There are numerous symbols and allusions throughout T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land such as fertility, fragmentation, religion and many others. Another important allusion is the constant references to water and deaths associated with water. At the end of the section titled A Game of Chess, Eliot alludes to Ophelia's suicide in water. This allusion is important because it is yet another reference to suicide. Eliot is suggesting the potential for suicide and its prevalence in an upset world, a waste land of emotion.

The idea of water and death associated with it, is contradictory to the typical meaning behind the symbol of water. Water is generally thought of as a place of birth or rebirth. The greatest idea of this symbolism lies within the idea of baptism. In water, you are born a child of god and the act of dipping your head in water is what accomplishes this. In The Waste Land, the symbol of water is constantly shown as a symbol for death, infertility/unproductiveness and fear. Looking back at the first allusion in the first line of the poem,

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Eliot is commenting on the fact that water does not bring life. April is normally associated with a lot of rain which brings life to flowers but an excessive amount of rain will kill the flowers. This inverted idea can be seen against the end of the second section, the reference of the death of Hamlet’s Ophelia. This reference to Ophelia ,who kills herself in water surrounded by flowers, illustrates the idea of how water can directly kill. The water kills both Ophelia and the flowers, saying that too much of anything is never good.

The section titled The Fire Sermon offers more symbols and allusions to Eliot's inverted and twisted idea behind the symbol of water. In the beginning of the section water is referred to as dull, "while I was fishing in the dull canal" (Eliot 189). This allusion represents the barren picture of the unusual waste land Eliot is referring to. A waste land is normally associated with the idea of a barren place, most likely a desert, yet Eliot's waste land is alive with symbols of life, yet they are all dead or dying. The dull canal is portrayed by the swarming rats, symbolizing scavengers feeding off the remains of the unwanted or deserted. The rats also symbolize the idea that the narrator is in a waste land, because nothing around is living except these scavengers.

The title of section four is Death by Water shows his negative portrayal of water through the title itself and through the understanding of the section. It is the shortest section of the entire poem and it describes the death of the dead Phoenician sailor that was predicted by Madame Sosostri in first section of the poem. This section provides a contrast between the Phoenician sailor and to Christ. The Phoenician is referred to rising and falling, “As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth" (Eliot 317-318) just as Christ rose from the dead and then fell back to the dead. Eliot contrasts Christ to the sailor to show that there is not rebirth in the waste land, there is only decay. The sailor has died and forgotten the world and everything he knows. He is gone and he will never return.

In the final section, What the Thunder Said, Eliot references children’s song, "London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down" (Eliot 426). A bridge is what protects man from water. With the construction of a bridge man is now able to cross water more easily and safely. Here, Eliot is describing the London Bridge collapsing. The bridge can no longer protect man from water, showing the connection between water and death. Additionally, Eliot's choice of a song that talks about the destruction of a symbol of connecting life, the London Bridge, shows that everything is falling apart. Another allusion in the final section is the final line which states, "Shantih Shantih Shantih" (Eliot 433). The final line of the poem is an allusion to the Book of Philippians, and it means “the peace which passeth understanding”. This is important because it concludes a section that offers an understanding to the world and why it is a waste land. Eliot is saying that we cannot understand peace because we only know the waste land and its death and destruction.
Eliot uses the symbol and allusions of water to reinforce his idea that the world has become a desolate waste land. He stresses in the poem is that there is no rebirth and that water does not give life and instead it causes death, "you should fear death by water" (Eliot 55). Eliot's atypical view of the world is a reaction to the horrors he sees because of wars. His history is a cyclical view that features death, but no true rebirth; he praises winter for its honesty, a season of death, and despises the spring season for its false idea of life.

Quention and His Shadow

As I went through Quentin’s section, I noticed the constant reference to shadows. Quentin is concerned with upholding the Compson family tradition, and his shadow may represent his family heritage: he wants to leave something substantial behind him, but all that is left of him and his family line are shadows, the imprints of something great that had once been. He seems to associate shadows with nostalgia for the past when he describes how he walks into a dark entrance that was empty, “just the stairs curving up into shadows echoes of feet in the sad generations like light dust upon the shadows, my feet waking them like dust, likely to settle again.”

Numerous times, Quentin describes his attempt to trick his shadow. For instance, he says: “my shadow leaning flat upon the water, so easily had I tricked it that would not quit me. At least fifty feet it was, and if only I had something to blot it into the water, holding it until it was drowned.” Quentin is obsessed with time, and defeating his shadow can be understood as his attempt to free himself from the constraints of time, for shadows reflect the position of the sun in the sky. He is relieved when his shadow is no longer following him, viewing darkness and the disappearance of his shadow as his own victory: “I walked upon my shadow, tramping it into the dappled shade of trees again.” Quentin is searching for his own identity and must harmonize that with his familial expectations. It is also possible that he views his shadow as his family baggage, and while he wants to uphold his family honor, he also desires to defeat it and find his unique identity. Quentin additionally discusses shadows in relation to the many women who are not virgins, depicted in his mind as “walking along in the shadows and whispering with their soft girlvoices lingering in the shadowy places.” Shadows can possibly represent Quentin’s guilt about his inappropriate sexual feelings towards his sister, which he wants to subdue.

Quentin’s chapter concludes with much imagery of light and darkness. He closes his section by describing how he is “turning off his light” and drifting off into the darkness of death, never having to face his shadows again.

The Brothers Compson

Benjy and Quentin Compson seem as different as two relatives could possibly be. While they may be made of almost identical genotypes, they seem to bare almost no resemblance to one another as individuals, let alone in a familial sense. However, I’d like to argue that in all honesty, the two have more in common than what first meets the eye.

While Benjy has one very important difference, that being his mental deficiencies, it is clear that he is far from the idiot title that he has been ascribed. And similarly, while Quentin is meant to represent the elegance of the southern gentleman, the grace of his family name; his ultimate suicide is a clear indication of the mess that laid hidden beneath the surface. Both men are attached to labels that do not accurately describe the human within.

Both men are clearly very sensitive. This is depicted in Benjy’s character by his moaning for Caddy and his cries when something bad is occurring. He constantly shows impressive observational skills with his auditory reactions. Quentin too is often caused physical pain over his emotions. He was horribly distraught over his sister’s pregnancy, a despair that h never truly recovered.

Lastly and perhaps most significantly, both Compson sons are trapped by themselves. While they each feel a great deal, neither one is able to act upon his thoughts or emotions. In the case of Benjy, he quite often senses what is happening around him, sometimes even more accurately than most of the other Compsons. However, due to his disabilities, he is not able to communicate any of his feelings to his loved ones or peers. This isolates him in a world where no one understand him. Likewise, Quentin is paralyzed as well. He is paralyzed by the southern code that he holds so dear, and often cannot separate from it and think practically. Quentin is always full of vague ideas, such as his plots for revenge on Dalton Ames, but in reality, Quentin becomes too consumed by his thoughts to ever bring them to fruition. Because of this, he too remains isolated. These two brothers who seem to be worlds apart actually share many of the same battles, making them closer than one would have thought.

The Function of Time

Throughout the novel the concept of time comes up again and again imparting different messages that are linked to this motif. In fact, Faulkner’s representation and use of time was what made his novel so modern and revolutionary. Faulkner suggests that people can relate to the concept of time in different ways and it is not an objectively understood concept. I believe Faulkner seems to suggest that for some, time does not work in a linear fashion starting with a beginning point continuing straight to an end point. Rather, Faulkner suggests that time is more like a circle, where one can access the past and different points on the timeline regardless of whether those instances already happened.

This idea is evident through his writing style, especially the Benjy section, which jumps from the present to numerous time periods in the past and back to the present. Faulkner chooses to put us in the mind of a mentally disabled individual, who does not have a concept of time as a function of past, present, and future, in order to teach us this new approach to time. Instead Benjy does not consider specific instances as part of a timeline but thinks about different time periods based on how they relate to other things such as smell and sound. For example, in the very beginning of the novel Benjy’s mind goes from his 30-year-old self to a time when he was younger, when he hears the sound of his sister’s name, Caddy. For Benjy, it doesn’t matter if something happened in the past or is currently happening, all thoughts are in his mind and come up as they are evoked by the world around him. Furthermore, Benjy’s disability enables him to draw connections between the past and present that others may not see, permitting him to escape the other Compsons’ obsessions with the past greatness of their name, which haunts them.

In great contrast to Benjy is his brother Quentin, who seems to be trapped by time and cannot move past his memories of the past. One of the key scenes in the Quentin section depicts his attempt to break from time. Quentin tries to escape time’s grasp by breaking his watch, which was a gift from his father. Every time he sees his watch, it most likely reminds Quentin of his father and the legacy he is expected to continue. Even once he breaks the watch, Quentin is unable to escape from his preoccupation with time. Instead Quentin is haunted by the watch’s incessant ticking even without its hands, reminding him of the passing of time. Perhaps Quentin’s suicide was a final attempt to part from time because if he is no longer alive at least he can no longer be bound by time.

Caddy - Faulkner’s Unheard Voice

It was not for The Sound and the Fury that Faulkner first created the character Candace Compson, but rather for an earlier short story named “Twilight.” Faulkner claimed that he loved the character of Caddy so much that he felt she deserved more than a short story, and so he made her the central character in this novel. In the novel’s style Caddy’s story is revealed in three separate narrations by her brothers, as a source of obsessive love for Benjy and Quentin and vengeful anger for Jason. While it was Faulkner’s intention to present Caddy in this structure, it leads to my frustration as the reader because I would have liked to have heard Caddy express her own story too.

By dividing the book into separate sections with different perspectives, Faulkner brings more depth to the individual brothers’ nature and motives for behavior and most importantly their distinct perceptions of their sister Caddy. Although she is the focal point for them, she never gives her point of view. In Benjy’s disjointed shifting between the present and the past, we learn of both his love for and memories of Caddy. She is more of a mother to him than Mrs. Compson who shows no capacity to love or care for her children. While she views Benjy with feelings of shame and pain, Caddy treats him with love and affection. However, we never learn of Caddy’s thoughts and feelings in these relationships. Was she angry, resentful, sympathetic or understanding towards Benjy and her mother as she served this role? We know Benjy never recovered from the void in his life since Caddy left because his thoughts reflect this loss; happy memories of his sister include her "smelling like trees," and in sad ones he moans and cries. When a golfer calls his "caddie", he is overcome by desperate yearnings for her. Caddy never gets to share her feelings and concerns for the person she mothered and then had to abandon. Nor do we learn her feelings towards her parents who disown her in her hour of greatest need.

Both Benjy’s and Quentin’s relationships with Caddy stem from the same close bond formed between siblings whose mother neglected them. Quentin’s inordinately strong attachment to his sister and jealousy of her boyfriends leads to his despair over Caddy’s promiscuity and his fantasizing about an incestuous relationship between them. However, Caddy never expresses her feelings about her emerging sexuality. The reasons and urges that lead her to engage in promiscuous relationships are also left unknown. Her brothers frustrate her efforts to socialize with boys, but we can only surmise her inner feelings toward them for their actions. Unable to adjust to and tolerate his sister’s situation, Quentin commits suicide. When he takes this fatal step, does she see herself as the cause of her brother’s death and blame herself? Does she now regret her earlier refusal to share his fate in the suicide pact he suggested? How great a guilt does she feel in not only Quentin’s suicide but their father’s decline and early death through alcoholism as a result of their actions? Why does she give his name to her daughter, the very product of the promiscuity that drove them apart?

While Benjy and Quentin long for the past relationship they had with Caddy, Jason feels only contempt for the past. His feelings of resentment and rage are reflected in his cruel treatment of both Caddy and her daughter. He blames her promiscuity, which resulted in her divorce, for ruining his chances of a job in Herbert Head’s bank. Jason’s loss serves as the justification for every sadistic and criminal thing that he does. Yet we never hear of the emotional turmoil Caddy must have gone through that pushes her into marriage with such a person who had been expelled from Harvard for cheating nor the emotional and social pain she suffers in her subsequent divorce. While we cringe at Mrs. Compson’s and Jason’s decisions and actions in regard to Caddy’s and Quentin’s treatment, we are not privy to Caddy’s thoughts of despair and helplessness. How does she live life on a daily basis throughout the many years in which she is abandoned by her family, fears for her daughter’s well-being and money, and is powerless to do anything about it.

Although the last section is assigned to Dilsey, Faulkner is the narrator, and he uses this section to imply a hope that the Compson name might be redeemed through Dilsey’s proud spirit and strong values. In choosing this more positive ending, one which reflects a sense of hope and order from decline and chaos, Faulkner purposely omits a "Caddy Section", a decision which he does amend by giving some additional information in the appendix that he wrote later on. However, the fact remains that Caddy's voice is never heard, and we never learn her intimacies and motivations. While Caddy serves as the object of her brothers’ revelations, I wonder why she is not afforded the reciprocity to share hers too.

Who Wins in an Honor Driven Family?

The theme of honor plays a large role in each of the central character's lives in The Sound and The Fury. Everyone has a different perception of the family honor and how to maintain the family honor. Their reactions, understandings, personality, and experiences all have an effect on shaping and protecting their version of the family glory. By setting the novel in the south, honor becomes more poignant and prevalent, because of their fixation with the Civil War. There is a progressive aspect to the unique approaches of honor.

Benjy is the first character we are introduced to as the reader, because of his mental handicap he is unable to speak. His idea of honor is very subtle and only showed through actions. From Benjy's perspective one sees the quiet and silent aspect to honor. His take is very simplistic and based off of what he observes from others. There is a mild sense of frustration, because Benjy cannot defend his own honor nor the family honor. He is constantly being judged by others (within the family unit and the world at large) and can only respond with a groan of disapproval. Caddy sees the destructive nature of her family's honor and chooses to save herself rather than protect the family. Her solution is to run away to salvage her chance at freedom. While Caddy may seem to represent the selfish honor, I think she simply valued herself more than the family unit and was rebellious in her honor. This theory is evidenced by Caddy not thinking about the consequences of leaving her family and how it would affect the members of her family.

Quentin is the protector of the family honor, who differs from Caddy who runs away from the problem of the declining honor. He seeks to always maintain the stature of the family and secure the prospects. As the smartest in the family, Quentin has the potential to save the family monetarily and in terms of continuity. However, there is a slight crack in this seemingly perfect solution. Quentin allows the pressures of attending Harvard to advance his existing craziness and has deep emotional desires for his sister Caddy. These two facts prevent Quentin from redeeming the Compson family and once Quentin realizes he is unable to be the savior he kills himself.

At this point Jason is the last opportunity to continue the Compson name in all its glory. Jason is unable to achieve this task, because he is selfish and lives his life rooted in what could have been. He feels a sense of entitlement and as if he is superior to everyone else. Based on these qualities, Jason represents the perverted or misguided honor. He only cares about protecting his ego and addressing his needs. Jason steals the money Caddy sends for miss Quentin, because he feels as if it his anyway and needs the money to pay off his debts. Here lies the difference between Jason and Caddy, she stills cares about others whereas Jason is egocentric and oblivious to his surroundings. His personal honor of paying back a debt is more important to Jason than showing his niece that her mother cares and loves her. Dilsey represents the final stage of the moral compass to the family. She has true honor and is always the mediator of the family. Her job is to protect the family from themselves and one another while maintaining a true honor. Dilsey balances her own honor, her family's honor, and the Compson honor with grace. This is why I believe Dilsey is entrusted with the continuation of the Compson name albeit in a degraded state. She symbolizes the hope that the family honor can one day reach a great height again.

To summarize, Faulkner makes these characterizations and distinctions to show how one can begin with good intentions but go awry. The progression of the interpretation of honor starts with a very basic sense of honor, which moves to a rebellious honor, which then develops into a protector, and ends with a selfish misplaced sense of honor. Dilsey conveys the ideal type of honor in the progression and caps the transition to provide hope and aspiration. Faulkner uses the overarching theme of honor not just to elaborate on his character's personalities, but as a forum to comment about society as well. Honor is symbolic of the decaying state of the typical southern white family. Faulkner presents a few different methods to coping with the decline through his characters. Ultimately, the fall is occurring and the only positive light is the hope of a future rise to their former glory.

Stevens and the Dangerous Mirror

　 The human imagination, the ability to perceive another kind of reality made purely of thought, has always been the muse of artists and writers alike. Poets especially prize this human ability to imagine and create because it is the essence of their work, both for the poet nad the reader. However, Wallace Stevens admired the imagination more than anyother contemporary writer and poet. In Wallace Steven's article titled Imagination as Value, he is writing this in opposition to Pascal's claim that imagination is the deceptive element of man. Steve's disagrees with that notion, he believes that imagination is what makes man productive. Man makes sense of the world around him through the active exercise of imagination. Therefore each man understands the world differently. I think the poem "Blanche McCarthy" conveys this idea. In the first line of the poem Steven's writes, "Look in the terrible mirror of the sky And not in this dead glass, which can reflect". Steven's refers to the world as a mirror beacuse man views the world with his own personal imagination so in order for man to understand the world he must look in to himself for his imagination.We must look to ourselves in order to find the answers of the world. The next line of the poem is only logical, he writes, "And not in this dead glass, which can reflect". Man looking inward for imagination and understanding the world is quite dangerous. There is a great fear of man not looking toward himself for the answers but rather looking at himself for the answers. If man looks at himself, like he looks in a mirror, for answers regarding the order of the world man becomes self-centered and arrogant. For this fear is why Stevens commands us not to look at ourselves as we look in a mirror, to see man's own reflection. Stevens wants man to look past the reflectin and to look in himself to find the answers in our own imagination.

Poetry: False and Circular

Wallace Stevens directly addresses the nature of poetry in his poem “A High-Toned Old Christian Woman.” “Poetry,” he begins, “is the supreme fiction.” He presents the scenario in which we take the “moral law,” presumably human morality, and “make a nave of it,” or build it into a structure like the nave of a church and make it like institutionalized religion. We then make the nave into a “haunted heaven,” so we make an artificial heaven, and even one that is “haunted”—sublime and feared by humans. A result of this would be that “the conscience is converted into palms,” possibly a play on “psalms,” so the conscience becomes the religious guidebook, in place of the traditional book of Psalms. This is corroborated by his next words, which likens this transformation to “windy citherns hankering for hymns”: a cithern is an instrument similar to a lute, and it yearns to play hymns, which are similar to psalms.

Yet, Stevens remarks that one can “take / The opposing law” and the same effect would occur. One can take this opposing law and make a “peristlyle,” which is a row of columns surrounding a court, and “project a masque / Beyond the planets,” or make it be a mask that extends far out into the heavens. Just like the first scenario in which an abstract concept was made into a nave, an impressive building structure, and built into a heaven, so too here, something is built into a peristyle, an impressive structure, and reaches into the distance of the universe. However, in both scenarios, there is a structure that lacks a central core; they both consist of boundaries, but the center is arbitrary. In this second scene, “our bawdiness,” of indecent humor, will be “indulged at last” and will be “equally converted into palms.” While our conscience turns into “windy citherns,” our bawdiness is found in a state of “[s]quiggling,” which is wilder than “hankering,” and “like saxophones,” which is louder than citherns. Nevertheless, our conscience and bawdiness, opposites, both are converted into palms, possibly representing our religious guide, as Stevens states: “And palm for palm… we are where we began.”

So what is poetry, Stevens asks, if not for an artificial construction that employs physical words, yet does not correspond with anything beyond it? We can play with words and arrive at the same conclusion. We can develop our moral or amoral tendencies and create religious language from it that can be used for worship, so is there actual truth? The fiction of poetry is that anything can be framed and packaged into words that do not represent the original thing in itself.

The next part of the poem juxtaposes the earthly with the sublime. The “flagellants,” individuals who flog themselves, are described as “well-stuffed” and “[s]macking their muzzy bellies in parade.” However, their grotesque description is framed within the lofty “planetary scene” and they are “[p]roud of such novelties of the sublime.” The tensioned relationship between these two models, described in made-up words as ‘tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,” causes “a jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.” Stevens concludes with the use of alliteration, repeating the words “widows,” “wince,” and “wink” in close proximity to each other. He says that the flagellants will cause themselves to be whipped, which will make widows wince. But “fictive things,” i.e. products of the imagination, such as poetry, “wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.” I am not exactly sure what these last lines mean, but it seems like Stevens attempts to show the circularity of poetry, expressed by his rehashing of similar sounding words, for poetry surrounds an idea but does not actually correspond to it or verily reflect it.

In “Imagination as Value,” Stevens quotes Pascal, who says that imagination is “the deceptive element in man, the mistress of error and duplicity…being most often false, it gives no sign of its quality and indicates in the same way both the true and the false” (133). Stevens seems to agree in this poem about the duplicity of imagination, for it can lead one in opposite directions. While Pascla criticizes imagination for having this ability, Stevens seems to be glorifying it for exactly that. He seems awe-inspired by the endlessness of poetry.

Grand Imagination

Wallace Stevens did not look at poetry as simply poetry, rather, poets were entrusted with a greater task. In the chapter, “Imagination as value,” Lucy Beckett asserts that fellow Harvard graduate George Santayana had a profound effect on Wallace Stevens and his work. It comes as no surprise, then, that Stevens agreed with much of Santayana’s literary philosophy. One of Santayana’s philosophies refers to the role of the poet. He writes:

Where poetry rises from its elementary and detached expressions in rhythms, euphemism, characterization and story-telling, and comes to the consciousness of its highest function, that of portraying the ideals of experience and destiny, then the poet becomes aware that he is essentially a prophet, and either devotes himself to the loving expression of the religion that exists, or like Lucretius or Wordsworth, to the heralding of one that he believes to be possible (26).

By elevating the poet to the role of a prophet, Santayana gestures to the responsibility poets have towards their readers. Moreover, it suggests that poets have the ability to portray the “ideals of experience and destiny.” Understanding this underlying motivation is useful if we turn to Wallace Stevens’ “The Man with the Blue Guitar.”

Although a painting by Picasso inspired “The Man with the Blue Guitar,” Stevens gestures to an important underlying issue. The man with the guitar is a symbol of acceptance and self-realization. The man has a “blue guitar” and does not “play things as they are.” In fact, things change when played on the blue guitar. Still his audience wants him to play things as they are. So this man sagely states, “I cannot bring a world quite round/Although I patch it as I can.” But the man is not necessarily resigned, but simply accepting.

Beckett explains that Stevens’ artfulness as a poet comes from this greater responsibility as delineated by Santayana. She asserts,

It is precisely towards the conviction such words used to carry that Stevens moves with due and elaborate care both in his poetry and in his prose. Within the convolutions of the passage above lurks the proposition that the freedom to create significance, a commonplace of perception and discussion in the aesthetic sphere, can be related to the freedom from which a man may choose to create the significance of his own life (45).

This context is important when looking at the following lines in the poem: “For a moment final, in the way/ The thinking of art seems final when/ The thinking of god is smoky dew./The tune is space. The blue guitar/ Becomes the place of things as they are,/A composing of senses of the guitar.” Within these lines, Stevens elevates the poem into philosophical discourse. Reaching this epiphany is the means in which the narrator of the poem creates significance in his life. When he later equates himself with the guitar, he has made what is insignificant to others, significant to himself.

Stevens asks, “what, then, is it to live in the mind with the imagination, yet not too near to the fountains of its rhetoric, so that one does not have a consciousness only of grandeurs, of incessant departures from the idiom and of inherent altitudes?” It is precisely this question that motivates his works. He seeks a higher meaning in his poetry because he places great emphasis on human imagination and its connection with rhetoric.

The Imagination of Stevens

When I was in elementary school, my teachers always told me to use my imagination and “engage my brain” while fulfilling the various tasks they assigned me, no matter if they involved writing an essay or constructing a diorama depicting my ideal house on Mars. However, my teachers never truly let me use my imagination to achieve my visions, because they always directed my energies toward achieving a specific assignment. By following these instructions, I followed their vision of what the end result of my labors would be, rather than on creating the real-world embodiment of the visions I saw in my mind.

When I started college classes, their emphasis on using critical thinking to further my intellectual growth and understand the material my professors assigned to me gave me a completely new way of using my imagination to broaden my understanding of my world. No longer were books mere words to read and plot points to memorize, but now they were tales that I could evaluate whether I liked them or not, with characters and events that could teach me lessons. When I read Wallace Stevens’ article, “Imagination as Value”, he helped me understand that when I used my imagination to aid my academic progress, it enabled me to think in-depth about the information I was required to process. Furthermore, learning how to engage in my own rich imaginative inner life enabled me to use my own thoughts and ideas to interpret the books and essays I encountered in class. In Stevens’ essay, he makes the point that “the imagination is the liberty of the mind… The imagination is the only genius. It is intrepid and eager and the extreme of its achievement lies in abstraction” (Stevens 138). When my imagination is my primary means of deriving an abstract idea from the chaos that arises out of many different sources of information being presented at the same time, my ability to make sense of the disorder is boundless.

Stevens goes on to describe imagination’s role in our everyday lives, making the point that each person’s world is unique to their self-contained thoughts. For example, he states, “A man in Paris does not imagine the same sort of thing that a native of Uganda imagines. If each could transmit his imagination to the other… what word would the Parisian find to forestall his fate and what understanding would the Ugandan have of his incredible delirium?” (140). In his essay, Stevens answers his own question by explaining that “If we live in the mind, we live with the imagination… concerned with the extent of artifice within us and, almost parenthetically, with the question of its value” (141). In other words, the only task we must achieve when developing our imaginative abilities is to build our own inner worlds, and our own mental models for how to view the material world.

Stevens provides an example of his answer to the question of how an individual only needs their own internal mental environment to create tools for making sense of their world in his poem, “Final Soliloquy of The Interior Paramour”. In the third and fourth stanzas of his poem, he says, “Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves. We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,/ A knowledge, that arranged the rendezvous. Within its vital boundary, in the mind. We say G-d and the imagination are one… How high that highest candle lights the dark”. In this poem, Stevens tells his readers that the way a person can capture the power of their imagination is to let go of any previous allegiance they might have to ideas outside the realm of their own paradigm. With this poem, he places imagination on the same scale as the Divine, connoting to his readers that the highest achievement they can aspire to is to use their imagination to create their world.

The Mind is a Cold Place

Stevens’ exploration of the imagination, in his essay “Imagination as Value,” and its function and importance is an obvious theme that comes across in much of his poetry. Stevens, a poet of ideas, often deals with just that – our ideas, our thoughts and imagination and their relationship with reality. For Stevens, reality is the product of the imagination as it creates our world. As he says, “the truth seems to be that we live in concepts of the imagination before the reason has established them."

With this in mind, it is difficult to read Stevens’ poetry without understanding it as a metaphor for the imagination and mind. Even in his poems which seem to be talking about a specific subject other than the imagination, it is often obvious that the objects or topics are alluding to the ideas of imagination, mind, and reality. Such as in “The Idea of Order at Key West,” “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” and “The Emperor of Ice Cream.” This post will be focusing on “The Snow Man” and its relationship to the imagination, mind, and reality.

Stevens begins the poem by setting up a winter scene with “frost and the boughs” and “pine-trees crusted with snow.” The first line reads, “One must have a mind of winter,” and can be interpreted in different ways. When I hear the word winter, I envision freshness and a sea of white; a mind of winter, therefore indicating a mind that is white like a blank slate. One must remove his previous thoughts and notions, and start fresh and anew.

But what must one have a fresh outlook for? Stevens continues, that one must have this “mind of winter” in order to regard the harsh and cold attributes of winter (which he depicts in detail) and “not to think/Of any misery in the sound of the wind.” In order to remove oneself from any association with misery, one must clear his mind and have an objective, winter-like outlook. Only a snow man who has “been cold a long time,” and is used to the bitter cold can disregard it to perceive an objective view of reality.

Stevens’ interweaves this message in the poem by beginning with us, with the “one” of the poem, watching the winter scene, as our mind stirs with the cold and miserable connotations of winter. However, gradually we are stripped of that separation between “us” and the snow man, and we become one with the snow man, beginning to see the world through his eyes. We become able to perceive the cold of the winter, through his skin, without the feelings of discomfort a human faces with the cold. To perceive the winter scene objectively, we must have a mind of a snow man, and only then can we perceive the reality of it.

Having read Steven’s essay on imagination and taking into consideration his final point “that the imagination is the power that enables us to perceive the normal in the abnormal, the opposite of chaos in chaos,” I also understand the poem as follows:

In order to break through the chaos in the chaotic world we live in, we must clear our minds of what we have learned or expect and use only our imagination to guide us. The world is a “cold” and “shagged with ice” kind of place, but we must remove these perceptions so we can view the world and our reality as a positive place shaped by our imagination.

Nurturing life through imagination

There is a marvelous music video for the Lily Allen’s song “LDN”. (See it here: http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/LilyAllen/LDN--44680579). The premise of the video is that nothing is as it seems on the surface. The video shows her looking at a piece of candy, but then removes a screen to reveal it is really a cigarette butt. There is also a scene of a young boy helping a woman with grocery bags but really he steals her wallet. The list continues. However, this sort of world and these images echo when reading Steven’s views on the imagination as interpreter of life. Just as Allen wears rose-colored glasses in the video, so too does the imagination provide humanity with rose-colored glasses.

The imagination, according to Stevens, enables man to keep living. It is “the only clue to reality” (Imagination as value, 137), the only thing that gives the mind power “over the possibilities of things” (136). Though the music video alters this point, it emphasizes the idea of the imagination giving shape to reality.

Exploring the idea of the imagination, Stevens compares his imagination to a candle in his poem “Valley Candle”. As a symbolist poet, every image bears deeper meaning, beyond the superficial word. Writing that his “candle burned alone in an immense valley,” (1) the reader imagines a flickering flame, the only fleck of light in the valley. Stevens’ candle, his imagination, feels surrounded by the natural world of the valley. Indeed, the natural world does not just surround the candle but “beams of the huge night converged upon” (2) the candle, attempting to drown its tender flame. Stevens’ use of the word “night” is the opposite of a candle. Night represents darkness and uncertainty. The candle provides light and clarity.

The coupling of” night” with “candle” is a perfect pairing. The night is the vast unknown, the wide reaching depths of nature and the mind. A candle is what allows a person to make sense of that unknown, to bring light and understanding to a confusing situation. The candle provides “the only clue to reality,” the reality of the dark valley.

In the third line of his poem, Stevens’ writes that there is also wind in this valley. The wind blows into the valley to rescue the candle’s luminance. The “beams” “converged” on the light “until the wind blew” (3), to strength it. Though this strengthening seems counterintuitive (since wind usually extinguishes a candle), in this line the wind drives away the beams of night to allow the flame to breathe oxygen and continue burning. A slight gust will cause a candle’s flame to bounce back, strong and better than before. It provides a renewed burst of light.

The second stanza of the poem reiterates the idea of the night encroaching on the candle, but this time Stevens uses the word “image” to refer to the candle. The word “image” carries with it the association of art. Art, in all of its forms, is powerful. Art is the free expression of the imagination, the entity that allows man to experience, fully, life’s possibilities. Before the “beams of the huge night” (4) overpower the light, the image, the imagination, the second wind swoops in to resuscitate and protect the fragile spark of imagination.

With a little push, the imagination flourishes, stronger than ever. With just a small prod by Stevens, a gentle message is sent to humanity: to nurture the imagination through the creation of art, which will ignite and illuminate the world.

Your Responses to the Blog Posts

I thought you might be interested to know which blog posts received attention from your fellow writers in the first paper. Coming in to this, I thought that a small number of the more controversial posts would attract the most responses, but in reality the results were very evenly spread out--so evenly in fact that only two of the blog posts received a second response. In other words, each of you responded to a different post in your first paper, except for two of you, who wrote about the same posts as someone else. Ilana and Sarit's posts were the two that were responded to by more than one student.

In terms of the subject matter, I was pleased that Joyce and Stein received almost exactly the same number of responses.

The class average for grades was about a B+.

A Clarification of Imagination

Wallace Stevens is focused on the imagination, reality, and the interaction between the two in his works. He often takes a very philosophical view on how the world has changed and lines have been blurred. One gray area that is of particular interest to Stevens is that of reality and imagination. The way we are able to come to a conclusion about reality is through our imaginations. We cannot live without our imaginations, because in a sense they are our filters that help us to process reality, and reconcile the formed reality with the world around us. Once people have gained a certain comfort level with the imagination it becomes a part of the their definition of normal (“Imagination as value” 145-146). The effect of this premise is best described by Stevens in “Imagination as value” when he writes, “The imagination is the power that enables us to perceive the normal in the abnormal,” (153). By Wallace Stevens presenting the imagination in this way, he shows the personal aspect, subjectivity, and variability of the imagination. Everyone's experiences are different as are their perceptions and interpretations, therefore affecting their view of the imagination and the world around them.

Stevens uses these concepts as themes within his poetry. One such example would be in the poem “The Man with the Blue Guitar”. Here Stevens utilizes dichotomies that raise questions in order to show the difference in spectrum that a person can garner from a difference in imagination. An example of a dichotomy occurs when Stevens writes, “And all their manner, right and wrong, // And all their manner, weak and strong?” (134). The juxtaposition of “right and wrong” and “weak and strong” serves to show that either can be perceived based on an experience, but both can be correct in their assumption. This fact that both are possible and true exemplifies the notion that the imagination is not the same in everyone nor is it used in the same manner. Furthermore, by the beginning of the sentence being parallel to that of the next the link between the two sentences is established as well as the explication. Additionally, Stevens makes reference to a dichotomy between day and night and the sun and moon in sections five, seven and eight, which also serves the same purpose of making clear the subjective nature of the imagination.

Another way Stevens tries to show the reader that the imagination is a self evolving thing is by his use of anastrophe. This technique is applied in “The Man with the Blue Guitar” when Stevens says, “They said, 'You have a blue guitar, // You do not play things as they are.' The man replied, 'Things as they are // Are changed upon the blue guitar.'”(133). The inversion of the rhyming and words illustrates that each person has a different perspective that shapes their imagination. Based upon this shaping of a person's imagination their perception and interpretation varies. By recording both the they and man's viewpoint, Stevens embodies the idea that the imagination is not absolute. Additionally, Stevens presents both opinions in regards to change. Namely, the opinion of the they which states that people cause change, as opposed to the opinion of the man which says that the blue guitar (ie nature) causes change. In not limiting himself to one perspective, he conveys the ideal nature of the imagination.

To summarize, Wallace Stevens is deeply concerned with the imagination and its implications. Therefore, he devotes his poetry to clarifying the imagination and its ways. Primarily, he utilizes the methods of dichotomy and anastrophe to achieve this goal. Ultimately, Stevens wants the reader to understand that the imagination is a highly influenced part of our lives. Due to the imagination's powerfulness and impact everyone can have a different perspective. Another goal Stevens wants to attain is explaining the relationship between the imagination and reality. He desires for the reader to see that the two are related and work closely together in an overlapping manner. The movement from the imagination to reality is aided by gaining a knowledge in one realm and seeking clarification in another or an application to the other.

“Arrival at the Waldorf”: Living Between Imagination and Reality

In his essay “Imagination as Value”, Wallace Stevens presents a philosophy which guides us in the reading of his poetry. The poet puts forth the idea that “(T)he truth seems to be that we live in concepts of the imagination before the reason has established them." This imagination is not merely a realm of fantasy or escape, but rather a perspective and mindset that is ever present and gives meaning to the reality of the world in which we live. Imagination for Stevens is one of the great human powers, even genius, because it allows us the freedom of mind “to perceive the normal in the abnormal, the opposite of chaos in chaos.” According to Stevens, the closest we get to imagination is arts and letters, and as a poet, he engages in this pursuit which he compares to sensory activity in which the mind has the power to consider all possibilities of basic images and emotions.

In Steven’s opinion, imagination “…enables us to live our own lives. (W)e have it because we do not have enough without it.” Through the arts man reaches the pinnacle of imagination and in so doing helps to create reality. In this sense, imagination and reality are connected, as we live in the mind that creates beauty, justice, and happiness until reason may ultimately adopt them as reality and normality. Reality is the result of the imagination’s efforts to shape our world, a perpetual activity in which man attempts to find imaginatively satisfying ways to perceive the world around him. As such, Stevens labels reason as “the methodizer of the imagination” in which the latter is organized by and becomes reality.

A special quality of imagination is that it allows us to look both forwards and backwards, using different powers of the mind in each direction. In looking ahead to the future, to imagine what might be or what we would want to happen, one uses creative energy with the hopes of fulfilling expectations or dreams to form a physical reality. In looking back to the past, to remember what we already experienced or what already happened, one uses reproductive power with the hopes of refreshing memories of a physical reality that are now only present in our imagination. This latter use of imagination is the one employed in Steven’s poem “Arrival at the Waldorf.”

In the poem’s first line, the dichotomy between imagination and reality is established immediately. The narrator has already returned from “actual” Guatemala, the place that is real for him, faraway and “alien”, existing in the physical and “green.” In both its foreign and natural state, Guatemala appeals greatly to the speaker. Now, however, “back at the Waldorf”, the physical reality of Guatemala is what is alien to him and revisited only in his imagination. With “all approaches gone, being completely there,” he cannot return to Guatemala and has indeed fully returned physically if not mentally to New York City. The narrator will use the force of his imagination to recreate the natural life, green lushness, and people of that tropical setting in contrast to the artificial one at the hotel.

In his new reality he senses the “wild country of the soul” found at the hotel. The Waldorf is not one’s home, perhaps rendering him like a lost soul, a poor substitute for the place where one feels like he belongs. Stevens uses the word “wild” three times in the first six lines of his poem, and in each the connotation is of a negative nature, implying that the speaker is unhappy with the present reality of his world. He writes “(W)here the wild poem is a substitute/” For the woman one loves or ought to love,…” and “(O)ne wild rhapsody a fake for another.” Instead of the strong physical and emotional sense implied of loving a woman as he did or perhaps saw others do in Guatemala, at the Waldorf there is only the artificial and inadequate verse of the poem or song one might hum with the orchestra to take its place. Neither the words of the poem nor the music of the rhapsody evokes the mood or sensual feeling that was left behind in Guatemala. Upon his arrival back at the hotel, the speaker remarks about the distance he feels from his surroundings and the people therein. “You touch the hotel the way you touch moonlight/ Or sunlight…”, from a great distance, looking at them but not feeling their intimacy. In this reality there is only verse, words that do not connect people for “men (are) remoter than mountains…” and “(W)omen invisible in music and motion and color.” After having experienced the reality of Guatemala, all other realities pale in comparison for the speaker.

As America’s greatest poet of the imagination, Wallace Stevens portrays a speaker in this poem who finds himself in the intersection of reality and imagination. Only through the artifice of imagination will he be able to filter and influence the reality in which he now lives, thereby making it more palatable an experience in the present and more potent a memory from the past.

Imagination as a Blackbird

Wallace Stevens is quite renowned for his emphasis on the imagination. He utilizes his own imagination constantly in his numerous written works, and stresses the importance of others using theirs while attempting to understand his. In one such work, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” his theme of imagination and deeper thought is constant throughout the work. This poem in particular is useful when reading Stevens’ “Imagination as Value.” “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” serves as a perfect example when trying to understand the applications of many of his points in the essay.

To begin, we must examine parts II and III:

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

These lines depict a feeling of confusion and indecisiveness. Being of three minds alludes to the famous phrase of ‘being of two minds,’ meaning, having two different pulling emotions or thoughts. Additionally, the blackbird was ‘whirled’ in the wind, not the master of his own course, nor heading in any one particular direction. These allusions refer to Steven’s definition of imagination, as he states in “Imagination as Value, saying, “It does not seem possible to say of the imagination that it has a single characteristic which of itself gives it a certain single value as,” (133). This would suggest that while the blackbird can represent many different things in Stevens’ poem, the imagination is certainly a viable option.

Later, in verses VI and VII, the reader is presented with highly depictive adjectives and word choices. It is impossible to read them without imagining the images they describe:

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

In fact, Stevens even uses the word imagine in the VII stanza, emphasizing to his readers that they must stretch their minds in order to fully appreciate his work. Again, in “Imagination as Value,” he states, “It is the value of imagination. The poet tries to exemplify it, in part, as I have tried to exemplify it here, by identifying it with an imaginative activity that diffuses itself throughout our lives.” (149). And in truth, without making the reading of this poem into an ‘imaginative activity’ there is no way to truly understand and appreciate his words, and the process that experiencing them begins.

Finally, in stanza IX, Stevens writes:

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles

To me, this is the most piercing stanza in the entire work. Here, Stevens addresses perspective head on. In “Imagination as Reason,” Stevens says, “But, given another mind, given the mind of a man of strong powers, accustomed to thought, accustomed to the essays of the imagination, and the whole imaginative substance changes. It is as if one could say that the imagination lives as the mind lives,” (151). This poem in and of itself is experimentation with perception. Stevens provides a somewhat vague narrative, and the reader may choose how to interpret his words. This is an exercise that Stevens himself relishes, for it is the ‘imaginative activity’ that he endorses so thoroughly. “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” is a marriage between perception and imagination, and the interplay between the two. In fact, even in the title, Stevens warns his readers of multifaceted work that they are about to being; ‘thirteen’ itself is a large number, and he provides thirteen completely different and probing interpretations of a blackbird. This work perfectly embodies the use of imagination as a value.

Lessons From Cather

As a college student, I have had to learn to balance my life choices between the quixotic and the pragmatic. Do I sign up for a class covering a topic I want to learn more about, or do I choose a course that I’m required to take to fulfill my graduation requirements? Should I spend all day in the bookstore looking for the perfect CliffsNotes tome to study from, or do I stay in my dorm and study the notes I already have? Having to deal with these questions on a daily basis at school has taught me that if I always yield to my impulses to spend my time on minimally productive pursuits, I won’t get as much out of my limited time during the day as I would otherwise. On the other hand, if the only criterion I use to decide what I do every day is whether it’s time-efficient, I won’t take any chance on an activity or cause that might broaden my intellectual horizons or make me a better person. So, my experiences making these decisions gave me a good background for understanding one of the underlying themes in Willa Cather’s novel, “The Professor’s House”, about the choice between making quixotic and pragmatic decisions.

For example, Professor St. Peter is a man primarily concerned with leading a life of practicality and expediency, even going so far as to only allow his family a certain amount of time with him, so he could devote himself to his work. In her book, Cather writes ”Two evenings of the week he spent with his wife and daughters… He had Saturdays and Sundays, of course, and on those days he worked like a miner under a landslide… He had burned his candle at both ends to some purpose—he had got what he wanted” (Cather 18-19). This passage establishes the Professor as a man of great capacity for planning and ensuring everything in his life happens according to plan. As a man of great pragmatism, St. Peter seeks to live a life of tranquility, shunning any opportunity his life offers him for pursuits he deems too spontaneous. For instance, he doesn’t deviate from his routine even when his daughter gets stung by a bee, viewing her as “a square-dealing, dependable little creature… she was to play in the garden all morning, and was not on any account to disturb him in his study” (Cather 73). St. Peter feels content with how his life is organized, because it makes him feel secure and successful—however, the only person who ever made him question his frame of mind was Tom Outland.

When Professor St. Peter meets Tom Outland, he is struck by his affinity for being wonderful and brilliant, entertaining his daughters with tales of his vagabond childhood. Furthermore, Tom is everything St. Peter is not—he spends copious amounts of time playing with his then-young daughters, enjoying “the prettiness and freshness and gaiety of the little girls as if they were flowers” (106). Outland is quixotic where St. Peter is pragmatic—though Outland has the same amount of intellect as St. Peter does, he expresses it through his passion for things that are beautiful and wonderful, rather than merely what will keep his life running smoothly.

Furthermore, Outland’s paradigm helps St. Peter learn to cherish what brings joy to his life, instead of just valuing what will further his career. For example, the Professor learns from Tom that a person can “keep affection and advancement far apart… [and] must never on any account owe any material advantage to his friends” (151), which is an attitude unlike what he has learned as a professor concerned with navigating the difficult world of faculty politics and a loveless marriage. Tom’s friendship teaches the Professor that his life doesn’t have to just be about devotion to pragmatic concerns, but can include a respect for elements in his life that bring him happiness and closer relationships.

I Love You, Man

While reading Willa Cather’s novel, The Professor’s House, that among many other themes discussed in class, there was a love affair of sorts taking place between Godfrey and Tom. At first it struck me as odd, that two heterosexual males could have such deep feelings for one another. In this case we focus more on Godfrey St. Peter’s love for Tom. As I read further I realized that this relationship was terribly reminiscent of what is today called a “Bromance”. Defined by urban dictionary as “the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males” or more specifically “The intense love shared between heterosexual males. A form of male bonding and usually invisible to the naked eye. This bond is normally only shared between two males that have a deeper understanding of each other, in a way no woman could ever realize.”

As one of St. Peter’s students, Tom was one of the few who left a mark in his life. He saw his desire to learn and passion for life and also saw in Tom his youthful self in Kansas. Their student-teacher relationship soon turned into a very special friendship, one that would change the professors life forever. It can be said that Godfrey loved Tom in a way that he did not anyone else. He found solace in Tom, they connected on a level that, throughout the novel, becomes clear that no one else could with Godfrey.

Throughout the beginning of the novel, we are given hints to Tom’s role in the professor’s life. We get a sense of the void left in Godfrey’s life due to Tom’s death, but it isn’t until the middle/end that we get the full effect. I think that the void just began to grow bigger and bigger as time went by instead of healing. The Professor had a hard time letting go because his life was changing in ways he was not ready to handle causing him to constantly look backward at the days he wished still existed.

It could be said that the bromance between Outland and St. Peter began when they became friends, but I believe that the friendship became concrete after Outland’s death, as strange as that may sound. It seems that the problems that occurred in Godfrey’s family pushed him to become a bit more nostalgic and to hold on to Outland’s memory even more. Godfrey was a man who had high expectations and morals and the this affinity for society and wealth that his family picked up is seen a betrayal to him. To Godfrey, Tom represents the old life he lead. He admired how Tom treated his girls and how they were fascinated by him. He saw Tom and being pure and good and far from obsessed with the materialism and money that his family is now consumed by. It becomes clear that Godfrey’s isolation is mainly his way of holding on to the good, which is the past, and avoiding the avaricious which has become the present. St peter had a hard time understanding the women in his life and this caused him to turn to Tom. He wanted the days back when someone understood him, and what he wanted out of life. Godfrey is disappointed by the money that has been introduced to his daughter’s life and what it has done to his family. His way of dealing with it is basically by distancing himself from his family and grasping on to whatever he has left of “the good times”, mainly Tom.

Cather's "Lost Generation"

“The lost generation”, a term coined by Gertrude Stein, acts as a critique on the pre and post WWI society of the 1920’s. Stein, alongside other Modernist writers such as Faulkner and Hemingway, explored this notion of a “lost generation” living in an insignificant world. To them, they were members of a struggling modern age, trying to find meaning in a context that was virtually meaningless. Perhaps we can say the same thing about Willa Cather in The Professor’s House, a text that deals with problems, incoherencies, catastrophes, and textual breaks. These fragmentations and losses found in the narrative can be viewed as a kind of critique or commentary of Cather’s time, perhaps a time she considered empty of meaning.

The most blatant topic of loss manifests in Godfrey’s character. We witness as his family, marriage, and homes all destabilize, but most importantly, as he copes with the death of Tom, his favorite student. Godfrey’s damaged character, in this way, represents a broken reality, and reflects the losses of modernity. Fragmentation exists in the text’s form as well. The chapter of “Tom Outland’s Story” acts as a fracture between its surrounding two chapters, breaking the narrative’s general flow. While many have criticized Cather for this structural inconsistency in the text, disrupting both its narrative discourse and textual form, it actually functions as a reflection of modern society’s disruption and disorder. World War I and the vanishing Cliff City’s people are also a part of the theme of loss and breakage. 20^th century Modernism, to Cather, greatly lacks inherent significance.

While Cather may be criticizing the Modernist era, she is also acting as a true Modernist author while doing so. Modernist literature involves a whole lot of cynicism, advocates a sense of mistrust among its readers, and seeks to depart from traditional ideas. By commenting on Modernism through the use of literary breaks and fragmentations, Cather engenders a sense of apprehension and distrust among readers, a reaction not uncommon among readers of Modernism.

Yin and Yang: Two Halves of Life

Literature, good literature, ought to enrich a person’s life. Literature holds a mirror up to humanity, unabashedly showing us our flaws and imperfections. It is much easier to talk about other people than it is ourselves, more so when those people are fictitious. But talking about those other people assuages our own fears and can be cathartic. Cather’s mirror in The Professor’s House shows the reader’s own feelings in an easier to talk about manner, laying bare a usual “sweep it under the rug” approach to the banality of life and instead encouraging the reader to embrace the bland.

At the outset of the novel, the professor, St. Peter, yearns for his former house. The family has just moved and yet he still keeps the house. As the reader finds out more about his current family life, the story is suddenly interrupted with the intrusion of an extended back flash. Tom Outland was very close with St. Peter and supposed to be his son-in-law. From St. Peter’s eyes, those times seem like the best of his life.

As the story closes, St. Peter wakes up to realize “the long anticipated coincidence had happened…the storm had blown the stove out and the window shut” such that the house was filling with gas. Aside from posing an interesting legal question if failing to actively save his own life creates culpability for of killing himself, his flirtation with death stuns the reader. How far must one travel down the road of memory to the point when the present seems futile?

Ultimately, St. Peter is saved by Augusta. She happened to come over during the storm and found him on the floor. She supposes he “must have got up and tried to get to the door before [he was] overcome” and passed out from the gas. Then, looking at Augusta, he realizes she lives life fully. Augusta “wasn’t at all afraid to say things that were heavily, drearily true … [after assisting with deaths and funerals] her manner of speaking about it made death seem less uncomfortable”, less frightening. There is a truth about her missing from the professor.

When he realizes why Augusta comforts him, he realizes what he lacks from his own life: namely, life. St. Peter “never learned to live without delight” since he always searches for happiness. But life is not wholly happy. It can be, but that is not the truth of life. Finally it “occurred to him that he might have to live” without the façade of delight, but the truth of what is under that façade as well. His conscious state, after surviving the incident with the gas, “had let something go--and it was gone: something very precious, that he could not consciously have relinquished, probably”. As he reflects on his brush with death, St. Peter’s conscious catches up with his subconscious, allowing him to live completely. The deepest part of him, the part he lacked access to, knew life retained value even after the glamour fades and the best years are behind. Therefore he subconsciously got up from the chair to save himself and live.

The book celebrates all of life. Cather implores the reader to embrace the mundane aspects of life, as well as the good. Living like an ostrich who keeps his head in the ground is not good enough. It is the less liked parts of life that make life good. Though this book may be about accepting the minutiae and normal domestic rituals, the reader cannot overlook the deep nostalgia in its pages when the professor recalls the past. Therefore, to pair the mundane and nostalgia, the book is an exhortation to enjoy everything. The bad exists to emphasize the good while the good uplifts from the bad. Instead of just being born back ceaselessly to the past by memory, as Fitzgerald wirtes, his boat is finally able to “beat on” to life, in its entirety.

Significance and Parallel between the Study and Blue Mesa

In The Professor’s House, there are many parallels between the Professor and Tom Outland. Although their lives, thoughts, and upbringing are vastly different from each other there are significant commonalities between them, such as the need for a place of their own to be used for some kind of personal awakening. For the Professor, it is his study which he is so deeply obsessed with, while for Tom his place of refuge is Blue Mesa. To me, both places seem to be used as a sort of sanctuary for its respective dweller.

In the professor’s case, he spends the majority of the novel sequestered away, in the simple third floor study of his old residence. Though the Professor’s family has already moved into the new home made just for them, he goes to great lengths to preserve his old study. He goes so far as to continue paying rent for the entire house just so he could occupy this small space. Furthermore, he goes so far to preserve it just as it was and not change it in anyway. He refuses to remove anything from the study or make any changes to it. As the story progresses, the Professor lingers in his old workspace and spends more and more amounts of time there, removing himself from the daily routine of his friends and family.

The room becomes a place where he can disappear, and it comforts him in a way that his family and friends cannot. “It was the one place in the house where he could get isolation, insulation from the engaging drama of domestic life” (18). Furthermore, the space is used as a sanctuary where he can envision his most idealized self, and discover “the mystery and importance” (57) of who he truly is. The study may be a physical, material place, yet the feelings and emotions it evokes for the professor is anything but physical, rather a spiritual force. For the professor the study enables his creative prosperity where he can think of and craft all his writing and creative endeavors.

Similarly, Tom seems to find a similar type of sanctuary in Blue Mesa. Although the spiritual awe and appeal of a place like Blue Mesa is more obvious than the simple one-roomed study, the value for Tom is much like the study’s value for the Professor. In both of these places there is a lack of intrusion by the social world and the characters find something they need which is not offered by anyone or anywhere else. Just as the study was a place solely for the Professor, the mesa had not been visited in 100s of years and Tom used it as a place of his own. They are both places of isolation and personal discovery. Both Tom and the Professor seem to be missing some kind of spiritual meaning in their lives, which they strive to find and these spaces fulfill that void by giving places and objects significance that only they can relate to.

Although both places are vastly different in their appearance and physical nature, they both serve a similar purpose for each respective dweller. Both are places where the characters can be alone and find themselves by being introspective. The isolation in each place provides the characters a sanctuary to think and be contemplative.

Godfrey St. Peter's Loss of House and Identity

At the beginning of the novel, we learn a lot about Professor Peter St. Peter’s character. He is excitedly preparing for his future, he is strong in his beliefs and ideals and he is oddly attached to his old house in which he is in the process of moving out of. He and his wife are in the process of moving into a new, bigger house with all the modern conveniences awaiting his arrival. His attachment to the old house is so strong he even has a particular order and place for every object in the room which mustn’t be changed. At the conclusion of the story, St. Peter’s personality completely transforms and he is no longer apathetic to his morals and principles he used to hold near and dear to his heart. He abandons everything that made him who he is. This can be seen throughout the story as he drifts away from his family. St. Peter’s loss of identity is a result of his loss of his old home, symbolizing the old and simpler life he used to live.

With the big move on the rise, Peter St. Peter has become detached from his family and apathetic toward his principles. In the new house he and his wife decide to have separate bedrooms and bathrooms. St. Peter depicts his family’s imperfection as being cause for his solitude. But it is St. Peter unwillingness to change and adapt that is the root of his problems. Lillian tells him this when she says, “One must go on living, Godfrey. But it wasn’t the children who came between us” (78). We see St. Peter is truly the cause of their fading relationship because he is uninterested in anyone’s values. This is also seen when the family gets together for a nice dinner out, he is no longer excited to see his family. At dinner he becomes mute and passive, distraught by the family’s new obsession with money and the materialistic world. Before the big move, Lillian was attracted to his vivacious and eager personality, which is the exact opposite of Peter’s new somber attitude. While Lillian notices Peter’s change, Peter can’t help but think about the drastic change of his family members. His daughters were once innocent and untainted from the world now, obsessed with money and his wife who was attracted to his youthful exhilaration which is now expressed onto Marsellus.

For St. Peter, the attachment to the old house becomes, as the novel progresses, and as is evident even from this first chapter, a symbol for St. Peter’s attachment to the past itself and the simpler, modest life they used to life. As a historian, this emotion is perhaps fitting. The Professor is attached not only to the house and its imperfections, but to his work room in the house and to the very dress forms his sewing lady has used to construct dresses for his wife and daughters over the years. At the end of the book, the family takes a trip to France and Peter stays behind. Spending time away from his family and back in the old home, Godfrey realizes how unhappy he is with his "new” life brought on by the new family values and new house. He begins to question how he will survive the change.

When Godfrey lived in old house he is grounded in his beliefs and refused to submit to the social changes along with his family. However, the new house has changed the entire family, Lillian , the daughters and sons-in-law have become much more materialistic and modern while Godfrey is distraught by the new modern life he becomes passive. His new attitude has completely taken over his life, he even passively awaits death as he sits in the study as the room fills with gas. Not only did Godfrey lose his home along with his modest and simple lifestyle, he also lost his identity; his values and principles abandoned along with the abandoned ,empty house.

The Specter of Tom Outland- The Good, The Bad and The Evil

In The Professor’s House, Cather weaves a web of interlocking relationships that dominates the novel, emanating from a single character who so significantly affects all the lives he touches. In his central role, Tom Outland seems to be a specter, arriving out of thin air from another land, bearing gifts and tales and developing scintillating and fulfilling relationships within the St. Peter family, only to be the cause of the erosion of the entire family with his just as sudden disappearance out of their lives to another land from which he never returns.

Tom’s relationship starts with Professor St. Peter who speaks of two romances he has had in his life. The first was of the heart with his wife Lillian whose interest in art and life as well as her charm and intellect enthralled him. They rushed to marry and built a fulfilling life for their family in Hamilton. Tom’s arrival marks his second romance, and this latter one completely eclipses his marriage. Initially Tom is a welcome protégé of the St. Peter family. Lillian never finds fault with him and takes care of his boarding and clothing needs, and Rosamond and Kathleen play with him and live out his adventures. Later Rosamond and Tom become romantically involved and engaged. All is good, and Godfrey gets much pleasure from seeing Tom as part of his family.

The situation turns bad two years later when Lillian’s jealousy of the special connection between her husband and Tom starts to grow. When Godfrey makes Tom his private companion, secluding them in his study, Lillian withdraws her favor, and Tom eventually stops coming to the house. During the summer after Tom’s graduation, he and the professor are sole and constant companions, bonding in their stories and daily activities. Tom’s tale of his early life and adventures on the mesa provides the richness and authenticity for Godfrey’s volumes. In this romance of the mind, the professor’s vicarious experiences and pleasure in Tom’s story gives him a renewal of youth and infatuation with his student. Two years later they spend the summer together, solidifying their relationship through their exploration of the Southwest, followed by a third summer in Old Mexico. Plans for the summer of 1914 are delayed, the war comes, and Tom is gone, forever, leaving an aching hole in the Professor’s heart and unrealized dreams in his mind. After two good relationships in his life, St. Peter loses one and has permanently spoiled the other.

Tom’s negative effect on the St. Peter family is felt even from his grave. Before he left for the war Tom willed all his rights from his patent to Rosamond. The new wealth that its profits bring to the Marselluses wreaks havoc on the St. Peter family. As children, Kathleen always adored her older sister, and this feeling remained until Louie became engaged to Rosamond, who, in Kathleen’s opinion, forgot their Tom too quickly. Rosamond also becomes estranged from her sister who still preserves Tom’s memory, as does her father, from the innocent and fantastic time in their lives. Kitty accuses her sister of viewing Tom as chemicals and dollars and cents, and their ever widening social and economic situations create great tension on both sides. Rosamond angrily refuses to give any of her unwanted furnishings to her sister, and Scott blackballs Louie for the Arts and Letters club. Godfrey is pained and disillusioned by Rosamond’s extravagances in Chicago and her failing to offer to pay his way on the trip she insisted he accompany her on. Her lack of fairness and empathy in refusing to share any of her profits with the needy and ill Professor Crane pains him greatly. He despairs that Tom’s fortune has become an evil that has corrupted his family. After a solitary summer daydreaming about his past, the professor is rudely reawakened to the return of his family. In his pain he feels that he has fallen out of his place within his family and must get away from everything he had once cared for so intensely. When his half-hearted attempt to commit suicide is foiled, he resolves to live his life without the joy he knew long ago.

In structuring the book, it is symbolic that Cather placed the three parts of the story as she did. In Book One, “The Family”, we are told the moving was over and done. It soon becomes apparent that more than moving to a new home has occurred, that there was a major change in their once happy lives that has caused them to move on from what they once had. While introduced within this first book, it is not until Book Two, “Tom Outland’s Story”, that we learn the full tale of his past. Through their relationships with Tom, so much pleasure and profit were brought to some, yet pain and emptiness to others, all at different times in their mutual lives. Tom’s Book Two breaks the chronology of the story from Book One to Book Three, just as his part in their lives breaks the St. Peter family apart. In the final book, “The Professor”, Godfrey is all alone, broken off from his family of the first part by Tom who appears in the middle. He is at the edge of suicidal despair, the result of the loss of the good relationships he once had in his life and their replacement by the bad feelings of apathy he now has for his family and the evil influences of materialism in their lives.