Compare and Contrast
Under the Jaguar sun by Calvino versus The Witch's senses by Classen
There are three senses that dominate the lives of the characters during the entire short stories in Under the Jaguar Sun. These senses include; hearing, smell and taste. However, the senses in the short stories promise the fulfillment of the exit and desire from the self but only lead back to the initial source. In essence, the short stories connect the connection of the common senses in the body (Anderson et al. 20). These aspects are used by the author to express unity by the body parts. This symbolizes the unity and togetherness that people in various communities should have. On the other hand, the short stories in The Witch's senses depict the feminine sensory subject that consisted of labors associated with the intimately corporeal senses of taste, touch and smell but they were taken to be more inferior and considered to be dominant among the masculine gazes. According to the author, male had had lower senses and their own powers that emerged from their assumed irrational, primal nature. Similarly, women are said to use their senses to take care of their families. They apply senses in cooking, sewing, nurturing and cleaning. However, they use their senses in the wrong way by expressing greed, lust and desire of social dominion. The two short stories books are much related and share the same attitudes.
The Hands by Anderson versus the Cathedral by Carver
Carver the author of the Cathedral focused much on the conditions and well being of the blue-color and people of the middle class facing the bleak truths, some small revelations in their day to day lives and the disappointments they were experiencing in their lives. All this illustrates the main theme and writing skills of the short story which is the dirty realism. The book features all well-known Carver's features and is considered to be the best of his work (Baudelaire 70). The Cathedral ends on a relatively optimistic way than many of other stories. Thus, it was believed that stories in the collection of the Cathedral were more hopeful and fully developed than the other previous stories. On the other hand, the book; The Hands by Anderson is a collection of stories titled Winesburg Ohio. The book warns against the risks of judging other people in an unfair way. The story revolves around an old man called Wing Biddlebaum who is a friend to George Willard, a young narrator. In today's world, the book presents literary criticism and focuses on the way human identities are constructed more so through sexual minorities and homosexuality.
In essence, the two books by Anderson and Carver focus mainly on the human social life and the way human can interact in different environments. They also illustrate the importance of valuing anybody irrespective of the class or status.
The Country of the Blind by Wells versus The Blind Man by Chrysanthemums by Lawrence
The Blind Man indicates that living is symbolized by differences between seeing and feeling, between acquired social knowledge and intuitive knowledge. The main center of the book is Maurice's prompt passion and love for his cousin's wife, Bertie Reid. Maurice is blinded by admiration though he is a married man (Classen et al. 80). The Country of the Blind by Wells describes the condition of Ecuador's Andes valley. Initially, the valley was accessible before the landslide. The author describes the valley as a place that lost civilization and the valley was forgotten. The valley is described as the world of the blind because it lacked support and contact with the outside world. Both the books depict the aspect of blindness in a way. Maurice's wife is blinded by her husband who admires his cousin's wife on the other hand; the valley is blind because it is not accessible.
Division of mind and body
Poems
Correspondence is a poem concerning the unity of human and nature perceptions of interdependence or mutual assistance in sense perceptions as well as the various worlds revealed by those analogous. This unity becomes visible only during rare cases. When one goes out of the normal state of mind and no longer distinguishes oneself the objects and surroundings from one another than one might be in a position to perceive the equivalence of their sense of impression to another such as sound, color and sight (Roethke 89). Similarly, Roethke's poetry the Snake, the poet described the effortless means in which the snakes gets rid of its original covering and skids away. He admits that there is a day in which cast off his mortal embodiment as effortless the way the snake discards its natural covering. In addition, the culture of Vedic considers death as a transition of soul from one body to another body which is new. Just the way a snake sheds its natural covering the human body becomes useless once the soul leaves, that is after death. It is clear from the poems that the mind and the soul and the body have mutual relationship where the other cannot work without the other.
Furthermore, in the poem, A Blessing the author James Wright evaluates the relationship that exists between the nature and human being through the instructive explanation of an encounter between his friends, two Indian horses and himself (Wells 67). He says that despite the fact that human beings can interact and relate with animals, they lack the ability to join or bond with them. The poet uses personification and imagery to indicate the nature that he sees as he flees the strain of human life. The author reduces the gap between the horses but widens the gap between him and civilization. All the three poems express the aspect of division of the mind and the body as it evaluates the human nature and its relationship with the soul or other nature features like the animals.
In the short stories; Under the Jaguar Sun by Calvano and The Witch’s Senses by Classen, the aspect of division of the mind and body is clearly indicated through the normal human senses (Wright 50). The sense of hearing, taste, smelling, touching and seeing, these senses are parts of the human body but they are coordinated by the mind. In essence, there must be interdependence between the mind and the body failure in which will result to lack of proper functioning of the body. In the other hand, the books depict difference in the way the senses of women and men functions. The behavior of characters in the different stories clearly indicates that death is monster which is feared by everyone irrespective of the status. Thus, the division of the mind and the body are two inseparable aspects. In other words separating the two will lead the other not to function well.
Works Cited
Anderson, Sherwood, and Charles Baxter. Sherwood Anderson: Collected Stories. New York, N.Y: Library of America, 2012.
Baudelaire, Charles. Poems. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1993.
Calvino, Italo. Under the Jaguar Sun. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988. Print.
Carver, Raymond. Cathedral: Stories. New York: Knopf, 1983.
Classen, Constance, David Howes, and Anthony Synnott. Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell. London: Routledge, 1994.
Lawrence, D H. Odour of Chrysanthemums. London: Penguin, 2011.
Maugham, W S. Tellers of Tales: 100 Short Stories from the United States, England, France, Russia and Germany. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co, 1939.
Roethke, Theodore. The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. Garden City, N.Y: Anchor Press, 1975.
Wells, H G. The Country of the Blind and Other Stories. Auckland, N.Z.: Floating Press, 2008.
Wright, James. Collected Poems. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1971.
