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Social Class in “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield

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Regularly, you will see collections of short stories marked The Greatest Short Stories of All Time, or Short Stories to Read Before You Die. Typically, these books have a number of great stories inside. Edgar Allan Poe will undoubtedly make an appearance. So will “Beyond the Door” by Philip K. Dick, and certainly “The Other Side of the Hedge” by E. M. Forster. In addition, you might find Kate Chopin’s extraordinary “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and the following short story: “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield. 

As you will see, Mansfield’s short story fits well with the classics, as it has a great deal of emotional depth and sheds a light on class conflict. In today’s post, we are going to examine the short story and analyze its themes and importance.

Background of “The Garden Party”

Mansfield wrote “The Garden Party” in 1922. The Saturday Westminster Gazette published it in three parts. It later appeared in the collection The Garden Party and Other Stories.

Mansfield came from an affluent household. She would attend Wellington Girls’ College and later to the Fitzherbert Terrace School. “The Garden Party” illustrates her experience as a well-to-do child from a wealthy home. Yet, it’s also much deeper than just superficial aristocracy. The story has a great reflection on wealth and opportunity. 

“The Garden Party” Summary

Laura, the protagonist, sets about preparing for a fancy garden party. She occasionally looks to the workers in reverence because she feels connected to them.

“Four men in their shirt-sleeves stood grouped together on the garden path. They carried staves covered with rolls of canvas, and they had big tool-bags slung on their backs. They looked impressive. Laura wished now that she had not got the bread-and-butter, but there was nowhere to put it, and she couldn’t possibly throw it away.”

(The Garden Party)

Regardless of the extravagant event, Mansfield presents Laura’s own rich lifestyle as a norm. In this way, Laura is afforded many opportunities to live a separate life from the workers. Laura, though aristocratic, has a great deal of empathy for those from the working class. 

Later in the story, Laura is informed that her neighbor, Mr. Scott, has been killed outside of their home in a car accident. Laura drags her sister into the kitchen to discuss how she will stop the party. Her sister, Jose, confused, doesn’t quite understand what Laura is getting at in her hysteria.

“Stop everything, Laura!” cried Jose in astonishment. “What do you mean?”

“Stop the garden-party, of course.” Why did Jose pretend?

But Jose was still more amazed. “Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura, don’t be so absurd. Of course we can’t do anything of the kind. Nobody expects us to. Don’t be so extravagant.”

“But we can’t possibly have a garden-party with a man dead just outside the front gate.”

(The Garden Party)

After visiting Mr. Scott’s home with party leftovers, she sees his dead body and is overcome by the experience. She likens the man’s peaceful expression to that of somebody in a deep “fast sleep,” and dosing so intensely that he was “far, far away from them both” in the real world.

“Oh, so remote, so peaceful. He was dreaming. Never wake him up again. His head was sunk in the pillow, his eyes were closed; they were blind under the closed eyelids. He was given up to his dream.”

(The Garden Party)

After departing the home and meeting her brother Laurie at the corner, Laura is pulled from her fanciful life and instead grapples with questions of mortality and life itself. Laurie asks her if it was “awful” to witness his corpse.

“No,” sobbed laura. “It was simply marvellous. But Laurie–” She stopped, she looked at her brother. “Isn’t life,” she stammered, “isn’t life–” But what life was she couldn’t explain. No matter. He quite understood. 

“Isn’t it, darling?” said Laurie. 

Themes 

Mansfield’s story discusses multiple themes. These include life, socioeconomic concerns, and the reality of death. In the text, the reader gets a good sense that Laura is living a near fantastical life outside of poverty and circumstance; meanwhile, the workers around her are all living a more grounded existence, as they lack the opportunities and conveniences of Laura’s life. 

However, with that said, Laura is a conscious child and realizes that there are many similarities between herself and the workers. They are all just people after all. Similarly, Laura sees a sort of beauty and patience in Mr. Scott’s death. His expression of happiness as he lies dead in his room is how Laura feels in life. So, there are actually very few differences in both of their lives when class is stripped away. 

Conclusion

In my opinion, “The Garden Party” excels at these themes by providing the reader a window into the atmosphere of wealth. The garden party itself is a foray into decadence. Nevertheless, death drags Laura into reality. By and of itself, Laura has an epiphany about death and her own station in life.

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Gothic elements in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a Gothic/Romantic novel dreamt up by an 18-year-old Shelley after a rigorous debate about moldy cheese between her husband and his colleague Lord Byron. Having been put to a challenge, Shelley wrote a story to show her literary dominance. Out of her momentary brilliance popped the immortal Frankenstein, a story of a God-complex, madness, and love. In this post, we are going to examine how Shelley’s novel fits the description of the gothic genre.

What is the gothic genre?

The gothic genre originated in the 18th century. It is a literary and artistic movement characterized by the mysterious, supernatural, and macabre. Similarly, it often features eerie settings. These include ancient castles, gloomy landscapes, and decaying mansions to create an atmosphere of suspense and dread.

The genre frequently explores themes of madness, death, sin of the spirit, and the unknown. As such, readers often find tales of haunted protagonists encountering ghosts, monsters, or other supernatural elements.

Gothic texts delve into the darker aspects of human nature. And, it explores the psychological and emotional realms while often incorporating elements of horror and romance.

Brief synopsis of Frankenstein

The novel follows Dr. Frankenstein as he tells his story of obsession to a ship captain. The story details the doctor’s search for the secret of life. Frankenstein achieves his goal by bringing back to life to an abomination. The creature is so horrible that it terrifies him enough to cause the doctor to flee in terror.

After the monster educates himself in solitude, he returns to the doctor to ask for the creation of a mate. Loneliness has consumed his life. Dr. Frankenstein agrees–only to destroy the second monster at the last moment (due to moral quandaries of the soul). Frankenstein’s actions enrages the monster. Afterward, the monster then sets itself about murdering Dr. Frankenstein’s loved ones. He does this in retribution, and he adeptly completes this grim objective.

Dr. Frankenstein gives chase to destroy the monster. After a long pursuit through the desolate arctic, Dr. Frankenstein succumbs to sickness. He dies aboard the ship of Captain Robert Walton, who was bound for the North Pole. The monster returns and finds Dr. Frankenstein dead. He decides to end his own life by traveling as far north as possible and into the freezing ice.

How Frankenstein fits the gothic genre

  • Setting

First, it fits the genre through its atmospheric setting, thematic elements, and exploration of the macabre. That is to say, the novel unfolds against a backdrop of desolate landscapes, from the icy vastness of the Arctic to the isolated laboratories where Frankenstein conducts his experiments. These settings contribute significantly to the Gothic atmosphere, which gives the reader a sense of loneliness and terror that is characteristic of the genre.

  • Themes

The thematic elements in Frankenstein align closely with gothic conventions. The narrative delves into the consequences of scientific ambition (becoming God), as Frankenstein’s relentless pursuit of knowledge leads to the creation of a grotesque and tormented monster.

The novel grapples with existential questions surrounding life and death, morality, and the limits of scientific experimentation (think about how vivisection was in vogue at one point). Shelley’s exploration of the darker facets of human nature, the consequences of playing god, and the impact of isolation on the psyche all resonate with Gothic sensibilities.

  • Tropes

Moreover, the novel incorporates gothic tropes such as the supernatural and the grotesque. Frankenstein’s creation embodies the macabre—a stitched-together amalgamation of body parts brought to life through untested knowledge. The monster’s existence as an outcast, rejected by society, adds a layer of tragedy and horror, reflecting the theme of the monstrous and the misunderstood, which factors in the gothic genre.

  • Tone

The narrative’s gothic tone is enhanced by the sense of dread and impending doom in the story. Frankenstein’s descent into madness and the haunting pursuit of revenge by his creation contribute to the overall atmosphere of suspense and horror. Furthermore, the novel is slowly paced as per gothic tradition. This adds layers of complexity, reinforcing the gothic tradition of intricate and mysterious storytelling.

In conclusion

In summary, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein embodies the gothic genre through its settings, themes, tropes, and overall tone. These elements achieve a legendary status in the novel due to Shelley’s ability to weave her narrative with intelligence and empathy. Frankenstein is a quintessential gothic novel, and it will continue to be the reference point for future authors of the genre for many years to come.

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Understanding Neologisms in Literature and Context

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When a writer adds a new word to our vocabulary, such as “quark,” which comes from James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake, we have to call it something. In today’s post, we are going to examine neologisms. These are words that did not exist, but now are in the lexicon thanks to an author’s creation.

What is a Neologism?

As defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, a neologism is a “a new word or expression, or a new meaning for an existing word.” Other sources states that: “Neologisms can be either loan words in the form of direct loans and loan translations, or newly coined terms, either morphologically new words or by giving existing words a new semantic content” (Gahramanova).

Moreover, there are many different types of neologisms, including:

  • Transferred or imported words: These are words that were taken from a different language and “transferred” to English.
  • Blended words: A neologism can also be a combination of two words, such as Smog = Smoke and fog, and Spork = Spoon and fork.
  • Derived words: “Derived” words come from Greek or Latin. A few examples include “sub” as in “under” and “villa” as in “house.

Examples of Neologisms in Context

As aforementioned, James Joyce, modernist author, contributed the word “quark” to our vocabulary. The word appears in his novel Finnegans Wake.

In it, he writes:

Three quarks for Muster Mark!

Sure he hasn’t got much of a bark

And sure any he has it’s all beside the mark.

“Quark” would later be used by Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig in 1964 to describe “any member of a group of elementary subatomic particles that interact by means of the strong force and are believed to be among the fundamental constituents of matter” (Britannica). With that in mind, we can now talk about neologism, which is “a new word, usage, or expression” as defined by Merriam-Webster.

Banana Republic – Introduced by O. Henry in his 1901 short story “The Admiral” to describe Honduras. Politicians currently use it to describe unstable countries.

Meme – Derived from Richard Dawkins’ first book The Selfish Gene (1976) to describe the evolving “soup of human culture.” It is now (accurately, I say) used to describe entertaining images that exist on social media.

Yahoo – Used by Johnathan Swift to in Gulliver’s Travels (1726) to describe the human-like animals in Houyhnhnm. It is now used as a synergistic search engine.

Works Cited

Britannica. “Quark.” Web.

Merriam-webster. “Neologism” Web.

Cambridge Diction. “Neologism.” Web.

Gahramanova, Aytan. “Neologisms.” Academia.edu. Web.

“Neologism: Definition and Examples.” Literary Terms. Web.

Literary Bios

James Joyce: Author of “Finnegans Wake” and “Ulysses”

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James Joyce falls right in line with modernist literature, although his work can be difficult to digest, unlike other modernist writers. However, as we know, just because literature can be difficult doesn’t mean we should discard it. For today’s post, let’s take a look at Joyce’s life and a few major works.

Early life

Joyce was born in Dublin, Ireland on Feb. 2, 1882 as James Augustine Aloysius Joyce. Joyce was the oldest of ten children in a rather unstable household where his father failed to bring in enough money for a suitable household, instead falling to drink. Nevertheless, Joyce was a smart child and excelled in all modes of writing.

As the Britannica states:

“Because of his intelligence, Joyce’s family pushed him to get an education. Largely educated by Jesuits, Joyce attended the Irish schools of Clongowes Wood College and later Belvedere College before finally landing at University College Dublin, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a focus on modern languages.”

(Britannica)

Joyce left for Paris after graduating and after departing for Ireland to tend to sick mother, he moved with his future wife to the Italian city of Trieste. There, Joyce taught English until he published Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. These books, though unremarkable at the time, found their way to prominent writers and poets, such as Ezra Pound.

James Joyce and Ulysses

Joyce began working on his landmark novel Ulysses, which showcased his virtuosic talent as a stream-of-conscious writer. However, detractors claimed its subject matter was less than savory.

Here’s a tame, descriptive excerpt:

“Suppose the communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the street. John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every mother’s son don’t talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women and children cabmen priests parsons fieldmarshals archbishops.”

(Ulysses)

As you can see—it’s not exactly direct. However, it struck up a bit of controversy.

Writer Laura Miller writes, “One of the unexpected effects of the novel, which was first published in its entirety in Paris in 1922, was the most famous obscenity trial in U.S. history, conducted in 1933.”

Eventually the book got a fair shake (we’ll talk more about this in a later post), and it is currently revered for its challenging prose and style.

Joyce eventually settled down in Paris with his family and wrote Finnegans Wake (1939), which was also a success. With those two books alone (Ulysses and Finnegans Wake), Joyce cemented his status as a literary icon.

Joyce died following an “intestinal operation” on Jan. 12, 1941.

James Joyce’s Notable Works

Dubliners (1914)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

Ulysses (1922)

Finnegans Wake (1939)

Works Cited

Britannica. “James Joyce.” Sep. 12, 2019. Web.

Miller, Laura. “The Most Dangerous Book”: When ‘Ulysses’ was obscene.” Salon. June 16, 2014. Web.

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Author Biography: Richard Wright’s Impact on Black Literature

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In today’s post, we examine the life of Richard Wright, who wrote an extremely influential novel about the Black American experience. This novel is called Black Boy. Wright was a complex figure who participated in communist communities post-World War I. He cared deeply about the treatment of blacks at the hands of white society and wrote for social reform and justice.. Much like other authors in a similar genre, he wrote about his passions and what he believed needed to change in the world around him.

Richard Wright’s Early Years

Wright was born on Sept. 4, 1908 on Rucker’s Plantation near Natchez, Mississippi in Roxie. He was the son of a sharecropper and teacher who had been born free after the Civil War. Both sets of his grandparents had been slaves.

When Wright was six, his father left and did not reunite with his son for 25 years. Wright did not attend school until 1920, when he and his remaining family moved in with his grandparents. Though Wright excelled in his studies, his life at home in a Seventh-Day Adventist household stifled him greatly. .

Wright’s Publishing Career

Wright “worked at a number of jobs before joining the northward migration, first to Memphis, Tennessee, and then to Chicago (in 1927). There, after working in unskilled jobs, he got an opportunity to write through the Federal Writers’ Project” (Britannica). The project allowed him other avenues of expression and he was able to pursue a love of the craft.

The project spurred Wright in his writing interests, and he later joined the Communist Party in 1932. He also acted as the Harlem editor of the Communist Daily Worker in 1937 after he moved to New York City. He would later produce Uncle Tom’s Children in 1938, which was a series of novellas that asks the question: “How may a black man live in a country that denies his humanity?” (Britannica).

His novellas would begin a string of successes:

“More acclaimed followed in 1940 with the publication of the novel Native Son, which told the story of a 20-year-old African American man named Bigger Thomas. The book brought Wright fame and freedom to write.”

(Biography.com)

Then, in 1945, Wright published Black Boy, which depicted “extreme poverty and his accounts of racial violence against blacks” (Biography.com). This novel continues to be his hallmark and shows his adeptness at

Richard Wright’s Final Years

Richard Wright lived in Mexico from 1940 to 1946 and eventually left the Communist Party disenfranchised. He later lived in Paris where he wrote The Outsider (1953), The Long Dream (1958), Black Power (1954) and White Man, Listen (1957). During these years, his books were about “hunger, poverty, race, and various protest movements” (famousauthors.org).

Wright died in Paris of a heart attack at the age of 52 on Nov. 28, 1960.

Works Cited

Britannica.com

Biography.com

Famousauthors.org

Wikipedia.org

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The Reclusive and Complex Thomas Pynchon

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There is an interesting story about science fiction author Thomas Pynchon that is a little hard to verify—because it’s probably false. But here it is anyway: the author of the book V, Thomas Pynchon, was sitting quietly in his hotel room one day waiting to meet with a publisher. Suddenly, there came a knock on the door, loudly abrasive, and the voice behind demanded an audience. It was a reporter. And he wasn’t going to leave until he got at least one picture of the famously reclusive author. Instead of entertaining this bit of mania, Pynchon instead chose to jump out of a third-story window from the hotel and into a tree. He shimmied down and ran to freedom.

Much like J. D. Salinger (or Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird), when you are infamous for your reclusive nature, and you hate interviews, myths begin to pop up around your character. In today’s post, we are going to examine the life and achievements of science fiction author Thomas Pynchon.

Pynchon’s Early Years and Education

Pynchon was born as one of three children in Glen Cove, Long Island, on May 8, 1937. He would go on to Oyster Bay High School in Nassau County and graduated in 1953. Pynchon earned his bachelor’s in English from Cornell University in 1958. Afterward, he lived in Greenwich Village for a short time, crafting short stories, and eventually found work in Seattle writing safety articles for Boeing.

Thomas Pynchon’s Publishing History

He eventually turned to writing full-time and won the Faulkner Foundation Award in 1963 for his book V. Following this success, Pynchon wrote The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Gravity’s Rainbow (1973). He also published a collection of short stories titled Slow Learner (1984) (Britannica).

Over a decade later, Pynchon published Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), and Against the Day (2006). His most recent novels include Inherent Vice (2009) and Bleeding Edge (2013). Regarding his “complex” novels, some sources state: “To plunge down the rabbit hole of Pynchon’s fiction is to commence a journey into an alternate world, a world—somewhat like our own but, as Pynchon put it ‘Maybe it’s not the world, but with a minor adjustment or two it’s what the world might be.’”

Examining Pynchon’s History of Reclusiveness

As stated earlier in the post, the synonymity of Thomas Pynchon and “the myth of the reclusive author” is apparent when people converse about him. Time reported that, “Almost nothing is known about the author of some of the most seminal, mysterious and generally difficult works of the 20th century fiction, and the novelist would like to keep it that way … When his 1973 novel Gravity’s Rainbow won the National Book Award, Pynchon had someone else accept on his behalf” (Time). In other words, he was not about the song and dance of writing. He was about the writing.

Moreover, it may be that this reclusiveness is a fabrication of pop culture obsession. It is very well that Pynchon just might dislike the attention from journalists, or he just might not like answering questions. Both of these are valid reasons to skip ceremony, and his privacy is probably a much less dramatic story then some would like. It is not like other writers aren’t eccentric or don’t have eccentric ideas.

As contributor to Vice David Whelan said of Pynchon’s mythos: “This is far from the truth. He’s not hiding in the woods or refusing to publish new work à la J.D. Salinger; he just doesn’t like talking to reporters. While there are only four known photos of Pynchon … he’s a vibrant prankster with his finger on the world’s pulse. He knows how to manipulate us. He’s willing to make fun of himself …”

Conclusion

We should accept a nuanced version of Pynchon because it makes more sense that a story of reclusiveness has been created around him rather than him intentionally creating the story itself because he’s a “weirdo” or an “eccentric.” As we should see it, Pynchon is just a talented writer who doesn’t care at all for the additional publicity that comes with fame. Writing, after all, takes time, and that doesn’t include the spotlight.

Works Cited

“Thomas Pynchon.” Britannica. Web.

“Thomas Pynchon.” Thomaspynchon.com. 1997-2018. Web.

“Top 10 Most Reclusive Celebrities.” Time. Web.

Whelan, David. “Thomas Pynchon and the Myth of the Reclusive Author.” Vice. Oct. 9, 2014. Web.

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The Role of Epithets in Literature Explained

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New verbiage is crucial in writing to explore different ways to communicate and convey messages. When it comes to literature, it is also important to understand what an author is trying to say. In this post we are going to define epithets and explore how to use them in our own writing.

What is an Epithet?

An epithet is a literary device that uses a descriptor to describe a person, place, or object. These are also known as a by-names or descriptive titles. As some sources define it it: “A characterizing word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing” (Merriam-Webster). Moreover, we categorize epithets a few ways:

  • A Kenning: Two-word phrase
  • A Fixed: Repeated use of a word (Odysseus as “Many-Minded”)
  • Argumentative: A “possible outcome” or repercussions

What Does this Mean?

Epithets can be tricky. As Vocabulary.com writes: “An epithet can be harmless, a nickname that catches on … On the flipside, an epithet can be an abusive word or phrase that should never be used, like a racial epithet that offends and angers everyone.”

Here are a few examples of epithets from all the categories:

  • Richard the Lion-Heart
  • Trash panda (racoon)
  • The Piano Man (for Billy Joel)
  • Rost-fingered
  • Catherine the Great
  • Wine-dark sea
  • The Great Emancipator (for Abe Lincoln)

How to Use Epithets in Our Own Writing

When implementing epithets in our own writing, we can go about it a few ways. One way is to enrich characterization by supplying nicknames to our characters that other characters have coined. As such, you create a richer world where there is definitive interaction between people.

Conclusion

In this way, epithets can make your writing seem more real and realized. Additionally, epithets can be used to address those derogatory experiences in life, racial or otherwise. Understanding the reasons behind an epithet can help us better contextualize history by understanding society at a given time.

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Four Literary Road Trips by Famous Authors

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Once upon a time in the long ago, as Cormac McCarthy wrote, I was an avid traveler. These days, I don’t get out all that much, but I still enjoy reading about people who do. My most favorite literary road trips aren’t lifestyle magazine featurettes but, rather, bookish adventures. Because I too believe, as literary critic Harold Bloom said over and over, that the secret to reading is rereading, here are some musings on four road trips which top my re-re-rereading list.

The Tender Hem Rides Along

I’ve tried on several occasions to get into books like For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Sun Also Rises but they just weren’t for me. I’d just about given up on Hemingway when I decided to give The Green Hills of Africa a try. Pleasantly surprised by how much I liked his nonfiction, I next read A Moveable Feast.

It was while reading Hem’s memoir of his youth in Paris that I got my next big surprise. Knowing Hemingway’s reputation of hypermasculinity, I was rather shocked to read how tenderly he behaved toward his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, particularly during a 900-mile road trip they took from Paris to Léon and back again to pick up Scott and Zelda’s car.

The auto had been abandoned there due to bad weather after Zelda demanded the roof be cut off because she would only ride in a convertible. From the get-go, Scott—a hypochondriac of sorts—claimed he was coming down with a lung ailment. On their way back from picking up the car, Scott became more and more convinced he was developing congestion of the lungs.

Hem did his best to manage Scott, even telling him about an article he’d read on the subject. And this helped calm him for a while during the road trip. Then the weather turned bad and they decided to stopover that second night.

Once at the hotel, Hem sent Scott—who had been complaining of fever and demanding a thermometer—to bed.

“Scott was lying in bed to conserve his strength for his battle against the disease,” Hemingway wrote. “I had taken his pulse, which was 72, and had felt his forehead, which was cool. I had listened to his chest and had him breathe deeply. His chest sounded alright.”

Hem continued to assure Scott he was fine and ordered hot beverages to help soothe him, in addition to finding a waiter at that late hour in search of the almighty oral thermometer. But, since everything was closed, the best the waiter could produce was a bathtub thermometer.

Hem put the thermometer under Scott’s armpit, telling him to be thankful it wasn’t a rectal model. Because he couldn’t remember the conversion, Hem lied about the Celsius reading, saying Scott’s temperature was perfectly normal.

“You could not be angry with Scott,” Hemingway wrote, “any more than you could be angry with someone who was crazy.”

Hem continued to nurse Scott through the night. And, when the patient felt fine the next morning, they continued on their road trip to Paris. There’s a lot more to the story, and I urge you to at least check out that chapter of the book for a funny and heartwarming read.

Manson Family Realty: Bukowski Travels

In the shortest of my chosen literary road trips, Henry Chinaski (nee Bukowski) scores big when he’s offered $10,000 to write a screenplay and earns $35,000 off the German translations of several of his books. After some rather dubious financial advice from one Vin Marbad, Buk decides to go house hunting.

This little literary road trip takes Buk and his “good lady” Sarah to a nationally known realty firm, where they are summarily dismissed as vagabonds without ever having had the chance to speak with a realtor. Eventually, they find a place called Rainbow Realty and are taken to a dark mansion occupied by eccentric Grey Gardens types.

About halfway through the tour, Sarah realizes the house was one of the Manson Family murder sites and she and Buk get the hell out of there toot de suite. My favorite part of this minor misadventure, detailed in the book Hollywood, is when they visit a biker bar where the patrons recognize Buk and begin buying him drinks.

To get out of there alive, Sarah downs one of the many shots of whiskey intended for Buk, who one drunk refers to as, “The world’s greatest writer.”

On the way out, Sarah asks, “Are those your readers?”

Buk says, “That’s most of them, I think.”

Even though these would seem to be Buk’s people, he takes pity on grown men day-drinking in a filthy dead-end bar.

“[A]gain I noted the leather jackets and the blandness of the faces and the feeling that there wasn’t much joy or daring in any of them,” Bukowski wrote. “There was something missing, the poor fellows, and something in me wrenched for just a moment. And I felt like throwing my arms around them, consoling, and embracing them like some Dostoevsky.”

He added, “But I knew that would finally lead nowhere except to ridicule and humiliation for myself and for them. The world had somehow gone too far and spontaneous kindness could never be so easy. It was something we would all have to work for once again.”

One Fast Move: A Car Ride with Kerouac

While On The Road continues to be Jack Kerouac’s big hit, I continue to argue his later work Big Sur is superior as a story in general and as a travelogue. Not only is the work a poetic feast from start to finish, its prose is singular in its honesty and beauty. As the book is described in its foreword, Big Sur details Kerouac’s long series of tender nervous breakdowns.

Jack left his mother’s house after the publication of On The Road made him famous—so famous that he couldn’t get a moment’s peace from reporters, fans, and friends. While it was written in 1961 as one sojourn, his Big Sur trips were several.

In the book, Kerouac takes a train from his mother’s in New York to San Francisco, where he meets up with Lawrence Ferlinghetti who lets him stay in his cabin in Bixby Canyon.

Kerouac wanders as a man-child from friend to friend, bed to bed, bottle to bottle; confused, sad, tired, self-absorbed.

Scared and desperate, he feels the warring pulls of solitude—which always turned out for him to be brutal isolation—and socialization, which soothed him for a time but ended too often in jealousy, shame, regret.

“One fast more or I’m gone,” Kerouac wrote of his need to get away, and adding that he felt like, “a bent back mudman monster groaning underground in hot steaming mud pulling a long hot burden nowhere.”

McCarthy On The Road

Saving the darkest—and most hopeful of these literary road trips—for last, I give you Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Even if you’ve already seen the movie, please make time to read this book. It’s part spiritual journey, part post-apocalyptic adventure, and all meditation on what it means to live a good life amidst suffering and uncertainty … and knowing there will never be a time when we’re truly ready to die.

Golden nuggets of wisdom include the exhortation to beware what you let into your head, because you’ll remember the things you want to forget and forget the things you want to remember. When the boy character asks what’s the bravest thing his father has ever done, the man says, “Getting up this morning.” One of my favorite lines comes in the father character’s exchange with a fellow hobo.

When he asks the old man if he wished he had died, the old man responds “no” but that he might wish he had died because, when you’re alive, you’ve always got that to look forward to. I have read The Road more times than any other book except for Bukowski’s Hollywood.

In fact, as soon as I finished it for the first time, I immediately began reading it again. I’ve been doing so at varying paces for nearly five years.

These literary road trips have taught me much about both the real and figurative highways we travel, how those roads intersect with other people’s paths or sometimes only run parallel, how we’re all traveling down that long lonesome road of life, and how someday we all come to the end of our own road … even though roads never really end.

And, if we’re lucky, we’ll have someone who cares about us to carry our memory with them as they keep going down the road long after we’re gone.

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Four Crucial Blogging Tips to Make a Successful Blog

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There is something liberating about frequently publishing posts, as feeling productive and actually being productive work in tandem. Yet, when blogging, it’s difficult to know how to use that productivity. Blogging tips or can help (like understanding the writing process), but a blogging tip should be useful; so, practicality comes into play as well, and practical problem-solving methods are the way to go. Exercises, ideas, and tangible concepts to get everybody moving on the right path. In today’s post, we have assembled some blogging tips and ideas that help you in your blog-writing journey.

Blogging Tips

Tip 1:  Conduct Some Usability Tests

Before you publish your immaculately designed blog, consider performing a few usability tests to improve quality, interface, and user retention. Usability Testing is a fairly simple concept: it asks the designer (or blogger, in your case) to set up a series of one-on-one tests with multiple participants (strangers, preferably) over a small timeframe in order to watch as they interact with your website.  

Authors Don Norman and Steve Krug are big into this UX (user experience) idea. Both of their books on these ideas are excellent as well: The Design of Everyday Things and Rocket Surgery Made Easy. There are two more blogging tips for you, free of charge.

You as the designer decide upon the questions or tasks, but really think about your blog: What is your goal? Where are things located? Is everything easy to find? Can users navigate your blog easily?

Some example questions while conducting a test include:

  • Where would you find the ‘contact’ information?
  • If you wanted to know where the author was, could you find them?
  • Where are the archives and can you tell me where the most recent post is?

You really want the subject to speak aloud while they work through your questions and you should probably record the conversation or take thorough notes so you have “saved data” when it comes time to examine the feedback you collected. The tester typically reinforces the idea that the usability test is not actually a “test” per se, so there isn’t a wrong answer when it comes to any of the questions (this is true and your test subject should be comfortable so they respond in an honest, relaxed way).

Tip 2: Find an Angle

If you are actively trying to gain a following and you are trying to have an extremely original blog—then you may want to try to find an angle. This works on a micro level–each post–or a macro level–your blog in general.

If you’ve spent any time in journalism or wonder why some articles are more engaging than others, then you can probably say with some surety that the writer has a unique angle on the subject material. After all, you have to fight hard to be at the head of the pack when it comes to publishing, and if you aren’t telling an original story, then your prospective audience may gloss over your work.

If you want to write about a famous musician, say, Jimi Hendrix, how are you going to write about him? Are you going to go the usual route and just report his history ? Or will you discuss his guitar technique? Or, are you going to tell his story in a more original way? Like, approaching his life through the stories of others, or writing about the clothes he wore at historic concerts.

In going against this advice, keep in mind that people also like familiar topics, so if you feel compelled to write about Hendrix’s guitar style, then, why not? Aristotle argues that art is cathartic (meant to purify the spirit), so if you are enjoying the material and working on your craft—go for it!

Tip 3: Do Some Research

Blogs thrive on research before one starts to actively write. Doing research takes no time and it actually find it to be pretty fun, because I get to see what other blogs are doing and how they handle mundane and complex information in different ways.

First, you might consider a broad research strategy where you go to the most popular websites right now and check them out. Ideally, you want to examine their page design first: find out where they keep information and find out what each page has in common and what each page has different (and why). Finally, find out how they engage with their customers. Is there a form to fill out? Is there an open dialogue? Do you think the way this company interacts with their customers is effective? Why?

And don’t just focus on those questions! Brainstorm questions you might have for a digital design specialist and see how they apply to the websites you are examining.

Second, bring your research strategy into the realm of the microcosm. In other words, find websites and blogs that inspired you or have similar information and topics. Are you a self-help blog? Find other self-help blogs! Are you a literature blog? Find other literature blogs!

Next, examine the design of each blog. What works well, and what does not work well? How could you improve your site? Again, dream up questions that will give you solid answers, which you can then use to build an effective and successful blog.

Tip 4: Interact and Engage

I will keep this one brief, but I think people forget to deliver on this particular part of blogging, and it’s certainly one that I need to spend more time on:

Interact and engage with other blogs and writers.

Writing is communal and so is blogging. While we may feel as though writing is a solitary function, academic research does not show that the best work comes from individuals sitting alone in dark, smoky rooms. You may feel cool, but your writing and craft will suffer. In fact, research shows that engaging with others and discussing writing improves one’s craft immensely. Even the greatest authors of all time had writing circles, editors, publishers, beta readers, and so on. They wrote, they shared, and they created excellent work.

Conclusion

By engaging with other blogs and writers, you are sharing your work and you are earning something in return. You are putting those blogging tips to use. Additionally, that something includes important feedback from other writers (suffering criticism is a threshold we all have to cross), and confidence in your writing, which will help you write better because you spend less time second-guessing yourself. And, lastly, by interacting and engaging with other writers, you are seeing how other websites function (Blog Tip 1), you are seeing other story angles (Blog Tip 2), you are conducting research through interaction (Blog Tip 3), and you are having meaningful conversations with people who have similar interests (so you are building a writing community).

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An Analysis of “My Voice” by Oscar Wilde

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Oscar Wilde has had many popular pieces of writing shared since he put pen to paper. He also has some great poetry. “My Voice” by Oscar Wilde is one such poem that is singularly sweet and important to identity and understanding.

Analysis of “My Voice” by Oscar Wilde

“My Voice” by Oscar Wilde appeared sometime between 1854-1900. It is written in a ballad or ode form, and it contains three stanzas that have four lines in each paragraph. Additionally, it is written in iambic pentameter with rhyme scheme that follows abab / cdcd / efef.

The poem details the end of a relationship, with the narrator’s ex-lover not reciprocating in the heartache that he feels. Wilde writes in the first stanza that, “Within the restless, hurried, modern world / We took our hearts’ full pleasure–You and I, / And Now the white sails of our ships are furled / And spent the lading of our agony.” Wilde is telling us that the relationship began, but now it is over, and the “agony” has set in. In other ways, Wilde is discussing emotional separation, and the strain that it causes.

Similarly, this individual has had a profound impact on him through voice and evocation of memories. He writes in line 8 of the second stanza, “And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed,” which further builds on the theme of loss and desolation after love has gone. Meanwhile, in stanza three he states that though he feels this intense pain, the subject of his loss does not feel the same way. “Of viols, or the music of the sea,” he writes, “That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.” There are some interpretations that pull optimism from the passage, but “echo, in the shell” seems to indicate his own voice coming back to him no matter how he calls for his love.

It’s an extremely relatable poem, and Wilde handles the theme well with heartbreaking tones.

Conclusion

Wilde’s style and ability to craft an ambitious atmosphere of debate and apprehension enamors, but, by the same token, Wilde has such a strong writing voice that either through prose or verse–there is similarity. This makes all of his writing appealing to me, and this poem is a prime example of telling a story, alluding to love, while also encapsulating a heart-breaking theme of calling for a loved one and immortalizing them in our minds.

“My Voice” by Oscar Wilde

Within the restless, hurried, modern world
   We took our hearts’ full pleasure—You and I,
And now the white sails of our ships are furled,
   And spent the lading of our argosy.

Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,
   For very weeping is my gladness fled,
Sorrow hath paled my lip’s vermilion
   And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.

But all this crowded life has been to thee
   No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell
   That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
Of viols, or the music of the sea

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Claude McKay, writer, poet, and political activist

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The Harlem Renaissance writers had skill and audacity, and they were committed to writing transcendent work to show history and community. Similarly, their works were politically-minded and spoke to a generation of marginalized Americans. In this post, we examine Claude McKay, a writer who wrote from his moral center.

Biography

Claude McKay was born Festus Claudius McKay on Sept. 15, 1889, in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica. As a youth, McKay was instantly attracted to British poetry even though his parents had utmost pride in their Malagasy and Ashanti Heritage. McKay would blend both cultures together to form a strong writing voice with the help of a few friends:

“Under the tutelage of his brother, schoolteacher Uriah Thephilus McKay, and a neighboring Englishman, Walter Jekyll, McKay studied the British masters, including John Milton, Alexander Pope, and the later Romantics—and European philosophers …” (poetryfoundation.org)

McKay’s Writing Life

With education under his belt, McKay explored other aspects of culture and civilization. He wrote about the life of poorer Jamaicans and explored inequality. In 1912, McKay published Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads under a London publisher. Afterward, he moved to the US to study at the Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State College. He remained at the institute for a few short months.

Two years later, in 1914, he moved to Harlem, New York. In 1917, McKay published more poems in Pearson’s Magazine and Liberator, which featured his poem “If We Must Die.” The poem details the lengths that people should strive in order to see themselves vindicated in the eyes of the establishment.

Here’s the poem in its entirety:

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

“If We Must Die” by Claude McKay

Political Activism

McKay would leave the US for a few years and publish Spring in New Hampshire in 1920 during his European travels. After returning to the US, McKay began his journey into political activism. He involved himself with communists and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. He would leave the US again to travel to Europe and North Africa, where he stayed for over 10 years, publishing a few notable works, including Home to Harlem and Banjo.

While he had dabbled in communism, he later began to dismiss the idea. After he returned to the US once more, he started engaging in more spiritual pursuits with the theologians in Harlem. Eventually, he converted to Catholicism, and toward the end of his life, he worked as an educator for a Catholic organization.

He died of a heart attack in Chicago on May 22, 1948.

Conclusion

Due to his monumental literary and political pursuits in life, he left a lasting impression.

“McKay’s viewpoints and poetic achievements in the earlier part of the twentieth century set the tone for the Harlem Renaissance and gained the deep respect of younger black poets of the time, including Langston Hughes.”

Poets.org

Notable Works

  • Songs of Jamaica
  • Constab Ballads
  • Spring in New Hampshire, and Other Poems
  • Harlem: Negro Metropollis
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The Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson

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Emily Dickinson crafted phenomenal poetry and led an interesting life, albeit a quiet one. Her poems, such as “Faith” and “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” give credence to her ability to craft verse, and her body of work is more than exceptional in the face of modern literary studies. Nevertheless, the mark of a good artist is someone whose art is worth talking about and someone whose life is worth discussing (e.g. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein). This is regardless of their interest in abstaining from the broader culture. For today’s post, we will examine Dickinson’s life and a few of her achievements.

Dickinson’s Biography

Early Years

Dickinson was born on Dec. 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was the middle child of three children and grew up in a strongly devout area of New England. She was close with her two siblings and by all accounts experienced a lovely childhood under the roof of her lawyer father and housekeeper mother.

Dickinson went to Amherst Academy and was an excellent student and later attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary; however, according to researchers, she may have left school for a variety of reasons.

“… theories offered say that her fragile emotional state may have played a role and/or that her father decided to pull her from the school. Dickenson ultimately never joined a particular church or denomination, steadfastly going against the religious norms of the time.”

(biography.com)

Other research claims that her leaving school was due to Holyoke’s “strict rules and invasive religious practices, along with her own homesickness and growing rebelliousness, help explain why she did not return for a second year” (Britannica.com).

Budding Poet

In her youth, Dickinson was writing and crafting hundreds of poems, which explored ideas of the burlesque (“Valentines”) and viewing the world through a more altruistic lens. She was also a letter writer and had crafted a great deal in her youth, with a few letters from as early as age 11 still in existence. By the age of 35, Dickinson had written more than 1,100 poems about a variety of subjects, from grief to nature. Many of these poems were put down in fascicles, or handmade booklets.

Here is an example of a short poem titled “Faith is a fine invention” that was penned by Dickinson in 1891:

“Faith”is a fine invention

For Gentlemen who see!

But Microscopes are prudent

In an Emergency!


Poetryfoundation.org

And, while Dickinson didn’t share many poems through publication, she certainly sent a great deal to friends and family, sending her mother Susan “more than 250 poems” and to her friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson “about 100 poems”(emilydickinsonmuseum.org).

I don’t even think I’ve sent that many emails in my life.

Later Years and Seclusion

Dickinson’s hermit lifestyle in her late years is almost as famous as her poetry. She lived a quiet life (always had seemingly) with her sister and extended family—her brother even bought the lot next door to the family home to raise his own children. Speculation is somewhat rampant as to why Dickinson decided to dive deeper into isolation in her later years.

“Scholars have thought that she suffered from conditions such as agoraphobia, depression and/or anxiety, or may have been sequestered due to her responsibilities as guardian of her sick mother. Dickinson was also treated for a painful ailment of her eyes.”

(biography.com)

Emily Dickinson died of kidney disease in Amherst on May 15, 1886.

Notable Works

  • Success is counted sweetest (1859)
  • Hope is the thing with feathers (1861)
  • I felt a funeral in my brain (1861)
  • Wild Nights! – Wild Nights! (1861)
  • Because I could not stop for death (1863)
Literary Bios

The Life and Legacy of Henry Fielding: A Literary Pioneer

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In this post, we are going to look at the life of Henry Fielding. Fielding was a pioneer of novel writing, a playwright, and a London judge. He was also a satirist, and he had many successes at making the elite cringe.

Biography

Early Authorial Years

Fielding was born April 22, 1707 in Sharpham Park in Somerset, England. As a young man he studied classics and law at the university in Leiden. The Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737, which happens to be an important and pivotal moment that we discussed on the blog, saw Fielding resume his pursuits of law because the theatre had become heavily censored by the British Government.

In contrast, Fielding was a fan of producing rather scathing plays critical of the ruling class. Obviously, these two competing ideas cannot coexist peacefully. As such, he assumed the role that many writers of his era assumed and tackled complex issues in his writing.

As Nasrullah Mambrol states in Analysis of Henry Fielding’s, that the the author himself focused his criticisms and writings through textual expertise. “It is through the role of the narrator that he most clearly and successfully experiments in the methods of teaching a moral lesson,” the author states. “Starting with the voice of direct literary parody in Shamela and moving through the varied structures and voices of the other novels, Fielding’s art leads in many directions, but it always leads to his ultimate concern for finding the best way to teach the clearest moral lesson”(Mambrol).

Turning to Writing

While involved with the law, Fielding continued to write. In 1742, he wrote Joseph Andrews, which is considered by some historians as one of the first novels ever produced in the English language. However, his fame as a playwright takes precedence due to the lowly opinion of novelists during his time. Playwrighting netted the larger audience. As for novels, Fielding wrote Shamela, (1741) The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great, (1743) The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, (1749) and Amelia (1751) (Britannica).

A Forthright Judge and Final Days

Later in his life, Henry Fielding became London’s chief magistrate and garnered a reputation as incorruptible throughout his career. He started one of the first police forces. They were called the Bow Street Runners. Fielding suffered from gout, asthma, and dropsy, or a swelling of soft tissue due to excess water. He died on Oct. 8, 1754.