Nathaniel Hawthorne and Loneliness

In the various pieces I've read of the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, there were numerous different examples of loneliness, from “The Minister’s Black Veil” to “The Birthmark”, his prose exudes solitude.

This is not terribly surprising considering Hawthorne’s personality and life’s story. For his whole life, the author was a shy and introverted individual, and for over a decade, he was better described as a hermit. A short biography with quotations from the author himself characterizes this period with the following:

“… After graduation [from Bowdoin College], [Hawthorne] returned to Salem and a life of seclusion that lasted for twelve years. Although he was writing and publishing during this time, he was keenly aware of his unusual existence. In 1837, he wrote to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a Bowdoin College Classmate, ‘I have been carried apart from the main current of life … I have secluded myself from society … I have made a captive of myself and put me into a dungeon; and now I cannot find the key to let me out … ‘“

In two of the selections we read, “The Minister’s Black Veil” and “Young Goodman Brown”, were stories of loneliness brought on by the guilt of a transgression hidden from the world. The isolation of the main characters in each of these tales is caused by some perceived sin that causes them to feel bitter and separated from their communities.

For Reverend Hooper, his sin is not known to us, but he donned a black veil for many years of his life, refusing to show his face to those he spoke the word of God to. The Reverend said of his adornment “’If it be a sign of mourning,’ replied Mr. Hooper, ‘I, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil.’” This veil put an unreachable distance between him and his congregation as well as the love interest, Elizabeth.

For young Goodman Brown, his secret sin is his interaction with the devil, in Hawthorne’s partially Faustian/partially Garden of Eden tale. He is forever changed by his night of visions with the dark figure. He was once loved and revered by his community of Salem as a nice young man but by the time of his death, the village could not even think of anything positive to put on his headstone. It remained only with a name. “They carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom,” to quote the tale itself.

The difference between these two stories lies in the author’s disclosure of each character’s reasoning behind their withdrawal from society. For Hooper, his isolation was not exactly chosen. He knew perhaps that his veil would cause problems with the un-accepting community, but he didn’t want it to happen. Young Goodman Brown’s guilt at his sin, on the other hand, caused him to retreat in shame and bitterness from his loved ones and townspeople.

(this one is also unfinished... sorry all)

Irving and Mutability

Mutability, or the state of constant flux, is prevalent in many of Washington Irving's short stories. While change may not be rapid or apparent to a person present in the time of the story, changes continue to happen. Change happens in society, as well as in nature. Irving, like many other romantic authors, was extremely optimistic about changes, though he always seemed reminiscent of the “days of old.” Romantics valued natural mutability but seems to fear man-induced changes to the world. This author is no difference.

Obvious changes are present in Washington’s famous story of “Rip Van Winkle.” But the least obvious are the ones first introduced in the tale, setting the demeanor of the main character and of the story itself. Irving writes:

“Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers.”

Stating that he would do anything to get away from his grating wife, Rip set into motion a chain of events that would make him lose a sizable portion of his years. Van Winkle set out into the Catskill Mountains on a fishing and hunting outing with his dog, Wolf. He decided to take a nap under a tree, after exhausting himself climbing up the hills. He set his gun against a tree and apparently falls asleep.

He wakes up to find his gun an old rusted piece of junk with a rotted stock. And his companion, Wolfe is nowhere to be found. Still, Rip blames the corroded rifle on thieves, who took his good weapon and replaced it with a worthless one. He also believes that Wolfe wandered off into the woods.

Van Winkle is no longer a young-ish spry man, he is hit with a bout of rheumatism, and he struggles to walk as swiftly as he was used to. He blames this on his recent nap in the Catskills; that “these mountain beds do not agree with” him.

It is not until Rip travels down into his village, looking to go back to his nagging wife, does he finally realize what has happened to him. Half expecting to hear his spouse half-way down the mountain, he is stunned when she is nowhere to be found. He enters his home, thinking it would be nearly as he left it, but finds it abandoned and un-kept.

Also, perhaps most distressing to the socialite Rip, his bar has changed names as well as crowds. He recognized no one in the bar, but he still seemed to fit in just fine. Previously adorned with a portrait of the British King, George III, the bar now sported a new George, Revolutionary General Washington. Mr. Van Winkle had completely missed the American Revolution, as well as the Constitutional period. Irving’s way of describing it is this:

“… elections - members of congress – liberty – Bunker’s Hill – heroes of seventy-six – and other words which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.”


Rip finds out that his wife is dead and gone, and his daughter is full grown and married. She tells of the story which most of the villagers accepted of her long-missing father: “His dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell.”

While many things change, some things remain the same. So it was with Rip Van Winkle. Even after sleeping for twenty long and eventful years, this now older man was quickly back into his old mannerisms. He “resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of the time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor.”

[this essay is incomplete, I will try and finish it tomorrow]

James Fenimore Cooper & the American Action Hero

Justifiably, James Fenimore Cooper has long been hailed as the originator of the action hero in American literature. His Natty Bumppo appealed and still appeals to the American attitude of rugged individualism and hard-headed defiant nature. This character opposed the industrialization of America and moved away from it to suit himself. He went to the woods, as a trapper and an adventurer.

The character of Bumppo was used to espouse a return to nature and revulsion of new technologies that subtract the human element of work that was valued so much within the working classes of American society.

American values were just being established as a unique and singular national strain and the new action-packed life of Natty Bumppo and friends greatly appealed to the developing national identity beginning to spread across the country. Working class, “leather-apron” men were viewing Cooper’s creation as a new national symbol for the blue-collared, the individuals that comprised the lower classes of the United states economic ladder.

Bumppo represented what every young boy wanted to grow up to be and what ever middle-aged man wished he had been. He was brave, fearless and seemingly invincible; he was also knowledgeable in most things and immeasurably resourceful. Women wished they could tame him and men just wanted to be something like him.

A short biography of the author gives the following description of Cooper’s success:

“His greatest achievement was his portrayal of the age-old theme of innocence struggling in a paradise lost, of frontier Americans striving in an Edenic American wilderness that, for all its nobility and grandeur, is being overwhelmed by the irresistible onrush of civilization. It was a theme embodied in the character and the actions of his archetypal hero, Natty Bumppo, whose flights from society and domesticity mark him as the first of the symbolic rebels in American writing and one of the most memorable in all of fiction.”

From Bumppo would emerge countless knock-off characters, as it seems happens with every run-away fad. This idea of a romantic and heroic rugged man has carried on into contemporary society in the form of such popular personalities as Indiana Jones and James Bond. Cooper’s serialized novels created an archetypical hero from an appealing tough, yet charming shell.

Another aspect of Cooper’s creation that carried on into modern popular culture action heroes is the inability of these characters to settle down. It is though these people are “married” to their cause and cannot settle down or stop working towards their goals. For Bumppo, his life-connection was with Mother Nature. For James Bond, it is his spy work, protecting the world from human threat. Indiana Jones was wed to archaeology. Incorporated into these newer characters is an enhanced sexual appeal; the “Bond girls” and Indiana Jones’ different woman every movie.

The author’s greatest due should be given for the fact that he has forever fascinated the American public’s unique magnetism to the underdog - the small man. He drew in his audience with tales of places he had never seen and wildernesses he would never venture through. His characters may have been “one-dimensional” and his plots riddled with holes, but he was a pioneer in the field of American novel-writing.

Natty Bumppo stood for freedom for many of these people, who were grasping for a more identifiable hero that they could admire and strive to be. And though many of Cooper’s stories were riddled with inaccuracies, the people ate up every word of the romantic Leatherstocking Tales.

Later in the nineteenth century, Mark Twain, one of Cooper’s most virulent critics, would tear apart the compilation of romantic novels; showing them in a less glamorous light, but they remained a mainstay in American literature. Twain held, in his “literary offenses” lecture, that Cooper’s characters boring and badly developed, that many of his facts were misleading to readers and that his research was poor.

Some of Natty’s most memorable acquaintances were members of various Indian tribes, most notably his friend Chingachgook. These characters are most easily described as noble savages. They represent what romantics of Cooper’s age idealized. I believe Cooper wished to give the Native American’s a better reputation than the one most un-informed American townspeople seemed to hold during this time period and well after. This is interesting considering this author received much of his information about the Indians from books and witness accounts. He never ventured into the wilderness himself to collect first hand information and experience the Natives for himself. But his opinions on the topic of Native Americans were very similar to many romantic authors.

Cooper may not have been a perfect author, nor a perfect person; but his concepts and imagination sparked a trend in the common American’s mind that there can be that single person who can make a difference. That person can be individualistic and stubborn, brave and strong, charming and resourceful as well as caring. This was the beginning of the American action hero that continues to spike box office sales to this very day.

Poe & His Women

Edgar Allan Poe’s naïveté regarding love and beguilement would eventually cause him decades of pain, hysteria and heartache. He never had much luck with the gentler gender, having a number of important women he cared for die before his own premature death at 40 years of age.

Perhaps most importantly, his mother, Elizabeth died when Edgar was only two years old, leaving him to the care of a foster family. Later, as an early teen, the first woman he is really taken with, Mrs. Jane Stanard dies of suspected tuberculosis. This is the first spark for Poe’s paranoiac theory that his life involving females is cursed. Mrs. Stanard is also the main influence for one of Poe’s earliest promising poems, “To Helen”.

In this piece, “Helen” is supposedly the famous, or infamous depending on recollections, Helen of Troy: the woman whose face launched a thousand ships. In the launching of these ships, this woman’s love caused heartache and pain to countless families on both sides of the Aegean Sea. Poe seems to be attempting to compare the heartache he feels from his feelings for Mrs. Stanard to the immense pain caused by the love of Paris and Helen.

The female of “To Helen” serves no purpose as a functioning character, but rather is used to describe Poe’s ideal beauty, later to be reflected in all of his real-life love interests. This statuesque, curly-haired beauty loosely resembles nearly every significant woman in the author’s short tragic life; from Elizabeth Poe to his cousin/wife Virginia Clemm Poe, each one is a fit to this mould.

Later in his teens, Edgar was taken with a girl named Sarah Royster. They courted for nearly a year, but their time together was interrupted by Edgar’s decision to attend the University of Virginia. When Poe leaves the U of VA about nine months later, he came home to find Sarah engaged to another man. Mr. Royster did not approve of Sarah and Edgar’s relationship and arranged for his daughter to be wed to some one he deemed more appropriate. This ended another chapter in Poe’s love life, leaving him with an even more despondent attitude regarding the opposite sex and also would help influence his portrayal of women in his stories and poems later in his career.

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Over a decade later, “Ligeia” was written. The first sentence of this story already gives the reader an air of oddity. This woman, the title character of the story, is the most perfect woman the narrator has ever met, yet he cannot seem to remember when he first met her. Nor can he remember her last name, or any of her family. He seems to have no personal connection at all with the stunningly beautiful Ligeia.

The only thing narrator seems concerned about is the brilliant Ligeia’s outward appearance and manner, specifically the lady’s eyes. Poe spends a considerable amount of time focused on the beauty of the woman’s eyes. Eventually, Ligeia becomes ill, something that could have been forecasted, if the reader has read enough of EA Poe’s pieces to understand his vision regarding women such as the beautiful Ligeia. Her eyes are what indicate to the narrator that his lady is not the same as she once was. The spark of life is gone from her dark eyes. Shortly after this, the woman dies and the narrator mourns.

At this point in “Ligeia”, it has become apparent that the storyteller is a deranged opium-head. He makes numerous references to being high on the midnight oil. It’s my opinion that the narrator was in such a drug-induced stupor that he manifested the lovely Ligeia. My opinion is that his yen sleep was so deep that he completely fabricated the whole episode of Ligeia, his ideal woman.

The more realistic and perhaps blander opposite of the title character, Lady Rowena Trevanion, is the next woman in the narrator’s life. She is fair haired and blue-eyed and she is not nearly as deep as Ligeia, carrying on only “sweet conversation.” But that is what Rowena was intended to be, a sweet and perhaps dull blonde maiden. She does not compare to the narrator’s previous flawless manifestation and of course she also must die.

Rowena is described less vaguely than the seemingly perfect Ligeia. To me it seems that it is possible that neither woman is factual; that both were concocted to suit the opium-addicted narrator’s moods. The lonely dope-head was lonely and created for himself the perfect woman, and after it all seemed ideal and he began to settle with the worldly and wonderful Ligeia, she feel ill and died. To fill the void, the narrator creates for himself a kind of filler, if you will, in Rowena. She is by no means comparable to the dark and mysterious beauty, but she is bearable, and he even finds that he is fond of her. He is never really happy with Rowena, the way he was with Ligeia, and in a moment of weakness he wishes that he could have the former back. Strangely enough, Rowena then falls ill and dies. And even more bizarrely, Ligeia inhabits the dead woman’s shell and comes back to life.

Poe uses his narrator’s addiction combined with the compatible capricious nature and runs with that dependence. My opinion is that Poe’s intention was to have his character’s mood to influence life and death with his female characters. The women of “Ligeia” serve as pawns to the disposition of the unhinged storyteller.

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“The Fall of the House of Usher” is another ostensibly common use of female characters by Edgar Allan Poe. He seems fascinated with the theory of men and women both having “masculine” and “feminine” sides to their personalities and brains. I believe that in this particular story, he goes to an exceptional extreme to portray this long-held hypothesis.

The narrator’s acquaintance, Roderick Usher lived in a dreary and dark estate with his twin sister Madeline. In this particular tale, I believe that Roderick represents the idyllic portion of this single person’s personality whereas Madeline represents the flawed and materialistic section. Once Madeline falls ill and dies, she leaves the House of Usher, both figuratively and realistically, unstable, leading to its collapse. With this implication, perhaps Poe was trying to point out the importance of the female perspective and influence upon Victorian society; and especially within the family structure.

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Another example of Poe’s use of women in his work is that of the critically acclaimed “Annabel Lee.” In this poem, the narrator describes his perfect life with his perfect love, the lovely Annabel Lee. But as is the case with most female Poe characters, the woman only takes on a corporeal form, never developing any deeper than the skin. Annabel Lee serves only to be loved and lost, just as the loved and lost Ligeia. She is present in the piece to live briefly, be loved and die in order to break the heart and fracture the sanity of the narrator.

Annabel Lee is obviously a literary version of the shortly deceased Virginia, who passed only 2 years before this poem was published. His description of Annabel as a “maiden” gives the reader and impression of purity and innocence; as he himself viewed his dead wife/cousin. The female character of this poem is used as a tool to express the author’s long-lasting grief at the loss of his wife of eleven years.

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Poe used female characters in a number of different ways, having them represent women of his own life as well as purely fictional ones. He mostly focused on pain and grief, as is typical with his writing. A couple of his female persons have psychological symbolism; representing theories of contemporary psychology. Whatever their function within Poe’s writings, the female characters are always the most complex and compelling of the tales.

William Cullen Bryan and Romantic Poetry

William Cullen Bryant was the first American poet to received European acclaim as well as in the United States. His poems of the beauty of America’s natural settings captivated both people who lived amongst it and people who had never seen it before. His biography in the Anthology says that " His best poetry had been written not of European nightingales and Roman or Greek landscapes, but of American sparrows, and of American prairies, and of the trees and flowers and grass of New England."

Like Romantic writers on both sides of the Atlantic, Bryant was fascinated with the supernatural, the spiritual and the mystic. His poem "Thanatopsis", or "meditation on death", is a perfect example of this element of romanticism. In this poem, the author focuses on nature and its involvement with death. Death is a part of life to this thinkers, artists and authors. They believe that death is only a beginning, and in their pantheistic thought, they believe that you return from where you came: back into the earth and to Mother Nature. To them, death is not a terrible thing, but a beautiful and eventual one.

Nature and death are inextricably linked according to the reasoning of the aforementioned poem. The poet recommends that if you feel ill at heart and on the brink of death, you should go to nature to calm your soul:

When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee shudder, and grow sick at heart; -
Go forth, under the open sky and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around -
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air
Comes a still voice. - "

This concept, that nature can calm the sick soul, is common among primitive cultures such as the Native Americans of the New England region. It is typical of northern Romantics to use examples of Native custom such as this. These writers emphasized with the American Indians struggle to stay within their own culture, in nature. The concept is also common among later Transcendentalists, such as Emerson and Thoreau. They held that the town-dominated and fast paced world was not for them and that the natural way of life would better suit their personalities.

Also typical of romantic poets, Bryant feminizes nature, saying:

"To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language;"

The poet continues his praise of all things natural in his poems "Yellow Violet" and "To a Waterfowl" as well as in "The Prairies." Bryant continues to idealize the landscapes of the American countryside in the latter poem, praising the beauty and wonderment of nature in great detail. His description of rolling wheat fields and colorful wildflowers is absolutely breathtaking in its mental imagery. Here is an example of what I specifically mean:

"I behold [the Prairies] for the first time
And my heart swells, while the dilated sight
Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch.
In airy undulation, far away,
As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,
Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,
And motionless forever. - Motionless?
No - they are all unchained again. The clouds
Sweep over with their shadows, and beneath,
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eyes ..."

In his famous poem, "A Forest Hymn", Bryant portrays prairies and forests almost as sanctuaries meant for worship. His short biography in the Anthology makes the point that, "That amiable nature is evident in the soothing wildernees described in his ... ‘Forest Hymn,’ which portrayed nature’s groves as more noble than man’s cathedrals"

While on the topic of worship and cathedrals, I wish to take a tangent to a slightly off-topic matter. Bryant refers to God in his poetry, as a creator and protector, but also as a god who is present in all living things. He still seems to reject the structure and binding nature of the Church’s rules. He believes in a greater being who is a deity of nature and the wilderness. This is best expressed in the first two stanzas of "A Forest Hymn." The poet speaks of God’s creation surrounding him: the trees, sunlight crows, and many other related natural wonders.
Also in this piece, akin to Irving, Bryant speaks with optimism about changes and the cycle of like; the perpetual work of nature:

"My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence round me - perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished yet renewed
Forever."

While simple compared with later romantic and transcendental writer’s work, Bryant’s verses are compelling and even relaxing to read. They give an atmosphere of calm, easing the mind with poem of the forest and the plains. This is probably the main reason why they have survived the test of time.

Nirvana and Life - personal reflection

Nirvana used to be what I lived for. The music, the purported lifestyle and ideology were exactly what a 12 year old victim of a divorce was looking to latch onto.

Nevermind was the first CD I ever bought with my own money, and to this day it remains my favourite album of all-time. From “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to the hidden “Endless Nameless”, I worshipped and memorized every single lyric and guitar chord.

I still hold the opinion that the four track line-up of “Drain You”, “Lounge Act”, “Stay Away”, and “On a Plain” rival any other four consecutive tunes on ANY album EVER.

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I once heard Nevermind described as the Nirvana album that one would be most likely to marry, were it a woman. I believe that would be the same choice for me as well; with In Utero as a good friend of mine that I found beguiling, Incesticide would be my eccentric best friend and Unplugged would be the person I could bare my soul to. Bleach would be like an old girlfriend who shows up once and a while to hang out. From the Muddy Banks is like a little brother to the rest of the albums, great in its own regard but feeding off of the greatness of the other works.
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I was just old enough to be deeply affected, like thousands of other teenagers, when Cobain killed himself in April of 1994. I was supremely pissed off at Kurt for a short period of time, until I put it all into perspective; his life and his situation: addiction and health problems. Suddenly I felt empathy for his tortured personality.

Perhaps he was right in quoting Neil Young; sometimes it is better to burn out than to fade away. Think of all the other “great” musical icons that died around the same age: Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, and Brian Jones, all dead at 27 years of age. It’s a tragically young age to die, but had they lived to old age, they may not be viewed as such enigmas, eidolons.

Dreams

"Whoso regardeth dreams is like him that catcheth at a shadow, and followeth after the wind."

Ecclesiasticus 34:2.


And in my dreams I saw her, staring piercingly at me. I hadn’t seen her for years, yet here she was staring at me. Never before mindful of her pulchritude, her radiance, I was immediately stung by feelings I was familiar with only from mindless hours spent watching bad 80’s movies.

Her eyes looked bluer than I’d ever remembered them, and in those eyes shone a confused passion, a sense of need and a vulnerable heart. For me, and only myself can I speak, heart-ache pressed me to walk across that room and embrace her tightly. Her manner seemed accepting and even desiring to be held. But I stood fast.

And it was here I awoke, with her vivid blue eyes still burning their mark on my mind.

Completely floored by the sudden rush of emotion upon waking from this dream, I was flooded with images of this little girl from my own childhood. Now a beautiful and wonderful young woman, this star, this sparkling fountain was hidden in my mind for nearly a third of my life, only to now resurface as a latent temptress.

Dreams can be strangely lucid sometimes, and other times incredibly nebulous. This particular cerebral concoction was partially each of these things. I sat in bed thinking of the childish way we used to mingle and how to me, she was always just another friend. I still sat, shocked, amongst my warm covers, longing to see her and perhaps even to hold her.

But, that too is probably just a dream; and most times dreams will not come true.