Week 15 Joy and Happiness

Quote 1: "In all Austen's novels, but especially Pride and Prejudice, pursuing happiness is the business of life. Austen trots character after character before our attention so that we may consider what pleases, or conversely, what vexes and mortifies them, thus inviting us to assess the quality and durability of their happiness" (Johnson, 349).

Quote 2: "As soon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner's hope of Lydia's being soon married, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its exuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight, as she had ever been fidgety from alarm or vexation. To know that her daughter would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct" (Austen, Ch. 49).

Sympathy and Dehuminization

Quote 1: "Writers have been using descriptions of their characters' behaviors to inform us about their feelings since time immemorial... We all learn, whether consciously or not, that the default interpretation of behavior reflects a character's state of mind.." (Zunshine, 4).

Quote 2: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters" (Austen, Ch. 1). 

Quote 3: "To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley's heart were entertained" (Austen, Ch. 3). 

Madness and Melancholy

Quote 1: "There is a disappointed merchant, a disappointed heiress, a betrayed wife, a classical commentator who 'has lost his wits inquiring whether or not the ancients wore perukes'; there is an unsuccessful lottery speculator whose plans for a beautiful wife, a magnificent coach and a 'villa on the banks of the Thames' are replaced by 'these melancholy lodgings', and a successful lottery speculator 'who, obtaining a very large and unexpected sum, could not stand the shock of such sudden good fortune, but grew mad with excess of joy'" (Ingram, 80).

Quote 2: "On Sleep intruding do'st thy Shadows spread, gloomy Terrors round the silent Bed, And crowd with boding Dreams the melancholy Head" (Finch, 23).

Reason in Robinson Crusoe

Natasha Mehta

Final Research Proposal

ENG 364

Reason in Robinson Crusoe

For my final research project, I am going to focus on the displays, and lack thereof, of reason and objectivity in Robinson Crusoe. A major theme of this novel is Crusoe’s tendency to act against the voice of reason, which is represented mainly as his father and religion. A lot of Crusoe’s idea of reason comes from religion and he believes going against his father is his original sin, and this leads to him judging his own actions based on his religious beliefs and is displayed through his repentance throughout the novel. This is the basis of his reason, which he does not always act in favor of, thus eventually causing repentance when he is hallucinating and sees the angelic figure saying, “Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die.”

Robinson Crusoe wonders about the basis of his actions by reason throughout the novel. In the beginning, his father discusses his will to leave, as Crusoe describes, “He asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving father’s house and my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure” (Defoe, 5). Here, his father is clearly showing all very rational reasons for him to stay, yet Robinson still wants to leave. This is an example of him going against reason, which I will compare and contrast with examples of him acting in reasonable ways, and how this affects him and the story.

Week 11 quotes

Natasha Mehta

Week 11 Response

ENG 364

Quote 1: “That wretched little Carcass you retain; The Reason is, not that the World wants Eyes; But thou’rt so mean, they see, and they despise. When fretful Porcupine, with rancorous Will, From mounted Back shoots forth a harmless Quill, Cool the Spectators stand; and all the while, Upon the angry little Monster smile” (Montagu, line 75).

Quote 2: “It is acknowledged that they spend many of the first years of their lives in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments; meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves,- the only way women can rise in the world,- by marriage. And this desire making mere animals of them, when they marry they act as such children may be expected to act:- they dress; they paint, and nickname God’s creatures” (Wollstonecraft, 261).

What causes Euphelia's boredom and how is it portrayed in the letter to the Rambler?

Quote 1: “Boredom connects itself with depression, with loneliness, with restlessness… The cause of pathological boredom lies within, normal boredom derives from inadequacies of ‘the external world’” (Spacks, 5).

Quote 2: “The novelty of the objects about me pleased me for a while, but after a few days they were new no longer, and I soon began to perceive that the country…had very soon exhausted all their power of pleasing, and that I had not in myself any fund of satisfaction, with which I could supply the loss of my customary amusements”(Johnson, 7).

            In the letter by Euphelia to the Rambler, she talks about how she became very experienced and constantly surrounded by diversions in her early years, and that she at first longed to stay with her aunt and experience new things by living in the country. I found this interesting because the beginning of Spack’s book talks about how boredom is perpetuated through the constant desire for anything new, and how as this desire becomes greater, so does the boredom we feel and perceive. However, Euphelia’s quote above is an example of how her boredom derived from “inadequacies of the external world.” Because she was doing the same thing every day in the country, what was once new and interesting no longer held that “power of pleasing” that led her to it in the first place. After leading such a busy life, as Euphelia explains throughout the letter, she becomes bored very quickly with no obligations or people to talk to in the country. I find it very interesting that the way one leads one’s life and the customs they follow can affect their “susceptibility” to boredom. If someone, such as Euphelia, is constantly busy everyday all day, transitioning to a life in the country with full freedom (with her time at least) can get old very fast, and it does for her. I see this with people I know as well. Some of my friends have a need to be constantly busy, otherwise they get bored and “restless”, while others can be content by just relaxing and spending time alone, doing nothing. Spacks also talks about this, saying that as our society started developing faster, people became bored faster, which caused a proliferation of the feeling of boredom in our society.  Perhaps this is why people who are constantly busy become bored and restless faster than those who are not.

Desires Relating To Reading in the Eighteenth Century

The recollections of reading experiences from readers of the eighteenth century show that novels often evoked strong emotions in the readers. In the UK Reading Experience Database, some readers described their desires for reading the novels, and others described how the novel or book shaped their desires for other parts of their lives. I also found it interesting that people from many different types of socio-economic groups used the word “desire” in their descriptions. Perhaps this shows that desire, like many other states of mind, is an innate human feeling or reaction, in this case to a piece of literature.  It was also interesting that the reader’s outlook on desire could change.

One man, a shoemaker from 1746, wrote, “I was but about twenty-two years of age when I first began to read them, and I assure you, my friend, that they made a very deep and lasting impression in my mind. By reading them [Plato’s On the Immortality of the soul and Plutarch’s Morals and Confucio’s texts] I was taught to bear the unavoidable evils attending humanity, and to supply all my wants by contracting or restraining my desires.”  The same reader wrote about the bible when he was a child, saying, “But these extraordinary accounts and discourses, together with the controversies between the mother and sons, made me think that they know many matters of which I was totally ignorant. This created in me a desire for knowledge, that I might know who was right and who was wrong.” I find it very interesting that when this reader was a child, he welcomed his desire and spoke of it positively, but later in life he came to believe his desires were something to be “contracted” or “restrained.”   In 1790, a writer Horace Walpole wrote, “as she was going she desired me to read to her Prior’s ‘Turtle and Sparrow,’ and his ‘Apollo and Daphne,’ with which you were so delighted, and which, tho’ scarce known, are two of his wittiest and gentelest poems.” Here, a person of a much different background than shoemaking also describes how her friend had evoked emotions of desire stemming from the poems she wished to be read. It is very interesting how pieces of literature can stimulate people’s desires, as well as diminish them.