Wendell's Post

The definition of sentiment is described by one dictionary as “an attitude toward something; a mental feeling; emotion.” We experience these exact feelings toward something numerous times a day. However, we need to remember that sentimentality is a two-way definition; it can be viewed as a negative or a positive. We notice these opposing views when comparing the “Garden Party” by Katharine Mansfield, in Emily Dickinson's poem “I’m Nobody” and in Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “The Traveling Onion.”

The short story “Garden Party” by Katharine Mansfield has abundant sentimentality. First of all, Laura, a kind girl [APPOSITIVE], is sentiment in two ways. After hearing the tragic news about the “workman,” she becomes increasingly convinced that “the band would sound poor to that poor woman (his wife).” She wanted to stop the whole party, just because a man died near their house. Secondly, she’s sentiment at the dead man’s house. She feels increasingly sentiment as she moves closer to “[the] young man, fast asleep.” She becomes choked up with the many emotions rushing through her body and starts to cry. Lastly, her sister had no sentimentality. She felt bad for the family, but to her, it was no big deal. She even went on to scrutinize [SAT] and say to Laura “You’ll lead a very strenuous life” if you “stop a band playing every time someone has an accident.” Leading a rich life is tough, especially when there are the poorest of the poor at your back doorstop. These people have affected Laura’s sentimentality.

Unlike Laura in the “Garden Party,” Emily Dickinson’s idea of sentimentality is the opposite. She sees the “somebody’[s]” as being “dreary” and superficial [SAT] She is willing to be a “nobody” just because she doesn’t want to be “public like a frog.” For Dickinson, not being public is just as great as being the scum, the low, the “nobodies.” Knowing that there are two “nobodies” is a nice feeling for Dickinson. Walking along the streets, she doesn’t have worry about being “advertis[ed]” for becoming friends with another person [PARTICIPLE]. There aren’t any gossip hounds worrying about her every move and no one staring at her as she walked the streets. Different people, from different parts of society, have different ideas.

The poet Naomi Shihab Nye expresses sentimentality in the poem “The Traveling Onion.” The first type of sentiment is toward the onion. She feels compassion for the onion, “or causing tears” to fall from “something small and forgotten.” Also, never is the onion commented on for its “transulcenc[y],” for our mouths taste only the “texture of the meat or [the] herbal aroma.” On the other hand, there is sentimentality on the negative side. She reveals the “history” of the sacred onion, but then likes “the way [a] knife enters [the] onion.” Cutting up the onion, slicing through its core [APPOSITIVE], seems to be enjoyable to her. Also, to see the “history,” the “pearly layers,” the “crackly paper” is too. The pain is deep to Ms. Nye; the onion makes her cry, for she has sentiment for the onion.

Sentimentality, whether it’s negative or positive, is everywhere. From the innocent words of kindness spoken by a child, to the “smallness” of a person, and the significance and insignificance of an onion. Each sentimental thing, maybe negative, holds some value. They are opposites, they are the same.