Literary Analysis 2- 10/3/07

All of the readings for tomorrow's class can be compared in one way or another.  Hambry's "Ode to American English" and Hoagland's "America" can be compared in the fact that they both discuss present day America.  Browning's "My Last Duchess" and Edgar Allen Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" both have a lot do to with getting revenge.

In "Ode to American English" the speaker is in Paris, and decides that she misses everything that is American.  She not only misses the people, and the language, but she misses every single thing about the culture.  She talks about missing everything from Sylvester the Cat to Cheetoes and Cheerios.  Hoagland's "America" speaks of America from a different perspective.  The speaker in this poem is a teacher who observes her students and speaks of what they see America as.  She says that one of her students sees it as a maximum-security prison, and that he feels buried by America when he is driving to the mall in his car blasting rap music.  This speaker is saying that she does not believe what her students think America is, and she does not agree with them.  She literally says that she does not know how to "express how full of shit I think he is."(line 5)  This is interesting because the speaker in Hambry's "Ode to American English" is saying how much she misses all of the little things about America, including what the speaker in "America" does not like, such as "all the smart-talking, bum-snapping hard-girl dialogue."(line 37)

Browning's "My Last Dutchess" and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" both have the same theme of revenge.  The speaker in "My Last Dutchess" is mourning the loss of his love, but at the same time is happy she is gone.  He gives many hints that show that he killed her by saying that she was not worthy of his "nine-hundred-years-old name."  In "The Cask of Amontillado" Montresor decided to kill Fortunato.  He was tired of being insulted and said that when Fortunato "ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."(pg 799)  He tricked Fortunato while he was drunk and got him to go deep into his basement, and he chained him up and left him there to die.

In "Ode to American English" and "America" the speakers both show their view on American culture, even though they were both very different.  In "My Last Dutchess" and "The Cask of Amontillado" the speakers both get revenge on the person they were having troubles with, although neither situation is completely resolved in the speakers mind.