"A Good Man Is Hard to Find"

The grandmother is a religious pretender. She acts very selfishly towards the beginning when she doesn't want to take a family trip to Florida, but to Tennessee. But, when the car breaks down and there are men with guns, shooting her family one by one, she preaches to Misfit. She doesn't seem to care about the other family members who are being brought into the woods and shot, yet she is worried only about her life. She only seemed to care about her faith when her life was in jeopardy. I feel as if the family has true faith, because even after the grandmother tells them of the Misfit they still go on their journey to Florida. They have faith that they will hopefully not encounter this Misfit.
The grandmother realized before her death of the mistakes she had made. But God grants grace to people even if they have made many unrepairable if they accept him into their life.
Violence shows the reader that the world is not perfect and never will be. That even people that murder others can attain grace.

A Rose For Emily

As I try to reason who I believe is the narrator, I come to the conclusion that it is a towns person that lives in the town that Emily does. It never says if it a male or female, but whoever it is, doesn't look down upon Emily. They are respectful to who she is. Emily buys arsenic not to commit suicide but to murder Homer. It mentions that she wants to be married to him but he has not proposed to her yet. I think therefore she wanted to kill him so she could be with him the rest of her life. She ends up killing him and then lying next to him every night for the remainder of her life. Once again, it makes me wonder that Emily loves the dead.

The Yellow Wallpaper

The protagonist in this story is also the narrator. A woman suffering from what her husband calls “temporary nervous depression” (Pg. 367), ends up believing she is a women trapped behind yellow wallpaper, finally free and aloud to “creep” as she pleases. She had been suffering from postpartum depression, and in those times rest and isolation was the “cure”, when in fact it was not. When her husband John brought her to the home the woman seemed to optimistic about the gardens and even fond of one of the bedrooms on the main floor. But she still felt “there is something strange about this house” Pg. 367. John did not let her have a say in what room they would stay. She described the wallpaper as being “One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” Pg. 368.
Despite the fact that she did not like the room and complained of the wallpaper, her husband insisted she stay in that room. She was not aloud to use her brain, her mind was supposed to rest. The women would stare at the walls trying to follow the pattern while due to the many windows in the room different tones of light and shadows were cast on the walls. This would cause the patterns to appear to be moving. This would be enough to drive any person trapped in that room insane, let alone a depressed person.
A major shift in the plot occurs when she tries to talk to her husband about leaving. “….so I told him that I really was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away.” (Pg. 373 paragraph 135). Her husband ends by telling her they will be staying three more months. It’s as if she gives up then and there and continues trying to figure out the pattern on the wall. She comes to the conclusion that there is a woman in the wall. “I didn’t realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a women.” Pg 374 paragraph 154. The woman also starts to believe that John and the caretaker Jennie knew about the women.
Another shift in the plot is when it seems the women is getting better, when in reality she has become worse. She has become obsessed with the women behind the wallpaper and it has given her meaning in life. “I’m feeling ever so much better! I don’t sleep much at night, for it so interesting to watch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the daytime.” Pg. 374 paragraph 170. She soon begins to think that the woman can get out from the wallpaper during the day and “creeps” around outside. This soon leads to her believing that she is the woman in the wallpaper.

A&P

I think that this story is lined with feminine protest. When I noticed that the story was written in 1961 I began to notice that this was a time of great rebellion for women. They were beginning to fight for more rights and burn bras and speak out for themselves. It was the opposite of conforming for some women. They were changing the way they lived and they were creating a new generation of women. I think these teen girls were part of this new generation. They lived how they wanted and wore and did things that demonstrated this. Although Lengel thought that the girls were not dressed appropriately, they most likely believed that they were as the one girl pointed out, "we are decent," Queenie said (Updike, 223).This was something that men and women were still getting used to in the 60s. I think the main reason why Sammy quit his job was to ultimately impress these girls that had caught his eye. He was probably unhappy with his job and this was a way to quit with what he saw as a good excuse. I think Sammy's epiphany was shortlived. He realized when he walked out to find the girls gone that he had just quit and had nothing to show for it. I think he instantly regretted his decision.

Yellow Wallpaper

In Gilman’s Yellow Wallpaper, the protagonist at the end of the story became more and more insane. Her mind led her to believe that she was the woman behind the wallpaper. She assumed the behaviors and mannerisms of the woman by creeping around the room and thinking that she had come out from the wall. She said, “It is so pleasant to be out in the great room and creep around as I please” (Gilman 405). The shifts in the plot, narrative and point of view happen as the woman slips deeper into insanity and becomes more involved with the wallpaper and the woman behind it. She became more pleasant and seemingly became more sane as the story progressed. It wasn’t until the end that we figured out that she was actually getting worse. She started to become extremely paranoid and she told the story as if everyone around her was becoming crazy. “I’ve caught [John] several times looking at the paper… I caught Jennie with her hand on it once” (401). She did not like the location of her room and all the windows in it. It was too big, too many windows and the sun and moon constantly shone in the room. The wallpaper obviously upset her; she didn’t like the color, pattern or the flow of it. She didn’t like the layout of the furniture either. She didn’t like the grounds because she constantly saw people creeping around. It’s odd that John kept her there when he knew she was uncomfortable in the room, when she was in fact brought there to become healthy.

A Rose for Emily

A Rose for Emily is written in the third person. The narrator is one of the neighborhood women.I think the way that the story is written and not in chronological order is confusing at first but in the end I can see why the author did it. It showed the progression of Emily's life and it painted a picture of how unhappy she seemed. Growing up and being alone really took a toll on her life and it explained why she could never let go of people or things. All of the towns people had a large interest in her life. She was different from everyone else and it intrigued them. Her life was taboo for the time because she lived with her father and she never married. In this time women were typically married at an early age and Emily never did this. The tone is dark and mysterious because the narrator really doesn't know anything about what really happens behind closed doors at Emily's house until she dies. I assume that because Emily meets a man, Homer, and they begin to start seeing each other but things don't work out, Emily is ashamed. She seems to be a very prideful person and when it comes out that Homer is a homosexual she murders him. Instead of being left again, she turns to murder so she can always keep him and not be shamed again.

A&P

After reading this short story I believe and agree with Updike that this story is a "feminist protest". I say this because the girls went into the store with nothing but bathing suits on and when Lengel see's this and is upset. He says to the girls that the next time they come in that they should be decently dressed and they should have their shoulders covered. One of the girls says that they are decently dressed and this is were I see that this story could be a "feminist protest". Sammy I believe quite because he wanted to get the girls' attention and also he might have agreed with the girls in the fact that they were decently dressed and there was nothing wrong with them going into the store dressed in the manner they were. As far as Sammy's epiphany I believe that happened when he was standing in the parking lot of the store right after he had quite and walked out. He realized that he might have made a mistake because of the way he describes how his stomach kind of fell.

A Rose for Emily

In the story, A Rose for Emily, I believe the narrator is a "towns person(s)". This influences the story's development because it is a person(s) looking back on Emily's life. To me, when people are telling a story of the past, the order is not always chronological. Remembering one thing may bring up a reminder or an example of something else.
At the time of Emily's father’s death, she had a hard time coming to terms with him being dead. She was unwilling to let him go. Any man who had come into Emily's life had been driven away by her father. Now, he too had left her. Emily became interested in Homer, a "Northerner, a day laborer." (Pg 209), the summer after her fathers death. The town’s people began to feel that Emily and Homer were living in sin and were setting a bad example. The town’s people, sticking their nose in Emily's business, began to persist her and Homer get married. The story of course does not talk about Emily's view, but I feel she began to try and persuade Homer into marriage, only to be denied because Homer was homosexual. "... Homer himself had remarked- he liked men, and it was known that he drank with younger men in the Elks' Club ..." (Pg. 210 paragraph 43). Emily, not only wanting to keep her pride, but Homer as well, turned to murder. Unlike her father's corpse, no one was there to try and take away Homer's rotting body. So she kept him, all to herself.

A&P

From the first line of the story he is infatuated with the three girls because they walked in the store wearing, “nothing but bathing suits.”(pg.224, paragraph one, line one.) My original assumption after finishing the first paragraph is that he is going to ask the chunky girl, “with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can” out.(pg.224, paragraph one, line four.) I came to that conclusion because he stopped checking his groceries and stared but as he went on to talk about the other two; I realized he liked certain qualities of all three of the girls. He seemed to enjoy whenever they would come in throughout the summer and then it came to a head when the manager saw them in only their bathing suits. He says, “We want you decently dressed when you come in here.”(pg.227, paragraph seventeen, line two.) He didn’t feel it was appropriate for them to be in there dressed in only their bathing suits. When Sammy realizes he isn’t going to get to see the girls anymore he tries to stick up for them by quitting his job but it is too late because they have already left so they don’t even realize that he had done that sticking up for them.

Story of an Hour

The significance of paragraph 5 is that Mrs. Mallard is seeing everything in a whole new light. Kate Chopin notes, "[She] could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring of life. The delicious breath of rain in the air."(198) Reading this I got a sense of being there in her shoes, I could feel what she was feeling. In the 7th paragraph Chopin writes that Mrs. Mallard has a "dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of the patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought"(198). I think her thoughts were kind of lost, or her mental state of mind was frozen. As the story moves on, Mrs. Mallards demeanour changes and she starts to feel free. What really hit me hard was when Mrs. Mallard saw "beyond the bitter moment(husbands death) a long procession of years to come that would belong to only her. There would be no powerful will bending her in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature" (Chopin 198).
This story shows the kind of power a man has over a woman and how hard it is for a woman to break away from that power.

A&P by Updike

I can see in this being a "feminist protest" as the author John Updike describes because, the three girls decided to wear their swim suits into a grocery store and the manager was not happy with their decision on doing so. They had a little argument with the manager and tried to tell them they were dressed decent but, the manager would still differ his point to them. In my eyes i can understand how the author can say its a "feminist protest".
Sammy was the store employee who decided to quit after he thought his boss was rude to some female customers. A few of the reasons why he quit were: he wanted to go after the girls that his boss made blush, he disagreed with his boss, he wanted to impress the girls for standing up for them, and he disliked his job. He realizes his job suck and he wants to move on when the females were in a hurry and he wanted to help them. This story is a little dull to my taste but, i guess other people may disagree.

A & P

In my eyes A&P was a story of a boy reaching out for an unattainable girl who seemed to be able to control the actions of the boy without ever darting an eye towards him. The story kept my attention while describing "Queenie" as though she were a goddess. I feel the imagery details involved in this story were very captivating. The fact that Sammy had quit his job in such informality wasn't surprising to me; a teenage boy will do almost anything to captivate a girl into his world. When Sammy says “hold me tight”, it’s as if he is dreaming of an inconceivable achievement. Sammy realized in his mind she was the type of girl to play games and lead others, but yet he still pushed for bulletproof evidence that this girl was not his. Sammy had to do something drastic to book the realization that his incompetence had got him into trouble. Sammy had an epiphany that probably ended up changing his life. When he states “my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter”, he realizes what he has done will affect his future and relationships had been tainted due to one spontaneous decision.

The Story of an Hour

Kate Chopin's use of imagery in the fifth and sixth paragraphs of The Story of an Hour gave me the impression that Mrs. Mallard was seeing the world through new eyes and was noticing things that she had not before. Chopin writes, "[T]he tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life" (198). Later in the story we learn that the main character feels much the same way after she learn about the supposed death of her husband. In the seventh paragraph Chopin writes that the look in Mrs. Mallards eyes "indicated a suspension of intelligent thought" (198). When I read this I imaged her staring off into space, as we would say today. I think the line from paragraph eleven "The vacant state and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright," (Chopin 198) would have been the opposite of staring off into space. The three words that show the story's significance are "Free, free, free" (Chopin 198). When I read them they had such impact. Without them the story would read very different.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman use of stream-of-consciousness narration in The Yellow Wallpaper gives readers a dramatic account of the narrators break from reality. I feel like her mental condition changes every time she wrote. At first, the changes are slight. In the first passage the narrator talks mostly of her illness, her husband, and the house they have rented. She speaks only briefly of the yellow wallpaper. In the second passage on page 396 the narrator tells of her attempts to get the room repapered but still gives descriptions of the house and her interaction with her husband. In the third passage the narrator says of the yellow paper "It dwells in my mind so" (Gilman 398). After this the rest of the passages are dominated by her obsession with the wallpaper. On page 402 she takes this obsession beyond what most people would consider healthy when she writes of a woman being “behind the pattern” and staying up at night to "watch developments". The sentence "I think the woman gets out in the daytime" (Gilman 403) shows just how sever the narrator's break from reality has become. At the beginning of the story I would have considered her a reliable narrator, but by the end her distrust in others and complete break from reality make her very unreliable.

A&P

I think the main point to the story is about 'manly decisiveness.' The story falls into that category for many reasons. Number one, the story is from the point of view of Sammy who is a male character. Number two, the decisions in the story that have the most impact are when the manager chooses to confront the girls about they way they are dressed and then at the end of the story when Sammy stands up for the girls and himself by quitting. In the text Sammy speaks out; "I don't think you know what your saying" Lengel said. "I know you don't but I do" (Updike, 223). I think that statement says a lot about the intelligence Sammy holds. It was his decisions that ended his career at the grocery store and his voice that probably left a lasting impression in the mind of the manager.
I think Sammy had several reasons in his mind for which he wanted to quit and the final act of his manager embarrassing the girls put him over the edge. When he talks about the grocery store in which he works he sounds jaded. He talks about the customers as 'sheep' and doesn't seem to have great respect for his manager. He also quits because he wants to seem superior in the eyes of the girls he finds attractive. I think he did it to make a statement; to sweep them off their feet with his heroism.
Sammy's epiphany occurs at two points in the story. The first is when he realizes he has the power to stand up to his manager. He stands up for what he believes in and decides quitting is the best way to show it. The second time is at the end of the story when the manager says, "You'll feel this for the rest of your life" (Updike, 224). He realizes that might be the truth but then remembers the intensity of the situation and is reminded that he made the right choice in his eyes.

Story of an Hour

In paragraph 5 of the story I think the author is trying to get the reader to relate to the images Mrs. Mallard is viewing. The sentences create an image in the readers mind so they can feel as if they are standing next to the character. The author also delves into more than one of the human senses but talking about the smell in the air. "The delicious breath of rain was in the air" (Chopin, 193) is so detailed and deep it allows me to remind myself of that actual smell. When Chopin talks about Mrs. Mallards "suspension of thought" in paragraph 7 I believe she is talking about her state of mind. The descriptions of Mrs. Mallards manner throughout the story shows how detached she truly is from the situation. She is in the grieving process and isn't quite in touch with reality. As te story goes on the author portrays Mrs. Mallard as feeling free. I think this is where the story takes a turn in her demeanor. I think one of the most important passages in the story is when Mrs. Mallard is describing how her life will go on without her husband. "There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself.......and yet she had loved him-sometimes. Often she had not" (Chopin, 194). This part from the passage is very powerful. It shows her desire to live for herself and that she finally felt free of the walls her husband had built around her. This shows the stories significance because it emphasizes the power many man have over the women in their lives. Many are just waiting to break free, and unfortunately for Mrs. Mallard, that might have been what abruptly ended her life.

A Rose for Emily

The narrator of A Rose for Emily is a townsperson. He/She seems to be just overlooking the story but knows a lot about Emily. The fact that it is told out of order is very interesting to me and kept me reading through the whole thing. I like that there is foreshadowing and irony like on page 210 “So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell. That was two years after her father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart- the one we believed would marry her- had deserted her.” The smells is foreshadowing for the Homers body, which is not told until the end. And the Irony in the man who had deserted her even thought Emily made sure the desertion did not happen. She was afraid he would leave her just as her father did. Emily kills Homer and keeps him in a bed. She lies with him and almost seems to cherish him. I believe Emily felt an extreme lose from losing her father, but in turns kills Homer to keep him from leaving her.

A & P

After reading the story A&P, I believe this story focuses on conformity. The reason I believe this is because Sammy's attitude and behaviors are influenced throughout the story by the three girls in bikinis. First of all, he knows he shouldn't allow them to be in there without shirts and shoes on, but he allows it because he enjoys watching them. Once Sammy's manager confronts the girls about their inappropriate attire, which then leads to their embarrassment, Sammy decides to quit. Sammy didn't believe that Lengel needed to embarrass the girls in the manor that he did, and so Sammy wanted to become the girls' hero by quitting. His epiphany occurs when he quits, and he thinks the girls will be waiting for him when he comes outside. To his surprise, no one is waiting to thank him for what he has done, and now he is faced with the hardships to come.

The Story of an Hour

In paragraph 5 of The Story of an Hour, I believe the focus of the external images is to the readers Mrs. Mallard's calmness. As the story continues into paragraph 7, Mrs. Mallard continues to let her body and mind escape reality. I believe this is what Chopin means by "suspension of intelligent thought." She isn't thinking hard about anything but rather letting her mind be free. I think a situation opposite of this would be in paragraph 8. "There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know: it was too subtle and elusive to name." (Chopin) In those sentances, it seems that Mrs. Mallard's mind is no longer free, but now she is searching for an answer. She's confused, and therefore, her mind has not been "suspended of intelligent thought." My favorite paragraph in The Story of an Hour was paragraph 19. "Her fancy was running riots along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own." (Chopin) These few sentences were the ones that made me realize how happy she was to finally be alone. It was almost as if she felt a new found freedom that she had never felt before.

Rose for Emily

This story written by William Faulkner was a strange story because of the order and the ending. The narrator of this story was a man who had lived in the same town as Emily and knew quite a bit about her life. For me personally because this story was told out of order it was hard for me to follow. Emily's father died and because of that I think that was a reason why she wanted to keep Homer. I think that she didn't want to be alone and she didn't want to lose yet another man. So she killed Homer and ultimately he never left her. In the end of the story it was said that she would lay next to his decaying body because some men saw that there was an indentation of a head in the pillow next to Homer with a strand of iron-gray hair. That to me was very strange and unexpected.

A&P

I think John Updike’s short story, A &P, is about manly decisiveness. He talks about how the dress code in the store states that your shoulders must be covered whilst in the store, but Sammy disregards the rule so he can “enjoy the view” of the girls in the store. Sammy ends up quitting his job at the A & P because of rude customers, how his boss treats the inappropriately dressed customers, and because he wants to be a hero to the girls. “The girls, and who’d blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say ‘I quit’ to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they’ll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero.” At that moment, Sammy has an epiphany and decides to quit his job for the girls he stood up for and hopes that they will be outside the store waiting to thank him for what he did, but they aren’t. He realizes “how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter” seeing as how he just quit his job for nothing.

A Rose For Emily

The narrator of the story is a citizen of the town that Emily is a resident of. This person being the narrator shows more how he\she feels about Emily and the things she said and did. The narrator actually says she was “a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.”(pg. 209, paragraph three, line one.) The order jumps back and forth from present to past and then back to the present. It starts by saying they are going to attend Emily’s funeral and then goes back to tell about who she is and how she has acted. It then comes back to them attending her funeral and going through her house because no one had seen the inside of her house in nearly ten years.
Emily uses arsenic to poison Homer because he won’t be with her because he is gay. So she decides to make it appear as if they are getting married and then poisoned him and left him in the bed. She then continued to sleep in the same bed with his dead and decaying body. The people looking through the house find something more disturbing than the body of Homer in bed and he\she says, “Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head.”(pg. 215, paragraph fifty, line one.) They then found one of her iron gray hairs on the pillow suggesting she had been sleeping in the bed with his corpse recently. She decided that she wanted him because her father was not around to run him off, but with him being gay she had to take drastic measures to be sure she could keep him to herself.

A Rose for Emily

In Faulkners' A Rose for Emily the narrator seems to be a randon outside townsperson, not directly involved with the plot but an onlooker watching the story unfold. I believe that the reason the story is not told chronologically is due to the recollection and memory of the narrator. It is almost as if the narrator is trying to piece together and make sense of the story himself, trying figure out why details happened as they did. The narrator did know details about converstaion amond Emily and the druggist, "I want some poison," said Emily. "Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I'd recom--" responded the druggist (212). The narrator seemed to be there, for those conversations, but was not involved in them. The drugs were for killing her husband. But why did she do it? I have two theories. Emily did love Homer, but she was a proud woman. Maybe she killed him because he was not as high in the caste as she was. "Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, as a day laborer." (212) But she left him in the house and slept next to him. But, was ashamed of herself and about her name in town. The other theory is that he was gay. Maybe the terminology and circumstances was different in this stories time, but there is a curious excerpt in the plot "Then we said, " She will persuade him yet," because Homer himself had remarked -- he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elk's club-- that he was not a marrying man." (213) It could be a difference between the phrasing not and then, but that line stood out.