Laura Hicks- Blog for English 215

Maia in Yonkers

2010-04-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

The story starts out in a panic. Maia is desperately trying to get ahold of her sister, Lela. She is in a frantic state because, “Gogi didn’t pass his interview at the embassy.” It seems as if a lot of work has gone into Gogi getting this interview. “Gogi’s visit has been a fragile thing to arrange. He bears only a minor resemblance to the photo in the passaport. The passport belongs to a boy at his new school. For $2000 the boy’s parents have agreed to let Gogi borrow it, and arranged for an uncle in Mamoroneck to send a formal invitation.” This must be extremely important if they are willing to go to such lengths, and take such drastic measures in order to make sure everything goes smoothly.

When Maia finally get’s through to Lela she has startling news. She tells her that he passed the interview but when Lela asks to speak to him Maia says, “Just don’t panic. He’s at the hospital. I didn’t want to scare you, he smoked something. He was so happy after he passed the interview, I let him go to Dato’s house. I couldn’t tell him no. Another guy was there, painting the place. He gave them some garbage.” She then get’s extremely upset and says, “I can’t control him! What do you want me to do, lock him up?”

She then sets the scene. “Dato, the other boy, Lela tells her, passed out. That was when Gogi dashed into the alley to flag a cab to take them to the hospital. But when he came back to the house, he saw the painter forcing brandy down his throat.” The painter tells him it’s, “so the police will think he got drunk. You know, they don’t dig deep here.”

We are then told that taking care of Gogi was never in her sister’s plans. This makes it seem as though Gogi may have been an accidental pregnancy. “Three years ago Lela was still working in the Finance Ministry. Now she relies on Maia to send the monthly cash: $700, more than enough to keep Gogi enrolled in private school, pay for his English classes and swimming lessons, and cover Lela’s expenses.” It seems as though Maia is the one supporting Gogi, at least monetarily.

Better Half

2010-04-19T08:42:00.001-07:00

The story starts out with an explanation of the couples’ fights. We are told that, “they were both twenty-two and married ten months.” Things were taken too far when Ryan, “grabbing the glass jar off the counter and tossing it with a heavy dead pitch at the wall behind her head. It crashed a foot from where Anya stood, shattering glass and spilling change.” This shows the change from their verbal fights to the start of something more physical.

We are given the background to the couples relationship. “Ten months earlier they’d driven to the country courthouse in White plains, just two weeks after Anya’s mother had called from Dolsk to say her father was recovering from a heart attack.” We are then told that Anya hasn’t seen her parents in a year and might not for another two to three years. This can put a huge strain on a relationship and cause large amounts of stress and tension between a couple. Despite all of this, “it was time for a favor: marry now and sort out their feelings later.” This seems to explain why they are fighting. If they got married before sorting out their feelings, these bottled up feelings were bound to come out later. They couldn’t expect that marriage would just fix everything.

Something that stuck out to me was when Anya said, “She’d expected the hard part would be getting Ryan to agree, to offer something more than an ambivalent moan.” It is really sad that she feels as if she has to convince him to marry her. It should be a mutual decision, and something they both want, not something that is forced on them.

The story then jumps to Anya’s past, when she when to Kennebunkport to work for the summer. She met a man named James, who, “all season she’d found James’s ponytail and overuse of her name to be on the lecherous side of friendly. She’d fallen for both early on, and all that had stopped her from going to bed with him was the fact that one or another of the work-travel girls was always willing to stay at his parties.” She seems to be guarded and have a wall up. She also seems to be a bit reserved. We are then told that, “in her heart she still believed in being pursued.” This shows a side of elegance and class to Anya. She has traditional beliefs and isn’t going to settle for anyone.

When Anya went back to try to get her resident papers the woman behind the desk, Erin, asked Anya about her father and then said that she may get to see him very soon. Anya informs us, “It was the same thing she’d said the first time Anya had come into her office, right after she and Ryan were married and Anya had wanted to start applying for her resident papers.” This explains why Anya and Ryan were so rushed to get married. It seems as though Anya needed to marry Ryan to become a resident, and be able to go back and visit her sick father.

Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice

2010-04-16T09:09:00.000-07:00

This story starts out with a man dreaming about writing a poem and about his father coming to visit. When she wakes up, he realizes his father has arrived early. He says to himself, “It felt strange, after all this time, to be speaking Vietnamese again.” This makes us believe that he hasn’t seen his family in some time, and also may allude to a small estrangement between he and his father.

We are shown that it seems there is a definite distance between him and his father. He seems to have moved to Iowa and away from his Vietnamese heritage, while his father is still very “old school”. His father says, “A day lived, a sea of knowledge earned.” The son then says, “He had a habit of speaking in Vietnamese proverbs. I had long since learned to ignore it.” My hypothesis about them being estranged was proven later when we are told, “I hadn’t seen him in three years”, referring to his father.

He then tells us a little bit more about the situation and says, “The truth was, he’d come at the worst possible time. I was in my last year at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; it was late November, and my final story for the semester was due in three days. I had a backlog of papers to grade and a heap of fellowship and job applications to draft and submit. It was no wonder I was drinking so much.” We are then introduced to someone named Linda, who appears to be his girlfriend. He says, “I told her my father doesn’t know about her.” She said nothing. “We just don’t talk about that kind of stuff.”

In order to cure his writers block his friend tells him he needs to write about Vietnam. He tells him, “Ethnic Literature’s hot. It’s important too.” He doesn’t go for it and replies, “I’m sick of Ethnic Lit.” Instead his friend Faulkner says, “he said we should write about the old verities. Love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.”

We are given some history on the relationship between him and his father. He tells us, “My father was drawn to weakness, even as he tolerated none in me. He was a soldier, he said once, as if that explained everything. With me, he was all proverbs and regulations. No personal phone calls. No female friends. No extracurricular reading. When I was in primary school, he made me draw up a daily ten-hour study timetable for the summer holidays, and punished me when I deviated from it.” He concludes by saing, “I learned to hate him with a straight face.” This explains a lot about why the things are the way they are between them, and how their relationship has suffered as a result of how his father acted when he was growing up.

He starts to think about his past and what his father had done for him, and also how he had abused him. He says, “here is what I believe: we forgive any sacrifice by our parents, so long as it is not made in our name. To my father there was no other name—only mine, and he had named me after the homeland he had given up. His sacrifice was complete and compelled him to everything that happened. To all that, I was inadequate.” It seems as if he feels overshadowed by his father, and he feels like he can’t live up to what his father expects of him.

The Lazarus Project p.29-84

2010-04-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

The scene starts with him waiting for Rora at Fitzgerald’s, Mary’s favorite Irish pub, “the place where we connected with her Irish roots by way of imbibing stout.” While he is waiting we are shown an insecure side to him. He says, “whenever I waited for someone, I spent some time contemplating the possibility of that person never coming. I sometimes imagined Mary not coming back home from the hospital; I imagined her so sick of my writerly ambition and the accompanying underemployment that one day she would just decide not to return from work and leave me hanging there until I recognized that my parasitic existence was no longer acceptable to her.” This was a very powerful message, in which he shows us how vulnerable and paranoid he is. He then goes on to say, “expecting Rora to stand me up, habitually anticipating humiliation.” He expects the worst and imagines the negative in life. He is full of insecurities about every aspect of his life.

During the meal, we are shown an insight to his background and how he became the person he did. He tells us, “I was here when the war started; I had odd jobs, until I finally started teaching English as a second language. Then the column gig came in; I wrote about the experiences of my students, not all unlike my own: looking for a job, getting the Social Security number, finding an apartment, becoming a citizen, meeting Americans, dealing with nostalgia, that sort of thing. The column did pretty well, though it paid very little.” This tells us a lot about his past, and helps us to understand his life and how he got to where he is at the present time. He is sort of a “self-made” man, and was able to do very well for himself considering where he came from.

He then goes on to inform us, “Three years ago I married an American woman, and she was great.” He met her at a singles night at the Art Institute, where he says, “loneliness, transnational as it is, had brought us together.” This is a very honest side of him, and shows us a possible vulnerability. He tells us that he has a speech that he often delivers to avoid awkward silences at dinner parties. People are always, “gushing over the neatness of my immigrant story; many would recall an ancestor who came to America and followed the same narrative trajectory: displacement, travails, redemption, success.” This seems to be a common story among immigrants, and it is interesting to me that he has enough confidence to tell this story to a room through of strangers. He then goes on to show a bit of insecurity and says, “I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that I had lost my teaching job and that I was pretty much supported by Mary.” This also shows a bit of his insecurities and that he may be putting on a façade in front of other people.

Something that struck me when I was reading, was what happened when they were eating at the restaurant and the waitress brought them the check. Rora says to the waitress, “Ah, that is too much. Can we negotiate?” “The waitress seemed tired and emaciated, her flaxen hair slipping the grip of a couple of clips, but she smiled. He was a big charmer, Rora was. In my country, charmers used to be as endemic as land mines were now.” This shocked me when I read it…the thought of someone being able to negotiate the price of their meal at a restaurant astounded me. I though it was a crazy concept, one that is definitely not common these days.

The Bridegroom

2010-03-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

The story starts out with some background information. Beina’s father deid and the narrator promised him he would take care of his daughter. “He left his only child with me because my wife and I had no children of our own.” He expresses his concerns and says, “As she grew older, it became more difficult, not because she was willful or troublesome, but because no man was interested in her, a short, homely girl. When she turned twenty-three and still had no boyfriend, I began to worry. Where could I find her a husband?” I think it is a interesting part of their culture that although Beina is only twenty three, they are worried that she will never find a husband. It is also interesting that the father figure feels the need to find one for her! He says, “I was afraid she’d end up an old maid.”

There is then a turn of events when, “out of the blue, Huang Baowen proposed to her.” Then two months later they got married. Many young women in the sewing factory were shocked at their marriage and saw it as a slap in the face. This is because, “Baowen had been one of the most handsome unmarried men in the factory, and nobody had expected that Beina, stocky and stout, would win him.” After hearing this, it seems as if there is something we don’t know about why they got married. Even her adoptive parents are suspicious to the union. They say, “Although we had or doubts, my wife and I couldn’t say anything negative about the marriage. Our only concern was that Baowen might be too good for our adopted daughter.” When I read this for the first time, I had to go back and read it again to make sure I had read it correctly. I have never heard parents worry that a man was “too good” for their daughter! This seemed very strange to me. Normally, the father figure is extremely protective of their daughters and don’t think that any men are good enough for their daughters. This is quite a turn of the tables.

Later in the story Beina came to her stepfather’s office in tears and informed him, “Uncle, Baowen didn’t come home last night.” This was his worst nightmare come true. He had these doubts and nervous feelings towards the marriage and this confirmed his worst fears. He later receives a phone call from, “the city’s Public Security Bureau. The man on the phone said they’d detained a worker of ours, named Huang Baowen. He couldn’t tell me what had happened. He just said, indecent activity, come as soon as you can.” He immediately jumps to conclusions and, “figured Baowen must have been involved in a major crime—either an orgy or gang rape.”

He finally meets with Chief Miao of the Investigation Department. What he was told next was shocking. “Without any opening remarks he declared that we have a case of homosexuality on our hands. At that, the room turned noisy. We’d heard that term before but didn’t know what it meant exactly.” Chief Miao then explains, “It’s social disease, like gambling, or prostitution, or syphilis.” This shows the culture’s ignorance towards homosexuality. The fact that they consider it to be a “social disease” is astounding to me. Chief Miao then goes on to inform him that homosexuality is considered to be a crime and, “according to our law it’s dealt with as a kind of hooliganism. Therefore, every one of the men we arrested will serve a sentence, from six months to five years, depending on the severity of his crime and his attitude towards it.” This shows another drastic difference between American culture and theirs. If we were to discriminate against homosexuality, it would be considered to be discrimination.

They were caught because a group of men had formed a club called “Men’s World”, a salon of sorts. They met every Thursday evening. Since the club was strictly men, the police suspected that it might be a “secret association with a leaning toward violence”, so they assigned two detectives to pose as members of the group. When the men were caught they said, “At least we men have a place for ourselves. Now I feel alive! Only in here can I stop living in hypocrisy.” I feel bad for these men, who are forced to live in secret and cannot live openly, and then are considered to be “criminals” because of their sexual orientation.

When he finally gets a chance to talk with Baowen, he asks him if he realizes that he committed a crime. Baowen responds by saying, “I didn’t do anything. I just went there to listen to them talk.” He then asks him if he had done anything with a man. Baowen tells him, “I’d thought about doing something, but to be honest, I didn’t. I liked a man in the club, a lot. If he’d asked me, I might’ve agreed.” This outrages the stepfather. He then asks Baowen why he married Beina to begin with, “To make fun of her? To throw mud in my face?” We are then told that he had informed that Beina had known all along, and that before they got married he told her that he didn’t like women and might not give her a baby. She told him that, “She didn’t mind. She just wanted a husband, a home.”

After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town

2010-03-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

This story starts out with a man asking for a refund on his chicken. He says, “This Cowboy Chicken only sounds good and looks tasty. In fact it’s just a name—it’s more batter than eman. After two pieces I still don’t feel a thing in here. (slapping his flabby belly) I don’t want to eat this fluffy stuff anymore. Give me my money back.” This was definitely an attention getter at the beginning of the story. The manager ends up refunding him half of his money. The employee’s are outraged and believe that he shouldn’t have let him take advantage of them. The manager responds by saying they should follow the American way of doing business which means pleasing the customer and believing that, “The customer is always right.” It seems as if there are some harsh feelings between the boss and the employees. One of the employees says, “I hated Mr. Shapiro’s hypocrisy. He always appeared good-hearted and considerate to customers, but was cruel to us, his employees.”

We later find out more about Mr. Shapiro who was, “an old fox and good at sweet-talking.” He also says that he chose to do business in Muji City because he “wanted to help the Chinese people, because in the late thirties his parents had fled Red Russia and lived here for three years before moving in to Australia; they had been treated decently, though they were Jews. The Jews and the Chinese had a similar fate, so I feel close to you. We all have dark hair.” It seems as if he has a compassionate side, and then rounds his compassion off with a joke.

The employees seem to have an alliance against their boss. They nicknamed Mr. Shapiro, “Party Secretary, because just like a Party boss anywhere he did little work. The only difference was that he didn’t organize political studies or demand we report to him our inner thoughts.” It seems as if they hold great hostility towards Mr. Shapiro. They clearly don’t think very highly of him, and are under the impression that he does little to no work. They tell us that Peter Jiao, his manager, “ran the business for him.”

From the way they describe it, it seems that Cowboy Chicken is a big deal in China. We are told that, “On the day Cowboy Chicken opened, about forty officials from the City Hall came to celebrate. At the opening ceremony, a vice mayor cut the red silk ribbon with a pair of scissors two feet long. He then presented Mr. Shapiro with a brass key the size of a small poker.” It caused quite the stir in town and, “the next day the city’s newspaper, the Muji Herald, published a lengthy article about breakthrough in the city’s campaign to attract foreign investors.”

We later find out that Mr. Shapiro has been taking a few of his employee’s out for dinner. Although the men that work in the restaurant think that he has bad intentions, the girls inform them that they paid their own way and that Mr. Shapiro considered it to be a “working dinner.” At one point, they decide to make the restaurant “buffet style.” This proved to be very popular, but unfortunately due to it’s popularity, “they lost seven hundred yuan, exclusive of our wages.” After they stopped doing the buffet style of serving food, the employees were happy that their wages hadn’t been withheld, despite the loss in revenue. We are told that, ‘This was the beauty of working for Cowboy Chicken—it was never late in paying us, unlike many Chinese companies, especially those owned by the state which simply didn’t have enough cash to pay employees their full wages.” It is hard to believe that a company can actually withhold wages from their employee’s when their employees have worked for that money, and have every right to a full salary.

The son of the president of Muji Teachers College called Peter and informed him that he had now decided to get married and, “He wanted something exotic for their wedding dinner, so he picked Cowboy Chicken.” This sounds funny to me, considering Cowboy Chicken is a fast food restaurant. It would be like having KFC at a wedding reception. This just shows another difference in their culture and the American culture. Despite the fact that Mr. Shapiro was hesitant about being able to cater an entire wedding, Manyou tells him, “Mr. Shapiro, Peter is right. Men of China use all moneys for wedding, big money.” So they decide to cater the wedding. At the wedding the groom said, “We thank our American friend, Mr. Ken Shapiro, for providing us with such a clean, beautiful place and delicious food. This is a perfect example of adapting foreign things to Chinese needs.” This statement directly reflects what the goal of Cowboy Chicken’s presence in China is. After the wedding reception Mr. Shapiro and Peter, “Knew we had opened a new page in Cowboy Chicken’s history; our boss said he was going to report our success to the headquarters in Dallas.”

The next morning Cowboy Chicken was flooded with complaints about the food from last night. One caller was a woman, “Complaining about the previous evening’s food. She claimed she had been poisoned.” After receiving loads of complaining phone calls Mr. Shapiro was shaken and said, “Jesus, they’re going to sue us!” The employee’s were confused and didn’t know what that meant. Mr. Shapiro informs them, “In America that’s a way to make a living for some people.” This is another interesting comparison to the American way of life. It turned out that, “A third of the wedding guests had suffered from food poisoning, and that more than a dozen faculty members were unable to teach that day.” They are able to get out of trouble when Mr. Shapiro writes a article in the local newspaper explaining that these people’s Chinese stomachs weren’t accustomed to the dairy in the food and that’s why they were sick.

Orbiting

2010-03-26T09:09:00.001-07:00

This story starts out on Thanksgiving morning. She starts talking about someone rolling joints and then describes cranberry sauce. Her dad came to drop off a turkey for her. When he drops the turkey off he says, “your mama took care of the thawing, she said you wouldn’t have room in your Frigidaire.” She responds with, “you mean Mom said Rindy shouldn’t be living in a dump, right?” We are then told more background info on her mother. She has the, “simple, immigrant faith that children should do better than their perents.” This shows a bit of pressure that may be put on her to succeed. We also find out that her father was a minor league catcher, until his knees went out.

Renata is from Italian descent and her father seems to be into his old northern Italian way. He believes that, “Sicilians and Calabrians are emotional; we’re contained.” Her Mom is a Calabrian and her dad’s American, so Italy is “a safe source of pride for him.” Her brother dropped out of Montclair State and joined the marines.

Her dad tells her that her mother wanted him out of the house and says, “Your mama must have told you girls I’ve been acting funny since I retired.” I can understand how the dad feels. My own dad is a work-o-haulic so I cannot even imagine what he is going to do with himself when he ends up retiring. I’m sure my mom is going to have to find something to keep him occupied. The mother clearly has strong feelings about retirement and we are told, “Your mama thinks a man should have an office to drive to every day. I sat at a desk for thirty-eight years and what did I get? “ This shows that her father clearly has resentment towards his retirement and his old job.

Renata seems to want to keep her boyfriend, Vic, a secret from her father. She first refers to him as “a friend.” Then she is talking about her new lover named Ro, and how he was very different from Vic. He was more direct and forward. It seems as if the reason they broke up was because Vic wanted better things for himself he says, “You know RIndy, there are places. You don’t fall off the earth when you leave New Jersey, you know. “

A Wife's Story- By, Bharati Mukherjee

2010-03-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

The opening scene is in a theatre and begins with a man telling jokes and making comparisons to Glen Gary Glenn Ross, while also clearly making a joke. He is with a group of people that seem to find his jokes funny. An actor playing a salesman is described in great detail. We are introduced to a man named Imre, from Budapest, who isn’t very good with his English. The woman with Irme clearly feels insulted by something said in the play and says, “I didn’t pay eighteen dollars to be insulted.” She says that she doesn’t hate Mamet, but that, “It’s the tyranny of the American dream that scares me.”

She raises an interesting point when she says, “Insult, my American friends will tell me, is a kind of acceptance. No instant dignity here. A play like this, back home, would cause riots. Communal, racist, and antisocial. The actors wouldn’t make it off stage. This play, and all these awful feelings, would be safely locked up.” I though that this was a very interesting comparison and point of view. It seems like Imre doesn’t understand why she is upset and says, “Panna, what is Patel? Why are you taking it all so personally?”

We are shown a personal side to Panna when she says, “My manners are exquisite, my feelings are delicate, my gestures refined, my moods undetectable. They have seen me through riots, separation and my son’s death.” This is a very powerful quote and gives a unique view into the person that Panna is. We are told more about the character’s lives and that, “Imre’s been here over two years, but he’s stayed very old-world, very courtly, openly protective of women.” This shows an insight to the kind of person that Imre is. He has a wife who is a nurse somewhere on the Hungarian Countryside and two sons. Panna’s husband manages and mill, and they do not have any children.

We are given an interesting look into her life when Panna tells us, “I’ve made it. I’m making something of my life. I’ve left home, my husband, to get a Ph.D. in special ed. I have a multiple entry visa and a small scholarship for two years.” This shows Panna’s ambition to make something of herself and to continue her education.

Charity, Panna’s roommate, seems to be an interesting character. We are told that, “She had her eyes fixed eight or nine months ago and out of gratitude sleeps with her plastic surgeon every third Wednesday.” She is a hand model and believes that Asians should have a monopoly in the hand-modeling business. She mentions that she has an estranged husband named Eric. Apparently she still loves Eric, and Eric is smart enough to know it. Panna then quotes Mamet and says, “Love is a commodity, hoarded like any other.”

Panna on the other hand has a, “traditional Hindu marriage.” Her parents picked a groom for her. I found it interesting when she says, “Affection, love. Who can tell the difference in a traditional marriage in which a wife still doesn’t call her husband by his first name?” This shows how extremely traditional Panna and her husband are. They clearly abide by old customs and are not like most modern day couples.

Panna’s husband decides to come visit her in NYC. She feels as if she has to put on all of her jewelry and sari in order to greet him. We are also told that this is one of the few times in their marriage that they have actually been alone. She says, “So for two weeks we are to have the apartment to ourselves. This is more privacy than we ever had in India. No parents, no servants, to keep us modest.” It think it’s crazy that as a married couple this will be more privacy than they’ve ever had where they live. For couples, privacy is normally a big part of a relationship; a time when they can get away from the kids if they have them and catch up with one another. The fact that they never have time alone is another strange aspect to their unusual relationship. Later when they are shopping Panna says, “I feel I am just getting to know him.” This also shows the distance between them in their marriage.

We see a change in the dynamic of their relationship when Panna’s husband’s attitude changes. He becomes very positive and excited about the city. Panna says, “My heart speeds watching him this happy.” And later says, “This has to be love, I think.” Things change when a tour guide hits on Panna and her husband is less than pleased. He says, “I told you not to wear pants. He thinks you are Puerto Rican. He thinks he can treat you with disrespect.” This shows how he is slowly reverting to his old way of thinking. He resorted to making a rash judgement and says, “You’re too innocent. I’ve come to take you back. I have seen how men watch you.” This shows his jealousy and how uncomfortable he is when he feels like Panna is not in his complete control. He then justifies his actions by saying, “I can’t live without you.”

Stone Reader-Movie Part 2

2010-03-23T22:44:00.000-07:00

The second part of the movie opens with a pan of the Arizona terrain. It is a beautiful landscape, and an extremely scenic spot. They are describing Vietnam to the narrator’s son.

Later, the narrator describes the book as having two main themes, both of which are timeless. They are: someone finding themselves, and rebellion. These two themes seem to be at the center of most teen angst books, and even in a great deal of movies. They provide a storyline in which they can show a person growing up and turning into an adult while, “finding themselves.” As far as the rebellion, I can’t tell you how many times there is a teen “rebel” in a book or movie, causing drama and acting out. I believe this is one of the most overdone and boring theme a character or book can have.

In this part of the movie, we are also told that the book has been out of print for 20 years. This is an extremely long time, and it is unbelievable that the narrator has been able to find out as much as he has giving how long ago the book stopped being printed. In this part of the movie we are shown a lot of interaction between the author, Dow, and the narrator. He finally tracks him down and goes to visit him. His goal of the trip is to try to get “The Stones of Summer” back into print. He even meets with an agent in order to get his professional opinion and help.

When Dow and the narrator are discussing the book, Dow says that each page of the book was a poem, and that the novel in its entirety is a poem. Not necessarily that it has rhyming or anything of that nature, but because of it’s language and overall essence. We are told that as a child Dow read Sherlock Holmes and the bible. He loves Shakespeare, because he really enjoys genre tragedies. When talking about Shakespeare, it is clear that he is very passionate about it. He also tells us that he believes that, “books are sacred objects.”

Towards the end of the movie, we are told that the narrator’s father dies of diabetes. He also tells us that after this, he considers stopping the movie all together, but decides not to because then no one would find out about the “stones of summer”. In the very end of the movie, we are told that Barnes and Noble agrees to sell the book and have it in print again. Therefore, overall, the narrator’s goal was a success and all of his hard work and persistence paid off.

Stone Reader-Movie

2010-03-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

From what we have seen so far, this movie is much different than I had imagined it would be. It is more of a documentary style, and seems to have more of a home video feel than a major motion picture feel. It involves several aspects of this man’s life, more than just his mission. It shows how many different friends he has, and their different connections to possible helping him along his venture.

His mission is to find the book entitled, “The Stones of Summer” and to possibly get in touch with the author. There were not traces of it online or in the reader’s digest in the library. It wasn’t until he went to the library and tracked down a review written on the book, that he was given something to go off of. The man who wrote the review is named John Sealy.

This film involves several members of his family. He went to his mom’s house to ask her what he was like when he bought and read “The Stones of Summer”. She told him that it was in late May of ’72 when he was sick in bed, that he read the book. Another member of the family that is involved is his wife, although she refuses to be filmed on camera from the knee up. Her name is Clare, and she designed the house that they live in and created a place for her husband to be able to work from the home.

Later, he finds out that the publisher of the book is dead. He found a lady on an airplane to carries the book around with her encase she finds someone who has read it. This shows how the book has impacted someone other than himself. At one point in the movie he says, “reading is the only thing that keeps me sane”. We are told that in general, it is more common for authors to write one book and stop than to write several books. This seems to be the case with the author of “The Stones of Summer”.

He finally decides to go to visit John Sealy, the man who wrote the only review ever written on this book. He shows up to his house, and brings tons of different books to talk about with him. After meeting Sealy he says, “I felt like I’d known him my whole life.” Later, he receives a letter from the agent of the author of “The Stones of Summer”. The book was dedicated to a professor at the University of Iowa. Catch 22 was his favorite book as a child. We are also told that in general, a review that was put on the front page of the NY Times would start a book and give it the publicity it needs to really become something, but that a review on the third page would not have as great of an impact.

The fact that he is going to such great lengths to find a book really impresses upon the fact that this book had an incredible impact on him. It went beyond a “good read” and really touched something inside of him, and made his life different in some way. His diligence and hard work is really something to be admired. He goes above and beyond in order to try to find what he is looking for.

The Same River Twice p.9-53

2010-03-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

The prologue of the novel is very detailed yet vague. It goes into great detail as far as the scenery yet doesn’t describe the exact location. The only clue we are given to Chris’ whereabouts is that we are told, “I am as alien here as in a city.” In the first chapter we are told that he is in Iowa.

When we are told, “At nineteen I left, vowing always to own my time. What began as an adherence to freedom became an inability to hold a job”, this shows a lot about Chris. This shows us that he is independent and not afraid to take a risk. He left home with no job, not knowing how he was going to survive. We are also shown his persistence when he tells us the stories of how he purposed to his wife on several occasions, before she finally said yes. The first time he asked they were drinking in a bar and after she said no he decided, “She refused, and I was grateful, needing time to examine my shocking and spontaneous request.” I thought this was funny that although he had asked her to marry him, he was relieved when she said no because he wanted to re-think the whole idea when he was sober.

When Rita tells him that she wants to have children he isn’t very keen on the idea. Chris even goes as far as to consider divorcing Rita because of it. He says, “There was a limit to Rita’s childbearing years. If I genuinely loved her, I’d have to leave her. Worse, I had to leave her soon.” It is interesting that although this seems sad, he truly has Rita’s best interest at heart. We are shown this when he uses the reasoning that, “She needed enough time to find a man who wanted a family. Considering it from this angle was like weighing options on a scale—a life alone without her, or a life with Rita and a child.”

Chris is definitely not your average person. What most people tend to make priorities in their life, such as marriage and a family, he hadn’t thought that these were things that he wanted. He says, “I never thought I’d be married, let alone mutate into a father. Such normal events had never seemed to have a place in my life.”

Finally after several months of trying, Rita became pregnant. Towards the end of her pregnancy he began to get nervous. He said, “I doubted my abilities to raise a child without ruining it. Although I trusted Rita implicitly, in my worst moments I worried that the baby might not be mine…Mainly I was afraid that Rita’s love would shift away from me.”

We are then told about Chris’ experience as a struggling actor in New York City. He encounters unfamiliar surroundings and many different situations that he has never dealt with before. At one point he is even seduced by a transvestite pretending to be a woman. This was extremely unexpected and strange. He soon meets a woman named Jahi. She acts as a form of a mentor, and teaches him about intimacy. At one point she tells Christ that he should write about her. When he asked her why he says, “Because I’m alive.” He responds, “So am I, Jahi.” And then she says, “Without me you weren’t. You were young , dumb, and full of come. Now you’re just young.” This shows the important role that Jahi feels that she has in Chris’s life. Chris makes a very interesting observation about New York. He says, “New York appeared to be a voluntary asylum where all the cranks and sociopaths escaped from their small towns; nobody I knew had been born and raised there. Half the population was crazy and the rest were therapists.

Chris is very poetic. He describes, “The twining sounds of heartbeat reminded me of the night of the storm. The baby is rain. Rita is the steady gush of river. I am alone in the dark on the bank.” I’m not quite sure what this symbolism represents, but I’m pretty sure that when he says he is alone in the dark on a bank he feels uneasy about the pregnancy.

Go, Yield, Stop

2010-02-28T19:57:00.000-08:00

GO (I like this):

I really enjoy our open class discussions on the readings. The syllabus structure has been relatively manageable. Last week was the first week that became rather hard to keep up with, but I believe that was due to the amount of work I had in my other classes as well. So overall, the quantity of work hasn’t been unmanageable but is definitely becoming increasingly necessary to put a lot of time into each reading. My favorite reading so far has been The Glass Menagerie. I thought it was an interesting story and I enjoyed the characters and plotline more than some of the other things we have been reading.

YIELD (things we should do more often):

I enjoyed how the other day we talked about the idea of people not working hard, but still making a lot of money. I like when we discuss topics brought up in the reading, and then share real life or personal experiences with the class. This makes it more interesting! We should definitely do this more often. The elimination of The Music of Chance definitely helped manage

STOP (please, no more!):

If I had to choose one novel to eliminate I would probably choose Lolita. Although it was written extremely well, the subject matter was definitely something that I was not interested in. It definitely opened my eyes to things that I have never really talked about in the detail we did in class, but I was also disturbed by the reading. I think we could have read something that was written just as well, with a more interesting and less creepy plot line.

Glengary Glen Ross p.9-78

2010-02-22T08:58:00.000-08:00

The beginning of the play portrays a hostile work environment that comes across as being very cutthroat. The men are all screaming at one another, and yelling about various deals, and whether they, “closed” or not. There seems to be a great deal of pressure put onto the men that work for this company. They quite literally need to “close deals” in order to feed their families, as we are told, “those guys lived on the business I brought in. They lived on it…so did Murray, John.”

It seems as if Levene is acting as somewhat of a mentor to Williamson. He is trying to help him “get on the board” and close deals. He also gives him advice and says, “Permit me to do this a second. I’m older than you. A man requires a reputation. On the street. What he does when he’s up, what he does otherwise…”

In scene 2 they start out by discussing race. They seem prejudice when saying, “A dead beat Polack” and, “How you goan’a get on the board sell’n a Pollack? And I’ll tell you…I’ll tell you what else. You listening? I’ll tell you what else: don’t ever try to sell an Indian.” In this part it isn’t quite clear whether they are talking about trying to sell homes to Polacks and Indians or the homes of Polacks and Indians.

They then discuss the idea of the contest board that is used at work. It seems to be a tool in order to promote competition between the people in the company. They don’t like the contest board and say, “Some contest board…it’s not right. And it’s not right to the customers.”

At one point Moss goes on a tangent describing how he disagrees with the way the business is run. He believes that instead of tearing people down and putting these ridiculous incentives out there, they should be “build” the business up! At one point he says, “Look look look look, when they build your business, then you can’t fucking turn around, enslave them, treat them like children, fuck them up the ass, leave them to fend for themselves…no.” Although this was a very graphic way of putting it, he definitely get’s his message across very clearly.

Emergency

2010-02-17T08:49:00.000-08:00

It is apparent from the beginning that something is wrong with Georgie, and he seems to possibly be troubled. He is crying hysterically while mopping up blood in an OR room. We are told that he has been stealing pills from the hospital and he alludes to possibly having a drinking problem by what he says after he is told that his shift is about half over, “Good. Because I really, really, really need a drink.” Then later when a man comes into the ER with a knife in his eye a nurse says, “I hope you didn’t do that to him”, alluding to the fact that Georgie may be capable of violence.

I thought it was bazaar that the nurse seemed to be very slow moving when meanwhile there is a man with a knife in his eye! She also seems to not take it very seriously when she pages for the doctor and instead of saying something like, “We have an urgent emergency” she says, “Got a surprise for you.” This seemed very unprofessional. If I was sitting there in the ER with a knife in my eye, I wouldn’t want a nurse referring to me as something positive or a “surprise”. We are given another hint as to there being something wrong with Georgie when the doctor says, “That person is not right, not at all, not one bit.”

I was shocked when Georgie walked out with the hunting knife that had been stuck in George Webber’s eye, that no one was supposed to touch, and no one even had the reaction they should have had. The only thing the doctor said was, “where did you get that?” It seems like this hospital is not being run very well and that no one is taking his or her jobs very seriously.

I was surprised with Georgie’s reaction when he ran over the rabbit. He said, “rabbit stew…where’s my hunting knife…” You would think that considering he works in a hospital, that he would have a little bit more respect for life. It’s also ironic when Georgie is on the side of the road cutting up the poor rabbit he had just run over and says, “I should have been a doctor.” We are later told that the rabbit he’s cutting up has babies inside. He then dumps them into his friend’s lap. This is absolutely disgusting and horrible that he is treating these innocent animals this way. They then go to a drive in movie and forget about the rabbits all together. Georgie is very scattered.

Then in the end when Hardee asks Georgie, “What do you do for a job?” And Georgie said, “I save lives.” This is by far the most ironic line in the whole story. We have just been told about how he killed a rabbit and it’s 8 babies, almost without guilt, and now he is saying that he “saves lives” for a living.

Lolita pg. 179-236

2010-02-10T09:02:00.000-08:00

I think it’s interesting the way that Humbert describes his neighbors…almost as if they are a threat to him. This is shown when he says, “My east-door neighbor was by far the most dangerous one, a sharp-nosed character whose late brother had been attached to the College as Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds.” It’s almost as if Humbert is paranoid that his neighbors will catch on to what is going on between him and Lolita. This is also shown when he says, “I had also to be careful in regard to Mrs. Holigan…that kindly and harmless woman had, thank God, a rather bleary eye that missed details…” This is showing that he believe if Mrs. Holigan was paying close attention to details, she would be able to figure out what was going on between Humbert and Lolita.

It is clear that Humbert feels comfortable around Gastin Godin. In a way, he tells us this when say, “The main reason why I enjoyed – or at least tolerated with relief—his company was the spell of absolute security that his ample person cast on my secret.” The key words that stood out to me from this quote were absolute security. Carrying around this burden and secret surrounding what he is doing to Lolita is clearly weighing heavily on Humbert’s conscience and is difficult for him to deal with. In this passage Humbert says, “had he discovered mes gouts and Lolita’s status…” I’m not quite sure what he means by mes gouts but I’m thinking it may be French?

Later in chapter 7, it is apparent that Humbert finally may be feeling more guilt about what he is doing to Lolita. He says, “I am now faced with the distasteful task of recording a definite drop in Lolita’s morals.” It is almost ironic that Humbert feel’s he has the right to judge Lolita’s morals, considering how Humbert clearly has no sense of morals or even a sense of right and wrong; for if he did, Humbert would know that his obsession with young girls is wrong, and what he is doing to Lolita is definitely morally wrong.

We are also showed in this passage how Humbert is able to twist the situation around as if Lolita was the one at fault. He says, “With the human element dwindling, the passion, the tenderness, and the torture only increased; and of this she took advantage.” The fact that in Humbert’s corrupt mind, he thinks that Lolita is the one taking advantage of him, is extremely concerning. While Lolita has had a few forward moments, in my opinion, Humbert is clearly at fault and is the one taking advantage of Lolita in this scenario.

It becomes evident in chapter 8 that Humbert has started to realize that boy’s Lolita’s own age are going to be attracted to her, and maybe even present some competition for Humbert. Because Humbert feels threatened he set’s rules for Lolita, for example, “absolutely forbidden were dates, single or double or triple—the next step being of course mass orgy. She might visit a candy bar with her girl friends, and there giggle-chat with occasional young males, while I waited in the car at a discreet distance.” Keeping Lolita on such a tight leash may cause her to rebel. Their relationship is already clearly on the rocks, and by Humbert feeling threatened and therefore putting all of these restrictions on Lolita, she is going to realize that what she is doing with Humbert is wrong, and that she has other options. Humbert’s jealousy is going to backfire and ruin all of his plans.

It get’s to the point in chapter 10 that Humbert would, “forget all my masculine pride-and literally crawl on my knees to your chair, my Lolita!” He is clearly desperate for her affection and Lolita is not willing to give in to his antics and says, “Pulease, leave me alone, will you. For Christ’s sake leave me alone.” This is clearly Lolita’s way of pulling away from Humbert. It’s almost as if Lolita is in control now, and Humbert is just her willing admirer.

Lolita pg. 109-140

2010-02-05T09:03:00.001-08:00

When Humbert picks Lolita up from camp and see’s her for the first time, we are given a glimpse of hope that he would do the right thing when he says, “all widower Humbert had to do, wanted to do, or would do, was to give wan-looking though sun-colored little orphan aux yeux battus…a sound education, a healthy and happy girlhood, a clean home, nice girl-friends of her age…” But then we are told that “in a wink, the angelic line of conduct was erased and I overtook my prey again—and she was my Lolita again---in fact, more my Lolita than ever.” The way Humbert describes Lolita as “his prey” gives us another example of his twisted mind. It’s almost as if he see’s seducing Lolita as some kind of game.

It was surprising to me how forward Lolita was on the car ride home. After she says, “well you haven’t kissed me yet, have you?” Humbert pulls the car over and Lolita, “positively flowed into my arms.” He also says that she, “pressed her mouth to mine so hard that I felt her big front teeth.” I was shocked by Lolita’s abrupt actions and that she was forward with Humbert. I was also surprised that she would do this considering the fact that she think’s her mother is still alive, and had just a few minutes ago referred to Humbert as, “Dad.”

I was confused as to what Humbert meant by “Haze jalopy” when he says on page 116, “If we did not get to the hotel soon, I felt I would lose all control over the Haze jalopy with its ineffectual whispers and whimsical brakes…”

When Lolita and Humbert finally get to the hotel room, there is a scene where Lolita crept into Humbert’s waiting arms, after she had told him “let’s cut out the kissing game and get something to eat.” Then Humbert starts speaking very strangely and says, “What’s the Katter with misses?” and then later says, “Show wight ray.” It’s almost as if Humbert has lost control of his ability to speak, or maybe he is trying to talk in a baby voice in order to seduce Lolita? The whole thing was very strange and didn’t quite make sense to me.

I also thought it was strange when Humbert and Lolita are on the way to dinner we are told that, “daughter swinging her old white purse, father walking in front (nota bene: never behind, she is not a lady.) I thought this was also very odd that he would only walk in front of her because even though he was trying to seduce her, he didn’t consider her to be a “lady”, just a “nymphet”.

At dinner right before Humbert is going to give the sleeping pill to Lolita he says, “I can only explain my behavior then by the mechanism if that dream vacuum wherein revolves a deranged mind; but at the time, it all seemed quite simple and inevitable to me.” It’s almost as if he realizes what he is doing is so creepy and wrong that it belongs in a horror movie, but then he goes back to being his deranged self and says it seems inevitable.

It is unbelievable to me that Humbert thinks that telling the judge what he was doing was ok because, “I was still firmly resolved to pursue policy of sparing her purity by operating only in the stealth of night, only upon a completely anesthetized little nude. Restraint and reverence were still my motto.” Humbert is completely misunderstanding the fact that a jury will not be empathetic to him just because he was only doing dirty things to Lolita at night, or when she wouldn’t realize, in an attempt to preserve her innocence. He was still taking advantage of an underage girl, which is wrong and unnerving no matter when or how it is done.

Lolita pg. 62-109

2010-02-03T08:55:00.000-08:00

In the beginning of chapter 14, Humbert Humbert is in complete denial that what he is doing is wrong. He says, “I felt proud of myself. I had stolen the honey of a spasm without impairing the morals of a minor. Absolutely no harm done.” This is complete ignorance on Humber Humbert’s part. His fascination and inappropriate feelings towards Lolita are completely sickening and unacceptable. He was even proud of himself for getting away with doing what he wanted to do without Lolita realizing. He is clearly a sick man and has no idea what he is doing, and how morally wrong it is.

Charlotte tells Humbert Humbert that she has decided to send Lolita away to summer camp. Humbert Humbert is upset and says,” Oh how I was taken aback—for did it not mean I was losing my darling, just when I had secretly made her mine?” The ownership and possession that Humbert Humbert feels towards Lolita is disturbing. He refers to her as his darling which shows his affection and then goes on to tell us how he had secretly made her “his” and acting as if she was an object he had bought.

Before Lolita is going to camp, Humbert Humbert thinks that Lolita may lose her “purity” at camp, and no longer be considered a nymphet to him. Right before Lolita get’s in the car, she runs back and kisses Humbert Humbert. This shows that Lolita was not completely oblivious to Humbert Humbert’s advances and feelings towards her. After Humbert receives the letter from Charlotte, professing her love for him, he decides to marry Charlotte in order to stay close to Lolita. This idea is absolutely crazy, and slighty disturbing. He even talks about an idea of giving both Charlotte and Lolita sleeping pills so he can fondle Lolita.

America and In the Baggage Room at Greyhound

2010-01-28T22:25:00.000-08:00

America

The first line of this poem says, “America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing”, may be referring to the aspiration of reaching the American dream. There are many people that come to America in hopes of achieving their dreams and working towards a better life. It seems that in this case, someone has tried with all they had, and failed.

A very peculiar line of the poem reads, “When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks.” This makes a reference to America’s obsession with appearance and beauty. These days there is a huge emphasis put on pretty people and what beauty means to the general public.

The way he talks to America, it’s as if he is talking to God. He brings up personal issues such as, “America I still haven’t told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia.” He is talking as if he’s reaching out for advice.

In the Baggage Room at Greyhound

This story is told from the perspective of a person sitting on a baggage truck, waiting to leave. He goes into detail about the various people working at the Greyhound terminal. He describes this man Spade’s job, as an operating clerk, as if it were the most important one in the world. He tells us that Spade has, in his hands, “the fate of thousands of express packages.” He also refers to Spade as reminding him of “an angel.”

The perspective, in which he describes these men working at the Greyhound terminal, is extremely unique. He has taken the time to notice things, and people, that most people passing through the terminal would never notice. In the end he tells us that, “The wage they pay us is too low to live on. Tragedy reduced to numbers. This for the poor shepherds.” This compassion that he shows towards these people is truly inspiring. Most people would never take the time to notice these people, let alone feel sorry for them.

Howl by, Allen Ginsberg

2010-01-26T13:45:00.000-08:00

In the first part it seems as if the poem is clearly depicting the lives of troubled teens and young adults who have gone down a dark, and dangerous path. He says some of them have been, “expelled from the academies for crazy and publishing obscene odes on the windows…” which shows the rebellion involved with these people. In my opinion the first line is very powerful. It says, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…” I believe madness symbolizes the drug and alcohol abuse referenced throughout the story. He associates drugs with anger by saying things such as, “looking for an angry fix.”

There is a great deal of protest described in the story specifically in the line, “who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism.” The actions described in that quote also go along with the angry vibe of this poem.

There are many chaotic scenes described throughout this poem. The combination of anger and chaos can be seen in the line, “who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in police cars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication, who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts.” These are scenes that in reality, most people will never witness in real life. This scene is depicted in a way that is as if it is out of a horror movie.

The story takes a crude and sexual turn when he says, “who let them be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, who blew and were blown by those human seraphim.” These are very graphic lines and are probably very offensive to most readers. He continues with sexual references by saying, “scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may.” This line is less graphic and more carefree and poetic, I guess you could say.

Suicidal references are scattered throughout the poem as well. In one line it says, “who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways…” This line makes it sound as if once this person died, no one remembered them and it was as if they had been erased from society. This line also leads into very sad imagery of, “who sang out their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed…” These are all very depressing, gloomy and disheartening images. It is a representation of these people’s true pain and suffering.

In part two of the poem, someone named Moloch mentioned repeatedly. It almost seems as if these lines involving Moloch are in reference to the government, but it is hard to tell.

In part three a place named Rockland is also referenced repeatedly. It says, “I’m with you in Rockland…” and then says something different describing this place on each line. Judging by the description of a straightjacket, doctors and insanity, it seems like the person isn’t quite right in the head, and may be crazy or in a mental institute.

The Glass Menagerie By, Tennessee Williams

2010-01-21T15:20:00.000-08:00

There is a sense of irony in the beginning of scene 7 when the lights go out. In scene 6 we were told that Tom paid to join The Union of Merchant Seamen instead of paying for his family’s light bill. So when the lights go out, Amanda is completely clueless as to why this would have happened, while both Tom and Jim know the reason. Amanda tries to make conversation with Jim out of the situation and says, “Isn’t electricity a mysterious thing?” making Amanda sound ridiculous because Jim knows exactly why the electricity went off.

In the part of scene 7 where Jim and Laura are sitting alone on the ground together, in the very beginning you can almost feel how awkward and uncomfortable Laura feels. But Jim does a very good job of helping to ease her tension, and make her feel more comfortable. It isn’t until Jim remembers how he knows Laura that Laura starts to be more social with Jim. They realize how they knew one another when Laura asks Jim about his singing. Jim then realizes how he knows Laura and says, “Blue Roses! My gosh, yes-Blue Roses! That’s what I had on my tongue when you opened the door! Isn’t it funny what tricks your memory plays? I didn’t connect you with high school somehow or other.” After reconnecting and reliving high school memories, we are told, “Laura’s shyness is dissolving in his warmth.”

When Jim and Laura are dancing and they knock the unicorn over, breaking the horn off of it, Laura says, “It doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.” This may be symbolic of Laura wanting to be just like everyone else, and not different, like the unicorn.

After the dancing, Jim goes out of his way to be extremely kind and complementary of Laura. He says, “Has anyone ever told you that you were pretty?”…Well you are!” He then goes on complementing her and saying that he likes that she is different. Laura is taken off guard by all of these compliments, and clearly was not used to hearing them.

“In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” by Delmore Schwartz

2010-01-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

This short story is told from the perspective of a son, “watching a movie” about his parents in a movie theatre. He says it is “a silent picture, as if an old Biograph one, in which the actors are dressed in ridiculously old-fashioned clothes.” He starts to tell us the story of what he is seeing on the screen in the movie theatre. His father is on his way to meet his mother’s parents for the first time. By the way he is describing it, his father is very nervous to meet the family, and clearly has intentions of continuing a serious relationship with his mother.

During the scene where his father is being introduced to his mother’s father, he says he is abruptly, “awakened to myself and my unhappiness just as my interest has become more intense.” After reading this line, it seems as if the son is comparing his own life to that of his parent’s at his age. He seems jealous of their relationship, and envious for one of his own.

Back to the movie, once his mother and father have left the mother’s house they reach Coney Island. We are then told that, “my mother really considers such pleasures inferior.” We are then told that when his father is telling his mother how much money he has made that week he, “exaggerated an amount which need not have been exaggerated.” This shows his mother in a whole new light. She seems as if she is from an upper middle class, and is used to the finer things in life.

In the next scene, the narrator describes the ocean as “the fatal merciless passionate ocean.” He then gets extremely emotional in the theatre and “bursts out weeping.” The old lady sitting next to him then has to remind him, “all of this is only a movie.” Clearly the narrator has strong emotions tied to the ocean, or whatever the ocean represents to him. He seems to see a connection between the ocean and death.

Later in the story, after the narrator’s father proposes to his mother, the narrator has a very strange reaction. He says, “Don’t do it! It’s not too late to change your minds, both of you. Nothing good will come of it, only remorse, hatred, scandal and two children whose characters are monstrous.” It seems that the narrator is dealing with a great deal of grief, possible because of his parent’s death.

What confuses me the most about this story is that although he is acting as if the people on this screen are his parents, he tells us that they are actors.

2010-01-12T21:54:00.000-08:00

"The Flowers" by Alice Walker

This is a story about a young girl named Myop. From the very first line, you are able to see Myop as a carefree little girl, who enjoys nature and the simple things in life. She get’s excited by the simplest of things, such as, “the harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash.” Myop is very much living in an idealistic dream world in which exploring the woods behind her house, was her biggest priority. Everything was pleasant, until Myop stumbled upon what appeared to be a dead body. She “stepped smack into his eyes” and was surprised by what she was looking at. Upon closer observation she spotted the remains of a noose. This strange turn of events jolts the story from this carefree fantasy world to a world of hate and violence.

Girl by Jamaica Kincaid

This work of literature seems to be coming from the perspective of a mother giving advice to her daughter. This advice comes in the form of a list of orders, telling her how to do certain things and how to act in certain situations. The majority of the rules have to do with taking care of a home and the girl’s relationship with a man. These rules vary from what days to do laundry to how to love a man. There are also a few rules pertaining to raising children. The narrator makes several references on not acting like, “the slut I have warned you against becoming.” In addition to being a good housewife, these rules help a girl to be a well-mannered young lady. One rule dealing directly with etiquette says, “always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach.” All of these aspects reflect the stereotypical housewife, running a household and taking care of their children and husbands.

Letter of Introduction

2010-01-10T21:25:00.001-08:00

Writing has always been something I enjoyed. In high school, I wrote for our school newspaper. Junior year I was able to be the news editor along with being a reporter, and then senior year I was the feature editor and was given my own column. Having my own column was something I really enjoyed. I was able to choose the topics I wrote about and therefore was able to write about topics I was passionate about. Being able to write for something that the entire student body reads was very exciting, and one of my favorite activities in high school.

One of my favorite books that I read in high school was The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I loved this story and was captivated by the mysterious ways of Gatsby. I particularly enjoyed the time period in which this book takes place. The 1920’s were a time of optimism and entertainment that made this story even more fascinating. Another work of literature I read in high school that I particularly enjoyed was a play called, A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams.

After reading this play we watched the movie, and then were asked to compare and contrast the two. This was an interesting assignment that I really enjoyed. A book that I did not enjoy reading in high school was Enders Game by Orson Scott Card. I had trouble relating to the story, and have never particularly been a fan of the science fiction genre.

I am an English major from Charlotte, North Carolina. I am taking English 215 as a requirement for my major and in order to improve my ability to analyze literature.

Clemson Poem

Game day is here, orange is everywhere

Paws on the streets and on people’s cheeks

Tailgating before, hear the tiger’s roar

It’s a great day to be at Clemson