The Harry Ape Man

O' Neill's The Harry Ape, takes place in "the firemen's forecastle of an ocean liner". The scene opens an hour after they finished sailing from New York and are all consuming alcohol. It is obvious to see that they are all drunk due to them constantly yelling at one another and the random singing that takes place throughout the scene. One of these man, however, stands out from the rest. This man, named Yank, is best described as the leader of these men since everybody would quiet down whenever he spoke and respected him. The introduction described him as "broader, fiercer, more truculent, more powerful, more sure of himself than the rest". Yank definitely showed leadership roles during the play by ordering and demanding the men to work in powering the ship's engine with coal, which happens later on. At this particular scene though, another man named Paddy mentions how in the past the ships used sails instead of physical labor (which is what they do) in order to travel. He goes on the say that he found that to be more liberating, whereas now he feels imprisoned and "caged in by steel from a sight of the sky like the bloody apes in the Zoo!" This makes Yank furious for a moment and he then declares that Paddy doesn't belong because he is too old. He then adds on to say that he himself belongs ("a part of the engine") and is alive while Paddy doesn't. The concept of belonging is mentioned throughout the play as well.

One of the things that makes me curious is that the play continues to make references to caged animals in the zoo. More particularly, Yank is later refereed to as a "filthy beast" by Mildred, who is introduced in the second scene as this twenty year old lady who gained access in seeing the men (which she addressed as "the other half") work. The fact that these men have so far been seen as heavy and being very aggressive and barbaric does seem to resemble some sort of animalistic behavior. Paddy's comment about feeling like a trapped ape in the zoo also adds on to this. Could this have some sort of connection with the idea of belonging and that they are perhaps seeking to be a part of something greater instead of feeling trapped?

On another note, I am not quite sure what to make of Mildred's character. We are told that she had done social service work, studied sociology in college and that she is interested in learning about how the "other half lives". Even though this might make her look as an educated person who cares about understand and helping people, her personality doesn't seem to justify that. One moment in particular would be when the second engineer asks her if she was going to wear her white dress during her visit to the stokehole. Not only did she refuse to change out of it, but she said she would throw her dress into the ocean after leaving from the stokehole since she has fifty dresses just like it. This show a lack of humility, which gives me a bad impression of her. Still, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to for some reason.

So here are the questions that I want to discuss in class:
1.) Why is "being part of an engine" and the concept of belonging brought up throughout the play?
2.) What does the animalistic references seen with the men imply? Does it have anything to do with their struggle with the idea of belonging? Are they the only ones that they see as animals?
3.) What is your understanding of Mildred's character? Is she meant to be seen as a good person (white and pure as the dress that she wore) or vile ("a natural born ghoul")?

Twenty-Five Knots a Hour!: The “Hands” of the Ship’s Heart Machine

 “The treatment of this scene, or of any other scene in the play, should by no means be naturalistic”. Even from the very outset of the play, readers and viewers are given the direction that there is to be nothing natural in this play, as mechanization and industry reign supreme, and what interested me is just how deep this idea or theme runs, especially in the first four scenes. The obvious, of course, points to the men working beneath the ship, who are described, despite of slight individual differences, as being all alike, who constantly speak in unison outside of the warring voices of Paddy and Yank, the similar cogs in a giant machine that shovel coal and get the ship moving “Twenty-five knots a hour!”, something that Yank takes pride in as he feels as if this them makes him something in this world in which he lives, “I’m de end! I’m de start! I star somep’n and de woild moves! It - dat’s me!”, a force that keeps the world clipping along. And even in the early stage directions Yank is described as “the very last word in what they are, their most highly developed individual”, which struck me as strange as not only were the men early described as the perfect images of early Neanderthals, making him the best of early evolution, but more so in the sense that this idea of development comes from the fact that Yank is just the best piece of the machine.

         
There is also the character of Mildred, who in a very different way, falls into this category of the unnatural, despite being completely different from the men below deck. Calling herself a “waste product of the Bessemer process”, as well as being called a “poser” by her aunt, Mildred seems to be an unnatural creation in an already unnatural world, who then keeps recreating herself, or posing differently, in order to find her place in this world where she clearly does not belong or rather does not know how to belong, something emphasized by her choice to continue to wear white despite going down into a furnace. And there is an unnaturalness about the white she wears as well, as Yank swears he sees a ghost, rather than the normal associations one would get about a woman in white, the pureness or innocence, but rather she becomes frightening to him and gets him “tinkin” about setting out to prove that he is more than a “hairy ape” and almost needing to convince himself in his tirade that this is the case.

This then leads me to my discussion questions:

Is the natural possible in this mechanized world? Or the natural as we know it to be? Clearly O’Neill is bringing up this idea in these scenes and may have more to say on this as the play continues, but there is the idea I see sort of floating around that this is the new natural. What does that then mean for mankind in this world, as well as in the world outside of the play, if this is the “new” natural? How is one supposed to deal with these changes or how are they to be viewed? Sort of goes back to the discussion on the fears of modernism or of the modern age that we brought up in class the other day. Of course this may not be an answerable question entirely, but it is something that could be interesting to think about.

Also, I found the continued image of Rodin's The Thinker, (Fun fact: the first cast of the original statue is pretty close to Cincinnati, its outside of Grawmeyer Hall at the University of Louisville) to be interesting in these first few scenes and the fact that Yank constantly is "tinkin" but all that he really comes up with is more to do with his job and his being a part of the ship than any "real" thoughts outside of this. So there is the question of whether or not there is room for "tinkin" in this world, or do people need to think or should they just function? 

But I mean Moloch though? Anyone else think of this when Yank is talking about throwing Mildred into the furnace to help the ship continue to run? Metropolis was completely running through my brain throughout reading this text and I think the two are definitely a part of the same modern conversation as they are only 5 years apart, except I have yet to see a heart come in that can connect hands and head.

"Cold Pork Pudding..."?

The Hairy Ape has a wonderful and diverse group of characters. For instance, Mildred and her aunt, their dynamics are fascinating but what makes them even more interesting is their polar opposites they represent. Mildred is thin, dream oriented, young, and fragile. While her aunt is chunky, realistic, old, stout, and pretentious. Their interactions with each other present a insight to what is happening with the other crew members. These women from their social classes present the more humanistic aspect of people and society while the men who work on the boat represent the animalistic qualities that are often diminished or looked down upon by society. The dynamics of the crew is fascinating against Mildred and her aunt's personality but when compared to each other the men seem to be one in the same. They are all rough around the edges, drinking, and swearing.

Here are some questions to ponder:
1. What are your thoughts about Yank? Is he in love or is he in hate? Is there a fine line? Where in the text does it show he loves/hates her?
2. Analyze the relationship between Mildred and her Aunt. Is there a polar opposite in these two or is Mildred a younger version of her aunt? Will she become her aunt later in the story?
3. Language is a huge influence in these first couple scenes. Analyze what "cold pork pudding against a background of linoleum" truly means.

Good Morning Daddy!

Throughout the collection of Montage of a Dream Deferred we see three poems that seem to take place as a rather one sided conversation between father and son. Each poem begins with "Good morning daddy!" as the son greets his father and begins the poem. The three poems in question are "Dream Boogie", "Good Morning", and "Island".

We discussed the first poem in class, but I wanted to revisit it briefly as it is part of this narrative. In "Dream Boogie" we get a feel for the musical tones that are spread throughout the poems in the book, but we also get the beginning of a conversation between two very distinct generations of Harlem natives. The main speaker is obviously a younger man, growing up in Harlem during the 1940's and 50's who has a connection to the growing Jazz and Blues influence of the time as well as the idea of "a dream deferred". The second speaker, italics, is the father or older man in question. The father in the poem seems to be less concerned with the "dream" than the son as he asks if the beat is happy and ignores the son trying to explain or feel the undertones of depression and hardship. The son, being respectful, moves on without much prompting. To me this poem shows the difference in generational thinking on how to get your dreams recognized when you are the one being deferred. The father, being older, is stuck in the do-what-they-so-and-eventually-it-will-come mindset similar to Booker T. Washington, while the son seems to be more interested in how to get what he needs for his dream now.

The second poem "Good Morning" gives us a wider view of the father's life. We get to see that he is old enough to have seen the large migration of African Americans that took place in 1904 due to tough economic and real estate situations for the black population. Because of his age the father has been able to see his neighborhood turn from new to run down and he is beginning to realize that there might be something to what the son was saying about "the dream deferred" in "Dream Boogie". We see, through the son's retelling, that the father knew that the situation for these new arrivals. and even those already living there, was becoming more and more dire, but now the older generation is opening its eyes to what the younger generation has been saying throughout the poem collection. In this poem we get to see the father ask the son a question that many would think that a younger would ask of an older for advice on, "What happens/ to a dread deferred?" (26-7). We do not get to see the son's full explanation, but we do see that the son has been at least following the poems in the collection because he has heard and understands what happens to a dream deferred, while the father is just now opening his eyes.

The final poem that fits into this trio is "Island". We see this poem ending in the same way that the others began. We do not begin with this conversation, or the son trying to get his father to understand, but instead we see the son having his own reflection on Harlem and their situation. The son does not seem to have a bad connotation of his town, even if his dream has been deferred, he still finds things to be not too overbearingly awful and seems to have hope for Harlem at least. Here we see the father speaking about the dream deferred and the son answers him, almost as though the son was in a daze as the father walked into the room speaking.

And that leads me to my discussion questions:

Q. What do you think the father means when he says, "Dream within a dream,/ Our dream deferred." Do you think this speaks to his own dream being that of his son's, but in a different voice, which has also been deferred or is there something else behind it?

Q. Do you think that these poems are connected in the way I have connected them? Is there a conversation about the generation gap and the conflict resolution tactics of each?

Q. Do these poems make you feel as though the narrator is witnessing or reading the other poems of the book and trying to get his father to open his eyes to them?

Personifying "Harlem"

To me, "Harlem" is a critique of the dream deferred and what happens to the people dealing with deferred dreams. The speaker is looking at all of the people who have had to put their lives on hold for extraneous circumstances and suggests various reactions the people may have. 

The poem opens with "What happens to a dream deferred?" Although he addresses the dream itself, I think he is actually talking about the people who dreamt these dreams.

He goes on, saying "Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?" This line was the inspiration for Lorraine Hansberry's play entitled "A Raisin in the Sun," but it doesn't mean much for us today, although the play was the first play written by a black woman and produced on broadway and was considered the best play of 1959 by New York Drama Critics' Circle (Wikipedia, sorry). 

The line suggests that when a person's dream is deferred, they tend to stay where they are and have all of their energy and will sucked out of them, leaving them dried up and basically useless (I'm not a huge fan of raisins, if you can't tell). 

The next line, "Or fester like a sore-/And then run?" implies one of two things: first, the person may build up potential energy and ideas and then let them loose, similar to a blister bursting (gross, I know) or they could let all of their frustration and anxiety build up until they run away from everything they know.

I'm not sure what the next line, "Does it stink like rotten meat" means besides the obvious, sitting there until the person rots or dies, but it could imply something far different. Does anyone have suggestions?

"Or crust and sugar over-/Like a syrupy sweet?" (This line and the "bacon bowl" infomercial I just heard on my roommate's tv are making me go get french toast at IHOP after I post this. I'm not lying.) The speaker could be implying that the person could get so used to their dream being deferred that they grow comfortable with where they are and see it as sweet- as if their alternative isn't as good as what they have here. They could use it as justification for staying in one place or being comfortable with their dreams being deferred. It's not what they want, but it's sweet enough to stay. 

"Maybe it just sags/ like a heavy load." The idea that he or she has barriers, physical or mental, that prevent him or her from achieving his or her goal is so heavy, the person bears the weight for the remaining of his or her days. This is an incredibly sad ending to this poem, and makes me realize that I definitely have things in my life that I've wanted to do but I've put them on hold for a while. I hope I can speak for everyone when I say that this is part of the human experience- an unfortunate one, but one that pulls us together nonetheless. 

"Or does it explode?" The speaker could be using "explode" in a multitude of ways here, and I'm choosing to read it as an explosion of emotion, similar to "fester like a sore/And then run" as stated previously. The person could be so fed up with what they have to go through that they could revolt against everything and run from their current responsibilities. 

Although a lot of Hughes' book/poetry has to do with African Americans and the culture in Harlem, I think he is so relatable because everyone, no matter your race, ethnicity, class, age, etc. has had a dream deferred. 

Do you, as a reader, think that Hughes relates to the average person and not just a certain demographic? Are there any other examples in the text that show us this relationship with the reader? Do you think his poetry comes to a distinct conclusion, or is something left up in the air after you are done reading? 

I personally don't think the speaker in "Harlem" is giving a solution to deferred dreams, but rather is illuminating different ways people deal with their lives. Do you think Hughes suggests a way to deal with deferred dreams throughout his poetry? Or do we never really know?

Thanks guys. I'll try to enjoy my french toast and I'll see you all at one tomorrow. 

“Dream Deferred” Deconstructed

The poem “Same In Blues” defines a dream deferred according to four criteria: it is made up of (1) traveling, (2) nothing or nothingness, (3) impotence, and (4) confusion. What’s going on with these qualities? How do they define a dream deferred and correspond with one another?

The first stanza of “Same In Blues” begins with a plea to “take it slow” which is urgently replied to, “I can’t! / I got to go!” Another speaker (as the italics indicate) chimes in and says, “There’s a certain / amount of traveling / in a dream deferred.” A dream deferred is constantly in motion, always going somewhere. Where, however, is it going? Is this unrelenting motion aimed at a final, concrete goal, or does it refer to something that’s amiss, something that’s evanescent? In other words, is the respondent’s refusal to stop tantamount to a discontent with the current state of things?

The third stanza, Lulu’s entreaty for a diamond ring from Leonard, is met with a firm response: “You won’t get a goddamn thing!” The diamond ring generally represents marriage, a lasting commitment or engagement. To defer a diamond ring could be equivalent to deferring commitment; Leonard doesn’t want to marry Lulu. This interaction leads the italicized voice to chime in, “A certain / amount of noting / in a dream deferred.” Nothingness is an interesting concept. It’s admittedly pretty difficult to pin down. Nevertheless, let’s think of it in relation to the first ingredient of a dream deferred, traveling, and ask, to follow up, What is the destination of our travels? Where do we think we are going when we travel or, in different terms, take a shot at, say, a lasting commitment like marriage? To engage the utter nihilism of the component nothingness it seems like we aren’t going anywhere (as the temporal significance of the word deferred might very well connote on its own). A dream deferred jerks you around indeterminately.

The fifth stanza conveys a half-hearted commitment: “You can have me, baby---- / but my lovin’ days is through.” Presumably, the speaker is incapable of, well, getting it up. He can offer his lover a platonic relationship, but nothing more intimate than that. So, the chorus aptly follows this interaction by denoting “A certain / amount of impotence / in a dream deferred.” Impotence. That’s an interesting aspect to tack onto a dream deferred. As of now, the dream deferred has left one futile, traveling towards nothingness. To make matters worse, there seems to be an incapability to change this condition. Impotence here could be thought of as complacency, a resigning to the fact that you’re stuck with a dream deferred.

Finally, alludes to “Three parties” on his “party line,” making it clear that the third is not his. A third party is infringing upon his party line, a boundary. There’s some act of violation occurring here. To tell you the truth, I myself was confused by this stanza, which might make the chorus’s lines a little bit fitting: “There’s liable / to be confusion / in a dream deferred.” The last two lines of the concluding stanza affirm this sentiment, adding, “There’s liable to be confusion / when a dream gets kicked around.” Confusion itself is liable to raise some questions. So, on that note, I would like to raise a few questions:

1) What do we make of this last component, confusion? Does it fit in with the first three? Does it help us come to a clearer understanding of a dream deferred?

2) What do you guys thing a dream deferred is all about? Did this poem hit the proverbial nail on the head, or is there more (or less) to it?

3) Does this poem interact with another poem in the collection? I, for one, thought of the poem “Tell Me,” in which the speaker raises a few questions asking why the dream deferred must be his specifically.

--J.C.

An American Mixtape

     Following up from the themes introduced in the previous class, the next set of poems, from "Up-Beat" to "Passing", share several of the same traits encountered in previous poems. I will provide three distinct observations that I feel are important, and give a discussion question on each.
     An important observation, in my opinion, is the cue to listen: this is found in only a few poems, but the poems themselves seem to have the word "Boogie" in their titles, as seen in the very first poem "Dream Boogie" on 221, "Easy Boogie" on 229, "Boogie: 1 a.m." on 250, and in "Lady's Boogie" on 251. The latter poem is particularly interesting. In "Dream Boogie", the cue to listen to something is made, but the sound itself is not made clear. In "Lady's Boogie", a hint is perhaps made as to what the cue is referring to. The second stanza reads, "But if she was to listen / I bet she'd hear, / Way up in the treble / The tingle of a tear" (Hughes 251). Although embedded in musical terminologies, the "boogie" seems to indicate something that evokes sadness or pain. Thus, it is no wonder that a lady "dressed so fine" (ibid.) needn't worry about any troubles.
     Another important observation is the presence of another voice in some of the poems. Some stanzas are in regular font, while others are in italics. In "Deferred", these two 'voices' both play important roles. Based on what I can discern from the stanzas, both the italic voice and the regular voice are imagining a future for themselves; in others, they are dreaming of a potential life that may be within reach. However, both voices seem to pursue different things: one wants a "white enamel stove" (Hughes 252), the other wants "to study French" (ibid.). Whether or not this is a conflict of interest, this poem clearly seems to indicate the deference of individual and collective goals.
     Finally, the juxtaposition of some poems and their titles may point out a change in 'tempo' of this literary album. The succession of poems from "Up-Beat" to "Be-Bop Boys" all have musical titles, while "Low and High" and "High and Low" are placed among "Boogie" titles. The last grouping of titles ought to be elucidated. The final four poems from "Mystery" to "Passing" all revolve around a church, particularly one during a Sunday morning service. In troubled times, a house of worship seems to be one of the only places of refuge for those who are suffering. Yet, most of these poems appear to be very optimistic, with jubilations and exclamations all proclaiming the love of the Lord, such as "Hail, Mary, mother of God!" or "Amen! Hallelujah!" (Hughes 256). Both of these are found in "Mystery", and in this same poem, there also appears to be a hint of anxiety among all of the excitement, similar to the "Boogie" poems. The words in standard font are all laudatory, but those in italics appear to be cries for help, in a way; wishes to be carried home, chants in Church Latin, and a small trace of Olde English appear to be very sincere and genuine pleas for deliverance.


     Based on the above, I will pose three questions for discussion. Hopefully, this has all been articulated clearly and makes sense...
     -Q1: Songs are sometimes composed to pass on a story of suffering or great woes. In the Aeneid, an epic poem (which is typically sung in verse), Aeneas nearly weeps when recalling his terrible experience at Troy, and tells Dido that both Trojans and Greeks would cry upon hearing the story of the war (Verg. Aen. 2.3-8). What are your impressions of the oppression and sufferings in these poems when they are put into the framework of a 'song'? How would these be communicated differently if they were not part of a musical score, or at the very least, if they were not poems at all?
     -Q2: Based on your reading of "Deferred", what seems to be the prolonged pursuits of these two voices? Material goods like TV sets or nice suits? Personal knowledge and content, like the French language or a happy marriage?
     -Q3: What common 'threads' do you see in the pairings of poems with similar titles? They must be arranged so by design, but why?

At first, this piece slightly confused me, as it didn't seem to have any connection from one piece to the next.  However, as I kept reading, the pieces began to fit, and a world was created.  I supposed that would be the point of the 'montage.'  Going into this, I began with revisiting "A Dream Deferred," as I decided it might be helpful, and put together the world based on the ideas found there.  Whether or not that was helpful or created more boundaries remains to be seen.
What does happen to a dream deferred?  I suppose it must be all of the things that are happening within this text.  What struck me the most was "Children's Rhymes" (223).  The speaker of the poem is important, and perhaps says a lot about what is going on in this world, but I actually focused more on the children and their chants.  What used to be innocent chants became chants that were focused on political events, civil/human rights.  It is always interesting to note when children come in contact with adult issues, because that means the world itself is having issues with whatever is happening.  In this case, "We knows everybody ain't free!," or, they know that there is a difference in how people of different races are treated.  Of course, this isn't news to anyone when it comes to racial intolerance that children were affected, but it is important to note because most often children are protected from such things.  The fact that they were unable to be sheltered shows that the world was fatally flawed, not just flawed in a way that was workable or livable. 
The montage continues on with many pieces including bits and pieces about the world.  One learns that a man was sent to jail for simply asking his (white) landlord to fix his place.  Then, even beyond just racial tensions, the piece "Café: 3 A.M." talks of detectives discriminating against gay men, and of the police lady (or, simply a woman not in a traditional woman's job) as a lesbian.  It is showing the world is not just discriminatory against one group of people, but all people who do not fit exactly what the society is looking for.
To that extent:
Why is it so effective to use different viewpoints to show how this world truly is rather than one person's account?  Would one person's account be just as effective?  Which pieces (if any), if they were removed, would have changed the whole world for you?  In other words, were there certain pieces that changed your whole idea of what this world looked like?  Why did they do so?  How did these pieces fit into the world that you already had formed in your head of the time period?  Did they change anything?

Structure and Story

After reading through the first few poems, I was left a little puzzled by the organization, flow, and fit of the poems within the text as a whole. The concept of jazz poetry is quite foreign to me. The poems are structured to work in such a way that is off kilter if you will; it gives off a feel of eccentricity, which I believe, helps describe life in Harlem during this time.

The synthesis of the distinct poems within the poem works to convey the life stories of several unique characters united by similar struggles, beliefs, and desires. The little nuances, those jazzy riffs, etc., work to emphasize importances about each character’s day to day life and give readers a very realistic picture of Harlem in the 1950’s. 

The varied and sometimes incongruous structures and stories are brought together by a common theme. The Montage emphasizes the discrimination that each one of the characters described struggles with, both individually and as a group, making their worlds almost unlivable. In order to survive during this time, the African Americans must put off their desires and cope with the domination of prejudice. 

Jazz was an extraordinary outlet that strengthened tenacious spirits and hopes for equality. This poem certainly follows with the idea of art as a means of expression of sentiments during such harsh times. The poems display that sense of the individual African American revealing their thoughts, opinions that would get them in trouble if manifested.

Questions:

How do you think the varied and distinct structuring of each poem within the Montage of a Dream Deferred impacts the reader? 

Do we have one speaker describing the lives of those in his/her surrounding neighborhood, or do we have several individuals speaking for themselves?

Were there any lines that struck you and stressed the distressful struggle for equality? Further, were there any lines that emphasized a sense of cheerfulness and hope?

A bit on Hughes for tomorrow

Hi folks,

As you read the opening poems in Montage of a Dream Deferred, keep the sense of the musical and aesthetic in your mind. Here, courtesy of wikipedia, is Hughes's original preface to the collection that gives a little sense of the musical inspiration for some of his language, sound, and organizational choices:

In terms of current Afro-American popular music and the sources from which it progressed--jazz, ragtime, swing, blues, boogie-woogie, and be-bop--this poem on contemporary Harlem, like be-bop, is marked by conflicting changes, sudden nuances, sharp and impudent interjections, broken rhythms, and passages sometimes in the manner of a jam session, sometimes the popular song, punctuated by the riffs, runs, breaks, and disc-tortions of the music of a community in transition.

So put on some jazz and be-bop and get reading!

Best
Dr. R

Another take at the Quays!

Hi folks,

Please DO take a good re-look at the Quay Brothers' The Street of Crocodiles film; if it helps, you can look up some info on Bruno Schulz (the Polish author of the short story that the Quays use as reference material for this) and you're more than welcome to also read the story/look at info about the film itself. But again, this is experimental art, and as such, I'd love for you to watch it for your emotional reaction and impressions more than for your understanding of plot/idea. The Quays work in a kind of dreamscape at all times that critics have often linked to ideas of the unconscious or the sublime. Try treating them with this in mind. I'll look forward to your comments on Tuesday!

Best,
Dr. R

Let’s Take a Trip Down to the Barn, Y’all!

Benny—[Too excited to be surprised.] To hell with that! Say, listen, Aunt Emmer, he’s hung himself—Uncle Caleb—in the barn—he’s dead!

As to not broach a bunch of topics vaguely, I thought it would be worthwhile to zero in on a singular peculiarity in the landscape of this wholly peculiar play: the not-so-happy ending.

We are continually reminded of Emma’s storybook notions in the first act. Her “clumsy marble-topped” coffee table is adorned with a Bible and a few books that look suspiciously like cheap novels. To boot, Harriet Williams, an emblem of the archetypal married woman at the time, belittles Emma’s moral ideals, persisting, “Story book notions, that’s the trouble with you Emmer! You’re getting’ to think that you’re better’n the rest of us.” So, in storybook fashion, we find that by the end of Act I both Emma and Caleb have made grand storybook commitments, the former swearing to die an old maid and the latter promising thirty years of persistent fidelity.

Time passes and, as it turns out, these commitments remain unfulfilled. To make matters worse, the suspension of these commitments has an almost corrosive effect on Emma, and she is now a “withered, scrawny woman,” ostensibly much older looking than a fifty year old should appear. For Caleb, on the other hand, there’s still some hope. At one point, he remarks, “Seems to me, Emmer, thirty o’ the best years of a man’s life ought to be proof enough to you to make you forget—that one slip o’ mine.” However, to make a long story short, Emma denies his proposal once again, informs him of her and Benny’s plans to get married, and Caleb, who most likely recognizes that he has wasted the past thirty years of his life, hangs himself in the barn.

So, without further ado, here are some questions that might help us reflect on this series of unfortunate events:

1) What do you think of Emma’s thirty-year commitment to the single life? And Caleb’s thirty years of waiting? Did either of them gain anything, learn anything from that lengthy hiatus?

2) After Caleb hangs himself, Emma sets on finding her own barn. What does she mean by this? Here are a few possibilities: Is she too going to kill herself? Is she merely looking for her own narrative conclusion, so to speak, a fitting end to this abrupt tragic spiral?

3) Who was the protagonist of this play? Was there even a protagonist?

-J.C.

Everyone dies in this class

After finishing the final act of this play, we again found ourselves with dead characters on our hands. Looking at this class through the scope of the livable world this fact may not be surprising. However it is still important for our discussion to look at the death of these characters and what themes we can see represented through this action. 

Caleb's suicide is a very interesting action for this play to end with. Through this action we see that Caleb's "livable world" was defined through his connection with Emma. The only thing sustaining him throughout every lonely voyage and through 30 years of waiting has been the thought/fantasy of the possibility of them getting back together. His world had been defined by that possibility for a long time, and when it is revealed that she does not love him and in fact will be marrying Benny, he is no longer able to continue. 

We see Emma begin to realize that Benny is not the man she thought he was through her tearing down the renovations she had made to her house which she claims was because of Benny. She had updated her life and attempted to become more youthful in order to attract his attention and apparently marry him. She began to dress as a young woman, and the rejection of these new renovations can be seen as a rejection of Benny. She does not dismiss Benny and return Caleb's chair from the attic to its rightful position, so her rejection of Benny is not necessarily an acceptance of Caleb. However when she learns that he is dead, she makes comments which to me, make it seem as if she is about to join him in death. Is this her understanding that she does love him after all? Or is her death a result of no one being different enough for her to love and her realization of this fact? I thought that this interaction was very interesting, and that there could be many different interpretations for this ending.

My discussion questions are;

To what extent is Benny responsible for the death of Caleb and Emma? (if you believe she dies)

Has Caleb changed in 30 years? Has Emma? Which is more "different" at the close of the play?

Who has the happiest ending of the main characters this semester; Daisy, Emma, or Edna?

Is the Creole life by the sea all that "diff'rent"?

In regards to Diff'rent, it is a play that I have found to be interesting for several reasons as of yet, beginning with the character of Emma(r). As a female living during this time period, she holds an expectation of the need to be "diff'rent", holding herself and the one she loves, Caleb, to a seperate group of expectations than she does anyone else, including her own family members and friends. And this is something seemingly rare and unnatural, as the idea of "men being men" runs throughout the dialogue of the other characters, who cannot understand why Emma is upset over the "joke" played upon Caleb and then his actions on the boat.

Much like Daisy Miller and Edna Pontillier, Emma seems to be out of her time with the ideas she holds or with her beliefs and how she thinks that others should feel, but in a way that is somewhat "different" from what we have seen so far with the other female characters, and yet in a way similar. As I see it, like Edna, Emma holds herself in a sort of dream-world, one separated from the realities of life as it exists around her, that as others believe, has resulted from her reading of the suspiciously cheap novels that rest on her living room table. And although she seems willing and perfectly capable of  acknowledging and grasping that there is an entirely different (I'm beginning to wonder how many times in this post I will use this word in its various forms) world that exists outside of the people she sees herself and Caleb being, she still chooses to believe that diff'rence is a possibility. Therefore, also like Edna, that world is then shattered as Caleb's discretions are revealed, but only in regards to him, as Emma still sees herself apart from all the rest and is then alone in this feeling, resolving to stay that way if there is no man, not even a man as "good as Caleb" that can live up to her standard of difference. It will be interesting to see as the play continues whether or not Emma's own world comes crumbling down and how she will then react to it.

One of my discussion questions then for this text is, why is it easier for Emma to resolve to break free of social conventions or expectations than it was for Edna? It seems to me that although we had discussed in class ways for Edna to have other options, she seemed in the text to not see them or want them, whereas Emma seems free to make another choice.

Another question would be, is Emma justified in wanting Caleb to be in fact "diff'rent"? I think this sort of ties back into the idea of Emma possibly being a woman and having ideas before her time, like the others in a way, but it is an intriguing question that certainly is floating all throughout the first act.

And finally, it is certainly significant that sexuality is the main issue taken with Emma's idea of diff'rent, so would it make any difference then if another transgression had been committed by Caleb as the cursing is seemingly let off the hook, but for how long? Was the sexual discretion the only think that could've broken Emma's fantasy, or was it bound to happen regardless, even after the wedding with something else? And what does that say about the character?

What's the Difference?

Remember that scene from Life of Brian? The one where our ersatz savior, in an attempt to disband a growing mob of acolytes, tries to remind them that they all have to be "different"? And of course the hive-mind spits back an echo: "We are all different!" (A lone and querulous voice rises from the chorus: "I'm not!") 

Most of us are eager to brand ourselves as "diff'rent." We watch the pandemonium of the world pass by us like a gaudy parade. We're most keenly objective when confronted by the masks that resemble us most. We "just look at things diff'rent from that they do," even if, like Emma, we have difficulty in tracing that difference to any positive quality. "Pride goeth before a fall": and how many times have the bringers-forth of this apothegm been any more reflective than Emma, and applied the words to themselves? If the pride of "diff'rence" springs directly from the root of conscious being then we all must warily eye the left arm of the judgement seat.

But Emma really does appear to be "diff'rent" from the men and women with whom she shares the stage. She's different because she's the only one who insists on difference. Mrs. Crosby knows that her daughter is "touchy and diff'rent from most." Emma's social and psychological isolation tells us something important: namely, that she is the main character of the play. She's the only one who believes that social realities aren't immutable. She stands out. 

According to Caleb, men swear for much the same reason that dogs bark: it's a "part o'" their nature. Emma's brother, Jack, isn't surprised that a ship's brief watering stop might degenerate into a week-long orgy: "o' course, everything happened as it always does." And "Caleb's a man," isn't he? A leopard can't change its spots. To expect it to do so is merely risible. Either a man's a man -- with all his "wickedness" intact -- or he's a creepin'-Jesus, a sky-pilot, a plaster saint: anything but something "natural." Emma ought to follow her mother's advice and simply "realize what men be" without trying to change them. And

Why should a man desire in any way

To vary from the kindly race of men

Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance

Where all should pause, as it most meet for all?

Tithonus is the chorus for his own tragedy. Why should we expect ourselves or others "to vary from the kindly race of men"? Why insist on difference? It's better to lie low and hope the fates pass you by. This is the wisdom of the tragic chorus.

1) There's a Bible lying next to some trashy novels. Jack tells Emma that Caleb's no "Sunday-go-to-meetin' saint." Nor is he "one o' them goody-goody heroes out o' them story-books." Why does O'Neill juxtapose the discourse of religion with that of "popular entertainment"? 

2) Do you think that Jack is right to identify these discourses as the source of Emma's "diff'rence"?

3) Is sexual morality the only issue at stake in Emma's conception of "diff'rence"?

4) How many "deconstructivist" readings of this play do you think are floating around the MLA database?