Slavery is Freedom

Behind these doors is all I know

The voices say outside, we cannot go

This command, I never thought to question

After all, it was I who was in their possession

 

A slave is what they call me

But the voices, they claim me in safety

They say, I’ve nowhere else to be

For the world outside, I have no key

 

I once heard a story about the world outside

Destruction and death was all implied

No happiness, no mirth, no joy, just ruin

It was then I thought, in here, I know what I am doing

 

Trapped in here, I feel taken captive

But, perhaps for these actions, should I be reflective

Blind to the danger that is surrounding

I am alive, and in here for my own thoughts am I king

 

In this place will I stay

In safety and freedom, day after day.

 

“The Chimney Sweep” By William Blake: Analysis

William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” takes on the point of view of a young boy who works in the city as a chimney sweeper. As the poem progresses, the reader is introduced to the boy and the daily endeavors that he must face. Blake describes the boy’s own, unique situation from the narrator’s persecutive; having more than a slight personal connection with the character, Tom Dacre. Despite the fact that the boy lives a horrible life, he believes the “story” that he will one day have a better life after death. This “story” might be told frequently to oppressed individuals who might demand better or equal treatment. Based on the time period in which this poem takes place and the way that the characters are treated and the way they feel, my inference that this “story” is frequently told, has something backing it up. Blake tells the story from the boy’s point of view because taking this different perspective allows him to highlight the differences between individuals; for example, the way an adult might feel in the current conditions, versus how a child may feel. And there is a difference. Readers can imagine themselves being apart of the upper-class citizens back in this time. With this poem, they could glance at what life is like in someone else’s shoes, someone of a lower class and different standards.

In the first stanza of “The Chimney Sweeper” we can also see Blake’s injection of a sense of emotion. The little boy has lost his mother and was sold by his father. He is literally alone, and most likely feels alienated from the rest of society. Clearly, Blake feels that where you are in the city makes a lot of difference with respect to the kind of life and experiences that you have.

Although at the time, child chimney sweepers were likely commonplace, this group of individuals was virtually invisible. Blake’s focus on the individual’s story brings what was previously invisible into the light. This idea of taking the ordinary and doing something with it that makes it extraordinary is common during the Romantic period, as is obvious in many other poems produced during thud period.

Another characteristic of many Romantic era writers is the insertion of nature or natural images into their works. Although “the Chimney Sweeper” is presumably set in an industrialized city where residents would most likely hire a chimney sweeper, Blake inserts images of nature throughout the poem. Blake peppers the poem with images that are typically associated with picturesque countryside landscapes such as a “lamb’s back” (line 6), a “green plain” (line 15), and “a river” (line 16). In addition, Blake elicits images of the sky as the chimney sweeper describes the freed chimney sweepers from Tom’s dream as shining “in the Sun” (line 16), rising “upon the clouds” and sporting “in the wind” (line 18). This contrast through visual imagery helps the reader understand that these chimney sweepers really are looking toward the future and better things to come. They live in a society where a river or a shining sun might be a rare oddity, yet these are beautiful and bring about good feeling. A good feeling that is other wise not present when these chimney sweepers are working.

Show, Don’t Tell!

As a writer (and I’m assuming that you are a writer, or at least a literature buff), it is important to draw your audience in. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to repel the people who choose to read your work, but there are ways that many writers, in fact, do this. To prevent your work from becoming a boring piece of wallpaper, you should use the strategy known as, “show, don’t tell”.

We like to watch movies. They are engaging and action-packed and keep us on the edge of our seats, unless you’re watching Twilight, in which case, you might naturally be disengaging, but you get what I’m saying. We watch movies because they are fun to watch and we know what’s happening because everything is happening just a few yards in front of us. Why can’t books be like that? Well, they should be, and many are. The successful writers of these books keep the readers engaged, by “showing” the reader what is happening, rather than just “telling” them.

When writing, it is best to use action words, thoughts, senses, and feelings, as opposed to using their descriptive counterparts. Thus, show what you are trying to convey, don’t tell the reader how to feel; MAKE the reader feel how they are supposed to feel. If you were to flood your writing with heavy-handed adjectives, you’re preventing the reader from experiencing the text. It is the reader’s job to interpret the significant textual details placed by the author, in order to experience the author’s ideas. Similar to watching a movie, you should be able to see what is happening; a picture should be drawn in the reader’s mind, rather than telling the reader what to think or believe.

Some things to keep in mind when using this method: use figurative language. Similes and metaphors, for example, can be very helpful when trying to convey something to the reader without telling them exactly what it is that they need to know. The sentence, “The snail went by the window quickly”, is an example of telling the reader exactly what happened. You can fix this by saying, “Like a race car crossing the finish line, the snail raced past my doorstep”. Not only am I showing the reader what the snail is doing by comparing the normally slow mollusk to a fast car, but this gives the reader a visual as well. Something else to keep in mind, is that you should be careful how much of this vivid imagery you use in your writing. If you over use it, nothing will stand out as it should and the reader could get lost easily. Give drama to those things that are in need of drama. That being said, there is a nice medium to meet when writing. Not too much vivd imagery, while still straying away from an over usage of adjectives.

In my opinion, the “show don’t tell” technique makes reading more fun and entertaining for me. The book comes to life as I read it, and I find it easier to follow and understand, especially if it’s a complicated book. Practicing this technique in your own writing will do nothing but good for you, bringing readers back and yearning for more.

Is That a Symbol?

This is going to be my last post on “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” by Thomas C. Foster. For this last post, I have chosen to reflect on Chapter 12: Is That a Symbol? If you’ve graduated from high school, then you know what a symbol is. If you haven’t graduated from high school, then you should probably go do that before you read this post, but if you’re too lazy to go about all the schoolwork and exams and such, then I’ll explain; symbols are pretty self-explanatory. The bald eagle is  a symbol of our freedom as Americans and a book might simply symbolize learning and education (which you know nothing about if you haven’t graduated from high school).

The basic premise of this chapter: “if you think that it’s a symbol… than it probably is”. And the meaning of that symbol is going to differ depending on who the reader is. I thought this was a very interesting way to look at things. In past English courses that I have taken, whenever symbolism would inevitably creep its way into our reading, it always seemed like the answer to the question, “Now, what does that symbolize?” had to be similar for every student. Never before had I heard that the meaning of a symbol is based on who the reader is. Therefore, discovering symbolism in literature is an individual effort. In saying that, you shouldn’t need the help of your teacher to delve into your past experiences and personal historical knowledge to discuss what the flashing green light situated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock really means. There goes Foster again, making yet another terrific point. Like almost everything else that Foster has taught me through my reading of this text, his discussion on symbolism really does make all the sense in the world. However, I can also qualify what Foster says by bringing up this point: put the same book in the hands of any two readers with the same amount of historical knowledge and ask them to discuss what “the big white house on the hill” symbolizes. The chances that the two readers will give a similar discussion on symbolism are higher than if one reader was more knowledgeable than the other. For example, you (let’s say you’re a student, if you’re not already) and another student in the same grade level as you, read the same book. This book is about a neglected African-American child who is living as a slave in the late 19th century. Every evening, the child looks out his window toward the open horizon after working for hours out in the field. You could agree that the “open horizon” is indeed, a symbol. Now, what does that symbolize? There’s that question again. You know what African-Americans dealt with throughout much of the 19th century, and so does the other guy reading the book. You both know that many slaves who sought out freedom escaped through use of the Underground Railroad led by former slave Harriet Tubman. With this background knowledge, not only you and the other guy, but anyone who reads the book about the slave child could come up with the fact that the open horizon symbolizes freedom. Whether it be freedom from his owners, or freedom from being beaten and neglected every day, or freedom from slavery altogether, we go back to Foster’s words, that’s left up to the reader. Foster failed to mention this, yet I believe that his leaving it out was for an obvious reason. The way Foster talks about how no two readers could come up with the same definition of a symbol, leaves cracks for small possibilities like the one I stated in my example above.

After reading this chapter, symbolism now has a new and exciting definition to me as a critical literary scholar. Foster makes some superior points in this chapter, and I believe that he includes some rather fundamental aspects of symbolism in literature. I wouldn’t change a thing.

It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow

Another reflection post from “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” by Thomas C. Foster. This book is beyond enlightening and fun to read! Chapter 10: one of many chapters on how something so small and seemingly unimportant actually contributes to the text in more ways than meets the eye. First – communion. Who thought a group of people sitting around a table, enjoying a meal, having a good time, meant more than just that? All this deeper meaning stuff. That’s what successful literature is all about.

Now there’s weather. According to Foster and common sense regarding literature, weather can and most likely will affect the outcome of a piece of literature or even answer one of the most asked questions of all time: “What will happen next?” (Directly according to Foster, from an author’s standpoint, depending on how you make it known, the current weather circumstances can make or break a book). Foster focuses primarily on rain in this chapter. Whether you’re just getting started on the classics or if you’ve read every Dickens tale out there, you should be able to understand rain: what it is. What it causes us to feel. How it affects the environment that we live in. This goes for everything that rains down from above, including rain, sleet, lightening, fire in some stories, but like I said, Foster shows his love for rain. Rain is understood to compare to feelings of dreariness, sadness, or woe, but Foster takes it one step further, and ends up throwing something at me I never even saw coming.

While reading the first part of the chapter, I found myself nodding in agreement and even wanting to tell Foster, “I know all of this! It’s all obvious information.” But after getting through all of the “rain is scary and rain is sad”, Foster says, “Rain, though, can do a lot more.” I was almost certain that he covered it all with the allusions to the bible and the popular effect that rain has on any story, but he wasn’t even near finished. After looking critically at the effects of rain, it all came together and even made sense in comparison with the real world as opposed to the worlds posed through literature. I read that rain could be used as a plot device and that it (obviously) has an effect on the atmosphere, and I also read about something that Foster calls the “misery factor”. The “misery factor” basically states that when you, as an author, are wanting your characters to feel most miserable, then you throw some rain on them. I think we can all agree that rain has a pretty high misery factor. Something else that Foster said that contradicts everything he’s said thus far is that rain can be restorative and that it is the main cause of spring. It sounds contradicting but rain is one of those things that can have many different effects depending on who is being affected. Again, rain is the main cause of spring, and rain leaves behind some pretty hard evidence that makes this obvious: April showers bring May flowers, so – Rain equals spring and flowers and sunshine! Therefore adding to the restorative property of rain. Rain also keeps you and I alive. Also adding to its restorative property. Rain is the condensed moisture of the atmosphere falling visibly in separate drops… also known as water, and as human beings, we need water to live. Therefore rain is good, yet sometimes it can be bad. Spring also carries with it a number of positive affects, and rain causes spring to come into our lives each and every year.

We can’t talk about rain without rainbows coming into play. A beautiful display of the colors of the spectrum produced by dispersion of light that normally occurs after a rainstorm. Sure, it takes one hell of a rainstorm for a rainbow to be visible afterwards, but I’d say it’s worth it. In books, I had always connected rain to sadness and misery, and the oh-so-cliché, “it was a dark and stormy night” doesn’t help aid in rain’s plea to be noticed as “good” either. I had no clue that the effects of rain in literature ranged so widely from the “misery factor” to restorative properties. After finally realizing that rain affected a piece of literature in so many different ways, I could hardly imagine the effects of any other kind of weather on a piece of literature, but Foster scratches the surface of how fog and snow might stereotypically affect literature, but Foster ultimately leaves it up to the reader to decide how else fog and snow and other weather patterns may affect literature.

Foster says, “Snow… can mean as much as rain” (Foster, 80). Since rain is snow, just in a solid form, this wasn’t shocking. What was shocking was the huge difference between rain and snow. Snow had a much larger range of positive effects on literature as opposed to rain, but again, it depends on who the weather is affecting and how it affects them. For example, in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis, no amount of “positive” can be used to describe the snow that covers Narnia, the land that had been taken over by the White Witch. The snow isn’t even supposed to be there, at least not throughout the whole year, as it is now. The White Witch had control over Narnia, causing winter to occur all year-long. This is one example of snow carrying a negative connotation in literature.

Weather in literature was something I never paid really close attention to; it was just something else happening in the background of a story. Little did I know, the weather was affecting every character in the book and it even helped sway the outcome of the story.

Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion

Before I began reading chapter two of “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” by Thomas C. Foster, I began drawing inferences about what this chapter would be about based on the title: “Nice to Eat With You: Acts of Communion”. I started with a basic understanding of the title itself; what is communion? From personal experience, I can define communion as follows: when a congregation of a church or group comes together as one to eat and drink in celebration of something magnificent. I take communion with my church every Sunday. When we take communion, the church is coming together and eating the blessed body and blood of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. Equipped with this knowledge, I felt I was ready to read and understand the chapter.

My understanding of what communion was before the reading the chapter was seemingly unscathed after finishing. At the end of the chapter, I understood communion to not necessarily have to be religious, but basically to be whenever a group of people come together to eat and drink. I noticed that Foster concentrated on the fact that including a “communion” scene in a piece of literature was a fairly difficult thing to do. Foster helped me understand where he was coming from through the text; I mean, there’s not much one can write about if the characters are sitting around the dinner table with their mouths full of food, right? It seemed to me like Foster was contradicting himself, because after making this vehement point that communion scenes should never be dealt with in literature, he concluded that behind every communion scene, there is a purpose or a meaning. I soon realized that contradiction was not Foster’s intention, he was simply making a point early on in the chapter that he could draw on and compare to. I agree with Foster when he states that generally when one character invites their friends over for a meal, then that character is trying to obtain something. I did not directly quote Foster, for I believe more than what he explicitly states. For instance, when one invites their friends over for a meal, it could be for more than to plainly get on an enemy’s good side. In saying this, it could very well be less of an objective; no more than to just have a friendly conversation about what’s been happening or to just catch up after being away for some time. Then again, we go back to what Foster was saying, “writing a meal scene is… So inherently uninteresting, that there really needs to be some compelling reason to include one in the story” (Foster, 8). This doesn’t mean that you can’t include a scene like this without one character having an underlying objective, which would’ve sparked the “coming together” of friends. Although including this scene is not recommended.

Something else that Foster commented on, was the fact that every character coming together through communion has at least one thing in common, and that one thing is that each character will evidently die. When I think about it, that is reason enough to join friends and family and celebrate life through communion. For example, in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, Ebenezer Scrooge treats his assistant, Bob Cratchit, like filth and pays him just barely enough to live. In the Cratchit home, meals are spent discussing the evils that infect the soul of Scrooge. As the story progresses Scrooge sees how he must change so that he may live a long and prosperous life. In the end, Scrooge spends his fortune buying the Cratchit family gifts and an immense and delicious Christmas meal, which unites the Cratchit family and Scrooge, almost like family. This unity was brought through communion. In “A Christmas Carol” it is evident how important and even life-changing communion can be.

Communion will forever bring on a new meaning to me, especially in literature. This chapter made sense and helped me to better understand the mind of a working author; especially one who enjoys writing about communion in general!