The Road So Far

Reflecting on my journey through this class has been a an up and down,  but positive experience.  I honestly feel like my critical thinking skills have been more effective and vivid in my writing since the beginning of the fall.  Through the process of my journal writings, mailing letters, and going through the steps of writing essays,  I now understand more than I did when I began the class and that was my goal.

The process of me writing my essays was probably the more tougher part of the course,  but I also feel like it helped me the most.  When we read Our Town I could cope with it personally and really felt like I was one on one with it on another level.  The way the stage manager establishes that connection with the audience in the beginning.  The way people act in Grover’s Corners how they take the time out of their day to talk to each other and understand each other.  Just little things like in the book like the families taking their time and having discussions with the paperboy and the milkman,   or meeting in their front yards and catching up,   or walking to school together these things correlates to the title and what it truly means.  Like Mrs. Gibbs said “Tain’t natural to be lonesome.” (54).  Wilder emphasizes how love can epitomize human creativity and achievement in the face of the inevitable,   which is called time.  Mrs. Soames says in the end of Act two “Aren’t they a lovely couple?…..I’m sure they’ll be happy.  I always say: happiness,  that’s the great thing!  The important thing is to be happy.”

Through these past few months of writing that book has affected me the most.  I never was much of a reader,  or a writer then neither am I a great one now,  but I can say that I slowly started to develop my ways of thinking more critically when it comes to writing.  

Wilder, Thornton.  Our Town. 1938. Harper Perennial, 2003.

 

Annotated Bibliography

 

Larson, Erik.  The Devil in the White City.  Vintage, 2004.

 

The Devil in the White City is a book about the years around the time the building of the 1893 World’s fair in Chicago.  The book goes to two plotlines one to a man named Daniel Burnham who builds the fair and the other H.H. Holmes,  a serial killer,  who uses the fair to his advantage by finding his victims.

 

Lucas, Jane.  Window-Dressing History.  September 27. 2017.

In Lucas’s WIndow-Dressing History she talks about how Whitehead uses Cora and other characters,  even though the book is fiction, it is used to show the truth behind the book and that of what went on at that time.  Whitehead uses the advertisements for example.  Even though it is fiction,  this book evokes the legacies of slavery that remain.

 

Lucas, Jane.  Through a Glass Darkly: Girl at the Mirror and Grover’s Corners.  November 20, 2017.

In Lucas’s Through a Glass Darkly she refers to the play Our Town in the scene where Emily asks her mother is she is pretty or not.  As Lucas refers to the painting by Rockwell,  Girl at the Mirror,  she begins to explain what the picture resembles.  She puts that notion of the awkward phase between childhood and adulthood.  

Makant, Jordan.  “Thought Twice; It’s Not Alright.” Impossible Angles.  Main Street Rage, 2017. 18.

Makant is expressing here that Dylan has regretted what he has done and that he is lying about being fine,  knowing that he will want her back.  Makant is expressing how you do not know how much you love something until you let it go.

 

Schreck,  Heidi.  Creature.  Samuel French, 2011.

In this play Margery Kempe,  a mother, the mayor’s daughter,  and high up in the beer business,  finds herself at a test of faith.  After she bares a child she starts to see visions of Jesus and the Devil.  With a little bit of comedy and twist of horror this book gives it all.  

 

Wilder, Thornton.  Our Town. 1938. Harper Perennial, 2003.

In this play,  Wilder gives us a point of view like no other.  This great American play,  touches the soul like a miracle.  It teaches us to achieve thanks for our remaining days on earth.  This town in Grover’s Corners can and will put a blessing in your life,  if you’ll let it.

 

Whitehead,  Colson.  The Underground Railroad.  2016.

In this action-packed thriller about a runaway slave named Cora,  Whitehead brings us to the reality of the horrors and devastation of what went on during the time of slavery.  As you read this book prepare to be on the edge of your seat and also have a tissue at hand for this up and down roller coaster thrill ride of escape.  

Our Town Is Your Town

 

In the play Our Town Wilder uses imagery like you’ve never seen before.  He has us off of our feet and on the edge of our seat begging for more at the mystery of the of the stage manager,  before he even begins to speak.  When or if you ever go to this play you must not just see with your eyes or hear with ears,  it is bigger than that.  You must feel it all in your heart,  let it touch your soul.  Then you can truly understand the full meaning of the play.

In Act 1,  right before the stage manager starts to speak it says “when the auditorium is in complete darkness he speaks”(3)  that is meaning that the audience has to listen with their ears and create that sense of imagery in their heads as the stage manager starts to speak.  Within the first six or seven pages of Act 1,  we have the stage manager explaining to us and giving us a feel of the town.  Another use of where Wilder achieves imagery is where he says “She pulls an imaginary window shade in her kitchen….sets down his -imaginary-black bag…”(7) again Wilder is giving us no choice but to use our minds and let the words of the play build Our Town.

In conclusion, Our Town like Margulies said,  in his foreword,  could possibly be the great American play.  Wilder knew that this play was different,  he knew it was unconventional,  but that is what made this play so great was that Wilder knew.  The imagery,  the difference,  he uses in this play are incredibly hard to grasp if you do not pay attention.  You have to have the ability to take control of your mind and heart to fully capture the beauty of this play.

 

Marguiles,  Donald.  Foreword.  Our Town by Thornton Wilder.  Harper Perennial,  2003,  pp. Xi-xx

Wilder, Thornton.  Our Town, 1938. Harper Perennial, 2003.

The Devil Within Us

 

 

In this book “The Devil In the White City”  in chapter one Larson uses a word,   the word to describe the city of Chicago,   “disappear.”  “ It was so easy to disappear,  so easy to deny knowledge,  so very easy in the smoke and dim to mask that something dark had taken root.” (12)  The word “disappear” is foreshadowing later events that happen along in this book.  

In this time,  Larson describes chicago as a place where you could easily go missing and     disappear forever.  “Women and men vanished in equal proportion.”(102)  In the first six months there were eight hundred violent deaths in the city.   There were on average four deaths in the city a day.  Men shooting women, women shooting men,  kids killing kids on accident.   Fires took dozens of life’s a day, horses carriages running into crowds.  There were deaths from robbery,  argument,  sexual jealousy,  no matter what you do,   or who you were nobody would know if you had fallen from accident,  disease,  or even murder.  The boundary between morality and wickedness is gone at this point.  People voting for divorce, and free love,  kids killing their parents over disagreements.  The madness continues to go on and on within the city.   Then a man stepped off a train who would end up being a man that would complete this city of horror,  a man named Dr. Henry Howard Holmes.   The American serial killer would be the one who would complete the word “disappear.”   Mr.  H.H. Holmes and his ability to disappear and vanish at any time was miraculous.  So easy to do,  in a time of despair, wrath, and the obliviousness of the city of Chicago and what it brought to its people.  

The theme of this part of the book and really the whole book would be evil,  and dark,  and wicked.  The seriousness of this book and the things that happened were all evil and H.H. Holmes was dangerous.  When you have a madman serial killer running around and you could disappear at any second is scary to think about.  To never be heard of again,  to just be a flash of light in this big world and gone forever.  

 

Work Cited

Larsen, Erik. The Devil in the White City, vintage, 2004

Creature: The Devil in Disguise

 

In the play Creature a woman named Margery Kempe,  sees visions of Jesus and also of the devil and no one knows whether she is faking it or not.  In scene fourteen when Jacob and Margery are in St. Margaret’s church, the devil Asmodeus,  which is playing as Jacob to trick Margery into confessing her sins to him.  The reason I think that the devil is playing as Jacob is because all of a sudden his tone of voice changed.  On page (64) Jacob says “I would cut my heart out of my chest and put it on a plate for you…”  And then also on page (65) after Margery kisses Jacob he says “I wonder if they’ll use greenwood to burn you?”  He says that very meaningfully like to hurt and cut her deep because Asmodeus wants her dead.  Margery thinks that she has been receiving visions and praying to God,  but when really she has been praying to the devil and giving him everything he wants.  In Saltz review of Creature says “wears white though she’s not a virgin,  calls attention to herself… not to a good idea….heresy witchcraft…can get you burned at the stake.”  Margery is trying to be this saint but she is being a hypocrite and the devil has a hold on her.  She is tricked into this mindset by the devil that she is some holy saint.  

 

Shrek, Heidi. Creature.  Samuel French, 2011
Saltz, Rachel.  “Faith and the Tempted Woman of a Certain middle Age “The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com, 5, Nov. 2009,  Accessed 18 Sept.2017

Love of the Game

My name is Thomas Mullinax.  I am a student at Lenoir-Rhyne University.  I also play baseball at Lenoir-Rhyne.  The love of the game started for me when I threw my first ball at six months old.

I finally understood the game of baseball around six or seven years old.   Ever since then I wanted to play the game and if i wasn’t playing the game I was watching or talking about it.  In my life, I surround my life around the game of baseball, I give 110% effort everyday and try my best.  One day if I ever lose my mind, I pray that I never lose the love of the game!

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