Continuing Macbeth and the Project Calendars

Today in class, we read a section of Macbeth in which the nature and character of Lady Macbeth is explored. Unlike her husband, who is cautious to the point of being meek, Lady Macbeth is vehemently power-hungry and brash. She is very myopic in her desire to overthrow King Duncan, and eventually taunts her husband into actually going through with the murder. She famously tells Macbeth to "unsex me here," and demands that he not view her as just a female. Lady Macbeth tosses aside her femininity in order to carry out the brutalities of homicide and treason.

We have also begun to work on creating our own calenders for when different parts of our projects are due. My calender is done. I have arranged it in a way that encourages me to do the initial reading, research, and thinking relatively early, leaving me with a lot of time to actually write the paper itself, as this is the part of the process that typically takes me the most time by far. I have picked H. P. Lovecraft for sure, and I have already acquired several good resources on him (partially with the help of Ms. Walton, as per your recommendation).

--Wald der Trotzig

The Beginning of Macbeth

Today in class we began our reading of Macbeth, by William Shakespeare. So far in the play, the three witches have cast a spell, Macbeth has fended off some Irish invaders and won the title of Thane of Cawdor, and Macbeth has met the witches, where they told him that he would on day be king. Macbeth is rather apprehensive about receiving this information, faced with the ambivalence of the current king, Duncan, being a good friend of his and the implanted seed of desire for power. I am very glad that we are reading this work aloud in class. I find that it is nearly impossible to get anything out of Shakespeare with reading it aloud. I myself have the joy and honor of reading the part of Macbeth. So far into the story, it is not my favorite Shakespeare work, but it is not my least favorite either. It is difficult this early in the plot to detect the overall themes of the play, but so far, I see potential themes possibly including the dangers of greed, hunger for power, female domination, and/or corruption.

--Wald der Kahlköpfig

The New Project Assigned

Today in class, we were assigned a long-term research project of our choice. Or so I've heard. Unfortunately, due to my having missed this class to perform at the WCU Spanish conference. As I understand it, we are allowed to pick any topic of our choosing, so long as it relates to American literature in some way. The subject of our paper can be an author, a poet, a genre, or even a book if it is heavy enough. At the moment, I think I would like to do my project on H. P. Lovecraft, Charles Sanders Peirce, Pragmatism as a school of thought, or William James. I hope to do considerably better on this paper than the last one.

--Wald der Pragmatisch

My Experiences with Diigo

This weekend, we were assigned to sign up for a Diigo account and try it out and take some notes. The sign up process was simple, however, I was a bit irked that I had to install an extension into my browser to be able to use it--a minor inconvenience, but worth mentioning. The site itself is well-designed and easy to navigate and use. To test out Diigo, I took notes on an article about Frederick Jackson Turner. I found that there are four different colors that one can use to highlight things, so I decided to use yellow for general note-taking and blue for words I do not know the meaning of. I find the sticky note feature particularly useful for attaching definitions to such words as I encounter them. All in all, I like Diigo so far.

--Wald der Haarig

Impressions of Impressions of an Indian Childhood

"Impressions of an Indian Childhood" is a work by a Native American woman named Zitkala-Sa. It contains several anecdotes from the author's childhood that stood out particularly in her mind. The first part of the piece is comprised of a description of the author's mother. As a child, Zitkala-Sa help her mother in the highest esteem. She had absolute respect for the women, and loved her immensely. Zitkala-Sa's mother was a kind and patient woman who was very respected in her community, but she had a deep sadness because of the "palefaces" who invaded her village and killed her family. From a young age, Zitkala-Sa is taught to respect all living things, yet is infused with a deep hatred of the palefaces by her mother. She loves to hear stories from the village elders when they all come to eat at her home, and she reminisces about how the village women would practice beadwork and her education in that discipline. The last story in the work is about Zitkala-Sa leaving her mother and going east with the palefaces. She is enticed by stories of apples and beautiful land, and these tales combined with the fact that her brother had previously left with the palefaces and returned unharmed drives her to beg her mother to let her go. Zitkala-Sa's mother is very reluctant to release her daughter, but finally concedes. The recountal ends with Zitkala-Sa watching her mother fade into the distance and being filled with regret.

--Wald der Indianisch

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

"Letter from a Birmingham Jail" was an open letter written by Martin Luther King, Jr. to his fellow clergymen while he was in a Birmingham jail cell. King had been imprisoned there because of his nonviolence protests against segregation in Alabama. In his letter, King responds to criticism he has received because of his law-breaking. He makes very clear his belief that laws should only be upheld if they are just in accordance with the law of God. King asserts that laws demanding segregation can never be just because they are used by a majority to harm and oppress a minority that has no power to change the laws. King also expresses deep disappointment in the White moderate: any White citizen who claims to support the Blacks ideologically, but fails to do anything to actually help them. He states that the greatest danger to justice is not evil men doing evil things, but rather good men doing nothing. This disappointment is also extended to churches in the south, particularly "do nothing" White clergymen. King expected to be supported in his pacifistic fight for freedom by his Christian brothers, regardless of race, but he was sorely disappointed. King even goes on to admonish organized Christian religion for its promotion of the status quo, regardless of whether or not present conditions are just or unjust. He expresses this disapproving sentiment in my favorite quote from the work: "In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society." The "those days" he is referring to is the time when the Christian church was much stronger and had a great deal more influence on the actions and principles of the communities in and around it. Unfortunately, according to Dr. King, the Church has lost this noble position of a moral beacon, and instead sunk to go with the flow of the world.

--Wald der Gebildet

Views on Black Suffrage and the Racism of the Wealthy

Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, and Frederick Douglass had varying views on the issue of Blacks' suffrage. At one end of the spectrum was Washington, who believed that Blacks should not protest for or even actively try to get equal civil rights or suffrage. He believed that they should just work hard and hope that eventually Whites would recognize them as equals. Frederick Douglass held views that were antipodal to Washington. He believed that Blacks deserved to get all of their rights immediately. He adamantly declared that if the Negro could be tolerated by the White man as a slave, then he could be tolerated as a free man. W. E. B. DuBois fell somewhere in the middle between Washington and Douglass. He disagreed with Washington's position on how Blacks should get their rights, but to a less extreme degree than Douglass. DuBois was more specific and intellectually logical about his disagreement with Washington, pointing out discrepancies in Washington's plan and referring to them as a "triple paradox."
As for the idea that racism was promoted by the upper classes in order to increase their wealth, I believe that this situation could be possible, but I do not think that it was a widespread, well-organized practice among the wealthy. It seem a bit conspiratorial to claim that the entire upper class in America was (or even still is) working together to "keep the Black man down" simply to amass some sort of profit from doing so. I do however, believe that wealthy people were/are generally more prejudiced than poorer people, but I think these prejudices are more directed towards anyone in a lower social standing than towards one particular race.

--Wald der Reich