Analysis of Jonathan Edward’s Sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
I'm sure many will be taken aback by my reaction and analysis of Jonathan Edwards sermon. I will hold that it depends on what frame of mind the reader studies this from. I simply ask that you open your mind to the possibility that this was a loving man.
Jonathan Edward’s sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is such a beautifully and eloquently spoken sermon of love that many will likely see only as a sermon of God’s displeasure with man.
I don’t think that I’ve ever been quite so glad to have been raised on the King James Version of the Bible as after reading this. This plea to “natural man” to be born again is evidence of Edward’s attempt to address any argument that escape from hell can be earned, purchased or avoided by man, except through Christ.
Edward’s image of God’s hand holding “natural man” by a thin thread out of the path of his wrath is a wonderful accounting of God’s grace. God does not want to let go of that thread.
When Jonathan Edwards refers to “natural man” he is speaking of anyone who has not accepted Jesus Christ’s gift of salvation by being “born again.”
Edward’s first outlines the wrath and vengeance God set against His chosen people the Israelites when they continued to fall away and disobey Him. Then later he shows how that same wrath transfers to the whole world.
Edwards notes that only God’s own desire to keep us from falling into hell is sustaining us from it. It is only through God’s grace. He mentions several times how man has and continues to try to fit God into a mold that will not hold Him. God’s pleasure, His will, is what holds us up, until He knows that a heart is so hard that He will let go and let us slip into the hell we have earned by our own hands. Then the sinner is no more a thought of God, but is something under His feet.
Edwards is careful to point out that only God knows when that point of no return for any one person is.
Edwards backs up every claim with Holy Scripture. He addresses everyone and every excuse. He knows that there are people in the very congregation he is speaking to that will turn their deaf ear to it and be without excuse. He speaks of man’s schemes and man’s wisdom as foolishness before God.
Edwards’ ten points of consideration end with the final blow that God is under no “obligation” to man. He has outlined the covenant of Christ as the mediator man rejects.
My own gut reaction to the message in this sermon is of rejoicing for the power, love and mercy of God, because I have no need to fear death. But, my assurance is only through being born again through Christ. Nothing I did could change me to be righteous before God. Only God could do that for me. And that is what Jonathan Edwards is trying to make visual here.
In the final plea the minister offers yet another chance for anyone there to be born again through Christ. I’m sure his voice was bold and loud, but still he spoke out of love. Sure his message is a fiery one, but that seems to be the point. But, I could almost imagine hearing this man’s voice in a humble and pleading tone, not at all haughty or of a man above his congregation.
Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758) preached this sermon in Enfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1741. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is meant to be disturbing to the heart of the unrepentant sinner. It is also meant to give hope by offering a way out of the state of “natural man.”
"Rip Van Winkle"
The story of Rip Van Winkle was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman from New York who was especially interested in the histories, customs, and culture of the Dutch settlers in that state. It is set in a small, very old village at the foot of the Catskill Mountains, which was founded by some of the earliest Dutch settlers. Rip lived there while America was still a colony of Great Britain.
Rip Van Winkle is descended from gallant soldiers but is a peaceful man himself, known for being a kind and gentle neighbor. His single flaw is an utter inability to do any work that could turn a profit. It is not because he is lazy—in fact, he is perfectly willing to spend all day helping someone else with their labor. He is just incapable of doing anything to help his own household. He also is well-known for being an obedient, henpecked husband, for Dame Van Winkle has no problem shouting insults into the neighborhood and tracking him down in the village to berate him. All the women and children in the village love him and side with him against his wife, and even the dogs do not bark at him.
Indeed, when he tries to console himself and escape from Dame Van Winkle, he often goes to a sort of philosophical or political club that meets on a bench outside of a small inn. Here the more idle men actually gossip and tell sleepy stories about nothing, every once in a while discussing “current” events when they find an old newspaper. Nicholaus Vedder is the landlord of the inn and the leader of the group. He never speaks but makes his opinions clear based on how he smokes his pipe. Even here, Van Winkle cannot escape from his wife, who berates everyone for encouraging his idleness.
His indolence is probably to be blamed for his farm’s bad luck, so Dame Van Winkle has more than a little cause to berate him—which she does, morning, noon, and night. As the years pass, things continue to get worse, and his only recourse is to escape to the outdoors. His one companion in the household is his dog Wolf, who for no good reason is just as badly treated by the petticoat tyrant Dame Van Winkle.
On one trip to the woods, Van Winkle wanders to one of the highest points in the Catskills. Fatigued from the climb, he rests, and soon the sun has started to set. He knows he will not be able to get home before dark. As he gets up, he hears a voice call his name. A shadowy figure seems to be in need of assistance, so he approaches the man, who looks very strange. He is short and square, with thick bushy hair and a grizzled beard, dressed in the antique Dutch fashion. He asks Van Winkle for help climbing higher with a keg. They reach an amphitheatre in the woods, where a collection of similarly odd-looking men are bowling, which makes the environs sound like it is thundering. Although they are involved in pleasurable pursuits, they are silent and grim.
The man starts to serve drinks from the keg and gestures to Van Winkle to help. He eventually takes a drink for himself. It tastes delicious, and he goes back for more and more until he is quite drunk and lies down to pass out.
When he wakes up in the morning, he is anxious about what Dame Van Winkle will say about his late return. He reaches for his gun but finds that it is now rusty and worm-eaten—perhaps the men tricked him and replaced his gun. Wolf also is gone and does not respond to Van Winkle’s calls. He gets up and feels quite stiff. When he tries to retrace his steps, the amphitheatre appears to have become an impenetrable wall of rock, and some of the natural features of the area have changed.
Van Winkle returns to the village but recognizes nobody, which is strange for a small village, and he notices that everyone is strangely dressed. They look surprised to see him, too, and he realizes that his beard has grown a foot longer. The children hoot at him and the dogs bark. The village itself has grown larger. He begins to think he must be going crazy, for the natural scenery is the only thing that is recognizable. The flagon must have made him lose his mind.
At his house, he finds it in complete disrepair and abandoned. His wife and children are not there. The inn where he used to meet his friends has disappeared, and where there used to be a picture of George III there is now one of a certain George Washington. The new group of people at the new hotel there is full of completely different people, and their discussions are more argumentative than he remembers. The crowd asks him questions, especially about what political party he belongs to. He is confused and says he is still a loyal subject of the king. They declare him a traitor and a Tory. When he says he has just come looking for his friends, they tell him that Nicholaus Vedder has been dead for eighteen years and Van Bummel is now in Congress.
Rip Van Winkle becomes still more distressed and confused when he asks if they know Rip Van Winkle and the townspeople point out a different lazy-looking man. He begins to think he is crazy. A familiar woman approaches, and he finds out enough to decide that she is his daughter. She explains that her father went out with his gun one day twenty years ago and was never heard from since. Rip Van Winkle tells everyone that for him it has only been one night, which makes them think he is crazy, too. The one piece of good news is that Dame Van Winkle recently passed away.
Peter Vanderdonk, the town’s oldest inhabitant, vouches for Rip Van Winkle and says that he has heard tales passed down about the ghosts of Hendrick Hudson and his men appearing once every twenty years; they bowl and keep a guardian eye on the region that Hudson explored. The tale seems to fit with Rip’s experience. Rip goes to live with his daughter, who is married to a cheerful farmer. He lives much happier than he ever was with Dame Van Winkle. Also, he is now old enough for his idleness to be socially acceptable, and he returns to the hotel and is again well-loved in the village. He eventually learns about the Revolutionary War and everything else that has passed, but the only yoke of government that he cares about having thrown off is that of Dame Van Winkle.
Knickerbocker closes the story with an impassioned declaration of its veracity on personal examination. He also gives a brief history of the magic and fables associated with the Catskills, suggesting that even the Indians tell of similar experiences in the area in their own stories and myths.
Analysis
“Rip Van Winkle” is one of the most famous stories of The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon. It is one of the few that take place in America, although it is believed to be a retelling of an Old World folktale. The setting of the tale, in the Catskills by the Hudson, gives the story a fairly precise location that grounds it in America.
The passages that begin and end the story frame it to separate it from the other sketches. Here our narrator is no longer Crayon but Diedrich Knickerbocker, who is quite adamant in vouching for the authenticity of the tale, which serves not to satisfy the reader but instead to make the reliability of the tale and its narrator even more ambiguous. This distance of Crayon from the tale touches on the theme of veracity in storytelling and its importance.
The story itself is an escapist fantasy; Rip Van Winkle is an ineffectual male hero who cannot support his farm or family. Instead of facing the consequences of his idleness and facing his wife, who certainly makes the problem worse instead of better, he sleeps for twenty years. Finally, he is of such an age that his idleness is excusable and allowed. This makes him an antithesis to the American dream. He has no ambition, he does not work hard for himself, and he does not rise above where he began. He just likes to chat and have friends.
He also sleeps through what was the defining moment of American history, and upon waking, he does not even care. This develops him as the American anti-hero, for he takes no part in the country’s founding or history. His story makes sense as more of an Old World story, one that the Dutch settlers, in their relatively old village, can retell. The story also shows that great historical events are often less important than the daily happenings in an individual’s life. The only oppressor Rip Van Winkle cares about having overcome is his wife.
Dame Van Winkle is certainly the antagonist in this story. She is constantly berating Rip Van Winkle, whom everyone else in the neighborhood adores. She is a completely flat character—we only ever see her worst side, except for the one comment made after she has died that she always kept the house in good order. Her criticism of her husband, if far too strong, is nevertheless deserved. He has completely failed in his role as husband, father, and breadwinner, leaving his family in near ruin. The husband is an extreme form of deadbeat and the wife an extreme form of nagging and henpecking, a state of affairs which appears to be a lesson and warning for Irving’s male and female readers alike. The husbands should learn to be more industrious and attentive, and the wives should learn to be less antagonistic and more understanding lest they drive their husbands further away.
Rip’s night in the woods symbolizes the fantasy of escape through one’s imagination, which is in itself a form of storytelling. Once he is freed of his duties to his family, he becomes the town storyteller, and it is this story which has freed him from his domestic duties—he literally and figuratively dreamed them away. In this way the imagination, or one’s creative life, is presented as a way to deal with the less pleasing duties of everyday life. At the same time, it is not without its dangers. Although Van Winkle finds a happy ending, he is very close to being labeled insane or dangerous and being thrust out of the town.
The Birthmark
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The narrator introduces Aylmer as a brilliant scientist and natural philosopher who has abandoned his experiments for a while to marry the beautiful Georgiana. One day, Aylmer asks his wife whether she has ever thought about removing the birthmark on her cheek. She cheerfully says no but grows serious when she sees that he asked the question seriously. Many people, she says, have told her the mark is a charm, and she has always thought maybe they were right. Aylmer says that because her face is almost perfect, any mark is shocking. Georgiana is angry at first, and then she weeps, asking how he can love her if she is shocking to him.
The narrator explains that the birthmark in question is a red mark in the shape of a tiny hand on Georgiana’s left cheek. The mark disappears when she blushes. Georgiana’s male admirers love the birthmark, and many would risk their lives just to kiss it. Some women think the mark ruins her beauty, but the narrator says this is nonsense.
Aylmer obsesses about the birthmark. For him, it symbolizes mortality and sin and comes to tower over Georgiana’s beauty in his mind. He can think of nothing else. One night she reminds him of a dream he had. He spoke in his sleep, saying they must take out her heart. Aylmer remembers dreaming that he had removed the birthmark with a knife, plunging down until he had reached his wife’s heart, which he decided to cut out. Georgiana says that she will risk her life to have the birthmark erased. Thrilled, Aylmer agrees to try. He professes complete confidence in his own abilities, likening himself to Pygmalion. He kisses his wife’s unmarked cheek.
They decide to move to the apartments where Aylmer has his laboratory. He has already made stunning discoveries about volcanoes, fountains, mines, and other natural wonders. Now he will resume his studies of the creation of life. As the couple enters the laboratory, Aylmer shudders at the sight of Georgiana, and she faints. Aminadab, Aylmer’s grotesque assistant, comes out to help. He says he would not remove the birthmark if Georgiana were his wife.
Georgiana wakes up in sweet-smelling rooms that have been made beautiful for her. Aylmer comforts her with some of his more magical creations: “airy figures, absolute bodiless ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty.” He shows her moving scenes that mimic real life. Then he gives her a fast-growing flower that dies as soon as she touches it. Next he tries to create a portrait of her with a metal plate, but when the plate shows a hand, he throws it into acid.
Between experiments, Aylmer tells Georgiana about alchemy. He believes that he could turn base metal into gold and create a potion that would grant eternal life if he wanted to, even though he says he knows that doing so would be wrong. He disappears for hours and then shows her his cabinet of wonders. One such wonder is a vial that holds a powerful perfume. Another is a poison that, depending on the dose, would allow Aylmer to kill someone instantly or after a long period of time. Georgiana is appalled, but Aylmer says the poison is more good than bad. He shows her another potion that can wipe away freckles, but he says her birthmark needs a much deeper cure.
Georgiana realizes that Aylmer has been doctoring her food or making her inhale something in the air. Her body feels strange. She reads the books in his scientific library, as well as his accounts of his own experiments. She realizes that his achievements always fall short of the goals he originally sets. Still, the accounts of his studies make her worship him. Aylmer catches her crying over his journals, and although his words are kind, he is angry. She sings to him, restoring his spirits.
A few hours later, Georgiana goes to the laboratory to find Aylmer. When he sees her, he grows angry, accuses her of prying, and tells her to go away. She stands her ground and refuses, saying he should trust her and not try to hide his fears. She promises to drink whatever he tells her to drink. Moved, Aylmer says the mark goes deep into her body, and its removal will be dangerous. In her room, Georgiana thinks about how noble it is that Aylmer refuses to love her as she is, insisting instead to create his ideal version of her.
He brings her a potion that he says cannot fail. He shows her how it cures a geranium of blots. She drinks the liquid and sleeps. Aylmer watches her with tenderness but also as if he is watching a scientific experiment unfold. Gradually the birthmark fades. Aminadab laughs. Georgiana wakes, sees herself in the mirror, and tells Aylmer not to feel bad about rejecting “the best the earth could offer.” Then she dies.
Analysis and Plot Summary of “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The beginning of the story by Nathaniel Hawthorne introduces us to Young Goodman Brown as he says goodbye to his wife of three months. He tells her that he must go on this journey (although we still do not know where he is going or what he’s doing) and that he will be back by the morning. It is clear that he knows he is up to something and he feels a tinge of guilt because his wife, a woman named Faith who wears a pink ribbon in her hair (both of these are important details and comprise important quotes from “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne for almost anything you might write on this story) begs him not to go.
Goodman Brown finally parts with faith (the name Faith is symbolic for obvious reasons here) and sets out into the forest where he meets a man. Although he was expecting to find this man, who is described as looking much like Goodman Brown except older, he is frightened when he sees his figure looming in the dark forest ahead of him. The story by Nathaniel Hawthorne is still shrouded in mystery as the two men move through forest together, talking about Goodman’s family. Goodman finds it hard to believe this man knew his father or grandfather because he is clearly not a good character. The mysterious stranger also talks on about how is close to Christians and all good people, even though by this point we’re getting the feeling that the man is evil.
As the two approach their destination, Goodman wants to turn back because of his wife (or in other words, his “Faith) but the two keep moving until they come across an old woman named Goody Cloyse. Goodman recognizes her as a teacher and a spiritual guide but begins to realize she is part of the evil that surrounds him. The same is true with Deacon Gookin and the Minister who come riding along and Goodman realizes that these men are both in league with evil. As he moves out of the darkness, a pink ribbon blows down next to him and he sees that Faith is part of the “communion” that is taking place in the woods.
As the story by Nathaniel Hawthorne progresses, in a clearing, there is a large fire and what appears to be a Satanic or demonic ritual taking place and Goodman Brown thinks he sees his dead father. The leader of the evil (perhaps the Devil himself) discusses how everyone is evil and as Goodman Brown listens, he sees that the woman on the altar next to his deceased father is actually Faith. He yells at he to resist the evil, but as he does so the entire scene disappears and he is left alone, wondering what happened. The narrator of “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne asks the reader if it really happened or if it was simply a dream and concludes the story with the details of the rest of Goodman’s life. We are told that the day after this event, Goodman Brow walks back to Salem and runs across many of the “godly” people he met during his experience/dream. He is disturbed and shuns all of them, including his wife, whom he once treasured. The rest of his life is spent in misery as he thinks everyone is part of a secret evil and sin (another recurring theme in the works of Hawthore) and when he dies, few are saddened
In terms of offering an analysis of “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, while there is no definitive answer to the question of whether or not this “really” happened to Goodman Brown, one must assume that this was simply a dream that came from Goodman’s subconscious. He lives in Salem, a location where the fervent witch trials occurred and one must wonder if he is feeling that piousness and witchcraft surround him in equal parts. If these are imaginings from Goodman, we can glean a few details about his character, such as the fact that he is suspicious to begin with as well as curious about others in the community. It also might reveal that he feels everyone is capable of some evil, even if they appear to be the most pious in the community. If one is considering a character analysis of Goodman Brown, it should be noted that in many ways Goodman Brown is a rather flat character. The reader of this story by Nathaniel Hawthorne is not told much about his background (although we do learn a few things about his family history via the old man) and the narrator focuses more on telling the reader what happened to him as opposed to what he was thinking. He can be described as an “everyman” because he, like many people” is vulnerable to suspicion and self-doubt. He does not posses any typically heroic traits and instead simply reacts to the situation.
There are many instances of symbolism in “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne that function in differing ways. For instance, the symbols of sunset and night, which reflect the two opposing forces of good and evil in the text. This is especially apparent when we consider that the light of late day allows him to see Faith with love whereas when he sees her in darkness, he is suspicious and afraid. The walking stick is another symbol in this story by Nathaniel Hawthorne that demonstrates how nothing is as it seems in the text. At one moment it is a withered and twisted stick while at another it changes into a slithering serpent. It is thus symbolically speaking something that has the potential to harm or to help, much like the religious figures Goodman Brown encounters in the dark. It is also worth noting that the serpent that the stick becomes is representative of the devil and evil. One of the most obvious symbols in “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is the concept of Goodman being both literally and metaphorically married to Faith. His faith is what he most treasures and after his experience it is what he is most afraid of losing. It is also worth mentioning that pink ribbon is symbolic of the purity of faith. The fact it floats away on a breeze represents shattered innocence and a loss of purity, a theme that is present in many works by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
In many ways, much of this tale is allegorical in nature, partly because of the mutability of all of the symbols. If this were an allegory it could be summarized by stating that this is one man’s realization that he is surrounded by opposing forces without ever knowing which of them are good or which are evil. Faith (in both senses of the word) is the light in the story, the only way one can be saved, yet by walking into the forest (which is a symbol for that which is dark and mysterious) with a man who literally clings to the serpent (an allegorical image for the Devil or evil incarnate) Goodman is leaving behind his Faith and asking for the truth about who (or what) is good or evil.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839)
A striking similitude between the brother and the sister now first arrested my attention. . . .
Summary
An unnamed narrator approaches the house of Usher on a “dull, dark, and soundless day.” This house—the estate of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher—is gloomy and mysterious. The narrator observes that the house seems to have absorbed an evil and diseased atmosphere from the decaying trees and murky ponds around it. He notes that although the house is decaying in places—individual stones are disintegrating, for example—the structure itself is fairly solid. There is only a small crack from the roof to the ground in the front of the building. He has come to the house because his friend Roderick sent him a letter earnestly requesting his company. Roderick wrote that he was feeling physically and emotionally ill, so the narrator is rushing to his assistance. The narrator mentions that the Usher family, though an ancient clan, has never flourished. Only one member of the Usher family has survived from generation to generation, thereby forming a direct line of descent without any outside branches. The Usher family has become so identified with its estate that the peasantry confuses the inhabitants with their home.
The narrator finds the inside of the house just as spooky as the outside. He makes his way through the long passages to the room where Roderick is waiting. He notes that Roderick is paler and less energetic than he once was. Roderick tells the narrator that he suffers from nerves and fear and that his senses are heightened. The narrator also notes that Roderick seems afraid of his own house. Roderick’s sister, Madeline, has taken ill with a mysterious sickness—perhaps catalepsy, the loss of control of one’s limbs—that the doctors cannot reverse. The narrator spends several days trying to cheer up Roderick. He listens to Roderick play the guitar and make up words for his songs, and he reads him stories, but he cannot lift Roderick’s spirit. Soon, Roderick posits his theory that the house itself is unhealthy, just as the narrator supposes at the beginning of the story.
Madeline soon dies, and Roderick decides to bury her temporarily in the tombs below the house. He wants to keep her in the house because he fears that the doctors might dig up her body for scientific examination, since her disease was so strange to them. The narrator helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, and he notes that Madeline has rosy cheeks, as some do after death. The narrator also realizes suddenly that Roderick and Madeline were twins. Over the next few days, Roderick becomes even more uneasy. One night, the narrator cannot sleep either. Roderick knocks on his door, apparently hysterical. He leads the narrator to the window, from which they see a bright-looking gas surrounding the house. The narrator tells Roderick that the gas is a natural phenomenon, not altogether uncommon.
The narrator decides to read to Roderick in order to pass the night away. He reads “Mad Trist” by Sir Launcelot Canning, a medieval romance. As he reads, he hears noises that correspond to the descriptions in the story. At first, he ignores these sounds as the vagaries of his imagination. Soon, however, they become more distinct and he can no longer ignore them. He also notices that Roderick has slumped over in his chair and is muttering to himself. The narrator approaches Roderick and listens to what he is saying. Roderick reveals that he has been hearing these sounds for days, and believes that they have buried Madeline alive and that she is trying to escape. He yells that she is standing behind the door. The wind blows open the door and confirms Roderick’s fears: Madeline stands in white robes bloodied from her struggle. She attacks Roderick as the life drains from her, and he dies of fear. The narrator flees the house. As he escapes, the entire house cracks along the break in the frame and crumbles to the ground.
Analysis
“The Fall of the House of Usher” possesses the quintessential -features of the Gothic tale: a haunted house, dreary landscape, mysterious sickness, and doubled personality. For all its easily identifiable Gothic elements, however, part of the terror of this story is its vagueness. We cannot say for sure where in the world or exactly when the story takes place. Instead of standard narrative markers of place and time, Poe uses traditional Gothic elements such as inclement weather and a barren landscape. We are alone with the narrator in this haunted space, and neither we nor the -narrator know why. Although he is Roderick’s most intimate boyhood friend, the narrator apparently does not know much about him—like the basic fact that Roderick has a twin sister. Poe asks us to question the reasons both for Roderick’s decision to contact the narrator in this time of need and the bizarre tenacity of narrator’s response. While Poe provides the recognizable building blocks of the Gothic tale, he contrasts this standard form with a plot that is inexplicable, sudden, and full of unexpected disruptions. The story begins without complete explanation of the narrator’s motives for arriving at the house of Usher, and this ambiguity sets the tone for a plot that continually blurs the real and the fantastic.
Poe creates a sensation of claustrophobia in this story. The narrator is mysteriously trapped by the lure of Roderick’s attraction, and he cannot escape until the house of Usher collapses completely. Characters cannot move and act freely in the house because of its structure, so it assumes a monstrous character of its own—the Gothic mastermind that controls the fate of its inhabitants. Poe, creates confusion between the living things and inanimate objects by doubling the physical house of Usher with the genetic family line of the Usher family, which he refers to as the house of Usher. Poe employs the word “house” metaphorically, but he also describes a real house. Not only does the narrator get trapped inside the mansion, but we learn also that this confinement describes the biological fate of the Usher family. The family has no enduring branches, so all genetic transmission has occurred incestuously within the domain of the house. The peasantry confuses the mansion with the family because the physical structure has effectively dictated the genetic patterns of the family.
The claustrophobia of the mansion affects the relations among characters. For example, the narrator realizes late in the game that Roderick and Madeline are twins, and this realization occurs as the two men prepare to entomb Madeline. The cramped and confined setting of the burial tomb metaphorically spreads to the features of the characters. Because the twins are so similar, they cannot develop as free individuals. Madeline is buried before she has actually died because her similarity to Roderick is like a coffin that holds her identity. Madeline also suffers from problems typical for women in -nineteenth--century literature. She invests all of her identity in her body, whereas Roderick possesses the powers of intellect. In spite of this disadvantage, Madeline possesses the power in the story, almost superhuman at times, as when she breaks out of her tomb. She thus counteracts Roderick’s weak, nervous, and immobile disposition. Some scholars have argued that Madeline does not even exist, reducing her to a shared figment Roderick’s and the narrator’s imaginations. But Madeline proves central to the symmetrical and claustrophobic logic of the tale. Madeline stifles Roderick by preventing him from seeing himself as essentially different from her. She completes this attack when she kills him at the end of the story.
Doubling spreads throughout the story. The tale highlights the Gothic feature of the doppelganger, or character double, and portrays doubling in inanimate structures and literary forms. The narrator, for example, first witnesses the mansion as a reflection in the tarn, or shallow pool, that abuts the front of the house. The mirror image in the tarn doubles the house, but upside down—an inversely symmetrical relationship that also characterizes the relationship between Roderick and Madeline.
The story features numerous allusions to other works of literature, including the poems “The Haunted Palace” and “Mad Trist” by Sir Launcelot Canning. Poe composed them himself and then fictitiously attributed them to other sources. Both poems parallel and thus predict the plot line of “The Fall of the House of Usher.” “Mad Trist,” which is about the forceful entrance of Ethelred into the dwelling of a hermit, mirrors the simultaneous escape of Madeline from her tomb. “Mad Trist” spookily crosses literary borders, as though Roderick’s obsession with these poems ushers their narratives into his own domain and brings them to life.
The crossing of borders pertains vitally to the Gothic horror of the tale. We know from Poe’s experience in the magazine industry that he was obsessed with codes and word games, and this story amplifies his obsessive interest in naming. “Usher” refers not only to the mansion and the family, but also to the act of crossing a -threshold that brings the narrator into the perverse world of Roderick and Madeline. Roderick’s letter ushers the narrator into a world he does not know, and the presence of this outsider might be the factor that destroys the house. The narrator is the lone exception to the Ushers’ fear of outsiders, a fear that accentuates the claustrophobic nature of the tale. By undermining this fear of the outside, the narrator unwittingly brings down the whole structure. A similar, though strangely playful crossing of a boundary transpires both in “Mad Trist” and during the climactic burial escape, when Madeline breaks out from death to meet her mad brother in a “tryst,” or meeting, of death. Poe thus buries, in the fictitious gravity of a medieval romance, the puns that garnered him popularity in America’s magazines.
The Cask of Amontillado
As the narrator, Montresor explains to an unknown audience that because Fortunato has mortally insulted him, he has vowed vengeance. However, he has hidden his animosity towards Fortunato because he wants to fulfill his vow without placing himself at risk, since the vengeance would not be complete if Fortunato were to retaliate or if Fortunato died without knowing Montresor to be his murderer. He maintains an appearance of good will towards Fortunato and decides to exploit Fortunato's weakness for fine wines.
One evening during the carnival season, Montresor finds Fortunato and invites him to try out a sample of sherry, which he has recently acquired and wishes to confirm as Amontillado. Fortunato is surprised and excited, so when Montresor suggests that Fortunato might be too busy and that Montresor might have Luchesi taste it instead, Fortunato insults Luchesi's skill with wines and insists on accompanying Montresor to the vaults to taste the Amontillado. Montresor offers a token protest, saying that the vaults are full of nitre and will aggravate Fortunato's cold, but the latter insists. Montresor puts on a mask of black silk and a cloak and leads Fortunato to his home.
Montresor previously told the servants that he would be gone all night and forbade them to leave, knowing that they would all disappear to join the carnival as soon as he left, so no one is home when they arrive. He takes two torches and, handing one to Fortunato, leads Fortunato into the Montresor catacombs. The passageway is damp and full of nitre, causing Fortunato to cough, but the dissembling Montresor shows false concern for Fortunato's health and offers him a sip of Medoc wine. Montresor offers to call for Luchesi, knowing that Fortunato will be insulted and insist on continuing. Fortunato drinks to the dead, and Montresor drinks to Fortunato's long life.
Fortunato notes the size of the vaults, and Montresor replies that the Montresors were a large family. They discuss the Montresor arms, which consist of a golden foot crushing a serpent that bites the foot against a field of blue; the Montresor motto is "Nemo me impune lacessit," the Latin phrase for "No one attacks me with impunity." As they walk deeper into the catacombs, Fortunato remains drunk and the bells on his costume jingle.
Montresor notes that the level of damp and of nitre is increasing since they are under the riverbed and offers to return to the surface, but Fortunato drinks more wine and throws away the bottle with a peculiar gesture. Montresor does not understand the gesture, causing Fortunato to realize that he is not a member of the Masons. Montresor insists that he is, although Fortunato is now incredulous, and he shows Fortunato the trowel that is in his cloak. Fortunato exclaims that Montresor jests but insists that they continue to the Amontillado. Montresor leads him to a deep crypt, at the end of which is a smaller crypt lined with human remains. In the fourth wall of the crypt is a small niche backed by walls of granite.
Fortunato tries to look into the recess, but because of the foulness of the air, the light from the torch is dim and he cannot see. Montresor claims the niche to be the location of the Amontillado and once again mentions Luchesi, which prompts Fortunato to insult Luchesi and walk drunkenly into the niche. Quickly, Montresor chains him to the granite while he is too surprised to resist. Montresor mocks Fortunato, asking him with false solicitousness about the nitre. Fortunato asks about the Amontillado, and Montresor agrees before he reveals a pile of building stone and mortar that has been hidden by bones. Montresor then begins to wall up the niche, with Fortunato inside.
Montresor lays the first tier of the wall before Fortunato revives with a moan from his drunken state. He then lays three more tiers before he hears another sound. Fortunato begins shaking his chain, during which time Montresor waits and listens, pleased. When Fortunato ceases clanking, Montresor lays three more layers of stone and uses his torch to look inside the niche. Fortunato screams, causing Montresor to hesitate, but after a moment he joins in the screaming until Fortunato stops. By midnight, only one stone remains, and before Montresor can complete the wall, Fortunato laughs weakly and asks Montresor to end the joke and free him, shouting, "For the love of God, Montresor!" but the latter mocks him, and Fortunato ceases to speak, despite Montresor's calls. The only thing Montresor can hear as he lays the last brick is the jingling of Fortunato's costume. Montresor's heart grows sick, which he blames on the damp catacombs, and he reconstructs the pile of bones, which no one disturbs for the next fifty years. Montresor ends his tale by wishing Fortunato a peaceful rest.
Analysis
Upon a first reading of "The Cask of Amontillado," we might be tempted to view Montresor simply as an unreasonable, cold-blooded murderer. He presents us with only a vague understanding of his motivations, and his pretense of good will and careful manipulation of Fortunato indicates the care with which he has planned Fortunato's death. We again have a classic case of Poe's unreliable narrator, whose guilt and occasional irrationality prevents him from presenting himself truthfully to the reader. However, closer inspection shows that Montresor displays a particularly black sense of humor, with which he amuses both himself and the horrified reader as he leads Fortunato into his trap. He informs the audience of his intentions before he begins the story of his last encounter with Fortunato, and Poe employs both verbal and dramatic irony to convey the darkness of the story.
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what the speaker says contrasts heavily with the speaker's actual message. For example, Poe gives the victim the name of Fortunato, which may mean "fortunate" in Italian, but adds an extra element of cynical humor to Fortunato's jovial and unsuspecting character. Montresor's dialogue makes particular use of verbal irony, since he is aware that Fortunato has no idea what awaits him and thus will totally misinterpret Montresor's words. Montresor tells his victim, "My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met." Fortunato interprets these words to mean that Montresor is fond of him and is glad to run into him. Montresor, on the other hand, actually despises Fortunato and is only happy to see him because Montresor can now carry out his murderous plans. Furthermore, the word "luckily" also recalls the meaning of Fortunato's name and is thus entirely unfitting for Fortunato's fate. Other examples of verbal irony include Montresor's showing of the trowel to Fortunato to prove he is a Mason; Montresor is about to become a mason by imprisoning Fortunato, but he is not a Freemason.
Because both the audience and Montresor are aware of the unfortunate Fortunato's impending death, dramatic irony also plays a role in the comedy of horrors of "The Cask of Amontillado." Dramatic irony is the result of the disconnect that occurs when a character, namely Fortunato, is not aware of the true meaning of his own actions. The very setting of the story is ironic, in that Montresor has chosen the jovial carnival season to enact his murder because no one will be at his estate to witness the crime. Fortunato himself is dressed in a jester's outfit, and the jingling of his jester's bells remind us of the atmosphere of happiness and cheer outside the catacombs. Later, as they drink the Medoc, Fortunato drinks to the dead and buried, not realizing that he is about to join them, and Montresor wryly drinks to Fortunato's health.
The key to the humor in "The Cask of Amontillado" is that despite Montresor's sardonic jabs, Fortunato does not realize the extent of his danger until he has been chained to the granite, and even then he remains too drunk to completely comprehend what has taken place for some time. After repeatedly insulting Luchesi for his lack of intellect, Fortunato shows himself to be even more the dupable fool. Because of Fortunato's drunken and therefore unsuspicious condition, we do not know if Fortunato would have been any cleverer in his normal state. Nevertheless, by the end of the story, Montresor shows himself to be both the more villainous and the more intelligent being. As he tells Fortunato, he comes from a family with a motto and a coat of arms that indicates a long tradition of revenge, and he ignores any pangs of heart sickness by blaming the damp and shutting Fortunato into the burial ground of his avenging family.
As in many of Poe's short stories, Montresor is the first-person narrator and appears to be speaking to a specific audience. However, whereas we can suppose that the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is speaking to some authority figure in order to prove his sanity, in "The Cask of Amontillado" we know very little about Montresor's audience or motivations. The only hint we have comes in the first paragraph, where he implies that his audience already knows something of Montresor's thoughts and personality. The account occurs some fifty years after the event, suggesting that a somewhat older Montresor was never discovered and has not greatly changed his opinion that the crime was justified. Montresor has shown himself to be risk averse, so his audience must be someone that he trusts, perhaps a confessor or a relative. Possibly he is at the end of his life, and now that he can no longer face any severe consequences, he has decided to tell his story. The ambiguity of the circumstances and Montresor's escaping of justice lend a sinister tone to his story, which is further backed by Poe's extensive use of irony.
"Song of Myself"
Summary
Whitman begins this poem by naming its subject – himself. He says that he celebrates himself and that all parts of him are also parts of the reader. He is thirty-seven years old and “in perfect health” and begins his journey “Hoping to cease not till death.” He puts all “Creeds and schools in abeyance” hoping to set out on his own, though he admits he will not forget these things. Whitman then describes a house in which “the shelves are / crowded with perfumes” and he breathes in the fragrance though he refuses to let himself become intoxicated with it. Instead, he seeks to “go to the bank by the wood” and become naked and undisguised where he can hear all of nature around him.
Whitman says that he has heard “what the talkers were talking, the talk of the / beginning and the end,” but he refuses to talk of either. Instead, he rejects talk of the past or future for an experience in the now. This is the “urge” of the world which calls to him. Whitman sees all the things around him – “The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old / and new,” but he knows that “they are not the Me myself.” He remembers in his own past that he once “sweated through fog” with fashionable arguments. He no longer holds these pretensions, however.
Whitman then describes an encounter between his body and soul. He invites his soul to “loafe with me on the grass” and to lull him with its “valved voice.” He tells his soul to settle upon him, “your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d / over upon me…..” He invites his soul to undress him and reach inside him until the soul feels his feet. This will bring him perfect peace “that pass all the argument of the earth….” This peace is the promise of God and is what allows all people to become his brothers and sisters.
Whitman recalls a scene in which a child came to him with a handful of grass and asked him what it was. Whitman has no answer for the child. The grass is “the flag of my disposition” and it is the “handkerchief of the Lord….” It is also the child or a symbol for all of humanity. Whitman sees the grass sprouting from the chests of young men, the heads of old women, and the beards of old men. He remembers all those that have died and recalls that each sprout of grass is a memorial to those that have come before. Whitman reflects that “…to die is different from what any one supposed, and / luckier.”
Whitman then writes a parable. Twenty-eight young men bathe on a sea shore while a young woman, “richly drest” hides behind the blinds of her house on the water’s bank. She observes the men and finds that she loves the homeliest of them. She then goes down to the beach to bathe with them, though the men do not see her. “An unseen hand” also passes over the bodies of the young men but the young men do not think of who holds onto them or “whom they souse with spray.”
Whitman describes groups of people that he stops to observe. The first is a “butcher-boy” sharpening his knife and dancing. He sees the blacksmiths taking on their “grimy” work with precision. Whitman then observes a “negro” as he works a team of horses at a construction site. Whitman admires his chiseled body and “his polish’d and perfect limbs.” He sees and loves this “picturesque giant….” He admits in the next poem that he is “enamour’d…Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods, / Of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes / and mauls… / I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.” In a lengthy section, Whitman describes the work of all people of the land – the carpenter, the duck-shooter, the deacons of the church, the farmers, the machinist, and many more. They often have hard, ordinary lives, yet Whitman proclaims that these people “tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them” and they all “weave the song of myself.”
Whitman describes himself as “old and young” and “foolish as much as…wise….” He is “Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man….” He is of all the land of North America from the South even into Canada. He notes that these are not his own original thoughts, however. These thoughts have been a part of the human condition for all of time. These thoughts are “the grass that grows wherever the land is…the common air that bathes the globe.” His thoughts are for all people, even those that society has considered outcasts.
Whitman wonders why he should adhere to the old ways – prayer or ceremony. He claims that he has “pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair” and found that nothing is as true and sweet as “my own bones.” Whitman understands himself. He is “august” and vindicated by his own nature. “I exist as I am, that is, enough.” He does not have to explain his inconsistencies. Those are only to be accepted. “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” All pleasure and all pain are found within his own self. Whitman describes himself in the basest terms: “Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,” he does not feign interest in manners. He hears the “primeval” voices of democracy and mankind and gives himself over to these forbidden lusts. Above all, Whitman says, “I believe in the flesh and the appetites….”
Analysis
The first thing to note is that Whitman calls his poems “songs.” This insinuates that Whitman feels there is an audible quality to his work; that the true meanings of his poems will not be understood if they are not heard by a listener. Thus, Whitman feels as though he will not be understood as an individual if he is not heard by the world. “Song of Myself,” as the linchpin of this first half of Leaves of Grass, is his attempt to make himself heard.
Whitman’s subject is himself, but it is clear that Whitman means more than just his physical self. Whitman calls himself a universe of meanings. He uses the symbol of his naked self in nature to symbolize his own fusion with the world around him. Whitman’s self is the whole of America and the whole of nature. This is best seen in Whitman’s use of the catalog. A catalog is a literary device used in epic poetry as a rhetorical naming or inventory. Whitman uses a catalog in “Song of Myself” to name a variety of professions and people that he meets on his journey across the States. He says that he becomes part of these people and these people come to compose his own self.
In this section, Whitman first engages the idea of individuality and collectivity. The catalog is Whitman’s example of the collective. This refers back to his opening inscription in which Whitman proclaimed that his work is of the self, both the individual self and the democratic self. The collection of all people in the land forms a self that is distinct from the individual self, yet is similar in that it has its own soul and being.
Whitman uses the metaphor of grass in the sixth section of “Songs of Myself” to try and explain the democratic self. His explanation, he admits, is incomplete. Whitman describes a child coming to him and asking him what is the grass. He has no real answer, meaning that he cannot fully describe the democratic self to those that do not inherently understand it. Whitman can only tell the child that he sees the democratic self in young men and old women, meaning that he sees it in all people. Whitman then takes the metaphor one step farther, telling the child that even the grass that has died and has gone back to the earth is a part of the whole. “Song of Myself” balances the themes of individuality and collectivity as two important ingredients for the democratic experiment of America. This is Whitman’s political argument.
Whitman breaks up “Song of Myself” with a kind of parable. A parable is a short, succinct story that offers a moral or instructive lesson for its hearers. Whitman’s lesson is an erotic one and it is instructive to see how Whitman’s passion for democracy is equated with a sexual and erotic passion. A woman sees twenty-eight men bathing and lusts to be with them. When she joins them, they are together through the power of an “unseen hand.” Whitman uses shocking erotic images of the men and spraying water, a reference to male ejaculation, to arouse the reader. Whitman is telling his readers that they must not only observe the democratic life but they must become one with it. This joining is both mysterious and erotic for those that take part.
Whitman closes “Song of Myself” by trying to name this large, democratic collectivity, yet he finds it impossible. He makes a point to let the reader know that he contradicts himself and that this democratic self is full of inconsistencies. Whitman understands very well that the democracy of America is imperfect, filled with injustice, self-serving, and undermined by the tyranny of the individual. He pares this democratic self down to its essentials: it is primal, the flesh and the appetites. Whitman continues Leaves of Grass with this carnal vision in the next sections.
The Open Boat
Themes, Motifs, and Symbols
Analysis of Major Characters
The Correspondent
For Crane, each crewmember is an archetype that, when joined with his fellow castaways, constitutes part of a microcosm of society. The captain represents the leaders; the cook the followers; the oiler the good, working men; and the correspondent the observers and thinkers. As his profession as a reporter suggests, the correspondent functions as the eyes and voice of the story. Crane underlines this point in his introduction of the characters in the first section. While the cook is cowering on the boat’s floor and the oiler is silently working at his oar, the correspondent watches the waves and wonders why he is caught on the ocean, a question that reveals the correspondent’s search for purpose in life. With this question alone, the correspondent begins to shape our perceptions of the ordeal the men are undergoing.
In the first five sections of “The Open Boat,” the correspondent’s challenges to the sea, which he associates with nature and fate, reveal his desire to make sense of surviving the ship only to drown in the dinghy. Although he understands that nature and fate do not act and think as men do, the correspondent nevertheless goads them because he believes that there is a purpose to nature, that it in some way validates his struggle for survival. The correspondent initially thinks he finds the answer when he considers the “subtle brotherhood of men” that develops among the crew in response to the overwhelming cruelty of nature. At this point, he takes pleasure in the pain caused by rowing in the rough sea because he believes that this pain is the healthy byproduct of his effort at community, which nature has forced them to create and is the only thing that really matters. As the men realize that no one is coming to save them, however, the correspondent comes to lose hope in the “subtle brotherhood” that had seemed to be the noble purpose of submitting to nature’s punishment.
The Captain
The captain is the consummate leader, a man who never shirks from the responsibility he takes for those who have entrusted their safety to him. When he loses his ship to the sea at the beginning of the story, the captain suffers infinitely more than the other survivors. Deprived of his ship, he becomes a broken man who has lost the very thing that grants him his authority. Yet the captain, through his dedication to guiding the men to safety, retains a degree of dignity to go with the ineffable sense of loss he feels at having failed in his charge. In this sense, the captain is at once a majestic and tragic figure, one who has not measured up to the standards he has set for himself but continues to fight for his fellow men. His quiet, steady efforts in the boat are not self-motivated and afford him no personal redemption. Instead, his actions are directed toward the others.
The Oiler (Billie)
Of the four characters in the boat, the oiler represents the everyman, the one whom Crane intends to resemble the average person most closely. The oiler functions as the lynchpin of the crew, holding everyone together through his staunch heroism. He has the fewest delusions about the men’s physical plight, but he never gives in to the hopelessness that the others mask with idle talk about nonexistent opportunities for rescue or meditations about the cruelty of nature. Instead, the oiler maintains an image of strength, warmth, and integrity. He echoes the captain’s orders, reinforcing the social structure of the crew and instilling confidence in the others, whose outlook rises and falls with the waves.
"The Story of an Hour"
Upon hearing the news of Brently Mallard's tragic railroad accident death in the newspaper office, his friend Richards rushes to the Mallards' house, where he and Mrs. Mallard's sister Josephine gently inform the weak-hearted Mrs. Mallard of Brently's death. In response, Louise Mallard weeps openly before going to sit alone in her room.
Exhausted, Mrs. Mallard sits motionless in her armchair by the window and looks at all the beauty of the outside world, occasionally sobbing. She is young, with a calm and strong face, but she stares dully into the sky while she waits nervously for a revelation. Finally, she realizes despite her initial opposition that she is now free. Terror leaves her eyes while her pulse beats faster.
Mrs. Mallard knows that she will mourn her loving husband's death, but she also predicts many years of freedom, which she welcomes. She begins planning her future, in which she will live without the burden of other people. She loved her husband, more or less, but love is nothing to her when compared to independence, she decides, as she murmurs, "Free! Body and soul free!"
Josephine asks Mrs. Mallard to let her enter because she is afraid that the grieving widow will make herself ill, but Mrs. Mallard is actually imagining the happiness of the years ahead. In fact, only the day before she had feared living a long life. Triumphantly, she answers the door and goes downstairs with her arm around Josephine's waist, where Richards awaits.
At this moment, Brently Mallard comes in the front door, having been nowhere near the train disaster. Richards moves in front of him to hide him from seeing his wife when she cries out. By the time the doctors arrive, she has died from "heart disease," purportedly from "the joy that kills."
Analysis
Chopin tackles complex issues involved in the interplay of female independence, love, and marriage through her brief but effective characterization of the supposedly widowed Louise Mallard in her last hour of life. After discovering that her husband has died in a train accident, Mrs. Mallard faces conflicting emotions of grief at her husband's death and exultation at the prospects for freedom in the remainder of her life. The latter emotion eventually takes precedence in her thoughts. As with many successful short stories, however, the story does not end peacefully at this point but instead creates a climactic twist. The reversal--the revelation that her husband did not die after all-- shatters Louise's vision of her new life and ironically creates a tragic ending out of what initially appeared to be a fortuitous turn of events. As a result, it is Mr. Mallard who is free of Mrs. Mallard, although we do not learn whether the same interplay of conflicting emotions occurs for him.
Chopin presents Mrs. Mallard as a sympathetic character with strength and insight. As Louise understands the world, to lose her strongest familial tie is not a great loss so much as an opportunity to move beyond the "blind persistence" of the bondage of personal relationships. In particular, American wives in the late nineteenth century were legally bound to their husbands' power and status, but because widows did not bear the responsibility of finding or following a husband, they gained more legal recognition and often had more control over their lives. Although Chopin does not specifically cite the contemporary second-class situation of women in the text, Mrs. Mallard's exclamations of "Free! Body and soul free!" are highly suggestive of the historical context.
Beyond the question of female independence, Louise seems to suggest that although Brently Mallard has always treated their relationship with the best of intentions, any human connection with such an effect of permanence and intensity, despite its advantages, must also be a limiting factor in some respects. Even Louise's physical description seems to hint at her personality, as Chopin associates her youthful countenance with her potential for the future while mentioning lines that "bespoke repression and even a certain strength." Although neither her sister nor Brently's friend Richards would be likely to understand her point of view, Louise Mallard embraces solitude as the purest prerequisite for free choice.
Mrs. Mallard's characterization is complicated by the fleeting nature of her grief over her husband, as it might indicate excessive egotism or shameless self-absorption. Nevertheless, Chopin does much to divert us from interpreting the story in this manner, and indeed Mrs. Mallard's conversion to temporary euphoria may simply suggest that the human need for independence can exceed even love and marriage. Notably, Louise Mallard reaches her conclusions with the suggestive aid of the environment, the imagery of which symbolically associates Louise's private awakening with the beginning of life in the spring season. Ironically, in one sense, she does not choose her new understanding but instead receives it from her surroundings, "creeping out of the sky." The word "mallard" is a word for a kind of duck, and it may well be that wild birds in the story symbolize freedom.
To unify the story under a central theme, Chopin both begins and ends with a statement about Louise Mallard's heart trouble, which turns out to have both a physical and a mental component. In the first paragraph of "The Story of an Hour," Chopin uses the term "heart trouble" primarily in a medical sense, but over the course of the story, Mrs. Mallard's presumed frailty seems to be largely a result of psychological repression rather than truly physiological factors. The story concludes by attributing Mrs. Mallard's death to heart disease, where heart disease is "the joy that kills." This last phrase is purposefully ironic, as Louise must have felt both joy and extreme disappointment at Brently's return, regaining her husband and all of the loss of freedom her marriage entails. The line establishes that Louise's heart condition is more of a metaphor for her emotional state than a medical reality.
Analysis of Paul’s Case through Aristotle’s tragic form.
Blissful ignorance to painful recognition; it is through this transition that Aristotle states is essential for tragic form. Paul’s Case by Willa Cather stands as no exception. The story focuses upon Paul; an art obsessive, idealistic and deceitful young man who has a distorted sense of reality. He is truly repulsed by his current life on Cordelia Street and wants nothing to do with his family teachers or pears. Paul is blinded by misconception of money and the romance of his idealized art-driven world; after getting a taste of New York the realization that he cannot move forward in this life sets upon him; tragically, Paul kills himself.
From the beginning of the short story great incite toward Paul’s nature is given, “he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his buttonhole.” Paul was a dandy; he was exceedingly conscious of how he looked and held himself. Paul’s appearance was a reflection of the artistic life he desperately sought. Paul was deeply disgusted by his home life and as soon as he turned on to Cordelia Street he described it as “waters close[ing] above his head” Paul seemed to drown in the reality of life. Being brought back into reality was too painful for Paul. The theater was how Paul escaped it all, “It was at the theater and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived”, “This was Paul’s fairy tale, and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love.” Paul immerses himself within his own illusions of romance in order to suffer through the mediocrity of his life. However, Paul’s illusions make him ignorant to the reality of theater life. Paul brags about his wonderful engagements with the stock company but little to his knowledge their life is not as splendid as seemed. “They were hardworking women, most of them supporting indigent husbands or brothers, and they laughed rather bitterly at having stirred the boy to such fervid and florid inventions”. Paul is caught up in his “fairy tale” and can’t seem to break free from it.
Paul steals his father’s money and runs away to New York to live the life he always wanted to. “The flowers, the white linen, the many-colored wineglasses, the gay toilettes of the women, the low popping of corks, the undulating repetitions of the Blue Danube from the orchestra, all flooded Paul’s dream with bewildering radiance”. Paul understood that money is necessary for the upkeep of his lifestyle, but what Paul doesn’t understand is the correlation between work and money. This is displayed when Paul learns about the young boys who had rose to wealth from nothing “he was interested in the triumphs of these cash boys who had become famous, though he had no mind for the cash-boy stage”. Paul never engaged in anything, he just floated along in life, even when dipped into his new life, he had no desire to truly be a part of it; he simply watched from his “turret” window. “he knew now, more than ever, that money was everything, the wall that stood between all he loathed and all he wanted” Paul had no willingness to become what he was supposed to be and had no desire to work towards what he wanted to be. Out of money and with his father coming to get him, Paul realized he could not progress in this life. Despite this Paul still felt he had “made the best of it” and “lived the life he was meant to live”. In spite of this, Paul kills himself.
Paul’s Case is a tragedy. Paul failed to see the world beyond the beauty of art; the idea of work repulsed him because he felt he was entitled to elegance. His misunderstanding of the artistic world and of the nature of money caused him to act with romantic impulsiveness. George Washington, John Calvin, and the motto, “Feed my Lambs,” repulsed him, as did the inclination to the civil and working responsibilities they represented. Paul came to the recognition that he could neither progress further in his current life or return to his old one. Because of this Paul killed himself in the most violent of manners. It was inevitable that Paul would soon burn out “like a faggot in a tempest”.