets to do all the work. I would much rather a each man for themselves because i do not feel like i am carrying people. A utopian society seems stagnate for me there is nothing to fight for to work hard for because there is nothing to gain. I would feel stuck and then become lazy. And I couldn't do that so this utopian society that sounds like heaven to someone would represent  my hell.

HELL in MY EYES

HEAVEN in MY EYES

Essentially a Love Letter to Alcott and an Appreciation for the New

I understand that most of my classmates felt a great breath of fresh air reading Hawthorne, but it wasn’t until “Transcendental Wild Oats” that I felt free from the heaviness that transcendental writings tend to have. Hawthorne’s prose is unbelievably wordy and for me personally goes on like sludge. It is much wittier, but it doesn’t possess the great tone or pace that Alcott has mastered. What I like about Alcott’s writing is that she has found the perfect balance to unveil the obvious flaws within not only a commune but societies. I find that most of the writings we have read focused on unimportant details that only add to a melodramatic overtone rather than add to the actual essence of the overall piece. Now, not ALL writing does this, but I found it somewhat of a pattern. Alcott does not do this. I actually wanted to hear about every detail about the bread and the trials of being a woman on this commune. She hit a new tone with me that no other writer we have read so far has. Today, although this may be factually wrong, the Transcendentalists are viewed by the everyday man, Joe the plumber if you will, as merely academics. They just wrote. I feel that Alcott was not only making fun of but challenging this view. My moment in this reading was, “that Moses said no more, though he indulged in a shake of the head as he glanced at hands that had held nothing heavier than a pen for years”(Alcott 2). The thought of a bunch of writers suddenly becoming enthusiastic gardeners is quite humorous.
Although Blithedale Romance sparked some thought, this particular essay really made me consider what would happen if my group’s Utopia actually existed? What would be the first problem? What type of people would want to live in that kind of society today? I will not go into too much detail because my group will be presenting. However, we have had plenty of details in our planning but I still feel that there would be so much that we are missing. Our Utopia is run by a committee. What if the committee has too many conflicting personalities? What would happen to the poor people who were not on the committee and would suffer from the tension that the committee was facing? And what of those who wished to live in the commune but not pull their weight in work like the woman in Alcott’s story? But most importantly the section that addressed eating animal products brought up the question of adjustment. How long would it take someone to adjust to a completely new environment? Because of this and how people have grown accustomed to luxurious living I wonder if it is possible. Perhaps this is something my group needs to further address. Overall, I completely enjoyed Alcott and now am even more eager to reread Little Women. I have not read the novel in quite some time and would like to compare its tone to this piece of writing and see how similar or different it is. From what I recall it’s rather different.

the switch

I would just like to say that the switch from the Transcendentalist's heavy critical writing to Blithedale Romance is a welcome one. True, it is a novel written in the Victorian style, with descriptions galore and characters that nobody quite believes, but compared to the social criticism that we've been perusing it's as light as Shel Silverstien.

That being said, the novel poses a different kind of problem. Analyzing the social criticisms was straightforward, you form an opinion on the reading, you find the meaning in the text or in how texts relate, and you push forward. But the novel takes no stance, and even if it did, even if Nathanial Hawthorne did, would it matter? Do we even care about the author's opinion in this case?

What are we trying to find out from reading this novel?

The Gender Roles

I will start off by saying that this is a pleasant change from what we’ve
read before. Although I did enjoy reading some passages of Thoreau,
Emerson, and the other transcendentalists, Hawthorne’s “The Blithedale
Romance” is a refreshing alternative piece of prose, as opposed to the
more philosophical writing. It’s interesting to see that although
Hawthorne was also part of the “transcendentalist movement” and an active
member in Brooks farm, how different his writing and his way of
Transcending his thoughts through literature are from the other writers.
However, I am still not exactly sure if Hawthorne truly identified himself
as a transcendentalist?(maybe wasn’t as radically manifested than the
rest) To what extent was his writing devoted to the movement itself? Other than talking about his experiences at the farm. Another thing that I found fairly compelling was his description of women. From what I have read, I find that the transcendentalists did not pay much attention to gender, nor did they ever express any thoughts of gender roles in the community. Even thinking back to Thoreau, never once did he mention that his act of cleaning and taking care of the house as a woman’s role…nor did he ever mention in “Walden” that he needed a woman to do all of these tasks. This idea of dismissing any sort of Gender Role is fairly progressive and a common thread that’s laced in transcendentalist writing. It is in “The Blithedale Romance” that I found a bit more attention being paid to gender. Though is could just be because this particular piece of literature is fiction as opposed to the other non-fiction, theory based writers. At times I was not sure whether or not Hawthorne intended this- but the narrator –Mr. Coverdale” spends a lot of time describing women, especially within the first section of the story when the audience is introduced to “the veiled Lady,” also known as: Zenobia. At times he goes in depth about her physical appearance, all of which he fancies, -here perfectly Eve like body- including her hands. Though to contrast to such attention paid to her physical appearance there are instances where he touches upon gender roles, “What a pity I remarked, that the kitchen and the house work generally cannot be left out of our system altogether! It is odd enough, that the kind of labor which falls to the lot of women is just the kind of labor which falls to the lot of women is just which chiefly distinguishes artificial life- the life of degenerated mortals-from the life of Paradise. Eve had no dinner-pot, and no clothes to mend, and no washing-day.”(pg. 16) and then later he goes further into this analysis between the relationships between men and women, “We seldom meet with women, now-a-day, and in this country, who impress us as being women at all; their sex fades away and goes for nothing, in ordinary intercourse. Not so with Zenobia. (pg. 17) There are other instances further along, but I was a bit confused on the narrator’s stance regarding women, because his opinion seems to change when he’s talking about women with other men, and then his views are somewhat different when the audience is able to get into his stream of thought. Maybe this concept will get fleshed out more as the reading continues. Regardless, I felt that it was interesting that for the first time in the readings from the Transcendentalists that I felt any attention given on gender and gender roles.

Blithedale Romance--Gothic to Satire

This is the second time I’ve read The Blithedale Romance. The first time was fall semester of my freshman year, so the timing is actually kind of perfect. The first class was on Gothic fiction. I don’t remember it perfectly, but I think we were talking about nature as a gothic enclosure—trapping the characters and creating a sense of claustrophobia is a big part of gothic fiction. We might also have talked about Zenobia and Priscilla as ghostly entities and doubles for each other.

At the beginning of the semester, I think Professor Newman mentioned that Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Blithedale Romance as a satire mocking Transcendentalist communes like Brook Farm. That’s how I’ve been reading it this time, and coming at the book from that perspective transforms it completely. There’s a passage at the beginning when the narrator and his friends are riding to Blithedale through an April snowstorm. They meet a traveler on the road and greet him, and instead of replying, he keeps walking. The narrator complains that “this lack of faith in our cordial sympathy, on the traveler’s part, was one among the innumerable tokens how difficult a task we had in hand for the reformation of the world” (8). In the Gothic class, we would have read these as evidence of enclosure and foreshadowing. The snowstorm makes them feel claustrophobic, especially in the city. The unfriendly traveler and the snowstorm would also have foreshadowed bad things to come.

Some of these elements are the same when you read the book as a satire—the snow storm and the rude traveler still seem like foreshadowing—but I think that the narrator’s irritation at the traveler is more a joke than anything else. Of course the traveler isn’t feeling friendly! It’s wet, windy, and freezing. I would not pal around with strangers in those conditions either. The narrator’s expectation that after the revolution, everyone will be constantly cheerful is naïve and kind of hilarious. He’s so absorbed in an ideal that he can’t process reality any more. This seems like a significant way to burn the Transcendentalists.

My freshman year, we also read Zenobia’s hothouse flowers as creepy characterization—she’s unnatural, not of this world, the flower is evidence of this. Now I think it might be a comment on Transcendentalist ideals about nature and poverty. Women were associated with nature. They were supposed to be nurturing, restorative, and passive. Zenobia is none of these things, and the flower, which could never grow in New England outside of a hot house, represents this. I don’t think Hawthorne is criticizing this stereotype of femininity, I think he’s pointing to the hypocrisy of romanticizing nature and poverty that some Transcendentalists seem to be guilty of. Working the land and having little money is seen as the ideal, leading to morality and freedom from the constraints of society, but true poverty often constrained people more. A lot of Transcendentalists don’t seem to have understood this. Many of them also seem to have had money cushions, so if they got tired of living in poverty in the middle of nowhere, they could easily leave. Zenobia’s flower represents all of this: it’s natural but it doesn’t appear in nature, it’s simple but it’s also costly. There are lots of other examples of the characters having ideals but not acting on them all the time, but this is the one that stuck out. It’s really interesting to me to see how this book changes and stays the same depending on the framework I use to read it.

Walking without a purpose

Though I admit that my perception of the Walden walk transformed drastically over that past couple of weeks that I’d been taking them, I was pretty excited to learn in class that we would be allowed to take one of our walks in an urban area. While some of my past blog posts might suggest that a ‘walk’ in a urban or civilized area defeats the purpose of the ‘walk’ itself, let me just explain myself.

I am from New York City. For those of you who have never visited, let me first just say, it is true what they say: New York City really is the city that never sleeps. That being said, for those who have ever lived in the city, certain habits become essential for existence, almost second nature, for a year-round resident. For example, I tend to study best when there is a commotion of noise around me. This is why the third floor of the Hunt Library scars the living shit out of me, as I do not understand how it can be so incredibly and eerily silent. To me, as a New Yorker, the best kind of quiet is the ‘white noise’ kind of quiet—the commotion that sort of just distorts itself into background fuzz.

Similarly, much like little league is to the suburbs of New Jersey, people watching is a past time that all New York City residents grow up with. There is nothing more enjoyable than sitting in the window of the Starbucks on Broadway, sipping a latte, and just watching as the characters stroll by. I think its safe to say that most of my own favorite fictional creations were born right there in that window.

Ironically enough, the notion of taking a ‘walk’ is probably one of the most distorted for New Yorkers (and now, I’m not talking about the pushy way we tend to maneuver through crowds and traffic). Sure, if a New Yorker want to take a Walden walk they could make their way down to Central Park, but their existential experience would most likely be interrupted by a pack of tourists taking pictures or a homeless person asking for money. No, if you’re in New York City and you’re desperate for a walk in the woods, the best place to do it is right out on our streets—in the jungle itself.

That is why when I took my final Walden walk right out on Forbes Avenue, I felt in my natural environment.

I took extra precautions to prepare myself for my urban walk and to compensate for the fact that I would be walking in an urban area. I left my ipod, cellphone, and backpack at home, leaving my apartment with only a set of keys and a chapstick. I did, however, put a set of disconnected headphones in my ear so that way if anyone I happened to know tried to strike up a conversation when they saw me I could politely and obliviously just wave and walk on.

I started at the intersection of Craig and Forbes, making my way down towards the Pitt campus. It had rained a few days before my walk, and it was refreshing to see the urban landscape emerge from the seemingly unending blanket of snow that covered it. In my isolation I noticed details about the city, both natural and man made, that I had never notice before. I realized that I had never actually examined the Cathedral of Learning and it’s surrounding landscape before. I realized that the architecture of several buildings, even buildings that housed businesses as modern as Pamela’s and Qudoba, were actually beautiful and aged. I realized that I had actually never really walked down Forbes without a purpose before.

Possibly the most difficult part of my journey was deciding when to end it. When I reached what looked like the turn for the Penn Lincoln Parkway, I turned around feeling unsure about whether I would make it back to campus while the sun was still up. As it turns out, my urban walk ended up being my longest walk as I spent a total of three hours wandering around.

I think the most important lesson that I learned throughout this whole walking experience was that a Walden walk is rather spiritual. It isn’t so much about the nature or the trees as it about reconnecting with yourself in the isolation of the civilized world. This is what I think we, as Carnegie Mellon students who are often over preoccupied with matters outside of ourselves, were supposed to learn.

If you have the appropriate mindset, you can take a Walden walk just about anywhere.

Cheers,

Meela