February 21, 2013

     There were four poet/authors' works that we read for this blog entry: Robert Frost, Susan Glaspell, Zora Neal Hurston, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. As I looked back over the readings to refresh my memory, there was one topic that kept popping into my head... humanistic qualities. The importance of decisions, the strength of emotions, and the truth-induced cringe of reality are all much more apparent in this general time period of literature than they are before it.
     Robert Frost has an affinity for the outdoors; specifically the New England area. That's probably the setting and sensation that his readers are so fond of and what they day dream about. He takes that sensation and adds to it the appeal of human emotion, to heavily relate to the readers, and make them feel more at one with nature and freer, away from their busy lives. The poem of his that we read that really portrays that feeling best is "Birches," in which the narrator speaks of leaving (no pun intended) the earth -- to simply get away from the busyness of life -- and coming back later. He dreams of swaying, at the top of the birch trees, which represents the (for lack of a better phrase) mood swings of life.
     Susan Glaspell portrays realistic human qualities in her play "Trifles" by having the two women -- who are accompanying a sheriff, attorney, and a man that was a neighbor, on a search around a house in which a controlling husband had been killed, presumably by his wife -- be the deductive and reasoning "detectives" in the case. It is understood that the women are better about finding clues to the murder because they are women who think like other women (i.e. the wife). Although the women know that the wife hanged her husband, they hide the evidence that leads them to that conclusion, knowing why the wife killed her husband, and agreeing with her motives.
     Zora Neal Hurston decided to actually improve the typical outlook on human actions by having a black husband show mercy on his adulterous, pregnant wife -- something that was totally unexpected given the circumstances and the time period.
     F. Scott Fitzgerald is more or less pessimistic in his short stories and novels, which are loosely based on his own life. The concept of becoming extremely wealthy, whether through hard work over time or by inheritance immediately, and suddenly going into debt strikes the reader as a common reality that makes the glistening happiness of wealth look futile.