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Write up on searching for eden

admin — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 16:53:59 +0000

Literature Review

Garden of Eden

What the next world is, however, is far from clear. The rabbis use the term Olam Ha-Ba to refer to a heaven-like afterlife as well as to the messianic era or the age of resurrection, and it is often difficult to know which one is being referred to. When the Talmud does speak of Olam Ha-Ba in connection to the afterlife, it often uses it interchangeably with the term Gan Eden (“the Garden of Eden”), referring to a heavenly realm where souls reside after physical death.

The use of the term Gan Eden to describe “heaven” suggests that the rabbis conceived of the afterlife as a return to the blissful existence of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the “fall.” It is generally believed that in Gan Eden the human soul exists in a disembodied state until the time of bodily resurrection in the days of the Messiah.

One interesting talmudic story, in which the World to Come almost certainly refers to a heavenly afterlife, tells of Rabbi Joseph, the son of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, who dies and returns back to life.

“His father asked him, ‘What did you see?’ He replied, ‘I beheld a world the reverse of this one; those who are on top here were below there, and vice versa.’ He [Joshua ben Levi] said to him, ‘My son, you have seen a corrected world.’”

In the kabbalistic (Jewish mystical) tradition, there is much discussion about the voyages of the human soul to the Garden of Eden and other heavenly realms during one’s life on earth. In the Zohar, the greatest of the medieval mystical works, there are many stories about the soul-ascents of various members of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai’s mystical brotherhood. Most often, these journeys take place at night, while the body is at rest (see, for example, Zohar I: Parashat Vayehi, 217b-218b).

Gehinnom: A Jewish Hell

Only truly righteous souls ascend directly to the Garden of Eden, say the sages. The average person descends to a place of punishment and/or purification, generally referred to as Gehinnom.

The name is taken from a valley (Gei Hinnom) just south of Jerusalem, once used for child sacrifice by the pagan nations of Canaan (II Kings 23:10). Some view Gehinnom as a place of torture and punishment, fire and brimstone. Others imagine it less harshly, as a place where one reviews the actions of his/her life and repents for past misdeeds.

The soul’s sentence in Gehinnom is usually limited to a 12-month period of purgation before it takes its place in Olam Ha-Ba (MishnahEduyot 2:9, Shabbat 33a). This 12-month limit is reflected in the yearlong mourning cycle and the recitation of the Kaddish (the memorial prayer for the dead).

Only the utterly wicked do not ascend to the Garden of Eden at the end of this year. Sources differ on what happens to these souls at the end of their initial time of purgation. Some say that the wicked are utterly destroyed and cease to exist, while others believe in eternal damnation (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Law of Repentance, 3:5-6).

RING OF VESSELS

In Kabbalah, Adam and Eve are viewed as symbols of male and female energy, and as a metaphor for the “primordial Vessel” whose existence came before creation, thus encompassing all the souls of humanity to come.⁶⁸ The presence of the Serpent, considered a fragmenting force, was necessary for creation; otherwise, all would have remained united with God.⁶⁹ This gave man the opportunity to earn the Light on his own.⁷⁰

One of the hidden meanings in the creation story, according to Kabbalah, is that there are two gardens of Eden—one above, and one below—and reuniting these two gardens is the goal of humankind.⁷¹ Yehuda Berg believes that the forbidden fruit was a sexual act between Eve and the Serpent.⁷² Matt interprets Adam’s sin as driving out the Shekhinah by eating only from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and not from the Tree of Life, thus separating the Shekhinah from her “husband,” Tiferet, and separating consciousness from unconsciousness.⁷³ This act caused Adam and Eve to lose their garments of light and fall into a lower physical form, becoming clothed with garments of animal skin.⁷⁴

Philip Berg’s interpretation of the fall is that Adam and Eve chose with good intentions to have more Light, since this is what the Serpent offered. Their choice was wrong, but because the Serpent’s temptation enhanced the difficulty of their choice, it was also worthy.⁷⁵ This sounds contradictory, but Berg explains that evil comes from God and serves the Creator. Cooper says that everything, including evil, has a divine nature.⁷⁶ Adam and Eve took a second bite of the fruit, done out of self-serving motives, thus short-circuiting their ability to receive the fullness of the Creator’s Light and moving them back to the material level with a knowledge of death and evil.⁷⁷ God’s command that Adam must now work the land was not literal; rather, it meant that he must “rebuild the Vessel of [himself] through [his] own work in the world.”⁷⁸

The Tree of Life, Kabbalah teaches, is a fountain of God’s light, flowing ever downward. This was free flowing in the garden of Eden, but humankind has disrupted this flow and is in shattered vessels, which it must rebuild on its own. The garden must be regained.

IN THE GARDEN: THE SHATTERING OF VESSELS

Reference:https://www.equip.org/articles/kabbalah-getting-back-to-the-garden/

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Write up on Zecharia Sitchin ‘s 12th Planet

admin — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 22:02:26 +0000

Significance of the Study

Zecharia Sitchin (1920-2010) studied Economics at the University of London and was best known for his fringe theories on the origins of Earth and man-kinds celestial ancestry (alien ancestry). According to his official website, www.sitchin.com, he is “one of few scholars able to read and interpret ancient Sumerian and Akkadian clay tablets.” His interpretations and theories were compiled into his seven books known as The Earth Chronicles. In his first novel, The 12^th Planet and its sequels Sitchin claims there is a 12^th planet beyond Neptune known as Nibiru that reaches our inner solar system once every 3,600 years. According to Sitchin, an advanced race of human-like extraterrestrials called the Anunnaki live on Nibiru and are the missing link in Homo sapiens evolution. There have been no new postings on Sitchins official webpage since 2017 but some 4,126 people follow the Zecharia Sitchin Facebook page which continues to make posts to this day. Additionally, Sitchin’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into almost 20 languages so his influence is certainly noteworthy. The belief in Zecharia Sitchin and what he professed is important because it attempts to provide an answer to some of humanities timeless questions, namely, “Why are we here?” and “How did we come to be here?” However, his explanations provide an extraordinary answer because they contradict our current knowledge regarding our solar system and the celestial bodies found therein and cannot be scientifically proven nor disproven as the only evidence is based upon subjective interpretations.

The Annunaki arrived on Earth 450,000 years ago looking for minerals, namely gold which they began mining in Africa. When Anunnaki miners became displeased with working conditions it was decided that Anunnaki genes and Homo erectus genes would be engineered to create slaves to replace the miners, thus resulting in Homo sapiens, or man-kind as we know it. The evidence sited in support of this belief can be found through a link on the Facebook page which takes you to a website called, enkispeaks.com. There we see evidence quoted from his first book which included varies statements pertaining to Sumerian space maps which showed planets which would have been beyond their ability to detect. “Sumerians lacked telescopes and couldn’t see Uranus’ and Neptune’s orbits the route maps (from Nibiru to Earth) show. Nibirandictated maps prove they had astronomical info Sumerians, on their own, didn’t. The maps accurately detail the entire Earth from space, a perspective impossible for ancient Sumerians on their own.” (Sitchin 275) This map was discovered on a clay tablet in the ruins of the Royal Library at Nineva. Additionally, on Sitchin’s official website there is an article pertaining to an article published in Science magazine by Mathieu Ossendrijver in January 2016 which discusses a 350-50 BCE Babylonian cuneiform tablet that accurately details the position of Jupiter based on geometrical calculations. This article is offered as evidence for the planetary knowledge of ancient civilizations that they were not expected to have, so it therefore is assumed to have come from the Anunnaki. In opposition to these beliefs we see experts such as Dr. Michael S. Heiser who holds a Ph.D in the Hebrew Bible and Semetic Languages posing critical questions to Sitchin regarding his interpretations of the Sumerian texts. Heiser asserts that while Anunnaki is indeed found in Sumerian Literature (182 times, according to Heiser) there is no mention of a connection between them and Nibiru, or a 12^th planet. Heiser also questions Sitchin’s reasoning for interpreting Sumerian words such as “naphal” to mean fire, or rockets which leads to an interpretation of the word “Nephilim” to mean “people of the fiery rockets.” Heiser asserts that his interpretation of this word is without accurate explanation nor is there a single, ancient text where naphal has that meaning.

Zecharia Sitchin’s lack of a formal education in Semitic Studies likely led to an inaccurate and therefore misinformed reading of the Sumerian texts. One could argue he suffered from confirmation bias as he moved through the literature distorting the meaning of certain words in an ignorant effort to fit his beliefs. Furthermore, we see a section on Sitchin’s official website discussing a Washington Post article from November 2017 wherein the senior scientist of NASA, David Morrison, PH.D states that Nibiru is not real and that there is no 10^th planet. The author of the website responds with a red herring stating that, “he [Morrison] just wants to get on with his real work and not worry about answering questions.” This in no way addresses Morrison’s statement nor does it provide evidence that argues against it.

My first introduction to Zecharia Sitchin and his books was through my parents who are both dis-fellowshipped Jehovah’s Witnesses. After leaving “the truth” my parents were in search of a new truth that answered the big questions that their previous faith no longer did. However anecdotal I imagine many previously religious people who are no longer sure of their belief in a traditional God could find themselves drawn to the appearance of science in Sitchin’s books. As more secular voices are made heard through the internet there is an increasing availability for confirmation bias among belief communities, as well as increased access to “bad science” with no guide posts for truth. Sitchin’s theories are appealing to those who now seek a more “scientific” answer to questions that were previously answered by religion. Moreso, Sitchin relies on texts such as the Bible (Genesis) which may be an added comfort to new believers as it is already familiar. Furthermore, Sitchin’s books being translated into over 20 languages bridges communication gaps and widens the base of believers to extend beyond a single region or language.

Even after Sitchin’s death in 2010 “scientific evidence” for his books was still being shared on his website up until 2017 and many other scholars have written about his work and have added their own supportive evidence as seen through the Zecharia Sitchin Facebook page. This ongoing dialogue could provide believers with comfort and assurance that what they’ve put stock in is continually “proven” and discussed by those seen as experts, even to this day.

Zecharia Sitchin and Our Alien Anecestors

Literature Review

The Anunnaki

Central to Sitchin’s narrative are a group of alien beings known as the Anunnaki, whom he claimed crossed their own DNA with that of Homo erectus in order to create mankind—for the purpose of using humans as slaves to mine gold and other minerals. Today these Anunnaki are often variously portrayed in A.A.T. literature as the scientific equivalent of the creator of the human race as portrayed in numerous religions. Anunnaki actually means “Princely Seed” or “Princely (royal) blood”. Sitchin’s translation of Anunnaki as “those who from heaven came” is itself an error or was completely fabricated, and all modern translations of the term in this fashion are merely relying on Sitchin’s own publications. Scholars are free to search the entire spectrum of Sumerian literature at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (2) to test any of the terms referenced by Sitchin or the present article for themselves.

In THE 12TH PLANET, Zecharia Sitchin argues that Sumerian myths of a pantheon of gods are no less than fact and that Earth’s solar system includes an additional planet called Shar which comes near Earth every 3,600 years on an elliptical orbit that takes it deep into space. The planet, he claims, is inhabited by advanced alien beings called Nefilim. Based on a Sumerian origin myth, he recounts how the arrival of this planet formed the solar system as we know it, and he credits the Nefilim for advancing humanity and also for the stories of the Great Flood.

Sitchin gives a history of the archeological investigation into ancient societies, tracing the known culture of ancient Greece back to earlier cultures, finally arriving at the earliest known civilization of Sumer. He gives the impression that earlier cultures were more advanced than later ones and that Sumer arose suddenly and was amazingly advanced. In this way, he shrouds Sumer in mystery. Similarly, Sitchin gives the stories of the Greek and Roman gods and traces similar stories through other cultures, arriving at Sumerian mythology.

The main mythological characters are Anu, a distant father god, and two sons, Enlil and Enki, who vie for superiority and power. The gods come from above and travel to Earth, walking among the people. Sitchin interprets the Sumerian myths as being factual accounts of alien beings from an extra planet in Earth’s solar system that came to Earth 450,000 years ago to mine for gold and other rare minerals. The aliens had helicopter-type flying devices to move around Earth, powerful weapons, and rockets to travel to their planet.

Sitchin claims that the missing planet, Shar, follows a 3,600-mile elliptical orbit from deep space to the asteroid belt. Coming from outer space, the planet crashed through the solar system, pushing Pluto onto its current orbit and cutting one planet in half, creating Earth out of one side and the asteroid belt out of the debris. It also knocked the moon into place. Sitchin gets his claims from his interpretation of Sumerian myths as factual accounts.

While on Earth, the inhabitants of Shar, which Sitchin calls Nefilim, genetically engineered humans as a slave race to help with mining. Enlil became unhappy because Enki gave humans the ability to reproduce (a reinterpretation of the story of the Garden of Eden). Enlil decided to destroy humans, and so did not tell them of the coming Deluge (the story of Noah.) Sitchin interprets the Deluge as tidal waves from the end of the last ice age. Enki played the role of God in saving “Noah.” Mankind survived, and after the Great Flood, the gods gave mankind agriculture and helped humans build civilization. The humans tried to build a rocket ship, though (a reinterpretation of the Tower of Babel), and the gods broke them into three different groups, giving each a different language.

“The 12th Planet” opens with Zecharia Sitchin’s assertion that conventional interpretations of ancient texts and archaeological findings have overlooked a crucial aspect of human history — the influence of extraterrestrial beings. Sitchin’s thesis revolves around the idea that Earth was visited by advanced alien beings called the Anunnaki, who came from a mysterious twelfth planet in our solar system, known as Nibiru.

Chapter 1: The Nefilim

Sitchin begins by introducing the concept of the Anunnaki, which he translates as “those who from heaven to Earth came.” He argues that the Anunnaki are not mythical deities but real beings who traveled to Earth in search of minerals, specifically gold, which they needed to repair their planet’s deteriorating atmosphere.

According to Sitchin, the Anunnaki arrived on Earth around 450,000 years ago and established their presence in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). They are described as humanoid beings with advanced technology and knowledge of genetics, which they used to manipulate the local hominid species, Homo erectus, into a more advanced form — the first humans, Homo sapiens.

Chapter 2: The Stairway to Heaven

Sitchin delves into the details of the Anunnaki’s home planet, Nibiru. He explains that Nibiru has an elongated orbit that brings it into the inner solar system every 3,600 years. During these close approaches to Earth, the Anunnaki took advantage of the planet’s resources, particularly gold. They established mining operations in Africa and Mesopotamia and created a labor force by genetically modifying Homo erectus.

Sitchin also discusses the ancient Sumerians, one of the world’s earliest known civilizations, and their advanced knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. He argues that the Sumerians received this knowledge from the Anunnaki, who also played a role in shaping Sumerian religion and culture.

Chapter 3: The Nefilim Rule

This chapter explores the idea that the Anunnaki not only influenced early human civilization but also played a direct role in governing it. Sitchin claims that the Anunnaki established a hierarchy on Earth, with royal Anunnaki as rulers and intermediaries between the gods and humans. He argues that the stories of gods in various ancient cultures are actually accounts of interactions with the Anunnaki.

Sitchin presents evidence from Sumerian cuneiform tablets, such as the Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh, to support his claims. He interprets these texts as descriptions of the Anunnaki’s role in human affairs, including their genetic experiments and their establishment of royal dynasties.

Chapter 4: The Deluge

In this chapter, Sitchin explores the biblical story of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood. He argues that the flood was a deliberate act by the Anunnaki, who sought to wipe out humanity due to its rebellion against their authority. According to Sitchin, Enlil, one of the Anunnaki leaders, ordered the flood to destroy the “mixed-breed” humans who had become too numerous.

Sitchin claims that the biblical story closely parallels earlier Mesopotamian accounts of the flood, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. He contends that these accounts are historical records of the same event — a flood caused by the Anunnaki.

Chapter 5: Gods of Heaven and Earth

Sitchin delves deeper into the pantheon of Sumerian gods and goddesses, asserting that they were not mythical figures but actual extraterrestrial beings. He introduces key Anunnaki figures, including Anu (the ruler of Nibiru), Enki (the scientist who created humans), and Enlil (the enforcer of divine decrees).

Sitchin presents various ancient texts as evidence for his claims, suggesting that these texts describe the interactions, disputes, and power struggles among the Anunnaki. He argues that the conflicts among these beings had a profound impact on human history, shaping our religious beliefs and societal structures.

Chapter 6: The Return

This chapter discusses the Anunnaki’s periodic return to Earth during Nibiru’s close approaches. Sitchin suggests that these visits had a significant influence on human development and that the Anunnaki continued to manipulate human affairs.

He argues that the Anunnaki left behind clues and messages for future generations, such as the Nazca Lines in Peru and the pyramids in Egypt. Sitchin interprets these ancient mysteries as signs of the Anunnaki’s presence and their intent to guide humanity.

Chapter 7: Divine Encounters

Sitchin explores encounters between humans and the Anunnaki in various ancient cultures. He discusses the Akkadian account of Etana’s ascent to heaven, the Egyptian texts describing interactions with gods, and the biblical accounts of angels and divine messengers. Sitchin interprets these encounters as evidence of the Anunnaki’s ongoing involvement with humanity.

Chapter 8: In Search of Hidden Time

Sitchin delves into the mysteries of ancient monuments and artifacts, including Stonehenge, the pyramids, and the Nazca Lines. He argues that these structures contain astronomical and mathematical knowledge that could only have been provided by the Anunnaki.

Sitchin also discusses the ancient Sumerian calendar, which he claims is based on the orbital period of Nibiru. He suggests that the calendar’s precision is evidence of advanced astronomical knowledge passed down by the Anunnaki.

Chapter 9: The End of All Flesh

Sitchin explores the concept of nuclear warfare in ancient times, particularly focusing on the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He contends that these cities were destroyed by nuclear explosions, which he attributes to the Anunnaki.

Sitchin suggests that the Anunnaki possessed advanced weapons and technology, which they used both to enforce their authority on Earth and to engage in conflicts among themselves.

Chapter 10: The Last Book

In the final chapter, Sitchin discusses the enduring impact of the Anunnaki on human civilization and religious beliefs. He suggests that the Anunnaki’s influence can be seen in various mythologies and religious traditions, including the worship of gods and the idea of a divine plan for humanity.

Sitchin also addresses the question of whether the Anunnaki are still present on Earth or if they have moved on to other ventures in the cosmos. He leaves the possibility open for future interactions between humans and these ancient extraterrestrial beings.

Criticism and Controversy

While “The 12th Planet” has garnered a following among some readers intrigued by alternative theories of human history, it has faced significant criticism and skepticism from mainstream scholars, scientists, and archaeologists.

Reference:

Zecharia Sitchin and Our Alien Anecestors

https://medium.com/@chapati2323/summary-of-the-12th-planet-by-zecharia-sitchin-8058baa66079

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Write up on Frank Herbert Dune & Analog Magazine

admin — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 18:43:24 +0000

Background of the Study

Since childhood, Tacoma-born Frank Herbert had been determined to become a published author. For years, he wrote fiction with limited success while working as a journalist. He was hounded by creditors as he struggled alongside his wife Beverly to support a family. But his 1965 science fiction novel Dune, considered by many to be the best science fiction novel ever written, won him the devotion of fans all over the world, launched a franchise that lasted for decades, and earned him millions, which he spent with gusto.

Literature Review

HERBERT, FRANK.

Dune, in Analog Magazine

FIRST APPEARANCE OF DUNE, preceding the first book edition. Complete in 8 issues of “Analog” magazine.

“Much of Herbert’s opus originally appeared in Analog, edited by the legendary John W. Campbell. Despite Campbell’s seal of approval, Dune—longer and far more ambitious than most science fiction of the time—was turned down by some twenty publishers. ‘It is just possible that we may be making the mistake of the decade in declining Dune by Frank Herbert,’ wrote Julian P. Muller, of Harcourt, Brace & World, in a typical response. In the end, an editor at Chilton, known for its line of car-repair manuals, offered to publish it after reading the serialized chapters” (The New Yorker).

“Published to almost immediate critical acclaim, Dune won the two most prestigious science fiction awards, the Nebula Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1965 and the Hugo Award from the World Science Fiction Convention in 1966” (American National Biography). Popular success was soon to follow as Dune “was translated into 14 languages and sold some 12 million copies, more than any other science-fiction book in history” (Britannica).

“Dune World” and “The Prophet of Dune” were combined to form the first book edition, published in August of 1965.

Analog/Astounding is often considered the magazine where science fiction grew up. When editor John W. Campbell took over in 1938, he brought to Astounding an unprecedented insistence on placing equal emphasis on both words of “science fiction.” Gadgets and action were no longer sufficient; writers needed to try to think out how science and technology might really develop in the future – and, most importantly, how those changes would affect the lives of human beings. The new sophistication soon made Astounding the undisputed leader in the field, and the old title began to seem too “sensational” to reflect what the magazine was actually doing. Campbell chose “Analog” in part because he thought of each story as an “analog simulation” of a possible future, and in part because of the close analogy between the imagined science in the stories and the real science being done in laboratories around the world.

Turning to Science Fiction

Herbert’s first science fiction story, “Looking for Something,” appeared in the April 1952 issue of Startling Stories. That year, Herbert was between day jobs, his first wife had just successfully sued him for back child-support payments, and his former employers had discovered they had co-signed a car loan with Herbert on a vehicle which was now wrecked.

It seemed like a good time to leave town. Successful science fiction and fantasy author Jack Vance suggested the two writers and their families take a trip to Mexico for a while and collaborate on projects. The Herberts borrowed money from Beverly’s relatives and headed south. Herbert later said that while in Mexico, he unwittingly partook of both hashish-laden cookies and morning glory-seed tea. Drug experiences would form the basis for the fictional drug spice melange, a key element in the Dune series still to come. But his writing efforts alongside his friend and mentor Vance didn’t result in any literary sales.

been published in the magazine. Analog, however, said it would publish the rest of the three-part saga that was still unwritten. Herbert got to work and delivered the manuscript in November 1963, resigned to the idea that his trilogy would never be published in book form.

But in 1965, an unlikely book publisher contacted Herbert’s agent, and said he wanted to publish the Dune material that he had read in Analog. The Chilton company was known for its car repair manuals, grease-stained copies of which could be found on garage work benches all over the country. Chilton published the first Analog serial, Dune World, and the second one, Prophet of Dune in hardcover as one novel called Dune. Soon afterward, Ace Books bought the paperback rights.

Herbert kept his day job at the San Francisco Examiner and worked on other fiction projects. By 1969, the second Dune book, Dune Messiah, was published. The books were gaining a word-of-mouth following, especially among college students, and became identified with a new field of interest, ecology

Significance of the Study

Real science and technology have always been important in Analog, not only as the foundation of its fiction, but as the subject of articles about real research with big implications for the future. One story published during World War II described an atomic bomb so accurately – before Hiroshima – that FBI agents visited the office to find out where the leak was. (There was no leak – just attentive, forward-thinking writers!)

The pages of Astounding/Analog have been home to many of science fiction’s foremost writers and stories. Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Ben Bova, David Brin, Lois McMaster Bujold, Michael F. Flynn, Robert A. Heinlein, Geoffrey Landis, George R.R. Martin, Spider Robinson, Robert J. Sawyer, Charles Sheffield, Michael Swanwick, Harry Turtledove, and Timothy Zahn are just a few of the prominent names that have appeared in our pages, and we have a long tradition of discovering and cultivating new talent. Our stories have also won many Hugo and Nebula Awards, and such classics as Asimov’s Foundation, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight first appeared in Analog.

Some people who haven’t read Analog assume it has a much narrower emphasis on “nuts and bolts” than it actually has. It’s true that we care very much about making our speculations plausible, because we think there’s something extra special about stories that are not only fantastic, but might actually happen. But it’s just as true that we’re very concerned about people (Earthly or otherwise) and how future changes will affect the way they live. If you haven’t tried Analog, we hope you will. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by each issue’s mix of fascinating stories about real people in potentially real futures (some terrifying, some exhilarating, some both), fact articles and columns about real trends in science and society, reviews of new books, and an ongoing dialog with our readers in the letter column. No matter the era, our underlying philosophy remains the same: solidly entertaining stories exploring solidly thought-out speculative ideas. But the ideas, and consequently the stories, are always new.

Dune Catches On

The popularity of Dune continued to grow. It was featured in Stewart Brand’s countercultural Whole Earth Catalog, and Apollo astronauts named a crater on the moon Dune in Herbert’s honor. Young people were reading it and rereading it. By 1971, Herbert had quit his final newspaper job. He taught a course called “Utopia/Dystopia” at the University of Washington and wrote other novels before starting another Dune book. They included Soul Catcher, about revenge and culture clash featuring Pacific Northwest Indians; The God-Makers, with a human god created by psychic energy; and Whipping Star, about big government, a particular concern of Herbert’s. Eventually, he would publish more than two dozen novels and many short stories.

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Write up on Comic Books utilized in education reading compression and logic models for psychometrics

admin — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 10:20:57 +0000

Significance of the Study

Comics can be an invaluable teaching tool, but aside from the occasional non-serial graphic novel, they are underused. For every Maus, Fun Home, and American Born Chinese, countless superhero comics are disregarded as too superficial for the level of analysis afforded “real” works of literature. But comics can serve three primary roles in the classroom:

They can facilitate a better understanding of complex required texts by serving as a preliminary reading activity;
They can extend the analysis of a classic work of literature, either by providing examples of derivative fiction or by making strong allusions to the classics;
They can replace less-accessible works from the literary canon while still conveying the same messages and using the same literary and rhetorical conventions.

Words and Pictures Together Increase Recall and Problem Solving “…the low-level students receiving the high-level text with the comic strip scored significantly higher than their counterparts receiving the high-level text only.” —Jun Liu. “Effect of Comic Strips on L2 Learners’ Reading Comprehension.” TESOL Quarterly, 2004. http://sfl.ieu.edu.tr/tdu/TESOL_Quarterly_Reading.pdf

“Across the eleven studies, people who learned from words and graphics produced between 55 percent to 121 percent more correct solutions to transfer problems than people who learned from words alone. Across all studies, a median percentage gain of 89 percent was achieved with a median effect size of 1.50.” — Mayer, Richard E. and Clark, Ruth Colvin. e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning. Pfeiffer, 2011. “Results of Study 2 find that verbatim recognition was superior with graphic novel texts compared to traditional textbooks.” —McKenny, Aaron, Short, Jeremy, & Randolph-Seng, Brandon. Abstract: “Graphic presentation: an empirical examination of the graphic novel approach to communicate business concepts.” http://www.academia.edu/2210806/Graphic_presentation_an_empirical_examination_of_the_graphic_novel_ approach_to_communicate_business_concepts “

Results document children’s deliberate use of images and point to the important role of images in text processing.” —Arya, Poonam & M. Feathers, Karen. (2015). “Exploring Young Children’s Use of Illustrations in a Picturebook.” Language and Literacy. 17. 42-62. 10.20360/G2630C. Comics Aid Comprehension “A graphic adaptation of a traditionally taught text (Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”) was explored as (a) a replacement text and (b) a supplemental text. The study design utilized a factorial analysis of variance with three independent variables: text type, grade level, and gender.

A reading comprehension test was developed to serve as the dependent variable. Findings indicated significant effects for all factors.” —Cook, M.P. (in press). Now I “see”: Graphic novels promoting reading comprehension in high school English classrooms. Literacy Research & Instruction. 10.1080/19388071.2016.1244869 “…24 mixed-ability fifth grade students chose to read six novels: two traditional novels, two highly illustrated novels and two graphic novels. …

In this study, reading of graphic novels stimulated more student discussion using the structure of thinking skills and greater story comprehension. … The mean number of student responses to the de Bono thinking skill prompts initiated by students was higher for the graphic novels than for either of the other two novel forms. …Graphic novels also increased student comprehension as measured by the midterm assessment writing prompts and final project scores. …Student midterm assessment responses for graphic novels showed higher assessment scores than either of the other two novel forms. …The survey results showed that the students reading graphic novels reported greater enjoyment of reading and stronger interest in the story than when reading either of the other two novel forms. —Jennings, K. A., Rule, A. C., & Zanden, S. M. V. (2014). “Fifth Graders’ Enjoyment, Interest, and Comprehension of Graphic Novels Compared to Heavily-Illustrated and Traditional Novels.” International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 6(2), 257–274. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1013 &context=ci_facpub “…a diverse group of second grade students during a nine week unit of study focused on graphic stories. …Images, written text, and dialog are utilized to scaffold reading comprehension and to practice fluency. Then, students construct their own graphic stories based on characters from books, popular culture, and personal experiences. …The results indicate student growth in the areas of comprehension and fluency.” —Brown, S. (2013). “A Blended Approach to Reading and Writing Graphic Stories.” The Reading Teacher, 67(3), 208–219. https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.1211

Comics Have a High Average Vocabulary Level Comic books average 53.5 rare words per thousand, while children’s books average 30.9, adult books average 52.7, expert witness testimony averages 28.4, and the conversations of college graduates with friends average 17.3. —“Big Ideas in Beginning Reading: Vocabulary.” University of Oregon Center on Teaching and Learning. http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/voc/voc_what.php

Learning Coaches can prompt students to delve into their reading analyses by using the questions below. Also, the questions can be tailored to fit a student’s level of academic progress. Here are some question ideas based on the 5 Ws (and How).

Who

Who is the main character and what are their traits?
Who is the antagonist and what are their characteristics?
Who are the supporting characters and how would you describe them?
Who is your favorite character and why?
Who is your least favorite character and why?
Who do you think is responsible for the conflict?

What

What happened in this chapter?
What is at stake for the protagonist? What is being risked?
What does the protagonist want and why?
What does the antagonist want and why?
What do you think is going to happen next?
What are some themes in the story?
What do you feel is the story’s overall message?

Where

Where does this story take place?
Does the location impact the characters or the storyline?
Could this story take place at any other location? Why or why not?

When

When does this story take place?
Does the time period impact the story or characters?
Could this story take place at any other time? Why or why not?
When is the inciting incident?
When does the story’s arc take place?
When does the story’s resolution take place?

Why

Why are the protagonist and antagonist at odds with one another?
Do you sympathize with the protagonist? Why or why not?
Do you sympathize with the antagonist? Why or why not?
Why do you think the author created this story?
Why is this an enjoyable/unenjoyable story for you?

How

How does the protagonist overcome obstacles?
How does the protagonist resolve the conflict?
How does the antagonist create obstacles for the protagonist?
How do you feel about the story’s ending?
How does the author use literary devices such as metaphor, symbolism, and simile?
If you could, how would you change the story?

Psychometric Model

Most reading comprehension assessments are analyzed using classical test theory methodology, where examinees’ scores are total number of correct answers or some scaling thereof Psychometric Model Most reading comprehension assessments are analyzed using classical test theory methodology, where examinees’ scores are total number of correct answers or some scaling thereof

Visual texts, which are increasingly prevalent in our daily lives, also play a crucial role in reading comprehension assessments such as SAT, TOEFL, PISA, and PIRLS. These assessments specifically measure students’ ability to make inferences, conclude, and critically analyze the relationship between textual and visual information, thereby assessing higher-level skills (Cahalan et al., 2002; Cohen & Upton, 2006; Unsworth, 2014; Mullis et al., 2017; OECD, 2019). Additionally, well-constructed visual texts with captivating visual stimuli enhance students’ motivation for exams (Glenberg & Langston, 1992; Hoyt, 1992). However, creating visual texts and writing visual reading comprehension items can be challenging and time-consuming compared to other item types (Author, 2023). Visual texts demand effective integration of visual elements with accompanying text, including selecting appropriate visuals that align with the content and purpose of the item. Balancing textual and visual components coherently and meaningfully can be more complex than writing text-only items (Daly & Unsworth, 2011; Sabatini et al., 2014). The images used in visual texts must accurately represent the information presented in the text be clear, appealing, and effectively convey the intended message. Additionally, factors such as layout, design, and readability of visuals should align with the objectives of the item and support comprehension for the target audience (Hoyt, 1992). Furthermore, the integration of visual and auditory elements has become a compelling feature of computer-based tests, making them highly appealing and widely used in modern educational settings. Sayın, 2024 382 As a result, computer-based testing is shown to be an effective method for assessing students’ visual reading comprehension skills. Computer-based tests offer flexible testing options and rapid score calculation, benefiting educators and students alike (Chen et al., 2019; Gierl et al., 2021). This flexibility is particularly advantageous in classroom practice, where traditional paper-and-pencil exams can be time-consuming to score due to large class sizes and other responsibilities (Chen et al., 2019). It provides swift feedback, allowing teachers to identify individual learning needs promptly and facilitate targeted support (Weber et al., 2003). Moreover, the use of multimedia elements, such as photos and videos, in electronic tests enhances assessment opportunities and supports diverse item types (Gierl et al., 2021; Kosh et al., 2019). However, digital assessments or computer-based tests also face challenges, particularly in the context of distance education (Arrend, 2007). Security concerns and the need to create a substantial item pool are noteworthy issues. To prevent the disclosure of items before exams, synchronous test administrations have been adopted, but this approach sacrifices the flexibility that computer-based tests can offer (ÖSYM, 2020). Furthermore, the practice effect, where repeated test performance influences scores, can compromise the validity and reliability of measurement (Hausknecht et al., 2007). To ensure diverse items for inclass follow-up tests and personalized assessments, a substantial item pool with established psychometric properties is essential (Hausknecht et al., 2007). For that, creating an item pool with scalable difficulty is crucial, and it applies not only to the textual components but also to visuals in visual reading comprehension items. Ensuring that visuals are adaptable to difficulty levels adds flexibility to computer-based tests, allowing students to take the test at different times and locations, such as over three days. However, it’s worth knowing that this process is challenging and resource intensive. To address this challenge, the field of AIG has emerged, combining computer technology with cognitive and psychometric theories (Arendasy & Sommer, 2012; Embretson & Yang, 2006; Gierl & Haladyna, 2012b). Automatic item generation Automatic item generation (AIG) is the process of automatically generating tests, exams, or items for educational and assessment purposes. It leverages cognitive and psychometric theories along with computer technology to produce high-quality items efficiently (Embretson & Yang, 2006; Gierl et al., 2019; Gierl & Lai, 2018; Gierl et al., 2012; Irvine & Kyllonen, 2013). AIG aims to continuously generate and diversify new items to assess student’s various abilities and learning styles. It ensures items meet assessment criteria such as objectivity, reliability, and validity (Gierl & Haladyna, 2012a). AIG enables the creation of item pools for individual-specific tests, facilitates adaptation to updated curricula and learning objectives, and saves time and costs compared to traditional item writing processes (Gierl et al., 2019; Kosh et al., 2019

Children can learn to form images to accompany the words they read if we teach them to do that. We don’t need complicated procedures, expensive technology, fancy organizational charts, or anything other than a very clear focus, humor, and relaxed time with the children

Visual processing is the brain’s ability to interpret and make sense of visual information from the environment (different from visual acuity which measures how sharp your vision is at distance). In the context of reading, visual processing involves recognizing letters, decoding words, and understanding the spatial arrangement of text on a page. Good visual processing is necessary for these important reading skills:

Letter Recognition: One of the fundamental skills in reading is the ability to recognize letters. Efficient visual processing allows individuals to quickly identify and distinguish between different letters, which forms the basis for word recognition.
Word Decoding: Decoding involves translating written symbols (letters) into their corresponding sounds to pronounce words. Efficient visual processing facilitates rapid and accurate decoding, which helps to read fluently.
Visual Tracking: Reading requires smooth and accurate eye movements to track text from left to right across a page. Strong visual processing skills help to maintain focus and prevent skipping or repeating lines while reading.
Visual Memory: Remembering and recalling visual information, such as the shapes of letters and words, is essential for building vocabulary and comprehending text. A strong visual memory enables readers to recognize words encountered previously which helps us to read fluently.

Here are some important foundations of visual processing abilities:

Visual Discrimination: being able to recognize the differences and similarities between objects, symbols or shapes (in this case letters).
Visual Memory: being able to remember what something looks like, which helps remember letters, sight words, and spelling rules.
Visual Form Constancy: knowing that letters can exist in different contexts and being able to identify them across contexts.
Visual Sequential Memory: being able to understand the sequence of order of words after viewing them. This helps with spelling and decoding words (ordering letters in a particular sequence). Difficulties here can result in meaning of words being changed and impacting understanding.
Visual Figure-Ground: ability to distinguish and find a particular object (or word) which helps with scanning text to find a particular piece of information.
Visual Closure: being able to recognise a word when only a part of it is shown which helps to recognise a word without having to fully decode it each time it is encountered.

What is Auditory Processing?

Auditory processing is the brain’s ability to interpret and make sense of sounds. In reading, auditory processing skills are important for skills in phonemic awareness, understanding spoken language, and recognizing the letter-sound correspondence. Efficient auditory processing is necessary for these reading skills:

Phonemic Awareness: Phonemic awareness involves the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Good auditory processing skills enable children to identify subtle differences in sounds, which is crucial for phonemic awareness and phonics instruction.
Letter-Sound Correspondence: Understanding the relationship between sounds and written symbols is fundamental to learning to read. Strong auditory processing skills facilitate the association between spoken sounds and their corresponding letters or letter combinations, which aids in recognising and decoding words.
Oral Language Comprehension: Reading comprehension relies on the ability to understand spoken language. Effective auditory processing enables individuals to extract meaning from oral language, which translates to improved comprehension when reading written text.

Here are some important foundations of auditory processing abilities:

Auditory Awareness: ability to detect where a sound is coming from
Auditory Discrimination: ability to detect differences in specific sounds. This helps to identify differences such as /th/ and /f/.
Auditory Identification: ability to attach meaning to particular sounds which aids in having good letter-sound association

Visual and Auditory Processing and Reading Comprehension – The Workshop Reading Centre

Data Collection

Discuss the Science of formulating Psychometric Questions based on Logic compared to Discrete Mathematics and Pedagogy Science’s Logic all the same theory of Decision Making

Discrete Mathematics in Psychometrics Logical Programming Questions for Reading Comprehension questions based on formulating questions after the text:

Discussed at a Later timeData Collection

Discuss the Science of formulating Psychometric Questions based on Logic compared to Discrete Mathematics and Pedagogy Science’s Logic all the same theory of Decision Making

Discrete Mathematics in Psychometrics Logical Programming Questions for Reading Comprehension questions based on formulating questions after the text:

Discussed at a Later time

A logic Program is typically, a collection of Clauses that consist of preconditions for running the clause and a should be taken. Matching exercises in a Cognitive Compression way to develop a child’s brain to think Logically and Mathematically even about Reading Compression.

Designed for Fuzzy Logic in A.I in advanced way to train Human Interactions and Brain Cognitive and Generally how Programming works

#35. In context which of the following would NOT improve sentence 14

Whatever their experience, I believe that more and more women are playings, sports today, than ever before did play sports, and I think that is has many positive consequences for LARGER SOCIETY

Delete “ I believe that:
Delete “than ever before did play sports.”
Delete: I think that “
Insert the word” trend: after “this.:
Replace “many” with : alot of .”

Imagine if utilized Daydreamin Comics with a computational abstraction: in OCR( optical character recognition) a child’s imagination of reading a comic book or literature give a survey of comments to what the context of the story was about, not knowing it , training for great reading compression. example

COMMENT BOX AND ABOVE IS THE FOLLOWING:

Delete “ I believe that:
Delete “than ever before did play sports.”
Delete: I think that “
Insert the word” trend: after “this.:
Replace “many” with : alot of .”

Computational Abstractions

Introduction

Pupils should be taught to: design, use and evaluate computational abstractions that model the state and behavior of real-world problems and physical systems.

In computer science, abstraction is the process by which data and programs are defined with a representation similar in form to its meaning (semantics), while hiding away the implementation details. Abstraction tries to reduce and factor out details so that the programmer can focus on a few concepts at a time. A system can have several abstraction layers whereby different meanings and amounts of detail are exposed to the programmer refines the definition of computational thinking to six concepts: a thought process, abstraction, decomposition, algorithmic design, evaluation, and generalization. All of these concepts are employed in problem solving processes. Again, the emphasis in this list of concepts is on thought processes, not the production of artefacts or evidence.

The Computing Progression Pathways (Dorling and Walker, 2014) is an example of a non-statutory assessment framework. It was produced by a small team of authors and reviewers, all teachers, based on their classroom experiences. It is an interpretation of the breadth and depth of the content in the 2014 national curriculum for computing program of study. It includes the dependencies and interdependencies between concepts and principles. This may help non-specialist teachers and inexperienced teachers to understand what should be taught in the classroom. It is publicly available at this link:

Evidence of assessing computational thinking Given that computational thinking concepts have been defined (Selby and Woollard, 2013) and an assessment framework for the computing program of study has been proposed (Dorling and Walker, 2014), a mapping can be developed to illustrate how computational thinking can be assessed over the full breadth and depth of the computing programme of study.

2.3. Problem solving techniques.

2.3.1. Introduction Now, it’s easy to write down these stages but harder to see how they apply in practical problem solving for programming.

Significance of the Study:

Logo is a programming language that was developed in the late 1960s by a team of researchers at Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) led by Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert, and Cynthia Solomon.

The language was designed to be a simple and intuitive tool for teaching children the principles of computer programming. The development of Logo was closely tied to the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and the broader movement to make computers more accessible to the general public.

Feurzeig, Papert, and Solomon were all influenced by the work of the pioneering AI researcher Marvin Minsky, who believed that children could learn to think logically and computationally if they were given the right tools.

At the time, most programming languages were designed for use by professional programmers, and were considered too difficult for children to learn. Logo was different in that it was designed to be simple and intuitive, with a focus on using graphics and turtle-based commands to create simple programs and animations.

The first version of Logo was implemented on a DEC PDP-1 computer, using a turtle as a visual representation of the cursor. The turtle could be moved around the screen by giving it commands in Logo, allowing children to create simple drawings and animations.

This innovative approach to teaching programming quickly gained popularity, and by the early 1970s, Logo was being used in schools around the world.

In the 1980s, it was adapted for use on home computers, including the Apple II and the Commodore 64, and became widely accessible.

One of the key features of Logo is its use of English-like commands, which made it easy for children to learn and use. This was a major departure from other programming languages of the time, which were often difficult for non-experts to understand.

Over the years, Logo has evolved and been implemented on a variety of different platforms, including personal computers and mobile devices.

One of the most famous uses of Logo was the development of the first widely-used educational robotics platform, the LEGO Mindstorms system. Using the Logo programming language, students were able to create simple programs that could control LEGO robots and make them move, turn, and interact with their environment.

In the decades since its inception, the Logo programming language has evolved and grown in complexity, but it remains a popular choice for educators looking to introduce children to the world of computer programming.

The Logo Programming Language, a dialect of Lisp, was designed as a tool for learning. Its features — modularity, extensibility, interactivity, and flexibility — follow from this goal.

For most people, learning Logo is not an end in itself, and programming is always about something. Logo programming activities are in mathematics, language, music, robotics, telecommunications, and science. It is used to develop simulations, and to create multimedia presentations and games. Logo is designed to have a “low threshold and no ceiling”: It is accessible to novices, including young children, and also supports complex explorations and sophisticated projects by experienced users.

The most popular Logo environments have involved the Turtle, originally a robotic creature that sat on the floor and could be directed to move around by typing commands at the computer. Soon the Turtle migrated to the computer graphics screen where it is used to draw shapes, designs, and pictures.

Some turtle species can change shape to be birds, cars, planes, or whatever the designer chooses to make them. In Logo environments with many such turtles, or “sprites” as they are sometimes called, elaborate animations and games are created.

Out Into the World

Widespread use of Logo began with the advent of personal computers during the late 1970s. The MIT Logo Group developed versions of Logo for two machines: The Apple ][ and the Texas Instruments TI 99/4. The Logo language itself was similar in both versions, but the video game hardware of the TI 99/4 lent itself to action-oriented projects, while the Apple version was best suited to turtle graphics, and language projects.

In 1978 a pilot project sponsored by MIT and Texas Instruments was begun at the Lamplighter School in Dallas, Texas with 50 computers and a student population of 450. In 1980 the Computers in Schools Project was initiated by the New York Academy of Sciences and Community School Districts 2, 3, and 9 in New York City, and supported by Texas Instruments and MIT. Twelve TI 99/4 computers were placed in six New York City Public Schools. These were later joined by a few Apple ][s.

Both projects offered teachers extensive training and support through intensive two-week Summer Institutes and follow-up workshops during the school year.

These projects have had lasting results. Theresa Overall, who was a leader in both the Dallas and New York workshops, continued to teach Logo at Lamplighter and to offer summer workshops. Michael Tempel, then of the New York Academy of Sciences is now President of the Logo Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides Logo professional development and support services to schools and districts throughout the world, including New York City Community School District 3. Two of the teachers who represented that district in the original project, Peter Rentof and Steve Siegelbaum, went on to form the Computer School, one of the District’s alternative middle schools where Logo is still in use today.

The prototype Logo implementations used in those pioneering projects evolved into commercial products. TILOGO was released by Texas Instruments. Terrapin Software, a company that was set up in 1977 to distribute robot floor Turtles, licensed the Apple ][ version of MIT Logo and has marketed it and upgraded it to this day.

A new company, Logo Computer Systems, Inc. (LCSI) was formed in 1980. Many of the researchers, teachers, programmers, and writers who were involved in this venture have played major roles in the subsequent development of Logo. Seymour Papert is LCSI’s chairman. Brian Silverman was Director of Research and guided the development of all of LCSI’s products. Cynthia Solomon, who was on the team that created the original Logo in 1967, headed up LCSI’s first development office in Boston and later directed the Atari Cambridge Research Center. Michael Tempel provided educational support services from LCSI’s New York City office for ten years until he started the Logo Foundation in 1991.

LCSI developed Apple Logo, followed by versions for a host of other computers. With commercial availability, Logo use spread quickly.

Another important event occurred in 1980 – the publication of Seymour Papert’s Mindstorms . Teachers throughout the world became excited by the intellectual and creative potential of Logo. Their enthusiasm fueled the Logo boom of the early 1980s.

New versions of Logo were implemented in more than a dozen spoken languages on a variety of machines, many with video game style graphics and sound capabilities. Logo for MSX computers was popular in Europe, South America, and Japan. Atari Logo and Commodore Logo were popular in North America.

Logo received considerable support from mainstream computer manufacturers. Apple Computer marketed LCSI’s Apple Logo and, at one point, bundled it with the computers given away to each school in California. IBM marketed LCSI’s IBM Logo and Logo Learner.

Atari not only distributed Atari Logo, but set up the ambitious Atari Cambridge Research Center under the direction of Cynthia Solomon.

By the mid 1980’s the computers with video game capabilities had dropped off the market and taken their versions of Logo with them. MSDOS machines increasingly dominated the world of educational computing, except in the United States where Apple was the school favorite. Logo developers concentrated on these machines. Although new implementations added features and took advantage of the increased speed and memory of newer computers, the most popular versions of Logo in use in 1985 were similar to those of 1980.

Around this time there was also some interest in using Logo as a “serious” programming language, especially for the new Macintosh computer. MacLogo from LCSI added new functionality to the Logo environment. Coral Software, developed an object-oriented version of Logo called Object Logo. It included a compiler which allowed programs to run at higher speed, and stand-alone applications could be created. But Logo did not become popular among applications programmers.

Innovation

In 1985 Logo Computer Systems, Inc. introduced LogoWriter, which was novel in several ways. First, it included word processing capability – hence the name. Second, the user interface was simplified and made more intuitive. LogoWriter also included, as the earlier “sprite” Logos had, multiple turtles that could take on different shapes, although in this area the Apple and IBM computers on which LogoWriter ran were no match for the earlier game machines. LogoWriter was implemented in many spoken languages and became popular throughout the world.

Another innovation of the mid-eighties was LEGO Logo. Mitchel Resnick and Steve Ocko, working at the MIT Media Lab, developed a system which interfaced Logo with motors, lights and sensors that were incorporated into machines built out of LEGO bricks and other elements. Robotics systems with Logo were not new, but the popular and well-supported LEGO TC Logo was a commercial success which reached thousands of teachers and their students.

It was around this time that a unique series of Logo conferences took place at MIT. Beginning with LOGO ’84 and continuing for two more years with LOGO ’85 and LOGO ’86, these meetings brought a worldwide community together at Logo’s unofficial home.

In 1988 the Programa Informática Educativa was initiated in Costa Rica by the Omar Dengo Foundation, the Ministry of Public Education, and IBM Latin America. This project put Logo in the hands of most of Costa Rica’s elementary school students and their teachers. A similar project was initiated in Costa Rica’s secondary schools.

The Costa Rican projects have provided extensive teacher education and support with a strong emphasis on Logo’s contructionist educational approach. They have been taken as models for similar endeavors in a dozen other Latin American countries. Through the 1990s Latin American Logo enthusiasts came together every two years in a different country for the Congreso Logo.

In Japan, Logo saw growing acceptance in the country’s schools where the original LogoWriter, then the enhanced LogoWriter2, and then LogoWriter Win were the most popular versions.

In England, Logo was a mandated part of the national curriculum. This guaranteed that Logo was widely, if not necessarily well used. England is also the birthplace of the extinct Valiant Turtle and the Roamer.

There are Logo hot spots throughout Europe where there is a biennial EuroLogo conference. Now renamed, this conference was most recently held in Vienna, Austria as Constructionism 2014. European Logo software developments have included WinLogo in Spain and Comenius Logo from Slovakia.

New Developments during the 1990s

A new version of Logo called MicroWorlds was released in 1993 by LCSI. It embodied major changes both in the Logo environment and the Logo language. It included many extra-Logo features – drawing tools, a shape editor, a melody maker, the ability to import graphics and sounds – that work along with Logo to support the creation of multimedia projects, games, and simulations. Microworlds has been upgraded several times and is available today as MicroWorlds EX.

MicroWorlds Logo includes a number of changes, the most significant being multi-tasking, or parallel processing. Several processes can be launched independently. This is invaluable when creating animations with more than one actor – the car can drive off a cliff while the dog wags its tail while the fat lady sings. This sort of thing is possible in a non-parallel Logo environment but it is far easier and more natural in MicroWorlds.

Control Lab and Control System were LEGO Logo products whose multi-tasking software was built on the same core as MicroWorlds.

Another LEGO Logo innovation was the Programmable Brick , a research project at MIT spearheaded by Fred Martin. Unlike earlier LEGO Logo products where the robot received instructions through wires connected to a computer, the Programmable Brick had a computer inside. A program written on a desktop or laptop computer could be downloaded to the Brick, which could then be detached from the host computer and run its program autonomously.

LEGO commercialized the programmable brick as the RCX and later the NXT, and now the EV3 in products called LEGO Mindstorms. Smaller versions of the Programmable Brick, called crickets, where also developed commercially as the Handy Cricket and PICO Cricket .

As part of the Programmable Brick project at the MIT Media Lab a new version of Logo called Logo Blocks was created. Instead of writing lines of code in text, programs were built by snapping together jigsaw-like puzzle pieces.

A radically different Logo called StarLogo was introduced in 1994. It is a massively parallel version that was developed by Mitchel Resnick at MIT. Thousands of turtles can carry on independent processes and interact with each other and with patches of background. The system is specifically designed to facilitate the exploration of decentralized systems, emergent phenomena, and self organizing behavior. Resnick’s Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams is the source book on StarLogo and the ideas underlying its conception.

A similar program called NetLogo was developed by Uri Wilensky, who now heads the Center for Connected Learning at Northwestern University.

The 21st Century

In 2004 a new Logo programming environment called Scratch emerged from the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It uses the blocks programming paradigm that was originally implemented as Logo Blocks. Scratch is well suited to designing and building interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art. It can gather information from the outside world via a sensor board connected to the computer. The Scratch Web site provides the focal point for a community of millions of users who have shared more than nine million projects.

Following from the popularity of Scratch, blocks programming has become widespread and is used in a number of other Logo applications including Turtle Art, Scratch for Arduino, Snap!, and StarLogo TNG .

Meanwhile, traditional versions of Logo continue to be used.Brian Harvey, author of the three-volume classic Computer Science Logo Style wrote UCBLogo, a public domain version for Macintosh, MSDOS, and Unix.George Mills used the core of UCBLogo as the basis for his MSWLogo which runs under Windows with many enhancements that are possible in that operating system. FMSLogo is a more recent version of Logo based on MSWLogo.

After more than four decades of growth, Logo has undergone dramatic changes in step with the rapid pace of development in computer technology. The family of Logo environments is more divers than ever before.

Pavel Boytchev, who created Elica, has compiled the Logo Tree, which lists all the versions of Logo, past and current, that he has information about. There are more than 300 of them.

Logo is a growing family of programming languages and a learning environments, and a worldwide community of people drawn together by a shared commitment to a constructivist educational philosophy.

To find out more about Logo you can continue to wander around this website and check out the links to other sites.

Today, it is still widely used in schools and other educational settings as a tool for teaching computational thinking and problem-solving skills.

There are many different versions of Logo available, including versions that run on personal computers and mobile devices. Overall, the Logo programming language has played a significant role in the history of personal computing, and continues to be an important tool for teaching the next generation of computer programmers.

Despite its age, Logo remains an important part of the history of programming and continues to inspire new generations of programmers and computer scientists. It stands as a testament to the power of simple, intuitive tools for teaching complex concepts and encouraging children to think critically and creatively.

The Logo Programming Language, a dialect of Lisp, was designed as a tool for learning. Its features — modularity, extensibility, interactivity, and flexibility — follow from this goal.

Content of Problem:

Computational Abstractions

1.0

Pupils should be taught to:

design, use and evaluate computational abstractions that model the state and behaviour of real-world problems and physical systems.

refines the definition of computational thinking to six concepts: a thought process, abstraction, decomposition, algorithmic design, evaluation, and generalisation. All of these concepts are employed in problemsolving processes. Again, the emphasis in this list of concepts is on thought processes, not the production of artefacts or evidence

Computing Progression Pathways and describes how it can be used to acknowledge progression and reward performance in mastering both the computing programme of study content and computational thinking skills.

There is some debate about whether it is important that the arbitrary values of progression be standardized across schools. Naace (Harrison, 2014), in their guidance, indicate “…a school approach to assessment will need to be tailored to match their approach to the curriculum” (p. 1).

Alternatively, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) propose when translating the national curriculum into assessment criteria “… there is little room for meaningful variety, we suggest this job be shared between schools” (2014, p. 10).

Whether it is designed by a single school or a collection of interested parties, an assessment framework is required by classroom practitioners.

It is an interpretation of the breadth and depth of the content in the 2014 national curriculum for computing programme of study.

It includes the dependencies and interdependencies between concepts and principles. This may help non-specialist teachers and inexperienced teachers to understand what should be taught in the classroom. It is publicly available at this link:

The framework is grid-based.

Five of the six strands, represented as columns, are aligned with the range and content categories from the Computing at School curriculum (Computing at School, 2012) and the requirements of applicants to initial teacher training courses (DfE, 2012).

These include algorithms, programming and development, data and data representation, hardware and processing, communication and networks.

The sixth strand incorporates the more traditional concept of information technology. This breadth affords an opportunity to view the subject of computing as a whole, rather than the separate subjects of Computer Science, Digital Literacy, and Information Technology.

Each row represents a level of pupil progression. Annotation of the framework suggests that key stages 1-2 cover the first four levels (pink, yellow, orange, and blue), that key stages 3-4 cover the next four levels (purple, red, and black), and that GCSE covers the final level (white).

As an example, the purple cell under the “Hardware and Processing” strand states that a pupil “Recognises and understands the function of the main internal parts of basic computer architecture” (Dorling and Walker, 2014).

The colour-coded rows may aid teachers in assessing whether pupils are exhibiting competences at different levels and in recognizing achievement and attainment. In addition, adherence to the colour-coded statements can provide standardization across schools as identified by the NAHT (2014).

Institutions planning to use this assessment framework with existing assessment or reporting systems may: • assign values or levels to the coloured rows, • agree the benchmark value, level, or entry point for a particular key stage, assign the benchmark value or level to the appropriate progression statements.

The Computing Progression Pathways also affords opportunities to celebrate achievement in computing. There is a growing interest in badges as an informal recognition of skill, knowledge, understanding, or attitude.

They are made and awarded by commercial organisations, educational suppliers, websites, schools, teachers, and pupils (Hamilton and Henderson, 2013; Mozilla, 2014; Radiowaves Schools, 2014).

Recognizing and rewarding pupil achievement in each strand can be accomplished via coloured digital badges. Each strand can be assigned a separate digital badge. There may be two-tone badges for pupils working between coloured progression levels. Currently, there are no digital badge designs for the strands.

Teachers and pupils who will be using the digital badge system are better placed to design and create them. The process of designing and creating the digital badges might promote learner ownership and student-centeredness (Reigeluth, 2013).

The computational thinking concepts of abstraction, decomposition, algorithmic design, evaluation, and generalisation have been abbreviated to the first two letters. Care has been taken by 3 iterations of expert evaluation of the statements to avoid making assumptions about how the teaching might afford opportunities for computational thinking rather than strictly interpreting what is explicitly stated in the Computing Curriculum Pathways.

For example, an exercise in a classroom might afford opportunities to identify suitability for purpose and efficiency of input and output devices.

Table 1: Computational thinking and progression pathways in computing (Based on Dorling and Walker, 2014) Using this strategy of identifying computational thinking concepts associated with the pathways’ statements enables computational thinking to be assessed using the same framework as the programme of study. From a practitioner’s perspective, there is no additional assessment or progression tracking required to fulfil the broad aim of the computing programme of study to incorporate computational thinking.

Conclusion The computing programme of study (DfE, 2013b) includes the broad aim of incorporating computational thinking into the classroom.

The subject content is detailed in the document, but the connection to computational thinking and its meaning is not. Removal of the statutory assessment frameworks, which did not assess computational thinking, leaves a void in assessing pupils’ attainment.

Both of these shortcomings have been addressed in this paper. An understanding of 9 computational thinking, based on the work of Selby and Woollard (2013), has been established. An assessment framework, the Computing Progression Pathways, has been used to illustrate the dependencies and interdependencies between the concepts and principles of the programme of study (Dorling and Walker, 2014). This work has demonstrated how the Computing Progression Pathways can be used to evidence the assessment of computational thinking directly. By using the assessment framework to evidence progression, with its underlying support for computational thinking concepts, it is possible for the classroom practitioner to assess computational thinking without introducing additional complexity to the assessment process. However, this does raise questions around the provision for teachers of a framework for the pedagogy of computational thinking that aligns to this assessment approach

2.3. Problem solving techniques 2.3.1. Introduction Now, it’s easy to write down these stages but harder to see how they apply in practical problem solving for programming. It’s really not clear where to begin. Programming isn’t hard when you know how to solve the problem. It then becomes a matter of battling with the vagaries of language‐specific syntax, semantics and tools. For people new to programming, this language specific detail can become overwhelming, leading to a plethora of tiny, low level concerns at the expense of understanding how to solve an original problem. And there is curiously little material on problem solving and programming.

For example, Wienberg’s (1971) classic study of the psychology of programming assumes that programming is an activity based on a specification that is elaborated from analysis, but says nothing about analysis itself. This echoes the then prevalent waterfall model of software development with distinct stages which are never revisited.

One of the few books that ostensibly focuses on problem solving and programming, Dromey’s How to solve it by computer (Dromey, 1982), draws explicitly on Polya’s 1950 foundational study How to solve it (Polya, 1990) and on later work by Wickelgren (1974). Polya (pp5 & 6) characterises problem solving as a four stage process of: understanding the problem; linking unknowns to data to make a plan; carrying out the plan; looking back and reviewing the solution. He offers a long list of problem solving heuristics, many of which correspond to different aspects of CT (e.g. analogy, auxiliary problem, decomposing and recombining, do you know a related problem, specialisation) but doubts any systematic way of deploying them: ‘Rule of discovery. The first rule of discovery is to have brains and good luck.

The second rule of discovery is to sit tight and wait till you get a bright idea. … To find unfailing rules applicable to all sorts of problems is an old philosophical dream; but this dream will never be more than a dream.’ (p172)

Nonetheless, Wickelgren attempts to provide a methodical approach to solving what he terms formal problems that is those couched in some formal notation, typically logical or mathematical. Wickelgren sees a problem as being specified as a starting state, a set of allowable operations over states, and a goal state. Thus, a solution is found by a sequence of state to state transitions leading from the start state to the goal state. Much of the book focuses on techniques for pruning the space of transitions, in particular reasoning backwards from the goal, but there is little on problem formulation. Dromey (1982) is a proponent of top down design and stepwise refinement, linking decomposition to algorithm, which we will consider briefly below. He also uses logical statements to capture properties of program stages, typically loop invariants.

While he acknowledges the central role of the choice of data structures in programming, he largely focuses on algorithm design, suggesting that structures are somehow chosen from a menu of JPD: 5:1:55

Journal of Pedagogic Development Volume 5, Issue 1 options. Despite acknowledging Polya’s and Winkelgren’s influences, Dromey has little to say about problem formulation. Still, we already have tried and tested techniques for teaching programming so why can’t we retrofit CT to what we do already? Let us now consider a range of these in slightly more detail, in inconsistently chronological order. Please note that much of the following is partial, anecdotal and superficial.

Effective Tool of Logical Programming in Curriculums for Highschool, and Middle Schools:

1.1 Learning Outcomes

In our LP course, we decided not to put emphasis into Prolog knowledge per-se (although

basic elements of the language should be taught), but to focus on all the above aspects. We

believe the students appreciate more the skills acquired through this course, which can be

used to change the mind-set of the programming task as a whole. By the end of the course

should be able to:

• understand the basic principles of logic programming theory and symbolic reasoning,

• demonstrate good knowledge of the basic Prolog language by constructing small

programs,

• make sense of more complicated Prolog programs, predict and describe what they do,

• modify existing code to perform a similar task,

• identify the advantages of declarative programming and evaluate its shortcomings in

comparison with imperative languages,

• comprehend the basic principles of programming languages, like procedural abstraction,

program design and development, parameter passing, recursion, variable binding etc.,

• adapt declarative programming techniques to other programming paradigms.

These learning outcomes are assessed through coursework and final examinations.

1.2 Discrete Mathematics Preparation

Discrete Mathematics

Discrete mathematics is foundational material for computer science: Many areas of computer science require the ability to work with concepts from discrete mathematics, specifically material from such areas as set theory, logic, graph theory, combinatorics, and probability theory.

1.3 Common Lisp

The material in discrete mathematics is pervasive in the areas of data structures and algorithms but appears elsewhere in computer science as well. For example, an ability to create and understand a proof is important in virtually every area of computer science, including (to name just a few) formal specification, verification, databases, and cryptography. Graph theory concepts are used in networks, operating systems, and compilers. Set theory concepts are used in software engineering and in databases. Probability theory is used in artificial intelligence, machine learning, networking, and a number of computing applications.

Consequently, a Common Lisp program tends to provide a much clearer mapping between your ideas about how the program works and the code you actually write. Your ideas aren’t obscured by boilerplate code and endlessly repeated idioms. This makes your code easier to maintain because you don’t have to wade through reams of code every time you need to make a change. Even systemic changes to a program’s behavior can often be achieved with relatively small changes to the actual code. This also means you’ll develop code more quickly; there’s less code to write, and you don’t waste time thrashing around trying to find a clean way to express yourself within the limitations of the language.2

Common Lisp is also an excellent language for exploratory programming–if you don’t know exactly how your program is going to work when you first sit down to write it, Common Lisp provides several features to help you develop your code incrementally and interactively.

For starters, the interactive read-eval-print loop, which I’ll introduce in the next chapter, lets you continually interact with your program as you develop it. Write a new function. Test it. Change it. Try a different approach. You never have to stop for a lengthy compilation cycle.3

Another consequence of being “a programmable programming language” is that Common Lisp, in addition to incorporating small changes that make particular programs easier to write, can easily adopt big new ideas about how programming languages should work. For instance, the original implementation of the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS), Common Lisp’s powerful object system, was as a library written in portable Common Lisp. This allowed Lisp programmers to gain actual experience with the facilities it provided before it was officially incorporated into the language.

Literature Review:

Designed for Fuzzy Logic in A.I in advanced way to train Human Interactions and Brain Cognitive and Generally how Programming works

#35. In context which of the following would NOT improve sentence 14

Whatever their experience, I believe that more and more women are playings, sports today, than ever before did play sports, and I think that is has many positive consequences for LARGER SOCIETY

Delete “ I believe that:
Delete “than ever before did play sports.”
Delete: I think that “
Insert the word” trend: after “this.:
Replace “many” with : alot of .”

COMMENT BOX AND ABOVE IS THE FOLLOWING:

Delete “ I believe that:
Delete “than ever before did play sports.”
Delete: I think that “
Insert the word” trend: after “this.:
Replace “many” with : alot of .”

Computational Abstractions

Introduction

Pupils should be taught to: design, use and evaluate computational abstractions that model the state and behavior of real-world problems and physical systems.

2.3. Problem solving techniques.

2.3.1. Introduction Now, it’s easy to write down these stages but harder to see how they apply in practical problem solving for programming.

Content of Problem:

Computational Abstractions

1.0

Pupils should be taught to:

design, use and evaluate computational abstractions that model the state and behaviour of real-world problems and physical systems.

Whether it is designed by a single school or a collection of interested parties, an assessment framework is required by classroom practitioners.

It is an interpretation of the breadth and depth of the content in the 2014 national curriculum for computing programme of study.

The framework is grid-based.

These include algorithms, programming and development, data and data representation, hardware and processing, communication and networks.

They are made and awarded by commercial organisations, educational suppliers, websites, schools, teachers, and pupils (Hamilton and Henderson, 2013; Mozilla, 2014; Radiowaves Schools, 2014).

For example, an exercise in a classroom might afford opportunities to identify suitability for purpose and efficiency of input and output devices.

Conclusion The computing programme of study (DfE, 2013b) includes the broad aim of incorporating computational thinking into the classroom.

Effective Tool of Logical Programming in Curriculums for Highschool, and Middle Schools:

1.1 Learning Outcomes

In our LP course, we decided not to put emphasis into Prolog knowledge per-se (although

basic elements of the language should be taught), but to focus on all the above aspects. We

believe the students appreciate more the skills acquired through this course, which can be

used to change the mind-set of the programming task as a whole. By the end of the course

should be able to:

• understand the basic principles of logic programming theory and symbolic reasoning,

• demonstrate good knowledge of the basic Prolog language by constructing small

programs,

• make sense of more complicated Prolog programs, predict and describe what they do,

• modify existing code to perform a similar task,

• identify the advantages of declarative programming and evaluate its shortcomings in

comparison with imperative languages,

• comprehend the basic principles of programming languages, like procedural abstraction,

program design and development, parameter passing, recursion, variable binding etc.,

• adapt declarative programming techniques to other programming paradigms.

These learning outcomes are assessed through coursework and final examinations.

1.2 Discrete Mathematics Preparation

Discrete Mathematics

1.3 Common Lisp

Other features that support a flowing, interactive programming style are Lisp’s dynamic typing and the Common Lisp condition system. Because of the former, you spend less time convincing the compiler you should be allowed to run your code and more time actually running it and working on it,4 and the latter lets you develop even your error handling code interactively. Another consequence of being “a programmable programming language” is that Common Lisp, in addition to incorporating small changes that make particular programs easier to write, can easily adopt big new ideas about how programming languages should work. For instance, the original implementation of the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS), Common Lisp’s powerful object system, was as a library written in portable Common Lisp. This allowed Lisp programmers to gain actual experience with the facilities it provided before it was officially incorporated into the language

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Write up on Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild

admin — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 08:39:47 +0000

Background of the Study

Introduction

Octavia Butler Debuted in Issaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1984 winning a Nebula and Hugo Awards It won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and SF Chronicle Awards for Best Novelette the following year. It was also the title story for Butler’s 1995 collection Bloodchild & Other Stories.

Asimov’s was founded in 1977 by Joel Davis and Isaac Asimov. Then known as Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, it hit the newsstand with the Spring issue as a quarterly publication. The magazine immediately picked up a large number of subscribers and by the next year, it had expanded to a bi-monthly. By 1979, Asimov’s had become a monthly. The magazine is now released six times a year, each edition a substantial 208-page double issue.

Isaac Asimov was the editorial director, but he insisted on hiring excellent personnel to edit the magazine. Asimov’s founding editor, George H. Scithers, had already received the Hugo Award for his fanzine, Amra, when Isaac picked him to run Asimov’s. Both Isaac and George viewed the magazine as a market that would welcome beginning authors alongside well-known professionals. Authors whose careers George launched include Barry B. Longyear and S. P. Somtow. Barry Longyear’s novella, “Enemy Mine” (September 1979), won Hugo and Nebula awards and was made into a movie with Dennis Quaid and Lou Gossett, Jr. In addition to publishing award-winning stories, George won two Best Professional Editor Hugos before retiring from the magazine in 1982.

Kathleen Maloney took over as editor in 1982. Although she didn’t stay long, she managed to publish Connie Willis’s Nebula Award winning “A Letter from the Cleary’s” (June 1982) and to take me on as editorial assistant (also June 1982!). Kathleen left the magazine later that year and Asimov’s talented managing editor, Shawna McCarthy, took over the helm.

While remaining a welcoming home for new writers, Shawna’s Asimov’s acquired an edgier and more literary and experimental tone. Shawna published much of Connie Willis’s award-winning work as well as stories by Octavia E. Butler, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Lucius Shepard, Karen Joy Fowler, John Varley, Nancy Kress, Bruce Sterling, Esther M. Friesner, James Patrick Kelly, Kit Reed, John Kessel, Michael Swanwick, Roger Zelazny, Pat Murphy, Gardner Dozois, and many others. Shawna won a Hugo for Best Professional Editor in 1984.

Shawna McCarthy left the magazine at the end of 1985 and Gardner Dozois took over as editor with the January 1986 issue. Gardner had actually worked on the magazine as an associate editor for six months in 1977. And one of his two Nebulas had been awarded to his August 1983 Asimov’s short story “The Peacemaker.” Gardner continued to publish many of Shawna’s stalwarts as well as authors like Robert Reed, Jonathan Lethem, Greg Egan, Judith Moffett, Terry Bisson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mike Resnick, Allen M. Steele, Joe Haldeman, Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, Geoffrey A. Landis, and Neal Barrett, Jr. In 1986, Gardner published the magazine’s first novel serialization, Count Zero by William Gibson, and he later serialized two novels by Michael Swanwick and Harlan Ellison’s screenplay for I, Robot. Gardner won an unprecedented fifteen Hugo Awards for his work as a professional editor before retiring in 2004.

Having served Asimov’s under almost every known editorial title, I took over as editor in chief with the January 2005 issue. Familiar bylines continue to appear in Asimov’s. In addition to many of the authors listed above, some like Paolo Bacigalupi, Kij Johnson, Ian McDonald, Frederik Pohl, Lisa Goldstein, Paul McAuley, Rudy Rucker, Chris Beckett, Alexander Jablokow, and Ian R. MacLeod, had earlier publications in Asimov’s. Other established writers, such as Carol Emshwiller, Elizabeth Bear, Brandon Sanderson, Aliette de Bodard, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ken Liu, Christopher Barzak, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Lavie Tidhar, Dale Bailey, Will McIntosh, Suzanne Palmer, Megan Arkenberg, and Daryl Gregory made their first appearances in Asimov’s over the past decade. Authors making sales to Asimov’s early in their careers during this period include Ted Kosmatka, Felicity Shoulders, Henry Lien, William Preston, Alice Sola Kim, Derek Künsken, Jeff Carlson, and Steve Bein.

Personnel change has not been limited to Asimov’s editors. The magazine started out life with regular editorials by Isaac as well as monthly puzzles by Martin Gardner, and a regular round-up of upcoming SF conventions by Erwin S. Strauss. Our long-time book reviewer was Baird Searles. Martin retired from the puzzle columns when Shawna McCarthy left the magazine, but along the way, we added book reviews by Norman Spinrad. Sadly, both Isaac and Baird passed away in the early nineties. In 1993, the editorialist mantle was passed to the superb author Robert Silverberg and he’s been writing “Reflections” columns for us ever since. Also in 1993, we picked up some new book reviewers, and twenty years later Peter Heck and Paul Di Filippo are still sending their reviews our way. In 1998, we added James Patrick Kelly’s bi-monthly column about what’s new “On the Net.” Every so often, we feature nonfiction “Thought Experiments” by authors like James Gunn, Ray Kurzweil, Allen M. Steele, Aliette de Bodard, and many others. Our award-winning poets include Robert Frazier, Bruce Boston, Jane Yolen, Megan Arkenberg, William John Watkins, Laurel Winter, and Janis Ian.

Literature Review

INVASION OF THE INCUBATORS Butler’s “Bloodchild” protagonist, Gan, is born on a planet colonized by humans and home to a species of giant, sentient centipedes. When the humans first arrived neither race recognized the other as intelligent, but by the time the story begins a tense truce has been negotiated. Humans live on special preserves, and each family “voluntarily” commits one male child per generation to incubating the centipedes’ offspring. Usually the grubs which hatch from eggs laid in these men’s bodies are removed before they devour them from the inside out.

Unfortunately, young Gan encounters a man whose centipede is absent, and who is therefore experiencing the horror of a hatching without her surgical intervention or the tailored pain relief drugs only she can provide. Humans are the aliens in this scenario. And challenging the popular science fiction narrative which reenacts white imperialism by mapping the subjugation of non-European lands onto the conquest of extraterrestrial space, it is the foreign humans, rather than the natives, who are reduced to the status of a commodity. SLAVES TO THE RHYTHM METHOD That the commodity humans represent is a highly valued one doesn’t really matter.

That the long-term success of the centipedes’ reproduction cycle is dependent on them means that they’re coveted and protected, not that they have much choice as to whether or not they’re impregnated. Despite the many parallels to slavery that critics pointed out to her in her story, Butler was always adamant that the real inspiration for “Bloodchild” lay in the politics of sex. Consent and bodily boundaries are often troublous in Butler’s work. In this story as in many others, constraint is a factor in supposedly consensual agreements. Like women in patriarchal societies coupling with men, the human families must come to accept their selection by centipedes endowed with power and privilege. Then they carefully decide which family member will render services; it’s almost always a male, in order to ensure that human reproduction is less impacted by the incubation process.

Relationships between unequals can never be purely consensual; they’re built on imbalance. The humans in “Bloodchild” risk annihilation. A scenario in which psychoactive chemicals and imprisonment accomplish the centipedes’ goals sans human agency lies in the story’s very recent past. Suicide is another option Gan seriously considers. Love such as he feels for the centipede who has befriended his family can function as weapon, or a cage, circumscribing movement away from its problematic focus. But as “Bloodchild” ends we know that Gan, at least, is willing to keep dancing this awkward dance. AIN’T I A WOMAN? The pressure to classify this story as an allegory of slavery comes on multiple fronts. That Butler resisted doing so shows how stubborn she could be when it came to sticking to her aesthetic principles. Framing the proposition as either/or, though, is a failure of understanding. People can claim multiple identities and multiple oppressions, and these often inform our creative work.

Butler was black and a woman and tall and shy and nearsighted and a vegetarian and an atheist and a high blood pressure patient. Three of these identities divided her from this culture’s default settings in ways the culture calls important: race, gender, and religion. Viewing “Bloodchildren” through at least two identity lenses—race and gender—produces binocular vision. Depth. Room to wander around in the world the author made. IF YOU LIVED HERE YOU’D BE HOME BY NOW Per its proponent Darko Suvin, cognitive estrangement is science fiction’s tool for getting readers to recognize truths they’d otherwise be averse to.

By locating her story on a distant planet, in the future, Butler made the unpalatable so fresh, so unfamiliar, that it could be swallowed whole and mentally digested later. Not a “spoonful of sugar,” but a place setting of utensils wrought of finest unobtainium. The terrifying, choice-poor path lying before Gan is one many marginalized readers know well, while this society’s giant centipedes may find it so mundane as to be beneath their ordinary notice. BUY IT NOW IMMORTAL LACKS Butler urged students to write about what they feared. What did she fear? Parasitic insects appear repeatedly in her work—though only in “Bloodchild” do they argue their own case. Loss of autonomy features frequently as well—as in her breakout novel Kindred and her made-for-sequels last book, Fledgling.

The beauty of her treatment of these themes is how she transforms such horrors into achingly involving, deeply compelling calls for autonomy, freedom, and bodily integrity. BECAUSE THEY CAN Beyond the coercion implicit in his people’s situation, Gan’s motivation for allowing himself to be impregnated is twofold: he loves and wishes to protect his sister Hoa, the family’s other candidate for hosting the natives’ living larvae; and he loves and wishes to please his family’s giant centipede, T’Gatoi.

For centuries women have weighed the dangers of childbirth against its rewards. With her story of a man dealing in similar complexities, Butler strikes a rich and reverberating chord, one that echoes through multiple identities, multiple dynamics, multiple contingencies. “Bloodchild” is a glorious accomplishment—an elegant, urgent tale that changes all who read it. Perhaps that’s because it’s also a lasting and faithful depiction of what we can and will do to survive.

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Write up on Jim Crow era as a dystopian Society

admin — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 08:23:03 +0000

Background of Study:

Introduction

Was Jim Crow a Dystopian Society for African Americans /Negro Americans?

Jim Crow era was not Science Fiction but definitely was Dystopian for this group of Persons in a dark time in American History. WEB Dubious “The Comet” a Science Fiction Short story that mentioned Jim Crow as Dystopian again it wasn’t the Jim Crow portion that was not Futuristic or Science Fiction.

Dystopias are societies in cataclysmic decline, with characters who battle environmental ruin, technological control and government oppression. Dystopian novels can challenge readers to think differently about current social and political climates and in some instances can even inspire action. Dystopian literature is a form of speculative fiction that began as a response to utopian literature. A dystopia is an imagined community or society that is dehumanizing and frightening

Dystopia: A futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control. Dystopias, through an exaggerated worst-case scenario, make a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political system.

Significance of the Study:

Jim Crow Era

After the Civil War, there was a period from about 1865 to 1877 where federal laws offered observable protection of civil rights for former slaves and free blacks; it wasn’t entirely awful to be an African American, even in the South. However, starting in the 1870s, as the Southern economy continued its decline, Democrats took over power in Southern legislatures and used intimidation tactics to suppress black voters. Tactics included violence against blacks and those tactics continued well into the 1900s. Lynchings were a common form of terrorism practiced against blacks to intimidate them. It is important to remember that the Democrats and Republicans of the late 1800s were very different parties from their current iterations. Republicans in the time of the Civil War and directly after were literally the party of Lincoln and anathema to the South. As white, Southern Democrats took over legislatures in the former Confederate states, they began passing more restrictive voter registration and electoral laws, as well as passing legislation to segregate blacks and whites.

It wasn’t enough just to separate out blacks – segregation was never about “separate but equal.” While the Supreme Court naively speculated in Plessy v. Ferguson that somehow mankind wouldn’t show its worst nature and that segregation could occur without one side being significantly disadvantaged despite all evidence to the contrary, we can look back in hindsight and see that the Court was either foolishly optimistic or suffering from the same racism that gripped the other arms of the government at the time. In practice, the services and facilities for blacks were consistently inferior, underfunded, and more inconvenient as compared to those offered to whites – or the services and facilities did not exist at all for blacks. And while segregation was literal law in the South, it was also practiced in the northern United States via housing patterns enforced by private covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination, including discriminatory labor union practices. This kind of de facto segregation has lasted well into our own time.

The era of Jim Crow laws saw a dramatic reduction in the number of blacks registered to vote within the South. This time period brought about the Great Migration of blacks to northern and western cities like New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan experienced a resurgence and spread all over the country, finding a significant popularity that has lingered to this day in the Midwest. It was claimed at the height of the second incarnation of the KKK that its membership exceeded 4 million people nationwide. The Klan didn’t shy away from using burning crosses and other intimidation tools to strike fear into their opponents, who included not just blacks, but also Catholics, Jews, and anyone who wasn’t a white Protestant.

This time period was not without its triumphs for blacks, even if they came at a cost or if they were smaller than one would have preferred. The NAACP was founded in 1909, in response to the continued practice of lynching and race riots in Springfield, Ill. From the 1920s through the 1930s in Harlem, New York, a cultural, social, and artistic movement took place that was later coined the Harlem Renaissance. Musicians like Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton, writers such as Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, it-girls like Josephine Baker, and philosophers like W.E.B. Du Bois all had a hand in the Harlem Renaissance and American culture as a whole is richer and better for it.

Jim Crow Era – A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States – HUSL Library at Howard University School of Law

Literature Review

Results and Discussions The apocalypse: the plots of the comet The plots of the comet start from a black man named Jim (Du Bois, 2005). He is a messenger in a bank. He is told by the president of the bank to go to basement to take some documents. While he is in the basement, there is a big boom outside that makes such earthquake inside the basement. Jim is so worried and he struggles to find a way to the surface. Outside then, he sees everyone is dead. The people are dead because of poisonous gas from the incoming comet as informed in the news a day before. At first, Jim does not know what to do, but then he starts to walk around to the city seeking for help or even survivor. He enters a restaurant where everyone is dead inside. He remembers how that place rejects him because of his skin color. The society generally used to treat him as citizen number two as it is not just at all (Anders, 2016). Jim then continues to walk then he hears a woman asking for help. He goes to an apartment and meets a girl that needs his help. Her name is Julia and she is a white and wealthy girl (Fordham News, 2020). Julia is as confused as Jim and she decides to go out to search for her father. Jim accompanies her as he does not want to lose another survivor either. They have a dialogue about how a new world could be done from now on. There is a hope for them to shape new perspectives of society beyond any segregation. Jim says his mind in being underrated while Julia is also aware of how her whiteness may bring in bad effects for the man. Later on, Julia meets his father alongside with her fiancée. Her father takes Julia and she follows him. Her father does not say thanks to Jim but even humiliates him by giving some money (Du Bois, 2005). Julia even would not turn to see him. Julia and her father then goes away leaving Jim alone standing as he is his entire life. The story is about afro-futurism in how future is drawn as better place for black people. It states so many hopes that may come post-apocalypse. There is a total new life beyond any segregation. As people are dead, then Jim and Julia may start a new life with thoughts of being equal to each other (Shawl, 2017). Separations and segregations are needed to be abolished to bring out new understanding between black and white people. New life for Jim and Julia as man and woman could shape a new generation that could reset former thoughts. Indications of mocking others could be eradicated to show how new life is always possible. Hope is always ready to be realized (Anders, 2016; Bellot, 2021). Besides, the wish also reflects such new hope for humanity. This view is so general but crucial for every living human being. Justice and equality could be brought in altogether with understandings among persons. Universal idea of seeing others as humans could be regained again to realize such hope from one to others. However, those hopes must also face realities as stated in the story. Jim wants to go beyond to postracial world and it seems that Julia agrees to that (Repino, 2016). Actually, Julia hesitates at the end when she sees her father and fiancée. Her agreement is conditional if only there is no other choice. As there is another choice, she chooses to go to her former life. She wants to stay while Jim needs to go. Jim could not do anything more when Julia leaves him alone. He is left with only hope beyond any realization anymore; a hope not hopeless, even if unhopeful (Hartman, 2020). Julia’s father and fiancée are symbols of comfort zones of culture. They are reflections of civilization at that time. Her father only sees Jim as a servant, not as equal as himself. He still thinks that there is a big gap between black and white people. That aspect actually is also agreed by Julia as she returns to her the one and only zone. She refuses to make new one as it may be too difficult for her. She thinks that it is better to go back rather than go forward. That is how DU Bois states his critiques for liberal paradigm (Douglas, 2015

Plot Summary

Everyone in New York City is talking about the impending comet, including the president. The president sends Jim, a young Black messenger, down to the lower vaults to retrieve records. Jim heads into the dark peace of the vault, which appears empty until he hits on a secret compartment with the records and a chest of gold. As he’s examining the chest, he feels a low crash from up above. The vault door shut and he works to pry it open again. When he emerges, he sees the vault clerk dead. He continues upward and finds the watchman, the guards, the president, all dead. The city streets are silent, the forms of its pedestrians all frozen mid-action. A newspaper stand announces the comet’s arrival, advising all to shelter in basements sealed off from the comet’s potentially noxious gases.

Jim is nauseous with horror and, to steady himself, eats food from a restaurant that wouldn’t have served him hours ago. He takes a car to prowl the streets and discovers a young woman crying out from an upper window. The two meet, pondering the different worlds they come from, but are joined in their despair at the dead world around them. They search Harlem and find Jim’s friends all dead, then search vainly for the girl’s father. Midway through the search she’s compelled to leave him, disgusted again at her consortium with a Negro, but is drawn back in her loneliness and fear.

Jim asks the girl if he can jump off a bridge into the water, and she says no. They ascend to the roof of her father’s office, where he warms and feeds her. She has always been rich, she confesses, and he says he has always been poor, but they’ve been brought together by the great leveler of death. The strains of race and class fall away from them in the bind of a higher prophecy, the two see their souls naked in a moment of divinity and move toward one another. They cry together, ‘The world is dead’ – but just at that moment, life erupts with honks and voices and light. The woman’s father rushes to her, alarmed to see Jim next to her and hostile to him until she reassures him that Jim in fact rescued her. The crowds snarl to see the two of them together, threatening to lynch Jim. A young Black woman calls his name and he falls gratefully into her arms.

Literature Writing Collection of the Comet by W.EB. Dubois

THE COMET

He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching the human river that swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him save in a way that stung. He was outside the world—”nothing!” as he said bitterly. Bits of the words of the walkers came to him.

“The comet?”

“The comet——”

Everybody was talking of it. Even the president, as he entered, smiled patronizingly at him, and asked:

“Well, Jim, are you scared?”

“No,” said the messenger shortly.

“I thought we’d journeyed through the comet’s tail once,” broke in the junior clerk affably.

“Oh, that was Halley’s,” said the president; “this is a new comet, quite a stranger, they say—wonderful, wonderful! I saw it last night. Oh, by the way, Jim,” turning again to the messenger, “I want you to go down into the lower vaults today.”

The messenger followed the president silently. Of course, they wanted him to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dangerous for more valuable men. He smiled grimly and listened.

“Everything of value has been moved out since the water began to seep in,” said the president; “but we miss two volumes of old records. Suppose you nose around down there,—it isn’t very pleasant, I suppose.”

“Not very,” said the messenger, as he walked out.

“Well, Jim, the tail of the new comet hits us at noon this time,” said the vault clerk, as he passed over the keys; but the messenger passed silently down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; down to the dark basement beneath; down into the blackness and silence beneath that lowest cavern. Here with his dark lantern he groped in the bowels of the earth, under the world.

He drew a long breath as he threw back the last great iron door and stepped into the fetid slime within. Here at last was peace, and he groped moodily forward. A great rat leaped past him and cobwebs crept across his face. He felt carefully around the room, shelf by shelf, on the muddied floor, and in crevice and corner. Nothing. Then he went back to the far end, where somehow the wall felt different. He sounded and pushed and pried. Nothing. He started away. Then something brought him back. He was sounding and working again when suddenly the whole black wall swung as on mighty hinges, and blackness yawned beyond. He peered in; it was evidently a secret vault—some hiding place of the old bank unknown in newer times. He entered hesitatingly. It was a long, narrow room with shelves, and at the far end, an old iron chest. On a high shelf lay the two missing volumes of records, and others. He put them carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure—and he saw the dull sheen of gold!

“Boom!”

A low, grinding, reverberating crash struck upon his ear. He started up and looked about. All was black and still. He groped for his light and swung it about him. Then he knew! The great stone door had swung to. He forgot the gold and looked death squarely in the face. Then with a sigh he went methodically to work. The cold sweat stood on his forehead; but he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked until after what seemed endless hours his hand struck a cold bit of metal and the great door swung again harshly on its hinges, and then, striking against something soft and heavy, stopped. He had just room to squeeze through. There lay the body of the vault clerk, cold and stiff. He stared at it, and then felt sick and nauseated. The air seemed unaccountably foul, with a strong, peculiar odor. He stepped forward, clutched at the air, and fell fainting across the corpse.

He awoke with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and groped up the stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman sat as if asleep, with the gate swinging free. With one glance at him the messenger hurried up to the sub-vault. In vain he called to the guards. His voice echoed and re-echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement he rushed. Here another guard lay prostrate on his face, cold and still. A fear arose in the messenger’s heart. He dashed up to the cellar floor, up into the bank. The stillness of death lay everywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and stretched the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced about. He was not a man easily moved; but the sight was appalling! “Robbery and murder,” he whispered slowly to himself as he saw the twisted, oozing mouth of the president where he lay half-buried on his desk. Then a new thought seized him: If they found him here alone—with all this money and all these dead men—what would his life be worth? He glanced about, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked behind. Quietly he turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street.

How silent the street was! Not a soul was stirring, and yet it was high-noon—Wall Street? Broadway? He glanced almost wildly up and down, then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horror froze in his limbs. With a choking cry of utter fright he lunged, leaned giddily against the cold building, and stared helplessly at the sight.

In the great stone doorway a hundred men and women and children lay crushed and twisted and jammed, forced into that great, gaping doorway like refuse in a can—as if in one wild, frantic rush to safety, they had rushed and ground themselves to death. Slowly the messenger crept along the walls, wetting his parched mouth and trying to comprehend, stilling the tremor in his limbs and the rising terror in his heart. He met a business man, silk-hatted and frock-coated, who had crept, too, along that smooth wall and stood now stone dead with wonder written on his lips. The messenger turned his eyes hastily away and sought the curb. A woman leaned wearily against the signpost, her head bowed motionless on her lace and silken bosom. Before her stood a street car, silent, and within—but the messenger but glanced and hurried on. A grimy newsboy sat in the gutter with the “last edition” in his uplifted hand: “Danger!” screamed its black headlines. “Warnings wired around the world. The Comet’s tail sweeps past us at noon. Deadly gases expected. Close doors and windows. Seek the cellar.” The messenger read and staggered on. Far out from a window above, a girl lay with gasping face and sleevelets on her arms. On a store step sat a little, sweet-faced girl looking upward toward the skies, and in the carriage by her lay—but the messenger looked no longer. The cords gave way—the terror burst in his veins, and with one great, gasping cry he sprang desperately forward and ran,—ran as only the frightened run, shrieking and fighting the air until with one last wail of pain he sank on the grass of Madison Square and lay prone and still.

When he rose, he gave no glance at the still and silent forms on the benches, but, going to a fountain, bathed his face; then hiding himself in a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly gripped himself and thought the thing through: The comet had swept the earth and this was the end. Was everybody dead? He must search and see.

He knew that he must steady himself and keep calm, or he would go insane. First he must go to a restaurant. He walked up Fifth Avenue to a famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous, ghost-haunted halls. He beat back the nausea, and, seizing a tray from dead hands, hurried into the street and ate ravenously, hiding to keep out the sights.

“Yesterday, they would not have served me,” he whispered, as he forced the food down.

Then he started up the street,—looking, peering, telephoning, ringing alarms; silent, silent all. Was nobody—nobody—he dared not think the thought and hurried on.

Suddenly he stopped still. He had forgotten. My God! How could he have forgotten? He must rush to the subway—then he almost laughed. No—a car; if he could find a Ford. He saw one. Gently he lifted off its burden, and took his place on the seat. He tested the throttle. There was gas. He glided off, shivering, and drove up the street. Everywhere stood, leaned, lounged, and lay the dead, in grim and awful silence. On he ran past an automobile, wrecked and overturned; past another, filled with a gay party whose smiles yet lingered on their death-struck lips; on past crowds and groups of cars, pausing by dead policemen; at 42nd Street he had to detour to Park Avenue to avoid the dead congestion. He came back on Fifth Avenue at 57th and flew past the Plaza and by the park with its hushed babies and silent throng, until as he was rushing past 72nd Street he heard a sharp cry, and saw a living form leaning wildly out an upper window. He gasped. The human voice sounded in his ears like the voice of God.

“Hello—hello—help, in God’s name!” wailed the woman. “There’s a dead girl in here and a man and—and see yonder dead men lying in the street and dead horses—for the love of God go and bring the officers——” And the words trailed off into hysterical tears.

He wheeled the car in a sudden circle, running over the still body of a child and leaping on the curb. Then he rushed up the steps and tried the door and rang violently. There was a long pause, but at last the heavy door swung back. They stared a moment in silence. She had not noticed before that he was a Negro. He had not thought of her as white. She was a woman of perhaps twenty-five—rarely beautiful and richly gowned, with darkly-golden hair, and jewels. Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, she would scarcely have looked at him twice. He would have been dirt beneath her silken feet. She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men she had pictured as coming to her rescue she had not dreamed of one like him. Not that he was not human, but he dwelt in a world so far from hers, so infinitely far, that he seldom even entered her thought. Yet as she looked at him curiously he seemed quite commonplace and usual. He was a tall, dark workingman of the better class, with a sensitive face trained to stolidity and a poor man’s clothes and hands. His face was soft and slow and his manner at once cold and nervous, like fires long banked, but not out.

So a moment each paused and gauged the other; then the thought of the dead world without rushed in and they started toward each other.

“What has happened?” she cried. “Tell me! Nothing stirs. All is silence! I see the dead strewn before my window as winnowed by the breath of God,—and see——” She dragged him through great, silken hangings to where, beneath the sheen of mahogany and silver, a little French maid lay stretched in quiet, everlasting sleep, and near her a butler lay prone in his livery.

The tears streamed down the woman’s cheeks and she clung to his arm until the perfume of her breath swept his face and he felt the tremors racing through her body.

“I had been shut up in my dark room developing pictures of the comet which I took last night; when I came out—I saw the dead!

“What has happened?” she cried again.

He answered slowly:

“Something—comet or devil—swept across the earth this morning and—many are dead!”

“Many? Very many?”

“I have searched and I have seen no other living soul but you.”

She gasped and they stared at each other.

“My—father!” she whispered.

“Where is he?”

“He started for the office.”

“Where is it?”

“In the Metropolitan Tower.”

“Leave a note for him here and come.”

Then he stopped.

“No,” he said firmly—”first, we must go—to Harlem.”

“Harlem!” she cried. Then she understood. She tapped her foot at first impatiently. She looked back and shuddered. Then she came resolutely down the steps.

“There’s a swifter car in the garage in the court,” she said.

“I don’t know how to drive it,” he said.

“I do,” she answered.

In ten minutes they were flying to Harlem on the wind. The Stutz rose and raced like an airplane. They took the turn at 110th Street on two wheels and slipped with a shriek into 135th.

He was gone but a moment. Then he returned, and his face was gray. She did not look, but said:

“You have lost—somebody?”

“I have lost—everybody,” he said, simply—”unless——”

He ran back and was gone several minutes—hours they seemed to her.

“Everybody,” he said, and he walked slowly back with something film-like in his hand which he stuffed into his pocket.

“I’m afraid I was selfish,” he said. But already the car was moving toward the park among the dark and lined dead of Harlem—the brown, still faces, the knotted hands, the homely garments, and the silence—the wild and haunting silence. Out of the park, and down Fifth Avenue they whirled. In and out among the dead they slipped and quivered, needing no sound of bell or horn, until the great, square Metropolitan Tower hove in sight. Gently he laid the dead elevator boy aside; the car shot upward. The door of the office stood open. On the threshold lay the stenographer, and, staring at her, sat the dead clerk. The inner office was empty, but a note lay on the desk, folded and addressed but unsent:

Dear Daughter:

I’ve gone for a hundred mile spin in Fred’s new Mercedes. Shall not be back before dinner. I’ll bring Fred with me.

J.B.H.

“Come,” she cried nervously. “We must search the city.”

Up and down, over and across, back again—on went that ghostly search. Everywhere was silence and death—death and silence! They hunted from Madison Square to Spuyten Duyvel; they rushed across the Williamsburg Bridge; they swept over Brooklyn; from the Battery and Morningside Heights they scanned the river. Silence, silence everywhere, and no human sign. Haggard and bedraggled they puffed a third time slowly down Broadway, under the broiling sun, and at last stopped. He sniffed the air. An odor—a smell—and with the shifting breeze a sickening stench filled their nostrils and brought its awful warning. The girl settled back helplessly in her seat.

“What can we do?” she cried.

It was his turn now to take the lead, and he did it quickly.

“The long distance telephone—the telegraph and the cable—night rockets and then—flight!”

She looked at him now with strength and confidence. He did not look like men, as she had always pictured men; but he acted like one and she was content. In fifteen minutes they were at the central telephone exchange. As they came to the door he stepped quickly before her and pressed her gently back as he closed it. She heard him moving to and fro, and knew his burdens—the poor, little burdens he bore. When she entered, he was alone in the room. The grim switchboard flashed its metallic face in cryptic, sphinx-like immobility. She seated herself on a stool and donned the bright earpiece. She looked at the mouthpiece. She had never looked at one so closely before. It was wide and black, pimpled with usage; inert; dead; almost sarcastic in its unfeeling curves. It looked—she beat back the thought—but it looked,—it persisted in looking like—she turned her head and found herself alone. One moment she was terrified; then she thanked him silently for his delicacy and turned resolutely, with a quick intaking of breath.

“Hello!” she called in low tones. She was calling to the world. The world must answer. Would the world answer? Was the world—–

Silence!

She had spoken too low.

“Hello!” she cried, full-voiced.

She listened. Silence! Her heart beat quickly. She cried in clear, distinct, loud tones: “Hello—hello—hello!”

What was that whirring? Surely—no—was it the click of a receiver?

She bent close, she moved the pegs in the holes, and called and called, until her voice rose almost to a shriek, and her heart hammered. It was as if she had heard the last flicker of creation, and the evil was silence. Her voice dropped to a sob. She sat stupidly staring into the black and sarcastic mouthpiece, and the thought came again. Hope lay dead within her. Yes, the cable and the rockets remained; but the world—she could not frame the thought or say the word. It was too mighty—too terrible! She turned toward the door with a new fear in her heart. For the first time she seemed to realize that she was alone in the world with a stranger, with something more than a stranger,—with a man alien in blood and culture—unknown, perhaps unknowable. It was awful! She must escape—she must fly; he must not see her again. Who knew what awful thoughts–

She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young, smooth limbs—listened, and glided into a sidehall. A moment she shrank back: the hall lay filled with dead women; then she leaped to the door and tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. He was standing at the top of the alley,—silhouetted, tall and black, motionless. Was he looking at her or away? She did not know—she did not care. She simply leaped and ran—ran until she found herself alone amid the dead and the tall ramparts of towering buildings.

She stopped. She was alone. Alone! Alone on the streets—alone in the city—perhaps alone in the world! There crept in upon her the sense of deception—of creeping hands behind her back—of silent, moving things she could not see,—of voices hushed in fearsome conspiracy. She looked behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, stretched to scream at the barest touch. She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a child, until she found that narrow alley again and the dark, silent figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested; then she walked silently toward him, looked at him timidly; but he said nothing as he handed her into the car. Her voice caught as she whispered:

“Not—that.”

And he answered slowly: “No—not that!”

They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the wheel and sobbed, with great, dry, quivering sobs, as they flew toward the cable office on the east side, leaving the world of wealth and prosperity for the world of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. It clothed itself in every ghastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and suffering. It lay wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in its dread and awful silence was it like to death everywhere.

Yet as the two, flying and alone, looked upon the horror of the world, slowly, gradually, the sense of all-enveloping death deserted them. They seemed to move in a world silent and asleep,—not dead. They moved in quiet reverence, lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had, at last, found peace. They moved in some solemn, world-wide Friedhof, above which some mighty arm had waved its magic wand. All nature slept until—until, and quick with the same startling thought, they looked into each other’s eyes—he, ashen, and she, crimson, with unspoken thought. To both, the vision of a mighty beauty—of vast, unspoken things, swelled in their souls; but they put it away.

Great, dark coils of wire came up from the earth and down from the sun and entered this low lair of witchery. The gathered lightnings of the world centered here, binding with beams of light the ends of the earth. The doors gaped on the gloom within. He paused on the threshold.

“Do you know the code?” she asked.

“I know the call for help—we used it formerly at the bank.”

She hardly heard. She heard the lapping of the waters far below,—the dark and restless waters—the cold and luring waters, as they called. He stepped within. Slowly she walked to the wall, where the water called below, and stood and waited. Long she waited, and he did not come. Then with a start she saw him, too, standing beside the black waters. Slowly he removed his coat and stood there silently. She walked quickly to him and laid her hand on his arm. He did not start or look. The waters lapped on in luring, deadly rhythm. He pointed down to the waters, and said quietly:

“The world lies beneath the waters now—may I go?”

She looked into his stricken, tired face, and a great pity surged within her heart. She answered in a voice clear and calm, “No.”

Upward they turned toward life again, and he seized the wheel. The world was darkening to twilight, and a great, gray pall was falling mercifully and gently on the sleeping dead. The ghastly glare of reality seemed replaced with the dream of some vast romance. The girl lay silently back, as the motor whizzed along, and looked half-consciously for the elf-queen to wave life into this dead world again. She forgot to wonder at the quickness with which he had learned to drive her car. It seemed natural. And then as they whirled and swung into Madison Square and at the door of the Metropolitan Tower she gave a low cry, and her eyes were great! Perhaps she had seen the elf-queen?

The man led her to the elevator of the tower and deftly they ascended. In her father’s office they gathered rugs and chairs, and he wrote a note and laid it on the desk; then they ascended to the roof and he made her comfortable. For a while she rested and sank to dreamy somnolence, watching the worlds above and wondering. Below lay the dark shadows of the city and afar was the shining of the sea. She glanced at him timidly as he set food before her and took a shawl and wound her in it, touching her reverently, yet tenderly. She looked up at him with thankfulness in her eyes, eating what he served. He watched the city. She watched him. He seemed very human,—very near now.

“Have you had to work hard?” she asked softly.

“Always,” he said.

“I have always been idle,” she said. “I was rich.”

“I was poor,” he almost echoed.

“The rich and the poor are met together,” she began, and he finished:

“The Lord is the Maker of them all.”

“Yes,” she said slowly; “and how foolish our human distinctions seem—now,” looking down to the great dead city stretched below, swimming in unlightened shadows.

“Yes—I was not—human, yesterday,” he said.

She looked at him. “And your people were not my people,” she said; “but today——” She paused. He was a man,—no more; but he was in some larger sense a gentleman,—sensitive, kindly, chivalrous, everything save his hands and—his face. Yet yesterday—–

“Death, the leveler!” he muttered.

“And the revealer,” she whispered gently, rising to her feet with great eyes. He turned away, and after fumbling a moment sent a rocket into the darkening air. It arose, shrieked, and flew up, a slim path of light, and scattering its stars abroad, dropped on the city below. She scarcely noticed it. A vision of the world had risen before her. Slowly the mighty prophecy of her destiny overwhelmed her. Above the dead past hovered the Angel of Annunciation. She was no mere woman. She was neither high nor low, white nor black, rich nor poor. She was primal woman; mighty mother of all men to come and Bride of Life. She looked upon the man beside her and forgot all else but his manhood, his strong, vigorous manhood—his sorrow and sacrifice. She saw him glorified. He was no longer a thing apart, a creature below, a strange outcast of another clime and blood, but her Brother Humanity incarnate, Son of God and great All-Father of the race to be.

He did not glimpse the glory in her eyes, but stood looking outward toward the sea and sending rocket after rocket into the unanswering darkness. Dark-purple clouds lay banked and billowed in the west. Behind them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that suffused the darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as though gathered back in some vast hand, the great cloud-curtain fell away. Low on the horizon lay a long, white star—mystic, wonderful! And from it fled upward to the pole, like some wan bridal veil, a pale, wide sheet of flame that lighted all the world and dimmed the stars.

In fascinated silence the man gazed at the heavens and dropped his rockets to the floor. Memories of memories stirred to life in the dead recesses of his mind. The shackles seemed to rattle and fall from his soul. Up from the crass and crushing and cringing of his caste leaped the lone majesty of kings long dead. He arose within the shadows, tall, straight, and stern, with power in his eyes and ghostly scepters hovering to his grasp. It was as though some mighty Pharaoh lived again, or curled Assyrian lord. He turned and looked upon the lady, and found her gazing straight at him.

Silently, immovably, they saw each other face to face—eye to eye. Their souls lay naked to the night. It was not lust; it was not love—it was some vaster, mightier thing that needed neither touch of body nor thrill of soul. It was a thought divine, splendid.

Slowly, noiselessly, they moved toward each other—the heavens above, the seas around, the city grim and dead below. He loomed from out the velvet shadows vast and dark. Pearl-white and slender, she shone beneath the stars. She stretched her jeweled hands abroad. He lifted up his mighty arms, and they cried each to the other, almost with one voice, “The world is dead.”

“Long live the——”

“Honk! Honk!” Hoarse and sharp the cry of a motor drifted clearly up from the silence below. They started backward with a cry and gazed upon each other with eyes that faltered and fell, with blood that boiled.

“Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!” came the mad cry again, and almost from their feet a rocket blazed into the air and scattered its stars upon them. She covered her eyes with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. He dropped and bowed, groped blindly on his knees about the floor. A blue flame spluttered lazily after an age, and she heard the scream of an answering rocket as it flew.

Then they stood still as death, looking to opposite ends of the earth.

“Clang—crash—clang!”

The roar and ring of swift elevators shooting upward from below made the great tower tremble. A murmur and babel of voices swept in upon the night. All over the once dead city the lights blinked, flickered, and flamed; and then with a sudden clanging of doors the entrance to the platform was filled with men, and one with white and flying hair rushed to the girl and lifted her to his breast. “My daughter!” he sobbed.

Behind him hurried a younger, comelier man, carefully clad in motor costume, who bent above the girl with passionate solicitude and gazed into her staring eyes until they narrowed and dropped and her face flushed deeper and deeper crimson.

“Julia,” he whispered; “my darling, I thought you were gone forever.”

She looked up at him with strange, searching eyes.

“Fred,” she murmured, almost vaguely, “is the world—gone?”

“Only New York,” he answered; “it is terrible—awful! You know,—but you, how did you escape—how have you endured this horror? Are you well? Unharmed?”

“Unharmed!” she said.

“And this man here?” he asked, encircling her drooping form with one arm and turning toward the Negro. Suddenly he stiffened and his hand flew to his hip. “Why!” he snarled. “It’s—a—nigger—Julia! Has he—has he dared——”

She lifted her head and looked at her late companion curiously and then dropped her eyes with a sigh.

“He has dared—all, to rescue me,” she said quietly, “and I—thank him—much.” But she did not look at him again. As the couple turned away, the father drew a roll of bills from his pockets.

“Here, my good fellow,” he said, thrusting the money into the man’s hands, “take that,—what’s your name?”

“Jim Davis,” came the answer, hollow-voiced.

“Well, Jim, I thank you. I’ve always liked your people. If you ever want a job, call on me.” And they were gone.

The crowd poured up and out of the elevators, talking and whispering.

“Who was it?”

“Are they alive?”

“How many?”

“Two!”

“Who was saved?”

“A white girl and a nigger—there she goes.”

“A nigger? Where is he? Let’s lynch the damned——”

“Shut up—he’s all right-he saved her.”

“Saved hell! He had no business——”

“Here he comes.”

Into the glare of the electric lights the colored man moved slowly, with the eyes of those that walk and sleep.

“Well, what do you think of that?” cried a bystander; “of all New York, just a white girl and a nigger!”

The colored man heard nothing. He stood silently beneath the glare of the light, gazing at the money in his hand and shrinking as he gazed; slowly he put his other hand into his pocket and brought out a baby’s filmy cap, and gazed again. A woman mounted to the platform and looked about, shading her eyes. She was brown, small, and toil-worn, and in one arm lay the corpse of a dark baby. The crowd parted and her eyes fell on the colored man; with a cry she tottered toward him.

“Jim!”

He whirled and, with a sob of joy, caught her in his arms.

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Write up on Johnny Gruelle Raggedy Anne and andy

admin — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 08:18:04 +0000

Background of the Study

Johnny Gruelle is best known for creating the world famous rag doll characters, Raggedy Ann and Andy. While the Raggedys were the indisputable centerpiece of Gruelle’s career, in his heart of hearts, Johnny was a dyed-in-the-wool freelance artist, who felt most at home at his drawing board, crafting illustrations and features for newspapers and magazines.

John Barton Gruelle was born in Arcola, Illinois in 1880. At the age of two, his family moved to Indianapolis, where his father, R.B. Gruelle, became known as one of the Hoosier Group of Impressionist artists. By his early teens, John Gruelle already knew he was a cartoonist. During a train-hopping adventure to Cleveland, Ohio in 1894, his caricature of a beat cop named Tom McGinty so impressed the officer that he supposedly offered to stake Gruelle while the boy sought cartooning work at a local newspaper. As it turned out Gruelle did not stay on in Cleveland (although he would return to live there years later). But after this experience, a career spent painting landscapes and portraits like those his father rendered seemed far less appealing than one spent turning out pithy little funnies for a living.

In 1901 the 20-year-old Gruelle landed his first newspaper job, at an Indianapolis tabloid called the People. There he worked for several months creating rough-hewn “chalk-plate” portraits. By April 1902, Gruelle had moved on to the more mainstream Indianapolis Sun, while managing also to do work for the Detroit-based Peninsular Engraving Company.

In June 1903, Gruelle was hired at the brand-new Indianapolis Star as the paper’s first assistant illustrator. His three years at the Star were interrupted by nine-months spent at the rival Indianapolis Sentinel. Once back at the Star, in 1905, Gruelle accepted a freelancing job with World Color Printing Company of St. Louis to produce four-color Sunday comics, a connection he continued after relocating to Cleveland in 1906 to work for the Cleveland Press and the Newspaper Enterprise Association. During these years, Gruelle would turn out as many as ten cartoons each week, his style steadily growing more expert and refined.

Although most of his early newspaper work was aimed at adults, by 1908, Gruelle had begun producing features for children. After winning a national comic drawing contest, Gruelle went to work for The New York Herald in early 1911. Although he would continue creating for adults, his most important audience became children, whom he kept entertained with colorful “Mr. Twee Deedle” Sunday comic pages. Once “Mr. Twee Deedle” was in print, it wasn’t long before Gruelle was receiving commissions from a broad array of monthly and weekly magazines. His distinctive cartoons, illustrations, and illustrated stories appeared regularly in well-known publications including John Martin’s Book, Physical Culture, Illustrated Sunday Magazine, McCall’s, The Ladies’ World, and Judge.

It was his illustrating work that led him to create a distinctive, whimsical design for a doll named “Raggedy Ann,” which he patented and trademarked in 1915. Gruelle was soon pitching book ideas, and ultimately, he connected with the P.F. Volland Company, a juvenile publisher in Chicago. In 1918 Volland published Gruelle’s Raggedy Ann Stories and also introduced a matching character doll, and the rest is history. More Raggedy books and dolls followed, and Gruelle eventually became known as “The Raggedy Ann Man.”

Johnny eventually entered the arena of juvenile book illustrating and writing and achieved fame as creator of Raggedy Ann and Andy. However, Gruelle’s newspaper and magazine work remained vital outlets for him, providing him not only with welcome income, but also a forum in which to explore an extensive range of illustrating and writing interests, in full view of hundreds of thousands of readers of all ages and persuasions.

In 1922, Gruelle’s serialized “Adventures of Raggedy Ann and Andy” stories premiered in newspapers across the country. He continued providing artwork to adult magazines such as Life, Cosmopolitan, and College Humor, and kept up with his illustrated juvenile features, which appeared in Woman’s World and Good Housekeeping. In 1929, Gruelle’s full-color Sunday comic “Brutus” began what would be a nine-year run, and by 1934, his illustrated “Raggedy Ann” newspaper proverbs were in national syndication.

By the time of his death in 1938, Gruelle’s Raggedy characters, dolls, and books were known throughout the world. However, his fanciful newspaper and magazine works had also kept Americans amused for nearly four decades, and Gruelle had become extremely well-regarded in cartooning and illustrating circles. Throughout his life, and in his heart of hearts, Johnny Gruelle was ever and always — an artist.

Significance of the Study

Raggedy Ann, and her equally spirited rag brother, Andy are the world’s best-known and most adored rag dolls. At the hand of their creator, cartoonist-illustrator-author Johnny Gruelle, the Raggedys weren’t ever simply dolls. They were literary characters as well, possessing attributes and outlooks reflecting trustworthiness, kindness, and spunk. Because Gruelle was a natural born storyteller, it followed that his dolls would star in whimsical, fanciful tales, based on fantasy and make believe.

Because of this, Johnny Gruelle’s little rag dolls have also found themselves at the center of several legend cycles — groups of stories that, while containing kernels of truth, are more myth than they are history. What makes this even more intriguing is that fact that Johnny Gruelle, either unwittingly or with the great sense of humor he was known for, initiated many of these legends, a number of which are continuously repeated as the factual history of Raggedy Ann and Andy.

One of the distinguishing features of a legend is that, unlike an out-and-out fairy tale, it is factual-sounding enough to be believable. This especially applies to the Raggedy legends.

In the case of Raggedy Ann and Andy, the legends are as important as factual history in telling their story. Because the Raggedys sprang directly from the rich and embellished world of storytelling — a world of frolicking fairies; come-alive dolls and talking forest critters — it makes great sense to not discount legends simply because they are folklore, and therefore, “unprovable.”

While legends can frustrate the conscientious historian in search of hard, provable facts and figures, they can tell us different things than facts, and they possess powers that historical data do not. Legends have the power of revealing ethics and values; preferences and motives; emotions and reactions. And, in the case of the Raggedys, legends have the singular ability to showcase the true personalities of these fanciful dolls, as well as lending insight into the persona of their creator, Johnny Gruelle.

Johnny Gruelle was born in Arcola, Illinois in 1880, the son of landscape and portrait artist Richard (R.B.) Gruelle. R.B. eventually moved his young family to Indianapolis. There, mixing with his parents’ artistic and literary friends (among them, the poet James Whitcomb Riley) young Johnny developed a strong love of region, and a penchant for the fine art of storytelling.

By the time Gruelle reached adulthood, he had cast his lot as a political cartoonist, turning out as many as three cartoons a day for several Midwestern newspapers. In 1910, he acted on his aspirations to become a freelance illustrator, moving to the East Coast, where he accepted a full-time position with The New York Herald (turning out weekly pages of his Sunday comic, “Mr. Twee Deedle”) as well as several book illustrating commissions.

This was during a time in American history when traditional values were being challenged by progress and social change. As a counter-reaction, many were turning back to more nostalgic diversions. Homemade and hand-crafted objects were popular fare; fairy tales, magic shows, and psychic phenomena became all the rage. All of this fit with what Gruelle was already creating, and set the stage perfectly for the folksy, whimsical doll he designed and patented in 1915 — Raggedy Ann. And, Raggedy Ann’s creation set the stage for the legends…

LEGEND #1 – HOW RAGGEDY ANN WAS BORN
…a small girl bursts into her father’s art studio, trailing a battered rag doll behind her. Panting, she tells Daddy about discovering the faceless doll in Grandmother’s attic. Laying aside his afternoon’s cartoon, the father picks up the doll. He studies her face for a moment before picking up his cartooning pen and deftly applying a new, whimsical face. He suggests that Grandmother might be enlisted to sew on another shoe button to take care of a missing eye. Then, reaching for a volume of poetry behind his desk, the father browses through several by poet and family friend, James Whitcomb Riley. Compressing the titles of two of his favorites — “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphant Annie” — he asks, his daughter, “What if we call your new doll Raggedy Ann?..”

So goes one version of an oft-repeated account of where Raggedy Ann really came from. Sometimes the date given is 1914; sometimes it is as early as 1900. Sometimes the story is set in suburban Indianapolis or downtown Cleveland; other times, it is said to have taken place in rural Connecticut. As with any migratory legend, while the core account may stay constant, local details usually differ (depending on the teller, and which locale is trying to lay claim to the story).

The core account of this particular legend — a family doll being retrieved from the attic — is also based on some factual evidence. According to Johnny Gruelle’s wife, Myrtle (a warm, but practical woman, who could usually be depended on to provide candid, historical accounts) it was her husband, Johnny, (not her daughter, Marcella) who retrieved a long-forgotten family-made rag doll from the Indianapolis attic of his parents home, some time around the turn of the century.

“There was something her wanted from the attic,” Myrtle recounted. “While he was rummaging around for it, her found an old rag doll his mother had made for his sister. Her said then that the doll would make a good story.”

But back to the legend … It conveys things the cold, hard facts cannot — like the wonder of a long-forgotten family doll being discovered by a little girl in the magical and mystical environs of a grandmother’s attic. And it reflects the devotion of a father taking time out of a busy day to minister to his daughter’s “new” charge. The legendary account provides the kind of magical underpinnings and romantic detailing that a doll like Raggedy Ann deserves. And most seem to want to believe that the legend is true. Which is likely why journalists and fans alike have, time and again, perpetuated the Raggedy birth legend as historical fact.

Judging from his “Introduction” to Raggedy Ann Stories (in which a literary character named Marcella finds Raggedy Ann in her grandmother’s attic and takes it to her for repairs), Johnny Gruelle is the most likely source of this legend, giving his storybook Raggedy Ann a more magical, reader-friendly discovery, at the hand of, not a father, but a sweet little girl.

LEGEND #2: MARCELLA
Johnny Gruelle’s real-life daughter, Marcella Delight, had an indelible influence on her father’s life and career. From serving as his model for his literary protagonist, Marcella, to being his reason for creating his Raggedy Ann in the first place, Marcella was her father’s muse.

The real-life Marcella had always had an influence on her father’s artwork, evidenced in some of his very early Sunday comics, in which her cherubic likeness was often incorporated. In fact, Gruelle’s daughter (and her playthings) regularly inspired his storylines and ideas for playthings. According to Myrtle Gruelle, (referring to the family doll Gruelle had retrieved from his mother’s attic) “…he kept it in his mind until we had Marcella. He remembered it when he saw her play dolls. You know how little girls are. He wrote the stories around some of the things she did. He used to get ideas from watching her.”

When the real-life Marcella Gruelle died, at age 13, from the ravages of an infected vaccination, her parents were, understandably devastated. Under different circumstances, this would have been a time of great rejoicing for Gruelle and his family. He was connecting with juvenile publishers, and was working on several sets of illustrated fairy stories. In November (the same month of Marcella’s death) Gruelle had been granted final approval by the U.S. Patent office for his doll called “Raggedy Ann.” But all was overshadowed by the death of his beloved daughter.

If one views legendary as a way of giving meaning to life’s mysteries and tragedies, then a child’s death is potentially one of the most powerful sources of legends. Marcella Gruelle’s tragic death certainly gave rise to several legends — stories about what role she played in Raggedy Ann’s genesis, and in her family’s life.

The most popular Marcella legend, of course, is the one about her finding the family rag doll in her grandmother’s attic. Another had to do with her role in inspiring her father’s creation of Raggedy Ann Stories.

Following his daughter’s death it was a wonder Johnny Gruelle could work at all. But, to keep bread on the table of his grieving family, he stayed at his drawing board during the months following Marcella’s passing. About this, a legend took hold; at first circulated among family and friends; later repeated (and embellished) by collectors and journalists: Gruelle was working, the story goes, on a very special set of new stories — ones that he had previously only roughed out, as verses, but was now determined to finish in prose form, and submit to a publisher. These tales were ones that Gruelle had purportedly recited to his daughter during her final days, and were about a rag doll and her playroom pals. And, in honor of the memory of his departed daughter, Gruelle had named his star human protagonist Marcella, after his late daughter, who (like her literary counterpart) used to play “real-for-sure” Mommy to a nursery full of dolls.

As Johnny Gruelle worked on polishing this very special set of tales (which would eventually be published in 1918 as Raggedy Ann Stories), he would supposedly glance up often at something on his shelf; one of the few keepsakes of his daughter he could bear to have near — Marcella’s own tattered moppet, Raggedy Ann.

This account does have basis-in-fact, but its romantic, apocryphal elements are easy, and make the tale far more memorable and “tell-able.” In fact, by Christmas, 1918, the world was introduced to Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Ann Stories. In this, as well as in Gruelle’s subsequent Raggedy books, the literary Marcella would be a recurring character, along with Raggedy Ann and Andy. In 1929, Johnny Gruelle even gave Marcella her own volume of tales, entitled Marcella: A Raggedy Ann Story.

LEGEND #3 – RAGGEDY ANN’S CANDY HEART
In 1918, around the time his Raggedy Ann Stories was first published by the P.F. Volland Company, Johnny Gruelle rented a loftspace in Norwalk, CT, and set his family to work constructing several dozen handmade Raggedy Ann dolls to be marketed along with the books. Whether these were prototype dolls for Volland to use, display dolls, or were among the first dolls to be commercially marketed, is not documented. And no one can verify just how many (or how few) of these dolls were produced by the family. However, one very charming, very long-lived legend grew out of this early era of family-made dolls. It had to do with Raggedy Ann’s candy heart.

Anyone who has read Raggedy Ann Stories will tell you that Johnny Gruelle gave his storybook Raggedy Ann a candy heart right from the start. This sweet body part survived many a mishap (including dousings and drenchings and even a trip through the ringer) and still held together. The candy heart was, it seemed, the invincible, spiritual source of Raggedy Ann’s sweet outlook and kindly ways. But, beyond the storybook, word began circulating that some of the first Raggedys produced by the Gruelle’s did, indeed, possess real-life candy hearts, with “I Love You” printed on them. Worth Gruelle, Johnny’s son (who would have been 5 or 6 at the time), distinctly recalls being sent to the downstairs confectioners to buy the sugary delights to be sewn into the chest of each doll, picking out the “I Love You” hearts from those with other messages.

The candy heart account is both difficult to discount and difficult to verify. The fanciful bestowal of a sugar heart reflects perfectly Gruelle’s own penchant for whimsy, and it is entirely possible that he and his family did place hearts in the first few dolls they produced. However, the fact that not one (old or new) Raggedy Ann doll has been found in which there are remains of a sewn-in candy heart (or even a remnant of a candy heart), makes it difficult to classify this charming account as actual history.

What is most significant about the candy heart account is its tenacity; how often it appears, in multiple versions and re-tellings. In some cases, well-meaning fans and writers have mistakenly claimed that certain commercial manufacturers placed real candy hearts in the chests of their Raggedy Ann dolls or affixed hearts to the outside of the dolls’ chests.

Rather than discount or discard the candy heart story, it makes sense to consider it a legend; an important, and particularly fitting story about a doll whose very identity seems based on attributes that might flow from a heart made of candy.

IN CONCLUSION…
There are more legends about Raggedy Ann and Andy than there is space to recount them. Like any popular phenomenon — especially those for which well-documented information may not be plentiful– legends become a way to explain the unexplainable, fill in the gaps, and make sense of conflicting or confusing data. In interpreting the Raggedys’ 75-plus year history, the facts are extremely important. But, not at the exclusion of the legends. These fanciful accountings not only round out the story of the Raggedys (and shed light on the whimsical heart of their creator, Johnny Gruelle) — they also reveal our own unerring desire for Raggedy Ann and Andy to stay in perpetual possession of the whimsical, magical, make-believe dossiers Johnny Gruelle created for them.

Raggedy Ann and Andy: History and Legend by Patricia Hall

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Write up on Terry Pratchett focusing ON THE Colour of Magic

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Background of the Study:

Introduction: –

Terry Pratchett was born in 1948 in Beaconsfield, Bucks, and decided to become a journalist after his first short story, ‘The Hades Business’, was published in Science Fantasy magazine when he was fifteen years old.

His first job was on the Bucks Free Press and he went on to work for various newspapers before becoming a publicity officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board in 1980. He became a full-time writer in 1987. His first novel, The Carpet People (1971), a humorous fantasy, was followed by The Dark Side of the Sun (1976) and Strata (1981). 1983 saw the publication of The Colour of Magic, which became the first in a long series of Discworld novels. BBC Radio Four serialised The Colour of Magic and Equal Rites (1987)and these brought him great popularity. There are now more than 30 books in this series, set in a surreal world on the back of four elephants that stand on the shell of Great A’Tuin, the sky turtle. The Discworld series is popular world-wide and has led to the production of much related merchandise. Thud! (2005), features Sam Vimes, who has to get home each evening to read his son a picture book – Where’s My Cow?. Where’s My Cow?, published in 2005, alongside Thud! The latest novel in the series is The Unseen Academicals (2009).Hailed as one of the greatest humorous satirists, Pratchett was one of few writers to write across the adult/child divide. His book, Truckers (1989), was the first children’s book to appear in British adult fiction best-seller lists.

Terry Pratchett wrote many novels for young readers, and the end-of-the-world novel Good Omens (1990) – in collaboration with Neil Gaiman. He also wrote several short stories, some of which are on Discworld themes. His books have sold over thirty-five million copies worldwide and have been translated into over thirty languages. ‘To say that Terry Pratchett is popular …’ writes Kate Saunders in the Sunday Express (2 June 1996), ‘ … is like saying the Arctic Circle is a bit nippy. He was awarded three honorary degrees, in 1999 by the University of Warwick, in 2001 by the University of Portsmouth, and in 2003 by the University of Bath. In 2009 he received a Knighthood.

Terry Pratchett was involved with the Orang-Utan Foundation, and visited Borneo with a film-crew to make the documentary Terry Pratchett’s Jungle Quest for BBC Television. He lived with his family in Wiltshire.

Terry Pratchett died in 2015, aged 66.

Significance of the Study

The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett is a humorous epic adventure. It takes place in the fantastical realm of Discworld, a flat, round land in an alternate universe. Discworld is held up by four elephants that ride on the back of Great A’Tuin, a giant turtle that swims through the cosmos.

Ankh-Morpork, the oldest city in Discworld, is on fire. Rincewind, a local wizard, and Twoflower, a visitor to the area, ride away from the city and meet Bravd and Weasel, two local warriors. In an extended flashback, Rincewind tells the warriors the story of how he and Twoflower met. Twoflower and his magical walking suitcase, known as the Luggage, arrive by boat in Morpork. A blind beggar takes them to the Broken Drum, a tavern frequented by thieves and barbarians. Rincewind is enjoying a beer at the tavern when he meets Twoflower and helps him communicate with Broadman, the owner of the Broken Drum. Twoflower, a clerk from Bes Palargic in the Agatean Empire, has saved up a lot of money to see the sights of Discworld. He pays Rincewind a hefty sum in solid gold coins to be his travel guide.

Rincewind attempts to run off with his advanced pay, but is detained by the town leader, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. The Patrician threatens to kill Rincewind if he does not fulfill his duties as Twoflower’s guide, so Rincewind reluctantly returns to the tavern. He heads upstairs to collect Twoflower, who has been sleeping while a fight rages downstairs. Excited to hear about a real barroom brawl, Twoflower unpacks his black picture box and takes several pictures of the scene. Ymor and Withel, local thieves, hear of Twoflower’s vast supply of gold coins and decide to rob him. While Rincewind and Twoflower are touring the city, Twoflower disappears and Rincewind runs into Withel. Rincewind escapes and tries to jump into the river, but the Luggage holds him back until he agrees to find Twoflower. Back at the Broken Drum, Twoflower convinces Broadman to buy an inn-sewer-ants polly-sea from him in order to protect the owner’s interests in the tavern. Ymor and Withel stand guard nearby, waiting for Rincewind to return with the Luggage. Rincewind and the Luggage storm the tavern, using coin-filled bags as grenades. He rescues Twoflower from the rafters while the Luggage attacks the ruffians, who run away in fear. As they leave, the Broken Drum bursts into flames, for Broadman has set it on fire. Withel attacks Rincewind and begins to choke him. Twoflower and Rincewind work together to escape Withel and leave the city. Much to Rincewind’s disgust, Twoflower reveals that Broadman had just paid the first inn-sewer-ants premium on the tavern.

On the way to Chirm, Rincewind and Twoflower encounter an angry troll, which has been sent by one of the gods to thwart their progress. In the ensuing chaos, the men are separated in the surrounding woods. Rincewind climbs a tree to escape a pack of wolves and is captured by the tree’s dryads in retaliation for the damage he causes to their tree. The dryad’s leader, Druellae, informs Rincewind that Twoflower has wound up at the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, an abandoned building dedicated to the worship of a hideous tentacled creature known as the Sender of Eight. Using the old magic that is forbidden for use by wizards, the dryads perform a ritual to observe Twoflower’s encounter with the Sender of Eight. While watching Twoflower from a shaft of magical octarine light, Rincewind notices that Hrun the Barbarian, a hero of Discworld, is also at the temple. Hrun has spotted the gold inside the Luggage and plans to steal it. He has followed the Luggage to the temple, unaware of the Luggage’s loyalty to Twoflower. While the dryads are distracted by the vision, Rincewind escapes by running into the shaft of light and is magically transported to the temple. He begs Twoflower and Hrun not to say the number between seven and nine. When Kring, Hrun’s magical talking sword, utters the number eight while in the temple, the multi-tentacled, one-eyed Sender of Eight appears and attacks the three men. During the scuffle, Rincewind picks up Twoflower’s picture box and wields it at the beast. A bright flash from the box’s light attachment of octarine-filled salamanders upsets the creature so much that it slithers away. The temple succumbs to the ravages of time and crumbles as the men escape.

Rincewind, Twoflower, and Hrun head to Quirm. Along the way they stop near the Wyrmberg, a magical mountain community. The citizens of the Wyrmberg use the magic to summon dragons, which they use as protection. Liessa, daughter of the Lord of the Wyrmberg and rightful heir, sends several dragons to capture the three travelers. As they flee from Liessa’s dragons, Rincewind, Twoflower, and Hrun are separated. Rincewind is knocked from his horse and wakes up to find that Twoflower and Hrun have been captured. Kring, Hrun’s magical sword, promises to help Rincewind rescue his companions. The wizard and the sword encounter K!sdra, a dragonrider from the Wyrmberg, who has been assigned to kill Rincewind. With Kring’s help, Rincewind attacks K!sdra, who says he will reunite the wizard with his friends at the Wyrmberg. Upon arriving at the Wyrmberg, Rincewind discovers he is expected to surrender, which he refuses. Assuming that Rincewind has come to fight, Lio!rt, Liessa’s brother, challenges the wizard to mortal combat while hanging from the ceiling of the dragon’s roost. Rincewind fights bravely with Kring’s help, cutting Lio!rt on his chest. When a ceiling hook breaks during the battle, Rincewind ends up dangling from the ceiling.

Meanwhile, Twoflower and Hrun are imprisoned in the Wyrmberg dungeon, awaiting their fate. Liessa comes to see Hrun and tells him that she needs a warrior to perform three tasks for her. If Hrun can fulfill all three tasks, she will marry him and he will become Lord of the Wyrmberg. The first task is killing her brothers, who also seek to rule the Wyrmberg. While Liessa is preoccupied with Hrun, Twoflower is taken to another cell. He sits fantasizing about dragons, then realizes he is not alone. Much to his surprise, Twoflower discovers that his childhood fantasies have combined with the Wyrmberg’s magic to call forth a dragon, which he names Ninereeds. The dragon helps him escape, and the pair wind up meeting Greicha, the dead Lord of the Wyrmberg. No longer restricted by time and space, Greicha is able to tell Twoflower that he will rescue Rincewind. Twoflower mounts Ninereeds and they fly off to find Rincewind. They catch Rincewind just as he is falling from the cavern ceiling.

Hrun follows Liessa’s orders and challenges her brothers, Lio!rt and Liartes, to mortal combat. The brothers choose to fight with dragons, much to Hrun’s dismay. An unarmed Hrun manages to defeat both brothers by knocking them out cold, which effectively kills their imagination-fueled dragons. Despite Liessa’s instructions, Hrun refuses to kill the men, saying it is unfair to kill someone who is unconscious. Liessa presents Hrun’s final test by removing her clothes. As the couple enjoys a cup of wine, Ninereeds dives in and grabs Hrun, who is none too pleased about leaving Liessa. As the dragon soars higher, the air thins and Twoflower passes out. Ninereeds disappears and Liessa swoops in on her dragon and snatches Hrun.

Rincewind, Twoflower, and the Luggage tumble into the Circle Sea and are rescued by a slave ship. The men escape from the ship in a small boat and get caught in the current near the Rimfall, the Edge of Discworld. Tethis, a sea troll that patrols the area, finds Rincewind and Twoflower trapped in the Circumfence, a system of ropes and pulleys that marks the Edge. He takes them into his shack at the Edge and offers them a place to stay until a salvage fleet arrives. Afraid he might be sold into slavery, Rincewind attacks Tethis to no avail. A lens-shaped flyer powered by water-hating wizards arrives to take Rincewind and Twoflower to Krull, a nearby kingdom. The lens is commanded by Marchesa, a fifth-level wizard well aware of Rincewind’s lack of magical skills but still in awe of his ability to survive. Upon docking in Krull, Twoflower and Rincewind are taken to their prison cell, an ornate room full of local delicacies. Garhartra, the Guestmaster, greets the men and says their stay will be comfortable, but short, as they are to be sacrificed. Rincewind attempts to attack Garhartra with a bottle of wine but the Guestmaster uses his magic to pin Rincewind against the wall.

After Garhartra leaves, Rincewind and Twoflower discover that the frog they rescued at the Edge is actually the Lady, a Discworld goddess. She tells them that their sacrifice is supposed to ensure the safety of the Potent Voyager, a spaceship that will be launched that day. When Garhartra returns to collect Rincewind and Twoflower, the enchanted bottle breaks on his head and the men flee. They find a room containing uniforms for the Potent Voyager chelonauts, who show up unexpectedly. Rincewind and Twoflower knock the chelonauts out cold and put on the uniforms. At the launch, the Arch-astronomer of Krull learns that Rincewind and Twoflower have escaped. When Rincewind and Twoflower arrive at the launch disguised as the chelonauts, the Arch-astronomer suspects something is wrong and prepares to attack.

Before he can do so, the Luggage enters the arena, having wreaked havoc all over the Edge in its quest for Twoflower. The Krullian magicians cast many spells on the Luggage, only angering it further. From his perch on the launch pad with Rincewind, Twoflower calls to the Luggage and discovers that Tethis is inside the chest. Soldiers advance on the men, and Tethis and Twoflower climb inside the ship to escape. As the Krullians get closer, the Potent Voyager is jostled and the hatch closes, trapping Tethis and Twoflower inside. The ship moves down the rails and launches over the Edge, leaving Rincewind behind. Rincewind falls off the launch page and ends up in a tree at the Rimfall, where a demon posing as Death attempts to convince him to die.

Literature Sample of The Color of Magic

Collection Sample

The Color of Magic

Prologue

In A distant and secondhand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was

never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part…

See…

Great ATuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar

gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked

with meteor craters. Through sea-sized eyes that are crusted with rheum and

asteroid dust He stares fixedly at the Destination.

In a brain bigger than a city, with geological slowness, He thinks only of the

Weight.

Most of the weight is of course accounted for by Berilia, Tubul, Great

T’Phon and Jerakeen, the four giant elephants upon whose broad and star-tanned

shoulders the Disc of the World rests, garlanded by the long waterfall at its vast

circumference and domed by the baby-blue vault of Heaven.

Astropsychology has been, as yet, unable to establish what they think about.

The Great Turtle was a mere hypothesis until the day the small and secretive

kingdom of Krull, whose rim-most mountains project out over the Rimfall, built

a gantry and pulley arrangement at the tip of the most precipitous crag and

lowered several observers over the Edge in a quartz-windowed brass vessel to

peer through the mist veils.

The early astrozoologists, hauled back from their long dangle by enormous

teams of slaves, were able to bring back much information about the shape and

nature of A’Tuin and the elephants but this did not resolve fundamental

questions about the nature and purpose of the universe.

For example, what was A’Tuin’s actual sex? This vital question, said the

astrozoologists with mounting authority, would not be answered until a larger

and more powerful gantry was constructed for a deep-space vessel. In the

meantime they could only speculate about the revealed cosmos.

There was, for example, the theory that A’Turn had come from nowhere and

would continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, into nowhere, for all time.

This theory was popular among academics.

An alternative, favored by those of a religious persuasion, was that A’Tuin

was crawling from the Birthplace to the Time of Mating, as were all the stars in

the sky which were, obviously, also carried by giant turtles. When they arrived

they would briefly and passionately mate, for the first and only time, and from

that fiery union new turtles would be born to carry a new pattern of worlds. This

was known as the Big Bang hypothesis.

Thus it was that a young cosmochelonian of the Steady Gait faction, testing

a new telescope with which he hoped to make measurements of the precise

albedo of Great ATuin’s right eye, was on this eventful evening the first outsider

to see the smoke rise hubward from the burning of the oldest city in the world.

Later that night he became so engrossed in his studies he completely forgot

about it. Nevertheless, he was the first.

There were others…

The Sending of Eig ht

Prologue

The Discworld offers sights far more impressive than those found in universes

built by Creators with less imagination but more mechanical aptitude.

Although the Disc’s sun is but an orbiting moonlet, its prominences hardly

bigger than croquet hoops, this slight drawback must be set against the

tremendous sight of Great A’Tuin the Turtle, upon Whose ancient and meteor

riddled shell the Disc ultimately rests. Sometimes, in His slow journey across the

shores of Infinity, He moves His country-sized head to snap at a passing comet.

But perhaps the most impressive sight of all—if only because most brains,

when faced with the sheer galactic enormity of A’Tuin, refuse to believe it—is

the endless Rimfall, where the seas of the Disc boil ceaselessly over the Edge

into space. Or perhaps it is the Rimbow, the eight-colored, world-girdling

rainbow that hovers in the mist-laden air over the Fall. The eighth color is

octarine, caused by the scatter effect of strong sunlight on an intense magical

field.

Or perhaps, again, the most magnificent sight is the Hub. There, a spire of

green ice ten miles high rises through the clouds and supports at its peak the

realm of Dunmanifestin, the abode of the Disc gods. The Disc gods themselves,

despite the splendor of the world below them, are seldom satisfied. It is

embarrassing to know that one is a god of a world that only exists because every

improbability curve must have its far end; especially when one can peer into

other dimensions at worlds whose Creators had more mechanical aptitude than

imagination. No wonder, then, that the Disc gods spend more time in bickering

than in omnicognizance.

On this particular day Blind Io, by dint of constant vigilance the chief of the

gods, sat with his chin on his hand and looked at the gaming board on the red

marble table in front of him. Blind Io had got his name because, where his eye

sockets should have been, there were nothing but two areas of blank skin. His

eyes, of which he had an impressively large number, led a semi-independent life

of their own. Several were currently hovering above the table.

The gaming board was a carefully carved map of the Discworld, overprinted

with squares. A number of beautifully modeled playing pieces were now

occupying some of the squares. A human onlooker would, for example, have

recognized in two of them the likenesses of Bravd and the Weasel. Others

represented yet more heroes and champions, of which the Disc had a more than

adequate supply.

Still in the game were Io, Offler the Crocodile God, Zephyrus the god of

slight breezes, Fate, and the Lady. There was an air of concentration around the

board now that the lesser players had been removed from the Game. Chance had

been an early casualty, running her hero into a full house of armed gnolls (the

result of a lucky throw by Offler) and shortly afterward Night has cashed his

chips, pleading an appointment with Destiny. Several minor deities had drifted

up and were kibitzing over the shoulders of the players.

Side bets were made that the Lady would be the next to leave the board. Her

last champion of any standing was now a pinch of potash in the ruins of still¬

smoking Ankh-Morpork, and there were hardly any pieces that she could

promote to first rank.

Rincewind shrugged. “In our tongue it is called reflected-sound-as-of-

underground-spirits. Is there any wine?”

The post Write up on Terry Pratchett focusing ON THE Colour of Magic appeared first on DayDreamin’ Comics.

Write up on Michael MoorCock Elric of Melniboné

admin — Sat, 19 Oct 2024 12:33:35 +0000

Background of Study

Introduction:

Michael Moorcock, 1939 – Writer Michael Moorcock was born December 18, 1939 in Mitcham, Surrey, England. Moorcock was the editor of the juvenile magazine Tarzan Adventures from 1956-58, an editor and writer for the Sexton Blake Library and for comic strips and children’s annuals from 1959-61, an editor and pamphleteer for Liberal Party in 1962, and became editor and publisher for the science fiction magazine New Worlds in 1964. He has worked as a singer-guitarist, has worked with the rock bands Hawkwind and Blue Oyster Cult and is a member of the rock band Michael Moorcock and the Deep Fix. Moorcock’s writing covers a wide range of science fiction and fantasy genres. “The Chronicles of Castle Brass” was a sword and sorcery novel, and “Breakfast in the Ruins: A Novel of Inhumanity” uses the character Karl Glogauer as a different person in different times. Karl participates in the political violence of the French Revolution, the Paris Commune, and a Nazi concentration camp. Moorcock also wrote books and stories that featured the character Jerry Cornelius, who had no consistent character or appearance. “The Condition of Muzak” completed the initial Jerry Cornelius tetralogy and won Guardian Literary Prize in 1977. “Byzantium Endures” and “The Laughter of Carthage” are two autobiographical novels of the Russian emigre Colonel Pyat and were the closest Moorcock came to conventional literary fiction. “Byzantium Endures” focuses on the first twenty years of Pyat’s life and tells of his role in the Russian revolution. Pyat survives the revolution and the subsequent civil war by working first for one side and then another. “The Laughter of Carthage” covers Pyat’s life from 1920-1924 telling of his escape from Communist Russia and his travels in Europe and America. It’s a sweeping picture of the world during the 1920’s because it takes the character from living in Constantinople to Hollywood. Moorcock returned to the New Wave style in “Blood: A Southern Fantasy” (1994) and combined mainstream fiction with fantasy in “The Brothel of Rosenstrasse,” which is set in the imaginary city of Mirenburg. MoorCock won the 1967 Nebula Award for Behold the Man and the 1979 World Fantasy Award for his novel, Gloriana. (Bowker Author Biography)

Literature Review

Created by Michael Moorcock in 1961 with the story “The Dreaming City”, Elric of Melniboné is one of the definitive characters in British fantasy fiction. A albino sorcerer and warrior with milk-white skin and hair, Elric is a magnetic antihero – cursed with a black sword which feeds on souls and bound to serve the capricious chaos deity, Arioch. In writing the Elric stories, Moorcock consciously worked to avoid repeating the high fantasy style of Tolkien – and in so doing inspired numerous subsequent imitators of his own.

While Elric is well-known to fans of fantasy, the character might even be a household name if the series were more approachable to read. Until relatively recently, the eight main novels in the sequence could be difficult to get hold of, and while the reissues by the publisher Gollancz are very welcome, they also leave something to be desired.

The Michael Moorcock Collection is a mammoth undertaking, as it comprises no less than 28 volumes, most of them containing multiple novels. Gollancz and the mastermind of the project, John Davey, deserve a great deal of credit for making Moorcock’s work more available. Unfortunately, in the case of the Elric books very little indication is given as to reading order, or the circumstances in which the stories were originally published. Stories are inserted into odd places, and a lot of frankly extraneous material is inserted – presumably to bulk up the thinner volumes.

Because the Elric stories were written out of sequence over a period of decades, and have been republished several times, there was already a high potential for confusion. Split into two parts, this introductory guide to the books lists and introduces them in order of their internal chronology. First, though, an introduction to the Pale Emperor himself.

Elric is a tortured antihero, the reluctant Emperor of the decadent and depleted empire of Melniboné. As a Melnibonéan, Elric is part of a long lineage of sorcerers and his people drew on a pact with the Lords of Chaos to build and maintain their empire. The forces of Chaos and Law, and the Balance between them, are the essential framework behind most of Moorcock’s sprawling fictional universe. Elric eventually learns that he is his universe’s incarnation of the “Eternal Champion”, with the cosmic purpose of keeping the energies of Chaos and Law in balance.

As the saga progresses, Elric learns more of his role as an Eternal Champion and the universes that exist alongside his own – he even meets a few of his counterparts, the Eternal Champions from other universes. Along the way he meets numerous allies and sworn enemies, and his evil sword Stormbringer is rarely without souls to feed upon for very long. While the White Wolf – as he is sometimes known – has goals of his own, he is inexorably drawn towards his ultimate destiny in the struggle between Chaos and Law.

Book 1: Elric of Melniboné (1972)

Things begin straightforwardly enough with Elric of Melniboné, the story set earliest in the timeline. Moorcock had already written numerous Elric stories by the time he published this book in 1972. Years earlier, he had written the end of the saga in the form of Stormbringer (1965), and so he eventually came around to writing its true beginning.

Written as a novel, as opposed to being made up of separate stories, the book serves as a prequel and a kind of origin story for Elric. When the book opens, our antihero is serving as Elric VIII, the 428th Emperor of Melniboné. His nation is decadent and decaying – while it once ruled the whole of the world, it is now reduced to controlling only the Dragon Isle itself. It does however exert some influence on the now-independent realms outside, known as the Young Kingdoms.

The book concerns the struggle for Elric to retain the Ruby Throne and his lover Cymoril – his rival in both is his own cousin, and Cymoril’s brother, Yyrkoon. These characters had a minor role in later books but are more developed here. Also introduced are Melniboné’s golden fleet, its army of dragons, Elric’s pact with the chaos lord Arioch, and his fateful encounter with the soul-eating black sword Stormbringer. All of these will be critical in the stories to follow.

Typical of Moorcock’s style of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Elric of Melniboné is a fast-paced, rollicking adventure. The chapters are short and action-packed, with major events occurring every few pages. This makes it an excellent, accessible introduction to the series.

Elric of Melnibone

The saga kicks off with Elric of Melnibone, introducing readers to a troubled ruler. Elric is physically weak, relying on drugs to maintain his existence. His cousin Yrkoon, a cunning rival, seeks the throne with malicious intentions. The conflict between Elric and Yrkoon unfolds as they wield powerful swords, Stormbringer and Mournblade. Elric embarks on a dimension-spanning quest to reclaim his throne while grappling with his moral compass. The political machinations, along with the complexities of his relationships, set the stage for tension and conflict. His attempts to navigate power dynamics reveal a sense of fatalism rooted in the chaos of his lineage. Ultimately, this book establishes Elric’s tragic character: a ruler caught between his desires and the responsibilities of leadership.

Actually, most of the novel (and indeed the series) walks that knife’s edge between “dramatic” and “over-the-top”. Even in its less assured moments, Moorcock’s prose tends toward the richly bombastic. This isn’t exactly a bad thing, per se (particularly as Moorcock is a good enough author that he rarely lets it get too ridiculously out of hand), but it does make for an interesting and by modern standards rather abnormal reading experience. The language used is gorgeously lush and resonant, and the imagery is made to match. This is a story that is in every way an epic, larger than life and rather proud of the fact. It can look a touch overwrought. That said, Moorcock generally has the eloquence to back up the bluster, and once I’d acclimated to the prose I found myself actually savoring the style. I realize some of what I’ve said may have readers marking this down as a ridiculously windy book full of thees and wherefores, but I actually encourage you to see the prose as an overall mark in the novel’s favor. You will not read much fantasy that sounds like this, and by the time the end of the series comes, you may be quite glad that Moorcock chose an epic style to match his events.

Literature Sample Collection

The outlines of the coast were dim. They waded through white water and white mist, their swords held above their heads. Swords were their only weapons. Each of the Four possessed a blade of unusual size and design, but none bore a sword which occasionally murmured to itself as did Elric’s Stormbringer. Glancing back, Elric saw the captain standing at the rail, his blind face turned toward the island, his pale lips moving as if he spoke to himself. Now the water was waist-deep and the sand beneath Elric’s feet hardened and became smooth rock. He waded on, wary and ready to carry any attack to those who might be defending the island. But now the mist grew thinner, as if it could gain no hold on the land, and there were no obvious signs of defenders.

Tucked into his belt, each man had a brand, it’s end wrapped in oiled cloth so that it should not be wet when the time came to light it. Similarly, each was equipped with a handful of smoldering tinder in a little ﬁrebox in a pouch attached to his belt, so that the brands could be instantly ignited.

“Only ﬁre will destroy this enemy forever,” the captain had said again as he handed them their brands and their tinderboxes.

As the mist cleared, it revealed a landscape of dense shadows. The shadows spread over red rock and yellow vegetation and they were shadows of all shapes and dimensions, resembling all manner of things. They seemed cast by the huge blood-colored sun which stood at perpetual noon above the island, but what was disturbing about them was that the shadows themselves seemed without a source, as if the objects they represented were invisible or existed elsewhere than on the island itself. The sky, too, seemed full

of these shadows, but whereas those on the island were still, those in the sky sometimes moved, perhaps when the clouds moved. And all the while the red sun poured down its bloody light and touched the twenty men with its unwelcome radiance just as it touched the land.

And at times, as they advanced cautiously inland, a peculiar ﬂickering light sometimes crossed the island so that the outlines of the place became unsteady for a few seconds before returning to focus. Elric suspected his eyes and said nothing until Hown Serpent-tamer (who was having diﬃculty ﬁnding his land-legs) remarked:

“I have rarely been ashore, it’s true, but I think the quality of this land is stranger than any other I’ve known. It shimmers. It distorts.”

Several voices agreed with him.

“And from whence come all these shadows?” Ashnar the Lynx stared around him in unashamed superstitious awe. “Why cannot we see that which casts them?”

“It could be,” Corum said, “that these are shadows cast by objects existing in other dimensions of the Earth. If all dimensions meet here, as has been suggested, that could be a likely explanation.” He put his silver hand to his embroidered eye-patch. “This is not the strangest example I have witnessed of such a conjunction.”

“Likely?” Otto Blendker snorted. “Pray let none give me an unlikely explanation, if you please!”

They pressed on through the shadows and the lurid light until they arrived at the outskirts of the ruins.

These ruins, thought Elric, had something in common with the ramshackle city of Ameeron, which he had visited on his quest for the Black Sword. But they were altogether more vast-more a collection of smaller cities, each one in a radically different architectural style.

“Perhaps this is Tanelorn,” said Corum, who had visited the place, “or, rather, all the versions of Tanelorn there have ever been. For Tanelorn exists in many forms, each form depending upon the wishes of those who most desire to ﬁnd her.”

“This is not the Tanelorn I expected to ﬁnd,” said Hawkmoon bitterly.

“Nor I,” added Erekosë bleakly.

“Perhaps it is not Tanelorn,” said Elric. “Perhaps it is not.”

“Or perhaps this is a graveyard,” said Corum distantly, frowning with his single eye. “A graveyard containing all the forgotten versions of that strange city.”

They began to clamber over the ruins, their arms clattering as they moved, heading for the center of the place. Elric could tell by the introspective expressions in the faces of many of his companions that they, like him, were wondering if this were not a dream. Why else should they ﬁnd themselves in this peculiar situation, unquestioningly risking their lives-perhaps their souls-in a ﬁght with which none of them was identiﬁed?

Erekosë moved closer to Elric as they marched. “Have you noticed,” said he, “that the shadows now represent something?”

Elric nodded. “You can tell from the ruins what some of the buildings looked like when they were whole. The shadows are the shadows of those buildings-the original buildings before they became ruined.”

“Just so,” said Erekosë. Together, they shuddered.

At last they approached the likely center of the place and here was a building which was not ruined. It stood in a cleared space, all curves and ribbons of metal and glowing tubes.

“It resembles a machine more than a building,” said Hawkmoon.

“And a musical instrument more than a machine,” Corum mused.

The party came to a halt, each group of four gathering about its leader. There was no question but that they had arrived at their goal.

Now that Elric looked carefully at the building he could see that it was in fact two buildings-both absolutely identical and joined at various points by curling systems of pipes which might be connecting corridors, though it was diﬃcult to imagine what manner of being could utilize them.

“Two buildings,” said Erekosë. “We were not prepared for this. Shall we split up and attack both?”

Instinctively Elric felt that this action would be unwise. He shook his head. “I think we should go together into one, else our strength will be weakened.”

“I agree,” said Hawkmoon, and the rest nodded.

Thus, there being no cover to speak of, they marched boldly toward the nearest building to a point near the ground where a black opening of irregular proportions could be discerned. Ominously, there was still no sign of defenders.

The buildings pulsed and glowed and occasionally whispered, but that was all.

Elric and his party were the ﬁrst to enter, ﬁnding themselves in a damp, warm passage which curved almost immediately to the right. They were followed by the others until all stood in this passage warily glaring ahead, expecting to be attacked. But no attack came.

With Elric at their head, they moved on for some moments before the passage began to tremble violently and sent Mown Serpent-tamer crashing to the ﬂoor cursing. As the man in the sea-green armor scrambled up, a voice began to echo along the passage, seemingly coming from a great distance yet nonetheless loud and irritable.

“Who? Who? Who?” shrieked the voice. “Who? Who? Who invades me?”

The passage’s tremble subsided a little into a constant quivering motion. The voice became a muttering, detached and uncertain.

“What attacks? What?”

The twenty men glanced at one another in puzzlement. At length Elric shrugged and led the party on and soon the passage had widened out into a hall whose walls, roof, and ﬂoor were damp with sticky ﬂuid and whose air was hard to breathe. And now, somehow passing themselves through the walls of this hall, came the ﬁrst of the defenders, ugly beasts

who must be the servants of that mysterious brother and sister Agak and Gagak.

“Attack!” cried the distant voice. “Destroy this. Destroy it!”

The beasts were of a primitive sort, mostly gaping mouth and slithering body, but there were many of them oozing toward the twenty men, who quickly formed themselves into the four ﬁghting units and prepared to defend themselves.

The creatures made a dreadful slushing sound as they approached and the ridges of bone which served them as teeth clashed as they reared up to snap at Elric and his companions. Elric whirled his sword and it met hardly any resistance as it sliced through several of the things at once. But now the air was thicker than ever and a stench threatened to overwhelm them as ﬂuid drenched the ﬂoor.

“Move on through them,” Elric instructed, “hacking a path through as you go. Head for yonder opening.” He pointed with his left hand.

And so they advanced, cutting back hundreds of the primitive beasts and thus decreasing the breathability of the air.

“The creatures are not hard to ﬁght,” gasped Hown Serpent- tamer, “but each one we kill robs us a little of our own chances of life.”

Elric was aware of the irony. “Cunningly planned by our enemies, no doubt.” He coughed and slashed again at a dozen of the beasts slithering toward him. The things were fearless, but they were stupid, too. They made no attempt at strategy.

Finally Elric reached the next passage, where the air was slightly purer. He sucked gratefully at the sweeter

atmosphere and waved his companions on.

Sword-arms rising and falling, they gradually retreated back into the passage, followed by only a few of the beasts. The creatures seemed reluctant to enter the passage and Elric suspected that somewhere within it there must lie a danger which even they feared. There was nothing for it, however, but to press on and he was only grateful that all twenty had survived this initial ordeal.

Gasping, they rested for a moment, leaning against the trembling walls of the passage, listening to the tones of that distant voice, now muﬄed and indistinct.

“I like not this castle at all,” growled Brut of Lashmar, inspecting a rent in his cloak where a creature had seized it. “High sorcery commands it.”

“It is only what we knew,” Ashnar the Lynx reminded him, and Ashnar was plainly hard put to control his terror. The ﬁngerbones in his braids kept time with the trembling of the walls and the huge barbarian looked almost pathetic as he steeled himself to go on.

“They are cowards, these sorcerers,” Otto Blendker said. “They do not show themselves.” He raised his voice. “Is their aspect so loathsome that they are afraid lest we look upon them?” It was a challenge not taken up. As they pushed on through the passages there was no sign either of Agak or his sister Gagak. It became gloomier and brighter in turns.

Sometimes the passages narrowed so that it was diﬃcult to squeeze their bodies through, sometimes they widened into what were almost halls. Most of the time they appeared to be climbing higher into the building.

Elric tried to guess the nature of the building’s inhabitants. There were no steps in the castle, no artifacts he could

recognize. For no particular reason he developed an image of Agak and Gagak as reptilian in form, for reptiles would prefer gently rising passages to steps and doubtless would have little need of conventional furniture. There again it was possible that they could change their shape at will, assuming human form when it suited them. He was becoming impatient to face either one or both of the sorcerers.

Ashnar the Lynx had other reasons-or so he said- for his own lack of patience.

“They said there’d be treasure here,” he muttered. “I thought to stake my life against a fair reward, but there’s naught here of value.” He put a horny hand against the damp material of the wall. “Not even stone or brick. What are these walls made of, Elric?”

Elric shook his head. “That has puzzled me, also, Ashnar.”

Then Elric saw large, ﬁerce eyes peering out of the gloom ahead. He heard a rattling noise, a rushing noise, and the eyes grew larger and larger. He saw a red mouth, yellow fangs, orange fur. Then the growling sounded and the beast sprang at him even as he raised Stormbringer to defend himself and shouted a warning to the others. The creature was a baboon, but huge, and there were at least a dozen others following the ﬁrst. Elric drove his body forward behind his sword, taking the beast in its groin. Claws reached out and dug into his shoulders and waist. He groaned as he felt at least one set of claws draw blood. His arms were trapped and he could not pull Stormbringer free. All he could do was twist the sword in the wound he had already made. With all his might, he turned the hilt. The great ape shouted, its bloodshot eyes blazing, and it bared its yellow fangs as its muzzle shot toward Elric’s throat. The

teeth closed on his neck, the stinking breath threatened to choke him. Again he twisted the blade. Again the beast yelled in pain.

The fangs were pressing into the metal of Elric’s gorget, the only thing saving him from immediate death. He struggled to free at least one arm, twisting the sword for the third time, then tugging it sideways to widen the wound in the groin.

The growls and groans of the baboon grew more intense and the teeth tightened their hold on his neck, but now, mingled with the noises of the ape, he began to hear a murmuring and he felt Stormbringer pulse in his hand. He knew that the sword was drawing power from the ape even as the ape sought to destroy him. Some of that power began to ﬂow into his body.

Desperately Elric put all his remaining strength into dragging the sword across the ape’s body, slitting its belly wide so that its blood and entrails spilled over him as he was suddenly free and staggering backward, wrenching the sword out in the same movement. The ape, too, was staggering back, staring down in stupeﬁed awe at its own horrible wound before it fell to the ﬂoor of the passage.

Elric turned, ready to give aid to his nearest comrade, and he was in time to see Terndrik of Hasghan die, kicking in the clutches of an even larger ape, his head bitten clean from his shoulders and his red blood gouting.

Elric drove Stormbringer cleanly between the shoulders of Terndrik’s slayer, taking the ape in the heart. Beast and human victim fell together. Two others were dead and several bore bad wounds, but the remaining warriors fought on, swords and armor smeared with crimson. The narrow passage stank of ape, of sweat, and of blood. Elric pressed into the ﬁght, chopping at the skull of an ape which

grappled with Hown Serpent-tamer, who had lost his sword. Hown darted a look of thanks at Elric as he bent to retrieve his blade and together they set upon the largest of all the baboons. This creature stood much taller than Elric and had Erekosë pressed against the wall, Erekosë’s sword through its shoulder.

From two sides, Hown and Elric stabbed and the baboon snarled and screamed, turning to face the new attackers, Erekosë’s blade quivering in its shoulder. It rushed upon them and they stabbed again together, taking the monster in its heart and its lung so that when it roared at them blood vomited from its mouth. It fell to its knees, its eyes dimming, then sank slowly down.

And now there was silence in the passage and death lay all about them.

Terndrik of Hasghan was dead. Two of Corum’s party were dead. All of Erekosë’s surviving men bore major wounds. One of Hawkmoon’s men was dead, but the remaining three were virtually unscathed. Brut of Lashmar’s helm was dented, but he was otherwise unwounded and Ashnar the Lynx was disheveled, nothing more. Ashnar had taken two of the baboons during the ﬁght. But now the barbarian’s eyes rolled as he leaned, panting, against the wall.

“I begin to suspect this venture of being uneconomical,” he said with a half-grin. He rallied himself, stepping over a baboon’s corpse to join Elric. “The less time we take over it, the better. What think you, Elric?”

“I would agree.” Elric returned his grin. “Come.” And he led the way through the passage and into a chamber whose walls gave off a pinkish light. He had not walked far before he felt something catch at his ankle and he stared down in

horror to see a long, thin snake winding itself about his leg. It was too late to use his sword; instead he seized the reptile behind its head and dragged it partially free of his leg before hacking the head from the body. The others were now stamping and shouting warnings to each other. The snakes did not appear to be venomous, but there were thousands of them, appearing, it seemed, from out of the ﬂoor itself. They were ﬂesh-colored and had no eyes, more closely resembling earthworms than ordinary reptiles, but they were strong enough.

Hown Serpent-tamer sang a strange song now, with many liquid, hissing notes, and this seemed to have a calming effect upon the creatures. One by one at ﬁrst and then in increasing numbers, they dropped back to the ﬂoor, apparently sleeping. Mown grinned at his success.

Elric said, “Now I understand how you came by your surname.”

“I was not sure the song would work on these,” Hown told him, “for they are unlike any serpents I have ever seen in the seas of my own world.”

They waded on through mounds of sleeping serpents, noticing that the next passage rose sharply. At times they were forced to use their hands to steady themselves as they climbed the peculiar, slippery material of the ﬂoor.

It was much hotter in this passage and they were all sweating, pausing several times to rest and mop their brows. The passage seemed to extend upward forever, turning occasionally, but never leveling out for more than a few feet. At times it narrowed to little more than a tube through which they had to squirm on their stomachs and at other times the roof disappeared into the gloom over their heads. Elric had

long since given up trying to relate their position to what he had seen of the outside of the castle. From time to time small, shapeless creatures rushed toward them in shoals apparently with the intention of attacking them, but these were rarely more than an irritation and were soon all but ignored by the party as it continued its climb.

For a while they had not heard the strange voice which had greeted them upon their entering, but now it began to whisper again, its tones more urgent than before.

“Where? Where? Oh, the pain!”

They paused, trying to locate the source of the voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

Grim-faced, they continued, plagued by thousands of little creatures which bit at their exposed ﬂesh like so many gnats, yet the creatures were not insects. Elric had seen nothing like them before. They were shapeless, primitive, and all but colorless. They battered at his face as he moved; they were like a wind. Half-blinded, choked, sweating, he felt his strength leaving him. The air was so thick now, so hot, so salty, it was as if he moved through liquid. The others were as badly affected as was he; some were staggering and two men fell, to be helped up again by comrades almost as exhausted. Elric was tempted to strip off his armor, but he knew this would leave more of his ﬂesh to the mercy of the little ﬂying creatures.

Still they climbed and now more of the serpentine things they had seen earlier began to writhe around their feet, hampering them further, for all that Mown sang his sleeping song until he was hoarse.

“We can survive this only a little longer,” said Ashnar the Lynx, moving close to Elric. “We shall be in no condition to

meet the sorcerer if we ever ﬁnd him or his sister.”

Elric nodded a gloomy head. “My thoughts, too, yet what else may we do, Ashnar?”

“Nothing,” said Ashnar in a low voice. “Nothing.”

“Where? Where? Where?” The word rustled all about them. Many of the party were becoming openly nervous.

The post Write up on Michael MoorCock Elric of Melniboné appeared first on DayDreamin’ Comics.

Write up on JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ‘s BRER RABBIT

admin — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 19:01:17 +0000

Background of the Study

Introduction:

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS was born in utter poverty in Putnam County in 1848. Although being poor presented the youngster with many hardships, it imbued him with a tender shyness -a shyness so extreme that it actually became an attractive asset and followed him all his life.

Putnam County was a land of cotton, large plantations, slave-holders, wealth and plenty. Private schooling was the fashion of the day and Joel Chandler Harris was able to attend school through the generosity of his neighbors who recognized his potentialities.

One of the young boy’s favorite spots was the old Eatonton Post Office, because the postmaster would give him discarded papers and magazines to help satisfy his active and hungry mind. On one of his visits to the Post Office, Joel read an advertisement for a printer’s devil in the first issue of The Countryman, a newspaper published at Turnwold, a local plantation. He immediately made application and was hired at the age of thirteen.

The publisher of The Countryman, Joseph Addison Turner, was a lawyer, scholar and planter. His newspaper was the only weekly ever published on a Southern plantation.

Turner was quick to recognize the ambition and talent of his young apprentice. In time, some of Joel’s works began appearing in the newspaper. Turner was a stern taskmaster and he demanded a clear literary style, which was a tremendous asset to the gifted boy.

At Turnwold, Harris began his lifelong friendship with animals and with the plantation Negroes, whose folklore would later fill his writings. Fortunately, the youngster was associated with such aged and colorful slaves as “Uncle” George Terrell and “Uncle” Bob Capers. They had a gift for story-telling which Harris was later able to capture.

Harris’ apprenticeship ended abruptly in 1864 when awing of Sherman’s army invaded Putnam County. War had suddenly brought poverty to all, including Turnwold, forcing the ambitious youth to move on and seek his place in the world.

He worked for newspapers in New Orleans, Macon, Forsyth, Savannah and finally The Atlanta Constitution. It was under the guidance of Captain Evan P. Howell, of The Atlanta Constitution, that he began to publish the famous stories of Uncle Remus. Northern newspapers began to print the fascinating tales and almost overnight his fame was established.

In Atlanta, he worked with the energetic and farsighted men who rebuilt the city and the South during reconstruction days following the Civil War. His associates included Clark Howell, editor of The Atlanta Constitution; Frank Stanton, famous Georgia poet; and Henry W. Grady, the great Southern orator. Joel Chandler Harris died at the Wrens Nest, his home in Atlanta in 1908. Today, the Wrens Nest is a shrine devoted to his memory.

The works of Joel Chandler Harris are not limited to the tales of Uncle Remus. Stories of the old South and Reconstruction Days take their place among his masterpieces. However, the folk stories, with their inimitable characterizations of Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Fox and “all de critters”, have never been equaled.

Significance of the Study:

BRER RABBIT

Brer Rabbit (also spelled Bre’r Rabbit or Br’er Rabbit) is the trickster hero of an oral tradition passed down by African slave workers of the Southern United States. Dozens of stories tell of the exploits of this trickster bunny, who, though small and weak, constantly outwits bigger and fiercer creatures such as Brer Fox, Brer Wolf and Brer Bear.

The origins of Brer Rabbit can be traced to the folk stories of western, central and southern Africa, where similar tales of trickster heroes continue to be part of the folk tradition. Amongst the Akan traditions of southern Ghana and the Ivory Coast, the trickster is usually the spider, Anansi; his stories are very similar in plot to the Brer Rabbit tales.

Joel Chandler Harris and the Uncle Remus Stories

Br’er Rabbit was first popularised by the American journalist Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908). During his work for a plantation newspaper-owner, Harris became familiar with many of the folktales of the black African plantation workers. He began to write the ‘Uncle Remus’ stories, which began to appear in the Atlanta Constitution in 1879, and in 1880, were published in book form by D. Appleton of New York as Uncle Remus: his songs and his sayings; the folklore of the old plantation. The first section of the book, ‘Legends of the Old Plantation’ consists of tales told by Uncle Remus, an old black man, to the small son of the plantation owner. The hero of most of these tales is the mischievous, troublesome and clever Brer Rabbit. Perhaps the most beloved of these tales is How Brer Rabbit Met Brer Tar Baby. Though Harris insisted that he was not the author, only the reteller of these tales, he retold these tales with great skill and charm, adding depth and detail to the characters and events. He used the dialect of the Georgia plantation worker, which he had studied closely, in his retellings. Later versions of the tales have been in standard English, which makes the tales easier to read but lessens their charm considerably. The other two sections of the book are ‘His Songs’, a collection of African-American hymns and work-songs, and ‘His Sayings’, a collection of humorous anecdotes which Harris attaches to the character of Uncle Remus.

The book was met with great acclaim in America, and, hailed by critics and readers alike, English editions began to appear almost at once. In 1883, Harris published Nights With Uncle Remus, a sequel to his first collection of Uncle Remus stories, compiled partly from folktales sent to him by readers of the first book, and he including other narrators such as African Jack, Aunt Tempy and Tildy. This book was aimed more at folklorists than the first book. However, Harris published several more books in the series; these were meant explicitly for children and include Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892), and The Tar-Baby and Other Rhymes of Uncle Remus (1904).

Harris also wrote several other, equally charming, books for children. These include: Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country (1894), Wally Wanderoon and His Story-telling Machine (1903), and The Bishop and the Boogerman (1909).

A Literary Awakening: Uncle Remus Collections

Harris’s Constitution editorials expanded on the social, political, and literary themes he had begun exploring in Forsyth and Savannah—themes he would also treat both directly and indirectly in his folktales and fiction to come. When he was asked to fill in for absent dialect-writer Sam Small, he invented an engaging Black character named Uncle Remus, who liked dropping by the Constitution offices to share humorous anecdotes and sardonic insights about life on the streets of bustling postwar Atlanta. But an article Harris read on African American folklore in Lippincott’s, which included a transcribed story of “Buh Rabbit and the Tar Baby,” reminded him of the Brer Rabbit trickster stories he had heard from the enslaved people at Turnwold Plantation. His Uncle Remus character now began to tell old plantation folktales, back-home aphorisms, and African American folk songs, and newspapers around the country eagerly reprinted his rural legends and sayings. Before long, Harris had composed enough material for a book. Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings—The Folklore of the Old Plantation was published by Appleton in November 1880. Within four months it had sold 10,000 copies and was quickly reprinted. Harris eventually wrote 185 of the tales.

For the next quarter-century, Harris lived a double life professionally. He was one of two associate editors of the premier newspaper in the Southeast, helping readers interpret the complex New South movement. He was also the creative writer, the “other fellow,” as he termed himself: a prolific, committed, and ambitious re-creator of folk stories, a literary comedian, fiction writer, and author of children’s books. Harris published thirty-five books in his lifetime, in addition to writing thousands of articles for the Constitution over a twenty-four-year period. Along with his first book, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, the most ambitious of the Uncle Remus volumes is Nights with Uncle Remus: Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation (1883). This book comprises seventy-one tales that feature stories told by four different Black narrators, including Uncle Remus.

Harris published five other collections of Uncle Remus tales in his lifetime, the most accomplished of which is Told by Uncle Remus: New Stories of the Old Plantation (1905). In this volume, a seemingly ageless Uncle Remus tells his complex allegorical tales to the son of the little boy from the first stories. This frail, citified, and “unduly repressed” child is sent by Miss Sally, his grandmother, to Remus’s knee to learn how to be a real boy in a complex, competitive, and even predatory world. Three shorter volumes of previously uncollected Uncle Remus stories appeared after Harris’s death.

The Uncle Remus volumes assured Harris’s reputation, which became international almost overnight. Professional folklorists praised his work in popularizing Black storytelling traditions. In 1888 Harris was named a charter member, with Mark Twain, of the American Folklore Society. Before long, in fact, publishing local dialect tales became an international phenomenon: Harris helped spawn a whole industry. Twain had been so impressed by Harris’s dialect-writing skills that he had invited Harris in 1882 to meet him and George Washington Cable in New Orleans, Louisiana, to plan an ambitious series of platform readings around the country. Because of his persistent stammer, however, Harris turned down the lucrative offer. The future author of Huckleberry Finn took some of Harris’s material on the road with him, and Twain reported later that the tar baby story was always one of his most popular stage-readings.

Harris also left his impact on major literary figures to come. Rudyard Kipling, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison all responded to the legacy of Brer Rabbit and the tar baby that Harris had helped popularize. Fellow Eatonton writer Alice Walker protested, however, that Harris had stolen her African American folklore heritage and had made it a white man’s publishing commodity.

The Brer Rabbit Dialogue embedded deeply inside the Gullah Geechee dialect

The First English Creole Language in the U.S.

The nearly 400,000 enslaved Africans who were brought to the United States America as had something that gave them identity and from which they could not be parted despite the violence of capture, the horrors of the middle passage, and the despoilment of slavery—their native languages. They arrived in America speaking Bambara, Ewe, Fon, Fante, Fulani, Hausa, Kongo, Kimbundu, Vai, and Mende, among other tongues. Under slavery they had to acquire the rudiments of English and they eventually lost the fluent use of their native languages, but they did not forget them all together. They had to find a way to communicate with each other so they created a common tongue called Gullah. Learn more from this Smithsonian exhibit on Lorenzo Dow Turner, PhD, the father of Gullah studies an African-American academic and linguist who did seminal research on the Gullah language spoken in coastal North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

The Gullah Language The Gullah language is what linguists call an English-based creole language. Creoles arise in the context of trade, colonialism, and slavery when people of diverse backgrounds are thrown together and must forge a common means of communication. According to one view, creole languages are essentially hybrids that blend linguistic influences from a variety of different sources. In the case of Gullah, the vocabulary is largely from the English “target language,” the speech of the socially and economically dominant group; but the African “substrate languages” have altered the pronunciation of almost all the English words, influenced the grammar and sentence structure, and provided a sizable minority of the vocabulary. Many early scholars made the mistake of viewing the Gullah language as “broken English,” because they failed to recognize the strong underlying influence of African languages. But linguists today view Gullah, and other creoles, as full and complete languages with their own systematic grammatical structures.

Key Characteristics of the Gullah Language

Gullah is distinguished by its unique syntax, phonology, and vocabulary. Key features include:

Reduplication: The repetition of words or sounds to indicate intensity or plurality (e.g., “big big” for “very big”).
Serial Verb Construction: Using a sequence of verbs to express a single action (e.g., “He go take fetch water”).
Simplified Verb Tenses: A more straightforward approach to verb conjugation compared to standard English.

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