Last Day

Tension was mounting as the final approached we sat in the cafeteria sweating and checking our notes, identify this remember that we all spat then the beer came out and relaxation ensued….ok so no beer but the company relaxed all and for the final we marched pencils, pens, and knowledge all.

Good Luck in all you do and enjoy the good times that college gave you make sure to forget the few bad times, ohh and remeber allways respect SpellCheck!!!

Effort Is Needed To Enjoy Udolpho

After Volume I of The Mysteries of Udolpho, I found myself begging to get to the actual mysteries already. Volume I is so full of descriptions of mountains and plains and hills and such, and has so much bad poetry written by Emily, that it beings to get grating after a while. Emily's sentiments towards her father during and after his death are often punctuated by too much sobbing and drama; Mackenzie did a better job at eliciting emotions in The Man of Feeling, because he spent less time on describing emotions and more on describing the characters' dreadful conditions. Reading Volume II, I was almost tricked into believing it to be just like Volume I, except Emily was describing Italy instead of France. You literally have to read over two hundred pages before you get to the good stuff. The descriptions of the black veil and the mysteries surrounding it were expertly written; Radcliffe is aware that implied horror is better than physical horror. We are naturally more scared of something we don't know about than if we actually see something scary, which is why Radcliffe has Emily faint right after lifting the black veil. Forbidden staircases, Montoni's character, the possibility of murder; all this is way more exciting than Volume I. When we learn about a body believed to be a corpse by Emily and how it is actually a statue, we are brought back to reality, and it is a little disappointing. I almost wish Radcliffe had ended the novel without explaining anything, leaving her readers in suspense; the reality of Udolpho's mysteries are boring and take away from the terror we felt when Emily questioned everything in her lodgings. All in all, the actual mysteries in Udolpho make Radcliffe worth reading, I just wish she had gotten rid of two hundred pages of description and poetry and gotten right to the exciting stuff.

jane Austen

Catherine is one of my favorite characters that we have read this semester. She does what she is told yet she does what she believes in at the same time. She is very respectful of others when it comes to their feelings. She doesnt like to put anyone down. She loves to read which makes her different then our other characters. Pamela and Evelina were different from her. Pamela kept journals while Catherine read everyday. ALthough Catherine had a journal as well she didnt obsesses over it and write every detail and emotion down. Catherine was alot more independent then the other characters.

Northanger Abbey

I like the idea of a gothic novel; especially one written from the great Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey created a much different feeling from the other books we have read over the course of the semester. I liked the idea of placing 17 year old Catherine in a 17 year old world; she befriends Isabella and Isabella introduces Catherine to a social paradise (gossip, balls, etc). I was drawn to the fact that this novel had a connection to The Mysteries of Udolpho because I happened to enjoy that book very much. Where The Mysteries of Udolpho is a gothic novel, it seems to be that Northanger Abbey is a "gothic parody".

I enjoyed Northanger Abbey because I felt like some of the things that Catherine experienced weren't so out of the ordinary; relationship with Isabella, boy problems, etc. While some things were out of the ordinary, the emotion that the book creates seems more realistic then some of the other novels.

All those in favor of hating Isabella say I..

After reading Austen's Northanger Abbey, part of me couldn't help but feel as though the ending of the novel was rushed and cut straight through to the end. I yearned to find outmore about Eleanor and how she finally found the strength to go against her fathers words and marry. How did this suddenly come to be? Of all the heroine's we have read this semester Catherine is definitely my favorite! She is the typeof character that you can relate yourself to; she's depicted in a manner in which both her flaws and her intelligence identify who she is. Sadly, one of her flaws is attaching herself to Isabella, her "bestfriend". All along Isabella drops hints that she is deceiving and is simply going after James, but after reading the novel it seems to me that Catherine began to talk to Eleanor because of her attraction to Henry. Luckily they became the best of friends and held a healthy relationship... but Isabella onthe other hand; what a snob! Not only does she break of her engagement to her bestfriends brother, but she has the nerve of writing Catherine a letter asking her to speak to James and fix everything. Isabella represents one word -> DRAMA

Sweet Evelina

I really liked Evelina's character and I did not think that she seemed like a snob at all. I feel that she is a innocent girl who is curious about the world around her and wants to enjoy it and fall in love. I really enjoyed reading about all the ackward things that she said and did around Orville. I feel that it makes her a realistic character beacause we all act weird and do silly things around a person that we like and then we think about it and blame ourselves for acting so silly. I thought that this was a very adorable book and I am glad that she ended up with Orville. I enjoy reading books with happy endings like this one even if they are typical.

Marriage as the Ultimate Reward?

Throughout the semester I've been struck by the outcomes for the novels we've read and have concluded that a "good" marriage is the ultimate reward for the protagonists. With the exception of Crusoe and Harley, all of the characters ultimately achieve peace because they are secure in a good marriage.

I had hoped that Northanger Abbey would offer a different outcome, but it was not to be. Catherine is a fun, spunky heroine and finally we have a young woman who behaves realistically in response to her situation. Still, Austen does reflect the values of her time in that Catherine falls in love with an aristocrat and even if he is somewhat of an intellectual snob, the fact is, he's still the rich guy.

Austen's prose is easier to read than any of the authors and I enjoyed the novel. It reinforced my belief that these books support notions of class and don't empower the heroines to achieve independence. Given that women had few options to support themesleves, I suppose this is the best outcome one can expect.