Final Paper Proposal

For my paper I will be focusing on Bernice and William Wilson both by Poe, as well as The Birthmark by Hawthorne. I intend to discuss the use of monomania that is prevalent in both Bernice and The Birthmark.  I find it particularly interesting how Poe in Bernice uses monomania to focus on the one thing that his wife Bernice contains that he finds beauty and perfection in - her teeth.  While in The Birthmark, Hawthorne’s character focus’ on the one thing he finds imperfect about his wife- her birthmark. I plan to incorporate William Wilson by arguing that this story is not only about the figure of the doppelganger, but that the doppelganger is a fixation caused by monomania which I will argue is related to William Wilson’s extreme narcissism. I will touch on the fact that William Wilson is a short story focusing on the psychological self-splitting which results from Wilson’s inability to body and mind. Wilson’s inability to escape his own demons perpetually draws his thoughts in to focus on him self as the text goes on.  It is his deep attachment and focus on himself that I believe can be related to monomania. These texts will be linked together through the genre of the short story and the themes of the gothic, and dark romanticism. I have not completely worked out my argument but so far these were some of my favorite reading from this course. I have been doing some researching today but it is proving to be more difficult than expected. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Works cited

Moldenenhauer, J.J. “From Murder as a Fine Art: Connections between Poe’s Aesthetics, Psychology, and Moral Vision.” The selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. G.R. Thompson. New York, 2004. 829-844. Print.

Kennedy, G.J. “ From Phantasms of Death in Poe’s Fiction.” The selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. G.R. Thompson. New York, 2004. 896-904. Print.

Armstrong, L. “The Shadow’s Shadow: The Motif of the Double in Edgar Allan Poe’s “ The Purloined Letter”.” The selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. G.R. Thompson. New York, 2004. 863-873. Print.

Crews, C.F. “The Logic of Compulsion.” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tales. Ed. James McIntosh. New York. 1987. 380-389.

McWilliams, JR.P.J. “Hawthorne and the Puritan Revolution of 1776.” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tales. Ed. James McIntosh. New York. 1987. 371-379.

Incompatibility

Eva St. Clare is the idealized character to represent the incompatibility of slavery and Christianity. She is a completely moral being, devout Christian and laments the existence of slavery. Although her family owns slaves she does the best she can to make the slaves feel that they are valuable human beings and are loved. Eva sprouts a friendship with Tom and asks that her father buy him in order to look out for him. Eva’s father is not a Christian, and although he is a fairly decent master as far as slavery goes he is not the moral being that she is. Eva assists Tom in writing letters because he is illiterate; this is an example of Eva’s moralistic value. By helping Tom have a voice she is using her voice/love as an agent for change. Although Eva is surrounded by racist individuals (ie. St. Clare, Marie and Ophelia) her purity and anti-slavery stance eventually trickle down and seep I to their own beliefs. Although it takes Eva’s eventual death for racist Ophelia’s transformation, her death is what initially sparks her father’s realization that slavery is wrong as well. On her death bed she requests her father release all of their slaves and by the time he comes to understand that this is the right thing to do, it is too late and her father passes away as well. However, even though her father may have been too late to have the slaves released he did manage to find religion. Eva’s character is used to display that true, pure, devout Christians and slavery do not mix. It is either you are a Christian or you do not believe in religion but you do believe in owning and selling slaves. Stow uses Eva to be at the farthest end of the spectrum away form slavery.

Something to take my mind off of school

I just le love this photo

yessssss

ya ya ya I know...but  I just love her

hate her...love her style. ah.

The Doppelganger

William Wilson insane? I think so. I don’t even know how you could argue he was not insane unless this was a super natural tale, and then of course we could argue anything to be true. However, I am interested to see how people come up with an argument to claim William’s sanity.

William early on in the story (pg. 217) mentions how he is a descendant of a family with strong imagination and easily excitable temperament. He also mentions these traits effected him from an early age. William admits to a history of mental illness in his family and that he has not escaped it. It is clear he suffers from some sort of delusions as he mentions that during his stay at the boarding school the location of his sleeping apartment was never clear. It seems to me unless he is describing a dream he is living in some sort of altered mental state.

William mentions his superiority to his schoolmates, and how no student could rival him scholastically or his popularity among the other students, besides the other William Wilson. William states on pg. 220 “ I secretly feared him, and could not help thinking the equality he maintained do easily with myself, a proof of his true superiority”.  Although the two Williams are rivals, if what William said earlier about not having competition at his school was true, he could have created the second William Wilson in order to engage in some challenge or competition at school.

Similarities between the two Williams become more convoluted as now all of the sudden it is stated that they were born on the same day, they began to look more alike, and the second Williams voice although could only be heard at a whisper resembled that of the first William perfectly.  William states on pg. 224 “ I could with difficulty shake off the belief of my having been acquainted with the being who stood before me, at some epoch very long ago”.  It seems as though William has been dealing with the illusion of his double since a very young age and that it is just staying with him longer now, as he gets older. It is common for people who suffer from mental illnesses to have the traits come out, as they get older. This is especially common among males who suffer from schizophrenia. The second William Wilson could be a conscious of the first William Wilson. William tends to get himself into trouble especially when he steals money from Lord Glendinning’s while playing cards. If the second William was used as a conscious it would make sense that he was the one to draw attention to the first Williams cheating.

It is clear to me that William Wilson is in fact insane when at the very end of the story he attempts to kill his doppelganger but instead realizes he has killed himself. It seems that he could only evade his insanity for so long. Who knows if anything in the tale happened the way it was told as we can’t tell how far Williams delusions were stretched.  

The Ladies

Hope Leslie and Magawisca are both a strong and positive representation of women, which would seem uncommon for female characters at that time. Magawisca’s strong morals are displayed not only to her own race but to the white people as well. She saves Everell, sacrificing her own arm, and again puts herself at risk by connecting Hope Leslie and her sister back together. Magawisca is described as strong, confident and beautiful. Similarly Hope Leslie is described in the same manor. Hope Leslie and Magawisca are sort of the same character except one lives in a white persons world and one lives in an Indian persons world. Both characters cross the racial divide in order to fight for what they believe to be right. Hope Leslie also has strong inner morals and relies on this inner instinct to guide her choices in life. She has a strong connection to Magawisca and feels she can trust her when she says she will reconnect Hope and her sister. Hope also helps to free Nelema from the accusations of witchcraft and also facilitates Magawisca’s escape from prison.

The female characters that Cooper represents in his novel are not as strong or as interesting as Sedgwick’s. Cora and Alice are much more submissive and powerless. Everything is very frightening for them and they need men to come to their rescue. Alice is much more of the weak, scared women. Cora is the stronger of the two and offers to sacrifice herself and her sister to the savages so that the others can escape. Cora is confident that they would not harm her or her sister. 

Both authors use two females as the main representation of women in their novels. Cooper has only two women in the novel while Sedgwick’s main female characters are two of many. Another similarity is that both authors have one main white female lead and one other. Sedgwick has both her main female roles represented equally whereas there is a string imbalance between Cooper’s Cora and Alice.

Twains bark is as big as his bite.

Twain does seem like quite the crotchety old bastard but I have to agree with him.

4. They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. But this detail also has been overlooked in the "Deerslayer" tale.

When reflecting rule number four onto The Last of the Mohicans I think the best example of a character displaying no real reason for being there is David Gamut. Besides trying to spread Christianity his character does not really accomplish much. He becomes slightly more useful or manly under the charge of Hawkeye but I think the novel could have done without him. Cooper appears to want to show how the white man would have adjusted to the wilderness with Gamut’s character. If this is so Cooper might be trying to show how the white man is out of place in the wilderness but I don’t even think that is the reason. Cooper still has Hawkeye who has transformed himself into a hybrid man; he looks white and is white but has all of the skills of surviving in the wilderness that is essential to the natives’ livelihood. To me he was just another character I had to figure out in this already confusing novel that could have been left out in order to develop other characters in the novel better which would help the reader feel more connected to the novel. Which leads us into the next rule I found related to The Last of the Mohicans.

11. They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. But in the "Deerslayer" tale, this rule is vacated.

I agree with Twain %100 on this one. Trying to figure out what was happening with all of the characters was very troublesome. I was thinking maybe it was because Cooper had already written two novels using these characters that to understand them completely you would have to read those novels first.  But according to Twain, Cooper did not do this in the previous novels either. He just starts writing as if he was in the middle of a story and expects the reader can piece everything together. As the novel goes on we do not really get to know these characters any better. Maybe it is just the long boring writing style that prevents this but nevertheless Coopers characters did not draw me into this book in any way.

Last of the Mohicans was very painful. Let’s hope the next novel is better.

Blonde Ambition

if i had blonde hair I would want it to look like this...

or this...

and i would dress like this...

and this.

I love all of these blondes. I go through phases where I desire to lighten my locks but I know that

me and blonde do not mix so I will live vicariously through these gals.