the mark on the wall

I did like this story but I felt like in certain areas it was dragged out a bit too much. I loved the descriptive language and how it really made me think of life and what it means to me, but I think it could have been presented in a more interesting way. The description of the mark on the wall was a little to long for my taste. However, through the great use of language and diction, it really did get to me. I believe that because it was such a simplistic black mark on the white wall, it really created an image in my head. It made me see a perfect wall with a small but very powerful imperfection on it. I thought that what if the mark wasn’t there? What if it was just a white wall? The whole story would have change. The world would have been perfect but just because such a small mark was on the wall made all the difference. It made me realize we have to appreciate the small imperfections in life and not just ignore them. 

The Prussian Officer

The story of the Prussian Officer is a story of two men and their roles within the military. The way the two of these characters interact with one another represents the ways that power can be abused and how people who have a certain superiority can let their power get to their head and the how the results of this can be upsetting.

In the beginning of the story, the Officer is overcome with the pleasant nature of the Orderly. He finds him to be very calm and mature, but the training of the Officer tells him to shun these thought and the Officer eventually comes to hate the Orderly. This is to the detriment of the Orderly as the Officer then takes out his hate on him, resulting in a variety of lashings out towards the Orderly. On one occasion, the Officer becomes so enraged that he savagely beats the Orderly. This inevitably kills the two of them as the beating brings out a beast within the Orderly. He sees that his best plan of revenge is to kill the Officer.

I believe that this story touches on the ways in which power can be abused, and those who come to obtain this sense of power, or authority can have their minds flooded with harmful thoughts and feelings that eventually hurt the ones around them. This is clear in this story as the power that the Officer has, combined with the mixed feelings he felt about the Orderly lead to the murder of the two of them.

Araby

First of all, I loved this story. I felt like it was a story that was easy to read and understand what was happening but yet it had so many hidden meanings and if you really broke the story down you would find several different things. What jumped out at me while I was reading the story was the point of view. The point of view in Araby is an older man telling a story of his crush when he was much younger, about 10-12 years old. This is relevant because it gives a different feel to the story. If a young narrator told it, the whole story would just feel so innocent and not have to much meaning. However, because the old man is looking back upon it, it creates a tone of wonder and reflectiveness. The general tone and feel of this short story was very dark and gloomy. However, when Joyce mentioned the girl who the narrator had a crush n, there was a sudden change of environment, the setting was filled with light as represented in the scene where she opens the door too call for her brother, there is a spot light on her from inside the house. This contrast creates a religious connection to angels and how pure and savior like the girl was in the young boys eyes.

Insanity

The short story “The Mark on the Wall” by Virginia Woolfe really left me puzzled. Not only do I have hardly any inclination what the story is trying to say, half the time I can not even begin to follow her Woolfe’s writing style. I feel like there is purpose to the story, though; especially through the use of a unreliable narrator. The only part of the story we are given is all from the narrator’s mind and point of view, which has proven to be quite difficult to follow. Secondly, we really get an odd sense of one minor detail through this choice of narrator. Not only do we see the mark on the wall, but we get into the narrator’s mind and we are able to see all the predictions and thoughts that are circling this crazy woman’s head. On a second read, the story was still quite bewildering, but a little intriguing. The only conclusion that one can come to is that this woman is definitely insane. I mean, she may just be bored and stuck staring at one single mark on the wall for too long, but her descriptions and ideas really lead me and probably others to believe that she might not be all there in her head. Some sort of traumatic event or something must have off set her and her sanity. The story comes from a very interesting viewpoint and the length makes it easy to read multiple times. I hope to uncover what really is troubling this narrator’s mind and maybe make infer something about her past.

Puppy Love or Disillusionment?

In the short story “Araby” by James Joyce, the narrator is experiencing something all young teenagers go through: puppy love. That obsessive, seemingly invokable infatuation that one may have on someone that they hardly know, or may have never talked to before; that moment of young spontaneity that cannot be mistaken. The narrator tries his hardest to impress Mangan’s sister, the girl that he is so madly in love with. In the end, he realizes that his efforts are all for not. He was disillusioned by this fantasy of love and of Mangan’s sister. His expectations are shattered, and in turn shatters his reality. His life from that point on will not have the same outlook that it did prior. His innocence of childhood has been taken away by the failure of his first love. This all contributes to the thematic part of the story saying that it is a coming of age story. He is not longer a child who believes in wistful and lustful love, but instead he is aware of the cynicism and the reality that rest of his life has in store for him. The beginning of the story and the end completely contrast each other. One is hopeful and willing and loving and the end really does leave him barren and left to see the world in a pretty cynical fashion. The theme of this story is strong and almost universal which contributes to the ability for many people who read “Araby” to relate to this short story.

Modest Mouse- Lives

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcpd2ojWS8U

The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf presents an extremely interesting train of thought style narrative. This narrative proposes an interesting idea on our society and it’s relationship to nature. Virginia Woolf uses an unidentified mark on the wall to carry her train of thought thought the uses and problems of a civilized society, pointing out the uselessness of many of the social interactions and issues we deal with. This is contrasted by idea that wood is something special. Wood grows from trees and trees are an intricate and important part of nature, yet we cut them down and use them for our futile societies. In order to find meaning, we should view the little things in life and not take things for granted. At fist the mark on the wall was a nuisance, yet it was a simple beautiful snail. If she took the time to notice the little imperfections, she would fully appreciate the beauty in the world.

One of my favorite bands, Modest Mouse, takes their name from the line in this story. I find this to be realistically fitting, because much of their music urges people to look at the world a bit differently. I have included a link to one of my favorite songs by them, which ties in well to this story.

Araby

Araby was an easy read and it was a good story. It was relatable so that made it more interesting than some of the other stories we have read. It is being told from an adult, remembering his first hopeless crush. The story had very well written descriptions of the setting and the girl which made me kind of imagine the whole story. The analysis is the author, as an older version of himself, writing about himself as a kid/teenager and as he is writing, he kind of understands how silly it was that he had a huge crush on this girl that he did not even talk to at all and he described her like she was the best thing that happened to him even though they said one word to each other about going to Araby, hence our great title. It was cute overall though. He described her really nicely and was very romantic about it, possibly because he is now older and can think better of writing his “love.”  I think he made it more lovey than it was at the time because a little kid could not think of things like how he described the girl but I think one of the reasons he did that was to add some kind of irony in the sense that he was “in love” with someone he barely knew as a child because that is how most childhood crushes go. It was a good piece and I hope to read more from Joyce in the future!

There is no week 7 so I’m posting in week 6!

The Mark on the Wall

Just reading the first paragraph of the story there was a whole lot of imagery. Woolf also made use of her colors (red and black) which kind of set a tone of the story and made me want to know more.

“I looked up through the smoke of my cigarette and my eye lodged for a moment upon the burning coals, and that old fancy of the crimson flag flapping from the castle tower came into my mind, and I thought of the cavalcade of red knights riding up the side of the black rock. Rather to my relief the sight of the mark interrupted the fancy, for it is an old fancy, an automatic fancy, made as a child perhaps.”

Its interesting how the point of the story was not to find out what the mark was but instead about her thoughts and fancies regarding the mark. I would think that the mark on the wall would be something more meaningful, and it turns out that it was a snail, and that was disappointing to me. A human’s ability to have a solid train of thought is important, and this was put to the test in this story.

Reading this story reminded me of the Yellow Wallpaper and the narrator’s fascination with it and its purpose. The only difference is that the narrator’s fascination in the Yellow Wallpaper drove her crazy and the narrator in this story did not let it get that far.

-Ashley Saint-Cyr

Identity Change

Kafka used symbolism in this story well, by making the breeze/ wind symbolize freedom, which I felt was the main focus of this story. I enjoyed reading this story because it gave an “ape” human qualities which were interesting in which it showed the way animals differ from humans. Who would ever thing to give human characteristics to an ape or any animal, that was genius of Kafka. Just seeing the ape learn to do all the things we might take for granted is priceless.

“It was so easy to imitate these people. I could already spit on the first day. Then we used to spit in each other’s faces. The only difference was that I licked my face clean afterwards. They did not. Soon I was smoking a pipe like an old man, and if I then also pressed my thumb down into the bowl of the pipe, the entire area between decks cheered. Still, for a long time I did not understand the difference between an empty and a full pipe. I had the greatest difficulty with the bottle of alcohol. The smell was torture to me. I forced myself with all my power, but weeks went by before I could overcome my reaction.”

The narrator got the best of both worlds, where he was able to live lives in human shoes. The way the story started grabbed the readers attention and I feel that’s important for a good story!

-Ashley Saint-Cyr

Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway’s use of diction and syntax in Snows of Kilimajaro is revolutionary.  Short, precise statements that still get complex ideas across.  Ideas like death and how to cope with death in your final moments is portrayed primarily through what is not said.  The negative space in the story is probably the most informative.  For instance, Hemingway says that the girlfriend had a dream about her father, and nothing more.  The reader must derive from that what they can, be it a Freudian reference, or just a comment on her negative history with men.  Hemingway has nearly perfect language that completely envelops the reader in the setting, and terms like rich bitch are abruptly poetic.  The characters are complex and imperfect, and have times of shine and times of atrocity, Harry has moments that he seems to be an attempt to redeem himself but are patched with despicable moments of ungratefulness.  And his girlfriend seems like a caregiver primarily, but also seems very dependent and pretty air headed at times.  Hemingway is nothing short of a genius that is able to  completely create a comprehensible personality profile on both these characters in less than twenty pages.  I have only read a couple of his stories and I’m rushing to read as many as possible now.