Corinne's Cultural Appropriation

On Thursday I will be presenting my cultural appropriation on the Classics Illustrated adaptation of "The Pit and the Pendulum." I thought I had planned it right so that it would actually be the reading for this day. I hope that most of you have read it in the past, but if not that's okay too! I will basically be talking about how the media form of the graphic novel/comic book imapacted the scenes and stories as opposed to how I pictured them when I was reading. I will also talk a little bit about the colors used in the strip, as well as what Classics Illustrated's goal was by publishing the strip. I will also have a little bit of history of Classics Illustrated to share. I have posted a couple of pictures just to give you a preview of what you will see!

Truth in The Man That Was Used Up

I wanted to bring up the topic of truth. I know we’ve talked about this in class already with other stories such as The Tell-Tale Heart and Pym, which I think is why I’ve been closely looking for this idea to pop up in Poe’s stories. In The Man That Was Used Up I found this theme throughout the entire text. In the first paragraph I got the feeling that the narrator was unsure of what was happening when he met the General. Poe says:

“I cannot just now remember when or where I first made the acquaintance of that truly fine-looking fellow… Some one did introduce me to the gentleman, I am sure - at some public meeting, I know very well - held about something of great importance, no doubt - at some place or other, I feel convinced, - whose name I have unaccountably forgotten.”

I read this and was curious about the reliability of the narrator. Not until a little further into the text did I understand that the mystery of this man Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith (did anyone else find this name excessive??), captured the narrator and perhaps made all other detail of that night superfluous. Going through the story when everyone was telling the narrator about the General, I was getting frustrated, as others have mentioned, about the repetitiveness of their comments. They wouldn’t answer a question but they would continue to repeat whatever it was they had heard. I assumed that no one had ever really met the guy or maybe they would have disclosed his secret. This made me more interested in him and what would be revealed at the end. The ending was very interesting, not really what I expected, but again, a little on the questionable side. At this time could one really have all the bodily attachments he did and still be alive??

Raquel posted that she thought it may be saying something about colonialism and I didn’t see this when I was reading, but I really like that answer. Surely Poe was making a comment about a situation that requires one to give in order to get. But this is a bit much, don’t you think? Would you be willing to make the sacrifices that the General did? And how do you think he (the General) really feels at the end of all this? I guess in order to progress as a people someone has to make the sacrifice but I wonder if it's really a choice that they would make for themself if the pressure wasn't there.

Age of Invention

One thing that I was wondering as I read was WHY did each person that the narrator spoke to talk about it being such a wonderful age of invention that they live in? Poe starts with the General himself telling the narrator "we are a wonderful people, and live in a wonderful age." Then he goes on to list what exactly makes this such a wonderful age and all the technology of the time. Basically the different inventions. Then the other characters later actually use the word "inventive" to describe the time period they are in but why mention that when they are being asked about the General and not the age they live in? Is it because inventions and this new age helped the General survive the battles against the Bugaboos and Kickapoos? Or is it because they know the General's secret of his mechanical body parts (and obviously that is a new invention) so they are hinting to the narrator about this? No one ever seems to answer the narrator in a straightforward fashion about the General and they all have similar yet almost disjointed comments. But one thing that most of them did seem to definitely mention was this wonderfully inventive age. Yet I don't see the reason for it except what I tried to guess at.

Descent as Pym Lite?!

Hi, everyone!
I will miss you tomorrow...I'm going to be Charlottesville visiting my cousin.

In any case, I wanted to wonder if anyone saw what I did in "Descent into the Maelstrom." It was as if Poe said, "Okay...Pym didn't work out the way I wanted it to, so I'll do something similar only make it more tolerable." It made me think, 'This is Pym Lite!' I honestly enjoyed it.

I also enjoyed Mountains. You really see the more personal, 'I know what I am talking about here...' Poe.

THE MAN THAT WAS USED UP

Is it me or is Poe completely enthralled by teeth? He went on and on over the perfection of Brevet Brigadier General John A.B.C. The pace of the story was a lot refreshing after Pym, I really wanted to know what the narrator was trying to find out. Yet, I was becoming quite frustrated with the repetition of the “history” of the man, which was never told! How is it that everyone he cornered about the General had the exact same thing to say? Then I had to wonder, did they know the truth and if they did, where was the narrator that he did not know the story, since he was awed by the man when he met him? Poe presented a man that was so physically perfect that it caused instant doubt as to the reliability of the narrator. How is it that he was able to “give the beggarly scoundrel such a thrashing as he will remember to the day of his death”, but couldn’t obtain the truth of the General? Maybe I am naïve, but I was shocked that the General was only a partial man, physically, was anyone else? Also, I have to wonder what statement Poe was actually making. The General had lost just about everything; his eye, teeth, palate, arm, leg, shoulder, was Poe simply telling a story? Or was he asking if colonialism was worth the cost that had to be paid by the people who actually did the colonizing? The Brevet Brigadier General, fought a battle with the Kick-a-poos and the Bugaboos. It had to have been common knowledge, so why didn’t the narrator know? Was he easily distracted, or did he ignore the “world” events as they were happening and so become ignorant of events, historical or otherwise?

Double Take: William Wilson

Okay I will break the ice here. It's Monday evening and no one has posted on William Wilson! I was kind of waiting to post about this one to see if anyone had any brillian comments about it, as I know you are all geniuses, and I was hoping to gain some insight from your thoughts. This did not happen so I am going to shoot in the dark and ask a few questions about this tale. Please help!
If the narrator was so tormented by this "William Wilson" then why did it take so long for him to do anything about it?
If they were the same person, then how did the butler guy announce to the narrator that he had a guest the night that he was drinking wine? Did he just imagine that? Was he truely alone the whole time and bouncing from looney bin to looney bin in different countries?
What do you make of the competitiveness of the narrator and how does it contribute to his split personality? I think that it makes him more able to keep this other personality because he feels like nothing he does is good enough and the other personality sustains this feeling for him.
Were you surprised at the ending to find out they are the same person? I wasn't! If the story was shorter I might have been a bit more surprised but by the ending I kind of saw it comming, but that didn't take away from the story for me. How about you?

Again, I liked the descriptions and sensations that the tale included, that seems to be a theme from across the board this week. I also really liked the last couple of pages the most of all, they just seemed to invoke so much feeling, which I think aided in the stabbing scene!

The Man of the Crowd vs. The Man Watching the Crowd

I noticed two significant things about this tale: 1) It seems to appeal to the visual culture again like some of the other Poe works. The images are not direct that the narrator is giving, but the reader can still imagin them. For instance he doesn't give eye color and hair color he gives types of clothes and demeanors of people, because it is what he can see from the window. While the narrator was standing in his room looking upon the crowd and giving descriptions of everyone, I could close my eyes and see what he was describing. I think that the careful choice of words and the calculations of the sentences make this tale force the reader to follow what the narrator does. I liked the descriptions and the images that the narrator was sharing with us. 2) At the end of the tale the narrator says, "This old man," I said at length, "is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. He is the man of the crowd."(396) I think that in the way that the man of the crowd is described by the narrator, the narrator can identify with the man of the crowd. In a way the narrator could be a genius of crime seeing that he had followed this man around and wasn't even noticed. He also watches the crowd and knows everything about the way it moves, thinks and functions, therefore making him a genius of how to affect it. He also says that the man refuses to be alone, and I think that the narrator does to. He may stay in his room a lot and watch the crowd, but without that crowd he would probably go insane. It is like he lives for watching the crowd and studying how it works. In a sense, yes he is alone and confined, but he is only alone by distance and location, not by the people he associates with.

What do you think Poe was trying to achieve with his wonderful descriptions? I just loved them!