I think I need Bifocals

Ok, yes, I know Benjamin Franklin was a founding father. It is obvious he was also brilliant for several different reasons. But despite all of these things.. I cannot honestly that I enjoyed his work. At all. In the least bit.

I found it incredibly dull, and very tedious. He had some really great things to say.. I just really had to push my way through it. And was anyone else annoyed with the random words capitalized throughout his narrative? Ah! It drove me crazy! I would be reading through and admittedly, maybe drifting off a little bit, and then I would come across a capitalized word and think that I had started a new sentence and not even realized it! Maybe, in the end, this was a good thing though - it kept me alert to a certain extent.

Crevecoeur, on the other hand, I found very intriguing. The first section was a little slow moving, but once he got into the slavery, I found it very intriguing. It's interesting that he was opposed to slavery. It doesn't seem like there were many white American's who spoke out against slavery at that time.

The part where he discussed the preacher speaking against slavery was especially intriguing (pg. 322). It's one of those examples of how, many times, people just want to hear that they're doing the right thing, even when they aren't.

As a closer, I know Benjamin Franklin invented a lot of things (and of course experimented - we've all heard the story of the kite getting hit by lighting in elementary school) but I didn't know what all, so I looked it up and this is what I found:

The lighting rod

The Franklin Stove

Bifocal glasses

Urinary catheter

One of the first ideas for the refrigerator

Sources:

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/interesting-facts-about-benjamin-franklin.html

"The Inward Ardor of my Soul"

We had to read Jonathan Edwards' "A Personal Narrative" and "Sinners at the Hands of an Angry God" for class today and let me just say... Wow.

I think Edwards is my favorite author we have read yet. I don't think I've ever felt so simultaneously amazed and repulsed at the same time. His "Personal Narrative" was beautiful. It was so elegantly written and he puts himself out there in a very vulnerable way.

One part I found particularly admirable was on page 174:

The inward ardor of my soul seemed to be hindered and pent up, and could not freely flame out as it would. I used often think, how in heaven, this sweet principle should freely and fully vent and express itself. Heaven appeared to me exceeding delightful as a world of love. It appeared to me, that all happiness consisted in living in pure, humble, heavenly, divine love.

Edwards definitely had a way with words.

While I find "Personal Narrative" to be very appealing, "Sinners" was a different story. I don't argue that it wasn't well written - it was fabulously written and I think Edwards does an amazing job of getting his point across. However, I think it was almost too much so.

To be frank, "Sinners" was absolutely terrifying. Even as I was reading it, I could picture what a congregation's reaction to this would be. He paints God to be this raging being, full of wrath and anger who is ready to condemn the human at any second. On page 198 he says:

...God is under no manner of obligation to keep him (natural man) a moment from eternal destruction.

If that isn't frightening enough, he goes on to say:

There are black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you...

The wrath of God is like great waters that are damned for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course once it is let loose.

He even mentions the condemnation of children! Now, I'm not saying children cannot be condemned, but talk about wanting the scare the pants off a child - this speech will do that!

The whole sermon revolves around God's wrath, anger, condemnation, damnation, and every other bad -nation would you can think of. The problem I have with it is that Edwards fails to also mention God's grace, mercy, and love.

If I were an unbeliever and new nothing about religion and heard this speech, I would not (as Edwards probably hoped) turn to Jesus for salvation. I would run the opposite way screaming in fear! I think he makes good points about God's wrath, but I also he needs to mention the love He has for us through the cross.

Overall, I really did enjoy Edwards. His "Personal Narrative" as by far my favorite we've read so far, and even if "Sinners" was a little off and slightly frightening, I still appreciated reading it.

The Problem of "It"

I think it is amusing that I have psychology class right before American Lit, because I always end up tying them together in one way or another. It sometimes makes me literally laugh out loud. It partly influenced my decision to pick "Puritan Orthodoxy and the 'Survivor Syndrome' in Mary Rowlandson's Indian Captivity Narrative." Woofta, could that name get any longer?

Anyway, I found this article very intriguing. When I first read Rowlandson, I enjoyed her narrative very much - it was upbeat, exciting, adventurous, and she overcame adversity, all of these important ingredients to a good story. After finishing the journal article, however, I began to look at the story in a slightly different light.

It makes perfect sense, of course, that Rowlandson would have experienced the symptoms of "Survivors Syndrome." However, I find it curious that because of her role in Puritan society, she was expected to display her story as a divine sort of experience - which she does well. All throughout the story she consistently refers back to God and how he provided for her. But while I was reading it, I was so wrapped up in the "wow, I'm amazed at this woman and the way she devotes her praise to God despite her struggles" that I never stopped to think that she actually could have experienced some psychological trauma.

The article was also interesting in the fact that it gave me a better sense of what she was like as a woman and what she actually endured during her captivity. Historians do not know a lot of Rowandson, but this article helped me to be able to put a face to her outside of her narrative. I began to see her more of a real person, and because of that I felt like I also believed her story more.

I particularly appreciated the section where they described why she referred to her daughter as "it" throughout the narrative, rather than calling her by her name. The article says she more than likely experienced survivors guilt and by calling her daughter Sarah by "it" made it easier to cope with her guilt she felt over her death.

I have to say, I have a lot of respect for Mrs. Rowlandson. I can't say that I would come out of an experience such as hers as well off as she did.

When I Come Around

I'm going to put it very plainly - Cotton Mather was one interesting dude. As I read his selection, all I could see was a thin man standing at a pulpit, banging his fists against a podium, yelling "Yes, Jesus!" at the top of his lungs, frightening all those sitting in the congregation into repentance.

And I will be the first to admit that I could be completely wrong in this evaluation. After all, when I think "Puritan" I usually also think "timid." Whether any of this is true, or just a stereotype built up in my head from who knows what, I have no idea.

But back to Mather... The reason I got this image of him was simply

because of the passion you can feel leaking through his words. You can tell he cares very much about God and the salvation of the people around him. However, as we know now, he may have been too quick to accuse people of "devilish" activities.

I found it interesting that, all in the same day, I had class discussions over Cotton Mather and the idea of hindsight bias. In my psychology class, we talked about how people often times can be asked a question about something and not know the answer, but as soon as they hear what the answer is automatically say "oh, yeah, I knew that." It's a bias - we hear the answer and even though we didn't know it, it suddenly becomes obvious.

It is easy for us t

o look back and see just how wrong Mather was. I mean, after all, he accused a woman of witchcraft, which eventually led to her death and the Salem Witch Trials. This is a big accusation! And looking back now, we see how ridiculous it was. But.... I can't help and feel sorry for Mather.

Living in a newly discovered land - with no maps, no GPS, no wi-fi, no cell phones - would be terrifying. We are spoiled today. Not only do we have all of these things but we also have scientific discovery. We understand the things that go "bump in the night" much more than they would have in the 1600's. I don't think it is difficult to understand why people had fears of supernatural activity during that time. I think, in complete honesty, I would have been just as afraid as any of them.

Now, this is not me justifying his actions. I do not at all think that anything Mather did was necessarily right. I can, however, have empathy for him. I don't fully understand where he was coming from, but I can see why he did what he did. It's that hindsight bias coming into play again.

I think it's something that is comparable to, say, the Iraqi war. People might look back in 200 years and say "What were they thinking!?" In our defense, and in Mather's defense, we were doing what we thought was the correct thing to do. Don't we all deserve a little bit of a break for that?

I found this picture on Google. Is it wrong for me to think that this just affirms my first suspicions about his character?

"Thy love is such I can no way repay."

Anne Bradstreet - a-mazing. I have to say I enjoyed reading Bradstreet much more than I had Smith and Winthrop. It was very exciting to read a woman's work when you think of the Puritan time period.

I have a lot of respect, in particular, in the way she sarcastically addresses her position as a woman writing poetry.

"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue

who says my hand a needle better fits,

A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong,

For such despite they cast on female wits;

If what I do prove well, it won't advance,

They'll say it's stol'n or else it was by chance"

You tell them, girl! I can't imagine what life would have been like for Bradstreet. I cannot say that I know what if feels like to be judged because I am a woman. I have lived a life in which women, for the most part, are equal to men. I cannot help but have the utmost respect for women like Bradstreet who are willing to stand up for themselves not only as the home figure, but also as a writer.

I also found this stanza very beautiful:

"Shall I praise the heavens, the trees, the earth

Because their beauty and their strength last longer?

Shall I wish there, or never to had birth,

Because they're bigger, and their bodies stronger?

Nay, they shall darken, perish, fade, and die,

And when unmade, so ever shall they lie,

But man was made for endless immortality."

Bradstreet definitely had a gift for words. It is very evident in the few poems we read by her that she is absolutely in love with God. I really admire her vulnerability, in the way she admits that she sometimes has doubts about her faith but always ends up seeing that God really is everything.

The life Bradstreet led was one completely different from today, and yet it is so easy to relate to what she writes. As a woman, I too sometimes find it difficult to find where I really stand in society. It is hard to come to terms with the role that God has given me as a female, along with being a sort of "educated career woman." Who would ever expect that in 2010, I could share the same feelings as someone in 1678? It is a strange, yet oddly beautiful thing.

John Squared

After finishing my reading for Monday, I was especially surprised with the exerts we read by John Smith. When I hear the name John Smith my mind automatically repeats my childhood memories of the Disney movie Pocahontas. After finishing the stories by John Smith, I realized how far from reality the Disney movie actually was.

I always imagined John Smith, based on the Disney movie, to be a quiet, kind, handsome man. After reading the stories, however, I've discovered he is exactly the opposite of what I had thought. The attitude Smith has in From The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles is very arrogant. In fact, I found myself to be incredibly frustrated the entire time I was reading it. I was really bothered by the way he continually referred to himself in first person. After all, it is a story written BY him and ABOUT himself. If his intention was to make the story seem more legitimate by doing this, I think he failed. Miserably.

I was also bothered by the way he always seemed to be doing the "right" things throughout the story. Instead, it is always some outside force having an influence on what happens. I also did not appreciate the way he seemed to exaggerate the story. Did you really, honestly fend off 200 "savages" using one as a shield, John Smith?

Winthrop, on the other hand, I found quite enjoyable. While many of the ideas he suggested for a "perfect" society are pretty far from possible, I could not help but appreciate his passion. He was far more humble than Smith and I found it very interesting the connections the two had, yet how different they really were.

We discussed in class how Smith's idea for the New World was a sort of "American Dream," where as Winthrop imagined it as a place to build a model society. It is like two ends of the spectrum, one representing capitalism and the other altruism. The two are complete opposites of one another and I think think both are difficult to achieve. However, if I had to chose, I think I would prefer to follow Winthrop's idea.

In a PERFECT world there would be a way to establish a middle ground between the two. But, of course, we don't live in a perfect world and rather we have to make the best with what we can.