Post #2 11/21/08

"Our intention is simply to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age; this is an arduous task, and therefore we undertake it with confidence."
-Selections from Salmagundi

This quote is a metaphor that relates to the overall "newspaper" motif of the first letter of Salmagundi. The speaker is a self-acclaimed "journalist" who thinks he knows how to fix societies problems, which is displayed in the quotation above. As the selection progresses, though, it's revealed that the diction the speaker uses is over exaggerating the point that the staff at the newspaper knows better than everyone else does. Although the imagery and diction are depicting a newspaper office setting, it is indirectly reflecting the conflict of the human mind. People will act confident, like the newspaper office, so they can get praise that they feel they're worthy of, or that they just want so they don't feel so under appreciated. The conflict presented in this piece between any person and their mind displays that everyone has a feeling of emptiness inside of them.

Post #1 11/17/08

"Nothing is more intolerable to an old person than innovation on old habits. The customs that prevailed in our youth become dear to us as we advance in years; and we can no more bear to see them abolished than we can to behold the trees cut down under which we have sported in the happy days of infancy."

- Letter II from Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.

When I first read this excerpt from the letter, I believed that the narrator was wise and trying to convey a problem that existed (and still does) in society. As the letter progresses, though,I realized that Oldstyle is a symbol of the average person today. The letter first foucuses on his  family and the `Squire having very elaborate and rich things. The diction describing these things supports this idea- Barbara's possessions are described with words such as high, enormous, long, etc. All of these words are accepted to have a positive connotation (the bigger, the better). The `Squire has a relatively similiar situation. Although Oldstyle desires for a simplistic life, he also gets caught up in the progression and change of time. This passage as a whole displays the irony Oldstyle faces in the letters. His ironic (Oldstyle, although he has adapted to the new styles quite easily,) and generic (Jonathan- as typical as a name can be,) name symbolizes his desire to keep old custom, but how society's quick pace to advance to bigger and better things stops him. The "tree cut down" symbolizes how society no longer protects him from things being the same. Because of society, Oldstyle has allowed his greedy desires to possess him, just like everyone else. And he doesn't even realize it.