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(2018
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2018 #2b: Short Essay (Term) (Index) |
LITR 4328 |
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Jasmine Choate
Correspondence: A Heart as Dark as A Room with No Windows
It may be strange that I am a horror movie fanatic and lover of all things dark,
grotesque, and creepy, yet my favorite term in this course is not Gothic. After
reading the course texts so far, I’ve discovered a fascination with the use of
Correspondence. Interestingly enough, I had never heard this word prior to this
course, in terms of Romantic literature. My understanding and definition of the
word is that it means a connection between one’s inner emotions and spirit with
their outer surroundings and environment.
I think understanding this term and being able to identify it within literature
can elevate any reader’s experience by allowing them a deeper perspective into
the spirit of the written character. By connecting the spirit to something
visual, like the character’s surroundings, a writer can create a more relatable
tone, thus drawing readers in closer to the work. Through external reflection
and correspondence, vivid pictures and settings help writers describe emotions
that at times seem indescribable. Such as grief, heartache, hopefulness,
hopelessness, optimism, etc. On the course website, the term is described as;
“relation between inner and outer world, soul and nature, self and cosmos.”
I think this perfectly describes how it is used in this period, especially with
nature.
I think is my personal favorite example of correspondence is from Susan B.
Warner’s the Wide, Wide World in
chapter 10. When Ellen is adjusting to living with Aunt Fortune, who treats her
crudely, when she returns to her room to find that she no longer feels welcomed
or comfortable as she initially did. “The
sunshine was out of it; and what was more, the sunshine was out of Ellen's heart
too.” [10.67] Her room had lost its charm and was now described as dim and dark,
which reflected how Ellen was beginning to feel about her living situation,
after Aunt Fortune took away all of her white stockings and was planning on
doing something to them against Ellen’s wishes. By connecting the space of
Ellen’s bleak and dark room to heart, we are given an image of just how bleak
and dark Ellen must be feeling. In this example, her dim room and dim heart are
one and the same, mirrored images of each other displaying the loneliness Ellen
is going through.
The earliest I remember coming across the term Correspondence is within Ralph
Waldo Emerson’s selections from Nature.
At the end, there was a mention of summer, and the effects that it would have on
people. “As when the summer comes from the south; the
snow-banks melt, and the face of the earth becomes green before it, so shall the
advancing spirit create its ornaments along its path, and carry with it the
beauty it visits, and the song which enchants it; it shall draw beautiful faces,
warm hearts, wise discourse, and heroic acts, around its way, until evil is no
more seen.” [28] I liked this example because of how it was different in that it
was not speaking of how summer would affect one individual person, but many. The
bright and positive characteristics of summer that Emerson depicts are so
powerful that it is able to reach the many minds and souls of multiple people.
The beauty and warmth that summer brings will be so correspondent that it will
warm people’s hearts, raise their spirits, motivate them to commit heroic acts,
and most importantly make evil go away.
