Sunday, September 11, 2011

Hawthorn

1831

100 years after it happened

My big question is, is all of this a dream? Is this really happening or is he dreaming?

I was very unclear on this. I think it has a lot to do with the style of romanticism, i think this style of writing likes to leave questions ad thoughts that are unclear. In doing this it allows to involve the reader, it allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. It is a very different style then what we have been reading. So far we have been reading stories with a lot of facts. This story was not like that, it allowed the reader to think. I really enjoy this kind of writing a lot better.

I think that the overall theme of this story is a coming of age story. (Bildungsroman) Robins coming of age is the image of the US coming of age. This story reminds me a lot of Ben Franklin. It had a lot in common, such as run-away, being on a boat, going into a new town, and voyage. It almost felt like this story was meant to be seen as Franklin. Maybe the writer did not want to say real names and give it away like that, but several points make the reader think it could have been about him.

Something i was a little unsure of, was who is the two faced man? Is it the devil or a man that really appears to have two faces or what? It will not make or break the story, but i was not very sure on exactly who it really was.

Something i thought was very interesting was how the people dressed as Indians at one point. I think that this was done on purpose; i think the point behind this was that Indians were seen as savages and that’s why the people dressed like this. They knew that what they were doing was savage like.

The mob mentality is a huge thing in this story. Why were they doing what they were doing? Because a group? Were they all just going with the flow? At one point they are not individuals they come together creating a mob. If one does something and others people are around to see it and they say nothing they are in a sense participating in the wrong doing. The people went along with everyone else was doing, they sensed to be individuals.

Back it the story being a lot like Ben Franklin, with the run-away reference. I think that in this story, he does leave home by choice. He was the second born, which is very important, so he was not going to get any of the riches or house or things like that. The only way for him to make a life was for him to start one for himself. If he stayed he would have had to work for his brother.

The issue in this story of the tar and feathering is a crazy idea. It is a very bad form of torture. It can lead to death and it marks you forever. We can see the image created and see that this was something that was very disturbing. This idea was something that people with very sick minds came up with. But for their time and day it was something seen as a type of enforcement of a "law" or idea. This was done to this man because he was working for the British. Here we can see just how they felt about the British. We can see the passion of the people through the degree of the crime they would do to this man. Does it make it right? Is this justified? Who is to say? I think that it is a lot easier to sit where we are sitting now and say this is wrong but we have a government and a system, was this form of system? Was this the best they could come up with?

Another big thing that stood out to me was the use of color in the story. Color can be very important in creating images and helping the reader really understand and see where the writer is coming from, without the writer having to spell it out word for word. The color red was used which is significant because it does remind me of the scarlet letter and how that color represents being a whore or things of that nature.

The story just like the rest does have a play on nature. All "bad" things happen in the woods. In these days what was thought of as "bad" was only portrayed as happening in the woods. This is funny to relate to today, because now we see people that live out in the woods as innocent country people. We have more problems with things in town so to speak. I do not know if I’m in the right direction with this but it was how i interoperated it.

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