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.