English 1st Semester Vocab

"The Crucible."

(Arthur Miller, 1953). Miller chose the 1692 Salem witch trials as his setting, but the work is really an allegorical protest against the McCarthy anti-Communist "witch-hunts" of the early 1950s. In the story, Elizabeth Proctor fires servant Abigail Williams after she finds out Abigail had an affair with her husband. In response, Abigail accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft. She stands trial and is acquitted, but then another girl accuses her husband, John, and as he refuses to turn in others, he is killed, along with the old comic figure, Giles Corey. Also notable: Judge Hathorne is a direct ancestor of the author Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Puritanism

-believed they had to enforce God's rules and will at any cost -everything that happened was a result of God's attitude towards humans -Bradstreet, Bradford, and Taylor are examples

tetrameter

-poetic line with 4 metrical feet (8-12 syllables in the line) tetra - 4 stresses syllables

Romanticism

19th century artistic movement that appealed to emotion rather than reason...... sought to portray passions, not calm reflection. -plots are arranged around crisis moments -Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau are examples

Nature is the supreme source of life

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Embracing Humanity

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there are gradations (levels) of evil

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Light and Dark.....

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Realism

A 19th century artistic movement in which writers and painters sought to show life as it is rather than life as it should be... -terms of struggle -evolution affected how writers looked at their characters -nothing more or less than the treatment of materials

Doppelganger

A ghostly double of a living person. Ex: Fall of the House of Usher

The Scarlet Letter

A novel about Hester Prynne, a woman in seventeenth century New England who is convicted of adultery. At the beginning of the story, she is forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her dress as a sign of her guilt. Hester will not reveal the identity of her partner in adultery. Her husband (Chillingworth) comes to realize who her lover (Rev. Dimmesdale) is and takes revenge on him. Eventually, her dying lover publicly admits his part in the adultery.

transcendentalism

A philosophy pioneered by Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1830's and 1840's, in which each person has direct communication with God and Nature, and there is no need for organized churches. It incorporated the ideas that mind goes beyond matter, intuition is valuable, that each soul is part of the Great Spirit, and each person is part of a reality where only the invisible is truly real. Promoted individualism, self-reliance, and freedom from social constraints, and emphasized emotions.

poppet

A small figure of a human being used in sorcery and witchcraft...... The Crucible: Mary Warren, who is the Proctors housekeeper, presents Elizabeth with this gift when she comes to court. She does this to frame her.

Satire

A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and convention for reform or ridicule. Often uses imitation, irony, and/or sarcasm.

Metaphysical Conceit

An elaborate or unusual comparison--especially one using unlikely metaphors, simile, hyperbole, and contradiction, Overblown comparison, fairly unrealistic but clear, as in comparing woman to rose

The American Dream

An idea of success that usually involves owning a house, being able to provide a better life for your family and attain certain material objects.

"Upon The Burning of Our House"

Anne Bradstreet; she exemplifies Puritan plain style, instills fear to show God's power, shows the Puritan emphasis on a simple life and devotion to God. Anne writes this poem about the way that she and her family were becoming too attached to the physical and material things that they owned and so God burned them all away so that they would become more pious like they were supposed to be. She felt glad that he had taken away her home and possessions.

"To my Dear and Loving Husband"

Anne Bradstreet; the poem begins by describing the compatibility between the speaker and her husband. The speaker then describes how much she values her husband's love, how strong her love is, and how she will never be able to repay her husband for his love. The poem concludes with the speaker urging herself and her husband to "persevere" in their love for another so that they can live forever.

"Reconciliation"

Author: Walt Whitman -Themes within the poem include love your enemies and death cleanses.

"The Outcasts of Poker Flat"

By Bret Harte. Four people are banned from their town for doing "bad deeds." They get snowed into a cabin they were staying in on the mountains and eventually die. Many stereotypes: Oakhurst: apparent success, Billy: blackhearted villian, Mother Shipton: prostitute with a heart of gold, Tom: the innocent

The power of evil in trying to find someone's secret

Chillingworth trying to figure out Pearl's father

"Because I Could not Stop for Death"

Death, in the form of a gentleman suitor, stops to pick up the speaker and take her on a ride in his horse-drawn carriage. They move along at a pretty relaxed pace and the speaker seems completely at ease with the gentleman. As they pass through the town, she sees children at play, fields of grain, and the setting sun. As dusk sets in our speaker gets a little chilly, as she is completely under-dressed - only wearing a thin silk shawl for a coat. She was unprepared for her impromptu date with Death when she got dressed that morning. They stop at what will be her burial ground, marked with a small headstone. In the final stanza, we find out the speaker's ride with Death took place centuries ago (so she's been dead for a long time). But it seems like just yesterday when she first got the feeling that horse heads (like those of the horses that drew the "death carriage") pointed toward "Eternity"; or, in other words, signaled the passage from life to death to an afterlife.

"Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church"

Dickinson, Talks about worshiping in a non traditional church setting that is founded in nature. Tone is semi condescending/ defensive. THEME = NATURE & RELIGION

Aspects of a poem

Diction refers to a poem's entire word choice, the overall effect, like the ingredients selected for a recipe, creating the tone or mood of the poem. Alliteration: Repetition of initial consonant sounds of words, typically in the same line ("summer season")

Hidden sin is deadly

Dimmesdale hides his sin, and he slowly begins to die physically and emotionally. Also, Chillingworth is dead inside because he sins by hurting Dimmesdale and after Dimmesdale passes.. Chillingworth has nothing to live for.

Names: Pearl, Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth

Dimmsdale=dim. he symbolizes darkness and hippocratic behavior. He also symbolizes that even though a man is holy or good they still sin. Pearl=Hester probably considers Pearl beautiful and rare, just like real pearls. Puritans also considered pearls as a luxury and vanity. Hester and Dimsdale sinned when they had an affair, and Pearl is the result of that luxury and vanity. Pearls are created by an irritant entering an oyster, usually a piece of sand or grit. Hester was the irritant thrust into the oyster that was the Puritan society. She "spoke out" via her affair with Dimsdale. The result is Pearl. Hester="Prynne" sounds like "prim," a Puritan virtue. Chillingworth=cold and calculating

Hanging witches

Done in The Crucible. Did this out of fear. Abigail made the whole thing up and because of it many innocent women and men died.

Identity

EX: Huck finding his identity, Hester losing her identity to the Scarlet Letter, Chillingworth being consumed by rage.

Trying to commit the perfect crime doesn't always work

EX: when buck and tom try to rescue jim and tom ends up with a bullet in his leg.

The Fall of The House of Usher

Edgar Allen Poe; A short story about a friend (narrator) visiting the decaying House of Usher. One instantly recognizes the theme of death, in the house, it's two inhabitants (Roderick+ Madeline) who are dying, and even the setting of the season (fall). The tale is supposed to be terrifying, and Poe makes it that way by giving the reader connections. Roderick and Madeline are not just brother and sister but twins who share "sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature" which connect his mental disintegration to her physical decline. As Madeline's mysterious illness approaches physical paralysis, Roderick's mental agitation takes the form of a "morbid acuteness of the senses" that separates his body from the physical world. Poe explores the inner workings of the human imagination but, at the same time, cautions the reader about the destructive dangers within. When fantasy suppresses reality and the physical self, as in Roderick's case, what results is madness and mental death. Madeline's return and actual death reunites the twin natures of their single being. The true focus of this story is the narrator's reaction to and understanding of these strange events. Even to look into the dark imagination where fantasy becomes reality is to evoke madness. That is why Roderick twice refers to the narrator as "Madman" in the final scene. The narrator has made a journey into the underworld of the mind and is nearly destroyed by it; however, he manages to escape and turns to watch as the "House of Usher" crumbles. (LONG. D:), A short story about a man who visits his mentally ill friend (Roderick) and the friend's deathly-sick sister (Madeline). Madeline dies and is buried in the mansion's vault, but after a week, the she escapes and has her revenge on Roderick for burying her alive, while the narrator escapes and watches as the mansion burns to the ground

"Huswifery"

Edward Taylor. Expresses his wish to serve God. The "conceit" of a spinning wheel shows the speaker's desire to be part of God's plan--a device through which God is transmitted. He talks about how he would like to be used by God for good, and that he wishes for God to completely take over his life. The man in the poem uses a spinning wheel as an analogy as to how he wishes to be closer to God.

"Nature"

Emerson's best known essay 1836; in the quest for self-fulfillment individuals should work for a common communion with the natural world

"Much Madness is Divinest Sense"

Emily Dickinson, Paradoxical (siding w/ majority is sane; siding w/ minority is dangerous/mad)

"I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed"

Emily Dickinson, compares abstract nature to an intoxicating substance. The poem is not about liquor or drunkenness. It is about the beauty of nature and how you can feel drunk on the metaphorical beauty of it. She describes being drunk on air and dew.

"This is my Letter to the World

Emily Dickinson; . Emily writes about her work as the letters she presents to the world. But the world never wrote back to her because they never realized how much talent she had during the time that she was alive. She seemed to be able to predict that someday people will be reading her poems and learning about her world views. She wished to pass on the messages and lessons that nature had taught her. She saw the world as a place she wanted to shield herself against and so she never left her house and always kept in isolation to where she never stepped foot past her house/garden. At the same time, she still wanted the world to see her work as something that is influential and can even today change lives. Emily's passion for nature in line 3, "The simple News that Nature told" represents how nature affected her writing and has shaped her as a person. Nature was important to Emily because it showed a world that did not judge or ask for anything in return. Emily Dickinson uses unique literary devices to portray her thoughts to all those that read her words. Emily used slant rhymes which are words that do not rhyme exactly and uses dashes to highlight important words, "For love of Her - Sweet - countrymen -" (7). At the end of the lines, emily uses figurative language, which are words capitalized for emphasis, "This is my letter to the World" (1). An example of personification is "The simple News that Nature told" (3). The theme of the poem is that if people were to judge, they should judge by the truth. In Emily Dickinson's form of literature, her works shows individuality and how she perceives the world.

"My Life Closed Twice before it's Close"

Emily Dickinson; Pattern ABCB DEFE, On a personal level, the poem's speaker is telling of the losses he or she has suffered, so painful that they were like death itself. Though the speaker has not yet experienced real, physical death, he or she cannot bear to imagine anything that could be more terrible than the two deprivations already experienced. The speaker does not tell us what these losses were, but one might imagine some bereavement—the death of a loved one, the end of a passionate affair. On a universal level, the poem describes the great tragedy of human life, for to be human is to suffer loss. Here heaven and hell, great symbolic opposites according to conventional wisdom, come together in their relationships to the word "parting." If there is a heaven, all we know of it is that we must leave behind our loves and lives on this earth in order to enter there. At the same time, all human beings, to some degree, have known the misery of the private hell of separation and loss because that is an unavoidable part of human experience.

"Success is Counted Sweetest"

Emily Dickinson; losers rather than winners know the true value of victory.

Flashbacks

Events in the story are interrupted for events that took place in an earlier time

The River

For Huck and Jim, the Mississippi River is the ultimate symbol of freedom. Alone on their raft, they do not have to answer to anyone. The river carries them toward freedom: for Jim, toward the free states; for Huck, away from his abusive father and the restrictive "sivilizing" of St. Petersburg. Much like the river itself, Huck and Jim are in flux, willing to change their attitudes about each other with little prompting. Despite their freedom, however, they soon find that they are not completely free from the evils and influences of the towns on the river's banks. Even early on, the real world intrudes on the paradise of the raft: the river floods, bringing Huck and Jim into contact with criminals, wrecks, and stolen goods. Then, a thick fog causes them to miss the mouth of the Ohio River, which was to be their route to freedom. As the novel progresses, then, the river becomes something other than the inherently benevolent place Huck originally thought it was. As Huck and Jim move further south, the duke and the dauphin invade the raft, and Huck and Jim must spend more time ashore. Though the river continues to offer a refuge from trouble, it often merely effects the exchange of one bad situation for another. Each escape exists in the larger context of a continual drift southward, toward the Deep South and entrenched slavery. In this transition from idyllic retreat to source of peril, the river mirrors the complicated state of the South. As Huck and Jim's journey progresses, the river, which once seemed a paradise and a source of freedom, becomes merely a short-term means of escape that nonetheless pushes Huck and Jim ever further toward danger and destruction.

The Forest is a place for truth and freedom

Hester and Dimmesdale talk only in the forrest. Pearl tells Hester many things in the forest. Hester is free and takes her hair down there, which symbolizes freedom.

greed destroys people and cultures

Hester and Dimmesdale were greedy and lustful when they had their affair, eventually this greed gets Hester a destroyed reputation and Dimmesdale a destroyed soul.

Living in a cabin away from society

Hester lived in a cabin away from society because she feared she would never fit in and would always be an outsider.

Psychological Reality

How we see the world as reality, through our perception

Disguises

Huck Finn and the king and the duke. Also, could incorporate The Crucible: the disguise Abigal put on aka she lied and pretended to be cursed by witches just to get back at the people she did not like (Proctor's wife)

The power of imagination

Huck Finn: How Huck uses his imagination and what he gains vs. Tom's imagination. -Also, Huck uses his imagination to get him out of tricky problems aka using the disguise

The corruptness of civilization: the failure of civilization

Huck Finn: really good paragraph about this on sparknotes "When Huck plans to head west at the end of the novel in order to escape further "sivilizing," he is trying to avoid more than regular baths and mandatory school attendance. Throughout the novel, Twain depicts the society that surrounds Huck as little more than a collection of degraded rules and precepts that defy logic. This faulty logic appears early in the novel, when the new judge in town allows Pap to keep custody of Huck. The judge privileges Pap's "rights" to his son as his natural father over Huck's welfare. At the same time, this decision comments on a system that puts a white man's rights to his "property"—his slaves—over the welfare and freedom of a black man. In implicitly comparing the plight of slaves to the plight of Huck at the hands of Pap, Twain implies that it is impossible for a society that owns slaves to be just, no matter how "civilized" that society believes and proclaims itself to be. Again and again, Huck encounters individuals who seem good—Sally Phelps, for example—but who Twain takes care to show are prejudiced slave-owners. This shaky sense of justice that Huck repeatedly encounters lies at the heart of society's problems: terrible acts go unpunished, yet frivolous crimes, such as drunkenly shouting insults, lead to executions. Sherburn's speech to the mob that has come to lynch him accurately summarizes the view of society Twain gives in Huckleberry Finn: rather than maintain collective welfare, society instead is marked by cowardice, a lack of logic, and profound selfishness.

Slavery

Huge theme in huckleberry finn. Huck changes his mind about slavery one he gets to know Jim and Huck eventually rips up the letter because he does not believe in the institution of slavery.

Religion, education, and other institutions are mocked

In Huck Finn, the idea of education is mocked by Pap

"Sinners in the Hands of an angry god"

In this sermon given by "New Light" preacher Jonathan Edwards in 1741, churchgoers were told that God was angry with the sinners of the Earth, and only those who obeyed God's word would be free from damnation.

Anaphora

Literary device of repetition, in which a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of a series of lines. (eg Martin Luther King's repetition of the phrase "I have a dream that...")

"Song of the Sky Loom"

Native American poem from Tewa. It discusses the relationship between nature and humans.

Free Verse

Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme

Hypocrisy

Pretending to have feelings, beliefs, or virtues that one does not have

"The Interesting Narrative"

Published in 1789. Was described as a history of a victim of slavery who through luck or fate ended up more fortunate than most of his people. He condemned the idea that Africans were inferior to Europeans and therefore deserved to be slaves. He insisted that persons of all races were capable of intellectual improvement. Became the era's most widely read account by a slave of his own experiences.

Repetition

Repeated use of sounds, words, or ideas for effect and emphasis

"An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge"

Southern planter from Alabama captured by Union soliders and thrown off a bridge with a noose. Dreams he escapes and goes to his family but then at the end the readers find that he made up that entire part between the time he was thrown off the bridge and the rope snapped his neck.

Scaffold

The scaffold scenes are one of the most dramatic structuring devices in The Scarlet Letter. They provide a framework for the entire novel and help highlight the most important themes. In the first scaffold scene, Hester and Pearl stand alone, publicly humiliated, while Dimmesdale watches from the side, standing with the other leaders of the community. Emotionally and physically, he is separate from her, but she bravely bears her solitary suffering. Presented in all of its beauty, the scarlet letter symbolizes her artistry and imagination, showing her in contrast to her more conventional lover. From the sidelines, Chillingworth, Hester's husband, learns of his wife's transgression. An evil impulse almost immediately grows within his heart, as shown by the imagery of the "writhing," snake-like horror that moves from his face into the "depths of his nature." The second scaffold scene contains nearly all the same elements. This time, though, the scene occurs at night, nearly seven years after the novel's action begins. Rather than highlighting Hester's suffering, this scene focuses on Dimmesdale's guilt and remorse, which have led him to the edge of insanity. While in the chapter preceding this one they were divided, here Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale stand hand-in-hand, forming an "electric chain." Hester learns the extent to which Chillingsworth has been torturing Dimmesdale, and she makes the important decision to save him from his enemy. However, Pearl shows that Dimmesdale's repentance isn't complete when she asks him if he'll stand on the scaffold with her and her mother in the light of day. He won't. Of course, Chillingworth, the embodiment of evil, is present once again on the sidelines. The scarlet letter makes an appearance as a glowing light in the sky, telling Dimmesdale that even nature knows of his guilt. The final scaffold scene in some ways mimics the first. Once again, all the major characters meet in the marketplace in full daylight. Hester is again the object of unwanted attention due to the scarlet letter, making her an outcast, while Dimmesdale is exalted as a saint. But this scene is different, because Dimmesdale is dying. Realizing that this is his last opportunity to confess before his death, Dimmesdale finds courage to perform this vital act, if for no other reason than to save his soul. As in the second scaffold scene, Hester's strength is emphasized: Dimmesdale needs her to carry him up the scaffold where he can make this revelation. Chillingworth's evil has become full-blown, but his power over Dimmesdale is now gone, because the minister chooses the path of truth. His death frees Pearl from her role as symbol of her parents' guilt, so she can become a compassionate and caring human being. In this scene, the scarlet letter makes its appearance on Dimmesdale's chest.

Symbol of the Scarlet Letter

The scarlet letter is meant to be a symbol of shame, but instead it becomes a powerful symbol of identity to Hester. The letter's meaning shifts as time passes. Originally intended to mark Hester as an adulterer, the "A" eventually comes to stand for "Able." Finally, it becomes indeterminate: the Native Americans who come to watch the Election Day pageant think it marks her as a person of importance and status. Like Pearl, the letter functions as a physical reminder of Hester's affair with Dimmesdale. But, compared with a human child, the letter seems insignificant, and thus helps to point out the ultimate meaninglessness of the community's system of judgment and punishment. The child has been sent from God, or at least from nature, but the letter is merely a human contrivance. Additionally, the instability of the letter's apparent meaning calls into question society's ability to use symbols for ideological reinforcement. More often than not, a symbol becomes a focal point for critical analysis and debate.

"Hope is the Thing With Feathers"

The speaker describes hope as a bird ("the thing with feathers") that perches in the soul. There, it sings wordlessly and without pause. The song of hope sounds sweetest "in the Gale," and it would require a terrifying storm to ever "abash the little Bird / That kept so many warm." The speaker says that she has heard the bird of hope "in the chillest land— / And on the strangest Sea—", but never, no matter how extreme the conditions, did it ever ask for a single crumb from her.

"I never saw the moor"

The speaker in this poem begins by explaining the things she has never seen, yet she knows exist like the "Moor" and the "Sea." She then goes to say that despite the fact that she's never seen them, she knows they exist and what they look like and what they are. Dickinson then makes her point in the second stanza. While she has "never spoke with God/nor visited in Heaven" she knows, because of the speaker's strong faith, that God and Heaven are as real as the sea. This is a poem about faith and religion and the idea that even if you can not see something it does not mean you can not believe it or it does not exist. You can still "know" that things you can not provide proof for are real.

"A Narrow Fellow in the Grass"

The speaker recalls walking through some grass and scaring a snake away. The speaker describes this in vivid and strange ways, and develops it into an extended metaphor. The snake reminds the speaker of meeting certain people that take his breath away. And the rhyme scheme would be ABAB

"The Soul Selects her Own Society"

The speaker says that "the Soul selects her own Society—" and then "shuts the Door," refusing to admit anyone else—even if "an Emperor be kneeling / Upon her mat—." Indeed, the soul often chooses no more than a single person from "an ample nation" and then closes "the Valves of her attention" to the rest of the world.

Friendship

This essay is purely based on Friendship and the depth of the relation. Emerson valued relationships highly. In this work, Emerson says that when two people meet who think alike, they grow intellectually and spiritually through affection. Friendship teaches us many valuable things in life and through friendship we learn to fully admire and sincerely comment on one another for the accomplishments. We truly enjoy being in one another's company and we are happy for their achievements. When we are with our best friend, time just flies by and our sorrows and tragedies all vanish and just their company would keep us happy. Always a good friend would appreciate the fine qualities in us and we could just be ourselves with them. Even if two people do not see for a very long time, their hearts do speak. They can feel each other, even if they are miles apart and when they meet after ages, they could just start from where they left. That depth is the understanding between two people. Friendship deepens with age. Even when you grow old, and when you spend some time with your old friend, memories just pours out as though it all happened yesterday and you could laugh your heads out. It may look a bit odd for an outsider, but as long as we enjoy, the outsider could never understand the fun that friends are having. Having a real friend is one great blessing as we can just forget the rest of the world when we are with them.

"There's a Certain Slant of Light"

This poem is written in four stanzas with the rhyming scheme of ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GHGH. The light that she speaks of discovering on the winter afternoons is an oppressive, sad weight that feels like death to her. We can all relate to those times during winter when we feel the weight of all the trees, grass and flowers dying and are reminded of our own pains in this life.

"Self- Reliance"

This shows the finest example of "individualism". "trust thyself"- every individual possesses a unique genius that can be revealed through the courage of a person. he says that you are "made this way for a reason"- use your intuition because God has given that to you. Being unique is a good thing. He says that society "coerces men to conform". we have the right and responsibility to think for ourselves.

From Song of Myself

Walt Whitman, SECTION 1 -he's celebrating not only himself, but all of humanity. He offers up the atoms of his body as our own. He introduces another character: his "soul." In this poem, the speaker and his soul are two slightly different things. So he hangs out with his soul, and they look at a blade of summer grass. Whitman describes the air as perfume and says he could get drunk on it, but he won't let himself. SECTION 21 -Whitman says that he is the poet of both the body and the soul. He challenges the religious concepts of heaven and hell, saying that he has made heaven part of his present life, and that the idea of hell needs to be "retranslated." And he loves women and mothers. He's tired of people being modest and insecure. His song is a song of "pride" and celebration. He recognizes that his attitude is new and unusual, but he thinks people need to get over their individual anxieties. Switching gears, he describes the night, the earth, and the sea in glowing and beautiful terms. SECTION 31 -Whitman is talking about "leaves of grass" again. He creates another list of natural things to explain how they are better than any kind of human creation like statues or machines. SECTION 52 -Whitman sees a hawk and feels humbled. Whitman sees himself in the hawk. His voice is "untranslatable" and, in another famous phrase, a "barbaric yawp." (A "yawp" is like a brute, animal sound and not a part of a refined language. It has elemental power.) The day seems to wait for him to get ready to move on. It leads him on into darkness. The ending day might be a metaphor for death. At any rate, the poet's hair has grown "white," and he shakes his "locks" at the setting sun. He dissolves into the air, leaving like the air and fusing his flesh in the "eddies" of water. He gives himself up to the dirt. If we want to find Whitman, we have to look at the ground under our boots. When we find him, we won't have any idea who he is, but he'll work his power on us anyway. He gives good health to people who walk over him. Whitman ends the poem by saying that we shouldn't be discouraged if we go looking for him but can't find him. If he's not in one place, we should search in another. He's not running away from us or trying to avoid us. He has stopped ahead of us on the journey. He's waiting for us to catch up.

"When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"

Walt Whitman, A person can learn more through experiencing the situation than learning about it in a class room (a lecture).

"I Hear America Singing"

Walt Whitman, A poem that was wrote just before the war. A poem about surroundings and just noises of every single day life.

A Noiseless Patient Spider

Walt Whitman, compares a human to a spider in the great search for the meaning of life

"One's Self I Sing"

Walt Whitman; a simple poem written in free verse, his muse, as he says, is his Self, both as an individual entity, as well as a member of the human community; Man, and Woman, whose being is greater than the sum of their physical and mental make-up; and the power of a life lived under the laws of God and Man.

"Beat! Beat! Drums!"

Walt Whitman; when the poem begins, our speaker urges drums and bugles to play their music. And to play it so loudly and powerfully that it bursts through doors and windows like an armed force, into churches and schools. Then, as if on repeat, the speaker again urges the drums and bugles to play. This time, he describes their sound, hoping it will reach across the city. The music should keep people from sleep at night, keep them from their work during the day. If people try to carry on with their daily business, the instruments should play still louder and wilder - don't let them get away with that. In a shocking turn of events, our speaker again urges the music to play powerfully, this time specifying that it should not stop for any conversation or explanation. He urges the instruments not to pay any attention to people praying, weeping, or beseeching and tells the music to recruit men into the army, regardless of what their children or mothers might say. Finally, he urges the instruments to shake even the supporting beams that lie under the dead. Overall, it gives the image that during war, everyones life was affected. No one was unaware of what was happening and they were all disrupted by war.

Ripping up a letter

When Huck tears up the letter, it is a symbol of how he is rejecting the narrow-minded hate of prejudice. One line from this chapter: "All right, then, I'll go to hell"—and tore it up. (Ch. 31) This is a very significant line because it demonstrates the American spirit of independence. There is nothing more important to Americans than being able to make up their own minds. Huck has done that. He has rejected the institution of slavery completely, and with it he is rejecting mainstream society. Huck believes he will go to Hell for this, but he doesn't care, because to him he is doing the right thing.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

When we meet our narrator Huck Finn, he's in Missouri with two sisters, an unnamed widow and a woman named Miss Watson. Huck Finn came into a bit of money at the end of Tom Sawyer, and now he's supposed to stop being a street urchin and start learning to be a gentleman. But it's hard out there for a street urchin, and he spends most of his time avoiding baths and teaming up with Tom to punk innocent bystanders—like Miss Watson's slave Jim. When Huck gets a feeling his father is coming soon, he signs over all his money to Judge Thatcher. Just in time: Huck's deadbeat dad shows up and demands the money. Huck's all, "too bad you didn't get here yesterday, dad," and then dad effectively kidnaps Huck and takes him off to live in filthy poverty down by the river. Huck isn't cool with this, so he fakes his own death and hides out on a nearby island, where he meets another runaway: the slave Jim, who's hiding out to avoid being sold down South and separated from his family. After running across a dead body, which Huck doesn't see, they decide to team up. Then certain situtaions like: -Huck pretending to be a girl to get some info Accidentally ending up on a wrecked steamship full of thieves -Being separated after a near-drowning -Huck being taken in by the wealthy Grangerfords, who are embroiled in a deathly feud with another family Joining up with some theater con artists who scam whole townfuls of people -Pretending to be Tom Sawyer Meanwhile, Huck keeps wrestling with his conscience: is he helping an innocent man escape slavery, or is he just stealing Miss Watson's property? He decides that helping Jim escape is the right thing to do—even if he goes to "hell" for it—but, unfortunately for Jim, it's not up to Huck. Jim is recaptured, and things quickly go south. Eventually, Tom shows up and teams with Huck to help Jim escape a hut where he's being held captive. Their elaborate plan goes awry. Tom is shot, and Huck falls asleep while waiting for a doctor. When he wakes up, the situation is out of his hands. Jim is about to be executed, when Tom announces that (1) Jim saved his live, and (2) Miss Watson actually freed Jim in her will when she died two months ago. Hooray! And to wrap things up just a little more neatly, it turns out that the dead guy from the island was Huck's dad, so that loose plot point is all tied up; plus, Huck still has all the money he found at the end of Tom Sawyer. Then, Huck heads out west, ready for more adventures.

"A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown"

Whitman: the middle of war

"Of Plymouth Plantation."

William Bradford's book; tells us much of what we know about the Pilgrims, -the narrative records the death and burial at sea of a "very profane young man, one of the seamen" who earlier ridiculed the colonist for their seasickness on the voyage to the new world -hardships:settling in a strange land worsened by winter, rough winds and seas made the long trip difficult, harsh winter killed off half of population

Unreliable Narrator

a narrator whose account of events appears to be faulty, misleadingly biased, or otherwise distorted

Allusions

a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature

trimeter

a three beat line; can refer to an entire poem or a single line tri - 3 stressed syllables

Regionalism

an element in literature that conveys a realistic portrayal of a specific geographical locale, using the locale and its influences as a major part of the plot

Picaresque novel

episodic, colorful story often in the form of a quest or journey...... life story of a rascal, a rogue, a "picaro." A picaresque novel follows the episodic adventures of this "picaro." -Huck Finn

Moral Code of old west

hypocritical, whimsical, spontaneous moral code, strict

"Fate"

in Emerson's essay "Fate," it explains that a person's life is fully controlled by fate or destiny as we call it and supernatural forces or greater beings control an individual's life for better or worse. It is fate which can help a man in gaining fortune and also a great life. The proof that fate controls everyone's life is that some people fail to gain phenomenal results even though the keep on trying hard when the others gain success by investing a little amount of hard work. It is the result of fate that one individual is born in a rich family and another in a poor family. He makes one point clear, the fact that the game of fate cannot be understood by anyone be it him, his friend Cromwell or be it Cromwell's horse. No living being can understand the nature of fate and how fate turns the events in the favor of an individual or against him. Fate works in mysterious ways unknown to mankind. Each and every individual at some point of time has to bow down to fate and has to understand that his life is controlled by fate and fate alone.

Lies

many lies; Huck lies about his death and pretending to be Tom. Abigail and her friends lie about witches. Chillingworth lies about his identity.

Feuds

montagues and capulet.... shepardsons and grangerfords

Gothic Writing

settings in bleak or remote places, a plot involving violence, characters that are in psychological or phsyical torment and a supernatural element is often present.. sub genre of romanticism

Malapropism

the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar. "He is the pineapple of athleticism"

"It Sifts from Leaden Leaves"

the words soft, alabaster and wool suggest that the poem is describing a fresh snowfall, and the poem is talking about innocence, purity, and renewal.