En 209 final exam

"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar (how south rationalized slavery) and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding(end of slavery). Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other( both are christians yet they fight each other). It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery (nation as a whole is guilty) is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Abraham Lincoln- Second Inaugural Address (1865) Context/ Meaning- Referring to the slaves as "one-eighth of the whole population" suggested that they were part of the nation, not an exotic, unassimilable element, as he had once viewed them. "Peculiar," of course, was how Southerners themselves had so often described slavery. "Powerful" evoked Republicans' prewar rhetoric about the Slave Power. To say that slavery was the cause placed responsibility for the bloodshed on the South. Yet Lincoln added simply, "and the war came," seemingly avoiding the assignment of blame. The war, Lincoln continued, had had unanticipated consequences. The "astounding" outcome, of course, was the destruction of slavery. Countless Northern ministers had pointed to this as evidence of divine sanction for the Union war effort. Lincoln took a different approach. Rejecting self-congratulation, he offered a remarkably philosophical reflection on of the war's larger meaning. Despite having promised not to judge the South, Lincoln, of course, does so in this address. He reiterates his condemnation of slavery as a theft of labor, combining this with the most direct allusion in all his writings to the institution's physical brutality. Lincoln was reminding the country that the "terrible" violence of the Civil War had been preceded by two and a half centuries of the terrible violence of slavery. Yet Lincoln calls it "American slavery," not Southern slavery in the passage above: his point being that the nation as a whole was guilty of this sin.

I am not able to say, with precision, from what country Hop-Frog originally came. It was from some barbarous region, however, that no person ever heard of -- a vast distance from the court of our king. Hop-Frog, and a young girl very little less dwarfish than himself (although of exquisite proportions, and a marvellous dancer), had been forcibly carried off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces, and sent as presents to the king, by one of his ever-victorious generals.

Edgar Allen Poe- Hop Frog (1849) Context/ Meaning: The story of hop frog, is one of transcending physical limitations. hop frog is a ugly dwarf, from a beast like land. The king looks at hop frog asa "treasure" to laugh at. By using his arms Hop-Frog is able to do astounding acrobatic feats. Hop-Frog is able to overcome the effect that drink had on him and is able to remain calm and formulate a plan of revenge when Trippetta is struck and wine is thrown in her face. Hop-Frog even breaks the stereotypical mold of a beautiful hero. Hop-Frog is able to find a love with Trippetta, a love that transcends his physical makeup. Hop-Frog saves the girl, has his revenge, escapes unharmed to his homeland, and in an ironic twist of fate is able to have the last laugh at the King's expense. Hop-Frog is an example of a transcendent male, one who is able to go beyond his biological makeup and becomes something greater.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Edgar Allen Poe- The Masque of the Red Death (1842) Context/ Meaning: Prospero, rich, exclusive, throws masquerade ball, Man comes in dressed in rags, has "red death" or Everyone must die eventually, and so the natural roots of democracy are therefore in mortality. The entire story is an allegory about man's futile attempts to stave off death. Division of social classes and looking down on those that are different or diseased. Shows that nobody is immune to death, rich or poor. Poe is dark, almost gothic in style-"profuse bleeding at the pores" leading to death within half an hour."

IT WAS well said of a certain German book that "er lasst sich nicht lesen"- it does not permit itself to be read. There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes- die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burden so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave. And thus the essence of all crime is undivulged.

Edgar Allen Poe- The man of the Crowd (1840) context/ Meaning:

..I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you - Nobody - too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know! How dreary - to be - Somebody! How public - like a Frog - To tell one's name - the livelong June - To an admiring Bog!

Emily Dickinson-(1861) Context/ Meaning: She was utterly un-famous during her lifetime—she lived a relatively reclusive life in Amherst, Massachusetts. Playful defense of the kind of spiritual privacy she favored, implying that **to be a Nobody is a luxury incomprehensible to the dreary Somebodies**—for they are too busy keeping their names in circulation, croaking like frogs in a swamp in the summertime. Frogs are public figures-or "Somebodies"—because they are constantly "telling their name"— croaking—to the swamp, reminding all the other frogs of their identities).

..Because I could not stop for Death - He kindly stopped for me - The Carriage held but just Ourselves - And Immortality. We slowly drove - He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility - We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess - in the Ring - We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain - We passed the Setting Sun - Or rather - He passed us - The Dews drew quivering and chill - For only Gossamer, my Gown - My Tippet - only Tulle - We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground - The Roof was scarcely visible - The Cornice - in the Ground - Since then - 'tis Centuries - and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity -

Emily Dickinson-(1862) Context/ Meaning: 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. - She cuts her stanza short the way life is cut short. 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. Pretty peaceful, right? 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. Two opposite themes - Mortality and Immortality - occupy this poem. We find out that the memory of the speaker's death day is being told centuries into the afterlife. So, in this poem, Dickinson explores the idea of perpetual life. Mortality- all about the speaker's attitude toward her death and what the actual day of her death was like. Dickinson paints a picture of the day that doesn't seem too far from the ordinary (that is, if you're used to having a guy named Death take you out on dates). The speaker isn't scared of death at all, and seems to accept it, yet isn't ready for it. Horses Heads- First sign she was going to die House- Grave Sunset- Foreshadows death Carriage- Passage into afterlife

..Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind —

Emily Dickinson-(1872) Context/ Meaning: Truth is a metaphor for god. You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!. Truth for better or for worse is a powerful thing.In this poem, Truth could be (and likely is) many things—the truth about the meaning of life, living your life in a true and honest way, the truth of God, etc. Telling the truth "slant" is an extended metaphor for writing poetry. Light- Being pulled into heaven (Seeing the light) Lightning-kids can be soothed when you gently explain what lightning is and how it works. In the same way, you've got to unveil the truth bit by bit, or it'll be too hot, and too bright, and just plain too much to handle.

I am confident that it is essentially true in all its statements; that nothing has been set down in malice, nothing exaggerated, nothing drawn from the imagination; that it comes short of the reality, rather than overstates a single fact in regard to SLAVERY AS IT IS.

Frederick Douglass- Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass (1845) Context/ Meaning: Drawn from the preface in letter from William Lloyd Garrison. He says that the writings of Douglass are accurate descriptions of what occurred and that they are to expose slavery for what it is. that it was in fact written by a slave, on his own. During, slavery times, whites would not believe that a black man could write a book on his own, so Garrisons ( a white man) testimony was needed to prove it. Garrison, with Douglass make a call to action the abolition of the institution of slavery.

Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, "If you give a ****** an inch, he will take an ell. A ****** should know nothing but to obey his master — to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best ****** in the world. Now," said he, "if you teach that ****** (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy." These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty — to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both.

Frederick Douglass- Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass (1845) Context/ Meaning: Mrs Auld teaching him to read at a young age. The quote shows that a slaves most powerful weapon was education. And the white men knew this, that if you educate a slave then you lose your control over them. With education comes enlightenment of the vastness of the world, something most slaves were not accustomed to.

"I did not, when a slave, fully understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was, myself, within the circle, so that I could then neither hear nor see as those without might see and hear. They breathed the prayer and complaint of souls overflowing with the bitterest anguish. They depressed my spirits and filled my heart with ineffable sadness."

Frederick Douglass- Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass (1845) Context/ Meaning:This passage is part of Douglass's long discussion at the end of Chapter II about the songs that slaves sing. As he often does in the Narrative, Douglass takes his personal experience of hearing slaves sing on their way to the Great House Farm and analyzes this as a common experience among all slaves. He uses his conclusions about slave behavior to correct white readers' misconceptions. In this instance, Douglass explains that many Northerners mistakenly believe that the singing of slaves is evidence of their happiness. He says that the songs are actually evidence, on an almost subconscious emotional level, of the slaves' deep unhappiness.However, the "deep" meaning of the songs is not apparent to Douglass until he becomes an outsider to the group. Douglass implies that the "deep" meaning becomes clear only with distance and after applying tools of analysis. This distance explains Douglass's particular position of authority in the Narrative. Douglass not only experiences life under slavery, but he now also has the tools and the distance with which to interpret the practices of slavery for outside audiences.

That night, I fell in with Sandy Jenkins, a slave with whom I was somewhat acquainted. Sandy had a free wife who lived about four miles from Mr. Covey's; and it being Saturday, he was on his way to see her. I told him my circumstances, and he very kindly invited me to go home with him. I went home with him, and talked this whole matter over, and got his advice as to what course it was best for me to pursue. I found Sandy an old adviser. He told me, with great solemnity, I must go back to Covey; but that before I went, I must go with him into another part of the woods, where there was a certain _root,_ which, if I would take some of it with me, carrying it _always on my right side,_ would render it impossible for Mr. Covey, or any other white man, to whip me. He said he had carried it for years; and since he had done so, he had never received a blow, and never expected to while he carried it. I at first rejected the idea, that the simple carrying of a root in my pocket would have any such effect as he had said, and was not disposed to take it; but Sandy impressed the necessity with much earnestness, telling me it could do no harm, if it did no good. To please him, I at length took the root, and, according to his direction, carried it upon my right side. This was Sunday morning. I immediately started for home; and upon entering the yard gate, out came Mr. Covey on his way to meeting. He spoke to me very kindly, bade me drive the pigs from a lot near by, and passed on towards the church. Now, this singular conduct of Mr. Covey really made me begin to think that there was something in the _root_ which Sandy had given me; and had it been on any other day than Sunday, I could have attributed the conduct to no other cause than the influence of that root; and as it was, I was half inclined to think the _root_ to be something more than I at first had taken it to be. All went well till Monday morning. On this morning, the virtue of the _root_ was fully tested. Long before daylight, I was called to go and rub, curry, and feed, the horses. I obeyed, and was glad to obey. But whilst thus engaged, whilst in the act of throwing down some blades from the loft, Mr. Covey entered the stable with a long rope; and just as I was half out of the loft, he caught hold of my legs, and was about tying me. As soon as I found what he was up to, I gave a sudden spring, and as I did so, he holding to my legs, I was brought sprawling on the stable floor. Mr. Covey seemed now to think he had me, and could do what he pleased; but at this moment--from whence came the spirit I don't know--I resolved to fight; and, suiting my action to the resolution, I seized Covey hard by the throat; and as I did so, I rose.

Frederick Douglass- Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass (1845) Meaning/ Context: This is about Frederick Douglass's revolt against mr covey. Sandy Jenkins tells him to get a root and keep it on his left side to avoid being whipped by mr covey. He does, and it begins to work, then when mr covey tries to grab him, he fights back against Covey and his men. Mr covey never raised a hand to him again because he didn't want to ruin his reputation as an expert slave-breaker.

May my unhappy story serve as a beacon to warn the American fair of the dangerous tendency and destructive consequences of associating with men of your character, of destroying their time and risking their reputation by the practice of coquetry and its attendant follies. But for these I might have been honorably connected, and capable, at this moment, of diffusing and receiving happiness. But for your arts I might have remained a blessing to society, as well as the delight and comfort of my friends. You being a married man unspeakably aggravates both your guilt and mine. This circumstance annexes indelible shame to our crime. You have rent asunder the tenderest ties of nature. You have broken the bonds of conjugal love, which ought ever to be kept sacred and inviolate. You have filled with grief and discontent the heart of your amiable wife, whom gratitude, if no other principle, should have induced you to cherish with tenderness; and I, wretch that I am, have been your accomplice.

Hannah Webster Foster- The Coquette (1797) Context/ Meaning:

"Self-knowledge, sir, that most important of all sciences, I have yet to learn. Such have been my situations in life, and the natural volatility of my temper, that I have looked but little into my own heart in regard to its future wishes and views. From a scene of constraint and confinement, ill suited to my years and inclination, I have just launched into society. My heart beats high in expectation of its fancied joys. My sanguine imagination paints, in alluring colors, the charms of youth and freedom, regulated by virtue and innocence. Of these I wish to partake. While I own myself under obligations for the esteem which you are pleased to profess for me, and, in return, acknowledge that neither your person nor manners are disagreeable to me, I recoil at the thought of immediately forming a connection which must confine me to the duties of domestic life, and make me dependent for happiness, perhaps, too, for subsistence, upon a class of people who will claim the right of scrutinizing every part of my conduct, and, by censuring those foibles which I am conscious of not having prudence to avoid, may render me completely miserable.

Hannah Webster Foster- The Coquette (1797) Meaning/ Context: This is Eliza Wahrton speaking on her depressing station after not knowing who she really wanted to marry. After her flirtations with Reverend bowyer and Major Sanford, she is now chained to the duties and obligations of a wife to the Major and that makes her feel depressed, trapped and confined to a lifestyle of constant judgement and scrutiny, a life she didn't realize she didn't want until now. Eliza finds herself losing her independence as a women as she is forced into a role of domestication. Loses her virtue, society judges her for it. Eliza wishes to enjoy her youth and pleasures of society and movement between social classes, yet her attempts to change societal norms ands in death and shame.

Slight not the opinion of the world. We are dependent beings; and while the smallest traces of virtuous sensibility remain, we must feel the force of that dependence in a greater or less degree. No female, whose mind is uncorrupted, can be indifferent to reputation. It is an inestimable jewel, the loss of which can never be repaired. While retained, it affords conscious peace to our own minds, and insures the esteem and respect of all around us.

Hannah Webster Foster- The Coquette (1797) context/ Meaning: Lucy Sumner in a letter to Eliza Wharton. She warns of the Majors insensitivity and lack of moral principles when courting women. Basically she is telling Eliza that the Major is playing her. Contrary to the opinion of the world on women, women must be dependent u[on there own thoughts and ideas. As a women, you are bound to your reputation, and a womens reputation will follow you forever. However when a womens reputation is properly maintained, it gains respect, and protects her virtue in the eyes of all around her.

"I am quite a convert to popes assertion, that everyone women is at heart a rake"

Hannah Webster Foster-The Coquette (1797) Context/ Meaning: Letter from Thomas Selby to Reverand. We are all libertines, confronts the double standard between men and women. Major is a huge flirt and gets away with it, making him a rake (manwhore), yet Eliza is the one who's virtue and reputation is damaged. "convert" shows that he has recently been persuaded to the idea that all women are flirts.

"We think ourselves interested... our observation"

Hannah webster Foster- The coquette (1797) Meaning/ Context: Mrs. Richman is speaking on the ideals of "republican motherhood" of which Mrs richman fully embodied. After the revolutionary war, women were educated in order to educate there children on the importance of citizenry. Resulting in a wider role into civic culture and politics. That women were not intellectually inferior, but only different from the way they were raised. Mrs richman is saying that women are emotionally invested in the politics of common people, and because of there role as members of society, there opinions should not be excluded from political discussion.

But, of old, there was One whose suffering changed an instrument of torture, degradation and shame, into a symbol of glory, honor, and immortal life; and, where His spirit is, neither degrading stripes, nor blood, nor insults, can make the Christian's last struggle less than glorious. Was he alone, that long night, whose brave, loving spirit was bearing up, in that old shed, against buffeting and brutal stripes? Nay! There stood by him ONE,—seen by him alone,—"like unto the Son of God." The tempter stood by him, too,—blinded by furious, despotic will,—every moment pressing him to shun that agony by the betrayal of the innocent. But the brave, true heart was firm on the Eternal Rock. Like his Master, he knew that, if he saved others, himself he could not save; nor could utmost extremity wring from him words, save of prayer and holy trust.

Harriet Beecher Stowe- Uncle Toms Cabin (1852 Context/Meaning: It goes almost without saying that Tom's martyrdom follows the pattern of Christ's suffering and death. Like Jesus, Tom dies to save others. Like Jesus, he gains in heavenly glory as a result of his torture and humiliation. Yet there is also something very disturbing about Tom's submissive willingness to sacrifice himself. Does the novel suggest that every slave should behave in this way if threatened with torture and death? George Harris's fate seems to imply otherwise. Christ is toms only master. Tom is a Christ figure. He's generally willing to suffer out of love, and he models all his actions on the Jesus he reads about in the gospels. Tom dies so that Emmeline and Cassy can be saved, and his last encounter with Legree is reminiscent of Jesus' final conversation with Pilate. He refuses to let his circumstances make him a cruel man, he offers hope and help to all who need it, and he's loyal until the day he dies. Many 19th century readers could not overcome their racism to believe that a slave as good and honest as Tom could exist. Tom's goodness (like George Harris's intelligence) demonstrates to the reader that emancipated slaves could become contributing citizens in a free society.

"His wife opened the little bedroom door adjoining her room, and taking the candle, set it down on the top of a bureau there; then from a small recess she took a key and put it thoughtfully in the lock of a drawer and made a sudden pause, while two boys who, boylike, had followed close on her heels, stood looking at their mother. And Oh! Mother who that reads this, has there never been in your house a drawer or a closet, the opening of which has been to you like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you are, if it has not been so."

Harriet Beecher Stowe- Uncle Toms Cabin (1852) Meaning/ Context:

"Well," said Eliza, mournfully, "I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn't be a Christian." "There is some sense in it, in your case; they have brought you up like a child, fed you, clothed you, indulged you, and taught you, so that you have a good education; that is some reason why they should claim you. But I have been kicked and cuffed and sworn at, and at the best only let alone; and what do I owe? I've paid for all my keeping a hundred times over. I won't bear it. No, I won't!" he said, clenching his hand with a fierce frown. Eliza trembled, and was silent. She had never seen her husband in this mood before; and her gentle system of ethics seemed to bend like a reed in the surges of such passions.

Harriet Beecher Stowe-Uncle Toms Cabin (1852) Context / Meaning:

If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, to-morrow morning,—if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape,—how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom,—the little sleepy head on your shoulder,—the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?

Harriet Beecher Stowe-Uncle Toms Cabin (1852) Context/ Meaning: Uncle Tom's Cabin relies on racial stereotypes to get Stowe's point across. But Stowe's novel had a profound effect on the American public by exacerbating the tensions between the North and South that led to the Civil War. appeals directly to her reader, whom she assumes to be a white 19th century northern Christian mother. Forcing the reader to imagine herself in Eliza's situation strengthens the reader's sympathetic bond with Eliza and makes her suffering even more poignant.Uncle Tom's Cabin demonstrates that one of the major problems with slavery is that it wreaks havoc on the family structure, separating wives from their husbands and mothers from their children. As a patriarchal institution, slavery is perpetuated along a paternalistic "law of the father" model. Stowe believed that women played special roles in society as mothers, housekeepers, and wives, and especially as Christian influences on the men around them. In her view, feminine morality and maternal sentiment are crucial in the abolitionist cause. The moral authority of northern women, and the sympathy of northern mothers for slave mothers, are essential parts of Stowe's anti-slavery appeal.

But, O, ye happy women, whose purity has been sheltered from childhood, who have been free to choose the objects of your affection, whose homes are protected by law, do not judge the poor desolate slave girl too severely! If slavery had been abolished, I, also, could have married the man of my choice; I could have had a home shielded by the laws; and I should have been spared the painful task of confessing what I am now about to relate; but all my prospects had been blighted by slavery. I wanted to keep myself pure; and, under the most adverse circumstances, I tried hard to preserve my self-respect; but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of the demon Slavery; and the monster proved too strong for me. I felt as if I was forsaken by God and man; as if all my efforts must be frustrated; and I became reckless in my despair.

Harriet Jacobs-Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) Meaning/ Context: This is sneaky. Here, Jacobs (referring to herself as LINDA) suggests that white women are no purer than slave women. Rather, the purity of white women "has been sheltered" and their homes "are protected by law." So, a white woman's alleged purity is really just legal and social protection. Rules and order of institutional slavery : (1) Slave-children always follow the condition of the mother, so plantation owners just added to their wealth by raping and impregnating their slaves. (2) Slaves could not read, write, learn, or teach, so they'd never find out that things could be different. (3) The Fugitive Slave Law, which made it illegal for Northerners to help runaway slaves. What's the point of taking this legal look at slavery? By living in a country governed by these laws, Northerners implicitly allow slavery to continue.

"Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage."

Harriet Jacobs-Incidents in the Life of a slave Girl (1861) Meaning/ Context: By "the usual way," Jacobs means that both novels such as Jane Eyre and slave narratives like Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave typically end with marriage and a retreat into comfortable domesticity. So, Jacobs is saying that she knows perfectly well her ending is a little off. Although Linda is free now, she still lives in servitude to Mrs. Bruce and her life's dream—"to sit with my children in a home of my own" (41.25)—hasn't come true. The heroine does not preserve her virtue. She has no valiant male protector, and the villain dies peacefully at home rather than receiving his just desserts. Not only is Jacobs still unmarried, but she still does not even have a home of her own. Thus, even as her writing strategy allows her readers to identify with her story, it also challenges the literary conventions of the time. Jacobs makes the point elsewhere in the narrative that slaves cannot be judged according to the laws and morals of the free world. Similarly, she implies here, the "life of a slave girl" cannot be written according to the usual 'traditional' plot lines and endings. See, white women of your typical nineteenth-century novel and the African-American men of slave narratives seem to value marriage as the ultimate goal of life (and of their stories). But not Linda. Linda values legal and physical freedom. When you think about it, this makes sense. For women in the nineteenth century, especially the first half, marriage meant that you basically became your husband's property. Now, we're not at all saying that it was like being a slave—but it was definitely a kind of legal bondage. So why would Linda want to end by becoming someone's property again?

"These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live. If this man's acts and words do not create a revival, it will be the severest possible satire on the acts and words that do. It is the best news that America has ever heard.... How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to live for!"

Henry David Thoreau- A Plea for captain John Brown (1860) Context/ Meaning: Based on a speech Thoreau delivered two weeks after John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry ,In opposition with popular opinion of the time. Thoreau refutes the claims of newspapers and his fellow countrymen who characterized Brown as foolish and insane- he painted a portrait of a peerless man whose embrace of a cause was unparalleled. Brown's commitment to justice and adherence to the United States Constitution forced him to fight state-sponsored injustice. Incomparable to man, Thoreau likens Brown's execution- he states that he regards Brown as dead before his actual death- to Christ's crucifixion at the hands of Pontius Pilate with whom he compares the American government. Thoreau also criticizes contemporary Christians, who say their prayers and then go to sleep aware of injustice but doing nothing to change it. Similarly, Thoreau states those who believe Brown threw his life away and died as a fool, are fools. Brown gave his life for justice, not for material gains, and was completely sane, perhaps more so than any other human being. Rebutting the arguments based on the small number of rebels, Thoreau responds "when were the good and the brave ever in a majority?

"If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I do?" my answer is, "If you really wish to do anything, resign your office." When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now."

Henry David Thoreau- Resistance to Civil government (1866) Context/ Meaning: [From Civil Disobedience] which was written in protest of the annexation of Texas, the Mexican-American War and slavery.In this passage, he is encouraging people not to pay their taxes and for government officers to resign their offices in protest of expansion into Texas and support of slavery. Just before he writes the quote in question, Thoreau writes, "Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority" In the quote Thoreau says there is a wound our consciences suffer when we support, directly or indirectly, government actions that we strongly oppose. Because our consciences reveal our true selves, the things we deem really important, when we wound our consciences through directly or indirectly supporting things that are harmful to our deepest beliefs and values, that wound slowly causes us to lose our manhood, our will to actively oppose those things we disagree with, since we, by paying our taxes or being part of the government machinery, give our support to those things we say we are against. A wounded conscience is a wound that always bleeds our essence, never killing us, but slowly conforming us into someone we do not wish to be. The person who bleeds from a wounded conscience suffers an everlasting death.

'I stood looking at him a moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal. What's all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself - the man's a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him.'..... "Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian."

Herman Melville- Moby Dick (1851) Context/ Meaning- Ishael speaking about Queequeg, who was a dark skinned, tattooed Cannibal and expert whaler. Melville wants us to know that the tattooed, dark-skinned guy who's actually feasted on roasted missionary in the past is just as likely to be a good person as a self-righteous, white-skinned Nantucket Quaker. Even though Ishmael is a Christian and Queequeg is a Pagan, Melville wants us to see that Ishmael can see through the outside coverings of a stereotype. Melville has some fun with the situation saying that Ishmael would rather sleep with the Pagan over a drunken Christian.

"On one side hung a very large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted. But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.- It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale.- It's the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.- It's a blasted heath.- It's a Hyperborean winter scene.- It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture's midst. That once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself? In fact, the artist's design seemed this: a final theory of my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads."

Herman Melville- Moby Dick (1851) Context/ Meaning- Ishmael is in New Bedford, Massachusetts looking for a place to stay for the night. Ishmael enters the Spouter-Inn, and—symbolism alert!—the first thing he sees is a strange oil painting so old and dirty that it seems abstract. Ishmael spends a long time looking at this painting trying to figure out what it depicts. The abstract painting symbolizes Ishmael's search for the truth and the role of interpretation, observation and pespective throughout that search. Ishmael spends a long time looking at this painting trying to figure out what it depicts. He eventually decides that it represents a ship in a storm and a whale leaping up to fling itself on the ship. Hmm, why do you think he came up with that? When Ishmael looks around the rest of the inn, he sees, displayed on the walls, "a heathenish array" (3.4) of weapons, mostly harpoons and lances from whaling ships or weapons from distant countries. Ishmael goes further into the inn, noticing that the low ceiling, visible beams, and plank floor almost make the inn itself seem like a ship. The doorway between the public room and the bar is decorated with a giant whale's jawbone.

"No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honor, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from the schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time. What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who aint a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about - however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way - either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content."

Herman Melville- Moby Dick (1851) Context/ Meaning-Ishmael explains that, whenever he feels depressed and suicidal, he always goes to sea. Ishmael claims that most people and most cultures around the world have a special attraction to water in general and the sea in particular. He also doesn't want to be in an important position, such as captain or cook, because then he'd have responsibilities, and that would really get him down (which, frankly, we can totally sympathize with). He just wants to be an ordinary sailor.e also says that going whaling instead of sailing on a merchant ship is his fate. He wants to explore the natural world Still, even though Ishmael thinks his participation in the whaling voyage is predetermined, he acknowledges that he wants to go, in part, to satisfy his genuine curiosity about these enormous, mysterious creatures we call whales.

"Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues — every stately or lovely emblazoning — the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge — pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol."

Herman Melville- Moby Dick (1851) Context/ Meaning: Ishmael (or the third-person narrator) reminds us once again of the many different possible reactions to the natural world. Even something as simple as the color white can inspire every possible reaction in men, from awe to fear. Beyond Ahab and his whale, though, each character in the novel seems to have a slightly different way of understanding and being in the natural world. Some characters have a healthy respect for the power of Nature; others are so in awe of Nature that they feel themselves dissolving ecstatically into it; still others think of Nature as a collection of resources to be harvested and hunted for man's profit. Ishmael transcends and dissolves into the world of nature around him. The phrase "white-whale" means something you obsess over until it kills you. At the end nature wins over man.

"Call me Ishmael"

Herman Melville- Moby Dick (1851) Context/ Meaning: Only time he is addressed by name in the novel. It is conversational and so prepares the way for a story told in the first person. It hints that we may have an unreliable narrator because we aren't sure if that is his real name or a pseudonym. Melville would almost certainly have known that the line had many interpretations, and that this gives it a richness of meaning. It is just the narrator saying to the reader, this is who I am, and I'm going to tell you my story. Also, it has a weariness to it, as if to say, I'm not going to tell you anything more about myself, and forget what you've heard. Ishmael is a biblical term for a character who was lost. In Moby Dick, it sets the tone for the narrator as a down-on-his-luck everyman because you don't need any more introduction than that. Ishmael (narrator)- Young, White, Well-educated, accepting of Queequeg. However is stuck up, unreliable and gullible

"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."

Herman Melville- Moby Dick (1851) Context/ Meaning: The dialogue between Starbuck and Captain Ahab contains some of the most important keys to unlocking the theme of revenge in Moby-Dick. Starbuck claim that trying to take revenge on a simple animal, which isn't capable of hatred or cruelty, is not just stupid—it's sinful.In response, Ahab (who wants revenge on the whale for attacking him) claims that the entire world has an allegorical or neo-Platonic aspect: all things represent other things and everything happens for a purpose. Much of the tension in the novel relates to this fundamental difference in interpretation: Starbuck sees the natural world as simply there, doing its thing, and Ahab sees it as the tangible representation of "some unknown but still reasoning thing." At bottom, the issue is whether or not Moby Dick attacked Ahab with "malice aforethought," as those legal types say.Moby-Dick is, fundamentally, a revenge tragedy. It's about one man's maniacal obsession with vengeance. It's about finding an object on which to pin all your anger and fear and rage, not only about your own suffering, but also about the suffering of all mankind. It's about the way that the desire for revenge can eat away at you until it becomes something inhabiting your body, something separate from your own personality.

"Jollity and Gloom were contending for an empire"

Nathaniel Hawthorne- "The May-Pole of Merry Mount" (1835) context/ Meaning: Colonist settle on merry mount, then begin to celebrate, puritans attack them for their joyfulness. The story, exemplifies the tension between the Puritans, who stand for establishment, solemnity, and order, and the Merrymakers, who tend toward free thinking. The pleasure-seeking Merrymakers and the grim Puritans. That real happiness relies on contrast between the trials and sorrow in life and the compassion that people may feel for one another, deriving happiness from earthly delights, is against the puritan ideology and

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.

Nathaniel Hawthorne- The custom House (1850) Context /Meaning: Introduction to the scarlet letter, narrator(surveyor) who acts as a stand in for Hawthorne. It almost felt like I was destined to make Salem my home, to continue my family's long presence here. But this connection has become unhealthy, and must be broken. Human beings can't grow in the same worn-out soil year after year, any more than a potato can. My children have been born elsewhere and, if I have anything to say about it, will settle elsewhere. Her family has been settled in salem for too long, a cold and boring life through the generations, family must be resettled. Thinks that the customhouse employees are small minded, puritan ancestors would not take the writing seriously.

"With heaven above, and faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil! cried goodman Brown"

Nathaniel Hawthorne- Young Goodman Brown (1835) Context/ Meaning: Goodman Brown has lost his faith in other people/ humanity. Refuses to join the league of evil, and sets out on the good path yet as Goodman journeys through the forest and eventually finds himself entangled by the devil, the reader begins to wonder if even this "good man" can possibly resist the snares of sin. The idea of faith is that someone must believe in something without truly seeing it. In this case Goodman believes in Heaven and in a God who rewards the righteous without being able to see them, does not give into the temptation of the devil.

I look for the new teacher, that shall follow so far those shining laws [of the scriptures],that he shall see them come full circle; shall see their rounding complete grace; shall see the world to be the mirror of the soul; shall see the identity of the law of gravitation with purity of heart; and shall show that the Ought, that Duty, is one thing with Science, with Beauty, and with Joy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson- Divinity School Address (1838) Context/ Meaning: Shows how individual spirituality and science of nature are linked. that follows the scriptures of the texts, and through devotion of god within ones should, they will see the completion of grace through the realities of nature and science.

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson- Nature (1836) Context/ Meaning:He begins by expressing the American anxiety and dissatisfaction with the literary tradition. That it is retrospective (looking back). Emerson laments the current tendency to accept the knowledge and traditions of the past instead of experiencing God and nature directly, in the present. He asserts that all our questions about the order of the universe — about the relationships between God, man, and nature — may be answered by our experience of life and by the world around us. Each individual is a manifestation of creation and as such holds the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. Nature, too, is both an expression of the divine and a means of understanding it. The goal of science is to provide a theory of nature, but man has not yet attained a truth broad enough to comprehend all of nature's forms and phenomena. Emerson identifies nature and spirit as the components of the universe

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian?

Ralph Waldo Emerson- Self-Reliance (1841) Meaning/ Context: Inside each and every person is genius. Democracy is almighty, yet the slit of parties is bad, unity is vital. Individualism is very important. Anyone who believes what other people tell them to believe is foolish. Everyone needs to follow their own schools of thought, think for yourself. Be your own person, be who you are. Self worth comes from within and not from the outside

"I bequeath (entrust) myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."

Walt Whitman- Song of Myself (1881) Meaning/ Context: At the end of the poem, he gives up his body to the air and the soil. He does not think he has to give up his identity in order to merge back with nature. Whitman sees his identity split into at least three components: his everyday personality, the more inner "self" or "Me Myself," and the universal "Soul." He was attracted to the American Transcendentalist idea of the "Oversoul," or the soul that is somehow part of or connected to all other souls in the world. For him, there is no such thing as "private experience." He experiences the pains and pleasure of all other people in the world, and even animals and inanimate natural phenomena, because he "identifies" with them. That is, his innermost identity is connected to all things in the world. GRASS- He thinks it might be a kind of universal symbol or language ("uniform hieroglyphic") that represents the equality for everyone. Grass is a democratic plant because it grows everywhere, and because everyone comes from and eventually returns to it. In a nutshell, he thinks that the body and the soul are two sides of the same coin. Contrary to the Christian doctrine that the soul is greater than the body, Whitman thinks that both body and soul are immortal because they are connected to the larger patterns of nature. The poem celebrates the diversity of the nation. Beneath the surface, the poem is also a desperate attempt to remind his fellow Americans of their common bonds.

"And I say to mankind, be not curious about god, For I who am curious about each am not curious about God, (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God & about death.) I hear & behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand there can be more wonderful than myself. Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, & each moment then, in the faces of men & women I see God, & in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, & every one is signed by God's name, & I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoever I go, others will punctually come for ever & ever."

Walt Whitman- Song of Myself (1881) Meaning/ Context: Individualism and its correlation with nature. Whitman wishes to maintain the identity of his individual self, and yet he desires to merge it with the universal self, which involves the identification of the poet's self with mankind and the mystical union of the poet with God, the Absolute Self. There are three important themes: the idea of the self, the identification of the self with other selves, and the poet's relationship with the elements of nature and the universe. the poet's ecstasy is both physical and spiritual, and he develops a sense of loving brotherhood with God and with all mankind.

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loaf (goof off) at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. "

Walt Whitman- Song of Myself (1881) Meaning/ Context: Since for Whitman the birthplace of poetry is in the self, the best way to learn about poetry is to relax and watch the workings of one's own mind. The bunches of grass in the child's hands become a symbol of the regeneration in nature. But they also signify a common material that links different people all over the United States together: grass, the ultimate symbol of democracy, grows everywhere.In the wake of the Civil War the grass reminds Whitman of graves: grass feeds on the bodies of the dead. Everyone must die eventually, and so the natural roots of democracy are therefore in mortality, whether due to natural causes or to the bloodshed of warfare.

"(Nor for you, for one alone, Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring, For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death. All over bouquets of roses, O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies, But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, For you and the coffins all of you O death.)"

Walt Whitman- When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1881) Meaning/ Context- we're reminded that the speaker isn't just sharing that lilac with only one coffin. Oh no. He's sharing it with all coffins. (You get sprig of lilac, you get sprig of lilac...)So every coffin, dead person, and mourner is reminded of life's continuance. We even have some more alliteration in line 47: "Blossoms and branches." The speaker sounds more songlike, as if spirits are looking up at this point. And then again we see more alliteration in line 48: "song," "sane," "sacred." Phew, our speaker is outdoing himself. But it kind of makes sense that at this point we'd see more poetic devices since the speaker is looking to console folks. Nothing says consolation like a singsong sound. (Try saying that six times fast.) The symbolism of a "fresh morning" also furthers the speaker's spirit of new days and life's continuance. We're starting to get a break of dawn amid all the gloom. We also are beginning to see the speaker's less severe tone towards death, since he calls it "sane and sacred." It's not every day you hear death talked about in such a nice way, so we really get the sense of the speaker seeking the good amid the bad. But symbolically, the speaker is alerting us to life's resilience that will always "cover over" death. The repeated "over" tells us that death can't hide from life's persistent energy. The cycle continues and the roses and lilies come back every year to remind us of that. We're also getting more of the speaker speaking directly to death via apostrophe (addressing abstract ideas or things that aren't physically present). As readers, we're observers of this little dialogue (even if death isn't speaking back). But we also feel somewhat empowered by the speaker's actions here. It's as if he's covering up death for us, since we're included in the mourners' suffering at this point. It looks like the speaker is really into the whole "breaking sprigs of lilacs and pouring them over death" thing. There's not just one lilac anymore, but "copious" amounts (lots of 'em) that the speaker has. And he's breaking them off bushes left and right. With "loaded arms" he comes pouring for everyone, including the mourners, the dead, and us. Mighty generous, eh? But there's more going on here than just our speaker breaking off lilacs like it's going out of style. On a more symbolic level, we sense the speaker's outpouring of empathy. He's not just rattling off useless words of consolation. He's spreading the only symbol for life's perseverance that he has at his disposal. And he's doing it all in a rather sincere way. These aren't just empty actions, in other words. We feel his sincerity most in the image of his "loaded arms" and the act of "pouring" lilacs in line 53. Maybe we can even imagine an eager young lover, doing the same sort of thing with roses for the one he loves dearly. There aren't enough roses around to prove his love, just like there aren't enough lilacs around for the speaker to extend his empathy. He feels that strongly for the mourners and of course his own grief. The repetition of "you" also serves to further the speaker's empathy and consolation. It's as if he's speaking directly to the mourners and us readers all at the same time. There's no need to distinguish a particular audience because we're all unified in this space of mourning.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, As to long panoramas of visions. And I saw askant the armies, I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with missiles I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) And the staffs all splinter'd and broken. I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, But I saw they were not as was thought, They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not, The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd, And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.

Walt Whitman- When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1881) Meaning/ Context-The speaker is seeing clearly at this point with his "eyes unclosed" and his sight that reveals a panoramic (widespread) view of everything that's going on. We don't know just yet what these "visions" are, but we're guessing they have something to do with the war, Lincoln, the nation, and death in general. The speaker's voice even sounds a bit different at this point of the elegy, as if it truly is uplifted out of itself and able to see such a wide scope of "visions" occurring simultaneously. We notice that he's taking on a sort of omniscient (know everything) quality that sees all things. He's kind of like a super first-person speaker. And indeed, the speaker sees "the armies" and all their "battle-flags" and smoke. So we're reminded once more that although the speaker has a more uplifted outlook on everything, there's still quite a bit of death and despair to be had. But we notice too in line 172 that he describes these visions as "noiseless dreams," which suggests that there's something unreal about the horrors he's witnessing. It's as if he's partially removed now from all of the pain and suffering that we were previously (though temporarily) immersed in. His perspective here is "askant" (askew, not straightforward) which furthers the idea of not being entirely in touch with what's going on. But he still sees those missiles that have pierced the battle-flags. There's some symbolism in that too, with the idea of each side (notice he's not being specific) having their pride, or sense of self, injured because of the war. The repetition of "and" that describes just how "broken" and torn-up each flag has become. No side is left unscathed. The symbolism of only a "few shreds left" on the staffs of the flags, we get the feeling that the country will require a complete reconstruction. "And all in silence"...It's more a silence of numbness that's evoked by those bloody remains of the flag. The bad times are back, folks, and in a big way. Since those corpses are "young men," we have the added horror of knowing the life that's been wasted on war. The future of America has been partially lost due to the countless young lives that will no longer be able to contribute to the lively progress we saw in earlier sections. The repetition of "debris" also serves to add another layer of carnage to the scene.There aren't any lilacs around here to push the debris away. Instead we're really feeling the cost of war without the silver linings we saw earlier. Here we notice that all those dead guys aren't the ones suffering. It's the ones who are left behind that are suffering. Instead those dead soldiers are "fully at rest." The speaker repeats "suffer'd" a few times in order to remind us that it's "the living" who remain who suffer, just like the speaker suffers. Last Lines- We get some more reminders of the folks who really suffer because of war and death. Here we have the wife, child, and comrade that remain. We even have the entire army that suffers alongside its fallen soldiers. The "musing" part of the comrade also reminds us that the ones left behind must find ways to cope with their grief. Though we don't get any specifics here, we can imagine the sorts of things that comrade resorts to in order to cope with his grief.

"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love."

Walt Whitman- When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1881) The "I' that involves itself in everyday stuff like politics, fashion, and what he's going to eat; The "Me Myself" that stands apart from the "I" and observes the world with an amused smile; and The "Soul" that represents his deepest and most universal essence. Meaning/ Context- is an elegy (poem of serious reflection) on the death of Abraham Lincoln, though it never mentions the president by name. Like most elegies, it develops from the personal (the death of Lincoln and the poet's grief) to the impersonal (the death of "all of you" and death itself); from an intense feeling of grief to the thought of reconciliation. The poem is a dramatization of this feeling of loss. The form is elegiac but also contains elements found in opera music, it is a long rhythmic poem accompanied for a solo voice. The three principal symbols of the poem — the LILAC, the STAR, and the BIRD. They are woven into a poetic and dramatic pattern. The meaning of Whitman's symbols is neither fixed nor constant. The star, Venus, is identified with Lincoln, generally, but it also represents the poet's grief for the dead. Lilacs, which are associated with everreturning spring, are a symbol of resurrection, while its heartshaped Leaves symbolize love. The purple color of the lilac, indicating the passion of the Crucifixion, is highly suggestive of the violence of Lincoln's death. The bird is the symbol of the reunion with death and its song is the soul's voice. "Death's outlet song of life" means that out of death will come renewed life. Death is described as a "dark mother" or a "strong deliveress," which suggests that it is a necessary process for rebirth. The emotional drama in the poem is built around this symbolic framework. The continual recurrence of the spring season symbolizes the cycle of life and death and rebirth. The words "ever-returning spring," which occur in line 3 and are repeated in line 4, emphasize the idea of rebirth and resurrection. The date of Lincoln's assassination coincided with Easter, the time of Christ's resurrection. These two elements provide the setting to the poem in time and space.