☯Emily ’s Comments (group member since Jul 27, 2011)

☯Emily ’s comments from the Classics for Beginners group.

I asked in another group if the flower represented the fickleness of woman. Someone posted the following. See if you agree: http://www.shmoop.com/little-prince/f...

Well, if there is a profound message, what is it? What is the point of the book? Is it really a children's book? It is considered a book for 4th and 5th graders. Why? If there is a message, is the message for children different from adults?

I quite enjoyed The Bostonians when I read it many years ago. I found A Turn of the Screw laborious and, after giving it a rare 1 star, renamed it A Tale Written by a Loose Screw.

Then I guess I will do the next Tri-monthly.

There was a tie in the January voting. It has been suggested that we do one book in January and the other in February. Does that meet everyone's approval? That way we won't need Danielle to do the February nominations. Danielle, can you do March or the next Tri-monthly read? If so, decide which one you want and then you can put me down for the other one.

Just curious if anyone is reading this book which had 40 votes.

Maybe we need some questions. Please pick one and comment on it.

1) What is the main theme of Northanger Abbey?

2) What is the effect of using the Gothic novel as a running theme in Northanger Abbey? In what ways does the Gothic novel help to frame, or set-up, the plot of Northanger Abbey?

3) Catherine is inexperienced and innocent at the beginning of the novel. How has she changed by the end of the novel? What has she learned about people in the process?

4) What makes Catherine think the General murdered his wife?

5) Jane Austen uses free indirect discourse to reveal her characters. Do you know what free indirect discourse is? If so, show the advantages of its use. What is the effect of it in scenes like the one in which Catherine opens the mysterious cabinet?

6) What is the climax of the novel?

That would be great. We post the January nominations around the 15th of the month (November) and take nominations for about 9-10 days. Voting would be the last week of the month.

Thanks, Danielle. Do we have any other active moderators other than Joseph, Danielle and Emily? There are several others listed, but I don't see much activity. It would be nice to have more people involved.

We need to have a volunteer for the Jan. 2015 nominations which is coming up in a few weeks.

This might be a good time to start setting up a schedule for the next six months.

Jan. 2015 (need to post by 11/15/2014) Louise
Feb. 2015
Mar. 2015 Danielle The Book Huntress
Apr. 2015 Joseph
May 2015
Jun. 2015

Tri-Monthly reads

Jan-Mar 2015 (probably need to start nominations now) Emily
Apr-Jun 2015 (need to nominate in Jan. 2015) Emily

This is where we can start discussing Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.

Sunnyside is a cool place to visit!

Welcome to Goodreads and to our group. You are welcome to join the discussion of Gone With the Wind any time.

Glad you choose to join us, Ellie.

Joy wrote: "So I finally finished today. And I love Melanie even more. In my mind she is the true heroine.


I went to college in the South in the early 1070's. I did not fit in. I was told I was blunt. Southern girls at that time always seemed friendly. They had a smile on their face and welcomed you with warmth. However, rumors and gossip always swirled around campus. Where did these rumors come from? Those same nice and friendly girls! "The sweet to your face, talk behind your back" Southern girls had this technique down to a science. I learned never to trust a sweet girl with a warm, inviting smile.

Now why am I telling this? Melanie showed her true colors in Chapter 49. Melanie is being questioned by Scarlet about leaving her housewarming party. 'Suddenly words began to bubble out, swift hot words and there was inflexible hate in the low voice. "Can you forget what these people did to us? Can you forget darling Charlie dead and Ashley's health ruined and Twelve Oaks burned?...Oh, Scarlet, it was these same people who robbed us and tortured us and left us to starve that you invited to your party! The same people who have set the darkies up to lord over us, who are robbing us and keeping our men from voting! I can't forget. I won't forget. I won't let my Beau forget and I'll teach my grandchildren to hate these people--and my grandchildren's grandchildren if God lets me live that long!"'

It is this kind of attitude and hatred that existed in the South for several generations. It was perpetuated and endorsed by sweet, nice Southern women who acted friendly, but actually hated your guts because you were from the North or because your skin was a different color from theirs. What loving mother would teach her child to hate?

Rita, not all Southerners supported the war or had slaves. Some freed their slaves, usually after they died, of course. Even Ashley in GWTW says he would have freed his slaves once his father died.

Sections of the South supported the North, but usually for economical reasons. The northeast section of Tennessee did not have slaves and voted not to secede. Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's vice-president, was from this area of Tennessee. This is the main reason he was selected to be Lincoln's running mate; he was a southerner and he could be used politically when the war was over. Unfortunately, Lincoln was killed soon after the war ended.

A large section of Virginia did not own slaves. They separated from Virginia during the war and became the new state of West Virginia.

There is a small section of Virginia on the Delmarva Peninsula by the Chesapeake Bay that did heavy trading with the North before the war and did not secede for economic reasons. That area is called Chincoteague today.

One of my ancestors lived in Tennessee near the Kentucky border. Even though he lived in a Confederate state, he fought for the North. He ended up having all his property in Tennessee confiscated by the Confederates, and his descendents never got it back. Many states, like Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, had military units in both the North and South. I have some ancestors that fought for the South and some that fought for the North.

The North-South vibe still exists. The discrimination is more subtle and there are code words used today to express how you really feel. I spent last year in Texas, where my parents and grandparents were raised. The church I attended had no black families, although one family had adopted a light black girl. When I encouraged some of the members to invite blacks to visit, I was given all sorts of excuses, but none actually came out and said they didn't want blacks. They tried to hide it with soft, sweet words of reasonableness.

President Lyndon Johnson was from Texas and he helped to pass the Civil Rights Act in the mid 1960's. He was a Democrat. This action made the Southern Democrats angry. LBJ knew he could not win the next election because of this and the Vietnam War fiasco.

In 1968, Richard Nixon ran for President. He was a Republican. He ran on a platform of "Law and Order." This was a code word for the Southern whites to know that he was the one to help them in the fight against those unruly blacks who were protesting and demanding more rights. He won with this message. At this point, the Southern states gradually changed their allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. Today the coded message of discrimination has to do with making the voting laws more restrictive.

http://www.brennancenter.org/publicat...

One of the first things the southerners did when they got power was to take away the black's voting rights, WHICH the blacks had during Reconstruction. Even Margaret Mitchell shows throughout the book that the whites thought the blacks SHOULD NOT have the vote and they were appalled that these uneducated people were allowed to vote. Of course, many blacks were illiterate because it was a crime to educate a slave. However, just because someone is uneducated or illiterate doesn't mean they are stupid. Southerners could not see this because their prejudice was ingrained from birth.

Mitchell says in her book that the Georgia legislature refused to ratify the Constitutional Amendment allowing blacks to vote. That was the constant theme of Georgia's recalcitrance during the Reconstruction Era. The Southerners had limited power, but, even with reduced power, they were able to make their opinions known. If voicing their opinion didn't get the results they wanted, they used the KKK to terrorize, murder and maim.

The South's brutalization of blacks for centuries is one of the blights of our country's history. My background is southern, for which I am ashamed. I still remember the abusive and hurtful comments of some of my relatives when I was a child and young adult.

Good question. We have no way of knowing. However, looking at the way blacks were portrayed-as monkeys, children, child-like, slimy creatures, I don't think things would have been better. The question is would you give the vote to someone who left this country and fought for ISIS or bin Laden and then returned and wanted the same rights as those of us who were not disloyal?

The Moonstone is considered one of the two best books by Wilkie Collins. The other one is The Woman in White, which I am sure you will enjoy also.

Joy wrote: "I'm not saying there wasn't greed and corruption in the south. I don't think they were any better. I do think it was wrong that they were denied the right to vote."

The whites were denied the right to vote for two reasons. They had to proclaim their loyalty to the new government before they got the right to vote (makes sense to me) and they continued to find ways to try to deny the vote for the freed blacks.