On Matrimony

The stories of “Aunt Hetty on Matrimony” and of “Hungry Husbands” may appear to be far removed from what we witnessed at home with our parents. None of the stories relate to my mother or to my father. I have always been very proud of my father because he was not the kind of husband described in stories.

I said that I am very proud of my father because he could have been a domestic Napoleon and my mother could have been his victim. I say this because I grew in a culture in which matrimony was expected to be like the one described by Fanny Fern. The husband was expected to be sublime and the wife to be submissive. When the husband arrived home from work, he expected his wife to take off his shoes. This reality may seem far removed from our culture, but it is still embedded in other cultures.

Interestingly enough, in the cultures where this reality is embedded, wives talk amongst themselves disapproving of their husbands, yet their daughters end up marrying a domestic Napoleon, and if they do not, they are considered to be lucky. I guess that my mother was lucky because all of her sisters in law married the type of husband described by aunt Hetty and hungry husbands.

Wives could have had complained all they wanted among themselves, but this did not make the situation any better. Talking about it only offered them relief. What if they had written about their experience of having a domestic Napoleon as a husband? This would have made a difference. In this way, their daughters did not have to marry a domestic Napoleon; and if they did, they would have been considered unlucky.

By writing the stories of “Aunt Hetty on Matrimony” and of “Hungry Husbands,” Fanny Fern took action to change the status quo of matrimonies back then. This is how I think she did it: At first, the stories seem to be funny, but after reading them, I found them offensive to men and women. The stories bring shame to both genders because no woman or man wants to be publicly put to shame. No woman want to be the wife described by Fanny Fern, and no husband wants to be a domestic Napoleon or the hungry husband.

I like Fanny Fern’s stories because they are not argumentative. They are experiential stories, and sometimes, these stories have more power than arguments. We did not discuss “Fresh Leaves” in class, but this story shows that actions speak louder than arguments.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

I enjoyed reading Wakefield and Rappaccini’s Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, but I was surprise to find them very different. The only similarity is that both are romantic.

Rappaccini’s Daughter is creative and beautiful, but almost too perfect because Hawthorne fills in our imagination with every detail. I find the story to be too mythical and unrealistic, but these are the strengths of the story. This is what makes it beautiful, enjoyable, and entertaining. I find the setting of the story interesting because Hawthorne places the story within the garden next to the old edifice where Giovanni takes lodging. The viewing of the garden from Giovanni’s window is almost the perfect setting for the story because it allows the reader to imagine the garden from above and to see Beatrice from the distance.

However, the story that I like the most is Wakefield. In this story, Hawthorn does not give as much detail and information. He leaves the information and the details up to the reader’s imagination. This is the beauty and strength of the story. Like in Rappaccini’s Daughter, I am also intrigued by the use of the setting. Hawthorn takes our imagination to different places. Yet, he keeps the story within one place. We get the impression that Mr. Wakefield leaves for twenty years, yet he is always present.

I find Wakefield more realistic and interesting, even though, it does not say much about why and how things happened the way they did. The story is really left to the reader’s imagination to find out what could have happened. We should not be too quick to judge Mr. Wakefield for leaving his home because so many things could have gone wrong in the marriage. Maybe it had to do with Mrs. Wakefield. The story has a lot to offer in terms of matrimony. So many things can go wrong in a marriage.

Did Mr. Wakefield really abandon his wife? Did Mrs. Wakefield really abandon her husband? They were separated, but at the same time, it seems to me that somehow they remained together because they did never stop loving one another. It seems like every day for twenty years, Mr. Wakefield wanted to return, and Mrs. Wakefield hoped that one day he would return. One of the most interesting facts about the story is that Mr. Wakefield never left. He just moved down the street from Mrs. Wakefield’s’ house.

What happens in Wakefield’s story is unknown, yet we can know it by finishing the story and say this is what could have happen, and what could have happened has one different interpretation for every reader. One can continue wring the story and the story can unfold differently. This is the beauty of Wakefield’s story!

Ralph Waldo Emerson

These are my thought concerning Self-Reliance. I like what Ralph Waldo Emerson said about reading what writers have to say. “The sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may contain.” In other words, what I feel is what really matters.

After reading Emerson’s essay, I believe that the work of the writer is to be thought provoking, so that new thought can rise in the mind of the reader. I am thinking this way because Emerson’s writing instills new thought. He intends to be thought provoking because if we can think for ourselves, we cannot be free.

Frederick Douglass became a free man because he was able to think for himself. He did not conform to what his masters wanted him to know. He learned to read and to think. He used the power that resided within him. “Imitation is suicidal,” said Emerson. This is relevant to Douglas because if had been resigned to being a slave, he would never had learn to read.

Emerson said that relying in our memory is not enough. He wanted us to trust our emotions. I think that by emotions he meant new thoughts. We all have an experience this. So many times we have new thought provoked by something we heard or read. These thoughts are important, but most importantly is that we write them down or say them because when we do not, we let others magnetize us, and when we others magnetize us, we become slaves.

I was thinking of Martin Luther King Jr. He read and was educated, but he went beyond his education and beyond memory. He trusted his emotions and started the Civil Rights Movement. I think that Dr. King is essentially a living example of Emerson’s ideas. And like Jesus and Socrates, Dr. King was misunderstood, but like Jesus and Socrates, he is remembered and brought about social changes.

Emerson said that, “Man is timid and apologetic. He is no longer upright. He dares not to say ‘I think,’ ‘I am,’ but quotes some saint or sage.” Emerson wanted people to have their own thoughts without fear. This reminded me of Michelangelo, the great Renaissance artist because he was neither timid nor apologetic. He did not imitate someone else. He trusted his emotions and created new works of art.

I have only included males in my examples. Unfortunately, Emerson only included males in his. But I cannot leave Judith Sargent Murray out because she was not an imitator; she was herself and spoke her own thoughts, as we know from On the Equality of the Sexes. She trusted her emotions and was not timid or apologetic.

We can think like our masters, but eventually, we will be exhausted of thinking like them, and we will begin to think for ourselves because the power that resides in us is new, and we do not know what we can do until we try. Finally, I end with this quote from Emerson because I think that is has a lot to say about human nature. “He (meaning man) must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.”

Washington Irving

Washington Irving’s short stories are full of surprises. He does not waste a single line. Rip Van Winkle and The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow describe nature in a magical and poetic style. Irving gives new life to mountains, rivers, trees, and animals. For example:

“They (the mountains) are clothed in blue and purple. They will gather a hood of gray vapor about their summit (954)… A small brook glides through (a valley) it, with just murmur enough to lull you to repose (965)… Its limbs were vast, gnarled, and fantastic, twisting down and almost to the earth, and rising again into the air (981)… The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking, from bush to bush, and tree to tree (976).”

In both stories, Irving has the power of transforming real-physical places into magical and romantic spaces. He does the same with people and animals. Irving takes the worst of Rip Van Winkle and brings out the best of him. Rip becomes a celebrated character, even though, he is the direct opposite of what an American should be like.

In addition, Irving created a companion for Rip. Wolf, the dog, becomes Rip’s best friend and takes on some kind of a personality that is reciprocal to Rip’s. Reading Irving short stories reminds me of Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes and of Cannery Row by John Steinbeck because Irving, Cervantes, and Steinbeck take real life characters and transforms them into magical and celebrated people, and in most cases, the characters they pick to transform are some of the weakest members of society.

Rip Van Winkle and The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow reveal an early American agrarian society in which supernatural stories are part of people’s lives. Legends are common in any agricultural society. These phenomenal stories are in relationship to the (trees, rivers, animals and humans) natural world. These stories served as entertainment and gave meaning to people’s lives. Sometimes these stories arise after the suspicious or violent death of someone. In some ways, these stories are not all that different from supernatural Native American stories.

The story of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow is filled with vivid, romantic and magical place, people, animals, trees, food, and water. Irving is an extraordinary artistic writer. His literary works have inspired painter like John Quidor to create The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane and The Return of Rip Van Winkle.

Bradstreet, Sargent Murray, and Wheatley

I am inclined to believe that Anna Bradstreet was a firm believer of her Puritan traditions. Some of her poems reflect her beliefs. Most likely she believed that a woman’s place was at home attending to her husband and children. In short, she believed that the role of the women was domestic. The Puritan doctrine and the society of her time reinforced this belief. Women were considered inferior and did
not have the same rights as men did.

Given these facts, it is an irony that Bradstreet was well educated and wrote poetry. This seems contrary to the domestic role of women.

What was Bradstreet purpose in writing poetry? Did she have a point to make like Judith Sargent Murray?

In a sense, Bradstreet was reinforcing her religious and social beliefs when she wrote in reference to religion, her husband, children and grandchildren. Her writing is clearly reinforcing the women’s domestic role. I can see how this influenced the women who read her poetry.

However, I firmly believe that the purpose for writings was also to challenge the mindset of the men who thought that women were inferior to them. She is without a doubt breaking the social status quo of her time. It is clearly that she was not a feminist, but her writings advocate respect and dignity for women. Her poem “In Honor of that High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory” praises women. Bradstreet advocated for women’s rights in a very subtle way.

I read that in Bradstreet’s Puritan culture, the love between husband and wife was supposed to be slightly repressed, so not to distract one from the devotion to God. Yet she publically expressed her love for her husband in the poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband.” This poem challenged the Puritan ideas.

Unlike Bradstreet Judith Sargent Murray was very outspoken about women’s writers. She was not subtle but bold for her times. She was an early advocate of women’s progress. I would say that she was one of the earliest American feminist. Her poem, “On the Equality of the Sexes” was a probably shocking to the clergy men. I believe that her poem is still relevant today.

Phillis Wheatley, early American poet and African American slave, is a great example of Sargent Murray’s arguments. Bradstreet, Sargent Murray, and Wheatley are three extra ordinary women in our history. Unfortunately, they are not as well known as some of their contemporary men.

Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglass

I have enjoyed reading Olaudah Equiano and Frederic Douglass. While both narratives are about slavery, I find the difference interesting.

I read Equiano, I felt that he was taking me though a very thorough odyssey. He starts at the very beginning (before he was enslaved) and moved to the very end (when he is freed in Montserrat).

Unlike Douglass’ narrative, Equiano’s is more about his experiences as a slave and less about slavery. The main thrust of the story is how he was abducted and enslaved; what he saw and what he learned; how he survived; what he experienced, and how he bought his freedom. For the most part, the story is about his experience and not so much about the theory of slavery. Without a doubt, he was a slave, but he was not born as one. From the time of his abduction, he is always thinking of regaining his freedom. He keeps his hopes high and thinks that his slavery is only temporal. In some way, his narrative is similar to Mary Rowlanson’s because she writes about her experience in captivity, and in this, her narrative is similar to Equiano’s.

Equiano writes about what he saw in his voyages, and this is what I mostly appreciate about his narrative. He writes about the suffering of slaves in the cargo ships, and the way he writes about their suffering is appalling. Equiano calls my attention to slavery outside the South of the U.S., and makes me more conscious of the evils of slavery.

Douglass writes from home.

He was born into slavery and he did not necessarily grow up thinking that his slavery was a temporary state. In this respect Douglass’ narrative is very different from Equiano’s. Douglass’ narrative does not become about himself. It becomes about the lives of the slaves working in the plantations or in their masters’ houses. His narrative concerns slaves, their masters, and their overseers. Douglass in not on a voyage like Equiano; he is at home in the plantation.

Although the experience of Douglass is different from Equiano’s, they both bring to light the evil deeds of slavery; they both give a voice to the voiceless; and they both do this in a way that makes you witness slavery.

“Nobody can make a slave out of you if you do not think like slave,” said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I think that this was the message of both Equiano and Douglass.

Thomas Paine

Reading Thomas Paine gave me a sense of déjà vu. I had the sense I had read his work before, but in reality I had not. The illusion came from having read John Winthrop. They both have an eloquent style that appeals to the whole human experience. They write in different time periods, but both speak from the circumstances of their times which have striking similarities. Winthrop is establishing a settlement; Paine is dealing with the conflicts that arose when the settlements became colonies.

They, however, differ on the topic of religion. In Winthrop’s case, he uses the Bible as the foundation for a cohesive settlement, but Paine walks away from religious foundations preferring scientific research and religious diversity. Both accounts have a historical approach and can be appreciated as such, but what impressed me was their eloquence in speech and the aesthetics of style.

Winthrop intertwines Biblical text in a very effective manner to convince people of his ideas. These Biblical examples flow in a free style and are contextualize in a social method. By the time he is done citing all the Biblical examples, he seems to have a written a constitution. The manner in which Winthrop uses Scripture beautifies his literary work.

Paine is different in that he does not cite the Bible. Instead, he uses social examples to appeal to people’s reasoning rather than their faith. In the introduction of Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, he opens by saying, “I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.” My interpretation of this is that his work is easily read and understood, but his style of not simple, nor plain. Throughout his writings, he uses a lot of illustrative language such as, “Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms…, and a government of our own is our natural light.” Paine appeals to people’s sentiment and reason in a thought provocative style. The beauty of his literary works comes from the simple yet sophisticated use of language.

I find John Winthrop and Thomas Paine to be talented leaders, convincing politicians, and gifted writers.