Personal Philosophy

WHat is my personal philosophy? Well i don't really know. I guess i could say that it is the phrase, Live, Laugh and love. Because i really like this phrase. I believe that in life, in order to live, one has to laught a lot and love a lot. THis is one thing that you have to do in order to live a happy life in my opinion. I personally belive taht laughter is the best medicine in life. If a person is mentally happy, then phisically they'll be happy as well. It is just like if a person is always in a bad negative mood in thier head, if they continue to be like this for their whole life, then the physical appearance on their face will also be that of unhappy and they;ll start having wrinkles on their face. Just like Emerson speaks of his personal philosophies in both Nature and in Self REliance, my personal philosophy is live, laugth and love.

Poetry

THere are four fireside poets that we read poems from. THey are Henry Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russel Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier. They are all considered fireside poets because their poems were read by families by the fireside in the evenings as a social hour. All four of these poets lived and wrote their poems during the 19th century. One theme that is found in common in their poems is the use of Romantic elements. All four of the poems read by these men include some aspect of relation towards nature. In "A Psalm of Life", Longfellow refers to nature by saying "Footprints on the sands..." In THe First Snowfalll, thre is a lot of references made to the nature, especially the snow. In the poem by Holmes, entitled, "the CHambered Nautilus", he makes a comparison to the nautilus, an animal found in nature, to a ship on the sea. In the final poem, "the worship of nature", uses a lot of romanticism in it. In tshis poem, Whittier compares how nature worships itself and that man doesn't have any care for mother nature.

Irving

Irving was a Romantic, yet he was also a satirist. One element in his story that he is satrical is women. He is very satirical and against women. In both The Devil and TOm Walker and in Rip Van Winkle, Irving shows that he is against women. In The Devil and TOm Walker, Irving describes Tom's wife as termagant. SHe is constatntly nagging at Tom. Tom want's to get away from her; and he doesn't even care about her death. Instead, he cares more about the silverware and the money he can get. In Rip Van Winkle, Rip's wife is also termagant. Rip doesn't like being near her. Instead, he is seen more with other children and helping other people. In both the tales, there is a wish fulfillment. Both Tom and Rip are able to have theire wives go away and they are free from them. Tom and Rip are similar in both stories, as they both have termagant wives. And in the end, both their wives end up dying. Irving probably had something against women during his life. That's probably why he made both women in his stories termagant.

Poe

Poe's stories include a lot of gothic stuff in it. So far from what we've read, both the Raven and the fall of the house of usher both include gothic concepts in it. Both these stories include mystery, ghosts, haunted houses, and darkness. Another factor included in gothic are doubles. In the Fall of the House of Usher, one can see the use of doubles. I think that Madeline and Roderick are used as doubles here. Becuase they are twins, is why i think that they can be seen as being doubles. Maybe cause they're twins, Roderick thinks that Madeline is just a ghost and not a real person. That's why when he goes to bury her, he's lost his mind, and he thinks that she's dead. But i know that the fact that they are twins has to be important. Maybe since they're twins, they have telepathic communications. Thus, after Roderick has burried Madeline, he starts feeling different and wired taht following week. Maybe Madeline was communicating to Roderick and getting mad at him for burying him in the tomb while she was really alive.
I also think that Madeline and Roderick represent both Poe and his cousin? that he married. The description of Roderick that is given in the novel, describes Poe in my opinion. And Poe was an ill man as well. I don't know if he had any kids or not, which i don't think he did. It would mean that he was the last person of his family as well becuase he was adopted by another family. So this is also another similarity between him and Roderick.

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic movement that was popular in Europe and American in the 19th century. I think that a lot of people may think that romanticism is about Romantic love, but it's not. Romanticism deals with emotions and imagination. These two things are stuff that can rule a person. Romanticists thought that reason isn't the right way towards truth. Another factor of romanticism is imagination. The romanticists thought taht imagination was the key towards their inner world. This goes and relates back to reason, and it not being the right way to truth. To the romanticists, they thought the best way to interpret things was through their immagination. I think that when comparing romanticism to the age of reason era, romanticism had more individual freedom. I mean people were allowed to use their imagination. It is just like when mrs. clinch gave us the M&Ms, we were allowed to use our imagination as to what we would create with them. Everyone had a different idea as to what they would create with them.

Ending of SL

The ending of Scarlet Letter includes a third and final scaffold scene of the novel. This scaffold is similar in many ways to the previous two. In the third scaffold scene, it is election day, and thus there are many people there, including all the townspeople and the native americans. In the first scaffold scene, all these people were there too, to see Hester face her guilt. The conflict in the final scaffold scene is man vs. self and man vs. man. In here, Dimmesdale is the the one who is pertaining to the conflict. He is facing himself becuase he is going on the scaffold and has the guts to let out his sin, finally. He has tolerated his pain that he has on his chest for nearly 7 years now. He is also man vs. society, becuase he is in front of the whole village when he lets out his sin. Thus he has to face the reactions of the crowd when he shows then what is on his chest. The symbol of this scaffold is shame, sin, and unity. It shows unity because this is when Hester, DImmesdale and Pearl are unitying together for the first time on the scaffold. Dimmesdale calls Pearl onto the scaffold to come with him. "He turned towards the scaffold, and stretched forth his arms." (p.277). The scaffold scene also shows shame and sin because Dimmeadale is revealing his sin, and has to go through shame upon revealing his sin, which is probably why he dies right there and then.

Scarlet Letter

Now that the book is finished, i have seen the result of why Dimmesdale keeps putting his hand over his heart. Even though we exacctly don't know why he does this, because there was more than one account from the people in the crowd, I believe that there was a letter A that he himself carved on his chest. Why else would he keep putting his hand over it? ALso, he was sick before Chillingworth actually came to aid him. So Dimmesdale must have engraved the letter A on his chest.
I also wonder what happened to Pearl. We know that she left her Puritan town in New England. SHe has now become a women and i believe she has a husband. She probably lives a good life far away somewhere in Europe. Even Chillingworth gave all of his land to her when he died. WHen Pearl kissed her father on the scaffold it was like the spell was all broken. Everything was all settled and all the guilt that DImmeadale has was out.
As for Hester, when Chillingworth died, Pearl and her left. But she came back later to her cottage and returned doing her needlework. I think that now she doesn't feel bad about wearing the scarlet letter on her bosom. Everyone knows the truth now and so she dones't have anything to hide.