Moses Hershberge Essay2

7/30/2019 Moses Hershberge Essay2

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Moses Hershberger

ENGL2120-101

4/10/12

Essay 2

1. What sets the form in Sherwood Andersons Mother is how the qualities of thecharacters moods play out through the story. What prompts my liking of this story is the

setting of the hotel which is a fundamental element. Anderson describes it as the

disorderly old hotel looking at the faded wall-paper and the ragged carpets (1426-7). I

see the setting as a parallel to Elizabeth Willard, the mother, which leads to imagery. The

imagery in Elizabeth shows her as a tall and gauntface marked with smallpox scars

(1426). As far as narrative point of view, plot and style, theyre simple measures that I

think help build up probably the edgiest moment in the story. Elizabeth wanting to kill

her husband. What these measures build up to is her determination to plan an action. As

said by Anderson, its a definite determination had come into the mind of the defeated

wife of the Winesburg Hotel keeper. The determination was the result of long years of

quiet and rather ineffectual thinking (1429). After reading that, the form of this story,

though simple, builds up to a surprise ending.

2. In my last journal, I described Zora Neale Hurstons The Gilded Six-Bits as soapopera material. Though I was given a different viewpoint, the same feeling I felt stands

due to the qualities of the values in the story. I disliked the values because I felt no


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sympathy towards them. I especially couldnt sympathize with MissieMays actions to

cheat on Joe with Slemmons for their financial troubles. Though it read well as Hurstons

describes Joes feeling as a howling wind raced across his heart, but underneath its fury

he heard his wife sobbing and Slemmons pleading for his life. Offering to buy it with all

that he had. "Please, suh, don't kill me. Sixty-two dollars at de sto'. Gold money." Joe just

stood(1717). I just cant see the justice in cheating for a greater good.If that isnt cold

enough, what Joe does brings him on par with Missie Mays low move. After making

love after some time, Joe leaves beneath her pillowthe piece of money with the bit of

chain attached. Alone to herself, she looked at the thing with loathing, but look she

mustShe was glad at first that Joe had left it there. Perhaps he was through with her

punishment (1719). When talking about values, this story seems to relate closely to Kate

Chopins The Strom where I felt the values in that story more as a moment of weakness

for Calixtas because of her worried feelings. In The Gilded Six-Bits, I cant see the

moment of righteous for what Missie May and Joe did.

3. Still talking about The Gilded Six-Bits, I also had really one issue with the people. Itmostly about Joe near the end of the story. I just feel uninterested in Joe because of the

unrealistic approach Hurston wrote. Its never impossible for couples, who have had

major bumps and separations in their marriage, to come back together. But thats reality.

In literature terms, I cant seepeople like this working it out, unless Im very, very

convinced in an authors way of telling. This did not happen with The Gilded Six-Bits

because it involved a child. It happens and it may or may not work out for couples. In this

scene, we have Joe coming back home after the ordeal with the money he left for Missie


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after having sex with her: Without a word he took the ax and chopped a huge pile before

he stopped. You ain't got no business choppin' wood, and you know it.

How come? Ah been choppin' it for de last longest.

Ah ain't blind. You makin' feet for shoes.

Won't you be glad to have a lil baby chile, Joe?

You know dat 'thout astin' me.

Iss gointer be a boy chile and de very spit of you.

You reckon, Missie May?

Who else could it look lak?

Joe said nothing, but he thrust his hand deep into his pocket and fingered something

there (1719-20). Just like the values, the identity of the people felt like I couldnt

sympathize with them.

4. If theres one form of literature with a hellish telling the thoughts of an authenticcharacter is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. Though I found the

character of Prufrock to be entertaining and his values noble, it was in the character and

values that made the form of the story to be like him: neurotic. Throughout the story, the

character is reciting so many things he wants and will say to a woman about his feelings

for her. Though its more than that, which makes it difficult to interpret and makes the

form difficult. The rhyme and meter schemes flow just fine, the stanzas are what they

should be, the imagery is just vivid with imagination,but its the interpretation that is

hard to pin on what kind of craft T.S. Eliot was going for. I dont know why, but I love


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how Eliot writes, It is impossible to say just what I mean! (1579). I want to believe that

this line summarizes the whole poem.

5. What I liked about Robert Frosts Mending Wall was the idea of societal value we useeveryday: boundaries. The line, now considered a proverb, Good fences make good

neighbors (1390) is just a great piece of advice to listen to. What I also really like is how

narrator speaks to those who have doubt about these kinds of situation. Situations of

asking your neighbors if theyre should really be a boundary between them. In most

cases, everyone needs their own space and shuns the world with a boundary, but the

lingering question is why? Frost says, There where it is we do not need the wall/He is all

pine and I am apple orchard/My apple trees will never get across/And eat the cones under

his pines (1390). The narrator sees there is nothing but, his neighbor, keeping his

traditional values, says with a boundary, this keeps our different point of views at a civil

level and gives no spark to argue or fight about what is mine.

6. Finally, Frosts Home Burial is probably my most favorite because of the people. Iknow the situation that has happened is terrible, but its the characters way of dealing

with the situation that makes it easy to sympathize with. I felt for the characters because

something like had happened to my grandmother, who lost a daughter, my aunt, just

recently. Just looking and listening to how my grandmother coped with the situation was

in between with what the mother and father are going through. This to me made it more

realistic. What I enjoyed most was the dialogue between the wife and husband. For

example, the husband tells his wife, Listen to me. I wont come down the stairs.


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He sat and fixed his chin between his fists. Theres something I should like to ask you,

dear.

You dont know how to ask it.

Help me, then.

Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.

My words are nearly always an offence. I dont know how to speak of anything So as to

please you. But I might be taught I should suppose. I cant say I see how (1396). With

the death of their child and the fall of their marriage, I could see how much grief there is

between them, which is obvious to read, but its much different to feel it. And I felt for

these people because of a similar relationship Ive witnessed.


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Works Cited

Anderson, Sherwood. Mother. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Ni

Baym, et al. 7th

ed. Vol C. New York: Norton, 2007. 1426-1431. Print.

Frost, Robert. Home Burial. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Ni

Baym, et al. 7thed. Vol C. New York: Norton, 2007. 1395. Print.

Frost, Robert. Mending Wall. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Ni

Baym, et al. 7thed. Vol C. New York: Norton, 2007. 1390. Print.

Hurston, Zora Neale. The Gilded Six Bits. The Norton Anthology of American

Literature. Ed. Ni Baym, et al. 7thed. Vol C. New York: Norton, 2007. 1713-1721. Print.

Eliot, T.S. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The Norton Anthology of American

Literature. Ed. Ni Baym, et al. 7thed. Vol C. New York: Norton, 2007. 1577-1580. Print.

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Moses Hershberge Essay2