Uncle Remus

The short story, “How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp For Mr. Fox” by Uncle Remus , that we read aloud in class identifies the fundamental dynamic of the fox and rabbits relationship. Although these short stories or fables, were supposed to be plantation narratives as the sole purpose of preserving the traditions of the Old South, but as it was mentioned in class, the opposition of the rabbit and the fox provide some social commentary. There is a struggle for dominance in the strictly animalistic sense of the story as well as the struggle for superiority that occurred in the Old South at the time the stories were written.  “You bin runnin’ roun’ here sassin’ atter me a mighty long time, but I speck you done come ter de een’ er de row” This is where the fox is trying to outsmart the rabbit but ends up being caught in reverse phycology and tricked yet again, much like how they want to in social contexts, the black trying to trick or outsmart their less intelligent counterparts.

one upon a time.....

In the short story, Old Woman Magoun, Lily shares a parallelism with Snow White. Snow White is of course the fairy tale of a very innocent girl that is sheltered from the world around her by her step mother, the Evil Queen. She is at the well doing chores when she meets a stranger, a man, that shatters her world. She then begins to venture further and further from the watchful eyes of her step mother. Upon finding out that Snow White was more important and fairer than the evil queen, she had her sentenced to death. Because if she wasnt the best, then no one could be.

In the short story, Lily was raised by her grandmother and because the town was isolated with no bridge to connect to neighboring towns for many years, Lily was raised in pure innocence thus stumping her growth by physically and mentally. When the grandmother prompted the town to build the bridge, she was slightly allowing Lily to venture further away from her watchful eyes and let her gain a bit of evidence. Upon entering town, lily ran into her father that abandoned her mother when Lily was born. This shattered her innocence and world that her grandmother so carefully created and maintained. Upon realizing she couldnt have complete control over Lily's life, she lets her obliviously eat deadly nightshades, thus killing her. During her pre-death hallucinogenic state of mind lily was in, her grandmother allows the audience to know that she also killed her daughter when finding out lily was born because she wasnt able to control her either.

This is my letter to the World

Emily Dikinson's poem 519/441 portrays the feeling of death much like most all of her poems. I do however feel like this poem provides a bit more of an uplifting tone because of the mention of mother nature.  Although Mother Nature is capable of death, she is also capable of life and rebirth. This simple spark of ideas, leads me to consider that this topic is a funeral.  The "Letter to the World" seems to be a eulogy as the last letter to the World before leaving it forever. The reason for Mother Nature in the poem, is to signify the essence of rebirth and being put in the ground, back to the most organic of forms. This would also be a relevent topic for Emily Dikinson because she overlooks on a graveyard and must have witnessed funerals on a daily basis.

I think I have it!

Happy Thursday