mdsteven1′s Blog

I have chosen the image of madness from Ginsberg’s “Howl”, and after re-reading Ginsberg’s poem I have come across illustrations that apply to the description of madness. In the beginning sentence, which states “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness” is one of the clear points that Ginsberg uses to indicate that the minds of his generation are being shattered by mental illness. The meaning of the motif alters in the continuation of the verse, like in the next few lines ahead there lies a remark of “who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among scholars of war, who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,” is a huge change to the meaning of madness in what Ginsberg is expressing about. The statement does present a difference of meaning of madness to some extent that Ginsberg is simply trying to explain about his belief on what madness means.

Ginsberg goes on with additional illustrations of his definition of madness in his poem like in the sentence; “Incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lighting in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Patterson,” where Ginsberg is presenting how madness can be similar to a bouncing ball that jumps to any point of origin without desisting its process in being actively fanatical. The mind is like a living computer that takes in and processes data for the purpose to pertain knowledge from experience, but often times the computer can malfunction to a certain point where it can loose track of what it is trying to interpret and evidently breaks down or in human conditions go wild. Other examples that Ginsberg uses of in demonstrating his view on madness are words that relate to madness, such as Bellevue that is the designation of a known institute for the mentally insane. Bellevue is well known for its psychiatric facilities as well as seeing many literary figures come through its doors like the beat poet Gregory Corso. Perhaps the reason Ginsberg refers to Bellevue is because he might have had some frequent visits while he was developing his own idea to what madness truly meant and how he could express it best to his audience.

Other words like migraines, impulse, and mad are referenced in the poem to make clear about Ginsberg motive in using madness in his poem, for he is merely trying to share that madness can be a religious experience for the human consciousness, where in the “Howl” poem he shares about the issues of drugs, geographic locations, suicide, and hunger. Each topic bears reference to the image of madness to Ginsberg’s sense; drugs are a stimulant that people use as a means to escape their reasoning and enter into a world free of rules and boundaries, which preferably links to the beginning sentence in ‘Howl’ expressing “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness” is a hint that drugs are destroying the best minds of the generation. The geographic location is referenced to the concept of the mind bouncing from place to place in which the mind leaps during the course of running mad. Lastly, suicide and hunger both fall into the issue of the releasing the mind from its confinement; Suicide in a figurative sense is a means for one that has the desire to escape from reality or trying to release the mind from the confinement. Hunger is related to desire in which most human beings that are unstable or that had shared a taste in something so stimulating they will do anything to acquire more, which is very much to what the topic of drugs come in to help promote one’s stimulation.

Through my interpretation, I feel that the Ginsberg is trying to state that madness can be like a source of break away from human conscious awareness in which people whether with weak or strong minds will do just about anything to break free from the confinement of their body. Madness is the doorway to breaking the mind free from the imprisonment of the body, yet the result in wanting to release the mind from the body always points to death. This is something that Ginsberg brings about repeating in his poem to make clear to the reader about the risks in what madness holds to the human mind as being an experience to what it is like to have the mind live outside the human body.

            In my visit to the 1913 Armory Show website, which had presented numerous modern arts creations from the early twentieth century? While I felt that the experience in not being present at the actual gallery, I did take pleasure in viewing some the imaginative works that contained the quality of uniqueness from over the two dozen galleries that exhibited some of remarkable works that captured my imagination with beautiful detail in capturing the moment from reality. Over the dozen galleries that I have the privilege of overseeing, I particularly enjoyed gallery B and C that delivered elegance in both sculpture and image art.

Gallery B was one of the most splendid galleries that exhibited excellent detail work in sculpture art. One of the figures that captured the essence in modern art was the bronze sculpture of George Bellows crafted by Robert I. Aitken; who was born in San Francisco on May, 8 1878 and is one of his most famous works in sculpture is the design on the West Pediment of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington D.C. that bears the inscription ‘Equal Justice Under Law’. Aitken’s work on the Bellows sculpture shows the contemporary symbol of confidence through the face of an American painter who was recognized for his daring portrayals on the urban life in New York City, which earned him the respect of being labeled as ‘the most acclaimed artist of his generation.’ I believe that Robert Aitken choose to sculpt Bellows was that he might have been inspired by Bellows work in art, and that Aitken took it upon himself to pay tribute to Bellows for fueling his talent in fine art.

In the continuation of observing the dozen of galleries, one gallery that shown remarkable works in European paintings was Gallery Q. Gallery Q accommodated some of the most captivating images created by two of the famous artists of our time; Cezanne and Van Gogh. What I enjoyed particularly the works by Vincent van Gogh; whose paintings are some of the world’s widely popular and expensive works of art. One of Van Gogh’s painting that was particularly fascinating was his oil painting of “Couple Walking in the Trees” that reflected the emotional intimacy of a close interpersonal relationship. The painting is mostly referred as Dans les bois, In the Woods, and Undergrowth with Two Trees, but from my personal opinion the couple title best fits the portrayal of the image Van Gogh presents to one’s view on modern art. Van Gogh’s couple and other works are best known normally that those of any other painter, yet if not for his short, turbulent, and tragic life it would not have epitomize his insane but genius visions as an artist.

In closing, to answer the question to what makes the Armory Show’s works modern is how they are able to symbolize the style and philosophy of art that was produced in the period where many artists began to expand their sense of imagination in being able to deliver images that could capture the minds of others in a bizarre but stimulating sense. What makes the Armor’s art modern is that it echoes the traditions of the past that permits the people of today and tomorrow to look closely at the images to help view what the past was made up of over a century ago. This in a philosophical sense is like seeing the spirit of the past captured in a time capsule, which is slightly an early form of photo image capturing. Modern is somewhat referenced to the word modernism that describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements that related to change happening in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. What is modern about the sculptures and paintings is that they include the activities and outputs from artists that felt the traditional forms of architecture, literature, religion, social organization, and daily life were turning out to be old-fashioned in the new social and political conditions of an emerging industrialized world.

This is a note to the character of Hurstwood in his dishonest actions he carried out in chapters sixteen to thirty. I feel that Hurstwood’s character has evolved into a rather despicable and irresponsible individual over three primary acts that make him distasteful. First, he becomes fraudulent in which as much as he desires Carrie he starts being unfaithful to his wife Julia and his children. The aspect behind this is that Hurstwood is giving into adultery while he is chasing after Carrie; he is also literally throwing his marriage out the window. Second, when at his desperate point when he is facing consequences against his wife, he goes into breaking another forbidden law in which he steals ten thousand dollars from his employer’s. Third, he pleads with Carrie to run away with him to Montreal, Canada in order to leave their troubles behind and get married. Carrie chooses to follow along with Hurstwood, but she remains unaware that he is a wanted for theft and decides to tell her about the stolen money he has taken. As a result, the past sins come back to haunt Hurstwood in the conclusion of the assigned reading chapters in which he is forced to surrender the money over to the authorities and relocate someplace else to rebuild his independent life with Carrie. In my opinion, Hurstwood’s actions were rather unlawful and immoral, because with the obstacle he had to contemplate with his marriage with Julia and his affair with Carrie drove him into a position of becoming a dishonest person to those around him including Carrie.

1)      It seems that the narrative excerpt happens at the beginning and the end of the passage.

2)      What could be interpreted on which character is viewing the action and or character in the excerpt would probably be Charles Drouet. Some of the words that were circled like; fancy, toil, pale, somber, half-light, and pegging seem to fit into the traits of character due to his magnetism he is able to use in communication.

3)      At the start of the lower passage, it would appear to be that Drouet is describing the character of Hurstwood not being aware about the contemplation of one’s feelings of fondness and delicacy in Carrie Meeber.

4)      The narrator speaks eloquently as he provides detail on the setting, characters, and situation taking shape in the excerpt. The words he uses are broad and strong in building a clear and specific sentence, which characterizes his wit and charm as a happy educated individual.

5)       Drouet is laying out what Carrie is processing through her sight in observing men that are Irish decent working in the streets of Chicago trying to adapt to living as full fledged Americans working towards their potential. The setting is taking place in the business streets of Chicago, distinguishing all the variety of people that are going about their personal matter, giving short detail about what Carrie is dealing out in her surrounding area, and the mystery to what Hurstwood has not unraveled in regards to the feelings that Carrie is contemplating with. 

6)      To personal analysis, the argument that Drouet is trying to get across is that he wants the reader to realize the feeling of alienation that Carrie is going through in living in steel and concrete jungle of the urban environment in how it is somewhat like an alien world that has not been fully explored. Drouet performs like a tour guide giving the reader the whole lay out on what it is like to be in Carrie’s situation to be in a place that is unfamiliar and frightening. This makes clear sense to my knowledge, because the theme of the novel contemplates with the fiction of an outsider escaping his/her environment and into a place that is different and flourishing.

7)      It is simple that Drouet relationship with Carrie is that he is romantically drawn to her. This has to do with the fact that she is a fish out of water living in this strange place that he is familiar with and does what he can to help her adapt to the surrounding. The event that is going on in the excerpt is that the narrator recognizes the challenge Carrie takes in becoming accustomed to her new life in being a city individual. Drouet takes advantage in what Carrie goes through in not knowing where her purpose lies and tries to help navigate her through the obstacles that lie ahead and earn her love as well. 

“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!” 

The way that the statement operates in indicating both of the narrator’s victory and defeat relate to her mental illness, where in the beginning she was a struggling writer dealing with the domestication of male superiority in high class society to being hopelessly insane due to her obsession with a worn out hideous wall paper. The narrator works to deal with her insanity by having to confront the yellow wall paper in figuring out what it is and not let it take control of her welfare. She works at unraveling the mystery of her mental illness by simply using the wallpaper as if it were a representation of her gone wrong while trying to both correct it and herself. She works at fixing her state of mind by using the method of visualization in being able to see what it is that is making her through the image of the yellow wallpaper. The wall paper is suffering from the same condition as the narrator, in which it is out of touch with its appearance and condition. By the ending of the story, the narrator becomes influenced that there are many creeping women around and that she has come out from the surface of the wallpaper, which she is able to see that she herself is the trapped woman. Similar to the wallpaper’s situation, both the narrator and wallpaper wish for the same thing: liberty. Both the narrator and the wallpaper have been suffering defeat in being confined to a room by her skeptical husband; who is a product of the superior power that keeps both the wife and the wallpaper locked in the same room without any means of escape. In order to escape from her husband’s captivity, the narrator merges with the wallpaper by creeping endlessly around the room, and then smears it as she goes. When the husband becomes concerns about what is transpiring behind the lock door, he panics and breaks in and bares witness the horror of what his wife is doing; becoming one with the wallpaper. He passes out in the doorway, which allows the narrator to finally gain her victory in escaping from confinement. However, in the last sentence “to creep over him every time!” would be considered a sign of the narrator garnishing her victory as she dances in triumph over her husband.  

“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!” 

The way that the statement operates in indicating both of the narrator’s victory and defeat relate to her mental illness, where in the beginning she was a struggling writer dealing with the domestication of male superiority in high class society to being hopelessly insane due to her obsession with a worn out hideous wall paper. The narrator works to deal with her insanity by having to confront the yellow wall paper in figuring out what it is and not let it take control of her welfare. She works at unraveling the mystery of her mental illness by simply using the wallpaper as if it were a representation of her gone wrong while trying to both correct it and herself. She works at fixing her state of mind by using the method of visualization in being able to see what it is that is making her through the image of the yellow wallpaper. The wall paper is suffering from the same condition as the narrator, in which it is out of touch with its appearance and condition. By the ending of the story, the narrator becomes influenced that there are many creeping women around and that she has come out from the surface of the wallpaper, which she is able to see that she herself is the trapped woman. Similar to the wallpaper’s situation, both the narrator and wallpaper wish for the same thing: liberty. Both the narrator and the wallpaper have been suffering defeat in being confined to a room by her skeptical husband; who is a product of the superior power that keeps both the wife and the wallpaper locked in the same room without any means of escape. In order to escape from her husband’s captivity, the narrator merges with the wallpaper by creeping endlessly around the room, and then smears it as she goes. When the husband becomes concerns about what is transpiring behind the lock door, he panics and breaks in and bares witness the horror of what his wife is doing; becoming one with the wallpaper. He passes out in the doorway, which allows the narrator to finally gain her victory in escaping from confinement. However, in the last sentence “to creep over him every time!” would be considered a sign of the narrator garnishing her victory as she dances in triumph over her husband.  

I would have to state whole heartedly that Emily Dickinson’s poetry work is rather sad, because of the circumstances of her living situation in being confined in a house all her life can truly be hard on one’s suffering. Some of her work does seem to give off her emotional pain, like in ‘My life had stood — a loaded gun–’ presented some rather harsh moments. For Instance, in the last few stanzas ”Though I than he–may longer live he longer must–than I–for I have but the powerto kill, without–the power to die–.” To my interpretation, Dickinson seems to be contemplating aggression with desiring to take a life from that of someone she is deeply fond of, or the other way around in which she desires to end her suffering rather stand another moment of it. Many professional scholars have commented about Dickinson’s insanity, where they believed that she was suffering under the case of Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD is a special case of clinical depression in which the afflicted suffers from their greatest bouts in depression during the season of winter as the days shorten and the nights lengthen. It is therefore likely that she wrote this poem around the winter season of 1863, where she was going through the state of her seasonal depression that led her to writing about the experience in order to share it with the world. Over the course of the century after her demise, many Dickinson scholars have attempted at naming the type of mental disorder that afflicted her so deeply in the latter part of her life. Some scholars have labeled that she was suffering included anorexia, bipolarism, agoraphobia, and possibly schizotypy. However, some professional psychologists have ruled out that SAD was the very cause of her mental anguish, and she did manage to keep a record about expressing her emotional state through poetry.  

 Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

 The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lighting to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind—

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—

The stanza is somewhat like an order directed at the reader, where he/she must always speak the truth but present it in a way that conforms with a particular predisposition, then the command stands at a pause. The definite stanza or article does sound and appear as if it were giving a direct rule to the reader in how they must address the truth, but what is puzzling is the reason to the speak truth in a bias form. Why is this style in communicating given? Could Dickinson be trying to inform her audience that to speak in truth we should twist it around to make it much more amusing to the listener?

Success in Circuit lies

The second stanza is referring to the opposite of truth in which it is addressing the matter of how lies victory by operating an electronic virus contaminating a computer software system. This accomplishment of a lie is done through a collective that operates by spreading its agents of deceit like a flow of power running through a circuit board in an electronic system and contaminate it with the means of manipulating all its functions. Once this spreading has completed its course in sabotaging its subjects it keeps them in hold through the power of corruption.

Too bright for our infirm Delight

Stanza three is somewhat puzzling, but I can interpret that Dickinson is referring about the unlimited force of pleasure. The first two words at the beginning start with ‘too bright’ that can only imply that something is far too strong or that it has stepped over the boundary of its limitation. The last two words in the sentence ‘infirm delight’ could be translated as ‘sick pleasure’ that could indicate that the powerful force is linked to this form of unlimited energy is increasing and there seems to be no obstruct in ceasing its rise in power. A clear translation to the sentence would be ‘Far powerful to our ill pleasure’, where could be obvious that our taste in pleasure has no limits to our expectation and that it is an ever growing force that never backs down. This suggestion could easily apply to the psychological subject of human addiction, where many people can be subjected to many forms of addiction through the exercise of habit.

The Truth’s superb surprise

This stanza gives the impression that truth in general is made up of marvelous surprises. Truth is sometimes addressed by poets as a sense and form of beauty that delivers what is concrete or a reality of fact that can sometimes be a good affect to one’s perspective. However, truth can also hold sometimes the opposites of negative affects that can devastate one’s existence. Dickinson seems to be pointing out that the domain of truth can hold tremendous surprises that can hold either good or bad impact to the people that are in search of or desire to know that certainty of things.

As Lighting to the Children eased

What is peculiar about this stanza is that Dickinson is mentioning the power of learning through illumination, and the Children are the learners who are absorbing the glow of knowledge by remaining at effortlessness in position. The word Lighting holds many meanings such as an electromagnetic radiation that may perceive light; brightness. The light houses potential energy that can illuminate things or it can be used as a source of development in living, such as plants that rely on light for sustenance in sprouting from the ground and enlarge their nutrients. The Children can easily represent the plants that rely on the light as a source of expanding their experience in knowledge, and it keeps them calm and enable them to grow strong in their struggle to survive in the world whether it involves physical challenge or emotional challenge. The emotional challenge would be somewhat related to confronting the truth in which Dickinson is working to get across in her poem, where the young will always find it hard to accept what it is they are told about in truth.

With explanation kind

This stanza is puzzling because of the short amount of words that are used. However, by carefully deconstructing each word there might be an answer to what is being said. The word ‘With’ is obviously implying that something must be joined or in the company of. What is needed to be joined is the truth, which is expressed in the form of ‘explanation,’ and added to it kind can somewhat be referring to that of the type of truth that is needed to be presented in telling the truth to the reader. This is what Dickinson is working to get across in ‘Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-‘ and she uses this stanza to point out what type of truth is needed in order to be addressed directly to an audience.

The Truth must dazzle gradually

One method to breaking down the meaning in this stanza is that Dickinson is revealing that ‘The Truth’ must be amazing in both sound and appearance. The word ‘dazzle’ is described as to amaze or bewilder with spectacular display. In terms of truth it must first and foremost stand for something meaningful, because truth in language is considered one of the most demanding and sought searched terms in human living. Dickinson is pointing out that even on some occasions the truth might appear plain ordinary to one’s perspective, but on another level it can hold a lot more that can astonish one’s perception on how they see things. Besides truth needed to sound and appear dazzling to the person’s view, it must also be displayed gradually. The word ‘gradually’ is used to distinguish the motion or the type of speed it should be presented to the reader, for it allows the reader to take in the sufficient amount of information at a certain pace for them to be able to recognize what they hear and see in front of them.  

Or every man be blind—

This one is somewhat a challenge, for it seems to establish a message of warning to the reader. The stanza comes to a pause at the end word ‘blind’, and the word sometimes indicate sightless or generally having impaired vision. To my interpretation, Dickinson is trying to get across that if one does not follow the first stanza by ‘Tell all the Truth but tell it slant’, or succumb to loss of sight if we refuse. I believe that the first and last stanza come together as a coded message that is forms “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—Or every man be blind—“. This would establish the central message in Dickinson’s poem, in which she is indicating how precious Truth holds to our potential living and that if do not take it seriously; we will be subjected to harsh consequences in acting on up on our arrogance. This is what I perceive in Dickinson’s poem.

Report

One of the interesting moments in breaking down Dickinson’s poem was the uncovering her perspective on Truth, in what she viewed it as and how she cherished in it in the sense that she felt compelled to tell the world how significant it is. What was bewildering in the poem was the direction of addressing the truth in slant, which sounded very odd considering that slant, involves presenting something in a method that conforms on particular bias. After properly breaking down each stanza and word on word, it came to me that Dickinson was not presenting a command in not just addressing the truth in a unusual method, but realize how important it is to both the reader and the function of human communication.

Through my interpretation, I think the problem in the differences on I against tide and I against crowd is that the ‘I’ or let’s refer to the individual is confronting the distance from him/herself from nature and human culture. ‘I’ vs. tide could simply mean that Whitman is addressing about his idea on mankind being separate from nature as he utilize the Individual is having to confront nature in the form of the tide. The tide is that of the obstacle the individual must meet while crossing nature’s river, for the tide is the final frontier that the individual must cross over in order to get to the other side of New York. The aspect of man against nature is an on going battle that many people contemplate the obstacles that nature builds over their surroundings, and it has become a habit for sentient beings to strive over to the next frontier in order to survive.

            In the second matter in regards to the ‘I’ vs. crowd, the individual must come to recognize that he is not the only person traveling across the river, for he is forced to be accompanied by strangers that are pursuing the same goal as he is. To my understanding, Whitman seems to be addressing the matters of individual opposed to his own culture, which might have to do with the individual being self-absorbed and rejecting the value of social order. This is another on-going that deals with man against itself over petty differences, in which the individual on the ferry must learn to adapt with the occupation of human culture composed of millions of people that are different from the individual’s lifestyle even under the circumstances that they are all in the same boat pursuing the same goal; to make to the other side of the island. 

            In the end of the poem, Whitman seems to resolve the credence of shared experience that every individual strives to get to under the circumstances of survival of expanding their potential. Reminding the reader that we have seen the other side of the frontier, and fifty years from now will still be seeing, the islands of New York City, he realizes that others have also shared his range of emotional and spiritual experience. This makes him significant as an individual but also part of a larger whole.

1) The first thing to what I enjoyed about the Wiki-paint assignment was that it was a new idea in applying the concept of visual point in the literature works we were reviewing, because in studying literature one struggles to interpret what visual image the writer works to getting across in his work, so this assignment delivered creativity in which we the reader would be permitted to use our visual interpretation in processing the words. The other good thing was the process in being able to apply my own visual interpretation to a specific statement that was describing it through the words, and this allowed every student to contemplate the words by adding a visual touch to the written work.

2) There was not anything I found resentful about the assignment. As far as to my knowledge, I felt that the whole thing was a practice in using one’s own creativity in figuring out what visual sense Whitman was addressing in his work.

        3) One thing that I probably gained from Whitman’s poem was the feature in designing his written work in the form of a song lyric in which the structure and pattern in a poem is made to make it appear as part of a pattern poem. Also, in my thought I think that Whitman designed his poem as a puzzle where the reader would process the written text and then try to interpret what kind of image he tried to get across.

4) I didn’t think that any change was needed in my assignment, because the way I positioned the selected image and what size it should be in was adequate in order to not take too much space in the poem.