Modernism

Topic I choose
I choose the topic of Psychoanalysis. I am choosing this topic because it interests me to know how people analyze other’s minds. Also psychoanalysis proves what causes a person actions or thoughts. This topic has been around for almost 100 years, but it continues to be a topic of interests. In the story, which I’m about to read, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, I believe that it will address Psychoanalysis because of the title. From the title, I can tell that it will be a story of someone who analyzes people’s thoughts and minds, and keeps it a secret.

Psychoanalysis -- The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber
This story was about a man by the name of Walter Mitty. In the story Mr. Mitty is living a normal life, but his daydreaming causes a few disruptions. One day while he is driving with his wife, he imagines himself as a commander. While he is daydreaming he doesn’t notice that he is speeding, until his wife brings it to his attention. After this he drops his wife off at the hair salon, and she suggests that he lets his doctor see him. He drives past the hospital, and he starts to imagine he goes to the hospital, and that he is the attending physician. Back to reality, he now realizes that he was about to hit another car because he was in the wrong lane. This back and forth movement between daydreaming and reality continues for the rest of the story, and ends with one last daydream that drowns out his wife’s pestering.

I really liked this story because it shows how something can get you to daydream, and make you want to be in that place. This really was a confusing story, because it went back and forth, but at the end everything was self explanatory. Walter Mitty’s wife accentuates the mundane aspects of life. Even though this story was confusing I would recommend it to who ever likes to explore and imagine things in a good way.

This story relates to psychoanalysis because Mr. Mitty is always thinking and searching into his mind or analyzing his mind. He gazes off and imagines how something would be if he weren’t just ordinary. The interaction between husband and wife towards the end of the story is particularly representative of the lack of communication between the two characters. Mr. Mitty asks: “Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?” She looked at him. "I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home". This means that there are times when he meditates on life and she believes that must have a fever or some other illness to be talking or acting the way he is.

Another textual evidence of how this relates to my topic would be, “You're tensed up again," said Mrs. Mitty. “It's one of your days. I wish you'd let Dr. Renshaw look you over.” This has to do with his daydreaming and gazing off the real world. This is when he has been speeding while thinking of himself as a commander and his wife brings him back to reality. She is saying how it’s one of his days, and she does not mean it by saying a daydreaming day, she means like a bad day or something gin particular. This is typical for his wife to address since she doesn’t know what he is thinking or doing.




Poems and match up with Modernism element
Poem #1-
My opinion on this poem is wow. I feel like this story has a lot of meaning to it and expression. This poem is practically saying that there is this one perfect man in this perfect world. Who does not fear a thing or suffer from anything, and there are these hard working men who still can not live life like him. Modernism element of this poem would be disillusion, because what they don’t realize is that this rich guy doesn’t live a perfect life, because if he would he wouldn’t have killed himself. This is what is said in the poem, “So on we worked, and waited for the light, and went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.” This is exactly what I said.

Poem #2-
This poem is about a wall built in between two neighbors, which makes this neighbors come closer. This is a tricky poem by which the writer is trying g to make us question the other neighbor in the story. The piece of element of this poem would be disillusionment. This is disillusionment because the author makes us look at things the wrong way and asking us why a wall should be built. But the reason why is because this wall is what makes them good neighbors because there is that one time where eventually they have to come together and built this wall. Another way of disillusionment is that the neighbor repeats constantly, “Good fences make good neighbors.” It is that because he is saying this because he has heard it but really has no way of explaining why this appears to be true to him.

Poem #3-
This poem is asking what happens to the dreams that are put on hold, or even thrown away. This explains itself well, and by the fact that it says, “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” that is sort of like saying what I had said before, does it just disappear or does it just stay there till the time comes. The modernism element of this poem would be disillusionment because they are disappointed of how they can’t get an answer of what their dream are being done to. This also shows disillusionment because people are thinking that they still live the American dream.

Poem #4-This is saying that he wants to prove that black people have a history too. He is trying to show that they should learn about black history instead of the white one. This is like saying black people built rivers, black people bathed in rivers, and that black people history as been around for long. The Phrase in which explains all this would be, “I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. The element of this poem is Harlem Renaissance because they are trying to prove that they have created something and that people should learned of their own culture just instead of learning the white culture and history.

Poem #5-
This last poem has touched me, because of what it is saying. This has to do with a little black boy while in Baltimore, and he was called a “nigger,” because of his color. This would most definitely fall under Harlem Renaissance because he wasn’t living the American dream; he was being called names because of the way he looked. This had a big affect in him that after all the time he was there the only thing that he remembered was the day when he was discriminated by his color. Another opinion of mine was that he also never forgot about that one day, because he knew he was to stay that color the rest of his life.