Week 6-Literature

This week, I feel like we kind of trailed off into a more philosophical path. We talked less about events that happened and more about what was the thinking behind these events, and why these events happened. For this reason, instead of focusing primarily on American Studies and finding connections with American Literature, I will just talk about literature. I actually am really enjoying this poetry unit that we are doing currently in American Literature. I like trying to analyze poems, not stories, for their emotional meaning or appeal, because I feel like poems are more meant to be that way compared to stories. With novels and stories, mainly you are trying to tell a story that can entertain an audience. With poems, you still are telling a story at some level, but the emotion of the poet can show through more evidently and the intended message is more obvious. I also feel that with poems in contrast to with novels, we can pull out more of a variety of interpretations in comparison to novels. More people can come up with different things that make it, at least for me, more engaging to hear these different ideas, rather than just hear several people repeat the same things over and over when analyzing a book.

Week 5- Advantage

Having just finished talking about the Civil War, I want to talk a bit about the tactics that each side took during the war. The North were naturally more aggressive because they had more military power, and people. The South were engaging in more of a defensive battle because they were trying to focus on retaining their lands and rights, instead of imposing their will on the North. So with their fundamental strategy aside, what kind of battles did they fight? Well, looking at the Battle of Gettysburg will certainly give you a wrong impression of who was the aggressor. Southern General Lee tried to take the attacking route and invaded the North. At first, it seemed to work. They did not quite take the North by surprise, but they managed to get good a good attack on them. But this is where the advantage of the North lay, I think. Since they had a massive population relative to the South, including all the land to the west, even though they were caught slightly off guard, they could provide a sufficient enough stand, until their reinforcements could come. I also think they were smarter militarily because they started to use the geography to their advantage. All these things, showed that the North, from the beginning, had an advantage. They always had the ability to recover,even when the South had the surprised.

Week 4- Patriotism

The idea of patriotism to me is very defined in pre-Civil War times in American History. It is being proud of being American. However, because of slavery and the division of beliefs on slavery, among other issues, the Civil War happened, basically dividing the country. What interests me about the Civil War is just how different Southerners considered themselves from the North. How was a people who were so passionate about togetherness just 60 years ago all of a sudden be so split? Slavery and the differing use of slaves in the north and south is a main reason. After that, during the Civil War, the South became its own country, by all means except political. The South were passionate about their own new country, and were patriots for that country. They cared so much for the maintenance of the Confederate States of America, they fought a battle that they knew they had a very slim chance of winning. They cared so much, because they knew that the institution of slavery was almost completely necessary for them. So a patriot is not a person who supported the right cause or the cause that is most popular, but a person who supports a cause. A person who genuinely is proud to be a part of something. So even though the Confederate States of America was a doomed cause, the people of the South were proud to be Southerners. Therefore, by my reasoning, they are patriots for their beliefs.