Theme 4- Once upon a Time

"The alarm set up wailing against the screams while the bleeding mass of the little boy was hacked out of the security coil with saws, wire-cutters, choppers, and they carried it--the man, the wife, the hysterical trusted housemaid and the weeping gardener--into the house." pg. 236

This was not your typical fairy tail children's story. It was full of violence and irony. The man and wife were so paranoid about danger. They purchased all kinds of security systems that eventually led to the death of their child. It is ironic how their paranoia of danger is what ended up killing their son. I think that it is strange that the parents held security as such a high priority. There was never any significant danger near them, and nothing had ever happened to them. They didn't even pay that much attention to there child. Also, the alarm falsely triggered so regularly that it wasn't taken seriously. Why buy all that security if you aren't going to use it? I guess the moral of this story is not to let paranoia get the best of you.

Theme 3- A Worn Path

"Without warning, she had seen with her own eyes a flashing nickel fall out of the man's pocket onto the ground." pg. 227

While I was reading this story, I sensed a very suspicious vibe towards Phoenix. I felt like she was a little crazy, but also a little scheming and devious. One of the questions from the story asks if Phoenix's grandson is dead. I think that he is. I have a theory as to what happened but I am probably way off. I think that Phoenix was a very concerned, good intended grandmother. She regularly would go get medicine for her sick grandson, but then he died. She probably didn't tell anyone about what happened. She was probably also very distraught over his death. Instead of dealing with his death, she continued on her normal routine as if nothing had happened. She probably began taking the grandson's medicine and began losing her mind. Through the author's diction, we can see that Phoenix is very uneducated, so she most likely is in desperate need of money. With her losing her mind, she takes advantage of every opportunity to get money. When the nickel fell out of the man's pocket, she intensely stared at it, then made a distraction so she could pick it up and keep it. I know that this is a really far-fetched idea, but I just have a feeling that Phoenix has an agenda.

Theme 2- Eveline

"No! No! No! It was impossible." pg. 222

I feel very sympathetic towards Eveline. Many people she was close to have died including her mother, her father is abusive towards her, and she has to give all of her hard earned money to her father. She doesn't have a very optimistic life ahead of her until she meets Frank. The meet and Eveline sees their relationship as an opportunity to leave her misery. What I do not understand is why she didn't take it. She had absolutely nothing holding her back besides a promise she made to her now dead mother. Under the circumstanced, I would think that the mom would understand why she didn't uphold her wish. This section is about theme, but I am failing to see the point of this story, let alone the theme. If I had to guess, I think the theme of this short story is to never break a promise, no matter how much pain it causes.

Theme 1- Miss Brill

"Why does she come here at all--who wants her?" pg. 186

Through this indirect characterization, we see that Miss Brill is a very lonely woman. She spends her days people watching and imagining far-fetched situations as realities. She thought that her life was part of some huge play. This clearly shows that she has issues. She personifies her fur by talking to it as if it were a human. She also thinks she hears it cry when she puts it away. I think that the cry represents her loneliness. Its as if she is imagining this to be someone desperately pleeing to be with her. I found it strange that she didn't seem to let the harsh word of the young couple phase her. Considering she had no one, I would think those words would have some impact on her. I wonder if she has something wrong with her or if she is just lonely.

Characterization 4 - Bartleby the Scrivener

"I would prefer not to." pg. 653

I thought that Bartleby was so incredibly annoying. He started off as a quiet but hard worker. But then when he was asked to do something, he just responded, "I would prefer not to." I don't understand why he kept saying that every time he was asked to do something. I also don't understand why the Lawyer never fired him. If Bartleby way my employee, I would have fired him right away. His annoying nature made me not be able to sympathize with him even though he had know where to live.I am so curious as to why he wouldn't do anything that he was asked to do, even when it came to basic needs of life. My only thought is that he was trying to assert that he made his own decisions at all costs. He wouldn't let people persuade his life in anyway, but in reality that is what happened. By not doing things he was asked to do, he died.

Characterization 3 - Everyday Use

"But they're priceless." pg. 180

Dee and Maggie could not be any more opposite than they are. Maggie has a very shy and timid persona. Oppositely, Dee is very outspoken and driven. I think that Dee is going about embracing her heritage in the wrong way. It is like she is trying too hard to make life what she thinks its supposed to be. She needs to rather, let the heritage come to her. If she wouldn't have basically disowned her family, I think she could have learned a lot about who she really is. I think the characterization of the mother is deceiving. Even though she isn't well educated, she still has a wealth of knowledge about where she came from. If Dee would have spoken to her mother about their family history, she would have been able to connect to her heritage on a deeper level. It would have encompassed her life rather than being forced on her.

Characterization 2 - Hunter's in the Snow

"They are not doing him any good," Frank said. "We might as well get some use out of them." pg. 201

The irony in this story is reflected through the initial characterizations of Tub and Kenny. At first, Tub is characterized as the helpless victim. He is unable to stand up to Kenny's jokes. He also faces insecurities about his weight and over indulgence issues. We see Kenny as a bully who picks on others to make himself feel better. Even when he can sense Tubs attitude, he keeps it up. However, mid way through the story their roles are completely reversed, but to a more drastic measure. Kenny is truly a helpless victim. He is left to die in the freezing cold. Tub becomes the real bully. He leave his friend to die without attempting to help him. I think that throughout the story, Frank provided the stable, non hectic attitude. He never over reacted to either Tub or Kenny being a bully. He seemed to want to stay out of it.

Characterization 1 - Hunter's in the Snow

"They had taken a different turn a long way back." pg. 201

I found this story to be completely strange and ironic. In the beginning, I thought Kenny was a huge jerk. He constantly made fun of Tub and never knew when to quit. I also felt really sympathetic towards Tub. He was fat and lonely and let all of Frank and Kenny's jokes get to him. Then, out of know where, Tub shoots Kenny. At that time, I didn't even know what to think. I thought it was ironic how Tub, who was depicted as the victim, turned out to be the real jerk. He shows absolutely no concern for his friend that he just shot. Tub and Frank leave Kenny, who is dying from a shot wound inflicted by Tub, in the freezing cold snow while they go have a heart to heart. This made me really hate both of them. I don't feel sorry for Tub for being fat at all. He brings it on himself. He needs to learn some self control.

Plot 4. Interpreter of Maladies

"The slip of paper with Mr. Kapasi's address on it fluttered away in the wind." pg. 166

I think there were two central conflicts in this story. Both of which were internal. One was Mrs. Das's struggle to deal with her guilt of cheating on her husband and having an illegitimate child. The other is Mr. Kapasi's fantasy like desire towards Mrs. Das. I sympathize with Mrs. Das because she has no one to confide in. She has to live with her guilt and has no one to help her deal with it. I don't sympathize with Mr. Kapasi on the other hand though. I find him to be pathetic. He becomes overwhelmingly infatuated with Mrs. Das when she is simply gives him a little attention. I feel like he made every encounter they had more significant than it really was. I'm glad that Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi never got involved. I felt like that was what the suspense of the story was leading to, but I'm glad it wasn't. I think once Mrs. Das learns to deal with her guilt, she will begin to love her children and husband again. I also hope Mr. Kapasi finds something more meaningful in his life.

Plot 3. A Rose for Emily

"Then we said, "She will persuade him yet," because Homer himself had remarked--he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elk's Club--that he was not a marrying man." pg. 287

During small group discussions today, my group discussed Emily's motive for killing Homer. We came up with the idea that he refused to marry her. He probably had several reasons for not wanting to marry her. They were not compatible for each other. He was from the North, and she was from the South. The text mentioned that Homer "was not the marrying type" and "liked men." I think it would be rather difficult for her to persuade a homosexual man to marry her. I think that Emily became enraged by his refusal to marry her, and she retaliated by killing him. She has a personality complex that makes it had for her to let things go. She couldn't accept the death of her father, so she stored his corps with her until authorities took it away. Also, she could not accept that Homer wouldn't marry her, so she killed him and stored his body so that it seemed like he was still with her.

Plot 2. How I Met My Husband

"So I said yes, and I went out with him for two years and he asked me to marry him, and we were engaged a year more while I got my things together, and then we did marry." pg. 146

I was very surprised by the way the story ended. I found it very ironic that the title is "How I Met My Husband," yet she describes him and their encounter in two paragraphs. I know that Edie's desire to receive a letter from her former lover, Chris Watters, was the reason she met her husband, but I thought the excessive detail of their meaningless fling was irrelevant to her meeting her husband.  The structure of the story provided suspense for the reader. I didn't know what was going to happen. I certainly didn't predict that she would meet and marry her husband within the last page. If we had known that Edie wouldn't end up with Chris, I wouldn't have been as engaged in the story. Because the story is told retrospectively, it makes sense that she wouldn't end up with Chris. As a young girl, she  fantasized about her dream husband, Chris. Now, based on Edie's tone, looking back at herself, she sees how foolish and naive she was. She realizes that logically she needs to be with a normal, nice guy, like Carmichael.

Plot 1. A Rose for Emily

"One of us lifted something from it, and leaned forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair." pg. 289

The purpose of the structure of this story is to create suspense. If this had simply been told in chronological order, the suspense wouldn't have been as effective. To begin the story, Emily is depicted as a victim. She was hassled by the police and imprisoned by her father. So as a reader, I am thinking to myself, poor Emily, as do the people of her town. But, in the end we discover Emily isn't really so helpless. She is in fact crazy. Ironically, Emily turns out to be the so called villain. She has been storing a dead body in her house and laying with it night after night. I think that Emily's change in physical appearance, from thin and pretty to fat and ugly, alludes to the change in how the reader sees her. When Emily is young and beautiful, no one suspects she could be crazy or harmful, but as she begins to age and let herself go, the suspense of what she did begins to build. It is not until she loses all her beauty and youth that we see the true, insane Emily.