"The Sunset Limited"

Cormac McCarthy's "The Sunset Limited" follows two men, White and Black, as they discuss life and philosophy following White's suicide attempt. Most of the play centers around the two men's spiritual beliefs. Black is a devout Christian, where as White is a firmly believing atheist. The two extensively discuss how they arrived at their beliefs and engage in a powerful discussion. Among the topics discussed by the two men is whether the pursuit and attainment of knowledge ultimately leads to a fulfilled life or a tragic downfall.

It is learned early in the play that White is an educated man who is well read. The two men discuss what makes a book "true." White says, "I suppose maybe a history book. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire might be one. At least the events would be actual events. They would be things that had happened." White bases his knowledge of the world in his studies of culture and literature, while Black uses the Bible as a source for the course of his life. Black is not an educated man in the same sense as the professor. He remarks at how eloquently the professor speaks and his way with words.

Later in the play the two men discuss how they view the world. Black says, "You might be surprised about how little time I spend trying to understand the world." Black believes God directs him in everything he does in life. White has focused his life solely on the pursuit of education, which has given him a different view of the world. He claims an education makes the world personal. Through White's education, he views the world as a messed up place where human destiny and suffering are a description of one another. The two men discuss the Garden of Eden where Eve's curiosity ultimately led to her downfall. Black claims evil is something we bring on ourselves through the pursuit of something we aren't supposed to have, alluding to the question of whether we are supposed to pursue knowledge of the world in our life.

A question raised by this play is who has lived their life to the fullest? Black, an uneducated man whose sole purpose in life he feels is to follow God's will without question? Or White, whose pursuit of knowledge has lead him to the realization that we as a society are all screwed?

Paper Topic

I am going to write my paper on "History" by Adrienne Rich. I think this poem is a representation of someone coming to terms with their sexuality in a society that discriminates against them. This theme is represented by the speaker's language, as well as drawing from historical events of others who have been discriminated against.

"Baby Villon" by Philip Levine

Philip Levine's poem "Baby Villon" is a representation of the effect of youth exposed to the savagery of war. The speaker tells of time he spent with his cousin following his experiences traveling the world and the treatment he receives in various cultures. As a reader, we never learn the age of Villon but from the description in the poem we can garner he is of a young age. The speaker describes him as, "Stiff, 116 pounds, five feet two / No bigger than a girl," (Levine). Even though Villon is young, he has endured many hardships in his life with a profound sense of internal strength. This poem is a representation of the loss of innocence due to the effects of war.

The poem begins with the speaker expressing Villon's stories of travel and the treatment he receives. In various countries he is believed to be of different nationalities and as a result is discriminated against. Villon has learned to overcome these hardships and has gained a great sense of internal strength. He does not buy into the victim role as evidenced by the line, "Everywhere and at all times, and he fights back" (Levine). The effect of Villon's treatment has made him numb to the ways of the world. "And there's no passion in his voice, no anger / In the flat brown eyes flecked with blood" (Levine). Villon's life experiences have caused him to see the world as a callous land of survival where the deaths of all his family have caused him to depend on himself.

Villon has lost his family to war and it seems as if the only family he has is the speaker. The memory of these family members live on in Villon's life. He says, "'Here they live, here they live and not die'" (Levine). Villon is tasked with carrying these memories on. Due to the loss of his family he has gained the strength to survive at a young age. The speaker says Villon asks him to tell him about his family. This alludes to Villon's young age as he is tasked with carrying on the memories of figures he cannot remember, possibly due to his young age. This places a heavy burden on Villon, who at a young age must live in remembrance of these important people.

Villon's visit has a profound effect on the speaker. In the fifth stanza, the caesura in the second line shows the impact Villon has had on the speaker. The speaker seems taken aback by the level of strength Villon holds as evidenced by the line "He touches my hair / Tells me I should never disparage / The stiff bristles that guard the head of a fighter" (Levine). The juxtaposition of the the speaker and Villon shows how differently the two boys have lived. Villon remarks at how fair and smooth the speaker's skin is, which only suggests Villon's skin must be tough and reflective of his life conditions. Rather than appearing as a young man like his cousin his hair is disheveled and his skin is possibly scarred. This is the first time the speaker has met his cousin, but the impact of this visit greatly impacts him. The speaker empathizes with his experiences by saying, "Myself made otherwise by all his pain" (Levine). These two boys who come from the same family have experienced life very differently. This poem is a moving representation of the effect of war on youth.

Works Cited:
Levine, Philip. "Baby Villon."

W. H. Auden
[Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone]

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

This is a poem of grief and the lamentation of love that is lost forever. The speaker reveals his feelings concerning the loss of a loved one. The poem begins with "stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone," meaning that time has stopped for the speaker. He does not want to communicate with anyone. "Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone" implies that all things that provide some sort of happiness or enjoyment has been taken from his life.

"Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead." The speaker wants the whole world to know this person is gone from his life. The next line implies he wants everyone to partake in this grief with him. The speaker wants everyone to feel the same sadness he does.

He has lost all direction by losing this person. "He was my North, my South, my East and West" implies this person was his compass and he is lost without him. This person was the speaker's everything in terms of where he sought enjoyment, and also provided comfort to the speaker. The speaker thought this love would last forever, but now that his lover is gone this love has ceased in existence. These lines could give insight into the speaker's views on what happens once a person dies. Many believe love goes on forever, even after a person leaves this world, but the speaker of this poem believes that love does not continue after this person has died.

The final stanza begins with the speaker removing the sources of light from his world. He says to put out the stars, pack up the moon, and dismantle the sun. By saying he no longer wants the stars could imply he no longer sees any hope or future for himself. Many people know the saying of, "wish upon a star," and if the speaker no longer wants stars in his life could imply he longer seeks for anything. The last line implies he no longer sees any positivity coming into his life.

Works Cited: 
Auden, W.H. "Stop the clocks, cut off the telephone." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th. Alison Booth, Kelly Mays. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2011. 470-471. Print. 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a representation of a woman's descent into madness due to the repression brought on by those around her and society. This story mimics Gilman's own experiences as she suffered from depression at the time of writing this story. At the beginning of the story our narrator reveals her struggle with a nervous depression, but her husband John, a physician, does not truly believe her illness is real. To cure her of her depression he prevents her ability to write in her diary, the one creative outlet she enjoys. She reveals early in the story her writings must remain secret, as John will be angry with her if he finds she went against his orders. She is placed in the nursery of the summer home they are renting, and the room resembles a prison. She describes a room with barred windows, heavy furniture difficult to move, and a peculiar yellow wallpaper that disgusts her. The pattern is described as "sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin." (317) She continues, "The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight." (317)

The more time she spends in this child's room, unable to partake in any sort of activity, the more she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper, studying its every line and intricacy. She writes of the limited happenings of her days, but she always comes back to the wallpaper, almost as if the wallpaper is drawing her in. She begins to see images in the wallpaper she believes are only visible to her. Growing attached to the wallpaper, she undertakes the task of uncovering what exactly is hidden within the paper's pattern. Ultimately she begins to see a woman in the wallpaper. She says, "Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard. And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern-it strangles so; I think that is why is has so many heads." (325) As she grows infatuated by the wallpaper, the further isolated she feels with her husband. She begins to feel as if everyone is working against her and is sure the wallpaper is affecting her husband and his sister Jennie, who is working as their housekeeper. At the end of the story her sickness has taken hold of her mind, but she has found the strength to overcome the repression placed on her by her husband. She says, "Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!" (328). This references her ability to finally walk over her husband and his repressive nature.

This story is an autobiographical account of the treatment Gilman received while battling depression. Gilman's psychiatrist Dr. Weir Mitchell, the narrator's physician, placed Gilman on the rest cure method of treatment and told her to "never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as [she] lived" (Korb). Gilman later claimed this drove her even further into her sickness. She wrote this story as a message to Mitchell in the illegitimacy of his treatment. Gilman went on to become a voice of feminist writings.
 
Words Cited:
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th. Alison Booth, Kelly Mays. New York:    W.W. Norton & Company, 2011. 315-328. Print.

Korb, Rena. "An Overview of 'The Yellow Wallpaper'." Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Sep. 2012.
Photos: http://www.theglaringfacts.com/staff-essays/point-of-view-in-the-yellow-wallpaper/
            http://www.glogster.com/amanlitt/-the-yellow-wallpaper-by-aman-litt/g-6n11pe5go56c85ph61rg6a0

James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues"

This piece is so beautifully written and evokes many different emotions in about thirty pages. When I first started reading this story, I thought it was going to be about a man mourning someone close to him. The way the piece begins you almost do not want to know what happened to Sonny. You know he is close to the narrator and at first I thought Sonny might have been a student of the narrator before finding out he is his brother. As the story progresses I begin to feel this is a story about the loss of innocence, childhood, and the sense of possibility felt when being young. When the narrator is sitting in his classroom and hears the children laughing around him he feels resentful. The students are carefree and the responsibilities of being an adult have not been experienced by them. Juxtaposing the students' laughter are the feelings of the narrator. They are young and carefree, while he is experiencing emotional turmoil due to his brother's arrest. The passage below invokes these feelings.

I listened to the boys outside, downstairs, shouting and cursing and laughing. Their laughter struck me for perhaps the first time. It was not the joyous laughter which-God knows why-one associates with children. It was  mocking and insular, its intent was to denigrate. It was disenchanted, and in this, also, lay the authority of their  curses. Perhaps I was listening to them because I was thinking about my brother and in them I heard my brother.  And myself. (76)

Baldwin utilizes the theme of light versus darkness heavily in this story, and is eloquently used to represent the impending loss of youth before the reality of adulthood descends. A beautiful part of the story is when the children are sitting with the elderly after church. He says, "Everyone is looking at something a child can't see." (83) The narrator is referring to the darkness outside the window the adults are well familiar with. The adults know the darkness will always be there. The children are frightened of the darkness and close their eyes to it. As long as they feel the presence of the adult there with them there is this sense of comfort, but the child knows this comfort will not be present forever. The narrator says, "But something deep and watchful in the child knows that this is bound to end, is already ending. In a moment someone will get up and turn on the light." (83) 

Words Cited: 

Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th. Alison Booth, Kelly Mays. New York:    W.W. Norton & Company, 2011. 75-101. Print.

Photo: http://kaganof.com/kagablog/2010/08/15/james-baldwin-sonnys-blues-extract/

Raymond Carver's "Cathedral"

At the beginning of Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," the narrator is presented as a callous, jealous man. He is uncomfortable with the thought of a blind man, who is very close to his wife, coming into his home. He is even more jealous of the relationship between the man and his wife. The blind man, and the narrator's wife have a connection spanning years. Robert is her confidant, an almost therapist she can share her deepest feelings with without judgement.  Robert's responses are so highly valued that once the narrator's wife almost played Robert's opinion of him, but due to some distraction he was never able to hear what he thought. Although the narrator claims to not be worried about not knowing Robert's opinion of him I believe this is false due to the level of tension experienced once he arrives. The narrator does not know how to act with a blind man in his home, and his wife grows increasingly frustrated with him. "Finally, when I thought he was beginning to run down, I got up and turned on the TV. My wife looked at me with irritation. She was heading toward a boil." (38) 

The narrator holds many stereotypes toward the blind man. He says, "I remember having read somewhere that the blind didn't smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn't see the smoke they exhaled." (37). He is also disgusted by the appearance of the man's eyes and states another of his stereotypes. "I'd always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind. Fact was, I wished he had a pair. At first glance, his eyes looked like anyone else's eyes. But if you looked close, there was something different about them. Too much white in the iris and...the pupils seemed to move around in the sockets without his knowing...Creepy." (36) 

It is not until the end of the story that we see the narrator and Robert connect by drawing the cathedral together. By partaking in this activity together, the narrator is able to let go of his predisposed notion of Robert. Robert is a vital figure to both the wife and the narrator in this story. For the wife, she is able to express all thoughts and feelings to him. For the narrator, Robert provides a glimpse to what his life is like for him allowing the narrator to overcome the stereotypes he held at the beginning of the story.  

Words Cited:

Carver, Raymond. "Cathedral." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th. Alison Booth, Kelly Mays. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011. 32-44. Print. 

Photos: http://gordonlisheditedthis.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/cathedral-raymond-carver/
            http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/how-to-draw-cathedrals.htm