The Open Plain

The two figures glanced back at the sky behind them. The sky was the color of a funeral, an angry grey melee. They glanced back and quickened their pace. It was late December and time for the season to run it's course. It was time for the north wind to come raging across the prairie, dumping four feet of snow and freezing any living thing that had not found shelter. The two men had not found shelter. They were heading for the small frontier town that they called home, on the banks of the river. They were not much to look at, these two men, clad in rough leather and canvas. They lived off the land, fitting into the natural order. The older man had come from the east many years ago to carve out a living in this rich but relentless environment. The young one was bright and strong, but now a look of fear permeated his face underneath his expression. The storm moved relentlessly towards them as if it was trying to devour them. They could do nothing but keep walking the slim path until they could find shelter

    "Think we'll get as far as the river afore the snow catches us?" asked the younger one. The boy was a simple boy, now a man.

    "Dunno, son. Mayhap we'll get to the valley" replied the oldest one. The old man was grizzled and had a long grey beard. A man who had spent his life pitted against nature. He fought. He knew better than to resent what nature might give a human, for nature was impartial, it did not care. A man must take care of himself or nature's impartiality would kill him. Since nature had no emotion towards a human, the old man did not bother having emotion against nature. The old man had a bad feeling in his gut though, because he saw that they were a long ways away from their destination and the winter storm was on it's way.

They walked on in silence. The strong wind began to blow. They knew that they had a short way to go. They kept walking. In a half an hour, the young man looked back and it seemed that a white wall had been put in place, reaching from the earth to the heavens. Subconsciously he stopped walking and stared in awe. The Man called to him. He started out of his trance and continued walking. With the force of a steam engine the wind hit and they watched as the white wall fell down upon them as if it meant to crush them. They shivered at the sheer power that it wielded. All the same they kept on walking; it was all that they could do. The old man reflected on how helpless they were and wondered why. Soon the snow began to piling in drifts, the wind's teeth savagely bit through their clothes as if they were made of burlap. They did not have their thickest clothes. The endless walking began to get harder as they walked through 6 inches of snow. All they could do was to keep walking.

It seemed as if it had been hours, but neither knew how many. They had hoped to get to the river before the storm struck and now all of their thoughts were focused on that valley, where the trees and earthen banks awaited them. If they could get there, the town would be close. The young man imagined the trees reaching out their loving arms to envelop the tired men in their motherly embrace. The old man reflected that if they had only had started a day earlier, they would not be in the blizzard. It was getting hard to see through the snow and gathering darkness. In another ten minutes it was impossible to see and the snow was reaching a foot tall.

"How are you son?" asked the old man, though by this time he had to shout over the wind.

"Cc-cold" stuttered the son, "how far is it do you think?" he asked.

"Hopefully not far", replied the man, though in his head he knew that they could easily be heading in circles.

They kept walking

The two were cold by now. Wind and snow were all enveloping, the son bitterly asked the question of why into the senseless void. It did not answer him. As time went on, slowly, oh so slowly the impartial elements began to draw them into a trap. They were delirious with cold, hunger and weariness. Soon the old man began to long to lie down. He just needed some rest; it had been a long fight...so long.

The old man stumbled to his knees and the son helped him up. He staggered on, his body weary from his life of fighting. It had worn him down.

Three times he stumbled.

The forth time he did not rise. His muscles relaxed. The snow was so deep it seemed like the softest featherbed in the world. For some odd reason he remembered the old mountain lion on his farm that he had found dead. It looked so peaceful and natural. The old man could not hear his son's cries and entireties. He felt warm and tired. Slowly everything became dark.

The old man was gone. With bitter tears in his eyes the young man looked into the swirling howling space before him and yelled, giving vent to his anger. He cursed though he did not know what to curse. He ran through the tall drifts kicking and thrashing. But slowly he stopped. There was nothing to yell at, his shouts did not even get out of his mouth before the wind ripped them away. If there was someone to blame he surely would have, but there was no moral agent who could have done anything. He was cold. He looked about him. All was white and senseless, how could a man survive such a thing? It seemed unfair, it seemed cruel. The young man’s heart sank but with a final effort he raised his weary windblown eyes. Suddenly as if he had be hit, his heart leapt in his chest as presently he saw trees, and a mounded snow bank to his left. It was the river they...he...had made it! A moment ago he had been despairing, but now hope warmed him. The river seemed to invite him like a friend. He excitedly went towards it, down the bank. He began burrowing into the snow, it was so deep, he could easily dig a cave and find shelter. He felt safe. A BOOM AND A CRACK! Horror struck the young man! His gut turned to jelly and he felt the taste of fear in his mouth. It was so deep and terrible he felt like vomiting, slowly and quickly the ice he had been standing on, only recently frozen, gave way.

Gaping black water gushed out of the white ice and snow. It leapt and gurgled sucking greedily at the remaining warmth that he had. The cold seemed to inundate him to the core and envelope him. The water seemed alive, but he knew it wasn't. He tried to crawl, on his belly but the ice continued to give way and the water clawed at his torso. He fought like a beast, he fought for warmth and life, he fought in anger, and he fought death till he could no more.

Commentary

This short story is supposed to mimic the writing and style of Stephen Crane's short story, "The Open Boat". It attempts to be part the genre of naturalism. The Donna Campbell website, "Naturalism in American Literature" defines naturalism as such, "The term naturalism describes a type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings. Unlike realism, which focuses on literary technique, naturalism implies a philosophical position: for naturalistic writers, since human beings are, in Emile Zola's phrase, "human beasts," characters can be studied through their relationships to their surroundings."(Campbell) Both stories focus on a small group of people in the midst of a dangerous natural environment. Both stories look at how the humans relate emotionally and physically to their environments and how they try to survive.

Crane uses vivid images that actually seem to give the physical environment emotion and motive. This is in tension with the concept of naturalism, which says the opposite. For example, in the first paragraph of the story Crane writes, "These waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall"(Crane) this is how it seems to the person in the situation, but to a naturalist, nature can not do wrong. In the parody, there is a lot of imagery of this type, which describes nature in human terms. For example, "The sky was the color of a funeral, an angry grey melee."

Crane uses an anaphora/refrain of sorts in the story to stress the inability of the people to do much about their situation. This is seen in “The Open Boat”, "In the meantime the oiler and the correspondent rowed. And also they rowed. They sat together in the same seat, and each rowed an oar. Then the oiler took both oars; then the correspondent took both oars; then the oiler; then the correspondent. They rowed and they rowed." All that they can do is row. In the parody, all that the people can do is walk. There is a repetition of "they kept walking" for the same purpose.

Here are a few traits of naturalism that are from Donna Campbell's website, as well as examples from both pieces that display the traits.

• "Nature as an indifferent force acting on the lives of human beings...[Campbell points out and example from "The Open Boat"]...here becomes Stephen Crane's view in "The Open Boat": "This tower was a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the individual--nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent."" Here is an example from the parody, "He knew better than to resent what nature might give a human, for nature was impartial, it did not care. A man must take care of himself or nature's impartiality would kill him. Since nature had no emotion towards a human, the old man did not bother having emotion against nature."
• "An indifferent, deterministic universe. Naturalistic texts often describe the futile attempts of human beings to exercise free will, often ironically presented, in this universe that reveals free will as an illusion." Both stories have ironic deaths in the end. In "The Open Boat" The oiler dies, "In the shallows, face downward, lay the oiler. His forehead touched sand that was periodically, between each wave, clear of the sea." he gets to shore but this does not keep him from dying. It is the same in the parody, The boy reaches his valley, but it does not stop him from dying.

On Paul Reuben’s website, "American Naturalism: A Brief Introduction" he describes the subject matter of naturalism, "The subject matter deals with those raw and unpleasant experiences which reduce characters to "degrading" behavior in their struggle to survive. These characters are mostly from the lower middle or the lower classes - they are poor, uneducated, and unsophisticated."(Reuben) In both of these stories, we meet the characters in the midst of those raw and unpleasant experiences and see their struggle to survive. They are reduced to desperate measures to attain that goal.

The Green Dumpsters

so much depends

upon

the green dump

sters

blotched with white

goop

filled with wasted

goods

beside the brown

fence

Commentary

This is a parody of William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow” I wrote it about the dumpsters outside of my apartment when I took out the trash. On John Whalen-Bridge & Rajeev Patke’s website, “American Literature II” one of the defining characteristics of modernism is, “an acute sense of cultural crisis”. I think that “The Red Wheelbarrow” may reflect this, though it is hard to tell, because the poem is sparse. One of the reasons that I think it does convey a sense of crisis is the first line, “So much depends”(Williams). It seems to be conveying a sentiment that is not expressed in the poem that may well be about cultural crisis. It is possible however, that the poem is a very personal poem, and that the reader will have a hard time realizing what the poem means. I think that it could be a cultural commentary so I wrote the parody to reflect something about the wastefulness of our culture, and it shares “an acute sense of cultural crisis”. The other aspects of modernism that both poems share are from Paul Reuben’s web site, “American Modernism- a brief introduction”. These are, “Stylistic innovations - disruption of traditional syntax and form”(Reuben) and “A breaking away from patterned responses and predictable forms.”(Rueben).  Both poems break sentences into non-traditional pieces making nontraditional syntax and they are both unpredictable in their form and content.

Both of these poems are modern in form, they are almost like free verse in the sense that they do no use a regular rhyme scheme. They do however; use a constant line length in each stanza, three on top and two on the bottom. This keeps them from being true free verse. The imagery and language used in the poems are very sparse and what some would call odd. This is because of the modernist nature of the pieces. On John Reuben’s website, he says that another characteristic of modern poetry is the, “Artist's self-consciousness about questions of form and structure.” “The Red Wheelbarrow” is either about culture or it is self-expressive poem that is using the odd form and content to express and inner self- consciousness or feeling.

This is a parody of “The Great Figure” by William Carlos Williams. I did the parody based on another piece of art from the precisionist art movement, and then realized it didn’t fit the contemporary subject guideline, so I scrapped it. Anyway, as long as I wrote it I figured I might as well post it.

Cityscape

I saw

brown and grey

across

the roof

with

letters

and sky

peacefull

above

cool streets

in the afternoon

Rooftops