Adam & Eve, and Men & Women

March 22nd, 2012
[Realism-Mark Twain's Adam's Diary and Eve's Diary]
Ho InHee




There are thousands of books that deal with the difference between men and women. John Gray wrote many of books on this issue including ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’. Other books, such as ‘The Essential Difference’ or ‘Why Men Don’t Listen & Why Women Can’t Read Maps”, are examples that exhibit differences between men and women. In addition, Mark Twain’s ‘Adam’s Diary’ and ‘Eve’s Diary’ are also the same kind. In Adam’s Diary, Adam, representing man, writes how he views Eve. In Eve’s Diary the perspective is vice verse. In each perspective, Mark Twain tried to examine each gender’s nature.

Back in 1800s, women’s life was quite different from that today. Women didn’t have the right to vote. They were considered somewhat subordinate to men. Terms like ‘republican motherhood’ reflect this idea. Taking this background, Mark Twain's contemplation on men and women's potential is laudable. And he actually accurately observed the differences between for most parts. However, there are some crucial aspects, which he missed.

Men in ‘Adam’s Diary’ and ‘Eve’s Diary’ are instinct-driven. Adam is highly simple-minded. He doesn’t like to be controlled. He doesn’t think, and always seeks for adventure and pleasure. Yet because we may have lived in a civilized society for so long, men aren’t simply instinct-driven. As I’m not a male, I cannot tell exactly how men’s mind work or; how men are motivated. But realizing that there are thousands of boys and men around the world, I can assure all aren’t always driven by instinct. Putting men as an instinct-driven character was seen as an oversimplification of men to me. Upon many things Mark Twain didn’t point out in the story, I thought the ‘urge to control’ is another crucial nature of men. When watching a bunch of kids playing, usually girls tend to play house whereas boys set their own ‘kingdom’. This can be seen as example of men’s urge to control.

Mark Twain describes women somewhat ideally. Women depicted in Adam/Eve’s Diary are very caring, intelligent, and vulnerable. Nevertheless, he didn't explain to the point where the emotional vulnerability of a woman lies on. ALthough both men and women do have emotions, women are always more emotional and like to express their emotions into tears. On the other hand, women are more careful when expressing their emotions outwardly sometimes. Women may be much more concerned about relationships and communication from birth, or there may be other underlying reasons. Moreover, women aren’t simply more ‘intelligent’ than men as described in the story. When women are represented as intelligent, Mark Twain portrayed women as those who tend to name everything. Women’s propensity to make things certain can be explained in numerous ways. Women’s tendency to name can be seen as their act of guaranteeing and making things certain. It can also be a method of their communication.

After reading Mark Twain’s ‘Adam/Eve’s Diary’, I felt a little uncomfortable for its sharpness and directness. The book pinpointed men and women so straightforward and outward that I even felt I was being seen through. I could also see Mark Twain's life in the story. Fighting for women suffrage for most of his life, the book directly reflected his values, and I really enjoyed reading it. I think this book has great value even today. However, there were some points Mark Twain has missed.






+) I tried to stick a little more to the 'larger concern'-though I had tough time connecting this story to realism, so I decided to focus on 'men and women'. And I paid extra attention on vocab and grammar..!




{Comments}

Sol Kim: First and foremost, I agree with your point that the story has a great value even if we just take care of the fact that how Twain tried to write in such perspective. Also, the part of inaccuracies seemed to be quite reasonable also.
But what I thought was: 1. the accuracies mattered to only what Twain tried to express, in my opinion. (I thought Twain wanted to show how women are smart and active -> eventually insisting for women suffrage) because thee are too many inaccuracies throughout the story if I try to see it closely!
2. I don't understand the women point much though I'm a women.....ㅋㅋ Can you gie me some more explanation with examples?

The Cask of Amontillado

InHee Ho
Edgar Allan Poe/Dark Romanticism
March 22 2012

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” Reading this very first sentence of The Cask of Amontillado, I sensed two things. First was the smell of revenge and tragic ending, which typically appears in Poe’s writing. Second was the meaning of the name ‘Fortunato’. As many literatures connotatively allude to a character’s fate, I vaguely expected this story to have a fortunate ending. But on the other hand, reflecting on the general ‘Poe’ stories, I anticipated the most unfortunate ending of Fortunato. Apparently, both of my expectations turned out to correspond well to the actual story. Just like Poe’s thousands of other pieces, this story had a tragic ending--Fortunato’s death. Instead of some anticipation after I finished reading, one question filled my mind. What drove Montraseur to revenge Fortunato?

The first thing that came to my mind was ‘pride’. Montraseur was discontented with Fortunato’s vanity. As vanity is known as one of the seven greatest sins, Montraseur’s behavior in this context may be seen as an act of punishment. For sure, vanity is something to look out. But reading the text in Montraseur’s perspective, I could find no meaning or punishment. All I could grasp was a causeless hatred toward Fortunato.

Then, what drove Montraseur to commit such a brutal act? Maybe a lack of reason that potentially lies under all human minds. Our emotions aren’t always driven by reason. We sometimes suddenly feel favor toward something. In the same manner, we may feel sudden loathing. The key is that these reasonless emotions are often applied directly to behavior. Montraseur failed (or refused) to moderate his creeping hatred that finally boomed out as a strong impulse to get rid of Fortunato. The story develops with Montraseur telling his own story fifty years later. Reminiscing , was Montraseur still feeling the emotions he had half a century ago? By winding up his story with ‘in pace requiescat’ at the end? This seems to be a confession, but the reason for his confession was unclear. Maybe these ‘reasonless’ emotions aren’t always to be blamed. Why do people try to put all their emotions in reason? Sometimes emotions are aroused without reason, and that is probably why we call them ‘emotion.’ The Cask of Amontillado may imply the effort to perceive emotion as solely emotion.

The last thing I thought of was Poe’s desire expressed in his writing. Poe was suspected to have syphilis. He was also suspected to have led poisoning. Whatever disease he had, Poe is widely known to have had some harsh mental impulse. His father, a strolling player, abandoned Poe when he was about a year old, and his mother died of tuberculosis. His uncle later adopted him. Poe attended Virginia University, but dropped out because his uncle discontinued financial support for him. After leaving the school, Poe was addicted to alcohol and gambling. He fell in love with his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Glemm, but she died soon after from privation and tuberculosis. Poe’s life after Glemm’s death is a mystery, except that he was mentally unstable. Perhaps the story was a reflection of his flaming of desire.








{Comments}

Lee Hyejoon: You mentioned about the two impressions you got when you read the first paragraph and the second one was 'Fortunato's fortune' which you dismissed as you just guessing wrong. However, this might be some kind of an intentional irony because Fortunato turned out not only to be 'not fortunate', but to be 'unfortunate'. I thought this was something like '운수 좋은 날' so the author makes you expect something in the beginning which turns out to be entirely false. Maybe you can elaborate more on this part.


Chonghyun Ahn: I really enjoyed the part when you juxtaposed the concept of emtion and reason. However I had two issues of disconsent in your essay:
1. about 'reasonless being problematic'. I don't think Poe had intended to show how emotional and unreasonable is problematic. In the stories the leiller is not punished; he manages to get away with his crime for half a century. Instead, wouldn't it be more apt to say that Poe tried to show how emotions and madness is an acceptable thing? 
2. Also, I do not see the relationship between confession and your argument of emotions being problematic. So by confessing, did the murderer save himself from hatred? Was there a tint of regret in his confession? 
Anyway, I really liked your writing!! Thanks for sharing :)

Ambition v. Ignorance?

The word ‘ambition’ seems to be an abstract word that may imply both positive and negative. We see hundreds of students diligently exerting themselves for their own ambition. But we also see social and political corruption caused by immoderate ambition. So again, ‘ambition’ is a double-sided term. Then how about ‘ignorance’? What exactly is ignorance? We all know ‘ignorance’ is a term for describing someone (or something) who lacks knowledge. But to what extent do we have to be lacking knowledge in order to be ignorant? Is ‘not knowing enough knowledge’ everything for being ‘ignorant’? Ignorance is an extremely relative and ambiguous term. If we teach a new knowledge to someone who we call is ‘ignorant’, is that person not ignorant anymore?

Clearly, Nathanial Hawthorn considered ‘ambition’ as a negative thing. In his writing ‘the Ambitious Guest’, he focuses on the ignorant family living in a solitary house that got into dissolution because of the ‘ambitious guest’ that visited them. The unknown ambitious guest doesn’t seem to have any ill will towards the family. But intended or not, the guest brings ‘ambition’ to the family. He talks about city’s convenient life, prosperity, and many other things. The family, who haven’t even dreamt anything about those things, starts to become conscious of the ambition. They naturally lose ignorance, and meet the death.

The author has the big algorithm of the story: ambition contaminates ignorance. ‘The Ambitious Guest’ puts ignorant family as a pure, delightful family that knows how to satisfy with their current life. The ‘ambition’ then appears, corrupting this ignorance. Does this mean that ambition and ignorance can never coexist? Can’t ignorant people have some ambition? Let’s take some example. Who are ‘ignorant’? The best known example would be. Childhood is often the blossom of one’s life. Reminiscing, we were all happy in our childhood. But were we aware our childhood happiness when we were a child? Probably not. Childhood is happy when we reminiscence it. Even more, since children represent ignorance so much, do children not have any ambition? Haven’t we vaguely dreamt being an adult with outrageous money? Or haven’t we dreamt our adulthood to be full of freedom so that we could enjoy whatever we want? Children have ambition. And ambition and ignorance can coexist. 










{Comments}

Kim Sol: maybe a little more explanation is needed to connect the fact that Bangladesh is the happiest country and that ambition is a negative thing because:
     1. ambition is not always for prosperous things. Big part of ambition people is fame and reform...and so on.
     2. Ignorant & ambition? Let's say Bangladesh people is ignorant (about the prosperous life), but can we say Bangladesh people don't have ambitions?
     3. I think the main theme(?) the survey gives is that satisfaction is the important thing, not prosperity... so you could have started on from that point and then elaborate to your ideas.
*I know what you are trying to talk about, but the paragraph needs some more explanation because the ideas in the paragraph are hard to grasp at once!

Soho: When you link happiness and ambition, I think you can think in this way:ambition is the action of defying the comfortable life. (This is my personal opinion but) most of the people would be adjusted to their original lifestyle, in some way, content or happy. It's just that ambition can be the driving force that makes people to experience the new lifestyle. I'm not sure it is based on just curiosity or individual's fantasy about new lifestyle, but... I think we can think about it. (Maybe... we, coming to KMLA would be similar :) )