Extra Credit Blog

The story of Sissy is very much like the story of Ellen Montgomery in The Wide Wide World, only the big and overwhelming difference is their genders. Both Sissy and Ellen spend much of their time at home and their closest companions are their moms, although Sissy doesn't seem to have quite the attachment that Ellen possesses. I find it interesting that both stories incorporate dress making as a vital aspect of the plots. Sissy makes Margie lovely dresses in order to show his love for her and almost as a bribe to keep her around because he enjoys her so much. Ellen must go to the store in order to get marino to have a new dress that will suit her for her future. I find the following passage interesting because it shows how Ellen's mom, who is wise of the necessities of a young girl, knows the necessity of her having a good dress. Ellen says, "...don't be in the least bit worried about my clothes. You know how little I think or care for them" and Ellen's mother responds with a smile and then "presently resumed her anxious look out the window" (Warner 36). The vitality of little girls having nice dresses is stressed because having these things was necessary if a girl was one day to find a husband. Sissy, although seemingly less interested in preparing Margie for her future, still stresses having nice dresses and seems to be living vicariously through Margie. He is a boy yet he enjoys dresses, having grown up dressed like a girl, yet being a boy he does not have to have nice dresses to secure his future or liklihood of getting married in the future.
Should it matter so much that Sissy is a boy while Ellen is a girl? It did in the 19th century for sure, with their strict and separate expectations for girls and boys. Us as readers in the 21st century can look on the text and maybe be more accepting of Sissy because there are more publicly feminine men. I think of Sissy as Clint off of the show What Not to Wear, and Sissy grows up to be a milliner. The idea of a "boy-milliner" was "striking" (Kellogg 564) yet Sissy lived a very successful life and eventually got married. It's interesting to note that the dresses that both Sissy and Ellen were so concerned with helped both of them fulfill the expectations of their different genders. Ellen's dress allowed her to eventually get married, a necessity of girls at the time to secure their future. Sissy's concern with dresses turned into a way for him to make money, allowing him to get married and have a family because his dresses allowed him to fulfill the financial duty that men have to their family.

Parenthood in "The Luck of Roaring Camp"

I think there is a message about children and parenthood that is being taught in "The Luck of Roaring Camp". The story takes the phrase "It takes a village to raise a child" literally as a whole camp of rough guys find themselves in charge of a young life. The aspect of the community working together to provide for the baby's needs suggests that society should as well, provide for the needs of the young, no matter if they belong to you or not.

Another aspect of parenthood I found interesting was the change that came over the rough, criminal-type guys at Roaring Camp. The presence of a new innocent life and the responsibility that comes with being in charge of this life completely transformed every individual and the camp as a whole. Kentuck turned from the grimiest guy in the camp to a clean cut man who "thereafter appeared regularly every afternoon in a clean shirt..." (Harte 536). It shows the impact of having a child on parents. I know many instances of people completely turning their world around from immoral to moral after having a baby because they know they must teach the baby to be good from their example. Having a baby present is the best incentive anyone could have to give up their bad ways for the child's sake. Having a child makes a parent forget about just themselves and put all attention on someone else. We should all act as if we are responsible of those in need and as helpless as this baby, even if we are not blood related. If everyone helped one another and acted as if the innocent and impressionable eyes of a baby were always watching our actions then the world would be a better place.

The Reader's Approach to Short Stories vs Novels

I’m relieved that we’re starting to read short stories, not just because school is getting more and more hectic but also so we can read the whole story, not just excerpt, so we can get the whole effect of the work and analyze it in its entirety. In reading the previous excerpts from novels I’ve felt like I was only scratching the surface of what the work is all about and all the ideas and character development that takes place. In long novels there is a long time and many pages for us as readers to figure everything and all the characters out. We as readers become attached to the characters because we spend more time learning about how they act in their life as the plot unfolds. In short stories it seems like we don’t have time to learn about complex characters in depth and analyze their characteristics. Instead, it seems like we are told directly how the characters are and we are meant to trust the narrator in his or her analysis moreso than in long stories where we have more experience with the characters to judge for ourselves. For example, in “Desiree’s Baby” Desiree’s personality is summed up in one sentence, “For the girl grew to be beautiful and genle, affectionate and sincere, -- the idol of Valmonde” (Chopin 517). The reader is left with no choice but to agree and depend upon the author and the narrator’s opinion on the matter as little other detail is given concerning her character.

So when I read short stories I feel like I don’t have to analyze characters as much but at the same time I have to analyze the wording of the narrator more. Since every word counts, there is little fluff and mostly everything is meaningful and should be analyzed. I find myself reading lines and phrasing over and over again to better understand what exactly the author wants me as a reader to understand or the idea I am supposed to take from the words. I’m not necessarily reading too differently, I’m still going through the work at about the same pace with maybe a few more notes in the margins than I had in the novel excerpts, but I find that I am analyzing the wording and small details mentioned in the short story far more than in the novels because they must be included because they are significant.

Little Lord Fauntleroy- male vs. female authorship

When it comes to authorship, it really shouldn’t make much of a difference if an author is male or female because it doesn’t change the actual text or the ideas being put forth through the text. Although the story is still the same, our analysis of the literature may change with information of whether the author it a girl or a boy. I think we all get in our mind what the author’s sex is based on how the story is written and what it is about. Women tend to write more about relationships, love stories, and things women could relate to while men seem to write more action and heroic tales. That is the stereotype at least, and some of the works we have written fall under these categories, like Washington Irving, a male, writing “Rip Van Winkle” about a crazy adventure of waking up after 20 years of sleeping and “The Wide Wide World” being written by Susan Warner, a woman, which is about domestic life and involves many emotions and a whole lot of crying. We have come to expect these different writing styles by men and women, and so it screws us up and we don’t know exactly what to think of writings that are exceptions to this general rule. It makes me think of Nicolas Sparks that writes all the love novels like The Notebook. It’s not that guys cannot write great love stories, it’s just more uncommon. Out of the works we’ve read I think the second half of “A Whisper in the Dark” seems like something that a man would be more apt to write but Louisa May Alcott is a woman.

In Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy, I got the impression that the author was a girl by the wording like “he was so beautiful to look at that he was quite a picture” (Burnett 445). I didn’t picture a male talking about a little boy and describing him as “beautiful,” so it didn’t surprise me too much that Burnett was a woman. Ceddie seems a little girly to me too, with his long hair and clothes, and it seems less likely that a male would have made a boy character like this.

I think the main thing that changes when we find out that an author is male or female is our expectations of what the story will be about. I think that’s one reason why a man might go under a woman’s name or vice versa during this time period. People want to read a domestic fiction written by a woman who would seem to have more experience with the home life they are writing about while a man would have more experience about the outside world and people would be interested in what adventures they could come up with based on that experience. If we can’t tell if it’s a girl or a boy writing the story then there seems to be an even playing field where the author has no expectations they are set under and they can write what they want. The audience might not trust the work as much, however, because they would not have the additional information that is helpful in analyzing the literature.

Country vs. City business in Tom Sawyer

In order to encourage Tom to memorize his bible verses, Mary gives him a knife as a reward. “True, the knife would not cut anything, but it was a “sure-enough” Barlow and there was inconceivable grandeur in that—though where the Western boys ever got the idea that such a weapon could possibly be counterfeited to its injury, is an imposing mystery…” (Twain 427). This passage reminded me of the ignorance of country boys as far as money and possessions goes. They would not know a real knife from a fake knife, just as Frank, in Ragged Dick, couldn’t tell that a “silver pitcher worth twenty dollars” (Alger 376) in reality “aint worth sixpence” (Alger 377).

I can just imagine Tom or any other country boys going to the city and being scammed. That’s not to say that Tom isn’t witty and good at playing people. He’s clearly good at getting little treasures like bible verse tickets and doorknobs from his friends, so he is skillful economically in that way, but Tom does not have the city street smarts that Dick has. While both boys have a way of reading people and making business, Dick is a boy living in a real and harsh world of hunger and the danger associated with living on the streets. Dick knows the value of products and how to make real money while Tom, although the same age, is in a kid’s world where all his needs are provided for and his business transactions for little treasures does little for Tom but gives him a few moments of enjoyment and bragging rights among his friends.

For both Dick and Tom, wealth is acquired with the intention of having a good time with the wealth in mind. Because money is scarce and the boys in the country don’t have fun places or things to spend the money on like theaters and cigarettes, it is of little importance to have actual money. To a little boy in the country, being rich and popular meant having cool things like a dead rat on a string. The overall idea expressed about boys is that they should use all resources they can get their hands on to have fun. Girls were encouraged to buy things they would use to enhance their future, like Ellen in the Wide Wide World, while it seems to be acceptable for boys to live for the day and spend their wealth in foolish but fun ways.

Boys vs. Girls- Ragged Dick

It’s amazing how different the social expectations are between boys and girls. In today’s society it seems like we generally have the same expectations for girls and boys. They’re supposed to be good and mind their parents and go to school and play nice with each other. In the 19th century boys were expected to either go to school and learn a trade or work. It’s like they were being trained from early on to fulfill their economic duty to their family while the girls were being trained to be the perfect house wives. This perhaps says a lot about the 19th century society and how hard it was to prosper in that time. Boys and girls had to be trained early to fulfill their roles as adults while today, for the most part, we get to enjoy our childhood, learn a little, and eventually take on the responsibilities we will have as adults.

There was one big difference I found in the depictions and expectations of boys and girls that stuck out to me. There seems to be a double standard when it comes to boys. Girls are expected to act perfect and godly, while boys are encouraged to be good, but then are not severely looked down upon when their flaws are clearly visible. Horatio Alger depicts Dick as a “frank and straightforward” (Alger 342) boy who also lies, makes up stories, and tells “a wrong direction to honest old gentlemen unused to the city” (Alger 339) for the fun of it. Dick is also very business savvy but is then “careless of his earnings” (340). He blows the money he makes on gambling and entertainment instead of saving it for his next meal or to get ahead in life. Think of the shame a woman would have if she carelessly frivoled away money for cigars and movie theatres. Although no one is perfect, it is clearly more acceptable for boys to show their faults, in part because being a little bad is cool, which gives guys more power than just being good.

Another thing is that while boys are encouraged to show ambition in their life, as far as a career goes, women were only encouraged to do the housework required of them. The only way a woman could be ambitious and try to better her life was through having an advantageous marriage. The independence of little boys shows how their future is really in their hands while it seems that girls must rely on their family and the hope for a rich husband in order to get by.

Mental Insanity in A Whisper in the Dark

I was very surprised when insanity was thrown into the second part of A Whisper in the Dark because it so greatly differed from the first part. Sybil appears to be a very mentally sane girl, who acted much as a young teenage girl would, even if she is vain and giddy. She showed off her social competency through her ability to play men off one another. By inserting this girl who has the wealth and the whole world at her fingertips into an insane asylum the text changes from a romantic fiction into a horror story. The concept of insanity is scary and the descriptions of Sybil’s desolate setting are unpleasant as she describes the “hours of unspeakable suffering, which aged [her] more than years” (Alcott 235). We see the beauty Sybil was so proud of and used as a means of manipulation turn into an ugly “melancholy wreck of [her] former self” (Alcott 236). We pity Sybil and her misfortune but mental health was not well understood in that day and it held many negative connotations, as it does now to some extent as well. The general belief seemed to be “death of the body was far more preferable than that of the mind” (Alcott 236). Sybil was ashamed that she may be going crazy and the readers were as well uneasy about it.

The concept of insanity seems to put the readers on our guard and gives the entire novel a suspicious and scary feel. Especially since the work is written in first person, it makes us distrustful of the narrator of the story and with that makes us question what is really going on. I realized she might really be going crazy when she saw her mother dead (although she did not know that was her mother at the time) and she says, “An awesome fancy that is was myself assailed me… I recalled legends of spirits returning to behold the bodies they had left” (Alcott 237). I knew that this was an extremely strange thought and that the only way this could be true was if this story was a sci-fi, which it clearly isn’t. The fantastical story she made in her mind convinced me that she was not all completely there and therefore made me doubt the truth to the rest of the narration.

As far as the mother/daughter relationship goes, it is crazy how similar Sybil was to her mom. She looked the same, had the same hair, and was placed in a mental ward where she acted the same by pacing back and forth. It really takes the concept of “like mother like daughter” to a whole new level. Perhaps it sheds light on the concept of mental illnesses and how they can be passed down from mother to daughter through genes, or how a mother wants her offspring to not have the same problems as herself. Although Sybil’s mom did not know it was her daughter she was helping escape at the time, she still sacrificed herself to help her so Sybil would not have to live a life as desolate as herself, which shows a mother’s love.