02 Thursday Feb 3

Christine Grilliot, 2/3/11, wiki notes extra credit, Group 4: Chicago Our group decided to do the deconstruction of Chicago by Carl Sandburg. The thesis statement that we constructed was, “In Chicago, Carl Sandburg is arguing a contrast in his words as he describes the city as a horrible place while at the same time glorifying it.” In order to develop the deconstructionist ideas, we began by using binaries from structuralism. The binaries we found were: building/breaking, alive/dead, kill/pulse, pride/shame, tame/brawling, feminine/masculine, and innocent/wicked. Sandburg’s argument is flawed because he does not get anything across by the end of the poem since he is arguing both sides of a point. He uses repetition in the first and last paragraphs, beginning by shedding negative light by calling the city the “Hog Butcher of the World” (P85, L1). In the last paragraph he alters it to “proud to be Hog Butcher.” (P85, L36). Sandburg also personifies the city as a dog and then a fighter, which represents the masculine feel of the poem. The more feminine side of the poem is when Sandburg describes the women and children with their “wonton hunger” and the use of repetition with the diction “laughing.” I would argue these are feminine in that they give a lighter feel to the poem rather than the more intense and harsh feel that the personification incurs. The last point we used to support the contrast in the poem was his description of gunman “kill and go free to kill again” (L10) in opposition with sneering and lifting his head in pride at his city. It is jarring how he paints such an ugly picture of criminals right before describing his intense love of “his city.”

Anissa Felix 2/3/11 On Thursday’s class we discussed an overview of Modernist theory. The prominence of this theory occurs during the late 19th century to the early 20th century, when writers and theorists deviated from established rules, traditions, and conventions. Free verse became the popular poetic form. This new form included an irregular meter and line length and used natural speech rhythms. Secondly, we talked about the close-reading techniques we’ve been studying: Structuralism Post-Structuralism, and Psychoanalysis. We were to analyze an assigned poem and employ one of the techniques. Our group worked with Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” reading it with the Psychoanalytical theory filter. Focusing on Freud’s idea of the id, the unconscious desire, we found the speaker’s fixation with the desire for immortality and desire of life. She personifies the idea of death as a gentleman caller seducing her into his power. This uncovers her lust for the concept of death and dying. She repeats the word “passed” which can signify her secret obsession with moving on to the after-life, representing the super-ego. Another aspect of Psychoanalytical reading includes the “mirror-image”, when the speaker watches over her dead body; she separates herself from her corpse and her soul. She has made the distinction between the flesh and the existential spirit. Our group created a thesis regarding the psychoanalytic theory and the text: Emily Dickinson acknowledges the desire for immortality but has a respect for death.