Stubborn, Thick or Practical

I took the reading of The Revolt of "Mother" in a historical context. In the times of this story (1890's) everyone in a family had a role, for good or bad, everyone played a role. The head of the house is the father, he made the decisions for the family, he is the one responsible to the family making sure there were enough food in the house, made sure the house is repaired and brought in the money to make sure the family is taken care of. The wife's role is to take care of the house, kids and make no decisions on her own. At this time the animals were very valuable to the work that the husband had to do. Back then there was no talking about what to do in the family environment as there is today. The son follows the father and takes up a male role and like wise is the same for the daughter and the mom. They all had a place in the family. As for the father and his house, in those days the men are somewhat satisified with what they have, they aren't out for riches (I think), they just make due with what they have. See in the 1890's the people are still recovering from the Civil War and they are still trying to make a living the best way they can, and so if you have a house that doesn't leak, is liveable and not falling apart you make due, because not everyone has what you may have.
Granted the mother is fed up with the living conditions (the house), and since the animals were living better than they were I can see her point. On their wedding day fourty years ago, the father did promise her a new house and didn't keep his promise. I can't really agree with what she did but I understand why she did it and in the end so did the father.
In terms of today this wouldn't happen. Everything is supposed to be equal, but is it really. In some families the roles are reversed and the men stay at home and the women work, the men take care of the household chores and kids, not a bad idea really.
As for the stop fool aspect of it, the father shouldn't have left, big mistake on his part, he should have made due with the horse he had. The son or the field hand should have had his back, but they didn't. They let the mother run the roost so to speak, not a bad idea in the end, she got what she wanted finally and the father had to swallow his pride. As for me, I wouldn't have left until the hay was in the barn and the cow's came home.

War Week

Natalie M. Houston's article is mainly about the Crimean War, there are some simularities in both the Civil War and Crimean War. To place these wars into some context, this is the first time in history that people, I mean civilians, non-military types, have been able to see soldiers out in the open field. Most people would not have the stomach to see just what battle is all about, so they (the photographers) would take pictures in the forms of staged shots. They didn't have the materials in which to take pictures of the action and movement, they would just blur. As Jennifer Green Lewis notes, "The pictures are, without execption, invested with a sense of physical well-being and, indeed, order that belies the suffering and destruction of this (or any) war". This statement is really at the core of the pictures. However, the pictures of the Civil War do in fact show that war is and evil place to be in, and in some instances show that soldiers do die in war as some of the images show, now how many of those images finally made it to the paper or magizine I cannot be sure but it would more than what the reader in England would see. TheVictorian reader in England wanted there pictures to be warm and fussy, they didnt want to see the face of war they just wanted to know that their soldiers were in fact doing their duty, and for that they relied on the captions that went along with the pictures. " These images only obliquelyrepresent the labor of war by recording its pleasurable lulls. By focusing on the officers and portraying them in this stylized manner, the real hardships faced by the troops are minimized". Doing a staged picture in this way doesn't show how hard life is for the soldier on the front line, something that the Queen didn't want the public to see or know about. In this way the Queen could control the opinions of the public, if the real picutes came out the public outcry could have stopped the war or at the very least would have made the Crimean War so unpopular that she, (the Queen) would have to order a stop to it.
The amazing part of this article is that Houston made the assertion that these pictures were made as a or "functioned as souvenirs. This is an aspect that I hadn't thought about before. In some ways I do agree with her in that aspect. At the top of this page, the gentleman on the right side of the picture is that of Capt. George Armstrong Custer, now looking at him sitting in the saddle, his back is arched and not in a comfortable way, now I have ridden a horse before and the way that he is sitting is not a functionable way to sit atop a horse. The contention is that these pictures were made more for the souvenirs aspect of the wars rather than of the historical aspect of the time in which they were made. Nowdays they are a part of history.

extra credit

"Here in not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations. Here is action untied from strings necessarily blind to particulars and details magnificently moving in vast masses". Whitman had it right even in his day, we are a nation of nations. America is a melting pot of the world, no where else in the world can you find such a diverse range of people. We take the huddled masses when they untie the strings of their former nations to become Americans. In Whitmans time there was a mass entrance into the US, from europe they came in droves to escape a potatoe famine as with the irish, or from part far and wide they came. In our own time the vietnamese came, in boats, in planes they came. None really caring what the particulars or details are just that they wanted out of where they were and trying to a better life, after all in their eyes America's streets are paved with gold.

Whitman Post

First of all I must admit my ignorance in that I didn't know that it was a Whitman poem. Now having said that I don't believe that Levi has in any way distorted any of the Whitman poem, if anything it inhanced it...Levi did in fact made a corrleation between the both. Look Levi jeans have been around longer than the poem. The were the pioneers of the jean industry. They were the first of the rugged paints of the working man. Whitman himself, at first glance, was a pioneer of the work that he did and if you look at him he is also a very rugged man. If Levi had conveyed that more, in other words made it known that it was Whitman's voice and poem, then the public maybe would have understood it more, and also the message that Levi was trying to give out.

I had seen the ad's before, and I for one just change the channel when any comericals come on, that is why I have a remote. I had on the occacion been subject to the commericals and at first was not sure why or how anything related to the selling of the jeans, and frankly I still don't see the relationship between the subject matter and the selling of the jeans.

I think that McCracken's claim may have more truth in it than anyone will admit to. Look, most of the public are just like I am when it comes to poetry, mostly ignorant to it. Some is taught in school but not enough to be remembered. But advertisers are out there in the public domain, TV. Everyone that I know has a set. Most have cable or satalite link and are therefore exposed more to TV than they are to litature. TV is available to the masses just as the poets of the past had the masses. People back then had noTV and so were exposed to poetry more than they are now. Its just a sign of the times. In the past, life was more laid back, more down to earth, people cared about one another more so than they do now; nowdays it is fast money, fast people, fast sex, and faster cars and no one cares about anyone but themselves.