Flower and Hayes’ article on “discovery” has taught me more than I believed it could. As a student of writing, I suppose I have become defeated or at the very least complacent about my knowledge of the art of writing. My belief was that some people had it within themselves to be phenomenal writers, and others did not, and I thought I was one of those who did not. Now, perhaps this is still true, but I was delighted to learn that the creative process is not a spontaneous product of the writer’s mind, but a collage of several influences brought to life by a writer’s imagination. Writing does not flow from one place, it flows from several places, and is brought together and refined through the writer’s pen. Writing is not so much discovery from within as it is creation from the inside out. I am humbled by the creative process now more than ever before. For the everyday writing assignments, I will work on creating “stored problem representations,” simple formats stored in the brain to save time and energy when dealing in the familiar. As for the unfamiliar, I look forward to discovering my own process of discovery.
Teaching Writing Written Response #2
Jean Piaget’s study of human adaptation causes me to think about my adaptation to life at VMI. I am sure that I am not the only student in this class writing about this. It is quite easy to relate to Piaget’s concepts of “assimilation,” “accommodation,” and “schemes.” Being in an environment such as VMI’s certainly brings the word assimilation to mind. We are forced to learn about our new environment rather quickly here, that we may thrive in it. This of course goes hand in hand with “accommodation,” in which we subconsciously form new habits as we work and live in our environment. The idea of “schemes” is also all to familiar to cadets. Our lives here are made up of schemes. The amount of rituals we go through on a daily basis here is actually kind of absurd when you think about it. Over time our schemes change. We begin to not worry about the same things we did as rats, and things that were not important before become important, and vice versa. One can see how VMI or the military in general is a good example of Piaget’s adaptation concepts.
Teaching Writing-Written Response #1
While the textbook, “A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers,” naturally showcases the importance of the art of rhetoric, it appears that not everyone agrees with the idea that rhetoric is, ultimately, a good thing. I am puzzled by the controversy that this subject has caused. Because there are so many different definitions and views of rhetoric, I am not sure if there ever could be a definitive way to identify the subject. On one side, scholars view rhetoric as a tool for the slimy and the corrupt to influence the ignorant masses, and on another side, rhetoric is a tool for learning and teaching the ignorant. Of course, a third side believes that rhetoric is both these things, it is just how one uses it. To this third side, rhetoric is a tool with no agenda, ill will, or noble purpose of its own. Like a hammer or a scalpel, it could be used for good or bad, or neither. Before rhetoric I have never encountered a subject so fraught with controversy since learning about evolution.
Focused Response Essay #1
John Armellino
ERH 203W 02
Focused Response: Ezra Pound
In his short poem “In the Station of a Metro,” Ezra Pound uses only two lines to describe a crowd of people on a typical day in a typical metro. The poem is concise, but beautiful. Of the few words that make up the poem, the word “bough” catches one’s attention. Pound compares the faces of the crowd to “petals on a wet, black bough.” A bough is a main branch of a tree, one of the strongest. Pound suggests that each group of people make up one of these boughs. Although to many readers the poem feels like a dark and negative view of crowds, it seems Pound meant the opposite. It is only fourteen words, but the poem is full of sincere emotion and vivid imagery of people whose lives are interlocked but still their own, moving about their own routines. It is a beautiful, almost uplifting perspective of the everyday, and paints a picture of this relatively small group of people being a part of a larger world, a single branch on a single tree in a great forest.
The poem may feel like a gloomy experience to those who have read it because of its use of the words “apparition” and “black.” The word apparition is usually used in a negative light (often to describe hostile paranormal entities), but I feel that in this instance it is neither positive nor negative. It just is. It is simply describing the appearance of the “faces in the crowd.” They all blend together in an undistinguishable mass of different lives and different experiences, which come together to form a bough of a tree. If one metro station is a single bough on a single tree, and each bough holds the lives and stories of hundreds of people, then it is amazing to think of all the different experiences that an entire forest would contain. In only fourteen words, Pound creates a beautiful image of humanity.
“The Rest Cure”
John Armellino
ERH 203W 02
Major Knepper
“Rest Cure”
Charlotte Gilman’s classic short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a chilling account of a woman’s descent into insanity. Her downfall is only hastened by her husband’s treatment, something known as “rest cure” at the time. This method of treatment was essentially trapping the patient in a prison of both body and mind. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an in-depth analysis of the pitfalls of such an innocent sounding treatment to mental illness. It provides a unique perspective on the “logical” men who thought they knew best, and the women who suffered for it emotionally and physically.
The narrator of the story is one of those women who have been forced to suffer through the rest cure, which consists of lying in bed all day, day after day, only eating foods rich in fat and not being allowed to write or otherwise express emotion. In short, the rest cure is a prescription for a dull, sedentary life. [i]“I sometimes fancy that in my condition, if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.”[ii] Naturally, in order to keep her from thinking about her condition, her husband leaves her all alone to her thoughts.
It is solely from her perspective that the treatment is experienced. We do not see things from the husband’s perspective, so we can only speculate as to the logic he uses to justify this treatment. The protagonist herself does not seem to know what her husband has planned for her at the beginning of the story. She herself dismisses her own concerns about the house, believing that her husband has always been the more logical one of the two.[iii]
It is this kind of self doubt that prevented the women of Charlotte Gilman’s time (late nineteenth century) from taking control of their own lives. They were always led to believe that they were not only “hysterical,” but also that they were the inferior gender, meant to be coddled and told what to do. Women were trained not to think for themselves. After all why should they? Thinking was the man’s job. It was only when the women were incapable of doing their wifely duties that their mental health seemed to be of concern.
Charlotte Gilman herself experienced the rest cure’s dehumanization and borderline imprisonment at the hands of the inventor of the treatment, Doctor Silas Weir Mitchell. She was told to “Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time. . . . Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours’ intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush, or pencil as long as you live.”[iv] So, while she may have been able to read sometimes, she was never able to express her own emotions. In fact, she was expressly forbidden from doing so through the medium of writing. Gilman apparently found this treatment to be suffocating and could not bear it. She later wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a semiautobiographical account of her experiences with the rest cure.[v]
Although Gilman did admit that “The Yellow Wallpaper” contains its fair share of “embellishments” (for example Gilman never experienced hallucinations of an auditory or visual nature),[vi] the story resonated with readers long after it was published. It is our morbid curiosity that drives us to read stories like “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The story is so terrible but so plausible at the same time that it makes the reader wonder if such terrible doctors existed. Although they did certainly exist, some people believe that Doctor Mitchell was not the villain that Gilman may have made him out to be.
The good doctor, having served during the American Civil War as a surgeon for the U.S. Army, saw his fair share of pain and suffering, and nearly had a mental breakdown because of it. This made him “unsympathetic”[vii] towards those he diagnosed with hysteria. Although many of Doctor Mitchell’s patients saw success with his treatment, and he may have meant well, those he diagnosed with hysteria ultimately ended up in worse shape. In the story the narrator is reduced to a near feral creature that “creeps”[viii] along the floor in an inhuman fashion.
Gilman was not the only famous patient he subjected to the rest cure. Famous female author Virginia Woolf was also a patient of Mitchell’s. She eventually got out from under the thumb of people like Mitchell, but this would not prevent her from taking her own life eventually. Had she had access to a more supportive form of mental healthcare, she may have recovered, but Mitchell and doctor’s like him cast mentally ill women into a single lot, rather than treating them as the unique cases that they were.
Had doctors at the time been more sensitive to the nuances of each mental illness, unnecessary suffering may have been avoided. Instead, like in the story, mental patients were either treated like children, criminals, or both. The result was the same, many patients were imprisoned, whether that was physically imprisoned, mentally imprisoned, or again, both. Doctor Mitchell may have felt that he was approaching his patients’ illnesses logically, but like the husband in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” he completely disregarded the emotional aspects of his treatments, which is the most important thing to remember when treating the mentally ill.
[i] Anne Styles “The Rest Cure, 1873-1925.” http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=anne-stiles-the-rest-cure-1873-1925
[ii] Charlotte Gilman. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” 1.17-1.18
[iii] “The Yellow Wallpaper”
[iv] http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=anne-stiles-the-rest-cure-1873-1925
[v] “The Neurasthenia Rest Cure and Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell.” http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/nerves/rest/
[vi] http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=anne-stiles-the-rest-cure-1873-1925
[vii] http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=anne-stiles-the-rest-cure-1873-1925
[viii] “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
“The Machine”
John Armellino
ERH 203W 02
Major Knepper
Due 10/20/15
“What is The Machine?”
“The Machine” is a sonnet written by Rainer Maria Rilke in 1922. I must admit that the title of this poem has captured my childish, science-fiction loving attention. Before even reading it, I was thoroughly engrossed in thinking about what this “machine” could be. I immediately assumed it to be a sinister entity for some odd reason or another. It appears my initial assumption was correct. Rilke writes of a machine that “endangers all we have made.”[i] Clearly, this is not the typical sonnet about the horrors of romantic love, but rather a lovely, thought-provoking piece about our mysterious overlord, which you will see is an intricate metaphor for something else entirely. It is apparent in this sonnet that Rilke had adopted a rather bleak view of the world.
The metaphor that Rilke intends to make is that all of our lives are controlled by a mechanism that our society has created. This poem is part of series that Rilke wrote during the last two years of his life[ii], and I cannot help but feel that in his final days, the poet had at least partially succumbed to cynicism. Unlike most poets before and after him, Rilke does not humanize the inhuman. In “The Machine,” he automatizes the world, so that it itself is a machine.
We live in a world where nearly every aspect of our lives is affected by an unseen system, a system that feeds on conflict. It seems Rilke believed that this system is a danger to our lives, and our freedom. As a young boy, Rilke was nearly a victim of this system. His father was a former officer in the Austrian armed forces and wished for his son to be the same, so young Rilke was sent to a military school.[iii] Rilke however, was a born artist, and eventually made it to another school where he could begin his long and illustrious literary career.[iv] His parents were the extension of a machine that had a predetermined destiny all set for the young writer.
What is this “Machine” though? It is indifferent to creation and destruction. It performs both equally with vigor, and with a desire to keep us from escaping. Where does it think we would escape? And How? Rilke points to a “sacred dwelling that we do not own.”[v] He may be referring not to a physical place, but to a simpler lifestyle, one that is closer to nature. Perhaps Rilke believed this “Machine” was industry. After all, factories do create the weapons, armor, and tools of war. And, of course, war destroys all in its path. Without industry would our lives not become simpler, purer? The Machine (or those who propagate its existence) would want to prevent that, since we would no longer rely on its incessant production.
As long as people have existed, conflict between each other has existed as well. How would a lack of industry make anything better? Rilke was born during the industrial revolution,[vi] so it is a likely possibility that he saw the rapid expansion of industry as terrifying and unnatural. The world became impatient, as “the carver’s hands take too long to feel its way.”[vii] Instant gratification was becoming the norm as production of nearly everything increased on a massive scale. The skilled craftsman was becoming obsolete, and in his place is a dark machine, incomprehensible in its massiveness and hunger for our wealth. It steals the “mystery “[viii] of life. After all what do we need nature for if the Machine already provides us with all we need?
It makes sense that Rilke would write of industry as being the “Machine.” As I discussed earlier, young Rilke got his pinky caught in a cog of the machine before managing to pull free. Had he become an officer like his father wished, Rilke would have been sucked into the storm of World War I and who knows what would have become of the man? Perhaps thoughts like these passed through Rilke’s mind as he witnessed the war, which had forced him to flee his beloved home of Paris.[ix] The First Great War must have had a profound impact on the man. It was the first war that was industrialized on a massive scale, with people being fed into the machine as if human sacrifice itself had been mechanized.
This “Machine” has been a constant presence in human existence for the past few hundred years. It thrives on conflict. “It thinks it’s alive and does everything better.” It is always seeking greater efficiency, and often we need to institute laws to prevent industry from infringing on our basic human rights, the most important of which is the right to freedom from tyranny.
Rilke has experienced all the negative effects of the “Machine,” an entity that is indifferent to the suffering of people. It can be embodied by the rich who profit off of it, or by the poor who are strangled by it. But, no matter who you are, it seems Rilke believed that “The Machine” rules us all, with little chance for escape.
[i] Rainer Maria Rilke. “The Machine.” Sonnets to Orpheus
[ii] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/rainer-maria-rilke
[iii] https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/rainer-maria-rilke
[iv] poetryfoundation.org
[v] “The Machine”
[vi] poetryfoundation.org
[vii] “The Machine”
[viii] “The Machine”
[ix] poets.org
Short Response Essay #3
John Armellino
ERH 203WX 02
Major Knepper
Due 11/5/15
“What Makes The Yellow Wallpaper so Frightening?”
Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a masterpiece of feminist literature and horror (some would argue that those are both the same thing). It tells the story of a young woman, the wife of a doctor, who is suffering a terrible case of depression. The story is from her point of view, and begins at the couple’s arrival to a “colonial mansion,” which the narrator compares to “a haunted house” in her thoughts. Of course, it has been debated if the mansion was actually haunted. A frightening thought indeed, but I do not think that is the case. And even if it were, it is not the true horror of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” What makes this story so disturbing is the protagonist’s suffering at the hands of her well-intentioned husband, as well as her utter lack of free will.
Consider that immediately upon entering the estate, the narrator notices that there must be something “queer” about the mansion, as they have rented it cheap. Her husband laughs at her, which is something to be expected, the protagonist states. It seems as though the narrator is treated not only like a child, but also like a child whose cares and concerns are almost always dismissed immediately. She also appears to simply accept this. “What is one to do?” As the story goes on, the more “practical” husband locks her away and refuses her the simple pleasures of human interaction and even writing. She is essentially a prisoner.
As time goes on, the narrator becomes more and more disturbed. It is apparent that she is not only a prisoner of the room, but also a prisoner of her own mind. Because of her mental illness, and the lack of an outlet for her fears and frustrations, her mind has no choice but to turn in on itself for some form of escape. It is almost as if her consciousness is folding in half to read itself. The woman stuck behind the yellow wallpaper is the narrator herself, as she truly is, a prisoner. With the wallpaper as her metaphorical cage, she tears it apart while “creeping” around. To be reduced to such a state is unimaginable, even terrifying, to someone like me, who does not like to be told what to do at all. The idea of having one’s basic freedoms stripped away, and being forced to accept it by a patriarchal system that “knows best” is horrifying to me. Even outside the room there was no escape for the narrator. She was powerless, and Charlotte Gilman made sure that the reader knew what that powerlessness felt like, and what its consequences were.
Short Response Essay #4
John Armellino
ERH 203WX 02
Major Knepper
Due 11/5/15
“Why did Uncle Ben Make That Choice?”
“Uncle Ben’s Choice” is a story told in monologue form. Its stream of consciousness format reflects the fact that it is supposed to seem like an oral story, as if the author Chinua Achebe is telling it to you in person. It tells the tale of a young African man, a clerk, and his impressive bachelor lifestyle. As a man who lives fairly well, the narrator seems to have it all, even a “surplus of women.” He does not appear to want to get married, as he had “seen many young men kill themselves with women.” However, at the end of the story, Ben is tempted (at least he believes that he is) with great wealth and material possessions, as well as an intimate relationship with a beautiful woman, but at the cost of never being able to marry, and father children of his own. Ben rejects this temptation and flees, but why? It appears that Ben was never truly concerned with romantic love, but rather with his material possessions. Why the change of heart? If he does not have a family, then upon his death his wealth would go “to outsiders.” Ben does not believe that is “good wealth.” It is the beginning of the narrator becoming a responsible man.
The narrator has a relatively high paying job, and enjoys going out to clubs to drink and meet women. Obviously going out as often as he gives the impression of going, requires a decent amount of moola. He simply does not want to see this wealth go to those that he does not care about. Perhaps this is slow turn from an a selfish obsession with material goods imprinted on him by the colonists around him. After all, why would a selfish man care about his belongings once he is gone? It would no longer concern a selfish man.
It would concern a family man. Ben, when tempted to become the man he has been acting like, ultimately does not give in. He has become a “true son.” Only a “crazy white man” would accept such a deal. Ben learns that the true wealth is his heritage and his legacy, and refuses to give that up.
American Lit Reflective Essay
John Armellino
ERH 206
Major Knepper
Due 5/1/15
Reflective Essay
Within the course of the American Literary Traditions class, I learned a great deal about American gothic horror conventions and even, surprisingly, some history. I suppose that should not come as a surprise to me. Most of these works were all written during the 18th and 19th centuries. Among the writers we have explored in this class are Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, and Charles Chesnutt. I even showed a presentation on Frederick Douglass, a former slave turned author and statesman. An interesting thing I learned about all these authors (except perhaps Douglass) is their use of the element of the uncanny and supernatural in their works to point out specific issues in society, one of the most notable issues being slavery in America. American gothic horror appears to be a way for Americans to criticize their society without seeming like hypocrites. Throughout the course, all the works I have read were creative metaphors for America’s dark, untold history, and I have learned much from it. All I had to do was read, and reflect on what I have read, and the connections were there.
I enjoyed writing about all of these authors, particularly Poe and Hawthorne. The two authors are notorious for writing strange, uncanny stories. The protagonists of these stories are often unreliable narrators and/or slowly losing control of themselves. I wrote about two of these works in my research essay, “Hop-Frog” and “My Kinsman, Major Molineux.” In another essay I wrote about the element of the uncanny, I mentioned Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” All three of these works I have read seem to provide some commentary on post and pre-revolution America. However, all three have a different message about society.
From “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” I took note of the “coming of age” type story. This could easily be translated to a metaphor of Colonial America maturing and becoming the nation it was meant to be, albeit at a heavy price. America was “forced to grow up.” From this work I took away the lesson that American history was never as clean cut and black and white as it was made out to be in grade school. “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” is a personal story that I could easily translate into a metaphor for the United States’ bloody history.
Edgar Allan Poe’s “Hop-Frog” may also serve as a metaphor. Besides revealing an “ugly truth” within the main character, the story can also be a symbol for slavery. The main character is treated as a slave himself, being a man taken far away from his home and mistreated by a cruel council. It was not too difficult to make the connection. They stripped away Hop-Frog’s true name and christened him with the namesake of an animal, much like enslaved Africans had their identities stolen, and were treated like animals rather than human beings. The more I thought about it, the more the analogy made sense to me. These are basic metaphors. What I was truly interested in, and really learned from was the use of the uncanny to convey a message.
I have always loved gothic literature, but in this course I started to understand the nuances behind it. Why did the authors feel it was necessary to use the factor of the uncanny in their works? By “taking a reader out of his or her comfort zone” the authors of these works lead their audience to engage in some critical thinking and reflection. I know I started to think about literature on a more critical level because of this. Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” got me started. The small village that is the namesake of the story rested “on the very edge of the bizarre.” It felt as though it resided in it’s “own separate plane of existence.” I only began to understand why after several class discussions of the subject. The town of Sleepy Hollow feels so strange to us because it is full of unique traditions that stem from a foreign land, something that many Americans were (and still are) uncomfortable with. I began to understand that the American experience was seen as constant change and creating new traditions. The older ways of doing things may have been looked down upon and even feared a little bit. If Ichabod Crane was supposed to represent the common American at the time the story was written, then it is almost certainly a commentary on their shortsightedness and disregard for foreign cultures.
It may be difficult to see where I made these connections, how I learned these things, but it really just came down to thinking. The class discussions helped me tremendously, when it came to analyzing the individual works we have read. All I had to do was ponder what I have just read and the more I did that the more conclusions I reached, right or wrong. Of course, it helped having basic knowledge of American history, but other than that all I needed was to read.
Source for Rhetorical Traditions II Reflective Essay (Notes on Burke)
These are all notes taken straight from my notebook on the subject.
Kenneth Burke’s theory of dramatism views the real world and human interactions as if it were a drama, like a play.
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players…”
Burke believed that to understand human acts, one had to understand human motives. Dramatism exists to find what motivates our actions.
A simple way to remember how dramatism works is with the pentad
action, agents, agency, setting, purpose
Dramatism is almost scientific
“The root of all rhetoric is guilt redemption”