Blast!

Blast!

The article speaks mainly about the preservation of the individual and the present. The article begins by stating that it supports the present, not the past, future, nature or men. The article moves on to state that artists should be "unconscious." The article continues, by stating that art should not be trying to change the world but only to represent the world. The article moves on the state that this "representation" will be enjoyed by all kinds of people becuase it focuses on the individual not the people. Following this strive toward the "individual" audience, the article states that everyone is an artist, and that education destroyes true artistry. The article concludes by restating its goals to convert all people to this "art of Individuals." Following the article, Lewis writes his Manifesto. The first part of his manifesto condemns England and America (as seen by the reference to the Floridas), for their destruction of the individual (most prevalent in his idea of a "domesticated policeman"). In the second section of his manifesto, Lewis condemns France for its overly absurd emotion over "obvious facts" ("Papa is wonderful: but all papas are !"). The second section ends with a condemnation of imperialism hinting that nations should not control lands outside of the immediate area of their capital. The third section of the manifesto, is a condemnation of judgement ("snobbery," "ridicule," stylism," etc...). The fourth section is a condemnation toward individuals who enact judgement on others or ask for judgement by others. The fifth section of the manifesto condemns both humor and sports for being "stupid." The sixth and final section of the manifesto is a list of groups of people whom Lewis continues to condemn, including all social classes and "Rousseauisms."

Lewis' fears for the individual match John Berger's same fears about art. Berger fears that the influence of "art historians" actually mystifies individuals and causes them to become confused. For berger it is better for someone to come up with their own opinions than for someone else to give them different opinions. In Blast! Lewis writes about a similar problem were not only art but also identity fall under this problem of mystification and as a result is destroying the ability for men to create art and to remain as individuals.

Are men actually better as individuals, or can a group of free thinking men still be superior to one man?

Edward Said's "States"

Edward Said's "States"

In his "States" Edward Said writes about the "alienated" Palestinians (he includes himself within this group). Said begins the essay by describing the situation of Palesinians, with pictures. Said's description of his third picture summarizes his view, "He seems unsettled, poised for departure... All at once it is our transcience and impermanence that our visibility expresses, for we can be seen as figures forced to push on to another house, villiage, or region. Just as we once were taken from one "habitat" to a new one, we can be moved again" (Said, 573). Said describes the Palestinians as people without a home, or more precisely, people without an identity. Palestine was conquered, and its people were sent into exile out of Israel. Following their exile, the Palestinians spread out to the surounding countries, but these countries would not accept the Palestinians either. According to Said, the surrounding countries either rejected entrance, or impeded the lives of Palestinians. Many Palestinans were even thrown into special camps, away from society. However, despite hardships, and to the disappointment of the surrounding countries, the Palestinians, remained loosely united and "Palestinian." The Palestinians refused to accept the life of the world around them, so the world around them rejected them. Finally, fourty years after Israel's conquest of Palestine, the new generation of Palestinians has been left confused and without identity. They know their ethnicity but do not fully understand their origins. They have no home and are always wandering, and are always oppressed by the local government (mainly in the Middle East). Following his description of the Palestinians' problem, Said talks about the many influences that the Palestinians had on the people around them. (However for the sack of this entry, I shall focus mainly on Said's problem of identity.) According to Said, the real problem of Palestinians is that they have no country to unify with. They are merely a dispersed people with no country. Said talked about many instances where Palestinians tried to unify under surrounding countries, such as Syria and Egypt, but all of these attempts eventually failed the Palestinians as the governments of these countries turned against them.

According to Said, the Palestinians are a people without a country, and also without an identity. Their identity had been stolen from them, and yet they still tried to remain in their lost identity, despite losing their home. At the time of the conquest of Palestine, the industiral revolution had succeeded in changing the identity of a person from their family and their job, to their country. After the industrial revolution a man became an American, an Englishman, or a Palestinian. This system of identity by country, initially worked and unified people together, but in Palestine, as described by Said, this unification became a hard bond to break, and even after the fall of the country, its people still paraded as Palestinians. However, also as described by Said, the loss of their country, will lead to their eventual destruction. They are a people without a country and as such they live only through memory and eventually their children, who never saw Palestine, will lose their identity as they have already lost their country.

Can a man choose his own identity or is he forced to live in the identity that the world gives him?

W.E.B. Du Bois' "The Souls of Black Folk"

W.E.B. Du Bois' "The Souls of Black Folk"

W.E.B. Du Bois' "The Souls of Black Folk" is a description of the problems of African Americans who are trying to find "freedom." Du Bois opens up his essay, by stating how people view him and his people. According to Du Bois the world outcasts blacks and looks down on them. Du Bois continued his argument from this statement by briefly discussing his story about how he personally discovered his own separation. Following his story he transfers his argument by stating that African Americans have two divergent "souls" in one person. The problem then of this double nature is that both souls are equally valuable, but the African still desires to merge the two into one for his own benefit. Du Bois also claims that the world outcasts black for their double nature. This in the end causes blacks to fall into a poor and un-informed social class. Transfering from his discussion of oppression, Du Bois concluded that Blacks truely understood not only the villainy of slavery but also what freedom actually meant. Following his points on freedom, Du Bois continues his essay by stating that black are still denied their promised freedom. This problem of a "false freedom" therefore leads the blacks to continue searching for a way to achieve truely complete freedom. Du Bois continued his idea of searching for a way to freedom, by stating that getting a "white education" would raise the living standards of blacks. After this however, Du Bois states the real problem of Blacks: Not that they are merely poor, but also that they also are uneducated and homeless and the majority of their race is the same. Du Bois therefore concludes from this problem that Blacks should not be forced into "racing" with th rest of the world, but instead given time and support to raise it up. However the main problem for Blacks is the prejudice of the world which looks down upon them and forces them into a worse situation. Du Bois finally concludes his essay by stating that blacks should work together for the advancement of the entire race, and also by discussing the patriotism of African Americans and their slave songs.

In his essay, Du Bois writes a different solution to a similar problem to tha which Karl Marx discussed in his Comunist Manifesto. For Marx the problem was that the middle class (Bourgeois) was oppressing the lower class beyond reason. According to Marx, the only solution to this class stuggle was for the lower class to rise up against and overthrow the middle class. Du Bois faces a similar problem where the blacks are oppressed into a harsly low lower class. However, Du Bois provides a different solution, where the goal is not to overthrow the oppressors, but instead to lift up the African American lower class to complete equality and freedom with the white majority in America.

W.E.B. Du Bois mentioned that African Americans faced a double nature as being both "Africans" and "Americans," and stated that this left blacks in an outcast situation, but would not all foreign immigrants face this same problem (not just Africans)?

Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden."



Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden"

Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" is a satrical poem about imperialism, first calling the white man to accept it, then the "opressed man" to accept it. The first stanza of the poem begins by called to white men telling them to send out their best people to capture and control the "oppressed." The second stanza continues to call of the first stanza to appear morally good but act to oppress the "oppressed" and force them to force for your benefit. The third stanza finishes the call to the white man by claiming that through this imperialistic society all of your physical problems will be solved. The next few stanzas call to the "opressed" to accept their state. The fourth stanza begins this call by describing the poor conditions and limitations of the "oppressed." The fifth stanza continues describing the oppression of the "oppressed" by telling the "oppressed" to accept their unfair jobs and the hatred from their oppressors. The sixth stanza closes the call to the oppressed telling them that, despite all present claims, their burden will wiegh them down past hope, and will withhold their "freedom." The final stanza calls to all people to "Have done with childish days--" The emphasis of the final stanza is that the years ahead of imperialism will be harsh for all people and will show the character of individuals.

Being written after slavery was abolished (written 1899), this poem seems to refer back to slavery as the consequence of imperialism.  For Kipling imperialism leads to slavery, the very evil which Americans had just finished defeating. In the first stanza the slaves are the foreign "captives" which the white men are told to collect and "serve." In the second stanza the white man is told "To seek another's profit, And work another's gain" or in other words to abuse and enslave other people into providing you a profit. The end will therefore lead to the prosperity of the white man (stanza 3) and the enslavement of the "oppressed" man. The fourth, fifth, and sixth stanzas will emphasis how the "oppressed" will be treated, as slaves. They will work as slaves, be hated as slaves, and be oppressed as slaves. The only difference between slavery and imperialism for the oppressed is the name.

If the main action of the middle class is to oppress the lower class for their own benefit, and if this action of oppression can be compared to slavery, then by default could the middle class be called an unjust class?

Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat"

Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat"

Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat" is a story about four shipwrecked sailors who try to reach land with one small boat (a dingy), two weak oars, and a water jug. In the story Stephen Crane gave each of these four men a different identity. There was a cook, a captain (who had only one good arm), an oiler, and a correspondent. While at sea each of these men had their own roles to play for their survival. The oiler and the correspondent took turns rowing, the cook bailed water out, and the captain led them all, while watching their surroundings. Eventually when the four men saw land an tried to approach it, they were oppressed by a variety of waves which they feared would remove (or destroy) their boat. To settle their fears they decided to wait out at sea in hopes that someone from the shore would see them and would come to save them. Eventually someone did see them, and this man seemed to draw other people to their attention, but no one seemed to try to help the shipwrecked sailors, and the crowd instead stood waving at the shove. However soon after the sailors were spotted, night fell, and the sailors felt tired. Luckily for the sailors, the waves died down and the sailors each took turns keeping the dingy afloat. Finally at morning the captain decided that the people on the hore were not going to save them, so he decided to try to reach the shore without help. The four then worked their way to the shore as a group until their boat capsized, after which they individually swam for land until rescued by the surrounding people. Finally at the end of the story three of the four men survived and the oiler drowned.

Perhaps an interesting thing to notice about "The Open Boat" is the multidue of harsh characters of this same story. The first and most obvious of these charaters was nature itself, which Crane personified in the "seven mad gods who rule over the sea." In this story the sea is described in a very gothic manner in which it constantly attacked the boat. At one point Crane described the waves saying that they, "seemed thrust up in points like rocks" (Crane 728). Crane's overall description of the ocean is that it is entirely cappable of killing these men, but due to the mere chance of fate, it does not drown them. The second noticable characters of indifference are the people watching on the shores. At first these men do not try to help the sailors, but instead just wave to them as they (the sailors) face the fear of drowning. Eventually, these men get a change of heart, but not until after the sailors had reached the shore. The final harsh characters of this story are the individual sailors (excluding the captain). While in the boat these sailors are all working as a team caring for each other, but once they left the boat, all of the (excluding the captain) turned to themselves and did not care about the others around them. This fact is most obvious when the correspondent is rescued, and his rescuer askes him what is next to him. The correspondent recognized the figure but instead focused on himself and left the oiler to drown. Thus the conclusion of the story is that men are both insignificant to the world and are also selfish to the point that they will usually not go out of their way to help save another human being.

If the world is supposed to be so indifferent towards these four shipwrecked sailors than why does it taunt them with death? The harsh waves, sleep, birds, and sharks all seem willing and waiting to kill these sailors.

Poems by Stephen Crane



Poems by Stephen Crane

In his poems ("In the Desert," "A Man Said to the Universe," and "War is Kind") Stephen Crane talks about how bad the world is. The poem "In the Desert" is about a creature who ate his heart. When asked if his heart was good, the creature responded by saying that it was bitter, but that he (the creature) liked it that way. "A Man Said to the Universe" is a poem about a man who declared his existence to the universe which responds back to him saying that it (the universe) has no obligation to the man. Finally, "War is Kind" is a poem where Crane tries to make the agrument that war is better for its victims.

Stephen Crane's connecting thread between all three of these poems is that the world is bad. This connecting thread is most obvious in "A Man Said to the Universe," where a man states his existence to the universe, and the selfish universe acknowledged his existence, but still felt no need for anything different. The same thread is also present with a twist in "In the Desert," where a creature eats his own heart and declares it bitter (bad), but the creature also declared that he prefered it that way for two reasons, "because it is bitter and because it is my heart." The creature felt its own selfishness and enjoyed it, and therefore would not give it up or ask that it changed. Finally, "War is Kind" is a poem urging women to stop crying over their lost men because their men are actually terrible murderers and are better off having been killed in the war. Overall, from these three poems, Stephen Crane expresses his belief that the world is inherently evil and prefers it that way.

If we men like the world are inherently evil than why do we have a system of morals? Why do we care what others think of us, if it is better, for us, to fight for ourselves?

Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour"

Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour"

Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," is the story of a lady, Mrs. Mallard, discovering that her husband is "dead." Because of her heart condition, her friends delayed telling her of her husbands death, in fear of upsetting her enough to kill her. Instead Mrs. Mallard's sister hinted at the death of her husband, Brently Mallard, until one bright, spring day, when the world around Mrs. Mallard seemed happy and prefect, Mrs. Mallard felt that something ominous was going to happen. Finally her sister told her, and after pondering the idea, Mrs. Mallard was happy and began to rejoice her new found "freedom." Mrs. Mallard then went insane and died from her heart condition, "the joy that kills," and then her husband returned home, not having died, not knowing what had happened.

"The Story of an Hour" relates with "The Yellow Wall-Paper" in their goals of the wives. In the "Yellow Wall-Paper," the wife is suppressed by the demands and treatments of her husband, and in "The Story of an Hour," the wife does not care for her husband but instead feels held down by her husband. Both wives find some way out of their "husband-created bondage," through different means, but arrive at the similar results. In "The Yellow Wall-Paper," the wife goes insane and escapes her bondage through "escaping into the wallpaper" In "The Story of an Hour," the wife escapes her bondage through the "death" of her husband. Upon being "released" from bondage, both women become extremely happy. Ironically both women are also likely dead at the end of their stories.

What drives these women to act is such a manner as to try to turn against their husbands? Is it a sense of natural mistreatment, or is there something wrong in the society itself?