Don DeLillo, “Midnight in Dostoevsky

Don DeLillo’s, “Midnight in Dostoevsky” is about these two freshmen college boys who are walking from their dorms to their class. What I got from the story is that these two guys are new to each other. Since they are away in college they do not have many friends so that is the thing they have most in common, the desire to make friends. As a college student away from home myself, I can relate to these guys. When I first got to college I did not know anyone here so it was make friends any way possible or die. These two guys are walking to class talking about “what if’s” (I know MANY guys who do this and have a lot of fun doing it). Anyway they both share a teacher who they are very much intrigued by and this class might be how they met. As they are walking to class together they notice an elderly man who is walking as well and they start to “what if” him. They start by judging him by what he is wearing, like his coat. Then they go into imaginary things like based off of his coat what type of hat would he be wearing IF he had one? They also point out that he is not wearing gloves even though it is cold outside which makes the old man seem off. At the end of the story the two boys are surprised to see that this old man who they were analyzing was their teacher!

Anais Rodriguez

Toni Morrison, “Recitatif”

In Toni Morrison’s, “Recitatif” we see a relationship between two girls who are different in social class and race but we cannot tell which girl belongs to which race. Roberta and Twyla were both put in a state home for children when they were about 8 years old and they were roommates there. We are told that Roberta’s mother is sick and Twyla’s mother just likes to dance too much and that is why they were brought to the state home in the first place. As soon as Roberta and Twyla meet we can automatically tell they are of two different races because one girl tells the other that her mother would not have approved of her rooming with the other. But as time passes they actually start getting along as roommates because they actually start realizing that they have more qualities alike than different. They both like to eat chicken, they both become against the big girls on the second floor and the real orphans at the state home. They both also share an appeal towards Maggie, a lady that works in the state home kitchen but cannot talk and whom they say has “legs like parenthesis.”  The only time the girls notice their differences is when their mothers come to visit them on Sundays, they both come dressed inappropriately and either of the moms will treat each other. The two girls meet again five more times in their lives and every encounter brings out their differences even more.

Anais Rodriguez

Salman Rushdie, “The Prophet’s Hair”

Salman Rushdie, “The Prophet’s Hair.” Is I’m guessing literally about a Prophet’s piece of hair what changes people. But it only seems to change the people for the good when the people don’t even know they are around it. The Prophets hair was stolen and put in a lake. One day Hashim, a money lender, finds the hair takes it home and puts it in a safe place with all his other treasures. Hashim becomes obsessed with the hair and goes from being a great husband, father, and business man to an abusive madman. His son, Atta, notices that ever since his dad brought home that hair he has gone nuts. They blame all of the father’s actions on his obsession over the hair so Atta decides to get rid of it. Atta finds the hair and leaves his house but notices that his pants had a hole in them and the hair had fallen out of his pocket. Atta knew his dad had something to do with that. Since he failed his sister came up with another idea to hire a thief to steal the hair. So they did and when the thief came to steal the hair Hashim kills his daughter unknowingly in the dark. The thief got away with the hair but the police went after him. After all of this happened the blind wife and four crippled kids of the thief all got cured. So therefore, the morale of the story is that the Prophets Hair only did good to those who did not know it was in their possession.

Milan Kundera, “The Hitchhiking Game”

Milan Kundera, “The Hitchhiking Game,” is about a young couple who have only been together for about one year.  They are on a trip together for thirteen days but the story is only about the first day of their trip. It starts off by telling us that the girl in the relationship is very self-conscious about her body and sexuality, she knows that in the past her boyfriend has been with extremely confident girls who have pleased her him sexually. We can tell that she is scared of her boyfriend getting tired of her purity and leaving her for one of the seductive girls he has been with in the past. When in reality her boyfriend really likes her because she is a good and pure girl who hasn’t been with so many men sexually. On their way to their vacation they pull over at a stop and she gets off the car and starts walking down the street by herself. Her boyfriend drives up and starts to act as if he doesn’t know her. She starts acting like a hitch hiker who doesn’t know him either and they start to play “The Hitchhiking Game.” She gets into his car and takes advantage of the opportunity to start acting like one of the girls who her boyfriend is used to being with. They get to a hotel and have dinner. Her boyfriend begins to really believe that she is who she’s acting to be, he starts disrespecting her and at the end she regrets it.

Graham Greene, “The Destructors”

Graham Greene’s, “The Destructors,” is about back in the day post World War Two in London after the German bombings. The Germans bombing became something that was so normal to the people in London, kids that where born right before this era were born basically into a war life style. They knew nothing else but war. This story is about a gang of kids, from the ages of 9 to about 16, who just wanted to be infamously known to destroy with out purpose. The gang was named after the place they lived in, “Wormsley Common Gang”. Their neighborhood had recently been bombed and everything was destroyed except for one beautiful, two hundred year old, house. The gang of boys was out to destroy this house from the inside out. The man that lived in the house, Mr. Thomas, who the boys called “Old Misery”, was always nice to the boys by offering them candy but these boys never trusted him, which I don’t understand why not. The boys gathered all their weapons and tools to destroy Mr. Thomas’ house and they waited until he was gone on a bank holiday to attack. What I would like to know is, where are these kids parents?! Anyway, the boys went on their destroying, they even set all of Mr. T’s money on fire because they didn’t want to be known as thieves. Poor Mr. T got home too early and the boys locked him inside his out house while they finished their destroying. Mr. T was stuck in there until someone drove off with a rope tied to the out house wall.

Anais Rodriguez

Kurt Vonnegut, “Welcome to the Monkey House”

Kurt Vonnegut’s, “Welcome to the Monkey House,” is a very interesting story. Stories that talk about what the future is predicted to be have always interested me. Even though all the stories seem impossible to actually happening there is still a slight chance that the future could be a dystopian place. There is still so much technology and new ideas that can be come up with from now to then, anything can happen. In “Welcome to the Monkey House” we have this guy who went to the zoo on Easter with his family and saw all the monkeys masturbating. Seeing this inspired him to create a drug that will numb animals and humans from the waist down so we can’t have sexual pleasure or need, even though we can still reproduce. This was invented because the world population was 17 billion and the government needed a way to cut down. Not only was the government making sex a fearful thing but they were also making ethical suicide a pleasurable thing. There were ethical suicide parlors where you can go and basically get convinced to kill yourself. Billy the Poet is on his way to Cape Cod to kid naps one of these Ethical Suicide hostesses, who by the way dressed very skimpy. Billy wants to take her and convince her that the numbing pill as well as suicide is unethical. Once the hostess medication wares off Billy rapes her and opens her mind completely. Billy gets to convince her that sex and death aren’t the answer, birth control pills are.

Anais Rodriguez

Vladimir Nabokov, “The Vane Sisters” is a pretty confusing story since it jumps from the present to the past and back to the present. It is about a French literature professor at an all girls college. On his way home one night he bumps into an old colleague named, D who he has not seen in four years. They start to converse and D tells the narrator how he found out through his lawyer that Cynthia Vane had passed away. Cynthia had been a girl the narrator once had a relationship with. The narrator used to be the teacher of Cynthia’s littler sister, Sybil. Even though D was married, he was having an affair with Sybil. The narrator met Cynthia when she came to the school to talk to him about convincing D to either divorce his wife or resign from the school. So the narrator talks to D and D insures him that he is moving to Albany with his wife where he will be working there as well and the affair would for sure end. The next day in class the narrator gave a test and while going over them he finds a message Sybil left on her exam, “Death was not better than D minus, but definitely better than Life minus D.” the narrator immediately calls Cynthia and finds out that Sybil had committed suicide that morning. The narrator and Cynthia start dating shortly after but something ends their relationship and now he finds out that the Vane sisters are both dead.

Anais Rodriguez

Robert Penn Warren, “Blackberry Winter”

Robert Penn Warren, “Blackberry Winter” was similar to James Joyce’s, “Araby.” Both stories are narrated by a young boy but the story is actually told by the same person years later in their adult stages of life. To me this story just reminded me of “Araby.” Though, “Blackberry Winter” is not like “Araby” in the sense of the story line. In Blackberry winter we see a relationship between Seth, the narrator, and his father or we can also say ‘father figure’. Seth sees a strange man one day out side of his house walking up with a knife in one and dressed like he comes from the city. Seth didn’t like the way this man was dressed considering he lives on a farm, we see Seth say, “Everything was wrong about what he wore.” Seth notices the man was there to work but he wasn’t doing such a great job. Seth then goes to meet his father at the flood watching. The weather during this time was exceptionally cold and rainy in the middle of June. People were thinking that the end of the world was approaching since the weather was so bad. They blamed it on the earth not being able to handle all the sinners that live on it. Seth saw a dead cow flowing down the river and at the time Seth didn’t understand what the men were talking about but we can tell that now as an adult he understands better to what they meant about the cow. We can tell Seth has learned a lot since this time in his life.

Anais Rodriguez

Flannery O’Connor, “Good Country People”

was a pretty boring story but I will either way try my best to explain it anyway. Hulga Hopewell is one of the main characters in this story. She is one of the only female characters we hear about.  This story is confusing due to the fact that there are four different stories all in one story. Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter Hulga Hopewell are given this specific last name, Hope well, because they are somewhat blind to the world. They think that whatever you want can be achieved and that there is no evil in this world. Since they think like this they “hope well” that everything they want would come true. Then there is Mrs. Freeman who sees all the reality In this world and she seems to concentrate on the more negative things in life, like what can possibly go wrong. Mrs. Hopewell has always raised her daughter to be blinded to the worlds bad and only think everything is good and dandy but Hulga ended up getting her Ph. D in philosophy and while in school she learned that everything her mom ever told her was not true. Hulga now knows that there is more to the world than just rainbows and giggles. Hulga getting her PH. D in philosophy is seen as rebellion, just like when Hulga changed her name from Joy to Hulga. Her mom was extremely hurt of how her daughter had been rebelling even in the way she dressed.

Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal”

This story is just sad I didn’t like it, it had me depressed. The narrator, a black man, whose grandparents always taught him to kill the racist white people with kindness finds him self always being treated badly by the white people. One day this man performed a speech at his high school graduation. The speech was about how black people can advance in life. The speech was so good that he was invited to say it at a gathering of his community’s leading white people. He knew they wouldn’t approve of it but he also knew it was for the best. Once he gets to this gathering the white people make him join in a “Battle Royal” where they blind folded him and made him fight his own classmates. Before they blind folded him they brought out a white naked girl with an American flag painted on her belly to dance around and the white men forced the black men to look at her. He obviously had more respect for this girl than any body else there since when she first came out he looked away. He didn’t win this Battle but the ones who did jumped on an electric rug just to retrieve the coins it had on it. The narrator finally gave his speech. While he did, all the white men laughed at him and criticized everything he would say. When he was done with his speech they gave him a scholarship to a black college.