"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a short story by Ambrose Bierce. It talks about a confederate sympathizer called Peyton Fahrquhar who was condemned to death by hanging upon the owl creek bridge. However, in his dream he jumped from the broken board into the river, escaped from the several soldiers, and finally met his family and plantation. But all of that sudden, he died. He had never escaped, and he just imaged this occurrence. When I saw the movie in the class, although I knew it was his dream, it was so vivid that I could not believe this. Also, the ending was really horrifying. As we enjoyed the happiness of the new life and the reunion of him and his family, he just died at the moment when his wife held his neck in his beautiful dream.

Though the book, I was surprised at the impressive language on the description of the view. I think we could perceive the mood of a person though the view. In the book, the author described a wonderful scene after Fahrquhar got away from the soldiers with guns or even cannon. I believe in Fahrquhar’s dream, he was quite pleased. However, at the beginning of the story, when Fahrquhar was imposed to get on the bridge, the whole frame was dark, and the mood of Fahrquhar was depressive.

Last thing I want to mention is that no matter how bad people are, they still have something worth pursuing. In the book, even though Fahrquhar was a supporter of the south confederate, the planter and slave owner who should be eliminated, he still had a wife or children that he loved. Though the dream, we could notice that he had a strong desire of freedom.

"To the Person Sitting in Darkness" and "The War Prayer" discussion

"To the Person Sitting in Darkness" is an essay written by American humorist Mark Twain. He was an outspoken critic of American involvement in the Philippines and China, the foremost anti-imperialist literary figure, and the vice president of Anti-imperialism League of New York.

In this article, he taunted the people whom he considers to be immoral. In his opinion, the extension of the blessing of civilization was just a pretext for making money. The more industrialized nations actually did not bring the real civilization to the behindhand people, but the misery instead.

“The war prayer” is also an article written by this great author and humorist. It is a scathing indictment of the war by describing the scene at a church in an unnamed city before the war. It particularly satirized the blind patriotic and religious fervor as motivations for war.

At the end of the story is pessimistic. Because of the second part of the prayer for victory, the prayer for the suffering and destruction of their enemies, the God’s messenger (Aged stranger) was ignored. As we know, the coin always has two sides, so does the war. People in that time period were crazy, and pretty motivated by the fervor of patriotism and religion. They only cared about the victory of their own country, but not the happiness or the destruction of the enemies’ country.

In my opinion, I believe keeping the universal peace is absolutely the willing for all the people around the world, and opposing against the imperialism is a significant process in humanity. I really want to live in a world without war, terror, discrimination, poverty, etc…..

Emily Dickinson

Wild Nights! Wild Nights!

Were I with thee,

Wild Nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile the winds

To a heart in port, --

Done with the compass,

Done with the chart!

Rowing in Eden!

Ah! the sea!

Might I but moor

To-night in Thee!

I am going to talk about the poem “Wild Nights, Wild Nights” by Emily Dickinson. Actually I did not get the real idea in the class. But after I read several times and combined it with her thought, life, and experience, the inner connotation became clearly.

We all know that Dickinson neither got married nor had any children during her whole life, even she stayed in her parents’ house for most of the time. However, she would not be a lonely poet without any passion. Therefore, the “Wild Nights” here can be interpreted as “passion”, “love” or the “desire of the sexual life”. “Our luxury” in the first stanza seems to refer to the emotion between the two lovers. Although this poem contains no narrative plot, it still showed Dickinson’s strong yearning for reunion with a lover.

Love was one of the most important themes of Dickinson’s work. Another theme of her poems was death. She wrote about 1700 poems during her whole life, and one thirds of them are related to the death. Her view of death was quite different and with more deeply implications compared to others. She believed that the death was the beginning of life, and life was endless to her. Also, it was this thought that reflected her as a Transcendentalist.

Rappaccini's Daughter Class Discussion

By the reading and discussion of Rappaccini’s Daughter in today’s class, I noticed that the scientist, Rappaccini, is so cold and scientific that he even uses his daughter for the experiment. Since Rappaccini is an enlightenment man in the book, Hawthorne expressed her view of enlightenment though this character. The writer of the book, Hawthorne, is a Transcendentalist, which the most important thing to him is heart. Form the book, apparently, Hawthorne did not agree with the pure enlightenment thinking, which lost sanctity of the human heart.

Background of the book:

The book was written in mid 19th century, which the industrialization took place. Most of the people enjoyed the benefit from the development of science and technology, but there were still some people suffering from the environmental pollution or the working pressure brought by the revolution.

In my opinion, Rappaccini is actually not a bad guy. However, he is just too scientific in his nature. Some people thought the main theme is Corruption as Hawthorne contrasts the different corruption to make clear this truth: that the more heinous form of corruption is the first kind, which lodges in the human heart and intellect. But though my point of view, the main theme is love. Although Rappaccini corrupts the body of Beatrice, her soul remains pristine. She even treats the highly poisonous plants nicely. She falls in love with Giovanni, a college student. Thus it is the genuine love that sets no conditions or makes no demands.

Class discussion on thesis statement

We talked about the thesis statement in the class.

The thesis statement states the thesis or argument of an essay. It is usually at the end of the first paragraph and not more than one or two sentences. The thesis statement always reflects the topic of the essay, and tells the readers what the author wants to prove in the following paragraphs.

My thesis statement is "These three literary pioneers, Winthrop, Jefferson, and Emerson, defined the transformation of American identity during this 200 year period." I think it reflects the main idea of my essay---the definition of American, and how it transferred in time periods. Additionally, I emphasized the names of three main writers instead of "they".

Class Discussion on Chapter 13

In today’s class, we discussed about Hester current situation.

First, Hester observes that Mr. Dimmesdale’s condition is getting worse every day and his nerve seemed absolutely destroyed. And she believes that there is terrible machinery interfering him all the time.

Second, people greatly changed their views to Hester. It has been seven year since Hester stood on the pedestal as a sinner. She makes money by herself, gives out food or clothes to the poor people, and brings warmth to the distressed family. She is so merciful and helpful that she gets the respect and love from the whole community. Additionally, many people do not consider her scarlet “A” as “Adultery” any more, but “Able.”

The last several paragraphs are a little bit complicated for me. I could not totally get the idea of them but I think it is a transfer paragraph and talks about herself and her child. I hope I can understand more in the further readings.

The work I did in class on Chapter 5

Jenny is my partner on the poster in Chapter 5. We summarized the chapter, and wrote it down on the top of the poster.

In chapter 5, Hester at her needle, tells us about the life of Hester, and the cloudy reason that why Hester chooses to stay. She wants to accept the punishment, and does not want to live away from her lover. Although Hester is still considered as a sinner, she treats others quite nicely.

Additionally, we draw a picture of Hester doing her needle work while her child, Pearl, is looking at her. I think it is really difficult to explain the whole thing well with a picture, so we followed just like what the topic says, Hester at her needle work.