[Week 11] Recitatif

After first meeting in St. Bonny’s orphange, Twyla and Roberta become very close. The story describes different encounters between the girls at different time periods throughout the rest of their lives. From each encounter to the next, the two girls, once inseperable, become slowly distant, characterizing their original relationship as one of common goal: to escape the orphanage. How can one common goal unite different people? Very simply, the common goal can provide other common thoughts or ideals between the people to accomplish such goal. The different encounters provide a very calm and relaxed tone from Morrison as she uses common diction and syntax to provide conversation and develop the plot. How can language be a deciding factor in the plot? Through the language, an almost stream of consciousness arises, and allows the author to develop the characters, as well. Morrison does this to a great extent as she creates a seperation between the characters socially and financially.

[Week 10] The Destructors

In Greene’s “The Destructors”, Trevor, the protagonist, leads the gang to destroy the old house. This is a form of creation, ironically, because it forms a greater statement than the house itself. The image of the old house is a metaphor for the older ways of society at the time and how they were outdated and couldn’t compete with the newer generation’s standards and ideals. By destroying it from the inside out, the gang metaphorically takes out the older ways from the inside, creating a new generation for the society by breathing fresh air into the neighborhood through destroying the house. Is is possible that destruction can always create a new? This question can be debated by many, however, I believe there is a chance that destruction can result in creation. This topic is brought up through the plot of the short story.

[Week 7] Araby

In Joyce’s “Araby”, the unnamed narrator plays a young boy in Dublin, Ireland, whose infatuation with his friend Mangan’s sister rules his daily life. His love for Mangan’s sister takes a back seat to a more pressing issue Joyce deals with in the story, the one involving the social division between the higher and lower classes in Dublin at the time. The narrator feels the pressure of being in the lower class of the social ladder yet ignores it by finding bliss in his goddess, Mangan’s sister. Joyce touches on the stereotypical boyhood crush and creates a nostalgic mood. Can this mood be felt by both genders though it specifically deals with a boyhood crush? I believe this to be true because it is a very common feeling felt by all pre-pubescents. The social aspects of Araby create a relatable short story for many ages.

Hitchhiking Game

I know we are not supposed to write our opinions of the stories here, but I really enjoyed this story. Although the whole idea is seriously strange, I loved reading this story. The hitchhiking game is ultimately a role playing game between a couple to I suppose, “spice up their relationship”? But this couple is different than other bored couples. For one, they are both in their early twenties and two, they have not even passed their one year anniversary. After reading these two things I knew something was strangely tragic about both of them. The woman early on, you realize is a shy girl who is reluctant to play this game and the man, enjoys this role playing. They have played this game before however, this one ends up differently. Because of the man’s past, the woman gets jealous because she is nothing like them. With this particular game though, she becomes one of them. She becomes promiscuous, confident and vulgar- nothing like the shy, polite girl she once had been. The man actually becomes angry and suddenly begins to treat her as if she was one of the girls and truly believes that this persona has taken over his girlfriend. He pretty much sees her as one of the women in his past and I believe thats where she’ll remain. In this story, the game never ends.

[Week 1] The Birthmark

Aylmer wishes to remove Georgiana’s birthmark due to his own selfish ways and his want to have the perfect looking wife. This superficial and self-absorbed act characterizes Aylmer as a self-centered figure whose lust for perfection in his wife becomes his eventual downfall as he slips into insanity searching for a way to remove the “blemish” from his wife’s face. This metaphor represents the constant want and need in the eyes of society to provide an example of physical perfection and utmost beautification of an object/person, in this case, Georgiana. Hawthorne proposes this in a fashion to which the reader might ask: “Why is the objectification and beautification of a person so necessary in today’s society?”. This question comes directly from the parallels Hawthorne makes in an attempt to provide a metaphor of the flaws in society through literature. Only the reader can decide whether or not this question posed can be answered through “The Birthmark”.

week 12 Recitatif

This story obviously had to do about race. It had to do with two sisters who were by best friends at an orphanage and are later separated in their encounters because of race. It was interesting to try to figure out which girl was black and which one was white because the narrator leaves it up to the reader to decide. You could make a valid argument more each case. Both sides either ignore or judge the other for their race. This story is unusual because it shows both white and black racism. Both of the main characters either judge or ignore the other for their color. Regardless of which one is black or white throughout the story their are blacks who are prejudice against whites and whites that are prejudice against blacks. I thought this story was interesting because my best friend is also black. Nobody really judges or cares on either side but if we lived at the time of this story something similar could of happened.

week 10 The Vane Sisters

The Vane sisters was a sad and realistic short story. It seemed that the author of this story had a similar experience to what the narrator is going through. Vladimir could of completely made this up but I doubt it. The story had a real strong first person detail to it and description of the story was vivid. When reading the story I felt like a friend was telling me a dramatic story from his life. The narrator shows emotion through telling the story that would only be shown by a person in that situation. If the author really went through something like the narrator did most likely he would want to write it down, especially as a writer. By the end of the story the narrator is almost haunted by the fact that Cynthia died. He might have prevented her death and his guilt makes him start to experience what she did. I still don’t know why they started going out in the first place since there encounters were caused by Sybil’s suicide.

week 11 #2 Welcome to The Monkey House

Welcome the the monkey house was most different and interesting short story we’ve done so far. It had to do with sex and social norms which is a common theme in college. I think this story was written to show how easily humanity follow certain norms and be controlled. Since the leaders of the world government decided that sexual reproduction with enjoyment was forbidden and punishable by death nobody questioned it. The world government also allowed millions of people to be murdered with consent and nobody questioned this either. The girls that killed all these people for a job did not have the slightest bit of guilt for doing killing thousands of people. They did however feel guilty for interacting with the someone who could feel sexual pleasure. This is because the people in charge of their society made the norms for life. This also is making in fun of how people in the world will do some stupid and terrible things by following others. I also think their was some humor it and was interesting enough that I wanted to know the ending.

Recitatif

I found Recitatif to be incredibly easy to read. Like we talked about in class, the style or writing is very conversational. It seems a little weird to read on paper, but once read out loud it makes a lot more sense. I found our discussion to be very interesting. I generally don’t read things out loud, but thinking back, I would imagine that it would sound very strange. Writing is so much more formal than speech we use today, and the difference is never noticed until you read something out loud. The conversational narration of the story made it feel like I was listening to somebody tell a story, therefore making it seem like less of a task and much easier. This story also made me realize how often society applies stereotypes. We are told that one of the girls is white, and the other is black. However, we are never told which is which. Though we may attempt to classify one or the other as black or white, it is actually impossible to do so because both races exist in any socio-economic level.

THE MOST BEAUTIFIED

Beauty is always a topic of popular discussion, and one that comes up quite a lot in literature. In this story, there is a professor who is giving a lecture on beauty and all the ways that beauty is perceived. His opinion is somewhat controversial and the students seem to be in somewhat of a dismay about the lecture. The professor continues on and his feelings continue to leek into the text. After a while I noticed that this allowed the reader to be able to read the story and put themselves in the place of the student in their seat. The reader would be able to form their own opinion of what they are reading as if they were sitting in the lecture themselves.

In terms of the content of the lecture, I think that it is a tricky topic to discuss. Beauty is complicated  and can also be very opinionated. To one person a woman may be the most gorgeous person they have ever seen and to another they may just be somewhat attractive. This is not a surprise as people have opinions over everything. However, the professor was discussing the theory behind beauty and where it stems from. The information that he was presenting was so legitimate in his eyes that when a student was informed that his father has just passed, the professor shrugged it off as if it was just another daily occurrence. To end the story, and to somewhat contradict the sternness that the professor carried while giving his lecture, the final quote of the story is a student saying he never thought the woman they were examining was even that pretty. This final nudge at the way people over examine beauty.