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An Epigraph is a quote or phrase that is presented at the beginning of a new chapter in literature. In the case of the novel “The Last of the Mohicans,” Cooper uses quotes from what for him was old literature and quotations, (which for us is doubly as old.) For example, the most recent Epigraph that I read was from the Iliad which was written in the 8th century, BC. The Epigraph for chapter one is by Shakespeare, and states as follows ““Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared: The worst is wordly loss thou canst unfold:— Say, is my kingdom lost?”—Shakespeare.” (Many of the epigraphs are from Shakespeare, at least 5 so far in my readings.) Cooper spends the entirety of Chapter One discussing the situation of the two emperors fighting over the Eastern Sea Board of N. America. “Say, is my kingdom lost?” Cooper uses this quote to foreshadow the topic of the upcoming chapter. I like it when authors use Epigraphs, as they add and additional layer of background to each chapter, in the case of this novel, it adds to the historical depth of the plot. Any book that can connect well to historical philosophies and stories immediately improves its own story and contextual elements.

Within this time period of the Civil War in Cold Mountain, I noticed a similarity of their situation and ours in present time. Although people are not fighting and killing on purpose there is instead a deadly virus, and there is still a sense of loss of lives that both points in time along with the loss of past lives. During the Civil War, people were afraid to leave their town in fear of getting caught in the middle of a war and now people can’t leave their homes for a different reason out of their control. In the midst of catastrophes like these, we can begin to fear the future. Ada and Ruby explore this idea after hearing of an unlucky and deadly run in with the Home Guard: “the world might better be viewed as such a place of threat and fear that the only consonant attitude one could maintain was gloom, or whether one should strive for light and cheer even though a dark-fisted hand seemed poised ready to strike at any moment” (149). It is easy to fall into a constant state of worry and negativity within such a time of uncertainty but there is also the option to live on in hope of better times. You just need to take on one day at a time: “[Inman] had long since decided there was little usefulness in speculating much on what a day will bring. It led a person to the equal error of being either dreadful or hopeful. Neither in his experience served to ease your mind” (213). There is no reason to dwell on one mistake or unfortunate experience because life will carry on and better times will come so sometimes it is better to let life be thrown at you while you’re ready.

In the novel The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, a fiesta takes place as the main characters watch three professional bull fighters compete in their last day of fighting. Romero is a younger talented bull fighter on the upcoming; Marcial is seasoned bullfighter, he is good, but not great, and Belmonte had just recently come out of retirement to compete against Marcial in what is assumed to be one of his last bull-fights. Although, Belmonte’s return to glory was over shadowed by the incredibly high expectations of the crowd: “the public were disappointed because no real man could work as close to the bulls as Belmonte was supposed to have done, not, of course, even Belmonte” (217). The crowd wants to feel the same captivating fight as they did when Belmonte first started out, however, now that they know how he fights the crowd has moved onto cheering for someone else. Romero a young bull-fighter is now the favorite as he is carried out on the shoulders of the crowd after he wins his fight against the bull. Belmonte was no longer the fan favorite and Hemingway acknowledges this: “He no longer had his greatest moments in the bull-ring. He had flashes of the old greatness with his bulls. Pedro Romero had the greatness” (218). Belmonte is having to swallow the hard pill that he has been replaced. Belmonte is similar to Ed Tom Bell because they both are clinging onto what once was. They are now in the position to be replaced and as a way to easy the pain they both recount the days where they were still vital to their operation. They both feel that there line of work is now a younger man’s game and they should set aside, o matter how hard that is to do.

My choice novel, “The Good Earth”, takes place during the modernization of China during the 1930s. The time before this though, was a very ruthless economic and social environment to grow up in. The 19th century was very trying times for China, with its political institution in shambles and no new use of modernized technologies or any form of economic growth, the Chinese people continually suffered. Peasants and other workers were stripped off their livelihood and crops by the landowners leaving nothing for them to sustain their life. This is prominently seen in my book when Wang Lung and his family are on the brink of loosing their land, starving and struggling to find sufficient food to feed their family.

The social culture of China began to turn when the communist revolution took place which focused on “class conflict, state ownership and management of the economy, and substantial dose of ideological orthodoxy.” This revolution did not happen without its fair share of difficulties though, there were several decades of disagreements and fights between supporters and offenders. Communism in China was the reformation of the country as a whole. Over the next few decades, there were still more arguments about how China should be led and run. With westerns trying to get involved in the Opium sales, it forced China to open its doors more to outsiders.

Throughout this book, you can see the social cultural struggles that this family has to face on a daily basis. The poor begin to steal from the wealthy once the economy starts to decline and the lower class is hit far more worse than the upper class yet, the struggles that China experienced impacted everyone greatly.

Little, Dan. “Chinese Modernization c. 1930.” Chinese Modernization c. 1930, 1 Jan. 1970, understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2017/07/chinese-modernization-c-1930.html.

In these great american novels there always seems to be a reoccuring theme. In my last blog post, as a matter of fact, I talked about another reoccurring theme, the American Dream. The American dream was in three of the books we read so I felt it was really important to include that in one of my blogs. Something I noticed in the Jungle is that one of the themes in the book is extremely similar to a theme in the Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck. When reading grapes of wrath, the Joad family undergoes a lot of obstacles and most of the joads fight through them together and work really well as a family. The one problem is when the going gets tough, some of these members of the family drop out and run away, meaning they can’t handle these difficulties. Just like the characters in Grapes of Wrath, Jonas, one of the characters in The Jungle, was close with Jurgis and the family until Jurgis sprained his ankle. It’s not like he stopped liking Jurgis after that he just was unable to tolerate the misery, so he disappeared and left the family. The pay wasn’t great and the working conditions were terrible as well and a lot of people were getting sick so he decided to run away. It relates because as I mentioned earlier with the Grapes of Wrath, when the going gets tough some peoples main option is to just run away and to never be seen again. That’s exactly what they did and that’s exactly what Jonas did, he couldn’t handle it.

In Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy shares his vision of the vast and dry desert frontier of the Southwestern United States. He depicts it as a chaotic and violent land where the rule of law is merely a suggestion, and a suggestion that is rarely followed at that. The only true law in this land is nature’s law of eat or be eaten. The examples of this law being put into action are plentiful in Blood Meridian, as actions that most people in our current society would consider excessively, and often horrifyingly, cruel seem to be commonplace on the frontier. There are no exceptions to nature’s fundamental law either. Every single character on the frontier is affected in some way by this struggle for survival. By far, the most common response to this struggle is violence, which can be seen especially in Glanton’s gang. Not only does the gang essentially act as a death squad for hire by hunting people and taking their scalps for bounty, but there is also intense infighting. The two Jacksons exemplify the infighting through their constant bickering and insulting of each other; eventually one of the Jacksons kills the other. When this happens, the rest of the gang hardly even reacts and continues on as if the second Jackson had never even been with them. I believe that Cormac McCarthy wrote Blood Meridian as a way to explore nature’s law and how it still very much applies to humanity. Essentially, McCarthy shows how in the absence of manmade law, nature’s law prevails.

Francie Nolan used to write about beautiful things but since her father’s death, she has started to write about him, his alcoholism, their poverty, and hunger for a better life. These stories were her way of trying to show that “in spite of his shortcomings, he had been a good father and a kindly man” (p. 321). Francie’s teacher, Miss Garnder, tells her to start writing about different subjects for her class compositions. She questions Francie about the change in her writing and tells her that the subjects of “poverty, starvation, and drunkenness are ugly subjects to choose. We all admit these things exist. But one doesn’t write about them” (p. 321). She continues with, “the writer, like the artist, must strive for beauty always” (p. 321). This made me wonder about what the purpose of a writer is and what obligation to certain topics they have. Is Miss Garnder right that writers should only strive for beauty or is shedding light on the misfortunes of life important? This is a question about what the purpose of art is, an expression of the human condition or beauty alone. But Miss Garnder continues and quotes Keats when she says “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” (p. 321) Francie questions this as well and points out that the things she writes about, although not beautiful in Miss Garnder’s sense, are the truth. But Miss Garnder says they aren’t and that truth is only the more poetic things like the stars, the sunrise, and the birds. Miss Garnder seems to have a flawed definition of truth, or at least a specific and solely poetic one. Overall, this whole exchange between Francie and Miss Garnder leads the reader to think deeply about the obligations that writers have to the greater world.

In Jack London’s The Call of The Wild. The main dog Buck is saved from three incredibly abusive owners, Hal, Charles and Mercedes, by a man named John Thornton. Buck was starved and beaten, and Johns ends up healing Buck back to health. They form an incredibly close bond. Buck ends up thinking “This man has saved his life, which was something; but further, he was the ideal master.” (Pg.61).  Buck had very little respect for his previous driver, Hal. Yet the fact that not only John is a skilled driver and treats his dogs right gains a mutual respect between the two.

There is also Buck’s more primitive side that begins to show through after an encounter with a wolf. John decides to take a trip to find a legendary mine, they live off the land and while their Buck meets a wolf. The wolf and him merely sniff each other and go on their ways. This sparks a wilder side in Buck. “The blood-longing became stronger than ever.” (Pg.79). Buck begins to hunt more and more for his own food and begins to stay away from the camp for longer periods of time. Yet he always comes back to John and the team.

Buck has two sides in The Call of The Wild. One is a wild side, one resulting from being forced into the wild. Being starved and beaten, and needing to fight to survive. The other side is dog-like. He likes the affection he receives from John. He likes being treated well. Buck is the result of receiving the call of the wild. 

Upon the killings of the androids Garland and Luba Luft by Phil Ressler, Rick wonders to himself how Phil is able to dispatch them so easily, seemingly without a second thought. At first, partially due to the fact that Garland had told him Phil was an Andy, that this is the explanation for his cold-blooded approach towards bounty hun ting. However, once Rick tests him and determines that Phil is in fact not an Android, Rick begins to doubt his own feelings. Rick does have a base level of sympathy for the Andys, which he can’t explain, and which is proven when he takes the Voigt-Kampff (empathy) test on himself. Despite Phil discrediting his empathy as simple physical attraction towards Luba Luft, Rick knows that this is untrue. Rick begins to doubt himself, wondering if he is a capable and qualified bounty hunter, and if there is something wrong with him.

Rick’s qualms about his ability to effectively complete his job underly a myriad of very important and real philosophical questions. Do the Andys merit empathy from humans, or in other words, should humans care when they die? Let’s say the answer for the Nexus 6 Androids is no. Why exactly is that, and is there a point to which the Androids have become so humanlike that they become treated as humans? All of this boils down to what makes a human a human. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I expect them to be explored further as I finish the story. Furthermore, these are questions that must be answered in our real world. With an assumption of continuous progress, we will reach a point where we are capable of creating androids similar to those in this novel, and it’s imperative we determine how best to deal with them when the time comes.

“They’ll be bombing a tiny undefended village, reducing the whole community to rubble. I have it from Wintergreen – Wintergreen’s an ex-sergeant now, by the way -that the mission is entirely unnecessary. Its only purpose is to delay German reinforcements at a time when we aren’t even planning an offensive.”

Catch 22 gets dark later on in the novel. The above quote details the mission that Yossarian and the 256th squadron are assigned to do. Obviously, Yossarian, Major Dunbar, and others push against these orders but to no avail.

The mission from many different angles is a Catch-22- a situation where there is no positive outcome no matter what choices are made. It is a Cath-22 in multiple ways. Firstly, it is a Catch-22 from a military strategic dimension. Yossarian produces the idea of dropping leaflets to the Italian villagers ordering them to evacuate before the bombing. But Major Danby states that the Germans might find out and choose another road. There is no good option. From a moral perspective, the bombardiers, including Yossarian and Dunbar have the choice of either bombing the village and potentially killing innocent people, or disobeying command and facing the consequences. There is no good option.

Dunbar offers other ideas to the commanding officer, Colonel Korn, but is cruelly shot down every time.

“Dunbar turned crimson with embarrassment and replied in a voice that was suddenly defensive. ‘Why can’t we create the roadblock somewhere else? Couldn’t we bomb the slope of a mountain or the road itself?’

‘Would you rather go back to Bologna?’ [said Colonel Korn] The question, asked quietly, rang out like a shot and created a silence in the room that was awkward and menacing.”

For reference, Bologna is an active battlefront that none of the men wish to return to.

From earlier chapters, it can be inferred that the commanders of the 256th squadron care little for their men, but now with their gung-ho resolve to bomb the defenseless village, it seems as though they do value anyone’s life besides their own.