Jan McCutcheon
English 48B
Journal for Emily Dickinson



Author Quote:

“Faith” is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!






Internet Quote: Emily Dickinson is now considered a powerful and persistent figure in American culture. (Wikipedia)





Summary: It seems like Emily was a little “different.” Unmarried, possibly bi-sexual, obsessed with death and flowers, and a recluse dressed in white…




Response: I like Dickinson’s dark dwelling on death, and her quirky personality. I like it that she refused to fit in at the seminary school preferring instead to think for her self. I like how she also refuses to follow the rules regarding punctuation. I think Dickinson is the inspiration for the Gothic cartoon character Emily the Strange.

Jan McCutcheon
English 48B
Journal for Whitman



Author Quote:
“I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff
that is fine,
One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the
largest the same” (Norton 41).

Internet Quote: “‘Song of Myself’ is a sprawling combination of biography, sermon, and poetic meditation....composed more of vignettes than lists: Whitman uses small, precisely drawn scenes to do his work here.” (sparknotes)


Summary: “Song of Myself” is a very long poem of un-rhymed verse that seems to combine many different topics.


Response: When I first read this I was overwhelmed by the length and what seemed multiple subjects all grouped together like a series of lists. I have to admit, I don’t get it. The second time, I decided to just let it wash over me and see how it goes. This time, I feel like I am going through a pile of photographs with different scenes. I especially like the way he describs different images as if he is walking through a city and taking snapshots of everything. I’m still not sure what to make of all this, but his manner of describing everything is very interesting. I got the impression he is saying he is part of everything. That there is no place where one things stops and another begins. It reminds me of the Beatles' I Am the Walrus:

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly.
I'm crying.

Jan McCutcheon
English 48B
Journal on Twain/Tahoe

Author Quote: “Sam Clement’s literary reputation was once again in shambles, and he literally fled Nevada in moral fear. What went wrong? What self-destructive demons had seized him?” (Lankford 133).

Internet Quote: “We published a rumor, the other day, that the moneys collected at the Carson Fancy Dress Ball were to be diverted from the Sanitary Fund and sent forward to aid a "miscegenation" or some other sort of Society in the East. We also stated that the rumor was a hoax. And it was - we were perfectly right. However, four ladies are offended. We cannot quarrel with ladies - the very thought of such a thing is repulsive; neither can we consent to offend them even unwittingly - without being sorry for the misfortune, and seeking their forgiveness, which is a kindness we hope they will not refuse. We intended no harm, as they would understand easily enough if they knew the history of this offense of ours, but we must suppress that history, since it would rather be amusing than otherwise, and the amusement would be at our expense. We have no love for that kind of amusement - and the same trait be longs to human nature generally. One lady complained that we should at least have answered the note they sent us. It is true. There is small excuse for our neglect of a common politeness like that, yet we venture to apologize for it, and will still hope for pardon, just the same. We have noticed one thing in this whole business - and also in many an instance which has gone before it - and that is, that we resemble the majority of our species in the respect that we are very apt to get entirely in the wrong, even when there is no seeming necessity for it; but to offset this vice, we claim one of the virtues of our species, which is that we are ready to repair such wrongs when we discover them” (reprinted in Mark Twain of the Enterprise, (Univ. of California Press, 1957), pp. 197-98).

Summary: When the Civil War stopped river traffic and ruined his career as a riverboat pilot, Sam Clements moved to Carson City with his brother, and then to Tahoe with his friend John Kinney. He enjoys one of the most wonderful periods of his life floating around in a canoe on Lake Tahoe. They decide to stake a timber claim and seek their fortune in the logging industry. After accidentally burning the trees to the ground, he moved on to any job he can get, including writing for the local paper. After meeting Artemis Ward and continuing in his rollicking bad boy bachelor behavior culminating in “accidentally” releasing a scandalous article on “miscegenation.” If not already in enough trouble, he then challenging the editor of the Union to a duel. Escaping that alive, he sneaks out of town and moves to San Francisco. The question remains, was he a closet Confederate or just a bad boy who recklessly fails to consider the consequences of what he says.


Response: I think Sam Clements was the Robert Downy Jr. of his time. He was brilliant but also reckless and self destructive. When his alter ego Mark Twain got out, it sometimes caused him trouble, but later in life he learned to control it and it might have been the muse that helped him write. As he got older, he got better at controlling his impulses but retained the ability to criticize some of society’s most sacred ideas such as wealth, slavery, religion and war. I think like most artists, he had a dark side. He was able to see the bigger meanings and contradictions in many things that other people did not bother to think about. He saw the hypocrisy of man and through his writing and lectures found a way to satirize man’s follies without getting into trouble. Fortunately for us, he managed to channel this energy into writing that we can still enjoy today.

Jan McCutcheon
English 48B
Journal for Letters from Earth



Author Quote: “There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing, and predatory. The invention of hell measured by our Christianity of today, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the deity nor his son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilled.”


Internet Quote: "I believe that Mark Twain had a clearer vision of life, that he came nearer to its elementals and was less deceived by its false appearances, than any other American who has ever presumed to manufacture generalizations, not excepting Emerson. I believe that he was the true father of our national literature, the first genuinely American artist of the royal blood." -- H.L. Mencken


Summary: In "Letters from the Earth" Twain writes humorous letters from Satan to St. Gabriel and an accounting of prayers by Abnew Scofield from The Recording Angel. Written in 1909, they were not published until 1961. Twain believed they would never be published, due to the scandalous nature would be a felony. Twain's daughter would not approve of publishing them, so they had to be published after her death.

Response: As an atheist I have a low opinion of religions and think the problems they cause do not outweigh the benefits, so naturally, I enjoyed reading Twain's not too subtle attack on the institution. I found it interesting that this was not published until after his death, although I can certainly imagine it would have caused quite a scandal at the time. I wonder if Twain’s concern was for his own reputation or for that of his daughter, because he does not seem to be afraid to stir up a controversy. I'm surprised it doesn't cause a scandal now because I think the country is becoming very religious again. I suppose Twain would not be pleased if he knew how little progress we have made in the past 100 years. We are still struggling with racism, and religion; two issues he probably thought would be resolved by now. His letters from Satan describe Christian heaven as being all the things sensible people hate and none of the things we like, as if it’s a place designed by a mad man. Why on earth would anyone want to go there? His accounting of Petitions by Abner Scofield point out the many contradictions in prayers, especially between what is prayed publicly and what Abner really wants, and also how as his wealth increased, he became less Christian. I imagine Twain had a lot of fun writing this.

Jan McCutcheon
English 48B
Journal for Twain

Author Quote: “After all this long journey, and after all we’d done for them scoundrels, here was it all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.”


Internet Quote: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called "Huckleberry Finn." all American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." -- Ernest Hemingway

Summary: In chapter 35 of “Huckleberry Finn,” Huck and Jim fallen in with scam artists who go from town to town trying to swindle the locals. They sell Jim for $40 and Huck, first considers writing to Miss Watson telling her where she can find Jim. Then has second thoughts, considering that it wouldn’t be a very good outcome for either he or Jim. Instead he decides to go try to get Jim back.

“Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” is Twain’s humorous criticism of The Deerslayer.


Response: “Huckleberry Finn” was published 20 years after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery. It’s hard to imagine people being bought and sold like cattle. Mark Twain was a strong supporter of the abolition of slavery.

In “Fenimor” Twain goes through The Deerslayer listing all of Cooper’s numerous literary offenses, claiming there he has scored “114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115” (norton 295). The Deerslayer was published with Twain was 6 years old and he wrote the criticism when he was 50. Clearly something rubbed him the wrong way to get him to write in such detail about this book. Maybe he was tired of being compared to Cooper?

Jan McCutcheon
English 48B
Journal for Wharton

Author Quote: “listening for her step with a tender sense of all it symbolized, with some old trail of verse about the garlanded nuptial doorposts floating through his enjoyment of the pleasant room and the good dinner just beyond it” (Norton 830).

Internet Quote: “Many of Wharton's novels are characterized by a subtle use of dramatic irony. Having grown up in upper-class pre-World War I society, Wharton became one of its most astute critics.”


Summary: Waythorn’s honeymoon with his wife is interrupted because her 12 year old daughter from her first marriage has typhoid. The girl is transferred to Waythorn’s house, for convenience, but this also means they need to allow her father access to visit. Additionally, because his business partner has gout, he is also dealing with Mrs. Waythorn’s second husband. So poor old Waythorn is inconvenienced by having to deal with Mrs. Waythorn’s past.


Response: Interestingly, in the first paragraphs of the story, Waythorn is “listening for her step with a tender sense of all it symbolized, with some old trail of verse about the garlanded nuptial doorposts floating through his enjoyment of the pleasant room and the good dinner just beyond it” (Norton 830). When I googled “garlanded nuptial doorposts” I found a link to Lysistrata, which is a story about how the women of Athens and Sparta withheld sex from their husbands in order to force them to stop fighting. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but it gets me wondering from the start exactly what is Edith Wharton getting at here? I think she may be talking about the fact that women in that day did not have many options and had to tie their fates to a man. Mrs. Waythorn is on her third husband in this story, each time, marring to get herself and daughter into better financial circumstances. I think she is saying women were forced to use sex to secure their survival is the only option available to women, unless, like Wharton, they are born into money.

Jan McCutcheon
English 48B
Journal for Takaki

Author Quote: “Condemning abolitionism as ‘Niggerology,’ many Irish immigrants were willing to support the war only to preserve the Union.”

Internet Quote: “Ron Takaki was one of the most preeminent scholars of our nation’s diversity, and considered “the father” of multicultural studies. As an academic, historian, ethnographer and author, his work helped dispel stereotypes of Asian Americans” (http://www.asianweek.com/2009/05/27/remembering-ron-takaki).

Summary: Takaki describes the terrible conditions the Irish fled from in Irland and the conditions they found once reaching America (if they survived the trip, which many did not). He also describes how, once here they found themselves competing with African Americans for low wage labor jobs and how they took on the bigotry on their oppressors.

Response: I knew some of the information about the Irish leaving Ireland after the potato blight and I knew they struggled when they reached America. I’m Scotch-Irish. I’m not sure how many generations ago my family came to America. I do know great grandfather was a farmer, his sons worked in the coalmines, my father worked in a steel mill, and so each generation did a little better financially. Still, no one in my family has a 4-year college degree. If I ever finish, I will be the first. So I can see how the generations struggle from a disadvantaged position and each one tries to make a better life. What I did not know, and was shocked to learn, is how the Irish treated African Americans. Takaki makes a good point about how the Irish, Chinese, and blacks were pitted against each other to fight for jobs and survival. We saw that in all our immigrant stories, how there always seems to be some group to come along to do the job cheaper. It is essentially what our country is built on, even today, where jobs are moved to cheaper and cheaper labor markets to support our standard of living and ability to own cheaper consumer goods.

The article by Katrina Irving seems to be adding another layer to the immigrant story by adding female gender. It’s not only a scary immigrant “other,” but a super scary out-of-control-sex-having-child-bearing-female other who will keep replicating. Like in the movie Alien. Run for your lives!