Response to #8

Bartleby's actions can be understood as subversive due to the fact they can be categorized as passive resistant sentiments. However Bartleby is devoid of an objective, his passive resistance is not linked to any ultimate cause or conviction. Also when Bartleby says "I would prefer not to," he never says i won't or will not he his not definitive and final in his refusal even though the lawyer takes him as being so. Bartleby excersices refusal or resistance in an agreeable fashion making his actions not overtly subversive.

Response #5

The fact that Bartleby refuses to copy the manuscripts shows how he is deliberately braking the mold on what society wants to do. By law, it is mandatory that a Scrivener review the manuscripts that he is copying and because Bartelby does not comply with the "system" demonstrates how he refusing to conform on his predetermined obligations. Bartleby is taking a stance by engaging is passive resistance, a technique used by the great pacifists ranging from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Ghandi in order to prove his point that he will no longer comply of what has been placed on him. By not interacting and repeating the phrase "I prefer not to", Bartleby cunningly and tactfully disarms any argument that the lawyer could try and use. As a result, the lawyer goes through a range of emotion from range to pity to understanding due to the frustration that Bartleby's response stirs up. Bartleby also refuses to give any personal information such as his place birth just to illustrate how he is completely shut off and will not comply, even with the simplest of questions.

#7 Resp. BARTLEBY and the LAWYER

I wonder to what degree the Lawyer played a part in the deterioration of Bartleby. I know the question requires that I examine Batleby's role in the Lawyer's developement, but I feel that the two are too closely related to be evaluated separately. One would think that the Lawyer's disposotion worsens as a result of Bartleby's presence, but in m view the Lawyer's character is enriched by Bartleby's deterioration in so much as the Lawyer is allowed to feel like he's fulfilling his charity quota by putting up with B. By nursing Bartelby's passive aggressiveness he gets to feel like he's being the better man and asserting good christian values of patience. Meanwhile, Bartleby has no one to answer to and slips away. Though I feel that Bartleby would have done this regardless of the Lawyer's actions, which is what makes the nature of their relationship so baffling.

The effects of Bartleby on the Narrator

The narrator puts up with a lot of unnecessary Bartleby, even though he is not very beneficial to him. He sees a lot of himself in Bartleby, which in a way gives him so much slack to pity him. It seems that he finds Bartleby mysterious and suspenseful, in a way; he never knows what he will say or do, as though he can never catch on to him. It's something about Bartleby that rocks our narrator's guilt. Though not to normally pity like so, he can't seem to let go of his pity for Bartleby. The guilt of letting Bartleby go to the deep dark streets would be too much for him to handle. His guilt would wallow in his stomach until death. So he keeps Bartleby around anyway.

Bartleby Question 17

I felt that Bartleby's character does not change over the course of the story. This is because he always remains in the same attitude and always says the same things. The reader never gets to go inside of his head, and therefore we do not know what he is thinking- if he changes mentally. All the reader sees is Bartleby's actions which remain constant throughout the entire story- he always stands and stares idily, and does not seem to change in his habits at all. It seems though, that Bartleby was key in helping the story to move along, because he brought change into the story. He brings change to the story by disrupting the main character's daily office routines, and the main character's way of thinking. I think that Bartleby showed us a new side of the main character. This was done by the main character;s life being disrupted by Bartleby's strangeness, and in the end, feeling a sort of attachment to Bartleby, which wouldn't have been shown from his other employees because he was used to them.

Narrator's Religious Experience

The question of what to do with Bartleby becomes too much for the narrator to think of on his own. Using simple logic could not explain Bartleby's "unreasonableness" so the narrator looked to religion to justify his unexplained attraction to Bartleby. The narrator takes it into his head that Bartleby was placed in his care "for some mysterious purpose of an all-wise Providence" and that he as a "mere mortal" should provide for Bartleby and see to all his basic needs without question. When Bartleby quit even basic duties in the office he took on an almost saintly role. He served no function, but to remind the narrator to be charitable and to use his position to help those in need.

Wall Street, or The Economics of Personality: Question Number 1

Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” is told from the perspective of a Wall Street lawyer, a pious man who believes that the generosity he gives to his employees is in their best interest. The lawyer describes himself as someone who chooses to do whatever is easiest in order to live without any complications:

I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in the cool tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men’s bonds and mortgages and title-deeds. (Melville)

What he does not notice is that in choosing to not do anything, he is just as bad as someone who will do anything to solve a problem. In fact, his proclivity towards inactivity is exactly the same as Bartleby, a man whose maxim is “I prefer not.” I believe that Melville chose to have the unnamed lawyer as the narrator of “Bartleby” to act as a sort-of reverse foil to Bartleby, showing that in the world of Wall Street there is no right. The lawyer proves to be a contradiction to himself, although he is very religious and believes in giving alms and helping the needy, when faced against Bartleby his final reaction is to run away, paying people to do what he cannot.

The character of Bartleby in Herman Melville’s novella of the same name is, in a word, peculiar. His oddest trait, however, is not his chain-like attachment to his office, his silence, or the fact that he seems to be living in the said office on Wall Street. No, the most bizarre aspect of his character manifests itself five words: “I would prefer not to.” When his employer asks him to do a task—make a copy, join a meeting—instead of obliging without hesitancy as any other employee wanting to keep his job would surely do, he simply responds with those five words. Obviously this reply harrows and intrigues his boss as well as the reader. His boss seems to be so surprised that he misses the real message of Bartleby’s words. He is not doing any more than simply stating that he would not like to comply with the request of his boss. He is, quite frankly, just being honest. Most workers would prefer not to do many of the tasks that their jobs require, but they do them anyway because the benefits of the job are more important than always enjoying oneself. But because employees rarely, if ever, voice these feelings, the reaction of Bartleby’s boss is quite understandable. Any negative comment at all is a refusal to him. He tries to persuade Bartleby with authority and with logic; he even asks him pointedly, “Why do you refuse?” However, he gets nothing satisfying out of Bartleby because all Bartleby will do is clarify his position: he just simply prefers not to. The intentions of Bartleby are impossible to know for sure at this point, but he appears to be testing how much he can get away with unexpected sincerity. He is not actually refusing any task; if his boss were to acknowledge that he prefers not to do the task and then ask him to do it despite his preference, Bartleby may actually obey. But sincerity is so foreign to this boss on Wall Street that he does not even recognize it. He continues to insist to himself, to his other employees, and to Bartleby that all he receives from Bartleby is refusals, which they are clearly not. The meaning of the language is lost on him. Bartleby’s commitment to those simple words reveal the possibility of a hidden agenda; perhaps he will somehow get his Wall Street boss into replying with equal honesty.

"Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!"
The loneliness outside provided no motivation for Bartleby to leave the work place. He would work in a forlorn job to survive in a forlorn city, (the narrators’ description of Wall Street being desolate) for what reason? Only to be forlorn and then die? So he sits and waits. When death is the final result and the act of life is despairing and work itself is despairing (which is what must be done to ensure life) and neither seems to be anything other than woefulness feeding woefulness to end in death. Bartleby just waits for death. Nothing in-between can be enjoyed and there’s no use in accomplishing the task. Which also explains how and why he dies in jail. There was no escape for Bartleby, outside of work: despair. Work itself: despair. With or without despair the final result is death. He simply waits.
The narrator feels sympathy for Bartleby and feels sympathy for humanity, himself included, even though he is stronger than Bartleby, he understands.

Symbolism of the Dead Letter Office

The Dead Letter Office where the narrator discovers Bartleby was formerly employed is symbolic of the existential demise that humans will ultimately reach: death. Bartleby sorts letters in the office pointlessly "for the flames" (34), and in doing so heightens his "pallid hopelessness" (34) for life. The narrator surmises that the reason Bartleby preferred not to do things was because we are all going to die eventually so there's no point. Melville is saying that the letters in the office "speed to death" (34), just like Bartleby and the rest of humanity. The dead letters are like Bartleby in that nobody wanted either of them, and so each was sent to their respective office, essentially to die.

3.

On the Sunday that the narrator happens to stop by the office, he discovers that Bartleby is living in the office. Some of his reasons for being shocked are typical. He is uneasy as to what Bartleby could be doing at that time, curious, and suspicious. But some of his most interesting reflections fall upon the office and its location; he is moved by the solitude that is implied by living on Wall Street. "Of a Sunday, Wall Street is deserted as Petra, and every night of every day it is an emptiness. This building, too, which of weekdays hums with industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn (17)." The isolation of the Financial District and the office echoes Bartleby's strange and private loneliness. The view from one of the windows "might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscape painters call 'life' (4)," while the other view is simply of brick walls. Bartleby himself is described as pale, "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn (9)." Like the view, he is devoid of liveliness.

Kamala's Post

Kamala Randjelovic
Blog Posting for October 15th, 2007

In Kasson’s “Amusing The Million” he describes the rise of amusement parks as being motivated to provide the “…largely untapped working class, all eager to respond to amusement in a less earnest cultural mood: more vigorous, exuberant, daring, sensual and uninhibited and irreverent”(6). For Gorky, the rise of amusement parks highlighted a desire of the working class to escape from the rigid structure of daily life and find an escapist outlet. Amusement park founders described participants as being able to ‘cut loose from repressions and restrictions, and act pretty much as they feel like acting- since everyone else is doing the same thing”(59). Amusement parks created a fantasy where “…everywhere was life- a pageant of happy people; and everywhere was color- a wide e harmony of orange and white and a gold…It was a world removed- shut away from the sordid clatter and turmoil of the streets”(63). Participants therefore “…became actors in a vast, collective comedy” (65). Kasson said activities at the amusement parks “…appealed to a latent cruelty in their audience” and various displays which “…reflected a fascination with disaster” (71-72). Kasson’s description of this false wonderland is what Maxim Gorky in his piece “Boredom” depicts as “Everything ‘round about glitters insolently and reveals its own dismal ugliness” (358). Gorky illustrates the paradox between Kasson’s description of an amusement park as a place of wonder and enchantment to an experience where Gorky observes people who “…swarm into the cages like black flies. Children walk about…their little souls upon this hideousness, which they mistake for beauty, inspires a pained sense of pity” (358). For Gorky, amusement parks responded to the acute deprivation of the daily lives in numerous participants who reveled in its cruel games and depiction. Gorky describes watching the crowd as a man chases a tiger in a cage, “…the primitive instinct is awakened in them. They crave fight, they want to feel the delicious shiver produced by the sight of two bodies intertwining, the splutter of blood and pieces of torn, steaming human flesh flying thru the cage and falling on the floor”(364). Gorky’s description and depiction of the events and crowds at the amusement park illustrate their appeal to the working class. In the absence of morals and values, the amusement park encourages participants to remain in a state of boredom without intellectual stimulation. Of the participants, he says, (they) “drink in the vile poison with silent rapture. The poison contaminates their souls. Boredom whirls about in an idle dance” (368). Within the looking glass of the amusement park, the most significant paradox lies in the eye of the beholder. Is it Kasson’s fantasy or Gorky’s nightmare or is it a little it of both?

Coney Island

Kasson writes that Coney Island is a place where an individual can become so overwhelmed in all the five senses that they become oblivious. All the authors seems to agree in a way, that Coney Island is the escape. The escape is what made it so popular, relates Gorky. Kasson says that at that time people wanted something out of the ordinary to take them away from the dreary work day and dreary lives. Its where people "cut loose" says Tilyou. It was where the dreary christian world could come to not only desire the unacceptable, but embrace it. To see the sins posted up for all to see and live by there. And not fear the punishment, but again, desire it.
On another note, though it were a place to take the wife and kids, Coney Island describes American standards. It brought forth the need for compensation and over-indulgence, which is described as the American spirit.

Coney Island

Kasson’s history, “Amusing the Million,” provides a lens through which the reader may view the experiences of Gorky and Lorca at Coney Island. By placing the park in a context of culture, the reader is able to see the tension between diminished Victorian values of productivity in leisure and a new “vigorous, exuberant, daring, sensual, uninhibited, and irreverent” culture that was attracted to such a place (Kasson 6). The new culture was leaving behind objective forms of entertainment such as art, music, theatre, and museums for the subjective leisure at Coney Island that blurred “the lines between spectator and performer”(Kasson 65). This type of experience inspired a total lack of thought in exchange for sensory overload described by Gorky as a badly done version of hell where entrepreneurial demons wait to cast victims into the pit of reckless consumerism. By examining historical and cultural contexts, Kasson’s history allows the reader to understand the perspectives of Lorca and Gorky at Coney Island.

Coney Island Response

Kasson writes about a rivalry of larger-than-life greed that manifestates into the Sodom and Gamora of Coney Island. Here, the individual can be overwhelmed of the senses to the point of obliviousness, subconciously seduced into "sins" after being repremanded into how to avoid hell, and lift the veil between carnal, sadistic feelings behind a facade of bordem. Kasson's history of Coney Island explains and sheds light on how it was developed to be an emeshment of the classes as well as good clean fun amusement. It was not intimidating or distant, it was a tangible experience that the common man could experience with his entire family. The fact that Coney Island was developed due to a rivarly between Tilyou, Thompson and Dundy, and Reynolds just proves the need for over compensation and ridiculous indulgence, truly highlighting the spirit of America. Lorca, uses the metaphor of vomit to show is disdain and disillusionment with Coney Island. Usually, when people vomit, it is due to over induglence which is exactly what Coney Island represents. The paradox of people trying to maintain the values of a good Christian propriety is juxtaposed by the leud entertainment and divugences that Gorky writes about. Coney island was an experiement of human nature to find the balance between reformation and deviance, a time in American history where people were trying to idenify themselves by what they prayed for and what provoked their senses.

Coney Island and American Popular Culture at the Turn of the Century

Something that Gorky expressed about Coney Island was how from far away, it seemed like a beautiful and serene place, and an escape from reality "The blue mist of the ocean vapors mingles with the drab smoke of the metropolis across the harbor. Its flimsy white structures are enveloped in a transparent sheet, in which they quiver like a mirage. They seem to beckon alluringly, and offer quiet and beauty." (p. 356) Kasson discussed how during the time period, the amusement parks at Coney Island were a great escape for all of the working and middle class families in the area. Part of what made the parks so popular was the "escape" which Gorky described. During the turn of the century, Kasson said, what people wanted was something out of the ordinary, and fantastic aside from the dreary everyday work life. So it makes sense how the vision Gorky has of Coney Island from a distance is probably a similar way the genereal population felt at the time when either seeing the mystical and mysterious buildings from across the water, or even word of mouth from others who had just been there.

Coney Island in the words of Edward Tilyou is a place where people “cut loose from repressions and restrictions, and act pretty much as they feel like acting—since everyone else is doing the same thing.” Coney Island capitalized on the uptightness of the Victorian era, drawing in the masses to a hedonistic wonderland. Its creators knew how to make the people come to a park celebrating everything that society deemed unacceptable. The people were invited to escape the austerity and self-consciousness of everyday life without being judged. Visitors to Coney Island could not only awe over the seven deadly sins on display, they could actually participate in them. Sinning was allowed because retribution was also showcased. One could be a glutton, a sloth; one could lust and litter, but there would not be much time until one was engulfed in flood and fire. As Maxim Gorky noted, “All the spectacles in this city have one purpose: to show the people how they will be punished after death for their sins, to teach them to live upon earth humbly, and to obey the laws.” Coney Island even made punishment appealing; the public was able to find thrill in a burning building because they could escape unscathed. People are helpless against resisting even a brush with immortality. Those who thought up the amusements of Coney Island were driven by “a passion for gold,” in Gorky’s words. They understood that people would pay to leave the confinement and dreariness of living, even for a short while. All together the people would come to break the rules; these slaves to conformity would figure that if others could indulge in a day at the park, it must be okay.

Coney Island and American Popular Culture at the Turn of the Century

The Victorian era of America brought fear to the public. Anthony Comstock, who brought anti-obscenity laws to America at the turn of the century, punished anyway who strayed from his strict standards with jail time. The American public, starving for some new form of excitement, took to Coney Island. Coney gave the notion of staying within Comstock’s boundaries—preaching morals—which alleviated the public’s fear of enjoyment. These people had been castigated against for any kind of self-expression deemed obscene, and Coney Island was the first step of getting away from the taboo of the seemingly obscene. Both Kasson and Gorky where right in stating the paradoxical nature of Coney Island, but forget to mention how strict the Victorian era was to the public, and how much they needed some form of release, however superficial it may be.

Coney Island Response

Kasson's history describes a place where the working man and his family could come to be amused in a fashion removed from genteel America. The harbingers of these Coney Island amusement parks such as Thompson and Dundy viewed their creationa as place where people did not come "in a serious mood, and do not want to encounter seriousness. they have enough seriousness in their day to day lives, and the keynote of the thing they do demand is change. Everything must be different from odinary experience. What is presented to them must have life action, motion , sensation, surprise shock, swiftness or else comedy.""a different world- a dream world, perhaps a nightmare world-where all is bizzare and fantastic-crazier than the craziest parts of Paris-gayer and more different than thew evryday world." Gorky and Lorca undoubtedly viewed these worlds as "nightmare worlds." Gorky perhaps takes the Marxist stance that these types of amusement parks are another form of an "opiate of the masses" when he draws on the righteous religious imagery proffered in the parks. Both Lorca and Gorky provide the reader with sordid imagery such as "vomit" and the toture of animals. Gorky writes "Joyous screams are heard, which strangely remind me of the merry yelp of a puppy let to the floor after he has been held up in the air by the scruff of his neck" this is a clear window into how Gorky views the supposed amusement provided in the parks, as a sordid, demeaning, exploitation of the working class.

"The limitations of genteel culture as an approach to a sprawling urban-industrial democracy appeared exposed as never before." Urban-industrial democracy in no way appears to be a poetic notion. The sound of it alone is enough to conjure images of giant steel entrapments and clouds of questionable haze. Yet both Lorca and Gorky find a way to express this sprawling in poetic form, even if it's not flattering poetry. It's poetic in its paradoxial nature; how it represents the worst aspects of a people and place that should be only positive. The ideals behind Coney Island are most exemplary; a place built upon the changing face of entertainment and diversity. A place intended to welcome the underrepresented, "all eager to respond to amusement in a less earnest cultural mood..." But somehow Coney Island appears to so many as near to Dante's tenth circle of hell, a black hole of morality. But is one realy surprised at the subversive culture behind Coney after examining the Victorian codes of conduct it had to break through in order to thrive? The country was looking for a way to experience entertainment in all its folly. It's a story of extremes but would Coney Island be half the wonder it is if it weren't a walking contradiction of happiness? Would we be writing about it now if it didn't appeal to all those stuck in the belief that "life is made for the people to work six days in the week, sin on the seventh, and pay for their sins, confess their sins, and pay for the confession"?

coney island

One of the biggest differences I found between Kasson's historical piece and the work of Gorky and Lorca was their opinions on why the people of that era needed amusement parks. Kasson's argument is that the constricting Victorian society was slowly beginning to relax, and that people went to places like Coney Island to escape the monotony of their lives, and the barriers of society. However, both Borky and Lorca suggest that despite appearances, amusement parks were only another layer of control that society had over the public, that certain "amusements" were really subliminal messages over religion and morality, and that people left just as hopeless as they had come. Klasson's background on the times was very insightful because it provided a sense of perspective for us to view these events through. On one hand, we can see that historically, the birth of amusement parks could be seen as a defining point for modernity. On the other hand, Gorky and Lorca were writing from the immediate perspective of one living in the times, and their more cynical view shows that it wasn't completely positive. By comparing their creative works with history, we get more of the full picture.

Kasson, Gorky, and Lorca

In Kasson's writings about Coney Island, he says that the rides were "designed to throw people off balance, literally and imaginatively... and momentarily overwhelm them" (81). People went to Coney Island to escape their lives by experiencing the rides they had there. As someone who has been to Coney Island many times, I can say that the fun lies in the rides and the rides only. Walking around through the crowds and masses of people is as tiresome, painful, and boring as Gorky and Lorca both describe. There is a duality to Coney Island though, in that fun does exist in escaping reality on the rides, but there is a price of suffering patrons must undergo before they can have access to their enjoyment. Gorky and Lorca are both right that it can be immensely boring, but Kasson shows the side of Coney Island that can be exhilarating. Clearly Gorky and Lorca never rode the Cyclone.

My new neighborhood is the ever exuberant Washington Square Park. This particular blog entry came at a convenient time as I just this evening had reason to spend 3 critical homework doing hours in the middle of the park with a friend. And while I would typically shy away from the whole Washington Square thing at 1 am I figured it couldn't help to do a little extra research for tonight's homework.
Park wrote, "Every sentiment has a history, either in the experience of the individual, or in the experience of the race, but the person who acts on that sentiment may not be aware of this history." Never could those words make more sense than on a park bench at a most questionable hour. Watching first the man with shopping cart as companion and then a group of all too gregarious NYU students walk by was an interesting lesson in perspective and "sentiment". Park preaches the city as a lesson in humanism and the decline thereof. It seems to me that Park and White both would have wondered at how both students and homeless men could occupy the same place, same pathway but in such ultimately different worlds.

#4

Both White and Park write about the city as poetry. That the city itself is a poem. It's mesmerizing, it's lit up, its loud, its active, it vibrates all around you. I don't deny this. The city is fast-paced, and it is quite mesmerizing. I have lived around the city, and been relatively active in the city for most of my "adult" life (teenage, rather). yet, still, I find myself in awe of the fact that I do live here.
The city is many things, from great to crappy, form joyous to depressing and from community to too big to comprehend. It is all and nothing and everything at once. It is New York, New York.

In “Here is New York,” E.B. White discusses much that is singular to New York but also much that is true of most great cities. For example, he describes a resident’s trek from the lower east side to an uptown apartment, a distance of three or four miles, “like going three times around the world”(698). This could be said of a walk in almost any great city such as Paris, London, or Hong Kong, a result of the necessity to have a functioning neighborhood in every three blocks. On the contrary, White points out some unique attributes of New York City. New York is the city where “young worshipful beginners” come to be near their literary, theatrical, and artistic heroes (702). There is arguably no other city with the concentration and draw of great thinkers, and certainly no other with the intellectual reputation of New York. Yes, the city possesses attributes common to all cities, but no city is so preceded by its reputation as an intellectual hotbed.

#4

Moving from Texas to 8th Street, a block from Washington Square Park, was to say the least a culture shock. In the few weeks I have been here I have called an ambulance outside the building for a drunk man, found myself giving directions to tourists in distress, and have come to memorize my doorman's favorite icecream flavor. The Village has many personalities depending on the time of day. At noon I know there will be a mad rush at Valentino's of students grabbing their second or third cup of coffee of the day, 5:00 a stampede of professionals getting off work, and around 1:00 in the morning I can always count on a fairly large group of students outside having one last smoke break before getting back to their papers. I am still wonder if anyone in the surrounding few blocks ever sleeps. In the dead of night I hear drunken words exchanged and the whine of sirens. I understand now what White says about the city being a place where you can "feel the vibrations of great times and tall deeds, of queer people and events and undertakings", and I can't help but wonder where a girl from Katy, Texas fits into the picture.

Response #2

In " Here is New York", White focuses on the individual qualities and aspects of New York as opposed to just generalizing it as just another city such as Park does. White gives introspect and personality to New York, descibing the unique components that make New York which gives the reader a better understanding of why New York is more then just a people clumped together in an urban envirement. Sure, Park and White both express simular thoughts such as cities being unstable and how different neighborhoods represent diverse social groups, but White goes far and beyond Park's dry analysis and descriptions of what a city should entail and digs deeper into what New York represents. Park only lays out a structure, a format for how a city should function, unlike White who breaths life and depth into the mass emeshment of urbanization. I do not think that the style in which White writes about when describing the facets of New York, that same passion and enthusiasm could be applied to the crusty and dishevled corners of Los Angeles or the triumphent and elegant streets of Paris. It is the connection and understanding of a particular region that makes it such a valued sentiment. New York on the otherhand is such a mass culmination of cultures and people that is easy for anyone to feel a bond to it. Anyone can see there reflection and find themselves amongst such a blend of diversity that it is near impossible not to find a peice of oneself, something pertaining to one's idenity in such a compact area. As White said, " The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into small islands and adds music with the accompaniment of internal engines."

E. B. White writes in his essay “This is New York” of a recent change in the city’s psyche: “[It] is something people don’t speak much about but that is in everyone’s mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy…” His words evoke instant images of 747s and falling towers of dust. However, White made this observation not in the wake of September 11^th, 2001, but 52 years earlier in 1949.

White’s 1949 New York lives with a “stubborn fact of annihilation” born from the fear of Soviet nuclear destruction. The way he describes this threat’s effect on the city is eerily similar to what is said about a post-9/11 New York: “The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.” White speaks of an overwhelming anticipation of destruction that attaches itself to the subconscious of every New Yorker. This phenomenon of city-wide anxiety stands in stark contrast to his previous assertion that New York isolates its events from its residents. People are shot, festivals are had, the massaes come and go, and most New Yorkers will be oblivious.

Yet the city was unified by the idea of attack in 1949, just as it was in 2001. To say simply that everyone was scared together would be an incomplete explanation for the city’s unity. The resilience of New Yorkers grew in the face of attack as well fear. As White notes, “New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience…” and so they did not run from a vulnerable city but embraced it. New York’s inhabitants each accepted the new danger and added it to the pile of difficulties the city had already guaranteed. Each carried apprehension in his individual way, but all the while together they thought something like E. B. White’s declaration: “This [New York] must be saved…”

The Sociology of Neighborhoods: Topic 4

I’ve just moved into Greenwich Village—coming from living all my life in the suburbs and becoming acquainted to life in a beach town—and since living here I’ve noticed an interesting trend in isolation. E.B. White, in his essay “Here is New York,” refers to this form of distance as an “eighteen-inch margin” separating the relative us from them (695). All my life I’ve been intertwined into my surroundings: eating dinner with my neighbors, going to the town parade, getting free water ice from the same place that I’ve been going to since I was a little boy. These events haven’t changed, but what’s so spectacular is that now I don’t have to go to them. For example, there recently was a block-party celebrating the start of term, something my mother would have told me “to go to and make a good impression.” I thought about it, and I decided I didn’t need to attend, and that was that. I’ve found that living in the Village there’s a high level of anonymity. Robert E. Park discusses in The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior that there is a “decrease in stable relationships within neighborhoods […];” just because you live in the Village doesn’t mean you need to have friends in the Village (23). It’s a place that offers a spring-board to the rest of the city, a boat into the island of opportunity.

A Study of SoHo

I live in the neighborhood officially named SoHo (South Of Houston), and what a zoo it can be. The fact that every major store of every brand and company imaginable claims its home in SoHo inevitably means that there will be an inordinate number of consumers plaguing the area from opening time to closing. The biggest evidence of this is that if one goes outside in SoHo at around 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning (like I did yesterday) then one will find a barren wasteland devoid of almost all human activity. If one goes outside three or four hours later at 11 or noon, then one will find swarms and swarms of festering tourists and shoppers walking aimlessly around the neighborhood. And if one happens to go out again at say 10 o'clock that night then the area will have returned to it's natural desolate state. There are people who dawdle and slowly move down the sidewalk, usually because they don't have a set destination and instead want to go everywhere in the neighborhood, and then there are the fast-paced people who know where they're going and have a set objective to complete. SoHo is the meeting ground for this subjective duality. In certain residential areas of Brooklyn, for example, there are hardly any stores, so one's objective in being there would almost always have to be visiting someone who lives there, or returning to their own home. But SoHo not only has stores and restaurants and hotels, it also has many, many lofts and apartments. The neighborhood is also conveniently located in the center of the island, and the midpoint of downtown, so to get from one side of the island to the other one has to pass through SoHo. I've found that people come to SoHo for all different reasons, but the point is that as Park says, everyone there is defined by their own interests.

10/08

City life... Being from a city that hardly compares to the magnitude of New York City, I can say confidently that it is supreme, grand, overwhelming, and humble all at the same time. New York City is un-like any other city because it works as a kind as a whole so well. There are so many things happening at one time that one couldn't possible imagine how one can survive with all the rest. Though, New York has a way of keeping everything together so well, and does not try and show it off to the rest of the world. It's like the city knows the rest of the world wonders in amazement, yet New York does not feel the need to investigate or mess with it's own system. It simply survives. New York rules over small cities because everything is thriving, even the dump on the corner is thriving from the fact that thousands pass it everyday, and some may stop in every few minutes. While Park says, "In the city environment the neighborhood tends to lose much of the significance which it possessed in simpler...forms of society." I cannot see how this can be true. Neighborhoods are beautiful, but of course, they are city neighborhoods. You don't necessarily know the people in the building next to you, but you experience the same routines as them. Still a strong connection, though you may never meet. I agree with White's statement, "New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation." In this city, it's as if everyone knows your business, though no one knows at the same time. Everyone has the connection of the city, yet you are still an individual through your own interpretations and experiences.

Response to #1

Both Park and White address the importance of the neighborhood in city or New York City living. But both contradict each other on this matter, Park writes "Business and industry seek advantageous locations and draw around them certain portions of the population. There spring up fashionable residence quarters from which the poorer classes are excluded because of the incresed value of the land. Then there grow up slums which are inhabited by the great number of porrer classes who are unable to defend themselves from association with the derelict and vicious." Park is divisive in his description of the formation of the city neighborhoods. Whereas White states "At the feet of the plushiest oficies lie the crummiest slums. The genteel mysteries housed in the Riverside Church are only a few blocks away fro the voodoo charms of Harlem. The merchant princes, riding to Wall Street in their limousines down the East River Drive, pass within a few hundred yards of the gypsy kings; but the princes do they are passing kings, and the kings are not yet up anyway-they live amore leisurely life tyhan the princes and get drunk more consistently." The difference in these analysis may be due to the fact that Park is disscussing Cities in general whereas White is focusing purely on New York, a truely individual city. Another difference is their conceptions relating to transport and the neighborhood. Park writes that "the easy means of transportation which enable individuals to distribute their attention and to live at the same time in several different worlds, tends to destroy the permanency and intimacy of the neighbourhood." juxtapose this to Whites analysis,"that many a New Yorker spends a lifetime within the confines of an area smaller than a country village. Let him walk two blcks from his corner and he is in a strange land and will feel uneasy until he gets back,"New York seems like an abberation from Parks general analysis of city life. This is something i can agree with because even moving downtown from uptown i notice a huge difference and don't totally feel comfortable in my new surroundings, but feel completely at home in my old neighborhood.

Kamala Randjelovic

Blog posting for October 8th, 2007

Question #1

In Robert E. Parks “The City”, Park identifies neighborhoods as sections of a city which inevitably “…takes on something of the character and qualities of its inhabitants” (17). Park therefore defines neighborhoods that become representative of the ethnicities, beliefs and specific values of the people who reside in them. “Where individuals of the same race or of the same vocation live together in segregated groups” (18). In E.B White’s “Here is New York”, White applies Parks concept of neighborhoods to New York City, “So complete is each neighborhood, and so strong the sense of neighborhood, that many a New Yorker spends a lifetime within the confines of an area smaller than country village”(701). In a way both Park and White juxtapose the idea of a person coming to New York City to leave a smaller place; town or village and recreating the neighborhoods of their childhoods. From the age of three, my mother raised me in a walk-up tenement in the East Village. The diversity of our building, and our neighborhood, reflected the diversity of her family and her childhood, which was spent overseas. My father also recreated in NYC, a community of Serbs much like those he spends time with in Belgrade where he lives. When White refers to neighborhoods as being self sufficient, he inadvertently shows why many new Yorkers can get by and not ever leave their neighborhood. White parallels Park’s idea that, “The small community…tolerates eccentricity. The city on the contrary rewards it. Neither the criminal, the defective, nor the genius has the same opportunity to develop his…disposition in a small town that he invariably finds in a great city.(26) through White’s depiction of the city as being “…always full of young worshipful beginners- young actors, young aspiring poets, ballerinas, painters, reporters, singers-“(702). I remember many such individuals in our building in the E. Village; aspiring musicians, bakers and make-up artists (one who is now a multi-millionaire) all of them rubbing elbows, and yes, tolerating each other and us, in those heady days of seeking success.

2

I was particularly interested in E.B. White’s description of the three kinds of New York as perceived by the three types of people who come here. The third and last type seemed to especially counter Robert Park’s more factual analysis of the city. As White explores the city through the eyes of migrating hopefuls, he brings into light an element that remains undiscussed in Park’s essay. White describes how these new residence give New York its passion, and a kind of ephemeral quality that breathes new life into the city itself. Contrary to Park’s idea that people form only need based interactions, usually centered around money, White allows us to see how the dreams people bring with them to NYC are also both important and essential. New York has had a long history of immigrants unlike any other city, and White’s observations gives us insight that Park’s cannot.

Response to Question #3

Baudelaire argues that half of what we find beautiful has to do with what is appropriate to modern times. If we focus too much on what has already been classified as beauty in antiquity then we shut ourselves off from enjoying the wonders of the everyday. Baudelaire says,” for nearly all our originality comes from the stamp that time impresses upon our sensibility”. O’Hara epitomizes the idea of the “transient” in his poem “The Day Lady Died”. The poem describes his boring everyday activities such as withdrawing cash from the bank to buying a carton of cigarettes. The description of his daily routines is not meant to bore the reader, but to show how strange it is that life can go on after the death of a great artist. The poet challenges his grief through concrete descriptions of his schedule to clearly defer from the topic of Billy Holiday’s death. O’Hara focuses on the present to not get caught up on the reality of mortality.