Lily Bart - Serena Van der Woodsen

This little clip made me think of Lily in Grand Central

PAINT

There is no doubt that paint is a theme that splatters itself throughout the entire text of The Rise of Silas Lapham. Paint manifests itself in both the Lapham family and the Corey family dynamic, symbolically serving as a mask. In fact, when the concept paint is dissected it is used purely to alter something on the surface level. A canvas can change into a portrait, but ultimately the physical properties have not been altered. This notion of only touching the surface is very relevant in William Dean Howells' novel.

here are some examples:

"It'll prevent decay, and it;ll stop it, after it's begun, in tin or iron... You can cover a brick wall with it, or a railroad car, or the deck of a steam-boat, and you can't do a better thing for either" (12). 

"Lapham had not  yet reached the picture-buying stage of the rich man's development, but they decorated their house with the costliest and most abominble frescoes..." (25). 

"It was absurd for him to paint portraits for pay, and ridiculous to paint them for nothing; so he did not paint them at all" (70).

“You architects," he says to Mr. Seymour, Silas' architect, "and the musicians are the true and only artistic creators. All the rest of us, sculptors, painters, novelists, and tailors, deal with forms that we have before us; we try to imitate."'

"He asked Mr. Corey who was about the best American painter going now. 'I don't set up to be a judge of pictures, but i know what i like,' he said" (205). 

Going back to his roots...

William Dean Howells uses his protagonist Silas Lapham to personify how greed develops simultaneously when an individual is successful in a capitalistic society. The importance though of The Rise of Silas Lapham is that ultimately, his morality does not fail him because he was raised in a good family who valued hard work.

Within the first few pages of the novel, Howell’s stresses the importance of Silas’s childhood on the farm in Vermont. Silas describes his parents in the interview with Bartley, “I don’t know how she got through it. She didn’t seem to think it was anything; and I guess it was no more than my father expected of her. He worked like a horse in doors and out – up at daylight, feeding the stock, and groaning round all day with his rheumatism, but not stopping” (6).  The novel is set up to have a cycle of morality. The Laphams are tempted into a life of riches unlike they’ve known before when their paint business takes off. Silas cuts ties with his partner, against the wishes of his moral wife, because he fears that he will drain money from the company. The importance of Persis as a moral compass is so important because she never forgets how to make the right decision.

Greed is also depicted in the extravagant, new house that the Laphams build in Back Bay, or New Land.  Even though Silas doesn’t even admits that a proper, or societal acceptable, home can only be built with a huge financial investment because he does not have the taste to design the home on his own. Every idea he had of what displayed wealth was rejected by the architect, which further proves how out of place the Laphams were in the upper class Bostonian society. These repetitive hints that the Laphams belonged back at the farm with good, hardworking, family centered people illuminates the moral downfall of Silas. His greed and desire to fit an alternate world blinded him to the destruction he was creating for those around him.

Luckily for Silas, and the reader who has invested in his character, Howells creates a circle story. After the destruction of the paint business, the burning of their new house, the tragedy of their younger daughter’s broken heart, Howells brings the family back to their “roots” (A lovely image that Prof. Harrington pointed out in class). Silas saves his family from financial ruin and he converses with Minister Sewell to right all his misdoings. The ending is a bit unrealistic, but for me, just what I wanted to see happen! 

"The Other Half"

In How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis depicts the life of poor immigrants during the 19th century in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I found the photo journal aspect of his book to be the most compelling. He captured the horrible living situations and illuminated a population that was hidden from the rest of the world. While the style of writing was very information heavy and more journalistic than the Crane and Twain, the numbers did make the lives of the immigrants more real to me:

• "It could not have been very long, for already in 1862, ten years after it was finished, a sanitary official counted 146 cases of sickness in the court, including "all kinds of infectious disease," from small-pox down, and reported that of 138 children born in it in less than three years 61 had died, mostly before they were one year old." 

• "Ask Superintendent Murray, who, as captain of the Oak Street squad, in seven months secured convictions for theft, robbery, and murder aggregating no less than five hundred and thirty years of penal servitude, and he will tell you his opinion that the Fourth Ward, even in the last twenty years, has turned out more criminals than all the rest of the city together."

• "All nine lived in two rooms, one about ten feet square that served as parlor, bedroom, and eating-room, the other a small hall-room made into a kitchen."

I think that Riis wrote an extremely well written introduction. The first paragraph alone captures his audience and explicitly says what he will focus on in his book:  "Long ago it was said that "one half of the world does not know how the other half lives." ...There came a time when the discomfort and crowding below were so great, and the consequent upheavals so violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half fell to inquiring what was the matter." I think that sometimes in today's world, the media constantly flashes pictures of the "slums" or 3rd world countries without calling attention to the fact that it is real. To the comfortable, middle-class American all the issues seem so far away. We need another Riis to go into inner cities and capture what is going on now and put it on display the same way that Riis did. 

Here are a couple of his photos that really struck me: 

Hypergamy?

"His Royal Highness Sigismund-Siegfriend-Lauenfeld-Dinkelspiel-Schwartzenberg Blutwurst, Hereditary Grant Duke of Katzenyammer"(17).

Which wedding has the happier couple? 

In "The $30,000 Bequest," Twain introduces the concept of "marrying up" with the Foster family. Both Aleck and Sally become obsessed with their two daughters marrying the best quality, both financially and socially, in order to propel the family into the highest society possible. As they grow fictitiously wealthy, their notion of who is the best fit constantly changes. 

At first, Gwendolen and Clytemnestra, the two daughters, are expected to marry their family friends Adelbert and Hosannah, two journeymen right out of apprenticeship. I found it so interesting how important it was to the parents for their daughters not to settle for someone who wasn't financially thier equivalent or better. With today's divorce rates, I feel like parents are instead hoping for their children to find real love - someone who will make them happy. At the same time, when I was looking into the idea of "marrying up", I was shocked to see how much information was out their on the subject. My google search alone came up with over a million results. One informed me that hypergamy was the true term for "act of seeking a spouse of higher socioeconomic status." Another was titled "How to Marry Up" - this eHow.com article was very detailed and even had a Tips & Warnings section that said "When in doubt, keep your mouth shut." 

Even after doing a little research on the pathetic notion of "hypergamy" it is hard to look at these two wedding photos and not yearn to be Princess Diana. Her wealth, beauty (and ROYALTY) are so appealing, yet why do I want her life when I know the tragic end? Twain depicts moral decay in connection to wealth blatantly in this short story. His characters become obsessive, seclusive, and exclusive. Aleck is never described again as "Happy in her husband, happy in her children, and the husband and the children were happy in her" (1). I think that Twain's decision to let them restart at the end of the story is very interesting, especially because we do not know if they fall back into the same greedy ways. 

There is no doubt that financial security brings happiness, but when is the point when it leads to destruction? How much money does a family need to earn before it is ruined? 

A Shelter for Maggie

 Stephen Crane was a large proponent of the American realistic fiction movement. He explored the true, gritty and dirty life of the inhabitants of New York City in the late 19^th century. Even though he was a well-to-do child from New Jersey, he was compelled to depict the real lives of immigrants. I spent this past January interning at a child/adolescent shelter in my hometown. The vivid description of Maggie’s life once ousted from her family made me think of the many children today that find themselves defenseless and alone.

                       

Founded in 1978, Kids in Crisis was only a shelter for the teens of Greenwich, Connecticut. Over the last thirty-three years the organization has grown immensely. Now the shelter provides free, round-the-clock help for Fairfield County children, teens and parents. They also have a counselor on staff at all hours to help with interventions, family therapy, and short-term counseling for the children and teens at the shelters. In 1998 the shelter expanded to serve children newborn to age 12 with the Crisis Nursery located on the same property. This was an irreplaceable addition because now teen mothers can live right next to their children and siblings of mixed ages do not need to be separated.   These homes, complete with a fully staffed, professional medical clinic, provide therapeutic care for up to twenty children at any one time. In just last year alone, Kids in Crisis served 6,400 children last year.

Instead of having an opportunity to restart her life in a shelter like Kids in Crisis, Maggie was left to die. Alone she wanders the street and in her final appearance in the novel Crane describes a man following her in the night. “ Chuckling and leering, he followed the girl of the crimson legions. At their feet the river appeared a deathly black hue… The varied sounds of life, made joyous by distance and seeming unapproachableness, cam faintly and died away to a silence” (65).  Whether this man kills Maggie or she commits suicide out of despair is unclear, but either way there were not the support systems that there are today.

This text only reiterates the same conclusion I gathered after my experience at Kids in Crisis – shelters and other safe outlets are necessary for children without stable home environments and without these organizations many more children would be lost like Maggie was in this novella. 

Twain: Comedic or tragic?

One of the main questions I am left with after reading “The $30,000 Bequest” is whether Mark Twain was attempting comedy or tragedy? In class we discussed the dark aspects of his character Tilbury and the moral decay that occurs with wealth, but we also touched upon the comedic aspect of the role reversals and the juxtaposition of reality and fantasy.

           

After reading some of the other blog posts from our class, I stumbled upon Kelsey’s interpretation of the short story “The $30,000 Bequest”. She calls attention to the passage “all four of [the family’s] members had pet names, Saladin’s was a curious and unsexing one—Sally; and so was Electra’s—Aleck” (2). After only introducing the names of his protagonists, Twain effectively reverses the expected gender roles. This choice adds a comedic twist to the entire story. Sally, the feminine, infantile husband, is a laughable character, unable to see past his day-to-day actions and constantly yearning to spend beyond his means. Humor is also created in the interactions between Sally and Aleck, the responsible wife. Their banter reminded me much more of a mother and child than that of husband and wife.

Even though on the surface this short story is light hearted, especially when read in conjunction with Maggie: Girl of the Streets, in fact I think the opposite. The deeply negative undertones that run throughout this story depict both the weakness and the cruelty of human nature. Without ever inheriting any physical principal, the Foster family is brought to basic shambles in their fantastical life. Instead of being happy with their two beautiful daughters and stable life, Aleck and Sally become obsessed with upward mobility. In fact, there are extremely morbid moments in the text when the couple yearns for the death of another human being.

Ultimately, Tilsbery is the reason this short story is a tragedy. His character can easily be read as the devil, tempting the innocent Foster’s into sin. He knowingly passes down his fortune with the intent of destroying their lives, “Tilbury now wrote to Sally, saying he should shortly die, and should leave him thirty thousand dollars, cash; not for love, but because money had given him most of his troubles and exasperations, and he wished to place it where there was good hope that it would continue its malignant work” (2). He is an evil figure in this text and proves how money can alter one’s perspective. Even though the story ends with the Fosters getting a second chance, I believe that if they found money again their corruption would happen in a similar fashion. 

The Demonic Matriarch

                 Prof. Harrington made many references in class to the abominable female lead, Anne Ramsey, in the 1987 film Throw Momma from the Train. This woman is an abominable human, constantly screaming and ranting at her son, Danny Devito. While the mother in this film is so extreme that it is comical, the demonization of the matriarch is exceptionally clear, which connects the character directly to Mary Johnson, the mother in Maggie: A girl of the Streets and Other Short Fiction.

Both women do not play role of the nurturing maternal figure, but instead terrorize their family. Mary continually rampages through the tenement apartment, destroying both the furniture and her children's lives at one fell swoop. Crane describes an early scene,

                The wife put her immense hands on her hips and with a chieftain-like stride approached her husband.

                "Ho," she said, with a great grunt of contempt. "An' what in the devil ar you stickin' your nose for?"

                The babe crawled under the table and, turning, peered out cautiously. The ragged girl retreated and 

                the urchin in the corner drew his legs carefully beneath him (8).

Mary creates extreme fear in her children and the tragic scene progresses throughout the novella. Ultimately, she shames her daughter out of the house and her alcoholic nature turns her into the laughing stock of the tenement community. Mary is only able to forgive her daughter for slandering the family name as a fallen woman once she finds out that Maggie has died. Mary is a great example of moral and physical decay: she drinks constantly, fights with her husband and child, but yet she expects so much of her daughter. Her unrealistic expectations destroy her family. At the end of the novella, two of the Johnson children are dead, the only surviving son is becoming an alcoholic like his parents, and they are still trapped in the tenement life. The demonic matriarch is just one aspect of the hopeless life that Crane depicts in his realist novella.