Rebecca Harding Davis "Life in the Iron Mills"

"This 1905 shows just one blast furnace (number 7) and the ore yard where the iron ore was stored to feed it day and night." From Heritage Education Center

The Iron-Mills would become an icon for progress, in both directions though. Technology was advance for "progress" but humanity and quality of life was sliding backwards. Davis beats her point in to the extent that the work is almost taking a modernist approach to industry sixty years before it exists. The overbearing tone of the story is that of damnation and pity. Damning industry and its evil for killing the once beautiful land and pity for the people who must work within. But within this horror there sparks the glimmer of creativity inside Wolfe which is then extinguished through a misguided attempt at help. Ending up with Wolfe losing his mind and killing himself to end the torment and his wife finding peace with the Quakers outside the city.

So once Deb leaves the city which represents hells she find peace in heaven. The city is referred to many times as hell and comparisons to Dante's Inferno are brought up to demonize this urban setting. And all the while the narrator is just pointing all this out to the reader as if both are just spirits floating and observing it all. In the same way Virgil leads Dante through hell. Davis leads the reader through an industrial hell.

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin basically caused the Civil War and yet it did so through comedy and sarcasm and not calls to violence. Of all that we discussed about Stowe's work UTC in class what struck me the most was the mention of a cartoon, thus I set out to find such a cartoon and did. The above is best described as the abridged version of UTC where abridged means butchered.

This cartoon takes everything that powerful and makes it ineffectual to the extent that the original purpose and meaning is lost and all that is left are the stereotypes and bare bones of a story. All the whit and humor is gone as well as the senator and Honest John making the cartoon a white versus black issue instead of the intended issue. The intended issue was to pull at the hear-strings of the reader and convince them to not let this happen anymore. Where in the cartoon all we see are images and depictions of blacks in poor to stereotypical behavior. The black characters just dance around and act silly and without order it seems and the climax at the river is concluded through a deus ex machina moment then they dance.

Overall the hardest part of watching was seeing how the producers of this cartoon twisted a story that empowered the powerless and shows the inhumane nature of the slave trade, into a short film featuring nothing but stereotypes meant entirely to amuse and entertain others at the expense of the blacks.

Finally I leave you with two more short cartoons with racist tones, one of Felix the cat and the other Van Beuren's Tom and Jerry (think Laurel and Hardy) both shorts have their characters go to Africa.

Tom and Jerry in "Plane Dumb" (1932)

Felix the Cat in The Non Stop Fright

Lincoln, Lincoln, whatcha' thinkin'

"His tenure in office was occupied primarily with the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America in the American Civil War."
From, Wikipedia.

For a man whose presidency is best remember for the war that was fought during it, Lincoln's Second Inaugural address seems out of place. Mostly because ignores the obvious points of interest and instead brings up seemingly unrated topics, and untrue statements.

The point that Lincoln repeats himself on is how the war is not just one sides fault, owning it up to both sides sins over allowing slavery to continue for so long. The odd nature of this speech comes through when Lincoln says that neither side wanted the war or expected it, both of which are lies.

After Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin opinions escalated along with violence and tension. Also missing is the rhetoric present in his first address and any "I told you so" comments.

The biggest part of this speech is how tired Lincoln sounds (because he was, since after all he was president during the Civil War). His tone is somber and he is ready to have the war be over. Most striking is how out of character this is for Lincoln. The speech does not follow what we know Lincoln to believe, or what the public must have wanted to hear. So what was the purpose of having this speech this way? Simple, look at the keys they are shiny and we shouldn't have done this war. Oh hey a cool looking bird! Look at the time, I've talked too long, see you all later- thanks for all the shoes.

Basically Lincoln had to give a speech and he did, but it was mostly emotional and probably from the Lincoln in the moment and not from the Lincoln in the past (or history books).

Test post for English 48a, Melville

"Main Entry: lone·ly

1 a : being without company : lone b : cut off from others : solitary
2 : not frequented by human beings : desolate
3 : sad from being alone : lonesome
4 : producing a feeling of bleakness or desolation

synonyms see alone"

from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lonely


Melville's Bartleby is a lonely nobleman, that is to say he's lonely because he's the last of his kind. This story is more comedic than tragic but when read through the biography of Herman Melville is appears that Bartleby is a stand in for how Melville feels. Bartleby's issue is that he does not know what he wants or needs, only what he prefers or does not prefer. The biggest insight into the character comes at the end of story when the grub-man is saying how he thinks Bartleby was a gentleman liar. So Melville is writing about Bartleby who needs something but cannot communicate it, or prefer to, but is still trying to deceive others into having his way. The most profound image of this is in the one of the last paragraphs where Melville writes about the Egyptian surroundings and when the grub-man asks about Bartleby the narrator replies, "[He is] With kings and counsellors"(2388).
This ending has three possible meanings.
First it could mean that Bartleby has gone to hell with the other lying kings and counsellors.
Second that Bartleby was the last of the gentleman liars, destined to become like the pyramids; a moment of people long ago.
Or third, showing how Melville feels about himself. Isolated and lying, people in his life wind up leaving him alone until he dies.

P.S. Just for kicks here's a video showing what I mean about being lonely and having people leave.