"The Worn Path"

"She did not close her eyes, and when a little boy brought her a plate with a slice of marble-cake on it she spoke to him. "That would be acceptable," she said. But when she want to take it there was just her own hand in the air. " Eudora Welty pg 450. I start out with this quote from the story because right away we realize something isn't right with this woman? She may have dementia or have hallucinogens that she may not know of. Throughout the story shes constantly seeing things with the Scarecrow and the hunter and even her grandson, which we don't even know if he is real? When she arrives at the clinic/hospital the people ask her all kinds of questions and she doesn't answer like she had a black out like would if you had seizures. When a person has a black out they forget what they were doing and have an out of mind experience such in a way that Phoenix did. Phoenix's whole goal you would think is to get her medicine to her grandson in this story but in actuality its more about her life and the struggles she has been through. Maybe she was a slave in her earlier years? Or maybe she had family that were slaves? She talks to the nurse about how her and her grandson are the only two left in the world. Phoenix is all alone and believing that her grandson is still alive gives her the strength to make it into town and gives her something to do to pass the time.

This story is about a single,well to do woman, who spends her Sunday afternoons in a park admiring others. There is a parade of people and she almost acts as if she wants to be them in some sort of way. She is a lonely lady, hoping to meet a stranger, that she can call her own someday. Miss Brill was an observer, and enjoyed watching people. Almost as if she was a dreamer and wishing she had what others did. She is a lonely lady. A smart, intelligent woman. An english teacher who was anxious to share her experiences with her class. At the end of the story, it talks about how she was made fun of by a young couple. She left the park that day, feeling alone, sad, empty, as thought no one had a care for her in the world.

The Lottery

I did not like this story. All 300 towns people; men, women, and children all gathering around the town square as if there was a big party going on. "Children assembled first...stuffing pockets with stones...picking the smoothest and roundest stones. The men gathered next...speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. Soon the women...calling the children" (405). It took me two times of reading this story to catch that the children were collecting rocks. I guess the first time I thought that they were just being boys, collecting and comparing rocks to pass the time while the adults take care of business. I was suprised how women were allowed to participate in the drawing if they did not have a man or grown son around. While reading it the first time I was also suprised of the lack of excitement to participate in the lottery. "Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year" (407). However after finishing reading the first time I would be less than excited too.

I Stand Here Ironing

As I was reading this story, I was really saddened. I felt bad for Emily and her mother. Emily's mother was young, at age 19 she was living in the Great depression and single at the time raising her. I felt hurt when she sent Emily away to a convalescent home so she could concentrate on her other children. Emily is not a fast learner and as pretty as the other children. She wanted to be like them. Emily would eat only very little. I believe it was because she never felt loved and that the thought of food spoiled her appetite. Her mother always felt guilty but didn't really take much action in showing Emily love. I felt that she never did work on showing her very much love even when she tried. Her mother felt it was to late and kind of just gave up. Emily could tell and showed it through her actions toward her mother. Emily did find a different kind of love in which she was good at and felt important. Emily would perform shows for crowds, and crowds would love her talent. She thought she was somebody at last. Emily just wanted her mother's love and knowing what had happened to her in the past, she would never feel that kind of love that her other siblings had. I feel that there are many children like this and it makes me feel for those children. I can't imagine what they are thinking everyday and how it will affect their lives and possibly their children. Children do need love growing up, and most importantly during those younger years. I wonder if the author had any kind of problems like this when she was younger? I liked this story, but it was sad to me.

The Storm

The Storm was a good story to me. It starts out when a storm is about to roll into their town. Alcee was just riding his horse to Calixta's house. I thought maybe he knew that Bibinot wasn't at home. It seemed as if he wasn't worried about seeing Calixta alone. I was surpised to read that Alcee and Calixta were lovers in the end. I thought Alcee and Calixta were lovers in the past. The story states in this passage "that Calixta had not seen Alcee very much since her marriage and never alone." This stuck out to me because I thought maybe they had been together before Calixta got married, and Bibinot was suspicous of them two together alone. Alcee would fasinate about Calixta's body, lips, skin, and eyes. It was like he had been dreaming about her for a very long time. Bibinot was a very good husband to Calixta. Alcee was also married to Clarisse, who he wrote a letter to in the very end of the story, that "she should not hurry back and to to stay a month longer if needed. He was willing to bear the separation a while longer." I don't think that Alcee and Clarisse were a very happy married couple, but to stay together because they had children. They were good to each other but not happy. I think secretly Alcee and Calixta are both waiting for another storm.

Graded

All posts below have been graded

"The Lottery"

I did not like this story at all at first I wasn't quite sure what was going on in my mine a lottery is a good thing. All the towns people rush to be there like its a great thing but now that I look back and reread it a little I find that its not a good thing at all and don't understand why anyone would want to have this kind of a lottery? Everyone in the town had to be there and take a piece of paper from the black box that dated back who knows how long? According to the part stating "Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head." Shirly Jackson pg 411. I was so appalled that someone would think up this sick game/lottery. From what I understand I guess its good if you don't get to be picked cause everyone gets to throw a rock at you? How long does this go on and every month? Is this a way for people if they have problems with someone to get back at them in some sick way? I guess I am confused at what was the point of this story and who would do such a thing?

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

This story is about a Grandmother, her three grandchildren, her son and daughter-in-law. They all live together and are discussing a family trip to Tennesseee to visit some relatives. The story starts out with the Grandmother discussing a newspaper article regarding three inmates that escaped from the state pen, and on their way to Florida. The Grandmother is bound and determined for the whole family to go to Tennessee, in hopes of not running into the inmates. So, the next day, the family packs up, and heads off for their vacation. The two oldest grandchildren, John Wesley, eleven years old and June Star, I'm thinking she is maybe around eight or nine, but seems to know more than she should. Both children are sassy and disrespectful. The daughter-in-law is just kind of there. She is busy with the baby, and the grandmother's son, Bailey seems to be a different character. I don't think he feels to much love for his mother. I think he just puts up with her. So they are on their way to Tennessee. They stop at a filling station for lunch and small discussion with the owners. They leave the station, and end up taking a "detour" to scenic route through a plantation. This of course is the grandmothers idea, and her and the children were able to persuade Bailey to take this detour. So the family is traveling on a dirt road, in which the grandmother was sure it was the right road, that she remembered. Turns out it was the wrong road, and entirely different road in a different state. They end up having an accident, flipping the vehicle. The daughter-in-law and baby get thrown out of the car, the grandmother is injured and the rest are okay. The family is sitting on the side of the road waiting for help and it turns out three men come across them. All three men get out and right away the Grandmother has suspicions that they are the "misfits" that have escaped from the prison. Right away there is conflict, one of the three men take the grandson and Bailey to the woods, they end up shooting them. The Grandmother is begging them, they kill her and finish the rest of the family off. I just was surprised that the ending turned out how it did. I wasn't expecting for all of them to die. The Grandmother was a talker, and I thought she could of persuaded the men off in another direction and they would of been left alone and went off on their vacation.

"The Storm

In reading "The Storm" by Kate Chopin it first appears that Calixta is a normal housewife very involved with performing her wifely duties. But while she is a devoted wife and mother she has passions of her own with Alcee Laballiere that erupt again when he gets caught in the same storm and takes cover at Calixta's house while her devoted husband and son are away in town. After reading the story a second time I realized that the title, "The Storm", may mean the stormy relationship (affair) that she has with Alcee. When Alcee and Calixta do bow to tempation, that just like the clouds of a storm dissipate and the sun comes out, their regular lives also become happier after their "sensual" needs are fulfilled. They obviously have a past but I believe that it didn't work out between them in the long term because of the different social classes that they belonged to. Alcee's words aren't slang as they appear in the text, however, Calista's are, and it appears that she is uneducated. Maybe society wouldn't allow them to be together so this affair has to exist in private to fulfill their desires while carrying on a "normal" family life within their social status. In the second paragraph of part II it reads, "She had not seen him very often since her marriage and never alone." This leads me to believe that either Bobinot didn't trust her in the presence of Alcee or she didn't trust herself. Another reference to an ongoing affair is in part II as well, "...against which his honor forbade him to prevail." This is in reference to them being together in Assumption, and from what I gather in this paragraph is that Alcee was married at that time and Calista either was or wasn't married at that time as well. They obviously have a passion together that they don't have between their own spouses and appears that when they satisfy this passion their regular family lives prosper emotionally. I think its too simple to just say that bad equals good in this story because obviously having an affair is morally wrong, however, it seems to work for all involved in this story. Even Alcee's wife makes a reference to being free or having a desire for being away from Alcee when she says, "...their conjugal life was something which she was more than willing to forego for a while." Typically when you are away from someone you love completely you miss them and want to come back in a timely manner. This statement kind of makes it seem like she is a bit happier when she is away and that she is okay to be away for a long period of time. Maybe they had an "arranged" marriage, and that is why Calixta and Alcee did not marry. The story is ironic in the fact that Bobinot is the only character happy with his life and not tempted by desire to pursue anyone other than his wife Calixta. His only simple desire is to make Calixta happy with a can of shrimps purchased from the store in town when he and Bibi arrive back home. They also take good care that they are somewhat clean from the muddy walk home.

"I Stand Here Ironing"

In this story a young mother is just trying to make it on her own raising her children and trying to do the best that she can do. I feel for her because raising children is more than a full time job you are wanting to do the best you can by them and make sure they come out on top. Because her oldest daughter Emily is slower and needs more time and effort to care for which she can not give. Because she could not care for her she sends her away. In this section of the story by Tillie Olsen pg. 284 "But never a direct protest, never rebellion. I think of our others in their three-four-year-oldness-the explosions, the tempers, the denunciations, the demands-and I feel suddenly ill. I put the iron down. What in me demanded that goodness in her? And what was the cost, the cost to her of such goodness?" is a main part of the story dealing with the ironing and Emily. Basically every working, single mother has so much on her plate and never seems to have enough time for the things she wants to do like love her children more. All little Emily wants is the love from her mother and support she deserves. In the end Emily gains back what she lost throughout her childhood and her talent show through. Even though her mother tries to give her the things she didn't think she gave her enough when she was younger, Emily tries to be strong and stand on her own two feet. Deep down I know Emily wants her mothers love more than anything in the world she could do and for her to be proud of her.

"The Storm"

In this story I see a worried mother for her husband and children not know where they are and if they are safe or not. She busy in her doing her own thing doesn't realize that there is a storm but at the last minute runs around trying to get everything together and in that moment see someone from her past Alcee. I believe these two had a past that they had both not forgotten about but just gotten sweeped under the rug. "Do you remember-in Assumption, Claixta? he asked in a low voice broken by passion. Oh! She remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed and kissed her; until his sense would well nigh fail, and to save her he would resort to a desperate flight." Kate Chopin pg. 257. This part of the story is where they both remember once past and the feelings and emotions they both shared for each other but for some reason they couldn't have it? Both being worried about the storm and family got caught up with the familiar feel between each other and in a heat of passion made love. Although both knowing it was wrong couldn't help themselves and it meant more to both of them but no one was to ever know but them. A secret that would haunt them both. In my own beliefs this would be wrong and these two characters both know it but couldn't help themselves and the love that they once shared between them.

Rose for Emily

The story states Homer Barron liked men and it was known that he drank with the men at the Elk's Club and that he was not the marrying kind. So it's hard to not assume that Homer was gay. As far as Miss Emily being of color, I guess I didn't think she was African- American. Miss Emily was a daughter of a confederate soldier from the 1800's. In the story it talks about her "negro, leaving her house with a market basket," therefore I believe he was her slave. In the 1800's slavery was widespread in the south. The story also mentions her, Miss Emily, resembling the angels in colored church windows. The churches that I have been in, do not have angels of color. The narrator of the story is a townsperson. The tone of the story is sympathy and cautious curiosity. In the story when it is mentioned about when her father passed away, how he had been in the house for three days, until finally the doctors and minister had convinced her to let them bury him. The towns people believed she was not crazy, but was clinging onto what little she had. Emily ends up poisoning Homer Barron with arsenic. Maybe she hated men. Maybe she was bitter towards her father about ruining her previous relationships. The townspeople remembered all the young men that her father had "driven away."

The Yellow Wallpaper

The way this story starts out, I am able to tell right away that she is a anxious person. I could tell that she has many ideas that go through her head over and over again. Her husband and brother are physicians and also agree with her that she has a illness. A nervous and depression disorder that they tell her someday will get better. She and her husbad move into a rental house for the summer and sleep in this room with yellow wallpaper! She hates this yellow wallpaper. I sometimes wonder why exactly they chose that room to sleep in because she hated it so much. It drives her "crazy" everyday. She states that the color of the wallpaper "is repellent, almost revolting; smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others." She talks about this wallpaper so much that she starts to see women in the wallpaper that are unable to get of the wallpaper. She sees these women at night and in the end, the story shifts to herself being one of those women in the wallpaper. I was really surpised in the end because I didn't think that she was going to do this. She tears the wallpaper down and her husband finds her doing this and faints himself. I feel that there are people out there that are like this. Maybe not to this extent, but when something is bothering them, they will think about it so much that they go insane. I feel like she may have a little obsessive compulsive disorder. Where she is always writing down ideas and things, and she just can't stop. I feel that the author may have related herself to this story also. I think this a good text because there are so many ways to look at.

A Rose for Emily

I really enjoyed reading this short story and even though I wasn't quite sure how to go about it when it started once I finished it I was intrigued. Although I would never be OK with killing someone for any reason I understand in a way why she did it. She was so afraid to be alone and unloved in a way this made her believe someone would always be there for her. Everyone was always interested in what Emily was doing and in a way they were jealous cause of her big house and how her father had given her everything. "Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows-she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house-like the carven torso of an idol in niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from generation to generation-dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse." William Faulkner pg. 211. But growing up in a small town I know how neighbors are and they are always interested in someone elses business and whats going on in their lives such as in this line of the story clearly states the town was always watching her. Emily was lost in her own little world and she wanted to be loved in the end when they opened the room with the body of Homer in there you could finally realize that she would give anything to be loved by someone even kill them. With the way the body was laid out she must have laid by him many many nights just to get the feel that someone would love her and hold her in that way.

The Story of an Hour

I thought this story was very interesting because at first I wasn't sure the beginning meant when the story started out as Mrs. Mallard had a heart trouble. Clearly in the end, she died of heart disease-of joy that kills. The end of this story is sad to me because she didn't know if she loved him or not. In the end, it killed her whether it was love or not. Mrs. Mallard was a small women with slender arms. A passage in the story that really caught my eye was "Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering. She was so happy she was free but yet weeping for his death. Another one that caught my eye was "And yet she had loved him-sometimes. Often she had not." I knew that her husband must have done something very wrong to her. Not only once, but for several years. In the end, I counldn't believe that Brently was still living, and yet it was to late for him to even realize anything. This story, I felt, was sad. Mrs. Mallard died of saddness and joy. To me, the story meant how sad she was that he died and what a joy it was to her that she won't ever get hurt again.

All posts below are from the 2008 spring students. Watch for new posts from the fall 2008 students!

Dulce et Decorum Est

Check out this slideshow for the poem.