When I read that I would need to select one passage to write about for this blog post I immediately knew which one I would choose. I chose the last line of the story, “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!” This simple four word line brings together all the emotion from the story for the final conclusion. As I was reading “Bartleby, The Scrivener A Story of Wall Street” I felt an amazing amount of frustration at the situation Herman Melville found himself in with Bartleby. At reading the conclusion of the story it was like all that emotion was released and it really felt as if the story was resolved.

            Now, to look at the language, there isn’t much to look at but there is much to say. The word “humanity” sums up the whole meaning of the story. Bartleby’s behavior was certain odd and it was his odd behavior that kept me reading but what was more important about the story was how Melville reacted to his behavior. He was kind and submissive to Bartleby at times even though his behavior was far from normal. Melville had patience and compassion, qualities that I’m not sure any man on Wall Street has today. If a man was to behave this way on Wall Street today he would be arrested immediately and no one would care what happened to him. People would just see him as some crazy loon who decided to squat in a Wall Street office (if he could even gain access to such an office). Today we focus too much on material things and very few of us would show the compassion that Melville did to Bartleby. He tried everything he could think of to help him out. He even went so far as to invite Bartleby, the man who would reveal nothing about himself, to live with him in his own home. But nothing he did was going to change the outcome of the situation. In the end there was nothing else that could be done because there was obviously something wrong with Bartleby and in the end he starved himself to death. Ah the humanity! 

In "A Modest Proposal"  Swift is addressing the poverty problem in Ireland. He says there are so many poor people breeding more poor people who will eventually become beggars and thieves. His solution is that impoverished mothers should nurse their children until they are one year of age and then those one year old children should be sold as food. 

Swift's solution to this very serious problem is not serious at all, it is purely satirical. Swift's purpose for writing the essay was in response to the very poor treatment of the Irish by the English during this time. He mentions that the landlords had already devoured the parents of the children and he means by this that the English treated the Irish so poorly that they might as well be eating them. For more information on the state of Ireland during this time please see this link: http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~lyman/english320/sg-Swift-18thC.htm.

In swifts proposal he outlines why it would be a good thing to eat the children who reached one year of age saying that they weren’t good for anything else and that they weren’t old enough to steal yet. I’m not exactly sure why he mentions Americans in the essay but he claims to have gotten the idea for eating the babies from an American friend in London. One thought I have is that he includes the Americans because they didn’t care about the situation in Ireland or also treated the Irish poorly. I cannot speak that this is fact however. 

Amusing rap rendition of A Modest Proposal. WARNING: Some explicit language. 

 

 Good Readers Good Writers

Nabakov says clearly in the article that he believes for a person to be a good writer they need to have imagination, memory, a dictionary and some artistic sense. I agree completely with this. Those are the four basic things a person needs to be a good reader. Before I read this article I think I thought of the word "good" in the phrase "good reader" much differently. I always thought of myself as a bad reader because I feel that I read very slow. After I read this article I realized that just because I may not read as fast as some other adults doesn't mean that I'm not a good reader. I'm not the only one that defined a good reader in this way because when I googled "being a good reader" this was the first thing on the list, http://www.education.com/reference/article/secret-becoming-good-reader/.  Now I know there are just two different ways to define a good reader but in the sense that Nabokov is talking about I think I'm alright. I have a great imagination, I have a dictionary and I do believe I have a lot of artistic sense. Now as far as memory goes I may be lacking slightly in that department but I think it will do. When I read the part in the article that said the worst thing a reader can do is identify with a character it offended me a little because I think it can be really fun to identify with a character but then I started thinking about some of my favorite books. One book in particular came to mind and I realized in no way did I identify with the character in the book. What I did remember was how vividly I imagined the world in the book. I had faces for each character and as I read it was like there was a movie playing in my head. I LOVE to read books that make me feel that way, if a book doesn't make me develop a home theater in my head, I usually don't finish it.

I think the most important trait of a good reader though is imagination.

Ok so I made a WONDERFUL video, two actually, and neither of them will work. So I guess until I can figure this out there will be no video. Anyway, my name is Molly and I'm attending YC for an AAS in Agriculture Technology Management. I hope to one day own my own business but right now I'm unsure what that business is going to be. Maybe an organic farm...but maybe not. My partner Chris and I have an 18 month old daughter named Zoey and right now I'm a stay-at-home mama. I like to do stuff outdoors like hike and camp. I am also taking belly dancing lessons with a local troupe. I also enjoy sewing and painting. I am looking forward to this class, now I just have to get this blogging stuff down!