Journal #26: Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

I LOVE SNOW!!!!!!! I absolutely love snow, especially when it has just fallen and it is sparkling white covering everything, untouched, brand new, and beautiful. I really love snow when there is a snow day, and there is no school, because it has snowed a foot. Then all day, all you have to is go out in the snow and play. There are so many things you can do in the snow. Following is a list:

• Build a snowman
• Build a fort
• Make a snow angel
• Go sledding
• Have a snow ball fight
• Make a big snow pile and jump in it
• Make snow cones
• Play hide and seek (Only works if there is at least a foot and a half of snow on the ground
• Play snow tag (Something kind of exhausting)
• And many other snow games

Snow is just great. Yes it can be slick, making driving difficult. Yes it is cold and wet, making it uncomfortable at times. But it still is just beautiful. I love winter, except when it is just plain cold, icy, with no snow. I like Christmas, and snow, and winter. That is me. Today it was supposed to snow, but seeing how the weather app lied on my iPod, there is no snow. Unfortunately. (Electronic weather devices are not trustworthy at times). But even though I am disappointed at this "no snow" day, I am still hopeful that it will snow. I am still hoping that frozen H2O (also known as snow for you non-science people) will fall within a couple of days. I love snow. As I have now said for about the fourth time or so. Some people hate it, but I do not. I love the white fluffy stuff, known as snow.

Well, now you know that I really like snow, since I have said that phrase about six times now. But more than snow, I love the atmosphere that comes with it. The hot chocolate smell of the house, the gorgeous environment and sparkling snow, the warm clothing, and just hanging around looking at Christmas lights, and waiting for Christmas break. That is why I love snow and winter.

The Black Veil

Dark Romanticism, a sub-genre of the Romanticism Literary Period, was based around the darker side of human nature, mythical creatures, and human flaws. Two very famous Dark Romanticism authors are Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. One of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories or parables during the Dark Romanticism Literary Period is "The Minister's Black Veil." This is meant to be an eye opener, and it is written with many dark romantic characteristics to accomplish this.
The story is basically a mystery in a certain way. It is about a well respected minister who starts to wear a black veil across his face. The town is baffled by this, and eventually they come to fear him for it. He lives a lonely life with his black veil, as he refuses to take it off, even when coaxed by his wife. As he is dying, a new young minister begs him to take it off, but the minister with a dying breath tells the people that he will never take it off as long as he is on earth, that every one is hiding behind their own black veil, as he is; and then with that last statement, the minister dies. He is buried with his black veil on, and no one takes it off or looks under it. No one knows what the minister does that makes him wear the black veil, and it is this dark secrecy that separates him from the rest of the world. Dark romantics often wrote mysteries as this one could be classified.
Another characteristic of dark romanticism, and really just romanticism, is the symbolism used through out the story. The black veil is a symbol of secrecy, of sin, of darkness. Black is often the color of death, darkness, and sadness; and a veil covers something up, in this case, his face and his soul. "When Mr. Hooper came, the first thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil, which had added deeper gloom to the funeral, and could portend nothing but evil to the wedding" (Hawthorne, 284).
Also, the fact that the black veil covers the face of a minister is very interesting. Dark romanticism dealt with the side of human nature that we associate sin, greed, lust, and other darker elements with. The minister, someone who was respected and thought to be a pure messenger of God, was wearing the black veil, associated with sin and secrecy. "There was the black veil swathed round Mr. Hooper's forehead, and concealing every feature above his placid mouth, on which, at times, they could perceive the glimmering of a melancholy smile. But that piece of crepe, to their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them" (Hawthorne, 285). The secrecy, sin, and darkness mentioned with the minister shows that even the people considered as righteous and good are even affected by sin and covered by it. Every one is covered by a black veil. "I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil" (Hawthorne, 289)!
The main point of this story is that every one is affected by sin, and though they may try to hide it, it is still there. They conceal themselves from the world in hopes of being unnoticed, so that people will not know their deepest and darkest secrets and sins. Hawthorne concealed this point symbolically in a story of a minister. However, even a Black Veil cannot hide the characteristics of Dark Romanticism in this story.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Minister's Black Veil." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature. Ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill. 2010. 280-289. Print.

Journal #25: Wearing a Mask

Have you ever worn a mask? And I do not mean wearing a party mask or a Halloween mask or wearing a mask at a masquerade ball. I mean an imaginary mask. Have you ever worn an imaginary mask? Wearing this, you disguised your true identity with another that was not your own. You wore a mask to cover up your personality, your true self, whether it was to impress someone, fear of not being accepted by a certain group, or contempt for yourself. Everyone has probably worn a mask at some time or another. This next story is a story about a young girl who wore a mask at one point in her life.

Her name was Susan. Susan was probably the sweetest, the nicest, and most innocent girl you would ever meet. She was always happy and cheery, even when everything around her seemed sad. She was there to help a hand, and she never complained about the work. She was always the first to volunteer, and many people liked her. However, there was a group of girls who did not. These girls were considered the "in" crowd of the school. Susan was not part of this group, but she had always admired them, for their clothes, for their hair, for their attitudes. At heart she wanted to be like them. Susan with her own personality was not accepted by them. She did not like this at all. She decided to be more and more like them, so that she too would be part of the "in" crowd. First she higlighted her hair, cut it, and fixed it into the right style. She bought new clothes to match them. Soon she was acting like them, with bad attitudes and mood swings. She dropped her friends to hang out with them. Finally she was accepted by the "in" crowd! But when she got into the group she found out it was not as glamorous as she thought. Susan put on a mask, hid her true identity, and for what? Nothing! It was not worth it. So bottom line is, do not wear a mask just to fit in. You are you, and only you. Do not just change to be like someone else. If the world was all the same without much difference, it would be extremely boring. So do not hide behind your imaginary mask. Be yourself.

The Pit and the Pendulum: Dark Romanticism

Dark Romanticism, a sub-genre of the Romanticism Literary Period, had many characteristics similar to those of romanticism, but still different. Dark Romanticism included the darker side of human nature in its writings. This would include characters who had committed crimes, lied, were suffering , greedy, who had the darker qualities or flaws of human nature. Dark Romanticism writers also included dark mythical creatures in their novels and poems, such as demons, Satan, ghosts, goblins, and ghouls. Dark Romanticism stories are usually bleak, dark (obviously), scary, eerie, and have a sad or dreary tone to them. All of these are characteristics of Dark Romanticism.

Edgar Allen Poe is considered a Dark Romanticist. He has written many things including The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Pit and the Pendulum. All of these writings include Dark Romanticist characteristics, especially The Pit and the Pendulum. The Pit and the Pendulum is a short story of a man accused during the Spanish Inquisition, and his torturous stay in prison. The Spanish Inquisition the beginning setting for the short story was "a court that arrested and tried suspected heretics, or those who opposed Church teaching. Those convicted of heresy were imprisoned for life or sentenced to death" (Poe, 262). This already shows Dark Romanticism, because it deals with human error and human paranoia. In the beginning lines, Dark Romanticism is again apparent, because it talks of death in a depressing tone. "I was sick--sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me" (Poe, 263). Here Poe leads into the main story with the person's feelings. As the story develops, the accused is sent to prison where he is left in a small damp prison cell, rat infested, and fed little food. The keepers of the prison torture him by tying him down and swinging a pendulum with the sharp head of an axe slowly down at him. He marginally escapes, but again his torturers beckon him to a deadly pit in the middle of the room. "My cognizance of the pit had become known to the inquisitorial agents--the pit whose horrors had been destined for so bold a recusant as myself--the pit, typical of hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule of all their punishments" (Poe, 269). This phrase shows Dark Romanticism because it mentions the pit as a hell, and shows the accused's contempt for the pit. It shows his darkest fear for the pit, something common to Dark Romanticism. "I felt that it was of joy--of hope; but I felt also that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to perfect--to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile--an idiot" (Poe, 270). Again this shows Dark Romanticism, because it talks of being an idiot, not something to be proud of, a darker part of human nature. Also it shows how his joy disappeared and how he was left in utter darkness and felt as much, another characteristic of Dark Romanticism. Edgar Allen Poe's short story, not surprising, is an excellent example of Dark Romanticism. The Pit and the Pendulum shows how human nature becomes corrupt and what happens when it does, somethings common to the Dark Romanticism Time Period.

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Pit and the Pendulum." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature. Ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill. 2010. 263-273. Print.

Analytical Criticism of "The Raven" and Edgar Allen Poe

"The Raven" is one of Edgar Allen Poe's most famous poems, intriguing its readers with the deep inner thoughts of the mind, put out into the open by grief, suffering, and insanity. Edgar Allen Poe was a dark romanticist, and in being this, he wrote many things about the darker side of human nature, of mystery, of the psychological mind, and of darker spiritual phantasms. "The Raven" is a dark tale of a man going practically insane from the grief of his lost love, Lenore, and talking to a raven--a symbol of death--who only replies to the man, "Nevermore." The tale has many different references in it making the symbolic and figurative meaning stronger. It can be interpretted many different ways: a grieving man losing his mind due to the suffering from the loss of his beloved, a dark tale revealing the author's own feelings toward love, or a historical meaning, such as Dave Smith, author of a criticism of "The Raven," believes.

"If we read "The Raven," despite its absence of specific local details, as an "awareness" of the life of America in 1845, we see that Poe has conjectured the nightmare of the individual cut off from history, abandoned by family, place, and community love. He experiences personally what the South will experience regionally and the country will, down the long road, experience emotionally. Though he means to celebrate Lenore, what he most intensely celebrates is the union with community, the identity of place and people which Poe simultaneously has and has lost" (Smith). Dave Smith believes that Poe's poem is Edgar Allen Poe's portrayal of the country at the time, something that I had never thought of, but that is interesting and also relevant. This idea would be accurate with the Romanticism Period characteristics, in which they wrote of emotions, nature, and patriotism. Smith's connection of the poem to the South does seem logical and it seems to fit the Romanticism time period."In this, in 1845, he speaks for the Southern white and, paradoxically, for the slave paralyzed in his garden and also dispossessed" (Smith). However, even though this does make sense, I do not agree with David Smith. I think that Edgar Allen Poe is mainly coming across and giving a story of how grieving and not doing anything to stop one's suffering of a loved one eventually makes that person go insane. He or she loses their minds to the grief and anguish caused by the loss of the loved one. "It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven "Nevermore" (Poe, 260). I think that the poem is merely the suffering of a loved one, Lenore. Edgar Allen Poe's very articulate ryhming scheme and his use of words to create a dim and bleak, yet sincere tone, tell the story of a lonely, sad, loveless man, rather than an analogy to the South and historical United States, as David Smith believes.

Works Cited

Smith, Dave. "Edgar Allan Poe and the Nightmare Ode," Southern Humanities Review 29, no. 1 (Winter 1995): pp. 4-5, 9-10. Quoted as "Poe as a Southern Writer" in Harold Bloom, ed. Edgar Allan Poe, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1999. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMPEAP26&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 22, 2010).

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Raven." American Literature. Columbus, Ohio: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 257-260. Print.

The Raven

The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe--a dark romanticism poet--, is one of Edgar Allen Poe's more famous dark works. Here is a literal translation of the poem.

A man is sleeping from reading a book, and he hears a small tapping noise on his chamber door. He shakes it off thinking it is only a visitor. He sleeps again, but wakes to the same tapping noise again. He goes to the door opens it, but he finds no one there. Then he hears a tapping noise on the window, and as he opens up the window, a raven flies into his room and sits on a bust of Athena, the greek goddess of wisdom and war. He asks the raven what his name is and it replies. "Nevermore." He asks of Lenore, his dead wife whom he grieves, and the raven again replies, "Nevermore." He then asks if his suffering for Lenore will ever go away, and the raven replies, "Nevermore." He tells the raven to leave him, but the raven, alas, says, "Nevermore."

This poem is dark and mystical, and from the literal translation, one would not know this. However, Poe uses many literary devices to make this poem how Poe intended it to be. For one, he uses illusion, or referencing something of another piece of work or art. "But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--Perched, and sat, and nothing more." (Poe, 258). Here, Pallas refers to Athena. Athena was the protector of wisdom and innocence, and in the poem, she is used as protection of the man's mind. A raven was commonly used as a symbol of death. As the raven flies and sits on the bust of Athena, it symbolizes that the innocence, the wisdom, and essentially, the man's mind, dies, or he goes insane.

Poe also uses repetition in his poem to set the dark theme. The raven continues to say, "Nevermore," and only that word. The raven says nothings else but that. And as the man asks the questions to the raven, and the raven gives him these terrible replies, the man perishes in his anguish and grief.

Poe's poem is a symbol of darkness and death. The man, suffering from the loss of his beloved Lenore, loses his mind in his grief. He talks to a raven, believes the answers from the raven, and goes insane. The man loses himself in his sadness and suffering. The Raven symbollically shows us that when one wallows around in his or her grief and suffering and does nothing to escape it, they eventually lose themselves, and their innocent selves die in their anguish.

Walden Criticism

Walden, is by Henry David Thoreau, a well known Romanticism poet and writer. Thoreau was very interested by nature, and he tried to become a new person through nature, something common to the Romanticism Literary Period. Walden is basically a journal of Henry David Thoreau's stay in nature and his observations. During his stay, Henry David Thoreau looks at individual parts of nature and finds ways to connect to nature through that. In a criticism of Henry David Thoreau, by Bradford Torrey, Torrey praises Thoreau on his writing and connection of nature. I agree with Bradford Torrey on this aspect, because Thoreau is an excellent writer, especially when he writes of nature. This is obviously apparent in Walden, one of Henry David Thoreau's most famous works.

Bradford Torrey says, "Thoreau's love for the wild--not to be confounded with a liking for natural history or an appreciation of scenery--was as natural and unaffected as a child's love of sweets. It belonged to no one part of his life" (Torrey). I agree with this statement. Henry David Thoreau really did have a love of nature. It was almost as if it was his life. One can see this in an excerpt from Walden. "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary" (Thoreau, 214). Thoreau tells why he made this solitary trip into nature. He wished to see how nature lived, how it operated, how it survived. From his observations Henry David Thoreau wished to live his own life according to nature. This proves Torrey's statement that "it [nature] belonged to no one part of his life" (Torrey). Henry David Thoreau did not want to live like nature only in spiritual aspects or only in work aspects. He wanted to learn from it, and then Thoreau wanted to apply that to all of his life, like Torrey stated.

There is one more main point that I found interesting in Torrey's criticism, and it pertains to Henry David Thoreau himself, not just Walden. Bradford Torrey says this, "He did his work, and with it enriched the world. In the strictest sense it was his own work. If his ideal escaped him, he did better than most in that he still pursued it" (Torrey). I agree with this point also, in that Thoreau added extra small details into his stories or poems or journals that make one think, "Is that really necessary to have that in there?" He did this with Walden even more so, because he was observing the small little details along with the obvious ones to see how those could affect his life. "Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near foreleg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the suffer's eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could excite" (Thoreau, 218). Even though some may have thought these details over the top therefore taking away from his journal, Thoreau includes them deeming them necessary for his own work, very similar to Bradford Torrey's criticism of him.


Works Cited

Torrey, Bradford. "Thoreau's Attitude toward Nature." Atlantic (November 1899): 706–710. Quoted as "Thoreau's Attitude toward Nature" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Henry David Thoreau, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCVHDT010&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 21, 2010).

Thoreau, Henry David. "Walden." American Literature. Columbus, Ohio: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 214-218. Print.