Ezra Pound: It is highly admirable that he claimed such a high name for himself. It makes it very recognizable that he took time to help other poets in effort to boost their success. I truly enjoy his approach to writing because he does not leave anything abstract and he intentionally is specific. I also thought it was interesting that he includes french and Latin in his poems because it makes it very dynamic.

HD put a twist upon the poets that she had been reading from. She adds an air of feminism as well as deep words that resonate with a country who is on a search for new mentality after the war. She stands out because she wrote more than just poetry. She wrote very philosophically about human kind’s most existential questions.

It is especially interesting that Lowell put an even fresher spin on work from HD. She sounds as though she was a woman who knew exactly who she was, what she stood for and was not afraid to tell the world. It speaks volumes about her that she started her poetry career at age thirty.

I definitely draw many parallels between Sister Carrie and naturalism. One reason being that characters in naturalism are usually in pursuit of freewill but their circumstances limit them. The setting is often in an urban setting. In chapter one, we read about her adventure into the city which is the powermove she makes to escape the small town she grew up in and the bubble she feels was entrapped by. On her way there she is seduced by a man who reveals to her the wonders of the city life and she in turn falls prey to the appetizing appearance. So to say the least, she is definitely in pursuit of something new and something that the place she was living in before could never offer her, something only the city life could offer her.

The second paralell that can easily be drawn is that she indeed was limited by her circumstances that she can not change. Such as, being a woman. She walked from building to building with high hopes of building a new life for herself, but she was turned down employer after employer that were all men. She went to an urban place so that she would no longer be entrapped by her rural town, but now she is entrapped by her gender.

The third characteristic of naturalism that I foresee happening in Sister Carrie is that her circumstances are likely to get worse and worse. Not much has happened yet because the plot is just being set, but I can definitely see how some of her existing circumstances could be made much worse; such as the poor job she accepted as well as the suspicious attractive man she gave her attention to. I suspect the direction that the plot could potentially be heading towards.

Reading the first and third chapter of “Sister Carrie” was very relatable to me. I felt most of every interaction that Carrie had with the world and I certainly share in her feelings. I think any reader could step into Carrie’s feelings. Carrie has given power to an illusion that the city life and independence is the missing piece to her uncultured rural self. Drieser writes about a concept that is very common still today, if we admit it. Most every human soul has come face to face with this; they feel as though something is missing from their life and materialism has drawn them in with its cunningness, forever keeping them entrapped in a vicious cycle. I suspect that it is leading to a harsh awakening that Chicago will indeed, not be the thing that makes her happy.

I believe I am able to relate to this specifically because of our circumstances being similar; I recently just moved out of my parent’s house for the first time. I beliebe it’s not just mine and Carrie’s situations that give me empathy for her; I believe it is also because Drieser’s style of writing. It draws me in and forces me to understand details about particular scenarios in a way I never would have before. I feel excited to read the rest.

My pre existing knowledge of 20th century American Literature is very limited, but I do have some. I have studied Hemingway as well as others in ninth grade as well as senior year in high school. I also just did some research, so that is where all of my understanding comes from, but I am very excited to become more educated about it.

Much of the literature depicts the disposition of the era. As far as the politcal scene goes for this time period it was post world war one. Woodrow Wilson had in mind a new age for America: the end of war. It had felt as though everything lost it’s meaning and that there truly was no answer; no correct algorithm that would fix the problems that we keep running into. There was an understanding that no matter how we construct our government and build a strong foundation as a nation, our self destruction was inevitable and perpetual. Many topics in 20th Century American literature center around meaninglessness, corruption, and injustice, making societal as well as philosophical statements.

Many of the modernist authors had become hard hearted and cynical and their works reflect that. Many people became realists. The modernist era is characterized by nonconformity. The Victorian era had come to an end and so now there was a void in what society’s values should be, as the old ones had been exposed. The modern era in short, equates to a new construct and the societal search for a new mold to fit into. Many philosophies were developed in this time period. This is also the time period where romanticism is born. Romanticism seeked to find ways to not deny the reality, but to transcend and understand it in a new way. Now was a time period where people began to ponder and contemplate much deeper than every before.

Frued and Jung came around in this time period and as I learned from my psychology class, they were concerned with the unconsciousness’s role in our conscience. They claimed that all of our experiences shape us and those experiences are exactly what we carry with us everywhere we go. They claimed that dreams depict what we have suppressed and shoved into out subcounscious. Clearly their influence was powerful, as we base majority of our psychology understanding based on their findings. This is a major concept in literature in this time period, reflected by authors such as Hemingway and Fauklner. This time period in America is a birth of individuals relying on their own understanding to completely rebuild their thoughts about life.

Citation

Baldwin, Marc. “20th Century Literature.” YouTube, YouTube, 20 Mar. 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuyYaRcQtCo.

As I have never taken an online course before, I will have to be strategic about my course of action for this class. I think the hugest factor for my success would be being proactive so I don’t have to worry about deadlines sneaking up on me. I have a tendency to do everything last […]

1/17/19 — Kara’s Blog

As I have never taken an online course before, I will have to be strategic about my course of action for this class. I think the hugest factor for my success would be being proactive so I don’t have to worry about deadlines sneaking up on me. I have a tendency to do everything last minute. I just moved into a new place which I am very excited about and I believe I will be able to focus on my bedroom. If not, I plan on going to coffee shops. I plan on carving out enough time for the course by planning one day to do all the reading I need to do for the week and another day for the assignments. I will read Monday’s and Tuesday’s and do my assignments on Wednesday’s. When technical difficulties arise, I will do my best to be patient and ask my Roomates for help navigating Canvas. I will communicate with you when a problem arises that hinders me from working that I can not figure out. I am very excited for this course and the discipline I will gain from reading every week.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JLu7CP1RnGx2fFRZo4iy3fGH2fkiVUg2GyQTBAwXDaw/edit

Intro: The journey of introspection; one that is necessary for every soul; one that if we are not careful – we will never experience. To understand the true values of introspection, one must start with solitude. Solitude does not equate to being lonely. Our society has attributed the act of physically being alone to loneliness. This is the biggest deception we as a society and individual souls could believe – one with a great price. The truth is that there is much to be discovered in the realms of solitude and so much that will never be discovered until solitude is brought into the light for what it is. Solitude is the act of being alone on purpose. There are an infinite amount aways we could be robbing ourselves of fulfillment if we live in the absence of solitude. I believe in the power of solitude so much that I dare to say that without it, we have built an entire false self. Solitude is necessary for the wellness of the individual soul as well as interpersonal relationships.

Thesis: Solitude is necessary for the wellness of the individual soul as well as interpersonal relationships.

Paragraph 1: Solitary is necessary for the wellness of the soul:

For my primary source and field research, I interviewed my friend from High School who cut off all contact with everyone he knew after he graduated for eight months. For a whole eight months, no one could get ahold of him and no one knew what he was up to. He would not come out of his house. People were concerned and generally frustrated because of his refusal of contact. It did not even matter if we stood by his door waiting for him to come outside – he would not. I love this example because it demonstrates the reality of the price that is paid to live a life in the true beauty of solitude and introspection. During this time, he read many books and educated himself in many topics, enjoying the higher pleasures of life. A secondhand effect of this is that he discovered what he is passionate about and decided he is going to major in Psychology. He broke the mold of the tidal wave of kids that graduate highschool and go straight to a four year institution just because everyone else around them is. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Here is the truth: we humans are incredibly deep creatures. We are not meant to go about our lives always hopping from one thing to the next. If we have never truly reflected on our everyday lives, then we have never truly lived. It is as essential as water for our bodies as is solitude is for our well being. Henry David Thoreau said “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least – and it is commonly more than that – sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements,”. He who has went wandering and found the depths of the beauty of solitude claims that he needs at least four hours of it every single day just to be decent. I can personally testify to this too from my own life. I now understand what I did not:

Most people feel quite uncomfortable at the thought of enjoying time with themselves; they would not even know what to do. Most even get concerned that it would be dangerous and would lead to nothing but the darkness of their thoughts. Well, might I propose the idea that there is a goldmine where this fear lies? We must stare whatever scares us so much about solitude right in the face and we must really ask ourselves why we are so scared of it. This is a gigantic problem in itself. As the ancient philosopher Epictetus said, “Men are disturbed by things but by the principles and notions they form concerning things”. How can we know that we are scared of something if we have never truly experienced it? – at least experienced it the way it is meant to be experienced. 

There is an entire world that is to be lived once the body stops moving and the mind starts. Sometimes the mind will not truly start moving until our bodies stop.

Necessary for relationships: 

Although it is undeniably true that humans are pack animals and human connection is a very deep primary need, we don’t even do human connection correctly. Here is proof: Most Americans on average would say that they do not intentionally spend time alone and to the contrary, spend most of their lives in the presence of other people but, “Health insurer Cigna’s 2018 U.S. Loneliness Index found that 46 percent of Americans report feeling lonely sometimes or always,”. Clearly there must be something wrong in the way we interact with people if that many people still report feeling lonely. As we all know, it is more than possible to feel alone in a crowded room. What many do not know though, is that one can be alone in a room and not feel lonely. 

Well, what happens when we gravitate towards living our lives around people is that we are accustoming ourselves to be afraid of the absence of people. With this fear, comes the entrapment of actually being scared of ourselves. It makes perfect sense: If we don’t like people being alone then we are running from our own selves. We subcounsciously conform so many parts of us to what our audience is for all of those differnt parts. We do without even realizing it. We will become who the world wants us to be if we don’t make a conscious effort to do otherwise. 

The presence of social media nowadays does not help. This phenomon now adds a whole other element to our inability to be with ourselves. Now, we can perform for eachother and can do it for anyone we want, when we want, wherever we want. We have access to make anyone we want see what we want which means that now we have all access to a social conundrum web of lies that is inescapable and will draw a heart in for good; for its marks it makes in our hearts of not measuring up next to our fellow social media friends lingers with permanence. And then we enter into the game and we never stop playing. 

If you want to learn how you can be perfectly fine when you’re alone, you’ll have to understand what causes the problem in the first place. If you’re capable of opening your mind to the state of being alone, fear of loneliness will be replaced by curiosity.

“Simplify your life. Don’t waste the years struggling for things that are unimportant. Don’t burden yourself with possessions. Keep your needs and wants simple and enjoy what you have. Don’t destroy your peace of mind by looking back, worrying about the past. Live in the present. Simplify!” ~ Henry David Thoreau

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least – and it is commonly more than that – sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

-Ian’s story

Solitude is necessary for the wellness of relationships:

Today’s young people seem to feel that they can make themselves fully known to one another. They seem to lack a sense of their own depths, and of the value of keeping them hidden.

According to David Brooks, that reliable index of the social – scientific zeitgeist, cognitive scientists tell us that “our decision – making is powerfully influenced by social context”; neuroscientists, that we have “permeable minds” that function in part through a process of “deep imitation”; psychologists, that “we are organized by our attachments”; sociologists, that our behavior is affected by “the power of social networks.” The ultimate implication is that there is no mental space that is not social.

We, however, have made of talent — the weak smile, the polite interest, the fake invitation — a cardinal virtue. Friendship may be slipping from our grasp, but our friendliness is universal

-it may come off as mean and that’s okay

-It will extremely rare to do this but it is still possible 

Conclusion- this is easier to do than we believe it. It is actually innate. We have built an identity that does not know how to do otherwise. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JNDx5k-ZTFTHaOP6NA9TRbz1f9FZPyWHI5588xHgk9E/edit#

Through out this course I have increasingly become more and more blown away by how much goes into the art of rhetoric. I have never understood it the way that I do now. I can now appreciate essays and pieces of writing that are trying to persuade me, even if I don’t agree with it. Instead of reading a piece and just having my natural reactions take place, I can look at a piece and see all of the different strategies going on. I still need work on applying this skill to my own writing. But I am sure that skill will certainly develop in me as I continue writing.