For those interested...

This is the introduction to my research paper so far:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYt0U46uX1OXZGduMms2OTdfMzFmOXp6cWpocw&hl=en

Comments/critiques are appreciated!
-emily

Windows

Poe spends a lot of time describing the rooms and I thought his detailed description of the windows of the rooms was symbolic. Does anybody know what windows may symbolize?

-Joanne Park

There is a fair amount of personification in The Masque of the Red Death. Poe makes characters out of objects or ideas like death, the clock, and dreams. Death is a relatively common personification, and deliberately and overtly portrayed. But Poe more subtly depicts the clock as having "brazen lungs" and a voice. Dreams, too, are personified in that they can stand, stalk, take steps, live, and "writhe to and fro... merrily." However, only Death has any major impact on the plot of the story. The others seem to have no purpose except to enhance the story stylistically, like the themes of colors, time, and sounds.

-- tori

The Red Death = Tuberculosis?

As I was reading "The Masque of the Red Death," I couldn't help but remember how Poe's wife Virginia died of tuberculosis. Perhaps Poe's personal experiences with disease and death had an impact on how and why this story was written. Thoughts?

-Bryce C.

The Cask of Amontillado

On Friday, we talked about why Montresor never said what it was that Fortunato had done to anger him to the point of murder. I think that Montresor's omitting this is extremely interesting. I don't know whether Poe intended this or not, but I think the omission adds something to the story that we didn't talk about: it makes it harder for the reader to justify (or not justify) Montresor's actions. Had the insult of Fortunato been mentioned, I think the reader would have felt either more or less inclined to side with Montresor. If Fortunato's insult had been something terrrible, the reader might have seen the murder as more deserved. By the same token, if the insult had been something small and undeserving of murder, the reader would have been even more appalled by Fortunato's death. What do you guys think?

~Elizabeth

Longfellow and Dreams

I know this was last unit, but I forgot to blog about this earlier. In Longfellow's A Psalm of Life in the first stanza, "life is but an empty dream!" reminded me of "life is but a dream" in the childhood song, Row, Row, Row Your Boat. I mentioned it to Emily and she noted how Row, Row, Row Your Boat is often sung in canon and canons are supposed to be never-ending. It made me think about how Romantics write about death and the end of life. And if you've ever tried to sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat in canon with anybody, it mostly ends in giggles and catastrophe.

The metaphor that life is a dream in both the poem and song also suggests that dreams end, life ends, and we can't live in dreams forever. Rip Van Winkle may have lived in dreams for 18 years, but his stupor eventually ended. The Romantics were very invested in the idea of life turning into a sleeping death, and the dream idea goes well with it. Dreams occur when we sleep, and sleeping is like being dead ("For the soul is dead that slumbers"), so is he saying life is death? That would be the ultimate paradoxical statement.

-- tori

Don't ask me where I find these things.

Poe

What's his problem? Mrs. Lopez was saying that the dark nature of his writing can be traced to his dismal relationships with women, but I'm not seeing it. If that were true, shouldn't there be more women involved in his stories? Just thinking of his more famous pieces, I don't find many women involved (e.g. Tell Tale Heart, Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum). Where does all the negativity come from?

-Colin