outpost of progress

An outpost of progress is a short story written in the third person which is the traditional style of writing. What i thought made this story interesting was that there was no real protagonist or antagonist. All of the main characters show qualities of both. The way the story is set up suggests that you do not even look at the characters as good and bad but just as characters, some with good qualities and some with bad. In the general sense, however, one concludes that Kayerts and Carlier are the protagonists and Makola is the antagonist in the first read through. Once you really analyze the plot and investigate the characters is when you realize that Kayerts and Carlier are both the protagonists and the antagonists to themselves in the internal view of the story. The internal view is the alternative and the “thinking outside of the box” view of the story. What was also interesting about this story was how many symbols there were. The fog symbolized the unclarity of the situation, the sunlight would symbolize clarity, and the ivory would symbolize wealth. The irony of this story is that you expect it to be a story about progress but in the end when you look back at what you have just read, you realize that none of the characters made self progress. Instead, they express anti-progression and turn on each other which only leads to the death of both of the main characters.

Outpost of Progress

Conrad wrote Outpost of Progress in a traditional manner however it attacks different problems than the ones we have gone over in class. In this story, Conrad writes about 19th century sub-Saharan Africa and the Trading Post Company that exist there. There is obvious racial tension throughout Outpost of Progress between the European colonizers and the colonized natives. Throughout the story, the Europeans are described as dirty . These descriptions give insight to the opinions of Conrad. In fact, if this story was “pro-colonization” of the natives, the Europeans would have been described as clean and civilized. Conrad blurs the human primitive and the physical primitive when writing of man and nature. This symbolism leave is vague as to who is primitive: man or nature? It can be inferred in this story that Conrad believe that humans are innately, naturally good however civilization is just an illusion. The title of this story is paradoxical with the content of this story. As time goes on, nothing actually progresses. In fact, things actually get much much worse. The ironic title and Conrad’s beliefs of human nature coincides with his modernistic literature that devolution leads to anti-progression. Conrad experiments with this story through dialogue. In this, dialogue plays a key role in the context of the story. Dialogue is also seen in another one of Conrad’s works Hearts of Darkness. Some themes in this story include isolation, humanity/human nature and the unknown.

Araby

Although James Joyce’s Araby is considered a coming-of-age story it contains a lot more underlying symbols and lessons within the story. The story is set when Ireland was not necessarily a country yet. The british were controlling Ireland as a state. This dominant power creates a class struggle within the masses. The majority of the Irish were much poorer than then British as this time. With this superiority, discrimination was present throughout the state of Ireland. This is clearly seen when the narrator as a child goes to the Araby, a place where goods are sold. When the boys goes to the Araby to buy the girl a gift, he experiences an epiphany. Epiphanies are seen frequently in Joyce’s works. The boy suddenly realized what the world was: unfair. When the British merchant asked the boy what he wanted, he knew she had spoken to him “out of a sense of duty.” The boy being poor could not purchase anything. Therefore, he felt like his quest was over. He truly believed that giving the girl, he adored and was obsessed with, a present would grant him her affections as well. He thought of himself as a brave knight in shining armor while she, a damsel in distress. He compared her to a chalice, something very valuable, and it was his quest to find her. He realized his quest came to an end at the Araby, as he was a poor Irish boy. The story ends at this, “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.”

The Death of the Ankou

This story was very different than the others. This story was rather gothic and the amount of action was very slim but the story had a darkness that made it interesting. The way he was so into the book that he started seeing the book come alive in actions in real life made the story very entertaining. Death is portrayed in a very gothic way in this story. Is Ludo the Ankou? That’s very debatable because the ankou is the death god and Ludo is talking about death throughout the story and the story is the death of the ankou where Ludo dies in the end. This story was interesting but kind of hard to understand and confusing in many parts.

Death of the Ankou

In the short story “The Death of the Ankou” the narrator of the story is reading a medical book and things start to become out of the ordinary. The man begins to see visions of what he is reading in front of him. This story is different from most because there is very little actual action. Also the discussion of the death god is very interesting and has a very intense darkness. Why would someone be so affected by a book that they see visions appear before them? It shows how truly haunted the character is and also strikes fear into the reader. The death god is something that affects all of us as readers though. Eventually we all die; no one makes it out of this world alive. So by using the death god it forces the reader to analyze his or her own life. It is a very real and horrifying subject that touches everyone in one way or another. The darkness that the main character is facing must be intense due to the intensity of the situation. The power of the death god is also shown through its ability to appear so strongly through the thoughts and soon the visions of the character. This story is very hard to relate to if approached in the idea that the character is crazy for having visions. On the other hand though, it is slightly frightening. Fear can drive a person mad, and death is surely something to fear.

Battle Royal

Even though the subject of the story was unpleasant I really enjoyed reading this. I really enjoyed the structure and straight forwardness of the text. I read a fair amount of novels and modern literature and I like to be transported into the lives of the characters. Ellison does a great job of very quickly transporting you into the mind of the narrator. It was very easy to connect with the inward struggle he was facing. The part about the boys being exposed to the naked woman, probably for the first time, was well done and the passage we analyzed in class was very effective at showing that uneasiness. The other really interesting aspect of the story was that through all the turmoil he was still just dedicated to giving that speech. Even though it was pretty apparent that the crowd was not terribly interested in hearing his speech he was so committed to the ideas and that giving the speech was the most important thing he had to do.

Hopefully the rest of the stories are similar to this one in that they are simply telling a story. That is something that I think was lost in the other stories. While I understand the importance of literary devices and structure and such; sometimes I just want to read a story at face value and be able to understand it. I very much like stories that are not cryptic as they sometimes have an even broader interpretation.

“The Mark on the Wall”-Woolf

Virginia Woolf’s “The Mark on the Wall,” was not enjoyable for me. It was more annoying to read about what is going through her mind. The whole time the character was talking about what they thought the mark on the wall was, I wanted the narrator to get up and just look at what was on the wall. The story was written first person through stream of consciousness. This technique is used to describe everything that the narrator was thinking while looking around the room. This story reminded me of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” because the narrators in both stories obsess over a simple thing on the wall. It is interesting to see how the narrator’s mind goes from thinking about the mark on the wall to thinking about Sunday luncheons and walks, to thinking about the tree outside the window. Most of the time when I try to remember what I was thinking about to get to a certain thought I cannot remember everything, so I am curious to know if Woolf was actually thinking these thoughts as she was writing this story. Maybe she is the main character and she is sitting there smoking and looking at the wall writing about how her mantle is dusty and how she is so concerned with what the mark on the wall is. The story is in a way a mystery because I was constantly wondering what the mark is. I am not going to lie, I was disappointed when I knew it was a snail. All that time and I thought it was a nail.

“That Evening Sun” -Faulkner

William Faulkner’s story “That Evening Sun,” was a pretty good read. The main character is Nancy, an African-American slave, who I would consider to be the protagonist and her own antagonist. There are many characters in this story which becomes very confusing, but the most interesting character would be the slave called “Jesus.” His name is ironic and it symbolic. Jesus the character is symbolic of the actual Jesus. He is described as wearing a white shirt which could represent an angel or purity. Angels are usually connected with heaven and death so his presence could symbolize lurking death. During most of the story, Nancy is constantly afraid and concerned about where Jesus is, which could symbolize her fear of death. In my mind, I would think it would be a good thing to have Jesus around instead of the Devil, so she should not be afraid of Jesus, the character. At one point in the story, Nancy says, “Jesus has come to take me home.” “Home” a lot of times is related to Heaven. So when she say this, it seems as though Jesus is the angel that is going to take her to Heaven. I do not understand the ending of the story. I expected Nancy to commit suicide or to kill the children that were in her house. She sounded very frightening when she was described as having cat-like eyes and always watching people. Her cat-like features do not seem to match that of someone going into Heaven.

I’m a Death God too

In Lewis’ Death of the Ankou we get an abstract look at what exactly a “death god” is.  Usually when we use the term we are discussing an omniscient, powerful, not-human deity who directs the destiny of our death.  And the Ankou described in the beginning of the story is just that, an actual God.  But as the story progresses and the narrator begins to contemplate it’s existence and even juggles around with the idea of a certain blind man as the Ankou, a different view of what a death god is manifests.  Eventually we see that this profession of a death god is one held by all men, more specifically the men searching for death, and pondering death.  Death is one of the universes most powerful forces, only rivaled by birth, and this story tells us that this power is at the fingertips of every man.  I agree with this because any man can be the cause of death of any other man.  It is a sickening power we all contain but only few act upon.  In this story, the narrator acted as a Death God for the poor paranoid blind man whose fragile heart and tender soul could not handle the intensity of another man convinced he was the Ankou, some insane death god with infinite power.  Like the word death itself was poison, as soon as it is muttered in conversation between the narrator and the blind man, the blind man begins to die, he is a death god too, but without the complete understanding needed to take life.

 

-Damian Hunt

Araby

Araby by James Joyce is a very interesting story from the point of view of a little kid that has the vocabulary of a Harvard professor. The diction is very contradicting of the narrator, but this is probably in order to highlight the reminiscent factor of the story.  It is still a very good look at the eccentricities of a first crush, and how even though we know very little about the person we are crushing on, there is some unknown attraction that arguably rivals the true love that one feels when they mature.  This near universal almost obsessive feeling, of the sister being wedged in the kids head permanently, and his actions almost always have the girl in mind and her possible reaction.  It is the fantasy that drives the poor little romeo, the fantasy of the bazaar in Araby brings thoughts of being able to purchase a gift for her that would knock her head over heels.  And then obviously the whole fantasy of who this girl even is, for conversation is almost non0existentent between the two characters.  I think a change of diction would change my opinion from pitying the poor kid to actually respecting and enjoying the innocent love that has infatuated him.  An attraction that cannot be explained but it chased down and obsessed over like a hungry mutt and a pigs bone.

-Damian Hunt