Journal #11 - Selections from Walden

Write a summary of the following selections and identify a direct quote that you feel best expresses its main idea.

“Where I Lived and What I Lived For” (232)

Thoreau has too many possessions in life. He believes that humans are advancing too fast, and advancement is taking over life. Technology corrupts us. The reason Thoreau lives in the cabin is to revert back to the simplier things in life. Railroads, like technology, are supposed to improve us, yet they ride on our backs.
This excerpt talks about the necessity of simplicity in our lives and how living a life with too many possessions is.


Quote: “Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity”
“We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.”


“Sounds” (234)

Walden talks about all the sounds he heard while actually listening to the world. He loved to just sit out without doing working or seeing anyone and just being peaceful. He was able to stop his life for a little bit and just take a step back from his busy life. He loves life and thinks its an adventure. He doesn’t think nature is a waste of time and its wonderful to sit their and just listen to the sounds.

Quote: “it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished.”


“Brute Neighbors” (235)

A red ant was fighting a black ant that was half an inch longer. They were wrestling with each other and it look not like a duel but a war. It was between two raises of ants (red and black). The black were so big it was frequently found that two red ants equaled one black. The red ants stood for republicans and black ants stand for imperialists. Then a red ant came to the full of excitement. He could see the unfair battle but he charged ready to fight. He ripped the body parts out of the black ant that was nearly twice his size. The man witnessing it was excited to see the minority party that the red ant was representing coming back. The man never found out which party won nor the cause of the war but he was excited to witness the battle before his door.

Quote: “I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellium, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted ones to one black” ……. “It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battlefield I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one, and the black imperialists on the other.”


“The Pond in Winter” (237)

Nature, in which all creatures live and flourish, offers no questions. It only gives the answer of pure beauty. Humans do not have to ask Mother Nature to provide wonder and awe, she just shows her true colors through the earth and animals. A pond in winter is beautiful because of its ability to be peaceful, yet underneath the sheet of ice, its orginial life and beauty is still preserved through all seasons of the year. Life is beautiful through any kind of weather. Just because you cannot see something on the surface, the world is still thriving.

Quote: “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our head” pg. 237


“Spring” (238)

It is talking about the beginning of Spring, and what Walden goes through in the beginning of Spring. It looks majestic and alive and beholds a great summer ahead. The geese are circling it, and different animals are coming alive. He is saying that Walden is like the beginning of new life with great chaos in it. It’s a time of new beginnings and happiness. Each Spring is like the creation of the world. Spring is a symbol of rebirth.

Quote:
“As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is life the creaytion of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.”

Journal #10 - Insight

Often at the end of a play, Shakespeare’s tragic heroes often have a moment of insight. What is Othello’s insight? Look closely at Othello’s last speech before answering this question.

Othello’s insight comes right before he ends his own life. His insight starts with realizing that he killed his loving wife, Desdemona, because of false reasons. He had killed her because Iago fed him lies about her being unfaithful. He knows that he ruined his whole life because of lies. Before he dies, he tells his friends to write about him and not just say the good things, but tell of his bad characteristics and other things that make him imperfect. He wants people to know he let jealously get the best of him. He wants all to know that you cannot trust even your closest friends, because one of his betrayed him. His insight includes him realizing that you should be careful who you trust and never believe anything you hear unless you hear it for yourself. He wanted to die an honorable death. Now that Desdemona was dead, he had nothing else to live for in his mind. Ultimately, his insight made him realize that honesty is always the best policy.

Journal #9 - Free Will vs. Determinism

Free Will - The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will.

Iago: “'tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our
gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners” (1.3 361-3).

God gave us the power to have free will; to choose from right and wrong. But what happens when our free will is corrupted by outside forces? It does not matter; we still possess free will and we can freely choose to make our own decisions. Outside forces try to influence our decisions and thoughts. This is what Iago had done to Othello. He tried to make Othello believe that Desdemona was being unfaithful to him and that she was in love with Cassio. Although what Iago was telling Othello was untrue, Othello used his free will and chose to believe what Iago was saying, was true. He chose to be jealous. He let his emotions get the best of him. Othello ends up killing Desdemona. When he found out the truth, he killed himself as a way of punishing himself for his free will choice to be jealous and gullible. Othello had to accept the consequences regardless of how harsh they were. Free will is as much as a gift as it is a curse.


Determinism - The philosophical doctrine that every event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedents, such as genetic and environmental influences, that are independent of the human will.

Othello: “Yet ‘tis the plague of great ones … ‘tis destiny unshunnable, like
death” (3.3 313-16).

Certain events, acts, and decisions are the consequences of genetic and environmental forces. Human will does not create events, acts, or decisions. Iago was the dominant outside force that created disastrous events such as the smothering of Desdemona, or the revoke of Cassio as an officer. Othello had preformed these acts, but not by his own human will. Iago filled his head with lies and corruption. It was inevitable that Othello would commit such crimes because Iago was the mastermind behind every act. Iago was holding the strings of a puppet, the puppet being Othello. Iago’s influence was what caused Othello to wrongly use his human will. Iago was without a doubt the poster boy for Determinism. This definition describes Othello perfectly. His involvement in every aspect of the book caused dire consequences.

Journal #8 - Emerson’s Aphorisms

1. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

2. Keep cool: it will all be one a hundred years hence.

3. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

4. We boil at different degrees.

- Emerson’s point is that everyone has their own, individual breaking point. He wants us to realize when we’re going overboard or pushing ourselves too hard, or when we’re pushing someone else too hard. You do not want to push someone over their edge, because you never know what they are capable of doing. Everyone is different, and so is the way they get aggravated and angry. Beware of the people you know who are short tempered.

5. To be great is to be misunderstood.

6. There are always two parties; the establishment and the movement.

7. When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

8. In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.

- Emerson’s point is that when you are in danger or an argument, how you choose to handle the situation is the key. You are skating over thin ice, which is capable of collapsing. You got yourself into that mess, and you must be calm, cool, and composed in order to save yourself. If you speed through the ice, it will for sure break and you will sink into the icy cold water below it. You will suffer the consequence of your careless actions. If you take your time (slow and steady wins the race) going over the ice, you will ultimately be safer and avoid dire consequences.

9. What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not been discovered.

10. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.

11. What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.

12. All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the terms of it fair.

13. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

- Emerson’s point is that life is full of chances and experiments and the more you take a chance or test something out, the more you learn. Life is a learning experience. If you never take a risk or chance your life will never be as beneficial as who someone who does. When you experiment with life, like the way you experiment in the science lab, there is room for error as well as success. Failure is okay, it teaches you a lesson. Success is great, and the more you experiment and have successes, the better your life will be. Remember that there is always a possibility of error, and it is okay. We live, and we learn.

14. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

15. The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.

Journal #7 William Cullen Bryant’s “To a Waterfowl” (p.151) and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (p.181)

Read the selections and write a detailed response to the following:

1. Compare/contrast the different views of nature that are being presented in the poems. Refer to the list of classical and romantic characteristics and provide specific examples from the poems to support your analysis.


William Cullen Bryant’s “To a Waterfowl” poem portrays the view of nature in ways that mostly reflect the views and thoughts of the writers of the Neo-Classical era. Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Raven”, portrays the view of nature while reflecting the thoughts and writings of other Romanticism writers. “To a Waterfowl” portrays more transcendentalism than the Raven. The waterfowl is intuitive and majestic. The raven is irrational, evil, and weird.

The tone of “To a Waterfowl is calm and serene. Characteristics of Neo-Classical writing include harmony, balance, and order. These describe the style of the poem. The poem reflects the typical state of nature. Nature is sometimes unpredictable and unbalanced, but when nature is viewed in the Classical way, it is viewed as the Garden of Eden. Lines 2 and 3 of the poem state “while glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue”. The lines demonstrate the neo-classical era writing style. The author portrays the setting as a sunset which is classical, beautiful nature. The world is in perfect balance when the sun sets.

The tone of “The Raven” and its setting is opposite of the tone and setting of “To A Waterfowl”. The Raven is dark, horrid, and gloomy compared to the peacefulness and serenity of the waterfowl. The Romantic style of writing is emotional, imaginative, and irrational. Every aspect of the raven seems to be irrational, such as when the raven flies into the home of the narrator and perches itself on the ledge and the speaker begins to talk to the bird. The repetitiveness of the words “nevermore” shows home gloomy and irrational this poem and story is. The tone of the poem is dull, bleak, and overall scary. The very first line, “once upon a midnight dreary…”, sets the tone perfectly because the rest of the poem connotes death and dreadfulness. The setting of the poem is in the speaker’s house, not outside enjoying nature like “To A Waterfowl”.

Despite the many differences between the two poems such as the gloomy, ghastly view of life and nature in “The Raven” compared to the happy, peaceful view of life and nature in “To A Waterfowl”, there are some similarities. In both poems, the message is the same. The speakers are searching for meaning. They are hoping to be guided. They are searching for guidance that will be them a better idea of what life and nature are truly about. Both birds are symbolic and have specific meanings. The speakers yearn to take the birds’ messages into consideration and apply them to their life. Overall, these poem display different views on nature and a different style of writing, but they ultimately share the same message.

Journal #6: Ben Franklin’s The Autobiography (p. 80–83)

Write a well-developed paragraph in response to the following questions.

1. Explain what was involved in Franklin’s plan for self-perfection? What conclusion did Franklin come to regarding the effectiveness of this plan?

Franklin’s plan for self-perfection included a listing of thirteen virtues essential for moral perfection. Temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility are all the building blocks to achieving moral perfection according to Ben Franklin. Franklin created a day chart in which he focused on one virtue a week, but still keeping track of the other twelve. He would be able to complete focus on all thirteen virtues four times a year, which would be a grand total of fifty-two weeks. Throughout each day, Ben would make a black mark on the virtue he broke. Franklin devised this perfection-plan on a whim to see if he could acquire moral perfection. As time progressed, Franklin realized he was faultier then he thought. He had the toughest time with the virtue of order. The effectiveness of this plan proved to be not so effective. He concluded that a “perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.” In other words, a perfect person is envied for their perfection because it is so rare, so an average man should allow faults in himself in order to be considered human and to keep sane.


2. Do you feel that a plan such as Franklin’s would improve you as a person? Why or why not? What would be your top five virtues?


I feel like Franklin’s plan would improve me as a person because even if you do not achieve perfection, you better yourself as a person by trying. This was Franklin’s intention. It is better to at least try to be perfect and allow faults in yourself, rather than to not try at all. My top five virtues would be order, frugality, sincerity, cleanliness, and humility.

Journal #5 – from Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” (p.95-6)

1. Identify the specific argument that Paine is making in each paragraph. For each of the arguments, identify whether Paine is making an emotional, ethical, or logical appeal and suggest an effective counterargument.

#1
Thomas Paine is arguing that the Americans must stand up against the tyranny of Britain. The longer they wait to gain independence, the more glorious their triumph will be. Their freedom will be highly rated if they take the necessary steps towards independence.
Paine focuses on emotional appeal, to get the readers fired up over the emotions of independence, not the logic of the situation.
An effective counterargument is that since Britain is the mother country of the American colonies, they have the right to tax the colonies.

#2
The argument that Thomas Paine is making is his secret opinion that God the Almighty will not let military powers destroy people who have tried to avoid war by every method that wisdom could have invented. He will protect the peaceful people, and not give them up to the devil.
Paine is making an ethical appeal. He bases his argument mainly on religion and the feelings of God and himself. Paine hints at the Americans as being morally superior over the British.
My suggestion for a counterargument would be, if the King of Britain believed that God gave him his power to rule, why would such a God protect the Americans, who are Britain’s enemy? If God is the leading force behind the British, why would he protect the enemy?

#3
The argument that Paine makes is that war between America and Britain is an inevitable event. Why not get the war out of the way, and not have your children fight? Americas will never be happy until the gain their own independence and freedom from Britain.
Paine is making an ethical appeal. Fight the war now, for the children. Take the burden upon yourself and do not let your children bear the stresses and losses of war.
An effective counterargument would be what would happen if the next generation had no parents because they lost them all in the war? If the war is fought now, what dangers and risks are you taking that could have serious effect your children’s generation.

#4
The argument Paine is making is that we should fight the Britain just as we should fight a thief who breaks into our homes. He is using an analogy to relate the king to a thief.
Paine is making an emotional appeal. He feels as if the king of Britain is a thief and his character is appalling. He believes that the widows, orphans, and the ghosts of the dead America, will come after the king and get revenge on the king because he deserves it.
An effective counterargument would be to argue that the King is not a thief, and he possesses many effective and useful powers.


2. Can you identify any of the logical fallacies that we discussed in Paine’s arguments? If so, which ones? Overall, what do you feel are the strengths and weaknesses of Paine’s arguments?

• Non-Sequiter – Paine jumps from taxing, to slavery. There is no logical sequence.

• Sentimental Appeal – Thomas Paine is trying to get the reader’s minds away from the logic of the situation, and appeal to the emotion of gaining independence.

• Aphorism – Paine uses many clever and wise statements about what life will be like without the British.

• Dogmatic – Paine states that God is on the American’s side, which cannot be proven.

• Ad Hominem – Paine attack’s the King of Britain and relates him to “a common murderer”, “a highwayman”, and a “housebreaker”. He attacks the king of Britain personally. What kind of murderous person would ask God for help?

• Begging the Question – If God will not give the Americans up to the British, why would the British ask God for help? It cannot be proven that God will not give up the Americans to the British.

• Hyperbole – “No a man lives on the continent…” No man lives in America that does not believe that America should be free from Britain. Paine makes a very broad assumption here and cannot prove that all Americans are for the war against Britain.

• False Dichotomy – Paine makes the assumption that either you have peace between two countries or war. There is no happy medium.

• Faulty Analogy – Comparing the King to a thief would be a faulty analogy because it is not a fact that the king is a thief. Paine and a majority of the Americans emotionally feel that the king is a thief.