American Literature - Tumblr Posts

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jack London

Sylvia Plath – A vékony emberek

Mindig velünk vannak, a vékony emberek

Dimenziók híján mint a szürke emberek

A tévéképernyőn. Azt

Mondjuk, nem valóságosak:

Csak egy filmben volt, csak

Egy háborúban volt, gonosz főcímeket alkotva, amikor

Kicsik voltunk, hogy éheztek

És olyan véznára nőttek és nem kerekedtek

A szalmavékony végtagjaik a béke ellenére se ki

Az egerek gyomrát felpuffasztották

A leghitványabb asztal alatt.

A hosszú éhharc során volt, mikor

Rátaláltak a képességre, hogy a

Soványságban maradjanak fenn, hogy később

Eljöjjenek a rémálmainkba, a fenyegetésük

Nem fegyverek, nem erőszak,

Hanem egy vékony csend.

Bolha-irtott szamárbőrökbe csomagolva

Panasz nélkül, örökké

Ecetet iszva bádogpohárból:

A kisorsolt bűnbak elviselhetetlen

nimbuszát viselték. De olyan sovány,

Olyan csenevész faj nem maradhatott csak az álmokban

Nem maradhatott idegen áldozatokként

A fej beszűkült országában

Ahogy az öreg asszony a vályogkunyhójában sem

Tudta megállni, hogy ne kanyarítson

Ki egy zsíros szeletet a nagylelkű holdból

Amikor az az udvarába lépett éjjelente

Míg a kése a holdat

Kis fényű héjjá nem vágta.

Most a sovány emberek nem törlik

El magukat, mikor a hajnal

Szürkéje megkékül, megvörösödik, és a világ

Körvonala kitisztul és színnel telik.

Tovább időznek a napsütötte szobában: a tapéta

Káposztarózsa és búzavirág fríze megsápad

Vékony-ajkú mosolyuk,

Sorvadó királyságuk alatt.

Hogy feltámogatják egymást!

Nincs elég gazdag és mély vadonunk

Hogy erődként szolgáljon merev

Zászlóaljaik ellen. Nézd, hogy laposodnak el a fák törzsei

És vesztik el szép barnaságukat

Ha a vékony emberek egyszerűen csak megállnak az erdőben

Olyan vékonnyá válik tőlük a világ mint egy darázs fészke

És még szürkébbé; még csak csontjaikat sem mozdítják.

Saját fordítás, eredeti cím: The Thin People

“In the big city the twin spirits Romance and Adventure are always abroad seeking worthy wooers. As we roam the streets they slyly peep at us and challenge us in twenty different guises. Without knowing why, we look up suddenly to see in a window a face that seems to belong to our gallery of intimate portraits; in a sleeping thoroughfare we hear a cry of agony and fear coming from an empty and shuttered house; instead of at our familiar curb, a cab-driver deposits us before a strange door, which one, with a smile, opens for us and bids us enter; a slip of paper, written upon, flutters down to our feet from the high lattices of Chance; we exchange glances of instantaneous hate, affection and fear with hurrying strangers in the passing crowds; a sudden douse of rain — and our umbrella may be sheltering the daughter of the Full Moon and first cousin of the Sidereal System; at every corner handkerchiefs drop, fingers beckon, eyes besiege, and the lost, the lonely, the rapturous, the mysterious, the perilous, changing clues of adventure are slipped into our fingers. But few of us are willing to hold and follow them. We are grown stiff with the ramrod of convention down our backs. We pass on; and some day we come, at the end of a very dull life, to reflect that our romance has been a pallid thing of a marriage or two, a satin rosette kept in a safe-deposit drawer, and a lifelong feud with a steam radiator.”-The Green Door, O . Henry.

A Summary of The Scarlet Letter

— Edna St Vincent Millay, Sonnet VII, from Poems (1923)

— Edna St Vincent Millay, Sonnet VII, from Poems (1923)

i’m sure i’m not the first to say something like this, but let me tell you about my poc-passing-as-white jay gatsby headcanon!!

for some background, in the 1920s there was an interesting shift regarding (white) skin tones. previously, tans were viewed as a sign that a person worked out in the fields, and therefore a trademark of the lower class. however, slowly after the industrial revolution, it increasingly became a representation of luxury, since the rich upper class would have the time to lounge about and sunbathe at their leisure.

i say all this to show that a poc gatsby would have the ostensible class and wealth for a tan, which would ‘excuse’ a slightly browner skin tone in the public eye.

(the 20s was also the setting of passing by nella larsen, so that’s neat.)

in my vision, he’s biracial (maybe his mother was black & his father was a german immigrant) with skin light enough to pass for white.

the fact that nick states that gatsby keeps his hair neatly groomed and cut might be to prevent it from curling up.

additionally, i think it could contrast tom’s white supremacy & his fear of poc social progress.

it would also create a deeper divide between gatsby and daisy, and once again the contrast between him and tom. in my mind, daisy wouldn’t know about it until the point where tom reveals everything about gatsby’s bootlegging etc. with jay revealing it to her in the car ride back (oops then she hits myrtle).

then, when she chooses tom and the life of comfort, wealth, status, etc that their marriage offers, she also rejects not only gatsby’s new money but also his race.

it’s a lot more thematically significant for the american dream as well—it’s still unattainable and essentially tainted by capitalism, and it also emphasizes that it’s restricted to the white upper class. social mobility only becomes available to gatsby when he disguises his racial identity.

similarly, it fits with gatsby’s identity reconstruction—the quintessential american is white, rich, and educated.

daisy and tom have that ticket into society because they have that inherent thing that he will never have—pedigree, in both class and race. that’s something that even nick has.

(in my mind, he tells nick all about it the night before he dies & nick understands as best he can and doesn’t think less of him, because it further highlights the differences between his & gatsby’s relationship v. gatsby’s relationship with daisy; namely, the transparency -> acceptance give-and-take that he and daisy never had. because of having to hide himself from daisy in order to maintain her affection, he builds an expectation that he must be someone that he is not as well as developing a transactional definition of love (he gives, and people love him as long as he can continue to give) in order to be loved. therefore, nick’s immediate curiosity and fascination with who he truly is is foreign to him. not to get too into their dynamic lmao i just think it’s really interesting.)

finally, the very last part where nick is sitting and looking at the bay and thinking about the first immigrants and their dreams and how gatsby embodied the purity and naivety of those dreams is further exemplified by his racial ‘otherness.’

and there’s,,, technically nothing in the book to explicitly refute this from what i remember!

(n.b.: it has been a hot second since i’ve read tgg, so lmk if i’ve got anything wrong!)

That Bartleby bitch was onto something. Like damn, I also would prefer not to.

"People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for."

- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Quoth the Raven: "Nevermore"

"E o corvo disse: 'Nunca mais'"

“At the moment, she can’t seem to speak. There is so much in the world.”

— Michael Cunningham, from ‘The Hours’, first published in 1998.

“It could be a good day; it needs to be treated carefully.”

— Michael Cunningham, from ‘The Hours’, first published in 1998.

“There is surprisingly little to enter, in this immense bright smoky landscape, and what she wants—someplace private, silent, where she can read, where she can think— is not readily available. If she goes to a store or restaurant, she’ll have to perform—she’ll have to pretend to need or want something that does not, in any way, interest her. She’ll have to move in an orderly fashion; she’ll have to examine merchandise and refuse offers of help, or she’ll have to sit at a table, order something, consume it, and leave. If she simply parks her car somewhere and sits there, a woman alone, she’ll be vulnerable to criminals and to those who’ll try to protect her from criminals. She’ll be too exposed; she’ll look too peculiar. Even a library would be too public, as would a park.”

—

Michael Cunningham, from ‘The Hours’, first published in 1998.

“But to have a proper cry over all these things would take a long time. All the same, the time for it had come. She must do it. She couldn’t put it off any longer; she couldn’t wait any more. Where could she go? […].  She couldn’t go home; Ethel was there. It would frighten Ethel out of her life. She  couldn’t sit on a bench anywhere; people would come asking her questions. She couldn't  possibly go back to the gentleman’s flat; she had no right to cry in strangers’ houses. If  she sat on some steps a policeman would speak to her.  Oh, wasn’t there anywhere where she could hide and keep herself to herself and stay as  long as she liked, not disturbing anybody, and nobody worrying her? Wasn’t there anywhere in the world where she could have her cry out—at last? […].  And now it began to rain. There was nowhere.

 ̶  Katherine Mansfield, from ‘Ma Parker’, first published in 1921.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, from The Collected Poems of E. M; “True Encounter,”

“…I thought of your body as one thinks of murder.”

— Anne Sexton, from The Complete Poems; “Christmas Eve,”

"[...] wordless gaze."

Mary Oliver, from 'The Other Kingdoms', featured in "The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays", first published in 2008.

"[...], her wordlessness, her perfect love."

Mary Oliver, from 'Spring', featured in 'House of Light', first published in 1990.

this was SO MUCH FUN. "If you are silent about your pain they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it." -Zora Neale Hurston This project is available on my redbubble! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/150622215?asc=u

Ada Limón, from Bright Dead Things; “Prickly Pear & Fisticuffs”