A Decade by Amy Lowell

The romantic in me instantly loved the poem A Decade by Amy Lowell. It’s so beautifully descriptive and yet it doesn’t over exaggerate the love that’s being described with excessively flowery language; it’s just honest. It immediately brought to mind the picture of what a healthy relationship would look or sound like after having stood the test of time, which from the title we can assume is a decade. With the first two lines “when you came, you were like red wine and honey, and the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness” (pg. 979) the reader gets the sense of what it’s like at the start of any new relationship. The other person seems perfect, their strengths override any flaws that may have shown through, everything is painfully sweet and seems too good to be true. Then over time they become “like morning bread, smooth and pleasant” (pg. 979), not too sweet, not too bitter, but the nourishment that sustains you throughout the day. Like any healthy relationship, the highs shouldn’t be too high and the lows shouldn’t be too low, but rather a constant that keeps you strong throughout the struggles of everyday life. The last two lines “I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour, but I am completely nourished” (pg. 979) are what I imagine it would be like after years in such a relationship. Not that you wouldn’t notice the other person there, but instead they’ve grown  to be such a part of you and a part of your life that you can hardly distinguish between your life and theirs. Instead of the pang of sweetness of adjusting and fitting this person into your life in the beginning, they have now filled a whole you previously were unaware of and would therefore be empty without them. The relationship has evolved from a state of overwhelming sweetness to a steady fulfillment that leaves you content and nourished.

Neighbor Rosicky by Willa Cather

I’m glad we got extra time to blog about Neighbor Rosicky by Willa Cather because I really enjoyed it. I’ve read My Antonia, also by Cather, in the past and I found several similarities between the two. Both compare the vast differences in living in a town or city and living out in the country, favoring the farm life. I found Cather’s obvious love of the country and the beauty of nature to be refreshing and her apparent distrust of humanity (particularly those residing in the city) amusing. Her description of “the clump of orchard behind and the windmill before, and all down the gentle hill-slope the rows of pale gold cornstalks stood out against the white field” (pg. 842) brings to mind something perhaps from the childhood of Huck Finn and makes me want to raise my children in the country where they “could lie down in the long grass and see the complete arch of sky over [them], hear the wagons go by” (pg. 842). Also, the fact that “the worst things he had come upon in his journey through the world were human- depraved and poisonous specimens of man” (pg. 854) I thought was sadly accurate, but also amusing. That makes me sound really jaded but, like Rosicky, I too wish it were possible for my children to “get through the world without ever knowing much about the cruelty of human beings” (pg. 854), but that unfortunately is of course unrealistic.

I also fell in love with the character of Anton Rosicky. His outlook on life is just so fresh and optimistic and he certainly “had a special gift for loving people…it was quiet, unobtrusive, it was merely there” (pg. 856). Rosicky is that typical loving, warm-hearted grandpa character that everyone wants around. He was indeed a hard worker, he had to be living on a farm, but Rosicky also knew how to fully enjoy life: “…somehow he never saved anything. He couldn’t refuse a loan to a friend, and he was self-indulgent. He liked a good dinner, and a little went for beer, a little for tobacco; a good deal went to the girls” (pg. 845). Rosicky managed to get by in life, raise his family up right, work hard, but still stop to smell the roses and live a little, and for that I admire him (fictitious as he may be).

In the Land of the Free


From the title of the story In the Land of the Free by Edith Maud Eaton, you immediately get the sense of irony that the author implies from the beginning. I went into it fully expecting some tragic example of how "free" America really can be and, alas, Eaton delivered. My heart went out to the mother, Lae Choo who, because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, was separated from her two year old son upon her arrival in the United States. I have a daughter myself and can only imagine how Lae Choo felt being apart from her young child indefinitely, especially in a foreign country. I think once you're a parent, only then can you fully know "what it is to miss the feel of the little fingers and the little toes and the soft round limbs of your little one" (pg. 804) and therefore understand the emptiness that comes with their absence. And the fact that James Clancy, the lawyer, exploits the mother's desperate determination to get her son back in order to make as much money off of the couple as possible makes me sick. In response to Lae Choo's comment "you not one hundred man good; you just common white man", Clancy replies with an ironic "yes, ma'am" (pg. 807), revealing the fact that this is just another business transaction to him. He's not only okay with potentially tearing this family apart, as revealed in the end of the story with the son's reaction to his mother, but Clancy seems to be proud of the fact that his actions are typical for the "common white man". It's stories like these that make me ashamed to call myself American, especially since we're known to be and often portrayed as corrupt and unjust.

Roman Fever

The short story, Roman Fever by Edith Wharton seems to me to be nothing more than a commentary on the catty nature of women. While reading I was expecting or hoping  for some significant or tragic event that would lead Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley to realize the meaningless nature of their perpetual one-upmanship, but was disappointed to find no such realization. Instead the story progressed through dialogue, both internal and external, unveiling the true nature and driving force of this lifelong "friendship". Magnified, no doubt, by the fact that both women were wealthy widows with "a good deal of time to kill" (pg. 779), they were left to "visualize each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope" (pg. 781), rather than use their time productively. I think through the circumstance involving Mr. Slade that occurred some twenty years prior, Wharton does a good job of portraying the fact that "girls have such silly reasons for doing the most serious things" (pg. 786), a fact that is unfortunately all too true. Had Mrs. Slade confronted her friend about the issue way back when it occurred, she may not have spent her whole life resenting Mrs. Ansley and perhaps could have moved past it and led a somewhat happy life. But then again, where would American Literature be without loveless relationships and petty grievances?