Fences

Fences is a play that was set in the front yard of Troy’s and Rose’s house. Troy is a father of 2 boys and 1 daughter. His oldest son, Lyons, was from a previous relationship that was before he went to prison. Before Troy went to prison, he played baseball in the Negro Leagues and after he got out of prison, he was too old to play so he married Rose and they have a son named Cory. Cory wants to go to college to play football and his dad doesn’t want him to and this interference causes Cory and Troy a lot of problems. They even get into a fight at one point. Troy was never much of a father other than just going to work and support his family financially. He didn’t really love on or show much love and affection to his children. Troy’s friend Bono works with Troy at the sanitation department and Troy is trying to challenge his job and be the first man to drive a garbage truck since all of their black workers seems to just be the only ones to pick up and handle the trash. He ends up being the first black garbage truck driver.
Troy’s son Lyons only comes by on pay day to get money from his father Troy. Lyons play jazz in clubs and doesn’t make much of a living to support his family and for some reason, Troy always seems to give him money. Troy and his friend Bono have a ritual on pay day. They hang out and get drunk. This is also when Troy’s oldest son Lyons comes over to borrow money. Lyons is a jazz player and doesn’t make much to support his family so he is always borrowing money from Troy and for some reason, he always give him money. Troy and Bono often visit the local bar as well. This is where Troy meets and has an affair with Alberta. Troy ends up telling Rose about the affair because she ends up pregnant. Rose is very upset about this but during childbirth, Alberta dies. Troy brings home the baby girl name Raynell and Rose ends up staying and raising the baby as her own.
Troy also has a brother named Gabe. He thinks he is the angel of God called Gabriel. He was injured while in the war and the head injury has messed him up. Troy has also used Gabe’s government check to make the house payment, but when Troy dies of a heart attack, Gabe goes to blow a trumpet to help open up the gates of heaven for Troy, but the trumpet is missing its mouth piece and will not work. This is a representation of Troy not being worthy to enter into the gates of heaven.
Wonderful story and the characters were also very interesting. Rose is woman with a pure heart of gold. Why she put up with Troy and his cold heartedness and his drunken tendencies is beyond me. Cory was a boy that had a lot of struggles with his father, but at least he had his mother, Rose.

Jamaica Kincaid _ Girl

This story is just a list of demands as a daughter listens and only occasionally responds to. The reasoning behind her being spoke to this way is not defined, but I could see it being this way for more than one reason. It could be that her mother is just natured that way and was always very demanding and she only seen her mother as a “word of correction,” or she could want her daughter to do well. Sometimes people do not really act a certain way for any particular reason other than that is just the only way they know to be maybe because they were raised that way and do not know any other way to be. She could also just want what’s best for her and this is just a daughter poking frustration about her mother being on her all the time about doing right. It could also be a mother who is terminally ill and she wants to get all of this said before she dies. She may not speak an appropriate manner all the time, but she may just need to say some final words. She could also be talking to a teenager who been nothing but trouble in her life and she has been saying these things for so many years and now she is just speaking them all at one time just to make sure she has covered everything she mean to say. She could also just be a pushy and somewhat abusive person looking to just correct and force “right and justice” on her. Over all, I just think she is stressing the heart of a mother trying to say all the things a mother would want to say to a child throughout the molding of child. Many of these saying are the same or quite similar to the things my own mother use to say to me.

Shiloh – Bobbie Ann Mason

Bobbie Ann Mason is a present day writer who writes stories during spans of time that I have lived through which makes her writings quite interesting. In this story she writes about Leroy and Norma Jean and her mother Mabel. Leroy is a truck driver who has been injured and doesn’t appear to be going back to work. Norma Jean works at Rexall drugstore and she works with cosmetic and she has gotten quite knowledgeable about them. Leroy just sits at home, but he has gotten creative with creating crafty things with craft kits. He also has a Lincoln Log Set and uses it to brag and show how he plans to build a log cabin. Norman Jeans wants no part of it. She seems to be unhappy with Leroy being home every day. One day, Norma Jean’s mother walks in her house and finds her smoking a cigarette. This is hard on them both. Mabel doesn’t realize that her son-in-law smokes marijuana. After the two of them lost a child after first getting married, they have grown somewhat distant. Norma Jean’s mother keeps suggesting they go to Shiloh Georgia where her and her husband went after they first got married. She convinces Leroy it will be good for the marriage. She even refers to it as a second honeymoon. After they leave for Shiloh, they have many gaps of conversation. As each of them try, they both feel awkward and just get quite again. While in Shiloh, they see a few cites, but do not find it as appealing as Mabel made it seem. While there, Norma Jean tells Leroy she wants to leave him and they argue back and for a few times.
I enjoyed this story so much. I just wish it wouldn’t have just ended the way it did. I wonder if they did get divorced or find some kind of common ground again. I suppose Norma Jean just got too use to having her own time with him being gone so much as a truck driver.

Amy Tan - Half and Half

Half and Half was an interesting story to me. Amy Tan gave us all a new perspective in racial prejudice. We usually do not think of inner racial marriages that do not just pertain to black and white couples. In this story, we see a family who is Chinese and they have 7 children. The narrator is talking about her life as a child and as an adult with her husband. As a child, she tells of a story when they go to the beach and with her being a middle child, she is asked to watch the younger children. While her father is out on the rocks fishing, there is a moment of turmoil and one of her brothers, Bing, slips and falls into the water and just vanishes. Her mother, Janice, searches and searches for her son, but it as if he just disappeared. This causes her mother to lose her faith and start using her Bible as a placement under the table to keep it level.
The narrator has come back home to see her mother and tell her that her and her husband Ted are getting a divorce. She knows her mother will be against it. Her husband use to be a man in control of their entire marriage and lives. After he is sued for malpractice, he loses faith in himself and has begun to lay every responsibility of their marriage on his wife and this has been the root of their troubles. The doubt in her stems from the death of Bing. She has been responsible for him and she blames herself and with this, she doesn’t want such a major responsibility. During this visit, she realizes that all these years that she has thought her mother was saying ‘fate” she was actually referring to “faith. “ There is a show of irony here. As the Bible is referred to as being white, it also kept clean and is the piece needed to keep the table balanced.
I really enjoyed this story. I did think the title being “Half and Half,” I assume it was a title involving her race, but as I read it, I think it is referring to being half cold and half hot.

Alice Walker - Everyday Use

Alice Walker is a black woman who allows her personality and her personal characteristics to flow through her writing. Her most famous writing to me would have to be “The Color Purple.” Most people this day and time mainly remember it as a movie.
This short story focuses on a mother, who is the narrator, and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. It is immediately evident that the two daughters are quite different. Maggie is more reserved and homely and she has burns on her body from a house fire from some years past that seems to me could have been set by Dee. Their mother is a stoutly, thick woman who has the physical ability to work as hard as any man but only has a second grade education. Dee wants a better life that what she was given as a child, while Maggie seems satisfied.
As the girls have grown up, Dee is coming back home with her fellow named Asalamalakim. She came home to show off the place and the things she calls history to Asalamalakim. She wants thing from the house to take home with her to display and not use. She mainly wants a quilt that was made by her grandmother to hang on a wall. Her mother isn’t very happy with this. Dee and her mother argue over this as well as the other relics. Mother explains how her sister Maggie was to get these things because she would appreciate them in a way Dee never could. This angers Dee and she can’t seem to understand why her mother thinks she will not appreciate it appropriately. Dee feels she is the only would who could actually appreciate these things appropriately when however she appears to be the one ashamed of her history. She wants these things to show as something in the past, but it is also a part of her family’s current lives.
This was an alright story for me. It was somewhat boring and I searched for a climax that I never found. I was glad to see Maggie show a little personality at the end.

Tillie Olsen - I Stand Here Ironing

Tillie Olsen is a writer who taps into real world scenarios and real life experiences. This story touches the heart of all mothers who have struggled in life especially those of us who have tried to survive as a single parent trying to raise children on our own. During the time frame of when this story was written, women’s rights were somewhat new and gender equality was not in existence with jobs, wages, and labor rights and when a man left his family, he was not held accountable with any financial responsibility to his children. This mother was left with many difficult choices in life and when she is asked to come and talk about her daughter, Emily, who is now 19, she is forced to look back and when she does, she is flooded with guilt and responsibility. As a single mom, she was forced to work hard for less pay as a man would receive, and by doing so, she had to make sacrifices; one being her daughter who for many years suffered and lacked happiness and a place in her world. She was a thin, foreign-looking child, who was behind in academic development. Her mother had to work and when younger, she was in child care places that had evil teachers that Emily hated, but eventually her mother convinced herself that Emily was old enough to finally be left alone, but she really wasn’t. Eventually, her mother remarried and had more children. This is when it became more obvious to her that Emily was different and then the clinic convinced her mother to place her convalescent home. This home wouldn’t allow love or any real contact with family and this is when she got worse and her experience there almost shed Emily of her ability to be close and personal with people. It took her mother 8 months to get her out of that awful place, and it almost seemed the effects were irreversible. However, as Emily grew up, one day while in school she won an amateur show and this changed everything she had been and unveiled the true “Somebody” that she had finally became.
I was glad to see that they finally had victory over their hardships in life. At first this story was sad and depressing. I began to wonder if Emily was set up to just commit suicide or end up as a serial killer. I was very pleased that this story didn’t end up this way. I always love a happy ending and this story definitely had one!

A Good Man is Hard to Find - Glannery O'Connor

Flannery O’Connor was an interesting writer. She seemed to like to write about the unexpected. Most of us are looking for the climax of a story to go in the other direction. We want the story to have a happy ending of the “happily ever after,” but that’s not what you get with Flannery O’Conner. In her story of “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” was a story full of surprised and shock. It may have been a short reading, but it kept me on my toes. As I read, I said many of times, surely that now what’s really happening. I didn’t expect them to all of a sudden have a car accident. That was one of those all of a sudden unexpected events in a story. The only thing I can say I could predict were the men in the car that approached them directly after the car accident. When the Misfit instructed Bobby Lee to get the boy John Wesley and his father Bailey, I thought he was just going to take them to the woods to strip them of their clothes, especially when the grandmother made it evident that the Misfit did not have clothes on and when Misfit said they had burned them. Then when the shots were fired, I didn’t really think they had actually been shot until Bobby Lee returned from the woods alone. Another surprise was when the mother was asked did she want to join her husband and son in the woods and she willing went with the baby in her arms along with June Star, I was flabbergasted! All along the grandmother kept trying to somehow will and deal with the misfit about being from a good family. This is when I thought this woman was the crazy one and should have been the first one shot. After the mother, baby and June Star were shot, I knew then the grandmother had to go next. After I finished the story, I couldn’t help but think that if the grandmother had just kept her mouth shut, maybe they would have all be alright, but then again, it was the grandmother’s fault they went down that dirt road to start with.

Nikki Giovanni's Poetry

In Nikki Giovanni’s Poetry, I really enjoyed all three of these poems. The first one, “Nikki-Rosa,” is apparently a poem about herself and her childhood. But this poem brings up some very good points. Usually when people have hard lives, they usually complain and end up being bitter in life, but with this poem she is trying to show that overall her life was her life and to her it was a good one. This poem shows strength, hope, love and pride in being in the skin the good Lord gave you. This poem gave me a pleasing feeling and I was actually glad to read something positive and uplifting. It was a change compared to some of our readings this week.
Her poem of “I’m Not Lonely” seemed to a poem about a little girl trying to cover her fear of being left by a parent; probably her mother. She appears to trying to convince herself that she isn’t afraid and that she is old enough to be alone. There is also a recognition of previous bad dreams, but I think that when she states that she doesn’t have these bad dreams anymore, it’s really her way of saying they are no longer dreams, they are her reality.
The poem called “Poem for Black Boys” seems to be about what people perceive black boys should play in the way of games since they are black. However, she is using sarcasm to the fullest extent! She is stating that just because the boys are black, they must somehow just play the things that show ignorance since they are black, and games that teach them and enhance their life of crime and indecency. She is basically pointing at white people to show their ignorance about black people.
I was really impressed with her poems because they were easy to follow and they really just made sense. They left you with the feeling of knowing you just learned something about what a good decent person can experience in life through difficult times and end up surviving and succeeding in life.

Ron Rash – Serena

First let me say I LOVED THIS BOOK! This was definitely one of those books I could relate to and actually visualize….. literally! The setting being set in the mountains of North Carolina was wonderful. Ron Rash is a very talented writer and I was very impressed with his knowledge of the surrounding area and of logging.
Serena was a very interesting character. Her personality was a hard one at first to unveil, but her true self was slowly peeled away. At first her drive was mainly focused upon their business of logging. She was very knowledgeable about logging and at first everyone was impressed and envious of her. This became the center of her and Pemberton’s lives.
In the beginning of the book, it was first made known that Pemberton was just arriving back in the NC Mountains from Boston and he brought with him his new bride, Serena but awaiting him was a young pregnant girl named Rachel Harmon with her father. Rachel was just 16 years old while Pemberton being somewhere around 50 and she was pregnant with Pemberton’s baby. When Rachel’s father approached him, he revealed he came to kill Pemberton, but in return, Pemberton kills Rachel’s father. Rachel is now alone and left with trying to raise her son alone and she struggles and longs for Pemberton to return to help her and take her for his own.
When Serena becomes pregnant, she continues to live life like she is invincible but eventually she ends up losing the baby for reasons unknown. When this occurs, she also loses her ability to ever have any more children. While Serena was having issues with her pregnancy just before losing it, she goes to Dr. Cheney and he just brushes her off and tells her it’s probably just gas and to eat some peppermints. Later after she recovers from her miscarriage, they find the doctor dead in a bathroom stall with his tongue cut out, holding a peppermint in each hand. This is when Serena starts knocking people off more rapidly.
Galloway was working and training someone and when he accidently got his hand chopped off, Serena helps save his life. Galloway and Serena become partners in crime at this point and he begins to follow and assist her in deeds of murder and deceit. They kill several people who get in their way and Pemberton kills one of his partners, Buchanan, himself. Galloway and Serena stalk Rachel and Galloway tries to kill her, but she manages to escape, but he does kill the Widow Jenkins who has been a mentor to Rachel and has helped her with her son.
Pemberton manages to get a picture of his and Rachel’s son and he also gives the sheriff $300.00 to give Rachel, but she never finds out where it comes from and she uses it to runs off to Seattle where she and her son lives the rest of their lives. Pemberton and Galloway go off hunting one day seeking a mountain lion they have been looking for since they first arrived. This is when Pemberton is told by Galloway that Serena (who has already bought her husband's coffin) has put poison in the sandwich he just ate, he also just got bitten by a snake, then he fell off an embankment, then eaten by the mountain lion.
Then the story jumps into the future to the spring of 1975. Serena has spent the past 45 years in Brazil and Jacob has come to seek his revenge. He first kills the one hand man sleeping on the floor next to Serena’s bed (assuming this is Galloway), then Jacob, Rachel & Pemberton's grown son, planted the knife that was used to kill his grandfather into Serena's stomach and she walks out on the veranda and dies.
The ending was a little surprising, but I was glad Serena finally got what she greatly deserved!

Randall Jarrell - Poetry

Randall Jarrell was an excellent language teacher who once stated, “If I were a rich man, I would pay money for the privilege of being able to teach.” He served in the U.S. Army Air Force from 1942 to 1946 and while serving, he wrote and published a volume of poems. His writings seem to reflect his experience in the military as well as the classroom.
In his poem “Losses,” Jarrell writes about war and death that war brings. He also states that death that comes by way of war is like any other death. He also talks about being in an airplane and coming to death by way of plane crash and how it wouldn’t be an accident, but a mistake. He gives a few details as to the air planes, and the medals they receive, their maps, and the cities they destroy. He is showing how death by war has a lesser importance because these types of deaths are looked at as being casualties.
The poem “The Death of the Ball Turrett Gunner” made no sense to me. I do not know what his intent was with it. They only thing I can make of it is it refers to death again. However, “The Girl in the Library” shows how a girl is in a library and has fallen asleep. The narrator shows her depth of sleep and what she may be dreaming about. The writer sees the sleeping girl as making an excuse for herself stating that she isn’t really asleep and she is really just sitting there studying. I think overall he is saying that her time in the library is insignificant. I am not sure why he thinks this way, unless he feels as a woman, her real place in life doesn’t focus on getting an education, but that she should be focusing on something more because her dreams of a real education is just a ridiculous thought. I think this poem is mainly a focus on how woman shouldn’t dream too much, because as a female, her dreams should only be just dreams because some things are just an impossible concept for women.

Sylvia Plath - Poetry

Sylvia Plath was an unusual poetry writer. Her views of life and suicide are evident in almost all of her writings. Death apparently stayed on her mind constantly as her writings were full of horror, isolation and entrapment. By the time she was seventeen, she had published her first short story and poem. She received a scholarship and entered into Smith College where she graduated with honors, but while in college she had a mental breakdown and was hospitalized and underwent psychiatric therapy. She later when to Cambridge University and received her MA degree and in 1956, she married the British poet Ted Hughes. On February 11, 1963, she committed suicide.
In Sylvia Plath’s “The Bee Meeting,” she tells of a group of people meeting up for some reason. She first questions if they are there to meet her. The writer is paranoid to the way she is dressed because she worries that she isn’t dressed right and fears that the bees are going to get to her and hurt her. She is worried and scared about everything around her with the voices of the people changing, bean flowers, and she thinks the bees are trying to make her one of them. She fears this consumption. She attempts standing very still so the bees will think she is cow-parsley so they will leave her alone. It is obvious that the writer is expressing her fears through this poem. She even makes mention of the queen being up against the virgin bees who plan to eliminate her. I think with this part of the poem, she is referring to herself and the way she sees how the world is around her.
In Lady Lazarus, the writer is first stating that she is doing something she has attempted before and it is evident she is once again referring to dying. She talks about a cat having nine lives and that this is her third so apparently she is talking about suicide. She also states the first time was an accident, but the second wasn’t. She sees dying as a theatrical art and she does it well and her attempts at dying give her a charge. All of her writings are quite depressing and Plath seems to have enjoyed being depressed. I wonder if she ever wrote anything uplifting. If a person read enough of her writings, I could see the reader getting depressed. She is not my favorite writer and to be honest, I could do without ever reading anything else written by her again.

Sonny’s Blues – James Baldwin

This is one of those realistic stories that I really enjoyed. It was a story I could relate to and feel the emotion that the writer was trying to depict. James Baldwin is noted as being one of the most important American black writers of the 20th century. He was born and raised in Harlem, NY and it shows in his story of “Sonny’s Blues” which takes place in Harlem. The narrator who is unnamed is an algebra teacher who has a brother, Sonny, that is a heroin addict. The narrator is married and has a daughter while Sonny has neither. This shows the extreme difference of the two brothers.
One day, the narrator sees in a newspaper that Sonny has been arrested for selling heroin. This troubles him, but he tries to ignore it, but while the narrator was finishing up a school day at work, he sees and recognizes one of Sonny’s drug buddies waiting on him. The narrator realizes he is high, but in frustration, he walks and talks with him. This man is telling the narrator of what will happen to Sonny with jail and rehab, but that he will eventually be out again. The narrator is anger, frustrated and confused. While Sonny is in rehab, the narrator loses his daughter to polio and he writes his brother to tell him of it. After Sonny is released, he comes to live with his brother temporarily. The narrator gets his wife’s parents to let Sonny come stay with them while he goes back to school and practice his piano playing, but soon, Sonny is skipping school and is hanging out in jazz bars and Sonny’s brother is constantly suspicious of his brother doing drugs again. Sonny asks his brother to come watch him play in one of the clubs and he agrees to. At first, Sonny has difficulty playing, but eventually Sonny becomes a part of the music and he ends up playing beautifully. Then for the first time in years, they briefly have a bonding moment and all is well.
This story uses flashback to give meaning to a few of the circumstances the narrator is involved in. The mood changes from time to time, but only slightly in variation. I think that this story is a reflection of the writers life and the experiences he had and seen in his life. In this area of location, drugs are a prominent aspect of life for many as well as the varied lives of the people. Some succeed while others do not.

A Raisin in the Sun

This 1961 movie’s primary focus was on Walter Lee Younger. He was a 35 year old man who is searching for his place in life as a black man. Walter, his wife, Ruth and son, Travis, live with his Mama in her apartment that she has lived in for over 40 years. He lives by his Mama’s rules because she is considered the head of the family. Walter’s struggles begin with his need to be able to financial support his family and to be the family head. A few months prior, Walter’s father passed away and they are waiting for a $10,000 insurance check that is coming in the mail to Mama. Walter and his friends want to open a liquor store with the money and Mama refuses to allow it to be used for that. Walter has himself under so much pressure that he is going out drinking a lot. At one point he finds out that is wife, Ruth, is pregnant and due to their rocky marriage, she contemplates having an abortion and even makes a payment on it and schedules it. When Walter finds out about Ruth’s pregnancy, he shows no care or emotion to stop her. This becomes a real determining factor for Mama when she goes and takes part of the money to make a down payment on a house. Everyone is happy but Walter. But Mama realizes that and gives the rest of the money to Walter for him to put back some for his sister’s education and to put the rest in a checking account and be “head of the house.” After they find out that the house Mama has bought is in a white neighborhood, they are little uneasy until they see it. But Karl Linder from the homeowners association comes and offers to pay them to not move into a white neighborhood, but they refuse his offer. Walter’s sister Beneatha is in college to be a doctor and she is a liberated black women who is eager to find her own way in life. She dates a Nigerian man named Joseph Asagai who asks her to marry him and go to Nigeria. Beneatha is a free spirited woman and it doesn’t seem likely that she will actually do this, but anything is possible. The money Mama gave Walter, he actually gave all of it to one of his friends for the liquor store license, but the guy runs off with it and the whole family is devastated. At this point they seem to have been losing faith but in the end, they still go ahead and move into the new house. This is when Walter finally finds himself and becomes a man.
I really enjoyed this movie. I actually read this play a few semesters ago and greatly enjoyed it. I was impressed with the movie because even though there were a few acts from the play that were not in the movie, the parts of the play that was in the movie were quite accurate. That really impressed me. Many times you go and see a Hollywood movie that is based on a book and the differences make the movie very disappointing, but this wasn’t the case with the 1961 version. I am curious as to how the new version would be. I have watched a couple of trailers on it and some parts seem similar while others appear to be very different.

Powerhouse - Eudora Welty

This was a very odd story to me. I really did not understand the point of it nor did I find it interesting at all. It was boring and really had no meaning. It told of Powerhouse who was black man and was singing to mostly white people who have no interest in him. He was singing lyrics with no real meaning and they just rolled around with no direction. He does sing and tell of his wife being dead. The only emotion he makes while making that statement seems to be in fun and he is degrading and talking ugly about his own wife in her death which seems strange. They must not have been close and maybe not even together anymore. Powerhouse does mention a few times about the name at the bottom of the telegram he received telling of his wife’s death. He doesn’t know the name and ask if anyone else knows the name. Uranus Knockwood was the name and he seemed more concerned about the name than what the telegram actually said.
It is once again apparent that this story was written to show difference in black and whites and to show injustice to blacks. I see that there is suppose to be an emphasis on the music and the soul that is felt through music that blacks felt that the whites didn't. However, if I had written this, or been involved in its writing, I would have focused more on the story’s plot and theme and focused less on inserting lyrics in the writing.
Eudora Welty seemed to be an educated woman and while reading her biography, I thought I would have read something with a little more feeling that would have related to more people. She must have also had a great love for music. The musical lyrics would have just been better and easier to follow if they had all been put together and not scattered with in a story line. I hope that if I have to read anything more by Welty within this class, I hope it something with more depth and structure.

Richard Wright - Native Son

I absolutely loved this story. I just hated knowing it was only a piece of the real thing. I had never heard of this story before, but now I would like to read it all. The writer, Richard Wright, graduated as valedictorian and this was during a time when education to blacks was limited. He was from the south but moved north to escape as much of the segregation as he could. He became involved with the Communist Party, but did not follow the party line in his writings. He mainly wrote of his life experiences as a black man that dealt with issues such as racism, segregation, poverty, and the justice system.
In his story of Native Son, Bigger Thomas is a black man who has gone on a job interview to become a chauffeur for a white family. In his interview, he is very nervous because with him being black and in the home of a white man was uncommon and undone. He wouldn’t even look Mr. Dalton in the eye as he interviewed him. It is apparent that Bigger may have been the main one out of all the characters who actually revealed prejudice thoughts rather than the white people which I found ironic. Mr. Dalton’s daughter, Mary, finds Bigger interesting and upon their first meeting, she is pushy and makes Bigger feel very uncomfortable. Bigger’s first day on the job, he is told to take Mary to the university that evening. Instead of going to the university, she has Bigger to pick up her boyfriend, Jan and ask Bigger to take them to the black section of town. They are part of the Communist Party and they just want to see and experience how blacks live. Bigger is uncomfortable with this, but takes them anyway. As they go into a restaurant, the black people stare and make comments to and about Bigger. Jan orders food and beer for their table. Bigger being embarrassed has a difficult time eating but as Mary ask if they have anything harder than beer, Bigger informs her she can get anything she wants. She orders a fifth of rum. As they drink, they all end up feeling the effects of the alcohol. They drive around (while drinking) and this is when I begin to wonder if something was going to happen to give the story a theme giving reference to not drink and drive, but it had a different twist. As the alcohol had it effects, Jan and Mary try to get Bigger to get involved with them and the Communist Party. They all ask and answer questions, but Bigger never agrees to get involved. As the evening winds down, Jan and Mary are drunk and after they drop off Jan, Bigger has to get Mary home and after they arrive, Bigger ends up having to help Mary get to her room. As he gets her to her bed, his own alcohol consumption clouds his thinking and he begins to fondle and kiss on Mary who is passed out. This is when he sees the blind Mrs. Dalton standing in the door way. In his fear, he takes a pillow and covers Mary’s face trying to keep her quiet because he knows if he is caught in Mary’s room, he would be in deep trouble with him being a black man in a white woman’s bedroom. After Mrs. Dalton leaves without detecting Bigger is there, Bigger removes the pillow and realizes he just smothered Mary to death accidentally.
The end of our reading was tragic, but it also left me hanging. I know this was just a portion of the whole story, but the way the story ended, left me with so many unanswered question. I am anxious to read this entire story now.

John Steinbeck - Flight

Flight is a story about a 19 year old boy named Pepe. Pepe is a very lazy boy, yet gentle and affectionate. Pepe carried a knife that he kept sharp and free of rust and he carried with him always because it had been his fathers. Mama Torres sends Pepe to Monterey to get medicine and salt and then he is to stay at Mrs. Rodriguez’s house for the night. By sending him on this journey, it would make him a man.
Before morning, Pepe returned back home which startled his Mama. She asked him did he have the medicine and he said yes, but he then revealed to her that he had been drinking wine and had killed someone with his knife. Mama assures him that he is indeed a man and prepares him to get ready to go away. Mama awakens Pepe’s brother and sister for him to help. Mama helped him with supplies and a rifle with only 10 cartridges. The horse was saddled and sent him on his journey to escape the punishment he would receive if he was caught for murder. In a matter of a moment his life had just been changed forever.
Pepe followed a path and went over high mountains and down steep cliffs. During his travel, he constantly looked suspiciously back every minute or so. As a single eagle flew over, without warning, his horse fell on its side and then he heard the rifle crash echo and Pepe found himself laying half stunned beside his horse. Then he heard another shot, ran, and found cover. He shortly realized that he had been hit in the hand. He gathered a handful of spider web and pressed it into the cut and stopped the bleeding. As his journey continued, he began to have trouble with his hand and it got red and swollen. As the intensity grew, he eventually found himself loosing use of his hand and arm and the pain in his armpit was excruciating. The wound drew strength from his body as he looked at the black line that ran up from his wrist to his armpit. He picked up a sharp blade of stone and scraped the wound and squeezed the green juice out. The pain was heavy as he laid in a desolate, waterless canyon. He managed to dig out an area and fell asleep. After he awoke, he took his sleeve and soaked up the water and sucked it out. He tongue parched and swollen, he still managed to stand on his feet. He then heard a crash of a bullet and eventually he was hit and he rolled over and over and when his body stopped against a bush, an avalanche slid down and covered his head and he was dead.
He was slowly dying, but at the end he was quickly put out of his misery. Pepe’s life quickly changed in a moment after his mother sent him out for medicine and salt. Just because someone called him names, he chose to take that person’s life. He should have thought before he quickly chose to kill. He actually brought his misery on himself. How did someone so quickly go from being a gently affectionate person to a murderer? I enjoyed this story, but it seemed to have a lot of wasted time. Not much of the story was about the plot. There just seemed to be a lot of description about his surroundings without any real significance. As it ended, it just ended without any real destination being made. I almost felt like I was left hanging.

Ernest Hemingway - The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

Ernest Hemingway definitely has a way of capturing a reader’s attention. The beginning of the story was a little hard to follow and a couple of times and I had to go back and reread some, but once it began to flow, I became intrigued. Francis Macomber was a man with a few issue within himself. He was insecure about himself, though he was a man of wealth and seemed to have everything at the tip of his fingers. The whole need for the hunt was his need to somehow prove himself courageous and worthy to himself and his wife. She was a very cold hearted person who was only out for herself and she didn’t really care who knew it. She used her husband’s fear against him and would manipulate him for her own pleasure to toy with him.
As Macomber went on this hunt for a lion with the hired hunter Wilson, he found himself facing something he could not get the courage up to shoot and that was the lion. When face to face with it, he bolted and made a fool of himself. His wife, of course, rubbed it in and even kissed Wilson in front of him. She eventually slept with Wilson and when her husband, Macomber asked her about it, she didn’t even deny it. She just told him that she knew he wouldn’t leave her. She expected him to just put up with whatever she dished out because she knew he’d take it just to have her. However, when the day came when he faced his fears and shot the buffalo, he finally found himself and a great sense of courage. When one of the buffalo that he had injured came charging toward him, he stood up to it shooting at it several times. His wife took a gun that was sitting in the motor car with her and shoots and kills her own husband. After she had seen his courage, I feel she thought that if he had the courage to stand up to a charging buffalo, then he had the courage to stand up to her. The fear had turned from Macomber on to her. As the story ends, after Macomber’s wife has shot and killed him, Wilson starts mocking her because he knew her intent but ridicules her that it was an accident. Just like the title says, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” says it all. His happiness was definitely short thanks to his wife.
This story is true to how life can really be. We all strive to be strong and courageous in some way or another just to find ourselves failing many times with someone there to always give us a hard time. Then just as we have mastered it, our life is over.

Langston Hughes - Poetry & On the Road

Langston Hughes was a very successful black writer who was the first black American to support himself as a professional writer and produced more than 60 books. In grammar school he was chosen as class poet and while in high school, he published 2 poems in national magazines.
In his poetry writings, my favorite was “Theme for English B.” I found it quite interesting how he was instructed (by a white instructor) to write something true to him (as a black man). He first shows the complexity in the assignment first by their differences in color, age and where he is originally from. However, he also shows their commonness. Both of them like to eat, sleep, drink, be in love, work, read, learn, and understand life. Even though the instructor is white and the writer is black, they are both still a part of one another since they are both American, it’s just the white man is somewhat more free. What a powerful statement.
I also like “Harlem” because it is something that may have intended to a black person’s dreams, but to me, it is something we can all relate to. We all have dreams that dry up like a raisin in the sun, or fester and run like a sore, or stink like rotten meat, or crust over, or sag, or even explode. During this time, blacks had been given freedoms, but segregation still dampened their lives. Most of their dreams were dreams just dreamt and not lived. Wouldn’t Hughes be proud today to see the dreams being lived by the African American community today?
Hughes story of “On the Road” was a different type of story. It depicted a black homeless man walking in the snow who was hungry, cold and tired. He is rejected by shelters and a white Reverend. He tries to break into the white church, but the white police beat him in the head and he falls into an unconscious state of hallucinations. He thinks he has knocked the church down and he knocks a pillar off his shoulder and takes a stroll with Christ with whom he converses with. There is a lot of symbolization in this story. He brings his conversation with Christ down to a personal level showing how Christ would not be prejudice against him and He would talk to him like he is somebody. He makes a point to say that he has knocked Christ off of the cross and how pleased Christ must be to finally be down off the cross. Most Baptist churches will not allow Christ on the cross to be a representation for their church because they see it as Christ is no longer on the cross. He was buried and risen on the third day and lives today. I think this is what Hughes is trying to show. Hughes also shows himself as being just as worthy as any white man to carry that pillar (the representation of the cross) just like anyone else, despite skin color. Hughes realizes this account really didn’t happen and that he is really in jail. He goes back to make a statement about wondering where Christ has gone and if he has gone to Kansas. I think he is showing that since he actually woke up in jail, he is wondering if Christ really was with him or was he really gone.

William Faulkner - The Evening Sun

William Faulkner received a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 which was well deserved. His story “The Evening Sun” was a story of suspense that was written in a way that kept my attention.
This story told of a Negro woman named Nancy who has been cooking for a white family of the narrator Quentin, who typically did the wash for white people but she was coming to cook for them because their regular cook Dilsey was sick. During this time, the Negro women would gather the white people’s wash and carry it on their heads like a turban. Many of the Negro women’s husbands would help fetch the wash for them, but not Nancy’s husband Jesus. Jesus was not happy with Nancy and had left her, but Nancy felt her was lingering around so he could kill her.
Mr. Stovall who was a cashier to the bank and a deacon in the Baptist church had Nancy arrested. She publicly asked him “When you going to pay me, white man? It’s been three times now.” While in jail, Nancy tries to kill herself, but after hanging herself, she is found and cut down. Later it is shown that she is pregnant. While in the kitchen of Quentin’s family, Nancy’s husband Jesus is there and Nancy tells him that her that “It never come off your vine though” revealing that she is pregnant with someone else’s baby. Nancy had been messing around with Mr. Stovall and the baby was that of a white man and this is why Jesus left Nancy. In Nancy’s fear, she thinks that Jesus is actually lurking around somewhere wanting to kill her. This fear began to consume her and debilitate her. Quentin’s father walks her home after Nancy reveals her fear to him, but Quentin’s mother is jealous and shows no worth in Nancy’s life.
At the end of the story, Nancy’s fear of going home alone causes her to talk Quentin and his sister Caddy and his brother Jason to come home with her. They notice that her fear is eating her alive and they all want to go home. Their father shows up and takes the children home leaving Nancy alone with the front door open. As they look back after passing through the ditch, Nancy’s door is still open but they do not see her and that is how it ends.
I do not like how it ended, but it was a great story. I was disappointed to not know what happened to Nancy, but either way I would say that either her husband did get her or she took off in a psychotic state because she was no longer stable.
This story dealt with a lot of different conflicts. Nancy own personal conflict with having an affair with a white man and then carrying his baby during that time. There was also conflict with her husband and her fear of his return. Another conflict involved Quentin’s father and mother that were caused by his father walking Nancy home and his mother’s jealousy. One thing I found interesting that the setting’s time frame was during an era that the white people, especially adults, were held superior to blacks and children, but the characters named were the blacks and the children. The white adults were not named.

Willa Cather - A Wagner Matinee & Paul's Case

Willa Cather seemed a little unusual to me. While reading her biography, the first thing I wondered if she had been a homosexual. During her time, I would say that homosexuality was unheard of so the outward expression would not be allowed, so I would say a homosexual would be quite repressed in their feelings and emotions. That seemed evident to me in her writings.
In her first story of “A Wagner Matinee,” the first thing I noticed was the main character was a boy. I then wondered if she lived out her fantasies in her stories as the boy she desired to be. With this story, we see a young man who had been raised by his Aunt Georgiana on a farm in Nebraska. Once an adult, he left the farm for the city. One day after he received a letter from his Aunt Georgiana saying she was coming to the city, he (the narrator) becomes a little anxious not knowing what to expect. His Aunt Georgiana had been a great pianist and a music teacher in her younger day and she had loved and appreciated music. As she arrived in town, the narrator took her to a Symphony Orchestra. At first she seem dull to everything, but as the orchestra began, she became consumed by the music. The music brought the music in her soul back to life; she was revived!
“Paul’s Case” was a different kind of story compared to the first. The first story of “A Wagner Matinee” seemed to be about being revived to life again, and “Paul’s Case” is about spiraling downhill in life and character. Paul is a difficult child at school, but he does work a job, but this job causes him to have desires for a life that he didn’t have. This desire caused him to lie, steal, and run away. I would say much of his difficult character stemmed from the loss of his mother and the stiff structure of a home that his father tried to uphold. After stealing $1,000.00, he takes off to New York to temporarily live a “fake” life. When the money runs out and he feels his life closing in on him, he takes his own life. This may appear to be a coward’s way out, but from my own experiences in life, when a person truly gets to that point in life, they are at the bottom. It may not appear that way to those on the outside looking in, but with the person willing to take their own life, they are at the bottom of everything they are and everything they have. It’s a very sad place to be; to feel hopeless and completely alone. I wonder if that was an explored thought for the writer?

Zora Neale Hurston - How it Feels to be Colored Me & The Gilded Six-Bits

Zora Neale Hurston is a writer I thoroughly appreciate. Her life was one that I wished everyone could live. To live a life for 13 years and not realize that race was an issue in the real world is amazing and that being black was not a problem for her at all was great. I know living in a town that was predominantly black for the first 13 years of her life was the main contributing factor but I really enjoyed the innocence of her early life. Even after her mother died and her father sent her to lives with relatives, the problems and difficulties she endured during this time she handled quite well. In her adult life, she had a successful life for the most part. It was a little disappointing to read that at the end of her life, she was penniless and living in a welfare home in Florida. However, after reading about her overall life, I would say that even though her last days looked difficult and gloomy, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn for her, her last days were still quite fulfilling and satisfying to her. She just seemed to have that ability to shine, no matter where she was.
In her story “How It Feels to be Colored Me” is a true account of the way I pictured her to be. She even states at one point that, “At certain times I have no race, I am me.” I even liked how she described the jazz orchestra by saying, “It constricts the thorax and splits the heart with its tempo and narcotic harmonies.” The details she uses in this story as well as the other story gives her readers the ability to see things almost the same way as she was envisioning them herself.
“The Gilded Six-Bits” was another great story. The love and excitement she portrayed in this couple was very pleasing and exhilarating. As I read the story and that no good Slemmons was introduced, I had a feeling he was there to cause trouble and he did! At this point I became very disappointed, but in the end, victory reared itself as the young lovers regained their marriage and survived heartache.
Of all our stories this week, the author I enjoyed most was Zora Neale Hurston.

Susan Glaspell - Trifles

Susan Glaspell’s life experiences play out through her writing. This story was based on an actual murder case she covered while working as a young reporter in Des Moines, Iowa. She lived during a time when women were still limited on the “freedoms” they actually had. This gave her the initiative to express her feelings and desires through her writing.
In this story “Trifles,” there is a definite distinction between the role of women and men. From the beginning, Glaspell immediately shows in her characters gender distinction by listing the men with their first and last names as well as character explanation. The women are just named by their married names.
In this story, Mr. Wright has been murdered and his wife was immediately arrested for the crime. As the sheriff, county attorney, and the neighbor come to make sense of what happened, they are accompanied by the sheriff’s wife and the neighbor’s wife. Mrs. Wright has apparently strangled her husband by using a rope thought she claims she didn’t do it. As the men are there to make sense of the murder and to find a motive, the women come across several things that give reason to the murder. Mr. and Mrs. Wright had no children, so it was evident that Mrs. Wright was entrapped in her own lonely life being caged by her husband. Mrs. Wright had once had a canary, but when the women find it dead in a pretty box with its neck twisted and broken, they figure it had been done by Mr. Wright and maybe this was one of the contributing factors causing her to murder her husband. The women also know that Mr. Wright made Mrs. Wright unhappy for many years, so they inadvertently find no fault in her and help to cover the things they have accidentally came across that gives them reasoning to know she did indeed kill her husband and why. The men seeking hard to find evidence find none and the women keep their findings to themselves, even though one of these women is the sheriff’s wife. This may go to show that she lives in her own life of control and confinement as well as her experiencing as a child when a boy killed her cat with a hatchet just as it is assumed that Mr. Wright is probably the one that killed Mrs. Wright’s canary causing her to kill him.
There is an evidential showing of male dominance in this story and it shows how women are just the property of their husbands and have no individuality. Many women have lived this way and some still do today. I am just thankful that I now live in a society that men and women are seen more equally and have the same opportunities in life.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost is one of the poets I remember most from school 25+ years ago. The main thing that is most appealing to me about Frost is his use of nature and emotion. Typically I do not see most men having a connection of such, so I am impressed with his inner depth of himself and of his natural surroundings. So far in all of our readings, this is the only writer that almost taps into my generation since I was born in the 60’s and Frost died in 1963.
One of my favorites of Frost’s poems was “Fire and Ice.” We all have that understanding that has somehow been embedded in us that one day the world is going to end. Depending on how and what you believe can have a factor on which you believe to be true. Christians and Bible believers tell and believe that the world will end with fire coming down from Heaven. I also believe that to be true, but many think otherwise. I think the same falls true with Frost as he is making a statement that shows he has heard that fire will end the earth all his life, but like many others, not all believe in the Bible. To me, this poem shows worldly variations and either way, an end is an end.
“Acquainted with the Night” seems to me to have been written with much depth. With night comes darkness and like with some of his other poems, he seemed to have dealt with depression from time to time. In this poem, he talks of rain which to me represents tears and as he “outwalked the furthest city lights” tells me that as he tried to run from it, yet it was still there. The luminary clock appears to be the moon but as it proclaimed that time was neither wrong nor right tells me that he was unsure of his time of life or death; either way both fell in the darkness of the night which is his sadness and depression.
The “Home Burial” was a very sad poem but as a mother, I could feel the mother’s pain. I could not imagine losing a child myself, but I have two close friends that have; one who lost her son at birth and one that watched her son get hit and killed by a school bus at the age of 5. I have seen a mother’s grief and a father’s as well. Men and women seem to handle the death of a child much differently, but in the end, they both hurt and grieve and carry it the rest of their lives, just as the man and woman in this poem. In this poem, the mother seems angry at the father for not expressing the same grief that she feels. She seems to also be angry at him for having the ability to bury their child as well. I think Frost was trying to somehow show that in such an even as the death of a child, it causes much pain and it can even tear the mother and father apart. But I was glad to see that even though she wanted to go and flee all the pain and memories that he was not willing to just let her go and he would do whatever it takes to have and keep her.

The Other Two - Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton was truly a woman of high social standing and great wealth. In her writing, this seemed to be what she knew and what she wrote about. In the day and time in which she wrote, there were not many people who had wealth, so it is surprising to me that her writings would be so popular with not many people being able to relate, unless people would use her writings as a way to escape to better and more sophisticated way of life.
As I read her story “The Other Two,” I immediately noticed she was a writer who was daring and bold. She was practically writing about the forbidden; a woman who was married for the third time due to two previous divorces. I was also a little shocked to see her writing about a child who had weekend visitation with the other parent. I didn’t even know such circumstances occurred during those times. To read this story today however, just seem typical of the day. It was as if she was writing about the future.
In this story, we see a woman who is now married to a man who is forced to deal with his wife’s past immediately after marrying her. First her daughter Lily is sick and the Waythorns are forced to cut their honeymoon short due to her having typhoid. This is only the beginning of Mr. Waythorn’s troubles. However, even though he has to deal with ex-husband Haskett coming into his home to visit his step-daughter Lily, and then Mr. Varick as an investor in the company he works for, he maintains himself quite well. Most men would have not handled it the way he did. Mrs. Waythorn doesn’t seem to have any difficulty herself dealing with her two ex-husbands. It appears she actually enjoys having all three men around her and in her life. Mr. Waythorn’s biggest problem seems to be he has difficulty calling his wife his own. He later realizes he only has 1/3 of her and settles for that. He knows too that her past is what has made her who she is and decides to just take what he can get and be satisfied with that. It’s amazing how much this story fits the time of today. I enjoyed this story because even though it was written nearly 100 years ago, it really fits our society today.

The Open Boat - Steven Crane

The first thing that appealed to me about this story is that it was based on a true actual event. The more real a story seems to be, the more it appeals to me. As the story began, it was immediately full of vibrant details of the surrounds. It was immediately shown that the water was rough and unstable. This gave a touch of suspense. As first seen in Cranes biography, the evidence of life and death as portrayed in the Bible is shown through symbolism. We are all floating through life in a small boat with uncertainty all around us. We may sink and drown or we may be sought and rescued. As we view these men with their different personalities, thoughts and worries, they all have the desire to live and find solid ground.
The Captain is the one who holds it together with his crew and keeps their dingey going in the “right” direction. He keeps his crew encouraged while all along lacking in courage himself because of his occasional mentioning of not wanting to drown. From time to time they see “light” and try to get to the light but the closer they get to it, the rougher the waters get. To me, this shows how people want “light,” but when they get close and their surroundings began to get rough, they tend to want to turn around and find and easier path.
The crew realizes that their time is running out and they need to take their chances and try to make it to shore. As they approach the shore, the waters get very rough and the current works hard against them and this is when that must sink or swim. As the four men tried to make their way to the shore after falling from their boat, three survived but Oiler was the one who didn’t. This scenario remind me of the Bible story when Jesus asked Peter to come to him and step out of the boat and walk upon the water to come to him. Peter did, but when he took his eyes off of Jesus, he began to sink. I believe that Oiler is the representation of Peter. From start to finish on this story, there is many links and references to the Bible. This once again reaffirms the strong background he had in faith and his family roots in church.

Stephen Crane Poetry and Biography

Stephen Crane’s background is quite evident in his poetry. His strong family roots in faith is something he apparently couldn’t get away from. The one poem that really spoke to me was “Supposing That I Should Have the Courage.” It displays a man under the conviction of God as he is at the crossroads of accepting the saving grace of God. Crane was definitely a man that knew his Bible and knew the meaning behind God’s word.
As Crane observed life in the slums of New York, it gave him other inspirations where his writings turned to the writing of his first novel. Oddly he apparently couldn’t find a publishing company to publish this novel for him so he went to the expense of publishing it himself. To me, this would have to have taken a lot of courage to go out and take the rejection from the publishing companies and turn it around and place enough faith in yourself to just publish it yourself. That says a lot about his character and the faith he had in himself.
Of his poetry, some were a little difficult to understand. The one called “I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon” seems unusual to me. I can’t find reason in it. When I think of someone pursuing the horizon, I see someone searching for light (in reference to God’s light) but when it states, “You lie,” I don’t know if it means the one searching for the light is rejecting the light, or if it could be Crane making reference to Satan and his deception. I do not like to read something and not understand what it is really saying. The one poem called “War is Kind,” Crane is being sarcastic in this referring to war as being kind when in fact, as a lover or as a mother, you could never send your loved one off to war and ever think of it as being kind. But his point made was quite clear.

The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a very interesting writer. She has used many aspects and experiences in her own life in her writings. I know this is typical of many writers, and this can give enchanting details to their stories. With The Yellow Wallpaper, we see a woman who has been brought to an old house by her husband who tells his wife that he doesn’t believe she is sick, but he still brings her to this house so she can have perfect rest for what she refers to as a nervous condition. Oddly, with her husband thinking she isn’t sick, he sure does have her on a lot of medications and remedies and plans to cure her with rest.
During their stay in this house, they stay in a room that was once a nursery at the top of the house. The bed is bolted to the floor and the windows have bars on them. To the woman telling the story says it is an ugly room that irritates her. Her husband ends up completely isolating her to this room and only letting her go outside or be with their baby only when she is being watched by someone and only for brief periods of time. As she is forced to stay in this room constantly, she secretly writes in a journal. Her husband doesn’t want her writing because he feels it will tire her out. At times, it seems he is just a loving and caring husband who is truly trying to help his wife get better, but other times, it seems he is just secluding her to keep her hidden for some reason. Strangely, he has her convinced he is doing all of this out of love and it is what’s best for her.
During these times during the later 1800’s, women were expected to adhere to certain lifestyles and responsibilities. A woman basically had her duties and was rudely looked down upon if she failed at them. If she was weak, or out of the ordinary, it made the husbands look bad and with hers being a physician as well as her brother, I would say she was gazed at by many. To keep her contained and hidden from society, John was mainly protecting his own image.
While his wife stayed in this room with this hideous wallpaper, she began to see someone creeping in the wallpaper. It is apparent that she is hallucinating and who wouldn’t be caged up in such lengthy solitude. She becomes obsessed with this woman she sees in the wallpaper. Even though this is a contrast as to who she really is herself, it is intriguing to read to see if she really does reach someone from behind the wallpaper. At the end as it appears that she may be feeling better, but you learn that she has managed to remove most of the wallpaper in the room. She has worked diligently and meticulously to help remove the “yellow smell.” As her husband comes in the last time, he finds her crawling on the floor talking crazy about being not being able to be put back behind the wallpaper again. He faints and for some crazy reason, she doesn’t understand why!

The Awakening - Kate Chopin

The Awakening by Kate Chopin was a beautiful story of a married woman named Edna who was just caught up in “life.” During the 1800’s when Chopin wrote this story, life for a woman was quite different than it is today. The typical married woman had “womanly” expectations that women no longer conform to as much this day and time. Edna being married to man of wealth, their social standing was a top priority and it was her responsibility to see that their social standing was catered to. In this life style, she lost herself and she became mechanical in her day to day living. Having servants and someone to tend to the children, she wasn’t needed in the home in a nurturing way that typically gives a woman worthiness that she is designed to need and desire.
While her and her family is vacationing at their summer home on the Gulf, her husband spends much of his time working away from his family. When he is around, he fulfills his life with material things and social needs. With his wife Edna, he sees her faults and reminds her repeatedly of the responsibilities she needs to adhere to in his eyes. Edna is slack on her mothering skills, but life seems to have her so burdened down, that she seems to have lost the ability to know true happiness, until Robert comes into the picture. While on the Gulf, Robert spends much time with her. They become great friends, but Robert falls in love with Edna and with her being a married woman, he decides to go to Mexico and leaves abruptly. With his leaving, Edna realizes also that she has fallen in love with him and falls into depression during his absence. Since she and her husband have never had a normal loving intimate relationship, she feels that this is the first time she has ever really felt love. She spends months longing for him and visiting Mademoiselle in hopes she had received a letter from Robert since he had not written her. Edna later finds out that Robert is finally planning to return and she becomes anxious to see him. When she learns he has return by accidentally running into him, she realizes he has purposely been avoiding her. In their chance meeting, she remembers how Mademoiselle told her that Robert was actually in love with her. This echoes continually in her mind. When she finally sees Robert again, she kisses him and admits her love for him and in return he does the same. During this moment of passion, she is called to tend to a friend of hers who is apparently deathly sick. When she returns, she finds that Robert has left her again. Edna then falls back into her heavy state of depression and decides that her husband, her children, nor anyone else is worth much to her other than Robert. In this realization, she is disgusted with herself and walks to the beach, removes her clothing and begins to swim out until she is completely exhausted. As the author reveals the last paragraph of the story, it is apparent that Edna drowns.
This story was full of vibrant details that give its reader a wonderful since of being a part of the story. There were times I could feel Edna longing for Robert and the great descriptions given to the intricate details of the home, we quite visionary.

Ambrose Bierce - An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge

Ambrose Bierce was a man with an unusual personality. He spent most of his life surrounded by war and death and in return, his stories and character reflected it. In 1861, he enlisted during the Civil War into the Union Army. During his term, he re-enlisted twice and was a part of some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. His writings reflected the war and fighting he had experienced so death became the center of most of his writings.
In his story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, it first tells us of a man with his hands tied behind his back and a noose around his neck. It is immediately evident that death is about to bestow this man. There are executioners, soldiers of the Federal Army, a sergeant and a deputy sheriff. Why they are about to hang this man isn’t immediately known. This man is Peyton Farquhar and he is about 35 years old and is a civilian. Farquhar is on a plank that is being held by two other men and without their weight holding the plank where it is, it would let Farquhar fall to his demise.
Farquhar stands with a calm look on his face, but he is thinking that if he could just get his hands free, he could jump to the river below and swim to safety. He then hears what he describes as someone hitting an anvil, but it turns out to be the ticking of his watch. As the story unfolds, it tells us that Farquhar was at home when a soldier came up and asked for a drink of water. As he wife fetches the water, he inquires to the soldier about the progress of the war. The soldier tells him that the Yanks are getting ready for another advance and are at Owl Creek bridge and if a civilian is caught interfering, he will be hanged. However, he was really a Federal Scout.
As the story tells of Farquhar falling to be hanged, it tells you that the rope had broken and as he falls into the river, he eventually makes it down river after being shot at, but he makes it to safety and walks all the way home. As his wife reaches for him, he feels a stunning blow to the back of his neck and then a blinding white light, then darkness and silence. It is then revealed that the details of his escape and return home was just a vision he had as he was falling from the bridge as he was being hung. His neck broke and then he was dead.
As I was reading this part, I couldn’t decide if what I was reading was real or not since it was already revealed in the biography that Bierce writing almost always involved death. As the last paragraph was read, I wasn’t too shocked. Even though I wanted him to be free and back home with his wife and children, there was the constant thought that death had to come to him somewhere. Even though I was a little disappointed that in the end he did die, I still liked the story. It had many vibrant details and was written with the perfect drawing that made me want to read more.

Joel C. Harris - Rabbit & Fox - Free Joe

Joel C. Harris was known for taking folk tales and myths and making them memorable by presenting them in a humorous ways through the character of Uncle Remus using the dialect of an uneducated slave. The people of this time were fascinated by local-color stories. His tales were also tales with lessons that showed it reader that bad actions had consequences. Many of his stories were taken from the blacks he had known while working on a Georgia plantation. He later worked 24 years on the staff of the "Atlanta Constitution"
This is clearly shown in “How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox” as Uncle Remus tales of how the Fox wants to kill and eat the Rabbit after the Rabbit has gotten caught up with the Tar-Baby. Though the dialect of this story makes it difficult to understand at times, it is clear that Rabbit has himself in a very sticky situation. Fox and Rabbit are apparently not strangers and have had conflict before as Rabbit taunts and aggravates Fox. When Fox finds Rabbit in this situation, he plans to eat him. Rabbit being cleaver and deceitful, taunts Fox once again. Fox gives Rabbit several different ways he plans to kill him. Fox first tells Rabbit he is going to fix up a brush fire and barbecue him. Rabbit comes back and tells him that is fine just as long as he doesn’t dare throw him in the brier patch. Fox then threats to hang him then drown him and even skin him. With each threat, Rabbit comes back with the same taunt. Rabbit tells him each threat is fine just as long as Fox doesn’t throw him in that brier patch. Fox then wanting to hurt Rabbit as bad as he could, he grabs him by his back legs and slung him in the bushes right into the brier patch. Fox quickly learns he has been deceived as he sees Rabbit up on the hill sitting cross-legged and gloating. Rabbit then hollers out at Fox that he was bred and born in a brier pat and then skips off.
The other story by Joel C. Harris called “Free Joe and The Rest of The World” was a very heart touching story of a slave named Joe who has been given his freedom to only find himself worse off. His former owner who has passed away had lost Joe’s wife due gambling and her current owner will not allow Joe to visit her. Since he is a free man, even the other black slaves dislike him due to jealousy and the white people are always suspicious of him. Joe finds himself alone except for his little dog Dan. Joe ends up at Micajah Staley and his sister Becky’s place which is next to the property of the Calderwood’s property where his wife Lucinda lives. From a big popular tree he would sit and sometimes he could hear his wife’s voice. Once day, his little dog went and got Lucinda and brought her to where Joe was. This became their meeting place until the other slaves found out and told on Lucinda and her owner shipped her off. Joe, not knowing what had happened, sat under that popular for over a month waiting for his wife. He slowly realized she would not be returning. One night, Dan wondered off and a pack of dogs killed him. Joe all alone sits day after day under that popular tree until the day he died. This was such a sad story with an unfortunate ending. However, I did enjoy the reading. I just wish it hadn’t had been so depressing.

Bret Harte - Tennessee's Partner

Bret Harte was born in Albany NY, and in 1854, he left and went out west which where his heart really desired to be. He had an eventful life with things such as he prospected for gold, and rode shotgun on a stagecoach for the Wells Fargo Express which was a very dangerous job. He was known as a genius at a very young age and could read well by the age of 6. These vibrant adventures were the drive and inspiration for his great writings. He quickly became a professional writer in California and in 1868 he became the first editor of “The Overland Monthly. He quickly became a well known writer and in 1871, he received $10,000 from “The Atlantic Monthly” for twelve poems and sketches and left California for Boston. After leaving California, his writing got to be repetitive so his contract was not renewed at “The Atlantic Monthly.” He began to have financial struggles so he began doing lecture tours and spent the rest of his years in England.
In his story of “Tennessee Partner”, he writes of a time in 1854 about two partners in crime. One was named Tennessee and the other was just known as Tennessee’s Partner. One day, Tennessee’s Partner decided to go find a wife. He didn’t get far before he found one. Shortly after, Tennessee seduced her and had her for himself. Tennessee’s Partner returned to Sandy Bar sad and alone. When Tennessee returned alone, his partner was to first to welcome him back.
One day, Tennessee robbed a man on his way to Red Dog. He took his knife, pistol and his money. He was later arrested and went to trial. Tennessee’s Partner was there on his behalf and instead of helping him, he only made matters worse by trying to bribe the judge. Tennessee was found guilty and taken out to Marley’s Hill and was hung. Tennessee’s Partner came with his donkey, Jenny, and a cart and took Tennessee’s body and placed him in a coffin. He then took him to his cabin and had him a funeral.
One night sometime later, Tennessee’s Partner rose up and had Jenny take him up to where Tennessee was buried. He gazes up to face his own death and as he passes over, he is greeted by his friend, Tennessee and they are once again, together.
In this story, Harte presents an old rustic story of the west that he held close to heart. Some parts of this story, the mood was depressing and almost too calm. At times, I expected a gun fight in a saloon or out in the street. But the characters personalities were shown in a much different light. Tennessee and his partner were partners in crime and partners in friendship. They held true to one another in trouble and death. It was inspiring to see the commitment bestowed by the two and heartwarming to see the friendship of Tennessee’s Partner as he gives Tennessee, who is seen as a cruel ruthless man, a decent funeral.

Sarah Orne Jewett - A White Heron

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) was from New England and her father was a doctor who went daily and visited patients. As he did, Sarah would tag along as he visited his patients. Since Sarah was a sickly child, she didn’t attend school regularly so she would read her father’s books. Through these books, she gathered most of her education. She exposed herself to many different types of books and by 1863; she had decided to be a writer herself. Being fearful of being known, she used anonymous names since she was only fourteen years old when she began.
Through out her life, she watched the local people and wanted to record the lives and legends of the farmers and villagers that she lived around. By the time she was eighteen, she had published her first story and by 1869, at the age of twenty, she was accepted by one of America’s most respected journals which launched her career.
In her writings, she wanted to portray the lives of the men and women of her native state in the urban setting. Her stories show suffering, sympathy, kindness and sensitivity. She enjoyed writing about what seems as hopeless situations to in return show good for bad with compassion and hope.
One of her most praised writings was a fiction story called “A White Heron.” In this story, the main character is a young girl named Sylvia who spent the first with years of her life in the industrial part of the city, but has now moved to the country with her grandmother. She enjoys the outdoors and is at one with nature. As her grandmother puts it, she can tame squirrels, and draw birds just to feed them. She is a nature lover and knows the land she lives on well.
One day as Sylvia was out gathering up the cow to bring in for milking, she runs into a stranger with a gun that gives her a fright. He follows her home and invites himself to stay the night so he can rise early the next morning to hunt birds. Eventually Sylvia eases her nervousness of the young man and the next day she follows him on his quest seeking a white heron. Sylvia is fascinated with his knowledge of bird and is tempted to tell him of her knowledge of the white heron as he present ten dollars for the location of the white heron’s nest. Sylvia knows but doesn’t know what she should do.
That evening as they all turn in for the night, Sylvia’s thoughts are filled with a large pine tree that she believes if she could climb, she could see the ocean and locate the white heron’s nest. Her excitement sends her out dawn and she goes out to climb the tree to confirm what she already felt in her heart. She could see the ocean and she even sees the white heron soar through the air. As she is atop that tree, she is in awe of all the delight and wonder that surrounds her. As the young man and her grandmother wake to find her missing, they start to search for her as she is returning home. In her amazement, she keeps her adventure a secret and doesn’t reveal the white heron’s whereabouts.
This story is a beautiful story with a little suspense. It leaves you wondering if Sylvia’s fascination will overcome her and cause her to tell of the white heron’s location. This story also gives great details as to the forest and the mindset of Sylvia. When she is standing in the top of that pine tree, I could almost see her sights and feel her emotions as she gazed all around. Great story!

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - A New England Nun

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman lived during the time of the Civil War. As the war ended, she was about thirteen years old and during this time, the New England area she lived in became somewhat melancholy. As the war took lives, women were left behind without skills and many lost their will to live. However, there were those who were strong willed and became known as the New England spinsters. These women became the object of poetry writing, jokes, as well as writing music. These were the inspirations of the stories Freeman wrote. In her middle age, she married Dr. Charles Freeman from Metuchen, New Jersey.
She was a teenager when she published her first poem in 1881. By 1884, her career had officially launched and she was in heavy demand. Her main goals in her writings were to preserve the old character of New England. Her characters were written in a realistic fashion with strength, and straight forwardness.
In her story of “A New England Nun,” she writes of a woman named Louisa who has lived alone for many years as she has waited for her lover, Joe Dagget, for fifteen years to return after he had been “seeking his fortune.” As the story unfolds, Joe Dagget has been secretly seeing someone else and Louisa overhears the conversation between Joe Dagget and Lily Dyer as they discuss Lily Dyer leaving. Louisa in return breaks off the engagement and is pleased with this decision. She has spent many years alone and she is very quaint and enjoys her life of cleanliness and perfection. She spends most of her time doing needlework, gardening, obsessively cleaning and caring for her dog and canary. As the story ends, she is quite pleased with her life feeling a sense of peace in her solitude.
This was a story I really enjoyed. It was simple, yet refreshing. I like a story that I can relate to and understand. Even though Louisa was committed to Joe Dagget, she was still true to herself and done what was right. Joe Dagget was compassionate to her over their breakup and offered to stay with her if she wanted him to. This story had a lot of heart and compassion even in a moment that most of us would have been hateful and want to seek revenge. I would enjoy reading more by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson of Amherst, Massachusetts was a poet who lived from 1830-1886. During her life, she wrote nearly 1,800 poems, but she only published eight of them. It wasn’t until four years after her death that her other works of poetry became available for the public to experience. Her poetry was different than that of a “typical poet” because her poetry lacked rhyming and proper grammar. However, some found her poetry to have a drawing that made them want more.
She was from a prominent family. Her grandfather founded Amherst College, and both of her brothers were lawyers and served as college treasurers and trustees just as her father had. As her mother was seen as an invalid, this left her sister, Lavinia, to take care of their large home.
Emily lived a life of seclusion at home seen tending to her garden and their large home. As she would watch the passing world from her bedroom window, she would write poetry and letters. In many of her writings, it is said she wrote quite frequently to her women friends and these writings gave way to speculation that she may have been in loving relationships with some of these women; particularly her sister-in-law.
Her poetic subjects consisted mostly of death and her religious rebellions, yet at times, they reflected the love and despair that she apparently kept trapped inside. She also wrote many times about nature and its simple beauty.
In her poem #1545, it is her mocking perception of the Bible and how empty it seemed to her. However, as she compares it to the poetic writings of Orpheus, she notes in his writings there is no condemnation. She must have viewed the Bible as a book that only condemned and caused her disgust and shame.
In her writing structure, for me, there appears to be confusion. As I read them, I sometimes do not understand her meanings, yet others are quite obvious. Her vocabulary seems very extensive, but the writing structure causes me difficulty. Her letters to T.W. Higginson seem to have more details as to her intent. The one I found easiest to follow is the one she wrote on August 1862. She is apparently questioning her existence and is asking him for his reassurance. Even though she appears to be encouraging him to go to no trouble to come see her, I would say that with the emotional state she stayed in most of her life, she was at times, actually looking and yearning to be wanted, needed and justified to just be who she was.
Poetry is something I typically enjoy and most of us have tapped into at one time or another. I mainly like poetry that I can relate to that gives a sense of security and contentment. With Emily Dickinson, I didn't really enjoy them that much. They lacked the flow that I think is needed that makes poetry poetry. As I researched who she really was, she was apparently a very depressed, dark person who may have been living the life of a lesbian, but in the time she lived, such a way of living would have gotten a person killed, so she lived in her own prison. She rebelled against religion and lacked any personable skills. I know her works are now legendary, but for me, I can do without any type of writing that is depressing.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is an excellent literary writing full of excitement and adventure experienced by the main characters of Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and a slave named Jim. The setting is during the mid-1800's and is focused along the Mississippi River. The different dialects used in this story are the Missouri negro dialect, the South-Western dialect, the "Pike County" dialect and four other varieties as well. The numerous footnotes help give details and understanding to some of the terminology and names used.
Huck Finn has been sent to live with Widow Douglas and along with her sister Miss Watson, they try to teach him how to be an upright citizen. They take him to church and teach him manners and such. Eventually, Huck's father, who is abusive and a drunkard returns to town after he learns that Huck has $6,000. After Huck returns with his father, he soon get tired of the abuse and ridicule and decides to fake his death and run away.
Tom Sawyer is Huck's best friend and his playmate that he gets in trouble with. Tom is an adventurous child with a very active imagination. He reads a lot of adventures and wants his life to imitate the stories he has read. This sets cause for Huck and Tom to not only find trouble, but to get out of the trouble as well.
Jim is a slave owned by Miss Watson. He believes in witches, spells and bad luck and when he tells a tale, he fills them with lots of detail and animation that is a little bit stretched. These stories entice both Huck and Tom. One day, Jim overhears Miss Watson talking and he believes that he and his family are to be sold and separated so Jim runs away.
As Huck and Jim find themselves together on Jackson Island, they end up making their way together down the Mississippi River searching for freedom. As their adventure sets forth, they encounter many people such as the King, the Duke, the Shepherdson's, the Grangerford's, the Wilks, the Phelps, and Buck whom he becomes good friends with. They encounter many conflicts as he and Jim take on the Duke and the King on their raft. The Duke and the King put on show and whatever it takes to con and take from people. This keeps them on the run until Jim is captured as a runaway slave.
As these adventurous characters set out to seek freedom, they come to think they will never find it. Eventually, Jim finds out that Miss Watson had died and in her will, she had actually set him free. Jim then tells Huck that his father is actually dead and that his body was in the house they came across floating down the river. Huck now realized that he is finally free himself. In the end it all worked out, until Huck realizes he is going to be adopted by Aunt Sally and she plans to civilize him which he has encountered before and isn't too pleased with.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." I found it comical and at times suspenseful. Many times I was quite eager to find out what was going to happen next. The dialect made this story quite interesting and challenging, but well worth it. I look forward to our next reading.

Hi! My name is Tina and I am currently working on my AA. In August, I plan to join a cohort at Appalachian University for Middle Grades Education. I currently work at Hudson Middle School as an Exceptional Children's Teacher Assistant. I am married and have 3 children and 2 step children. I work and go to school full time, so I don't have much time for many things outside of my academics other than church and its related activities. I am a born again Christian and my faith is Jesus is most important to me.
My reading interests are limited to middle school level material since that is the setting that I work and this level of reading is what I am exposed to. I am a realistic so when I do read, I prefer something that I can realistically relate to that has true purpose and meaning. Things like mythology, sci-fi, and any other thing that forces me to think outside of my natural world just doesn't interest me and usually frustrates me.
I look forward to this class already. Our first reading assignment is something I read over 25 years ago in high school. I don't remember all of the story, but I do remember that it was probably one of my favorite readings then and I know it will be again.