Beatrix Potter - Morality Teacher

The name Beatrix Potter is often associated with the cute children’s books created at the beginning of the 20^th century.  Potter was born in 1866 and grew up in a well-to-do household in London.  She did not attend school, but rather, was taught by governesses, which limited her interaction with other children besides her younger brother, Bertram.  Each summer, her father rented a country house for three months, at first in Scotland and later in the Lake District, which allowed Potter to explore the countryside, learning about plants and animals from her own observation.  Her career as a children’s storyteller and illustrator began in 1902 when The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published.  She continued to produce about two books each year until 1910 and in all, she wrote twenty-three Peter Rabbit books.

These books have more to offer than just cute animals and beautiful illustrations – Potter’s short books also offer wonderful lessons of morality for children.  Her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, teaches children to listen to their elders, as they know what is best.  This is demonstrated by the rabbit, Peter, who after his mother tells him not to go into Mr. McGregor’s garden, does exactly that, and ends up being chased by Mr. McGregor.  Had Peter listened to his mother, he would not have gotten sick, and could have enjoyed bread, milk, and blackberries for supper with his sisters.  The story continues in 1904 with the book, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny.  In this book, Peter is visited by his cousin Benjamin Bunny, who convinces Peter to go to Mr. McGregor’s garden to retrieve his coat and shoes because Mr. McGregor is gone to town for the day.  While inside the garden, Peter appears nervous and is constantly checking his surroundings.  Peter and his cousin have a run-in with Mr. McGregor’s cat, but are saved by Mr. Benjamin Bunny, Benjamin’s father.  Peter returns home to his mother, who is happy to see that Peter has found his coat and shoes.  Perhaps the lesson in this story is that if you experience a bad feeling about something, go with your instincts and turn around before you get into trouble.

Beatrix Potter’s twenty-three children’s books teach important lessons amongst the cute illustrations of cuddly animals.  These books continue to be widely read today and their moral lessons still resonant with children around the world.

The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter. London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1989. Print.

Narrator Reliability

Reliability is an important quality in a person, no matter their gender or their age.  In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Villette, the main character Lucy is considered an unreliable narrator because she does not always tell the truth, and she withholds information from the reader.  Withholding information and reliability does not just apply to narrators of stories; it also applies to real-life situations.  An example of this is the upcoming trial of a former Auschwitz camp guard in Germany.  Oskar Gröning, now ninety-three years old, has been charged with complicity in the murder of 300,000 Holocaust victims.  During World War II, Gröning was referred to as ‘the accountant of Auschwitz,’ as he was assigned to confiscate the luggage and money of prisoners arriving at Auschwitz concentration camp, in his capacity as an SS guard.  On Monday, April 20, around sixty joint plaintiffs that were due to give evidence expressed a wish that Gröning would use the trial to admit to having been more than just a passive witness to the horrors of the concentration camp.  Christophe Heubner, a German writer who will follow the trial, was quoted stating, “The open wounds caused by the non-existent justice system is an enduring scandal that has lasted since Auschwitz until today and caused huge indignation among the survivors.  The fact that most perpetrators died without seeing the inside of a courtroom, with most of them continuing to live in the middle of society without being confronted with their guilt, is not something we can change.  But it’s very important that these survivors can testify as witnesses now.”

As a history major, I see read flags all over this situation.  Historians are taught to be wary of sources and even people’s testimonies that have been taken down many years after an event took place.  That is why this is alarming because Gröning was twenty years old at the time he worked at Auschwitz, and is now being put on trial seventy-three years after the fact.  How does the court know that the testimonies given by Gröning and the witnesses are reliable?  Seventy years is a large gap in time, where memories could fade or become skewed due to new information released on the issue.  This is very similar to reading Villette and questioning Lucy’s reliability as a narrator.  The information Lucy provides must be evaluated for truth, rather than being taken at face value.  The same can be said for the witnesses of this trial because their testimonies may not be reliable seventy years after their time at Auschwitz.

Connolly, Kate. “Former Auschwitz Death Camp Guard to Go On Trial in Germany.” The Guardian. 20 Apr. 2015. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

Consumption in "Dracula"

Literary criticism is a wonderful way for readers to gain new insights into novels, as criticism often provides new ways to look at a text.  Criticism is great for texts with many details to examine, such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  This 19^th century novel is filled with symbolism, allegories, and even a unique writing style, that has been analyzed since its publication.  Tanya Pikula in her article, “Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and Late-Victorian Advertising Tactics: Earnest Men, Virtuous Ladies, and Porn,” explains the sexuality in the novel that Stoker may or may not have purposefully chose to include in his novel.

Critics of the 19^th century may not have noticed the “quasi-pornographic” elements of Dracula, as today’s society has a hyperawareness for such material.  The first critics of Dracula would have focused more on the novel’s sensationalism, its emphasis on medieval lore, 19^th century technology, and its ability to terrify.  Pikula makes several important points in her article regarding the sexuality in the novel.  She states, “It is not surprising that many commentators ignore the fact that Dracula is first and foremost a text about material consumption: the sucking and the biting that transpire in the text are unarguably erotic and beg for a psychoanalytic explanation (as oral fetish)” (288).  It is important to consider why consumption is the choice monstrosity in the text, the root of all evil.  In addition to the cravings indulged in by the vampires, the text is strewn with characters that wish to and/or do consume in immoderate amounts.  Pikula describes that the female figures in the novel are vulnerable to Dracula’s powers because of the relationship between women and an immoderate desire to consume.  The specific reference Pikula makes is to the comment Lucy Westernra makes about why a woman cannot marry three men. The women are vulnerable to Dracula’s desire to possess, which is explicit in the words he uses, such as “my” and “mine.”

The desire for possession is a trait that Dracula seems to pass on to the women that he infects, according to Pikula.  She states, “Female consumers, the text seems to imply, are so bent on their never-ending hunger that they are on their way to forgetting the sacred feminine role upon which is founded the family, the quintessential bastion and breeding ground of Victorian morality” (291).  Lucy’s developing vampiric state is betrayed by her seductiveness, as she asks Arthur for a kiss before her death and tries to lure him to her crypt.  She expresses herself as both sexually aggressive and having a desire to hold the object of her yearning.  The capstone of the female vampire monstrosity is their rejection of the nurturing mother role.  This is apparent when Dracula’s female companions feed on a child, while Lucy becomes the “bloofer lady” with a fetish for young blood.  Pikula’s criticism of Draula is just one way of further exploring the many concepts this novel has to offer.

Pikula, Tanya. "Bram Stoker's "Dracula" And Late-Victorian Advertising Tactics: Earnest Men, Virtuous Ladies, And Porn." English Literature In Transition, 1880-1920 55.3 (2012): 283-302. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

Victorian Social Reform

My history professor was right when she told me she has noticed a theme amongst my research papers.  I do admit that I enjoy researching events that launched social reforms, including Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and the sinking of the Titanic.  It should come to no surprise then that I was inspired to write a blog entry about Charles Dickens’ short work, “Gin Shops.”  In this piece, Dickens describes the gin shops in the slums of St. Giles frequented by the London poor.  It was originally published in The Evening Chronicle on February 19, 1835.  Dickens was angry at the people who condemned the symptoms of poverty without addressing its cause.  This is supported in the following quotation from the story:

“Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater; and until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade a half-famished wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance which, divided among his family, would furnish a morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendor.”

Dickens’ argument is that in order to end the drinking problem, society needs to stop the source of the misery.  With cleaner streets and better housing conditions, people living in the “slums” would not spread sicknesses as often, young children would not die, and fathers or mothers would not consider drinking away their problems when they have families to take care of.  Essentially, these “peasants” go to the gin shops in order to escape reality, which oftentimes is too horrible for them to face.  They do not have anything to look forward to when they go home, except for filth and misery.  Something as eye-opening as this short sketch published in a newspaper would probably have elicited some sort of reform or at least an investigation into the truths of Dickens' descriptions.

How Do I Love Thee?

What exactly is love?  This is a question I believe has existed in civilization ever since man and woman were brought together on this earth.  There are terms that can be applied to love in general, such as trust, responsibility, and appreciation, but love is defined differently be each couple.  Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband, Robert Browning, both Victorian poets of the 19^th century, are perfect examples for this quest to discover what love is.  Elizabeth loved her husband so much that she wrote 44 sonnets contained in the Sonnets from the Portuguese collection, as a personal dedication of love to Robert. That is 616 lines of poetry expressing love; wow!  Perhaps the culmination of these sonnets is sonnet 43, often referred to as “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints.  I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth uses the Italian Petrarchan sonnet form to structure her poem.  This style divides the fourteen-line sonnet into two parts – the octave (the first 8 lines) and the sestet (the final six lines).  This is different from the famous style of the Shakespearean sonnet that features three quatrains of four lines each, ending with a two line couplet.  Another technical aspect of this poem is its rhythm, which is iambic pentameter (five iams per line – da-DUM).  An example of this is the following line “How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.”

A unique quality of this sonnet is the way Elizabeth wrote it, leaving the gender of both the speaker and the beloved ambiguous.  This is perhaps what makes it such a well-known poem – because it can be exchanged between man to woman or vice versa.  Elizabeth begins her sonnet with the question, “How do I love thee?”  She then spends the rest of the sonnet explaining to her beloved how much she loves him.  The turn of the poem occurs at the beginning of the sestet, when Elizabeth tells her beloved that she has been hurt in the past and that has affected how she feels love.  I remember reading this poem several times in high school, but re-reading it for this class has had a greater impact on me now, as I am preparing to marry my high school sweetheart of three and a half years this May.  I am even considering reading this poem during the ceremony – a true testament of how well Elizabeth Barrett Browning captured what it means to love someone.

19th Century Beauty

In addition to reading many well-known British novels this semester, my class is also analyzing poetry written by a number of distinguished British poets.  My favorite thus far has been Lord Byron, the early nineteenth-century Romantic poet.  The poem I have analyzed, “She Walks in Beauty,” is perhaps his most famous poem.  It may only be three stanzas long, but great meaning can be drawn from it by studying the rhyme scheme and the following literary devices: alliteration, consonance, and assonance.

She walks in beauty, like the night

      Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
      Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
      Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

      Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
      Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
      How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
      So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
      But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
      A heart whose love is innocent!
     

The first observation to make is the rhyme scheme, ABABAB.  This particular poem is an iambic tetrameter, which means it has four sets of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (da-DUM).  The following is an example of this style: “She walks in beauty, like the night.”  The only line that does not fit this pattern is line four: “Meet in her aspect and her eyes.”  This line starts with a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, making it a metrical inversion because it reverses the usual pattern of the poem.  Our attention is naturally drawn here because it sounds different from the previous lines.  The literary devices used in this poem give it a sense of musicality, which in itself is beautiful.

The tone of this poem is one of admiration.  The speaker never stops telling the audience how beautiful this woman is, inside and out.  He begins with a simile comparing her beauty to the night, which is unusual because night is typically seen as dark and eerie.  This comparison is a contrast to William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day.”  Byron reverses Shakespeare’s simile by stating that her beauty is like the night.  In the second stanza, he describes how the woman’s beauty is a contrast between light and dark. The woman has dark (raven) hair, which offers a contrast to her fair complexion.  He even goes as far to say how pure her mind is in line twelve.  The speaker makes it apparent to the audience throughout the poem, that he thinks this woman is truly beautiful, yet he concludes the poem by stating that her love is only innocent, although he seems to hope it could be something more.

Introduction - British Literature 1798-Present

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes origin from emotion recollected in tranquility,” stated William Wordsworth, a poet of the Romantic period.  Literature of this period emphasized intense emotions and free expressions of the writers.  Wordsworth’s emotional approach to writing is how I am going to view the poetry and novels I will be reading in my British Literature class.  Prior to Wordsworth, poetry was not necessarily about expressing emotions, but because of his work, writers would continue to express their deepest feelings and emotions into the 21^st century.

 I am now a sophomore at Silver Lake College of the Holy Family and have added history as my second major.  This semester I am taking British Literature 1798 – Present to continue exploring the great literary works in British literature.  As an English and history major, I can appreciate the effects literature has on history and the way it impacts society.  Of particular interest to me is how literature is divided into periods based on common themes and contrasting ideas.  In this class, I am looking forward to exploring different authors, from poets to novelists, in order to understand British life from the 19^th to 21^st century.  There are three texts we are focusing on in this class: Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.  I have not read any works by either of these authors before, so I am greatly looking forward to spending time with each one.  During the class, we will also be focusing our attention on several poets, including Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Dickens, Browning, Hopkins, and several others.