This semester as a whole has been a challenging and interesting experience; I’ve explored branches of education that were entirely new to me, participated in courses that exposed me to countless new methods of interpretation, and gained a renewed appreciation for key pieces of English literature. My time in English 203 this semester has been a substantial part of these experiences and the conversations I was a part of there have led to me asking bigger questions about not only the texts and their intended meaning, but also about the very study of literary analysis itself. In fact, I would say the most pressing questions asked by this course are: What does it mean to engage in literary criticism and why do we do it? Questions like these continue to be challenging to answer but they all lead into the idea of what my time in Fluid Readers and Fluid Texts was actually about. “About” in this case meaning a purpose, a single, but not uncomplicated, summation of everything this course has taught me. What’s one word, one concept that weaves together all of the novels, movies, and essays we’ve analyzed and discussed this semester? For me, the theme that the course emphasized the most, the theme that brings all of these materials together is the idea of connection. Continue reading “My Final Self Reflection: Understanding Connection”
Alice and the Gnat: Names Come with Responsibility
In Lewis Carroll’s 1871 novel Alice Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, the theme of identity is very prevalent. While this can be said of Carroll’s other Alice novel, one of the most interesting moments I found where identity is explored, was the scene where Alice is discussing the idea of names with a ridiculously-sized talking gnat. The Gnat declares that names are easily changed, and that it would actually be convenient for Alice to be able to change or lose her given name. While Alice does seem to forget her literal name when she enters the forest, I believe that names really represent identities in this sequence, which raises several important questions. What kind of power do our names hold over us? How easy or difficult is it for us to change our names and identities? How do our names affect other people’s expectations of us?
The Gnat points out that changing one’s identity, or losing one’s name, might not be such a bad thing; but how do we proceed through life without a clear set of principles? Carroll seems to be saying that it is possible to change our names and undermine what people think of us without sacrificing our true selves, but that doesn’t mean that one should. It is perfectly within Alice’s power, as seen by her trip through the forest with the fawn, to lose her name and all the responsibility that seems to come with it, but if she avoids the important parts of her life by constantly changing, she will be less developed in the long run. Just because Alice could avoid her lessons doesn’t mean she should. Throughout the novel, Alice is constantly trying to change who she is; she begins as a pawn in a fantastical game of chess with a goal of making it to the end of the chessboard to become a queen. But if you are losing part of yourself along the way, then maybe constant changing isn’t the best course of action. Carroll is most likely proposing that one must stay true to who they are instead of trying to change their name and identity for the sake of others.
Another major concept that Carroll explores here is the way in which our names and identities define who we are and how they can be connected. If Alice were to lose her name, would that make her a different person? This is a question that doesn’t seem to have a concrete answer but it is worth asking. When Alice loses her name in the forest it seems she has not gone through a significant change but the fawn she’s traveling with seems to be the exact opposite. It is warm and friendly to her when neither of them have their names, but when they remember who they are, the fawn takes off in terror. This seems to suggest that a name and identity come with certain expectations from others, and as the gnat claims in the passage, these expectations are changed when name and identity are changed. Without her name, Alice would not be expected to go to her lessons because without a name her identity is in question and if her identity is in question, than who is to say what defines her and what her responsibilities are.
Thoreau and True Solitude
When documenting his time living by himself in a self-made home on Walden pond, Henry David Thoreau decided to do much more than simply transcribe events in a linear, logical order. He wanted to engage his audience and force them think about the society they lived in. To do this, Thoreau would often take his own experience and use it as a stepping stone for much bigger concepts and observations. While there are many instances throughout Henry David Thoreau’s Walden where he clearly and smoothly transitions from experience to theory, one of the most interesting and thought provoking examples occurs in the fifth paragraph of Solitude.
In this passage, Thoreau discusses the time he spent alone in the woods and how it affected him. While many of his peers probably expected him to feel lonely and isolated from the world during his experiment in the woods, Thoreau actually observed that, during his time on Walden pond, company was all around him. Earlier in the passage, he talks of even the pine needles showing him sympathy and befriending him; Thoreau is making a claim that no one is ever truly alone and that loneliness is all relative. When one takes the time to see and appreciate the life around them, it is impossible to be lonely. Company isn’t just the presence of other people, it’s the presence of nature and one’s self realization.
What finally inspires Thoreau to move up one level of abstraction is the skeptics who constantly ask him if he ever felt lonesome, and Thoreau responds with asking a question of his own. What does it truly mean to be lonely? When looking at our planet as a whole, and even the entire universe, in a sense we are all lonely. We are millions, if not billions, of light-years away from the closest non-human organism in our solar system. The human race is indescribably distant from other species in the known universe, and yet people are surprised when Thoreau, who is only a few miles away from the closest town, maintains that he never felt lonesome. He presents his experience living “alone” in forest to introduce the theory true enlightenment is not found in the company of like-minded human individuals, such as a town hall or grocery store, but in the company of what he calls “…the perennial source of our life… as the willow stands near the water and sends out its roots in that direction.” I found this whole passage utterly fascinating because it challenges everything about the very idea of solitude. If Thoreau can rejoice in the simplicity of solitude and nature, why couldn’t I do the very same thing with my own life? Somehow Thoreau managed to reach me as an individual while talking about something has grand and encompassing as the entire Milky Way galaxy. A task not many would have been able to accomplish.
Thoreau’s transition in this passage is necessary in that he not only needs the reader to understand him and his actions at Walden pond, but he needs the reader to identify with the larger ideas at play in his book. The first step is the reader grasping why Thoreau’s solitude can be seen as a pure way of life, the second is them realizing the trappings of modern society and how one can live away from it successfully. If Thoreau’s personal experiences are how lived off the land for two years, he must transition into theoretical thinking to explain why he did this. Many would agree that it’s an author’s purpose to speak to his audience through their work, so it is vital that he makes such a transition as the one he makes in “Solitude.” Without this new level of abstraction, his tale could be seen as nothing more than an autobiography, but with it, Thoreau can give his reader reason to stop and reflect so that they may enrich their lives; just as living on Walden pond has enriched his.