(Very) Rough Draft

**Please let it be known I have this vigorous writing agenda. This is the first step, which is essentially a stream-of-consciousness form; and also a skeleton of a draft.

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            When one pictures the idea of a true American, the first thoughts that pop into their head will be the different symbols we chose to represent ourselves, such as the cowboy. However, if that person is Jack Kerouac, he might give a different answer. That is because in Kerouac’s essay, “The Great American Hobo,” he builds up the homeless as an American symbol of their own. Instead of leaving the hobos “in the dumps,” he chose to idolize them, and give the world a new perspective of them. Through his dreamy descriptions, his various connections made throughout, and his stints of dialogue, Kerouac creates a piece which solidifies the American homeless as an asset to our country, signifying some of our greatest aspects.

            The idea of being homeless has the most negative feeling attached to it. In the media, the homeless are often displayed as drug addicts, psychotics and those who are just too lazy to make anything of themselves. This is not entirely false, but after reading this essay, it is hard to settle with that. Kerouac, throughout the essay, creates the idea of the hobo representing freedom. He does this by using very appealing language, turning the hobo into a wise, respectable character. He describes the hobo as being on this long endeavor, this “idealistic lope to freedom and the hills of holy silence and holy privacy” (2976). Kerouac also describes the homeless lifestyle as “a definite special idea of footwalking freedom” (2977). This use of freedom really solidifies his point. The American hobo is truly the idea of freedom—they have nothing to hold them back, only looking forward to whatever adventure awaits them.

            Throughout “The Vanishing American Hobo,” Kerouac relates the homeless to many famous American idols as a means to break this negative stigma around them. Some of the examples he uses are Johnny Appleseed and Jim Bridger, both important historical figures that led a somewhat hobo lifestyle. Kerouac also relates the hobo to Benjamin Franklin: “Benjamin Franklin was like a hobo in Pennsylvania, he walked through Philly with three big rolls under his arms and a Massachusetts halfpenny on his hat” (2977). This is quite a significant relation, as Benjamin Franklin is one of the founding fathers of our country. He is also an American symbol, not just for his appearance on the hundred-dollar bill, but because of his legacy as a freedom fighter. Relating the hobo to Franklin paints a clear image of what Kerouac sees; a hobo is wise and seeks to learn the truths that one must search for. Kerouac further mentions Walt Whitman and John Muir, a poet and a naturalist/preservationist respectably. He even goes as far to name Teddy Roosevelt—a “political hobo”—and Vachel Lindsay. These connections are not accidental, Kerouac is purposefully relating the homeless to such intelligent, influential figures as a means to solidify their place; these men and women are not losers, and they’re not junkies: they are the artists, they are the geniuses, who strive for more than what they are given. Kerouac describes a hobo smoking his pipe as being similar to men in Japan, who isolate themselves in huts in order to find enlightenment. From this one can assess that Kerouac believes, wholeheartedly, that these people are truly the enlightened ones. When you break from society—a home, a car, taxes, jobs—you find inner peace, this otherwise unattainable sense of being.

            Towards the end of the essay, Kerouac incorporates bits of dialogue, which seem to be his way of giving us a direct example of what a hobo is. Except, instead of coming off as sophisticated, intelligent people, they come off as being rather simple.

            Although Kerouac does not necessarily make the homeless out to be something they’re not, he still manages to solidify their place as an American symbol. They may not be the cleanest, but overall, after reading this essay, one can definitely see how they are the freest people. Isn’t that what everyone really wants: to be free?

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Draft

In the Bible, Jesus calls to the disciples they put away their jobs and material things to follow him:  "And Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.…" (Mark:1:17-18)  

They cannot have these things if they want to fully devote themselves to Christ.  The grandmother must put away her affectations and air of Christianity before she can truly accept grace.  Throughout the beginning of the story, we see the Grandmother's less than Christian approach to her fellow man; she criticizes people at just about every turn, "People certainly aren't nice like they used to be" (2778), she lies to get her way (2779), and she's entirely concerned with appearances. She sees beauty in things she knows nothing about, like the poor boy on the steps of a shack and the graveyard plantation (2777).  There is nothing romantic about these places she wants to paint and sighs lovingly over, she simply cannot see them as people such as herself.  Tossing blame around at everyone but those she likes, "The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now." (2779)  

Before becoming a disciple, Matthew was a tax collector (Matthew 9:9) something that was, and still is, considered one of the most hated of professions.  When others confronted Jesus as to why he would bring someone like that into his fold he said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick."  The Grandmother is not a perfect Christian, just as the Misfit says at the very end, "She would of been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."(2786) She has to become good, become a disciple before she dies at peace.  

The reader first sees this change in her with regards to her appearance, at the beginning of the story, O'Conner clearly makes a point to make sure we get a full picture of what kind of a woman the grandmother is "...but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim...In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." (2776)  She is vain and preoccupied, worried about keeping up her image and dolling out criticism.  However, when she if faced with The Misfit - when first confronted with the very real possibility of her death, she withdraws this pretense, "The grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground." (2783)  Suddenly, the idea of dying "a lady" doesn't matter anymore, because it's not important.  For a woman her age, at this time to cast aside the hat at all was just not done.  To drop the ornamentation, the status and civility it represents, is to "leave her net", to leave what tells others who she is and makes her, her.  She is now free to "follow" God; to become his messenger.  At no point in the story does she actually pray.  It is only when she has her moment of revelation towards the Misfit that the reader sees her understand God.  When she realizes her death is drawing near, just before her exclamation, "She sank down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her" (2786) She falls down to her knees, almost in prayer.  “Humbled” is something we read about a lot in the Bible in the presence of Jesus and God, and she experiences this effect with The Misfit himself.  During most of their talk, as his associates are taking her family into the woods, he is kneeling below her and she literally "...was standing up looking down on him" (2784) and then he is standing above her when she first falls to her knees.  Just before her moment of grace however, "She saw the man's face twisted close to her own..." (2786) This is the first time she is "equal" to The Misfit; this is the stance they are in when she is killed, at equal height.  

In the same verse from Matthew describing tax collectors, Jesus says, “‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:11) The Misfit is there to bring this sinner towards Christ.  Even if he doesn’t mean to, even if he doesn’t realize his purpose, he seems to be sent to deliver her salvation. Like Pontius Pilate washing his hands after whipping Jesus Christ, The Misfit wipes her away, “Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them."(2786)  The Bible verse goes, “When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this Man's blood; see to that yourselves." (Matthew 27:24).  By washing them away, the two men attempt to cleanse themselves of their demise.  

I'm not very good at rough draft's so I want to be sure I'm heading in the right direction, also I want to use the quote about the Grandmother smiling when she dies but I don't quite know how to fit it in. 

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rough first draft

                                                                     The Mother

                                                            By Gwendolyn Brooks

        The poem “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks evokes a myriad of emotions in the reader. 

 The title itself brings to mind a singularity that she is “the mother” not a mother but emphasis on the mother.  Brooks by using this title makes the reader identify with the image of our own mothers. The title can also refer to a negative connotation as in the derogatory abbreviation of  Motherf**ker.   This interpretation would be a bit absurd but to each his/her own. That is the beauty of poetry it suggests but does not give graphic descriptions of each event.

            The first stanza and in particular the first line: “Abortions will not let you forget”  

(Brooks 1).  This line changes the universality of mother into directly addressing you (the reader).  The slang or vernacular of the next line states that “you remember the children you got that you didn’t get”. (Brooks 2). This suggests that you were pregnant and expecting a child but you never got it because of an abortion?  The poem goes on to describe the fetus as “small pulps with little or no hair” (Brooks 3). Is Brooks deliberately deemphasizing the humanity of the fetus by referring them as meaty scraps?  The first stanza of the poem Brooks has rhyming couplets: forget, get, hair, air, beat, sweet, thumb, come sigh, and eye.  

 “You will never neglect or beat” (Brooks 5).  Is this a rationalization to mitigate guilt over the abortion? Brooks paints a picture of a mother that would dote on her children with a “gobbling mother-eye.” (Brooks 10). The mother would buy sweets and never leave them (the children) but this negates what her first line of the poem states. Abortion is the mother choosing not to bear responsibility the babies that would come. This stanza is make-believe of what an ideal mother would do and that she would cherish each memory of motherhood.

            The second stanza lines 11-33 are significant because Brooks ends the rhyming couplets.  This stanza is about anguish and regrets.  Brooks twice depicts the children as “dim”. Does  Brooks suggest that since these children never saw the light of day that they are dim because their life force or inner light was stolen by the decision of the mother to abort? In this stanza Brooks starts with the pronoun I and uses it frequently in the stanza. Brooks also first mentions the word “sinned” and crime. Does this mother now admit if only to herself that she feels guilty over the abortions?  “I have stolen you births and your names”. (Brooks 18). The mother will never know of each baby’s loves, marriages and life itself.  Her babies will never cry “straight baby tears.” (Brooks 19).  Brooks in line 23-24 of the poem denotes that the mother “poisoned their breaths but even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate”.  The mother is communicating that she made the decision to abort but it wasn’t personal? She did not view them as people at the time maybe only as a malignant growth?  The mother is remorseful and questioning her decision but maybe she had no choice in the matter and abortion was kinder than life would have been for the children.  She mourns the lack of existence of her children that she got but didn’t get.  The mother reluctantly states that the truth is the babies were born and died but “never giggled or cried.” (Brooks 31).  Maybe the mother is now too old for childbirth and she wonders what her children would have accomplished in life.  Did she have the right to decide their fate?  Did she make mistakes?    Brooks in this stanza is verbalizes what every woman might think after an abortion. It is a life-changing decision whether you decide to abort or to have the baby.  Personal shame and sorrow mark this stanza. Grief is apparent in the lamentations of the mother.

            The last stanza where the mother is pleading with the reader to believe that she loved you (the children) she is begging for their forgiveness. She knew them faintly but she loved them.  Is it possible for a mother to terminate her pregnancy and still feel the right to mourn the nonexistent babies?  Is the last word in the poem “All” (Brooks 35) meant to encompass every woman who has had an abortion?  Is she asking the reader to understand that the choice of an abortion was difficult and she did not make the decision out of convenience but out of necessity?

            The poem asks forgiveness but does the mother ever forgive herself. She makes excuses for her decision until the end and she states that her babies were killed.  The mother acknowledges that she made decisions and that she grieves for all that might have been.  The poem does not tell the reader what factors weighed in the termination of the fetus.  Was the child a consequence of rape?  Was the child the result of incest and sexual abuse?  Was the mother already burdened with too many children to care for properly?  The use of the word all is significant because it suggests a universal forgiveness regardless of the action.  Remorse is the end result of all abortions and compassion for the difficult choices by the mother. 

            It is interesting to note that nowhere in the poem is the father mentioned, it leads the reader to assume that the decision is the woman’s right and not the father’s decision to bear the child.  Is Brooks leading the reader to believe in choice and not condemnation for the mother?

             

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Freeing the Virgin (ESSAY)

I bought and annotated a copy of Welcome to the Monkey house if you want I can bring it in and we can discuss some more or I can take a picture and update this blog with it so you can see I did step one. For step two most of that is just noted in my text but the main topic is the shift in voice from dark humor and satirical to something vile and twisted. My questions are Why does Vonnegut change voice? Why does he switch from dark humor and satire to a complete seperate style? Is Vonnegut's point to create empathy for a rapist? Does he want us to understand the sacrifice emotionally Billy the poet is making through his actions simulatiousy with the sacrifice Nancy makes with her body? Is this right Is this Justified?

Reading this was dark, I chose this story and specifically this part because it entails a great technique that is incredibly difficult. In a mattter of sentences Billy the Poet transforms from a rebel to a rapist. It's shocking, the story is no longer funny, the champange joke no longer matters we are sitting there, stunned that this author would take us somewhere like this. Challenging our reasoning, then he asks us to empathize, to understand the emotional burden of Billy, he has done this countless times, and the woman are all happier for it but the weight of his actions is on him. He doesn't have love, no one has ever chosen to give their body to him. He must take it. His intentions are pure, he's invoking a sexual revolution and in revolution there are casualites but is this the way to do it? Vonnegut creates a character in this story that is filled with depression, regret. And with a duty, a burden often to heavy for him to bear. Yet he believes his actions are justified. Salvation/sexual freedom that can only be obtained through a violation. It's so personal. I was deeply effected by this writting, to go from laughter to something so deep and seedy, to be emotionaly vulnerable and unprepared to feel taken advantage of even by the author. You trust him to continue to make you laugh and instead he drops you from a ten story building. 

This is  pure free writing, I didn't look at my notes writing this so my ideals might be jumbled but I think I've stumbled on something, the idea that not only were the characters taken advantage of but the audience it's self was violated. A trust between author and reader was questioned when we no longer were given something to laugh at and yet were now questioning our own values and morality. This is a truly amazing piece and I'm excited to continues studying and working on it. 

Vonnegut is a true literary genius. 

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Step Three: Questions and Analytical Reading

In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” how does Plath depict her father the within the confines of feminism as she says "if I've killed one man I've killed two- the vampire who said he was you and drank my blood for a year, seven years, if you want to know, Daddy, you can lie back now"(Plath) on page 3055?  

In Allen Ginsberg’s “America,” why does he justify his conformity yet unwaveringly fight for civil liberties in such a harsh manner as on page 2972 when he states "you should have seen my reading Marx. My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right"(Ginsberg).  

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Steps 1-3: A Good Man is Hard to Find

When re-reading 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' the more subtle Christian imagery jumped out at me, such as:

• The grandmother's ridiculous obsession with appearances, "...but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim...In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." (2776)
• But, when she if faced with  The Misfit, when first confronted with the very real possibility of her death, she withdraws this pretense, "The grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground." (2783)  Suddenly, the idea of dying "a lady" doesn't matter anymore.
• "She sank down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her" (2786) She falls down to her knees, almost in prayer.
• "She saw the man's face twisted close to her own..." (2786) This is the first time she is "equal" to The Misfit; at first he is kneeling below her and she literally "...was standing up looking down on him" (2784) and then he is standing above her when she first falls to her knees.  This is the stance they are in when she is killed, equal height.  
• "Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them."(2786) Like Pontius Pilate washing his hands after whipping Jesus Christ, The Misfit wipes her away.

Did the grandmother have to give up her superficial affectations before she could die a child of God? Was she like the disciples before her, putting away their possessions before they could truly follow Jesus?

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Prewrting 1-3

As I read and reread Jack Kerouac's, The Vanishing American Hobo, I wondered about the use of his hierarchy of hobos.  He uses the word hobo and bum but interchangeably. He carefully delineates the two.  Hobos are described in positive terms and he uses for example a wide variety of notable historical figures. When he is writing about the bums his words are negative and the examples of bums are unknown men off the street.  His repeated use of the word freedom in connection with the idea of a hobo jumped out at me while reading this story.  The two things seem in contrast to one another.  His references to Buddhism and enlightenment also seem to be in contrast with the hobos life. Is Kerouac's use of the hierarchy of hobos meant as a symbol of the freedom of the individual who does not conform to the mainstream culture and its prefabricated way of thinking? A more enlightened way of life? And is the skid row bum the symbol for the worn- out, spiritually bankrupt individual who blindly follows society's norms?

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Steps 1-3 essay

      I have done a closer reading of the poem “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks. The first sentence is striking to me “Abortions will not let you forget”.  This statement I think will help me develop my thesis. Abortion is a word that is so emotionally charged for many people.  The second line also makes the reader recall that “You remember the children you got but didn’t get.  Brook’s use of got and get are paradoxical, one being in present tense and the other in past tense. The reader is taken on a journey of lament and retrospect.  Brooks describes the fetus as a pulpy thing but she cannot let the reader forget the potential of the lives she destroyed.  Did the mother in this poem have choices?  Were the choices of necessitate or convenience? She writes “Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.” Does she have other children?  Why did she abort her child?  Can she live with her choices?  She refers to her babies as dim. Was this because they never saw the light of day? The last line of the poem “All” Is Brooks crying out to all mothers that have aborted their children? 

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Essay #1 steps 1-3

The story begins talking about people drinking too much, and feeling the effects on Sunday. 

It was a fine day in the summer time, Neddy wanted to swim.

Massive clouds in the distance, a storm is coming- for his life.

Cheever describes Neddy as the last hours of a summer’s day.  Does that mean the best times for Neddy are in the past?

Lucinda asked Neddy where he was going on page 2, he said he was going to swim home. This is where his life went into turmoil?

First party he goes to they gladly offer him a drink.

Later on page 3 Cheever discusses a few people hear or see him swim buy, but can’t tell if its him for sure. Does this mean he is starting to change?

2/3 of the way down page 3 he hears thunder.  The storm is coming. His storm

Page 5 the leaves are changing, the weather cooling. It’s fall, and his situation is darkening

He found the welchers pool dry and he was disappointed.  No alcohol

Cheever writes “was his memory failing or . . . he had damaged his sense of truth?” Denial

Bottom of page 5 he begins getting shamed on the highway with trash and beer cans on the ground around him. He is just trying to cross the highway, but I think there is more to it.  This is where he gets real bad with his problem, and everyone is starting to notice he is falling apart.

Page 6 “at what point had this prank, this joke, this piece of horseplay become serious?” he realizes he has a problem?

Bottom of page 7 people tell neddy they are sorry for his problems. He either doesn’t remember them or is in denial.

Page 8 he notices weight loss, wonders how it could be in one day

He is getting cold, needs a drink to warm him up.

Notices his memory is shot again

Page 10 people talk behind his back about his problems

Page 11 he starts crying, he knows things are wrong

He gets into his last pool, but doesn’t dive for the first time, but went down the steps into the pool.

Gets home to an empty home. Family gone. No life. It’s over.

Cheever shows Neddy being lost in a world of alcohol and abandonment. 

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Essay #1 Pre-Write: The Vanishing American Symbol

If one were to see a homeless person in this day and age, what would be the first thing to come to mind? For most, the answer is probably "loser," or "junkie," even so much as "scum." Though if one were to ask Jack Kerouac his opinion on the matter, it would probably be more along the lines of "freedom," and so on. Kerouac, in his piece, The Vanishing American Hobo, makes great claim to the importance of the homeless population. The key aspect of Kerouac's essay is the language he uses to build the hobo as an iconic figure, rather than a slacker. Kerouac uses very positive wording when describing the hobos: phrases like "footwalking freedom" He refers to many historical figures who are well-adored, such as Benjamin Franklin and Walt Whitman, as hobos, using them to bridge the gap between what we consider someone well off and someone who is not. What Kerouac ultimately does with this essay, is solidify the American Hobo as an American symbol. The homeless, according to Kerouac, demonstrate the true values of freedom and exploration that our country was founded upon. Kerouac relates the idea of poverty being a sign of virtue among monks in civilized nations (2977), to the American hobo, who is constantly being harassed by the police. Yet, they still do find their virtue in this solitude. The way Kerouac builds the scene, one imagines a happy lot of homeless fellows, discussing the greater things in life, unrestricted by bills, or a family; they are truly free to live to the fullest.

In this essay, Kerouac shows this affection toward the hobos and their lifestyle, really showing the beauty of it. While he warns of the dangers, he also reflects on the positives. Though this may be, how does Kerouac solidify the hobo as an American symbol in this essay? 

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