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Friday, October 23, 2009

The Minister's Black Veil

In this story there is a Minister named or called Reverend Hooper. He basically is a priest or pastor that always wears a veil to hide his face. None the less of his monstrosity, he reveals his face to the people of his church while relating it to the sermon. They basically made him an outcast, there was allot of logic used, and he talked about hidden secrets. The author crafts this sense of creepiness but in a very understandable way using a noun or adjective.

After he revealed his true self to the people of his church, he felt disappointed. No one really understood him or his lecture because they were caught on the ugly sight of the man. After church was over people started talking about him and starting rumors which caused him to feel even worse not only as a holy man, but as a person. This comes to show you that people are immature and don't care to seek out the real answer or to understand meanings beyond physical belief.

The message revealed in this story is that there are secrets or sins that people have or carry around in there lives and that they shouldn't be looked down upon because of it. Its ironic how he feels as thought he has made a sin so wrong that his face or appearance is ugly. He feels that by being ugly, caused him pain but also grief. He also states that everybody is wearing a veil and that they are hiding secrets that relate to sins. He felt betrayed and lost the trust of his fellow, church members. He thought he could count on them to lift up their veils too and expose there long lived sins, but that wasn't the case.

By relating this to Logos I was able to see that there was some type of door that stood between the ugliness of the Reverend and the sins of others. That came to mind as though this is another message. That to find any understanding, you must look far into logic to find reasoning and answers. Its related to Logos because there really isn't any credibility, or sad situations unless it was related to the revealing of the Reverend.

None the less Nathaniel Hawthorne used a logical way to clean up his horror genre that this story is referred as. This is by far better than The Pit and the Pendulum, but at the same time hold similar characteristics. They are both made by two very different authors that seem to talk about death and evil in the world. Almost like the underbelly of life were everything dies and no one survives. In other words a thriller.

Monday, October 12, 2009

The Fall of the House of Usher

This story seems very weird. It starts off by talking about a house and how it presents its self. This whole story basically talks about the house and the way it looks or presents itself, the friend ship of the two men, and how the narrator felt. This is seems to relate to gothisism and the under belly of life because everything is dark and dreadful.

The way the house is described is very ugly. Its very old and and it looks as if its falling apart. The house is just simply outdated and needs to be fixed completely. By the simple descriptions that the narrator gives, it makes the house seem like its haunted or something. There is definitely something wrong with that because, the house has occupants but no one is willing to try and fix it up. Instead people think that its creepy and weird

The way the narrator felt about the house was indifferent. Because he felt there was a vibe or essence that the house was giving off that made his skin crawl. He thought there was a presence of the house that was very unpleasant and disturbing. Not only that, he thought his friend was creepy as well. Like there was some mystery to the house but two his friend.

The relationship between him and his friend as he explained was very good. But that was when they were younger, now he doesn't really know what to think. He found out that there are secret passages in the house and that his friend seems to be hiding something. Non the less, the house is something else on his mind that he feels very uncomfortable about.

I feel that this story is related to logos. The reason behind that is because there is allot of dark evil kind of theme going on in this story. But at the same time there is so much that you would have to use common knowledge to identify every single thing. This also is like it relates to religion because for this to be strictly dark and evil, that would conflict with everything good and pure.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

This story is about the life of a slave girl and her family growing up in slavery. I feel this is symbolic to racism because here they talk about slaves and how people lived with that being known in there everyday lives. This story talks about the life of the girl and her family after her mother died, when her mistress died, and how she felt with her grandmother still around. Even though there is allot of death going on in this story, there is still allot of information that is told to help explain everything.

The life before her mother died was great. She had people around her who cared about her so, to the point where they would do anything to keep her and her brother alive. When her mother died she told her foster sister to watch over her children as if they were her own. Even though her foster sister was white and they were brought up by the same mom, she said yes and promised that her children would never have to live the life of a true slave.

As the children grew older they soon began to think of their mistress as their mom. Even thought they know that their real mom is dead they think that since the mistress is taking care of them then that's their mom. The mistress made sure that they were properly taken care of. She made sure that they were well fed, healthy, and educated. She took the liberty of educating them even though there weren't many blacks with a decent education. She kept to her word and never forgot it. When she died the kids probably felt stressed out because they were thinking about where they might go, and that the one person they called mom was gone.

With her grandmother around she probably felt that was good because she could always have someone to lean on or to talk to. She was really close to her grandmother because she listened to her tell stories about her going into slavery as a child and how she dealt with certain things. That seemed like a very positive thing because after her mistress died, there was really no one left. Aside from her dad, but he ended up dying too so the children's lives where really devastating.

I think this is related to pathos because these two children ended up loosing very important people in their lives especially if many parents aren't around for many other children's lives. This is related also to romanticism because this seemed all negativity. Nothing good except for the children still having their grandmother, but that doesn't mean the children are happy. This story also used diction to help craft the the words and phrases into a quote that explained what happened in the story.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Frederick Douglass(Learning to Read and Write)

I feel this story also relates to racism and its message to life in the older days. This talks about how Frederick Douglass learned to read and write, how he was taught, and how he learned the ways of whites at a young age. To me Frederick Douglass is an icon past my wildest dreams because he shows a good sense of well being. He always tried to help and fight for blacks and their rights as human beings. He never stopped trying and brought new ideas to the freedom of blacks.

The beginning of this story talks mainly about Frederick Douglass learning to read and write. As we all should know, it was very hard for blacks to accomplish anything academically. All because the color of their skin. So to me I feel that's very good that he was able to get around racism and education. Not too many blacks could afford a good education or find one that wasn't with whites. It was very hard for them and I congratulate him on that. For him to be young and to get the education that older people wish they could have.

The reason why it was so easy for him to get the good education that many wished they had is because he was taught by his mistress. Unlike others of his kind, many didn't have people that were well educated and could help them be literate and comprehensive. The ones that did have people to teach them things they didn't receive as much as the whites. The whites felt why spend money on these people that are stupid. Even thought that was very arrogant of them to do, they continued to keep doing that to make blacks lives miserable.

I feel that not only did Frederick Douglass learn things academically. I felt he learned more about racism and what whites did to trick and play blacks. When the text said that whites told him to escape, he took that information and applied it to logic. He knew that whites told blacks that and then capture them and turn them in for rewards. That shows that whites were vary cruel and evil and will do anything for money, even if blacks are on the line.

In conclusion- I feel that over all, this story was really good. It relayed a message that I felt was once again to use logic. I also feel that most stories that dealt with racism and slavery involved blacks having to use logic. Frederick Douglass used perfect thinking skills and out smarted the whites when they thought they were out smarting the blacks. He rose to the occasion and lead our people out of slavery. I feel this is related to logos because like i said, you have to have good logic skills to identify the message.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Story of an Hour

This story relays a message that I feel is recognized in a bad way. What i mean by that is that there is a lot of negativity going on in this story. What this basically talks about is the death of Brently Mallard, how free Mrs. Mallard felt afterwords, and the death of Mrs. Mallard. All of the events that take place in this story are negative because there is no happy ending or nothing good that comes out of it. Thats what I feel is the down fall of the story as a whole. Since there is no positivity, its hard for me as a person to picture everything because I'm a positive person.

The death of Mr. Mallard was kind of a mistery to me. I think that because they never really said what happend or how he died. The only thing that they siad was that he got in an accident that involved a train, but In my mind that could meen anything. They also didn't say a date or anything, so it was hard for me to determin what day and age this is. I noticed that this story was told in the 3rd person, by a narrator.

How Mrs. Mallard delt with the problem was awkward because she started out crying about his death, and then she's telling herself she's free. To me that seems like betreayal because she's basically saying that she's happy and free that he's dead and she can live her life. Maybe she was beatin or something because anytime you are telling yourself that your free with excitment after someone close to you died, that's a problem. Even to have the media publish his death in the news she still is kind of indifferent, as it seems. I think something is wrong or happend in their relationship that caused her to be torn about his death. That's a hidden answer that might not ever be answered.

When she died at the end I felt the story was ended to early because there was a lot left out. From that point I felt that the whole story was incomplete. There is no reason why this story should talk about this little information and end as it started with a question. This really makes me think life and how actual people live on a daily bases. I think that the message was that you shouldn't hurt your self trying to get over an obstical in life or in this case a death.

In conclusion- I feel over all this story talked about a lot of negitivity and bad things that made it not pleasant to read but at the end it really changes my mind. Even thought the text was negative, the message was positive and helped me understand what the author was really trying to say. I feel this is related to logos because you have to really be open minded and have good logic skills to understand this meaning. I also feel this is related to gothisism and the underbelly of life. How everything bad always happens.