Life in the Iron-Mills

Davis wrote about people working in the iron mills. She has a great talent for setting the scene and showing the background. In my personal opinion, she is the type of author that can manipulate and lead you in her direction so well she could make you feel sorry for a mass murderer. Not only that, but she can do it without agreeing with the man and without directly saying he is a good/ valuable human being. One of my favorite quotes from her writing was this: "I do not plead his cause. I only want to show you the mote in my brother's eye: then you can see clearly to take it out."

She shows a fantastic reality: Wolfe is a very talented artist who happens to be stuck in a quite unfortunate life. Each person is so complex that I think she could have framed a story such as this around anyone and shown why he/she is a worthwhile person. But the thing that made this story so memorable was that his talent was visible. It wasn't something hidden beneath the surface, it was in plain sight. Not only that, but it was described so vividly that the image still sticks in my head even though I have never seen Korl in my life. It leaves the impression of the talented artist and the dreaded life in the mills. The one image of that statue sums up the whole story.

I think the reason that so many people could stand for others to be treated as these workers were was because they never really saw them as "people." Sure, they were alive, but they were so one-dimensional. Davis puts the people, the ideas, and the injustice in such sight that it can no longer be ignored.

While I think it is easy to blame the citizens of the time for allowing the horrid truth to go on under the surface, I don't think we are blameless now. Personally, I try to avoid animal rights information and writings because I like eating meat and, being a poor college student, go for good price over good ethics. Let's just put it this way: if Davis had written about chickens, I would probably go vegetarian.

Response to a lecture: Old vs. New

We had a long discussion in class about looking at texts (and writing texts) in a new style vs. an old style. As a communication major, I often have to study theories, past and present, on how media affect people. I saw a lot of similarities in this lecture, which is based on something I know little about, to things I know about the communication field.
Media critics, in the early days of television, had a theory called the hypodermic needle theory. According to this theory, media directly influenced audiences. Once the message was shown, it was accepted and perceived as truth. Of course, this theory is no longer accepted but it lays on the same lines as old texts that didn't give the reader any credit.
What really stands out about the authors we have read in this class is that they give their readers the benefit of the doubt. They trust people to have the intelligence to differentiate between true and false, right and wrong, and fantasy and reality. Based on this assumption, the writer develops a relationship with the reader. There are things that can't be put into words but they set the stage and put the reader down their path of thought. They believe that their audience has enough humanity to follow their line of emotion, whether they agree or not. In "Life in the Iron-Mills," a recurring emotion that I feel is put on the reader is guilt. In Wheatley's poems, she leads the readers to understanding and empathy.
Trusting the reader to comprehend the writings and be human enough to be capable of emotion is the most distinct reason I can find why these texts will be around for a long time and treasured as classics.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Stowe's writing greatly intrigues me. She writes using the accents of her characters. She writes sympathetically about the family that sold the slaves into horrible lives. She writes religiously about those seen as property. Truly, she writes like an insider who went to the outside to observe. By this I mean that she has a deep knowledge of both circumstance and intention, and can write it in a simply here-is-what-happened way while leading the reader to higher understanding.
She shows that the "flaw" with Uncle Tom near the end of the book was that he was "too stupid" to simply give in and give away the girls' position. Really, the line that separated most of the people from the Uncle Tom in this story was that characters almost always made decisions based on logic and numbers, while the Uncle Tom did things based on conscience and religious beliefs.
Reading this around the same time as "Civil Disobedience" was very revealing, seeing that the slave was the one who stuck to his beliefs and ideals as a Christian, when doing so hurt him much more than it would have any slave-holders who chose to do the same.

Response to Civil Disobedience by Thoreau

"I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward." Thoreau has the opinion that our system of government is flawed. Majority rules, but what if the majority doesn't care about morals, values, and decency? We share a like mind on this subject, though I don't think you'll find me skimping on my taxes anytime soon.
Thoreau notes that the country was founded on rebellion. We are supposed to challenge the government if we find they are doing things wrong. It is our duty as citizens.
What is seen now as "patriotism" is the actual opposite. Patriotism would be to want your country to be as good as possible, rather than to blindly follow what others in positions of power tell you to do.
I find it odd how well this writing relates to today. He talks about armies: "The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies." He talks about the idea of patriotism and what it is to support and follow your country.
But, aside from how we can relate today, I would say his writing shows how others should have thought about slavery, and can show us how to avoid making the majority mistake in the future. We shouldn't decide what to do as a country based on profit and majority opinion of what is desirable, but rather conscience and the knowledge of right and wrong.

Phyllis Wheatley

This writer has a constant double-tone in her work. There is an inherent sarcasm-- she is not happy to be looked down on, to be a slave. Yet she truly loves America, her family, and her religion.
Her writings, in large part, are about deaths in families. She has a comforting yet strong idea that people are better off when they leave earth. It is comforting because people like to think that others are in a better place. It is strong, however, because she accuses those who cry and wish them back as being selfish. This is also an example where you can see her opinion of the physical world-- not the best place to be, in her opinion.
The most notable thing I found about her book, however, was the opening letter "proving" that the work was her own. Even though it was supposed to be complimentary to Wheatley, even the note is offensive (as are many of her poems). They talk about rising above her beginnings, implying what her fate would have been. She talks about her savage land. Really, they all seem to agree that she is the outcast in "her kind;" at least it seems that way to me. The intelligent and gifted girl was not seen as a regular possibility out of a slave. Of course, a lot of this is found in Wheatley's sarcasm. It certainly makes me wish I could go back in time and talk to her in person to find out what she was really thinking.