August Wilson "Fences"

There are several big moments in the play “Fences” by August Wilson. One was when the main character, Troy Maxson, discloses to Rose Maxson, his wife of eighteen years that he is going to be the father of a child, which also means that he has been cheating on his wife. Rose promptly tells Troy that she does not want her children’s family to be the way hers was, broken and mis-matched parents. Another climax is when the Maxson’s receive a phone call that the mother of Troy’s child had given birth, but wound up dyeing while delivering the baby. This is where Rose’s true character comes out. All through the play rose is the hero or good person while her husband, Troy is the mean or bad character. When Rose learns of this she does not immediately jump to the rescue and take the child as her own, but soon after she does. At the end of this play all the characters are getting ready to attend Troy’s funeral. It does not seem that the attitude of the characters is consistent with what one would expect it to be after a family member died.

There are a few other characters in this play. Jim Bono is Troy’s friend that he met while in prison. Jim seems to be a follower of Troy and admires him. Jim also seems to be more level headed than Troy, as he reminds his friend of what a great wife he has and seems to already know that Troy is cheating on his wife. Jim is defiantly the angel resting on Troy’s shoulder, trying to push him to do the right thing. Another minor character is Lyons, Troy’s oldest son by a previous marriage. Lyons only appears when he needs or wants money. He does seem to be upset with his father and feels he was never around when he was growing up. Gabriel is Troy’s brother who truly believes he is the Archangel Gabriel. He was in the war and had to get a metal plate put in his head, he is described as wearing a trumpet around his neck at all times, and at the end of the story he finally gets to live out his belief of being Gabriel. Cory is Troy and Rose’s son. He is the only son that is Rose’s. Since he still lives at home he gets the brunt of Troy’s meanness, and is eventually kicked out of the house. Raynell is the daughter Troy conceived while cheating on his wife.

The setting of this play is at Troy and Rose’s house. There are references to the characters going to different places but the play itself unfolds within the Maxson’s property. I believe the overall meaning of this play would be that there are no black and white lines of what family is. I also believe there is a theme that you can build fences in every aspect of your life, but things have a way of creaping through the cracks. The presentation of this play is very realistic and from reading the authors biography, I believe this play is based on his life.

Week 12 Poems

I enjoyed the Poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet. The speaker was the wife and she was talking to her husband. The wife seemed to be happy in the marriage and thinks the husband is as well. This poem is a very loving one. While I believe the speaker is devoted and loving toward her husband I also get a feeling that she is looking forward to a better life in heaven, but still wants her husband with her. Every 2 lines end with rhyming words in this poem.

The poem “Memorandum” by Billie Bolton is quite humorous. Even though it appears to be an email, you can take away the to, from and RE: and you have a poem. The thing that makes this poem so great is that it is actually portrayed as being sent to a “Boyfriend from hell”. Each numbered segment is actually a stanza. Each stanza starts out with a broad topic the girl never wants to hear anything else about, then she goes in to specific detail about what bugs her about her boyfriend.

A.E. Housman’s poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” is a happy but also sad poem. It’s sad that the person is dying so young but on the plus side he has had a good run, and will not have to experience the pain of seeing his name die out. It seems the whole town thinks highly of the athlete. This poem’s rhyme scheme is ever two lines at the end. It is coupled into quatrains.

I looked up “Battle-Hymn of the Republic” by Julia Ward Howe online and found that this poem is also a hymn. This poem is mainly about God, and the coming of the Lord. I believe this poem is to try and encourage other to choose the Lord, and a way to spread the gospel. There is a refrain at the end of each stanza “Marching On”. This poem consists of 5 stanzas all the same length. The end of each line of each stanza rhymes. The only line that does not follow this pattern is the refrain. The tone of this poem seems very serious, and hopeful.

Out of all the poems I would have to say that “This Is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams was my favorite one. It was very funny. It makes me think of real life, eating something that someone was saving and enjoying every bit of it. This poem is just 3 short stanzas but a lot is said. I would say the speaker is talking to a person he lives with. I take this poem as being a note to let the person (audience) know what happened to their plums.

Hughes and Alvarez poems

I really enjoyed most of Langston Hughes’s poems. “I, Too” was one of my favorites. It made me think how so many people do not consider people with a skin color different from white American. My favorite part was “Tomorrow I’ll me at the table when company comes”. No matter what the speaker knew that one day he would be treated like everyone else. The style of this poem if very effective, the first and last line are similar but at first he just states that he sings America, the last one says I, too am America. The speaker of this poem is clearly an African-American. I would say the setting was some time during the years America practiced slavery, and was at his slave owner’s home.

Another one of Hughes poems I like was “Negro”. This poem was about a black person’s life. I believe this poem was about the whole African -American population, rather than just one person, over an extend period of time. I really like the style of this poem as well. Each stanza starts out with a refrain, what the black person has been, and then goes into more detail. As with most of Hughes’s poems I believe the setting of this poem to be around the early 1900’s.

The poem “Cross” by Hughes is about a person struggling with their identity. I take the part about his mom being white and his dad being white as literal because during this time I’m sure there were a lot of slave owners having relations with their slaves. The speaker seems to feel bad for any wrong doing he has done to either of his parents, and seems to miss them. The most important verse of this poem would be “Being neither white nor black”.  The speaker was talking about himself, being a cross between white and black.

“Red Silk Stockings” by Hughes is a poem about a little black girl getting dressed up for the white boys. The speaker is talking to the little girl. There is definitely some strong black southern dialect in this poem. I believe this poem was probably during the time after slaves had been freed. The girl has nice clothing, something most slaves couldn’t afford, she is free to walk where she pleases, something that was not allowed during slavery. I don’t quite understand the significant of the speaker tell the girl to let the white boys look at her legs.

I did not like most of Julia Alvarez’s poems. They were hard for me to understand and get any meaning out of. The poem “Sometime the Words Are So Close” is about a woman who feels she is more herself when she writes poetry. I believe the speaker is trying to persuade the reader to start writing poetry.

Dickinson and Frost Poems

It seemed that both Frost and Dickinson carried on a theme through most of their poems. With Frost it seemed he wrote a lot of poems that involved nature. Dickinson seemed to write a lot about death and heaven.

I enjoyed Frost’s pome “The Road Not Taken” the best. It reminded me that we all make decision on which path to take and most of the time whichever one we choose will change our lives drastically. The rhyming scheme of this pome is the first, third and fourth lines of each stanza. The speaker of this poem seems to be a little disappointed with his choice, the reason I believe this is because he states “I shall be telling this with a sigh”. This is usually a sign of disappointment.

I also enjoyed “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Frost. I believe this poem signifies that anything that is perfect and beautiful will not always be that way. Things tarnish or decay away. Frost uses nature to depict this. Just as a beautiful day will turn dark, so do things in a person life. The rhyme scheme to this poem is in couplets. The speaker of this poem seems to have a sad tone. This poem doesn’t seem to have an audience, but the speaker seems to working out their emotions.

Out of Dickinson’s poems I liked “If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking” the best. The speaker in this poem seems to be working through their own feelings as well. It seems that as long as she does something to help someone else her life will be worth something. The rhyme scheme of this poem is lines 1 and 3 and 2 and 4 of the first stanza.

I also liked “”Hope” Is the Thing with Feathers”. The speaker is telling what they feel hope is. This poem is full of metaphors. There is rhyming words in this poem, but not all of them stand out. Rhyming words are paired every other line. Most of Dickinson’s Poems do not have a setting and this one falls into that category. Hope is characterized as a little bird. I believe this is symbolic because hope, like a bird, is without limitations. However if something bad happens the hope can be crushed quickly.

The poem “Because I could not stop for Death” also by Dickinson is an unusual one. The speaker is talking after she has died. The speaker tells about how I feel death will be. It will come when we are not ready for it, after all who waits around on death. It will also slow us down. I believe in life after I die here, and believe it will much slower and peaceful than the life I lead now. The speaker also says it was just her and death, I believe this is how many people think of death. That it will just be you on your way and you will get to see the life that still goes on in this world, and things of your past.

"The Chimney Sweeper", "My Papa's Waltz", "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun", "Lonely Hearts", "Death Be Not Proud"

  William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” was a little unusual to me. It rhymed really well but the point was a little hard for me to understand. William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” was a little unusual to me. It rhymed really well but it was a little hard for me to understand. From what I gathered the speaker (Tom) was a boy who seemed to have a rough life, his audience was whoever was listening to his story. The main setting of this poem is Tom’s dream. After Tom wakes from his dream he is in much better spirits, I know for me whatever I dreamed about influences how I feel in the morning.

“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke was a poem I enjoyed. The speaker is the child in the poem remembering a special time he had with his father. I believe the father may have even been trying to teach the child how to waltz from the line “you beat time on my head”. This makes me think the father was trying to help the child keep time with the dance, which is very important to be waltzing correctly. This poem had rhyming words at the end of every 2^nd and 4^th line of each stanza.

 At first I thought the speaker in “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” did not love his wife, and was thinking bad of her. Then I realized he was just speaking the truth. Most poems about a person’s lover just gushes about how they are absolutely prefect, which is far from reality, in this one Shakespeare says exactly how he feels. I found the most humorous line was, “Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks”. Most people do not think about how their significant others breath smells, but are aware that it does. This poem follows the traditional form of a sonnet.

I enjoyed the poem “Lonely Hearts” by Wendy Cope. Each stanza was three lines except the last. The lines “Do you live in North London? Is it you?” and “Can someone make my simple wish come true” alternates in each stanza, and at the end both are combined. This poem is, as the title implies, about people with lonely hearts who are looking for love, or at least companionship. Each stanza is a completely different person looking to meet someone. In this poem the speaker could be someone reading the personals or each person seeking their lover. The audience would be variable also depending on who the speaker was.

“Death Be Not Proud” is also a sonnet like Shakespeare’s poem. The speaker is addressing why death should not be proud. I doubt the speaker fears death, it seems she almost feels sorry for it because it is a slave to several and connected with poison, war and other negative things. In this poem Death is personified. The speaker is addressing death as a physical being. This was not a poem that I truly liked, I had more questions than answers.

Poems- Brooks "We Real Cool", Murray "We Old Dudes", Pastan "Marks", Robinson "Richard Cory", Robert Morgan "Mountain Bride"

 Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “We Real Cool” and Joan Murray’s poem “We Old Dudes” are almost the exact same. Both are only 4 stanzas long with 2 lines in each stanza. Each poem is a constant refrain (we... something). There is no apparent setting or audience for each of these poems. If I had to guess on the audience I would say they are speaking to each other, almost like a chant. In “We Real Cool” the author changes her attitude toward the players. At first it seems they are living a great life, and are really cool. At the end it seems they might not have such a cool life after all, as the last line is “We Die Soon”. In “We Old Dudes” I believe they are a bunch of rich old men, who are enjoying the last bit of their life, as they know soon they will die. This poem is different than “We Real Cool”, because of things like “We Soak teeth”, and “We Old Dudes” make it humorous.

I really liked the poem “Marks” by Linda Pastan. When I first read the title I thought it might be about the marks that is on a person, and in a way it is. It is about the grade members of her family gives the speaker. It seems everyone is overall satisfied with her performance and gives her high “marks”. At the end she says “Wait ‘til they learn I’m dropping out”. I find this to be the best part of this poem, because the reader knows there is no way to simply drop out of being a mother/wife.

The Poem “Richard Cory” by Edwin Robinson is about what outsiders think of Richard’s like. The speaker is a member of the town he is from, who think very highly of Richard. Words like “gentleman”, “fluttered pulses”, and “thought he was everything” sets the overall tone of this poem. The turning point of this poem is the last line, “Went home and put a bullet though his head”! I believe the theme of this story is not to judge others and things are not always as they seem. As I was reading this story Richard Cory was being built up in my mind as this perfect man, who women loved and men were jealous over. All that went away when the speaker said he killed himself. I believe most people do this in their daily lives. We judge people based on what we see, and never get to know the person.

From the title of “Mountain Bride” I thought this poem was going to be one about love. In a way it is, the husband dies protecting his new bride, a sign of love. This poem is divided into 4 line stanzas. It also has some irony in it, like “Richard Cory”. The couple is spending their first night together and the husband winds up dyeing from snake bites. The setting is the couple’s new home in the mountains. The speaker is an outside person looking in.

Poems- Piercy's "The Secretary Chant", Bishop's "The Fish", Morgan's "Mountain Graveyard", Cofer's "Common Ground", Slavitt's "Titanic"

Week 7 Poetry

The Secretary Chant by Marge Piercy is a secretary saying what she feels like. It seems she feels under appreciated and her worth as a person is no more than the work she produces. This poem is filled with metaphors, as she compares certain parts of her body to items a secretary uses. I believe the audience of this poem is anyone that will listen; she just wants someone to hear how she feels. At the end of the poem she says “I wonce was a woman” this is the whole theme of this poem. In this poem Piercy also uses onomatopoeia, (“Buzz. Click”). The setting is left out; I believe this was done so the audience could not be defined.

John Updike’s poem Dog’s Death is one I like least. Not because I didn’t understand it, but because of what it was about. A family’s dog had died and some parts are a little gruesome. At the end the last words are “Good Dog”, which are to imply that even though this dog had become sick and left a streak of feces across the floor he had tried to make it to the newspapers he was trained to use.  There is rhyme though out this poem but there isn’t a particular form to it.

The poem Mountain Graveyard by Robert Morgan is just twelve words long. It is written in two columns. When I first looked at this poem I didn’t even recognize it as the poem. I thought it was part of something else. The poem is titled as Mountain Graveyard, which makes me automatically think of death or dying. The words in the poem all tie into death. If the title had been anything else this poem would not make sense, and leave the reader puzzled. As the book pointed out all the words that are used are a series of anagrams.

Just by reading the title Common Ground by Judith Ortiz Cofer, I thought of two people meeting in the middle on something. Similar to what I thought, this poem is about a woman who is starting to find certain aspects of her appearance similar to her parents. The first stanza is about ageing; the second is more personal and describes what the speaker feels she has in common with each parent. It was hard for me to distinguish a setting, or audience in this poem. I believe they have been left out, because they are not need to make this poem work.

I found Titanic by David R. Slavitt to be amusing, especially compared to Hardy’s poem about the Titanic. Instead of being sad about dying the speaker is almost comforted, because most everyone else is also going to die and he will not have to go alone, and their death will be fairly quick. The speaker is certainly a person that dies on the titanic, and from the line “We all go: only a few, first class” I believe he is probably from 2^nd or 3^rd class.

Poetry- Country Lover, Preacher Don't Send Me, Memory, My Grandfather Gets Doused, My Father Washes His Hands

Out of all the poems for this week’s reading I enjoyed Maya Angelou’s work the best. The collections of her poems all have similar structure and form, and include rhymes. You can definitely tell from her writing that she is from the south and African American.

In Country Lover by Angelou the speaker is someone who is telling about a boy at a dance, who will dance with anybody’s daughter. I believe this is a poem where the speaker is mediating and the reader is listening in. Words like “Saddy” and “Red soda water” are what I consider southern dialect. In this poem Angelou uses couplet rhyming, blues-shoes, pants-dance, and water-daughter. The title sums up with this poem is about.

Another poem by Angelou is Preacher Don’t Send Me. This poem is directed toward the preacher of the speaker. She is telling the preacher what she wants to hear heaven is like. She wants there to be jazz music, nice people, and the season to be fall. Once again the words the author uses give a strong reference to the south (“grits”, “jazz music” and “season is fall”). The setting is probably in a church. This poem contains rhyming words on lines 2&4 and 6&8 of each stanza; also each stanza is eight lines, carrying on the structure and form of Angelou’s work.

The Memory is slightly different than Angelou’s previous poems. Memory as the title implies, is a memory. This poem is like Country Lover, as there is no true audience, just the reader able to overhear what the speaker is thinking. Cotton and sugar cane help develop the setting. This poem makes me think that the speaker was a slave working his life away. The rhyme scheme for this poem is line 2 and 4 of each stanza, and each stanza consists of 4 lines. Angelou also uses a refrain in this poem, every other line starts with And.

 In My Grandfather Gets Doused by Fred Chappell the speaker is the grandson of the man getting baptized. The title gives the reader an idea of what is to come but calls it getting doused instead of baptized, which gives an idea of the Grandfathers final feelings about being baptized. This poem is made up of tercets with rhyming words on every 1^st and 3^rd line. The setting is clearly at the Pigeon River. I believe the theme of this poem is that it is ok to be different, and you shouldn’t do something just because others think you should.

My Father Washes His Hands by Fred Chappell tells how a man (the father) feels about farm life. The setting of this poem is on the family’s farm. The Speaker of this poem is the son; the audience would be the father. This poem gives classic examples of how a son looks to his father for answers. You can tell the father has had a hard time recently farming and is thinking about quitting. This poem doesn’t have very much structure, instead it is more open-form poetry.

Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"

“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” seems to be a very short happy life. It is about a man, Francis and his wife whom he calls Margot. They go on a safari to kill animals. While there Francis feels like lees than a man, and his wife doesn’t help matters. He feels like a coward because he winds up running from a lion which he was supposed to finish killing. Later he gets a chance to redeem himself. His wife, the tour guide Wilson, and Francis go on another adventure to kill buffalo. While there he gets over his feeling over fear, which I believe, has something to do with the fact that his wife cheated on him the night before with Wilson. He shots the buffalo but doesn’t kill one of them.  Then his wife Margot draws her gun and winds up killing her husband! It seems to me this is done on purpose, and there may have even been a plan between her and Wilson because of the way they act afterward.

The title of this story sums up Francis Macomber’s life. For most of it he was miserable. He was constantly ridiculed by his wife and he had little confidence. Towards the end of the story he gets to experience a short moment of Happiness before he is killed.

Had Francis life not ended prematurely by his wife shortly after gaining his new found confidence, I believe his life would have been a lot different than before. He probably would have left his wife, which I believe she knew and that was one of the reasons she killed him. He also would have been able to put the buffalo to its final death, which he was not able to do with the lion. But mainly he would have been a true man something he had not been before.

Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado"

I did not enjoy “The Cask of Amontillado” the first time I read it; it was a little too dark and twisted for me, after rereading it I began to grasp other parts I had previously missed and found the story to be rather good but still dark and twisted. This story is about a man Montresor who seeks revenge on Fortunato for insulting him. Montresor asks Fortunato to check out a wine that he bought and make sure it was the real deal. Fortunato fell for his trick because of his arrogance, thinking he was the only one that could do the job. Montresor leads Fortunato into a trap and seals him up in a cave type place.

There are several examples of reverse psychology throughout this story.   Montresor uses it to lure Fortunato away from his previous engagement to his vaults. There are also several examples of irony. The names of the characters, the title (made me think of death before even reading the story), reference to being a mason, which is what Montresor winds up being to enclose Fortunato.

This story is told in first person, from Montresor’s point of view. I believe this to be significant because we do not get to see Fortunato’s side of the story only Montresor’s, which could possibly be totally different than what happened.

I believe it is possible that Montresor’s crimes could soon be discovered. While the reader gets a sense that he has killed many times and never caught from the following sentence, “Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat”, he has just enclosed a man that what on his way to a prior engagement, also I believe he is a little cocky about the situation which leads me to think he might get caught this time.

Lawrence's "The Horse Dealer's Daughter"

“The Horse Dealers Daughter” is about a young woman named Mabel who decides to kill herself, but is rescued by the town doctor whom she thinks loves her. The doctor, Jack Fergusson, undresses Mabel in an attempt to save her life. While Jack was doing this out of strictly trying to save her, Mabel sees it as meaning that he loves her, as well as the rescue itself. Jack winds up asking Mabel to marry him, though it seems he is doing this partially out of obligation.

The setting of this story jumps to several different places in the town Mabel and Jack reside. The main setting is in Mabel’s House. The other places in this story are the graveyard Mabel’s mother is buried, and a pond nearby. It seems this story is set sometime in the early 1900’s because of the responsibilities of each sex, and the men leave their home to find work.

The story jumps around from being third person omniscient to third person objective. At the beginning what Mabel’s brothers are thinking and feeling is reveled. Then it turns to objective where nothing is reveled other than what the narrator can see. At the end it goes back to third person omniscient because what Jack Fergusson is feeling is revealed.

It seems the climax of this story is when Mabel tells Jack that he must love her, and Jack agrees that he does but with a heavy heart. To me there is no real falling action; the conflict was never fully resolved. While Jack may have asked Mabel to marry him, he did so with a heavy heart still.

Jack and Mabel both are main characters who develop throughout the story. It seems like Mabel could be consider the antagonist, because of the heavy burden she puts on Jack. A man who wants to do the right thing even though his heart may not be fully into it.

Kincaid's "Girl"

After reading “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid I get the feeling this could possibly be about Jamaica’s life growing up. Kincaid was born in Antigua, a Caribbean Island. You can tell from the language used in “Girl” that it is set in a Caribbean or Tropical place, as opposed to America. Words like benna, dasheen, doukona, and pepper pot are not common in America but people from the Caribbean would probably know what they mean.

“Girl” is more along the lines of poetry to me rather than fiction. The whole thing is one sentence. It is more than likely a mother telling her daughter all about life and what to do and not to do, giving her the motherly advice that we all receive. She tells her everything from how to do household duties, to how to love a man, and even how to spit. Several times the mother gives reference on how the girl is not to become a slut, because she believes her daughter is “bent” one becoming one. To me this signifies there is a huge generation gap between the two, what one thinks is right is not what the other believes. It seems as though the mother wants her daughter to do only the things she thinks is right and if she doesn’t she will become a slut, or someone looked down upon.

I found it significant that the daughter only responds twice to her mother. Once stating that she doesn’t sing benna on Sunday, and the other time asking what if the baker won’t let her feel the bread. The first time the mother doesn’t even acknowledge her daughter but the second time she states, “You mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?” and the story ends. This shows the mothers disapproval of the kind of person she believes her daughter is going to be. Also I feel the daughter had respect and fear of being ridiculed for her mother, and this was why she only spoke twice.

Faulkner's "Barn Burning"

I found this story interesting, especially the ending, where Faulkner leaves it up to your imagination as to what happened. "Barn Burning" starts out in a court room where Colonel Sartoris Snopes who goes by Sarty is called to answer questions about the barn burning his father allegedly committed. By the tone Sartoris uses you can tell there is conflict between him and his father. His father seems as if he is a very mean and controlling man with severe anger problems. The Justice found his father not guilty of the barn burning because no one had proof but advises him to “leave this country and don’t come back to it”.

The family packs up and heads out of town, where they finally wind up at M. & Mrs. De Spain’s homestead. The father goes inside the house without much regard for other people or things, this is where Faulkner gives the reader a glance at what the father feels and why he has so much anger. Sarty’s Father comes out of the house and says “Pretty and white, ain’t it?...That’s Nigger sweat. Maybe it ain’t white enough yet to suit him. Maybe he wants to mix some white sweat with it.” It seems as if the father feels like he is being treated with the same respect black people got, which was not much during this story’s setting. He has anger at the people he has to work for and feels like he is being treated as a black person.

There are several more conflicts between Sarty’s father and the land owners, before Sarty’s father decides he is going to burn their barn. This does not take well with Sarty and he decides he needs to go tell the De Spain’s. Sarty runs down the road but hears gunshots and says “Father. My Father. He was brave…”. It seems to me that his father along with his brother (who was helping with the fire) were killed, although Faulkner never gives any clear detail about this. I’m sure this was a sad moment for the boy but also it seems as though he would be relieved because he would no longer have to hear from his father that “You’re going to be a man. You got to learn. You got to lean to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you.” Sarty would now be free to do the right thing.

O'Connor's Revelation

As I was reading Revelation by Flannery O’Connor I noticed a lot of similarities to Good Country People, also by O’Connor. Both contained a woman who thought she was better than anyone else. In Revelation the setting is in a doctor’s office at first. The main character Mrs. Tupin has brought her husband in to have a wound looked at. While Mrs. Turpin sits waiting she looks at everyone else in the waiting room and is very quick to judge who is “trash” and who is not. She notices one girl who is reading; whom she calls several names like fat, ugly, and had a face full of acne. She goes on to call several other people in the waiting room white trash, niggers, poor and several other names. The girl that Mrs. Tupin called so many names stares her down almost like a death stare. After some time the girl throws her book at Mrs. Tupin, and hits her in the head. People rush in to restrain the girl, and while she is restrained Mrs. Trupin leans down and asks the girl “what you got to say to me”, the girl responds with “go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog”. This blew Mrs. Trupin away because she considered herself more favorable in Gods eyes, and now this girl was telling her this. Mrs.Trupin then had a revelation that God sent this girl to show her that she was no better than any of those other people.

In both Good Country People and Revelation it seems like O’Connor is saying that God is real and he will use things to prove that he is. Also both stories had a girl that most would consider less than perfect. It seems like, in both stories, there is a lot of emphasis on physical looks and the consequences of judging someone before you really know them.

O'Connor's Good Country People

In “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor the main character is a thirty two year old woman named Joy or Hulga. She still lives at home with her mom and has a wooden leg. She considers herself to be well educated and seems to feel smarter than any other person. Her mother thinks of her as a child and treats her as one as well. One day a young man came to their house and tried to sell bibles. The mother is impressed with this man and feels as if he is a good country person, and that he might be interested in her daughter Joy. The question comes to mind what a “good country person is? To me it is someone who is trustworthy, levelheaded, and does the right thing, which is what Manley Pointer, the bible salesman, seems to be. He and Joy talk for a little bit when she tells him she’s only 17, they also plan to meet the next day. When Joy tells Manley Pointer she is only 17 I think this speaks to what age she acted like. Anyone in their right mind would know the difference between and 30 year old and a 17 year old. Joy thinks she will be able to seduce him, showing that she thinks she is far smarter than this country man. As they are walking along Joy tells Manley that she does not believe in God. Manley leads Joy out to a field where they go to the top floor of a barn. Manley convinces Joy to take off her leg, but then he doesn’t return it. Instead he opens one of his bibles which has a cutout that holds liquor, a condom, and sexual playing cards. Manley then leaves Joy in the barn and takes her leg with him. As he is leaving he reveals that she was not the first woman that he had stolen something from, and tells Joy “you ain’t so smart. I been believing in nothing ever since I was born”. I believe what O’Connor was trying to evoke is to not get the feeling that you are high and might or God will send something your way to show you are not. I enjoyed reading this story and found it quite comical but also think it has good moral values included.

O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find

A Good Man Is Hard to Find started out as what I thought would be comical, but it quickly turned into suspense and murder! I found very ironic that the one thing the grandmother said she was trying to keep her family away from was the thing she led them right to.  She wanted badly to go to Tennessee while the rest of her family was ready to go to Florida. She tried to persuade them to go to Tennessee because a man had escaped prison and she said that was where he was heading. On their way to Florida the grandmother tells her grandchildren a story about a house, which makes them want to go see it. The father finally gives in and travels down a dirt road. They wind up having a wreck on the side of the road. Soon after they notice a car coming towards them, it was the man who escaped prison named the misfit.  The misfit and his friends wind up killing the whole family.

While reading this story you can defiantly tell it was set in the early 1900’s because the language the author uses. The grandmother is the main character. The title of this story does speak a lot about the story itself, though at first I thought this story was going to be something entirely different because of the title. At the, after they kill the grandmother, when the misfit tells his friend to shut up for saying “some fun” and then tells his friend “it’s no real pleasure in life”, I believe the author may have been giving us a glimpse that he wasn’t just crazy, but rather he could be good if he wanted. Also thought the time the grandmother was talking to the misfit she kept telling him that he looked like he was from good blood, something most thought to be true in that day.

Hawthorne's The Birthmark

Wow, this story scream MAD SCIENTIST! From the beginning of the story Aylmer is portrayed as the antagonist. His wife, I can imagine as a beautiful woman, is made to feel less than by her own husband, because of her having a small mark on her cheek. Back in the time this story was set there were many practices in medicine that we would consider ludicrous and dangerous today, as Aylmer’s remedy for Georgiana’s mark is. The worst part of all was that he killed his wife but was still pleased because the mark on her face was gone.

The story seems weird and bazar but it has also has a sense of romanticism. Georgiana had such a love for her husband that she would rather give up her own life, than to disgust and burden her husband. Early on in the story I get a sense Aylmer doesn’t feel the same; rather his love is for science and perfectionism. It’s almost as if he thinks he is better than God because he would never design something with so many flaws.

The Birthmark was a little hard for me to follow because to the wording, however the wording does help me understand the setting. This was not a story that I enjoyed reading. I believe that everyone has flaws just as Georgiana did flaws that make us one of a kind; things we should embrace instead of get rid of. I feel this story is just as important today as it was in the time it was written. There are so many people chasing their image of perfection they forget to live! A slave to tanning, or surgery or eating disorders instead of admiring what God has given them to begin with, beauty.

Crane's The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Crane is a true western story. It contains romance, a train, a bar, and a town drunk ready to fight. Jack potter, Yellow Sky’s town marshal, runs off and gets married without letting anyone know. On the train ride back home he starts feeling a little guilty about what he has done. Even though a “mail order bride” was common during this story’s setting, I believe he felt the town would view it as scandalous. Before Jack Potter arrived back home there was news that Scratchy Wilson was drunk and ready to fight. Just the name Crane gives this character really helps me get a good idea of what kind of person he is, scratchy. Scratchy Wilson is described by the towns people as being nice when sober but when he gets drunk he’s looking for trouble. As Jack and his bride arrive in town, Scratchy is looking for Jack to fight him. It’ almost suspenseful, I began to fear what was going to happen when Jack and Scratchy met up, I got the feeling that someone was going to wind up dead. Then the story turns to a comical sense. It’s as if Scratchy cannot believe that Jack is married. It stuns him so much that he has to call off the fight!

This story wound up to be very comical to me. The language the author uses helps to set the tone and setting. The characters he chooses help to develop the story. Jacks new wife would probably be asking the same questions the traveling salesman is, as neither one of them know what Scratchy is like. Jack who is supposed to be the town’s hero is pretty much caught with his pants down when he is confronted by Scratchy. Jack’s new wife winds up being the hero as Scratchy is so shocked about her that he just walks off and leaves the town in peace again. I really enjoyed this story.

Andre Dubus's "Killings"

Killings by Andre Dubus, is a story that tugs at many of my emotions. It is about a father who has lost his youngest son, Frank. Frank’s life was taken because the women he was seeing had a jealous ex-husband (or soon to be) who was full of rage. The father thought it would be best to take revenge and kill the man (Richard Stout) who had shortened his son’s life. The main idea I got from this story is that you never know what you will do when faced with certain issues.

There is foreshadowing in the first paragraph as well as in the title that gives you an idea of what happened to frank and what is to come for the man responsible “I should kill him” (pg. 103) and Killings being plural. The way the father does not just go up to Richard and kill him, but rather leads Richard on the think that he is just getting him out of town, makes me feel that the father had conflict of his own in regards to what decision to make.  The author uses such descriptive language that you can almost put yourself at the scene of Richard being killed. This story is not just about the murder of a young man and the revenge of a father, but could also be considered a love story in the sense that the father had such a love for his son that he needed to bring justice himself.

This story reminds me of the recent tragedy that struck the family of a past classmate, whose life was taken by the father of her children, a very similar situation to the one in Killings. I felt overwhelming sympathy for the families of the ones that were killed, but slowly I began to feel sympathy for the man who had done it also. Not only do his children know what he did to their mother, but he also has to live with knowing what he did for the rest of his life! I believe that would be far worse punishment than taking his life also.

Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"

In the story “A Rose for Emily” I feel the theme Faulkner wanted to get across was that you are to never judge a book by its cover, and how the effects of time and life’s challenges change many things. This story was a little hard for me to follow because as it describes Miss Emily Grierson’s life and death it jumps from one part to another without any order.

Miss Emily was a lady who was despised by some, but by the time she died, most thought she was crazy and felt pity for her. The narrator takes us through many events of Miss Emily’s life. In the beginning of her life she is living in a nice house and taking care of her father. She is an unmarried woman because her father would run off any perspective suitors. It isn’t long until her father dies and the town gets an idea that Miss. Emily is crazy! She denied that her father had died for three days until she finally gave in and let the towns people burry him. One of the reasons why she was trying to hold on to her father and not admit that he was dead is he was the only one in her life that cared for her, everyone else was just the helpers.

A while after her father died a northern named Homer Barron entered the town to do some paving work. People around town started seeing Miss. Emily and him together. About a year later Emily went it the drugstore and asked for arsenic. The druggist informed her that she had to tell him what she was planning on doing with it, but never got a reply. Emily then started buying items for a man. This is significant because it foreshadows that Emily has a man in her life and is possibly going to kill him with the poison.

There was a long period of time that no one saw Emily or Homer. Everyone thought that Homer had run off because he didn’t want to get married and Emily became depressed. The story comes to a climax after Emily dies. The women of the town wanted to see the inside of her house, because no one had for years. In the house they found all the men’s things that she bought that looked as if they had just been removed. In the same room, they saw a man in the bed that had started to decay, and on the pillow beside him was a hair the same color as Emily’s. Emily had no other choice but to kill Homer, in her mind. She had already lost one man she loved and tried to hang onto him after he died. I guess she figured that was the only way for a man to be with her. She had been through so much in her life I believe it made her crazy. 

Chopin's "The Story of an Hour"

Towards the beginning of this story the main character Mrs. Louise Mallard learns that her husband has been killed by a railroad disaster. At first she responds as I believe anyone would, she immediately begins weeping. After a brief spell of crying she promptly locks herself in her room. You can tell at this point something is about to happen to Louise. As she sits in her room alone observing the beautiful things outside, she feels a wave of emotion come over her. This is where you can first sense that she is not responding to her husband’s death as most would. At first she tries to fight the wave, but she is no match. Suddenly she becomes elated; at this moment Mrs. Mallard realizes she is now FREE. Some might take this to mean that her life was miserable with her husband and that she would no longer have to endure the pain of this man. I believe it to mean that she no longer has anyone holding her back from the things she desires for, no one to answer to, or even take care of. Given the context of how the news of Mr. Mallards death was received, the way in which he died, and other details, the setting of this story is probably sometime during the late 1800’s. When women had barley any rights, they were expected to marry a man that could provide, regardless of weather they loved one another or not. You can tell that she wasn’t exactly happy about the death of her husband, but the mere idea of a second chance at a life she wanted but thought would never exist by the author writing, “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.”. It seems as if the story has hit its climax and is about to wrap up when Chopin throws in a surprise. As Mrs. Mallard comes out of her room, with a fresh new look on life, someone was opening the front door with a key. As everyone knows the only person that could be is Mr. Mallard himself. He did not even know of the accident that he supposedly died in. Immediately after Mrs. Mallard sees her husband alive, she dies from what everyone thinks is the joy and disbelief of seeing him, when it was more than likely from the agony and realization that she was never going to be free until death it’s self.

An Introduction

Hi! This blog is for my literature based research class at CCC&TI. For the most part I will be posting my reflections on the things we read in class. I have always liked to read, but lately have not had time to. There is one book that I find the time to read no matter what because what it has to say is extremely important in my life. That book would be the King James Version Bible. The majority of books that I read, when I get a chance, are non-fiction and self-help. After flipping through our literature book, I feel it could possibly expand my interest in the genre of things I read. I am looking forward to all of the reading assignments, but fearful of the writing ones as I feel that is my weakest point.