I surprisingly really liked this class a lot. To be perfectly honest, I left the first day when I realized how much work it was going to be and that we were going to be reading Gothic Literature and wanted to drop, but the only thing that stopped me was that the teacher was nice, and if I transferred classes who knows if I would get another great teacher. So I stuck with it.

I truly had no idea what Gothic Literature was when I entered the class, and had only my preconceived notion about Goths and knew that they kind of freak me out, so I figured I would hate this genre. At first I definitely struggled with the stories for two reasons: 1. I hadn't read a novel in over a year, and 2. I couldn't really understand the dialect in Castle of Otranto. By the end of the course I felt that I learned a great deal, my horizons had broadened, and actually enjoy reading now.

I overall enjoyed just about every reading. The Castle of Otranto probably is my least favorite of all the narratives we read, but it still wasn't too bad. My favorites came at the end of the class when we started reading Southern Gothic. I think SG is a great genre in its own and I can see how it correlates with many films I've studied. Maybe it would be cool to add Fight Club to your list of readings and then watch it too. I think it would be really fun to read at least the short story and see where Palahniuk started it all from.

Thanks again for a great class! I would take it again if I could. Hope to see you around campus.

Brothers

I am not completely sure why Cable portrays the brothers the way he does. Jean's personality of a bold adventurer starkly contrasts that of his book loving younger brother. On top of their differences in personalities comes their difference in age, as Jean has thirty years over Jacques. Having the two brothers be so different from one another allows for a perfect set up to this mysterious story. The entire time I read it I thought that Jean had actually killed his younger brother or some sort of foul play had taken place, but to find that Jacques was actually infected with leprosy and had been hidden away by his brother all those years was a nice twist at the end. It showed off the ignorance of the townspeople and had several moral messages throughout, such as the effects of spreading rumors. Overall, I enjoyed the story a lot, but it left me confused in certain aspects - like what could the mute African slave have been symbolic of?

More Than a Story

I completely agree with Charles Warner's argument that “[Goophered] adapts the folk practice of "masking" to counteract the racial stereotypes held by its predominantly white audience.” We talked today in class a lot about who the audience of Our Nig was, and why that contributed to the unsuccessfulness of the novel at first. I think that by recognizing that his stories are going to be read primarily by white people that he used this technique of "masking" to say a lot more than what appears on the surface of The Goophered Grapevine. By simply putting this second story in the larger story, Chestnutt gives his audience the idea of this African American, Uncle Julius, as entertaining the white folks (which in that time would have been more acceptable than just having a story about an African American). He also makes the story quite humorous even though there are many dark things happening in the story, which again is the authors way of making a larger statement about the society and the lives that African American slaves held, while still entertaining his readers. The story includes that the slaves had to walk for ten miles just to eat some of Mars Dugal's grapes, which he mentions on a very light note, but in reality, having to walk ten miles just for some decent food is quite sad. He also goes into some detail about how the white folks tried to catch the slaves that were sneaking into Dugal's vineyard, which I think included setting animal traps and the use of guns - about as inhumane a way to stop a man from eating your produce as possible. The last thing I found interesting was that when Dugal found out what happened to Henry when he rubbed the sap on his head, he completely exploited it for his own gain. This, again, was written almost humorously where Dugal could sell him in the spring and buy him back for nearly nothing in the winter, but I think that makes it stand out all the more. Had this story been written from a serious African American's point of view I don't think that anyone would have read it, but the fact that its being told to the white narrator from an old goofy black man, made it a better story for a broader audience. I see this entire story as a much more serious one than initially meets the eye, as it is a giant comment on the brutal lives that slaves had back then, and their everyday struggle to survive.

On a final note, something else that I found interesting was that in The Goophered Grapevine and The Sheriff's Children, Chesnutt includes mulattos. Clearly, this implies in both instances that a slave owner had sexual affairs with a female slave (probably forced) which I believe was strongly frowned upon back in the 1800s.. This again just goes back to the cruelty and harsh environments that the African Americans had to put up with in that time.

Moms

In Our Nig there are many mother figures in Frado's life, but none of which fully fill the role of a mom. Frado started off with poor Mag who ends up giving her away so that her husband and her can leave to find work. She is then placed in the hands of Mrs. Bellmont, her "mistress," who treats Frado absolutely terribly. Mrs. B does everything from simply scolding the child to physically beating her, as well as inflicting mental and emotional harm to her. Aunt Abby could also be seen as a motherly figure in Frado's life whom actually seems to care for Frado's well being, but is never fully able to protect her from Mrs. Bellmont in the way a true mother could. Finally, Mrs. Moore takes care of Frado when she is severely ill and nurtures her back to health several times, until Frado is ultimately a grown woman and is able to go off on her own and eventually get married.

This idea of multiple mothers is not so different from the classic idea in most Gothic novels of no mother at all. In almost all the other novels that do not include a living mother, there are children that grow up to be kinder and more successful, or at least more affluent in love and riches than those children that grew up with moms. You can see this in most of the stories we have looked at, including Jane Eyre, who ended up happier and more successful than her stepsisters with a mother, and The Castle of Otranto, where Conrad (who had a mother) ended up dying, but Theodore ends up successful and rich even though his mom had died. This same idea continues in Our Nig, in that every mother or mother figure that Frado had ended up leaving her at some point or was unable to fill that gap in her life, however she ends up successful and happy.

3. The guide, or "fellow traveller" plays a very important role in this story, and is very symbolic. He is most definitely a metaphor for the devil, as he tries to lure Goodman Brown to the witch meeting. Goodman Brown, on the other hand, is representative of all average, goodhearted men. The fellow traveller is described as being an elder man dressed in grave and decent attire, as opposed to what many would first picture when thinking of the devil, but he is meant to entice people into joining him. After meeting up with the old man, the traveller says that he is late, to which Brown replies, "Faith kept me back a while," which could be taken two different ways. Obviously Brown's wife, Faith, did keep him back a few minutes, but Hawthorne is most likely also alluding to the idea that Brown's faith in God may have kept him away from the evil meeting as well. The old man also gives Goodman Brown his walking stick, described as being serpent like, which is another reference to the devil. Finally, when Brown says to the fellow traveller that he should not go any further because it would shame his family name, the old man replies that he was with his grandfather when he lashed a Quaker woman and gave his father the fire to burn down an Indian village, which is essentially saying that he, the devil, was in them and the reason why they committed such devilish deeds. He once again tries to lure Brown further by saying that his father and his father's father both trusted in him and that he should do the same. I see this as an opposite version of the Footprints in the Sand poem, which basically says that Jesus carries us through our hard times, and here, contrasting that idea, the devil is telling Brown by giving him his cane that he will carry him to the meeting (or ultimately, to evil). I'm sure there are many other ways to look at this story and many symbolic reasons for choosing every little detail that Hawthorne included, but this is my speculation of the novel, and why he did what he did.

Cinderella

The Cinderella formula definitely takes form in Lois the Witch when Lois was put into a home of an aunt who does not care for her (the evil stepmother) and two female cousins (the evil stepsisters) and a male cousin (who could be symbolic of a number of things). She hopes that one day Hugh Lucy (her prince) will come save her from her terrible life. Although the cousins are not always mean to her, they definitely make her do chores, such as taking Faith's note to the pastor, as well as many other things. Prudence is also very mean and tricks the town into believing that Lois is a witch. Another aspect in which this is like Cinderella is that the pastor, whom Faith is in love with, cares more for Lois than Faith. Although, in this story, Lois' prince is ultimately too late to save her from her wrongful death, there are definitely many similarities in the stories.

Novels: Good, Movies: Better

I think that novel reading is an important part of society because, just like hundreds of years of storytelling, it is a great way to expand peoples horizons, convey messages, and entertain. Novels are crucial ways to make readers stop and think about their own lives and wrongs that they have committed, and hopefully inspire them to change. However, I don't think that books are the only way to do this. A series of moving pictures put with music and the right artistic eye (a.k.a. - movies) could more significantly make people take long hard looks at themselves. Obviously it takes a novel or piece of literature to create a movie, but to answer the question as to whether or not I see value in reading novels - would be yes, but even more value in watching movies. Any piece of literature can make a person stop and think, but it truly takes a strong piece of literature to move an entire society to change, and on top of that, a great cinematic piece could do so with even more intensity. Personally, there have been one or two novels that have made me think about my own life and society, such as The Power of One or The Kite Runner, but countless movies that have done the same with greater magnitude. Also, the movies stay with me longer and seem to touch the lives of many more people than books ever can simply because of the convenience of sitting down for a couple of hours to watch a film, as opposed to spending a few days reading a book. All in all, novels are unarguably vital to society and can change the way people think (especially in the past, before movies came about), but for me, film is a stronger format for doing the same thing.