Welcome to the Monkey House

“Welcome to the Monkey House” by Kurt Vonnegut was first published in the older Playboy magazines. If you ask me that is an unusual place to first publish a short story of any kind. This story was a good story in my opinion because I like when older authors write their stories taking place in the future because well we live in the future. It helps me relate and sty more interested in the story and I definitely like this story. In this story the government controls or tries to control the population. They do this by giving the people a form of birth control that does not make the people infertile but destroys the desire to have sex. Since the story takes place in a futuristic time we can see that as we get close to that time in real life that desire is not a bad thing at all. Desire is what makes people do things but I guess the great desire for sex can drive people to do things that are not right in the eyes of people. In this story there is a girl who is a virgin who seems to be held back in life because of this. When she gets raped it opens up her world to all new things. That would never happen in today’s day and age but not the point. The sex drives her to do better things in her life. This story was interesting story but a good one in my opinion.

– Vincent Ibarrola

Love, Dad. P.S. have sex

The short story of “Love, Dad” was an interesting story that we read in this class. The short has many letters in it from his dad, which somewhat don’t make much sense to me or to many people to believe. Nately is the kid in the armed forces whose parents are basically the stereotypical rich people that are to good for everyone else. So basically one letter from his father tells him to have a ton of sex but to have it with people who are lower class because they know how to have the best sex. Throughout the story I got the sense that his father liked to write letters and took joy of it. I do because he would write “haha” which isn’t really normal if you ask me.  I know that at the time letters were not only formal but also just for leisure as we get in this story. Anyways Nately or his parents are smart for putting him in the air division so that he would never see the war or that’s what they thought when doing it. They also did this I believe and we talked about in class because the front-runners or infantry guys are the lower class of the armed forces. They are basically the grunts or poor people of the army, which isn’t right at all. Overall this was a good story even though most of it was not understood at all by myself.

– Vincent Ibarrola

Ace

John Updike has many great works that he has created. The short story “Ace in the Hole” was a good read in my opinion. At the beginning of the story we meet Ace or his real name Fred, and right away are told that he was fired from his job. Talk about a great way to start of a story right? This really gives the reader the mood of the story so that when we read it, it all makes sense to us. On his way home from his previous job he stops at his mother’s house to pick up his daughter. He tells his mom that he was fired but is scared to tell his wife. After they talk he leaves his moms house and decides to run to his house with his kid. Why does he do this? Well apparently some inspirational words from his father. Personally I would have drove, but this gives us more insight to what kind of person he actually is. When at home he starts to come down from his run and the bad day comes back in prospective. He shuts out his daughter with sound. When his wife comes home all he wants to do is dance with her to bring his mood up. This shows us that he is a simple guy and even though his wife is kind of resisting the dancing make shim happy. Well to me it seems that his life was anything but an “Ace in the Hole” at this time period.

– Vincent Ibarrola

The Destructors

The short story, “The Destructors” was a story that I enjoyed reading. The story takes place in the late 40’s time after war and destruction. Anyways throughout the story we follow this “gang” of kids. They are not like killing everyone they see kind of gang but a small crime gang. They are all young and seem to not care for anything in the world. As humans we are most definitely affected by things that happen in everyday life. In this case all these young kids are affected by the war. Growing up around it, war is all they know really and they just want to live that dangerous life. I believe this story really shows the loss of innocence in these kids, which can be related to these days. When I was reading this story all I could think about was younger kids in actual gangs today, whether it is to be cool or whatever, it is not right really. The kids really never saw the good side of anything and needed to be bad to get their happiness. So what they did was trash and burn this old man’s house. As we read the story we get no sense that hated this old man so why did they do it? And as if that was not enough they threw him in a little shed with some food as they tore apart his 200-year-old house. This story was not hard to read but had a deeper complex meaning to it. That I believe is one major reason why I think I liked it.

– Vincent Ibarrola

1 and 2

Samuel Beckett’s “’1’ and ‘2’”, was nothing short of shocking really. This story took me by surprise because when you first look at it, it looks like a hyper child just babbling about nothing. Then as you read along and the story progresses you start to notice that in all the chaotic text, there is a coherent structure and story. It took me about ten minutes to get through the first few lines, as I had to sit there and re-read everything three times over and over. It is unique in the sense that he basically contradicts everything he says. Going back to the child who is like, “I like this toy” and then is bored in two minutes. This is what the story reminded me of the whole time. The person in the short story is in really deep thought I believe because he is thinking through every word that comes out of his mouth. It isn’t always and bad thing and then a good thing or vice versa. I feel like this story is most definitely a stream of thoughts just flowing through a person’s head but the person is far from dumb. Yes, the contradictions are there but they all make sense to the story in many ways. Overall the story was kind of tough to read and nothing really like anything I have come across before but still it was manageable.

– Vincent Ibarrola

Sonny’s blues

The short story (well that is what we call it in class, not so short this time) “Sonny’s blues”, by Baldwin was a unique story in many ways. First off this story is relatable especially in today’s day and age. I say this because more people connect with music like in older times but today with many more genres that were not so big back then. I say this because even when I am annoyed or something I can just block out the world with music and it makes it better. In the short story Baldwin breaks on the structure to flow like music in a way. With all music there is a pace and this story follows a certain beat in a sense. Also the story had two characters, which are basically opposites. The narrator and his brother (sonny), have two completely different points of view on almost everything. A unique aspect that this author used was flashbacks. They snuck up on you like lion stalking a gazelle; just out of nowhere you are reading something you thought you understood. Anyways with all that being said overall it was not a bad story it was just a complex read. Something that did help was listening to the music in class and then looking at this story like sheet music.

– Vincent Ibarrola

Battle Royal

Ralph Ellison wrote a book called “Invisible Man” and the short story “Battle Royal” is chapter one. This short story is not a happy one to say the least well at least for the most part. The story is written in retrospect I believe, which means the narrator is drawing on memory to remake the story. Now this can be all made up and not real but is the structure of the story and how it is read. So there is this black kid who has been raised to kill racism basically. He gives this great speech and is invited to give it again but is asked to take part in the battle royal. So I didn’t see this coming but it is where they are blindfold and fight each other and this to me just doesn’t make any sense. After that is all done he gives his wonderful speech and while he reads this all the white men laugh at him, that wasn’t a big shock because he was black and they are all racist men. Another cruel thing that took part before that was the electric rug with the coins and at this point I wanted to know what was going on in Ellison’s head because this whole story was just a bunch of cruelty to this kid and other black people. Like a fairytale this story ends happy when he receives a scholarship to the black state college.

– Vincent Ibarrola

The Mark on the Wall

The short story by Virginia Woolf “The Mark on the Wall”, was a story that took me by surprise. The story was all about what was going on in her mind, which is not really clear at first. Woolf throughout the story is trying to imitate the form of how our thoughts are in our heads. What Woolf does is she wrote the story to make the narrator have anxiety. That is how she almost recreated human thoughts in a story. Therefore, she does a good job at it and it makes the story. With that being said the story is boring because the whole thing is her thinking about a dot on the wall. After she sits there and thinks for most of the story she goes and gets the newspaper and that was really it. To say this story had a climax you would have to stretch some crazy idea in my opinion. The reader can almost wonder that if Woolf actually was the one sitting and looking at the wall. The way she wrote the story almost draws to that conclusion. Anyways in the end the mark was just a snail and not like a bullet hole from a wild drive-by shooting that happened, which would have gave the wall character.

 

– Vincent Ibarrola

A report to an academy

“A report to an academy” is a short story by Franz Kafka; this story was a story that did not really appeal to me so my analysis could be off. Anyways with that being said the story is about an ape that is taken from its comfort world so to say. The ape during the story starts to take on human traits and this story almost personifies the ape as a human. Apes being super intelligent animals can learn things just like humans and in this instant the ape learns that the only way to survive will be to live like a human. Back before he was taken he could do what he wanted and now in his new confinements he must learn a new way to live. As he takes on human traits the humans start to view him less as an ape so to say. As the story goes on we can start to see that the ape does not want to be equal to humans but he learns that he must if he wants to get out of the cage and get his freedom back. One of the main points I feel that Kafka is trying to prove is that us humans are just like apes, when we have to we take on traits of things even though we don’t want to be that thing. The story kind of shows the thin line between the ape and humans in real life including today. Kafka has points in this story that even though written a while ago still are accurate today.

-Vincent Ibarrola

Araby

The short story “Araby” by James Joyce is a good read for the most part. The story opens with events being explained by the narrator, who is an unnamed boy. As the story goes on we start to notice that the story is being told from an odd point of view. What I mean is that the narrator is the older version of the young boy in the story. He is telling the story based on recalling events that happened in his past. This changes the story in a way because something may not be completely accurate. You can tell when the boy is speaking and not the grown version of him because there is a noticeable vocabulary shift. As expect the boy talks like a boy and the narrator in the present talks like a more educated person. Anyways as the story is told we see that the boy has a “crush” we can say on a girl. It is an innocent crush where the girl wants nothing to do with the boy, not in a mean way but her views of him are not the same as his of her. When the little boys figure this out things are not good for him. The story takes a turn for the gloomy side which is given its affect by the colors the narrator uses. The sadness continues to the end of the story, this is done because once the boy realizes this he is never the same.

-Vincent Ibarrola