Sissy vs. Little Lord Fauntleroy

We have learned a few general things about good American boys from our readings. We know that they work hard, that they often get dirty, that they are smart and that they lean towards an independence in their personalities most of the time, which we do not see in their female counterparts. We also know that most of the time religious overtones are absent and that ambition is always prevalent in stories when boys are in the main character role. One of the main purposes of a boy working hard and earning money, is to one day become a man and work hard and hopefully make more money, enough for a family. I think it is also important to note that boys are allowed imperfections. We know that both Ragged Dick and Tom Sawyer get dirty and tell little lies. The most clear unifying factor of all the stories we have read though is that all the boys in these stories have ambition.

When we compare Cedric from Little Lord Fauntleroy to Sissy we see some stark differences. I feel as though Sissy, though good at girl and woman like things like sewing and picking out the perfect color ribbon to match someones eyes (p. 547 and 548) is still described as a young boy- distinctly masculine. The scene where he washes Margie shows his brute strength even for a youngster. As well as the scene when he finally finds her again and hugs her, "Stop Willie; you love me too hard." (p. 559) Another factor is his infatuation with Margie, I would interpret this as his first crush, that is first and most innocent love.

Cedric wins people over with his brilliance and charm. He is able to give people a real comfort but as far as being able to do a woman's work, or even a mans work like Ragged Dick had to do, he is not accustomed to it. Also, the beauty that we see in Cedric we typically only see in girls. We might find many a handsome boy, but it seems like the beauty as well as gentleness is easily seen with Cedric. "She was proud of his graceful, strong little body and his pretty little manners..." (p.448) I think calling a man beautiful or a boy could be a very worthy adjective, but when the word pretty starts to be used we move away from the idea that the same person can be tough in a real 19th century style. Personally if I had to hang with one of these guy's I'd choose Sissy because he seems way more down to earth.

The Luck of Roaring Camp

At the very beginning of the semester after reading The Wide Wide World I was pretty certain that it was arguably the saddest part of a book I ever read. Well, The Luck of Roaring Camp beat it in that case. I found this story especially tragic because the story was giving the readers hope and optimism about the uncertainty of life, a feeling that 'everything will be okay' however the last paragraph of the story ripped that feeling away almost viciously.

We are introduced to this group of ragged men who it seems became out of touch with the true beauty in life. It said specifically in the text on page 532 "they didn't want and more of the other kind" referring to women. If we keep in mind an idea that women tend to see the beauty in life and these men have been without women for sometime that therefore, these men have lost all care for beauty. It is only when they see the new perfect child with 10 fingers and toes that it occurs to them to find nice things for the baby. Upon finding these little nice natural objects like the beauty in flowers or an especially nice day, it changes their perspective and finally they can see an appreciate the little things in life the way all people have at one time or another.

The only possible hope is that these men move on (which they probably will since they have all lived such hard lives anyway) from the death of there communal son, and continue to see the good in the world and the beauty.

Reading Habits!

When I read an excerpt from a novel, it is very fun to try and pick up on the very subtle clues the author puts in the story. The development of the characters happens over a longer period of time so I feel that when a major shift in there life happens we can feel extra happy or in some cases very bad for them. In other words, it is almost as if we can empathize with the characters whenever they are developed over a long period of time.

Short stories take symbolism and use it to its fullest I think. By the time we are done reading a short story we spend more time trying to figure out what it meant than we do for a novel or a part of novel. There are more questions that come about in short stories, fundamental, basic questions like "has the narrator been dead this whole time?" or "who were Desiree's parents/ why was she purposely left behind?"

I think good short stories usually make us ask ourselves more questions than provide answers. It also seems to me, a novel provides a few answers to various problems in life, showing how particular characters overcome or at least deal with them. For example in both The Lamplighterand The Wide Wide World the authors both spent a great deal of time developing the father and mother figures to the readers, respectively. In particular we can see that the bible scene in The Wide Wide World takes roughly six pages. Keeping this in mind if we compare it to Desiree's Baby with a total length of five pages, and the types of questions we had to ask ourselves when we were done reading both, we can really understand the different ways each make us think.