Happy Endings

Margaret Atwood wrote "Happy Endings." I loved this piece of writing. It was very unique, straight to the point, and the sarcastic nature of the writing made me think and also contradict myself. The scenario of John and Mary was very boring. In that very small paragraph the word "stimulating" was used three times. This "happy ending" showed that if life were that simple it would just be boring. Story B was much more realistic. Mary thought that with time she could change John and he would eventually marry her but he did not have the same feelings for her that she had for him. It was still pretty sad that she killed herself over this man who never loved her.

When Atwood connected Stories B and C by using the same names it was pretty unexpected. They use some of the same names but are related in no way. In this story John is not happy in his marriage with Madge and cheats with Mary, who really doesn't love him; she really loves James. Crazy, right? But that's how life is. Again in this story someone kills themselves. I guess they rather be dead than have to live loving someone who doesn't love them back. Stories D and E are very unfortunate and they connect directly.

Story F concludes everything. No matter what a person does for a living, who they are in a relationship with, or whether they are happy or not the results are still the same: They die. But this is simply what happens, no explanation, to the point. It does not explore "how" or "why." I liked how a lot of plots were given and where things needed to be explained it said "the rest of the story is about..." I like how Atwood changes up the stories to show different sides of love. She also gives insight to how the female mind set. Many women feel they can change a man, I believe that after a certain age there is no changing a man back.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper." The woman in the story believed she was sick. I think she believed she was a different type of sick than she actually was; she had post-partum depression. This disorder was not discovered during this time period and she said that her husband did not believe she was sick. Her husbands' name is John and she like many other woman in other stories we've read goes unnamed. I found it interesting how comfortable the woman was with her husband basically being in charge of her life. It shows the time period and that the role of man and woman has changed drastically.

The woman doesn't like the room she stays in constantly. She is never "allowed" to see the outside world, she just has to look at things outside through the window. Her focus is primarily to the digusting yellow wallpaper in this room. She describes it as old, smoldering, unclean, dull, and sulphur tinted. The woman makes comparisons with this wallpaper and sounds down-right crazy and delusional. She says the wallpaper has a "spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down." She says the eyes crawl all over the wall, up and down and sideways. WEIRD!!!

The woman speaks of the wallpaper so vividly that it almost comes alive. I think if she was allowed to see places other than the yellow wallpaper, it wouldn't bother her so much. She has spent too much time looking just at the wallpaper and now it sort of hunts her. The wallpaper becomes part of her life, it is an obsession. Because of this she creates another life, another personality, and has crazy dreams. At the end she creeps around her husband and tells him that him nor Jane (split personality) could keep her in the room. She tore down the wallpaper so she could not be put back. If the woman had post-partum depression it only worsened due to the yellow wallpaper.

A Rose for Emily

William Faulkner wrote “A Rose for Emily”. I think it was very sad and inconsiderate how the people in the town only went to Emily’s funeral to see the inside of her house. Emily was old and the people around her weren’t therefore they did treat her the way the generation before them had treated her. This story was kind of hard to get into. Maybe it’s just that I have senioritis and I’m ready for June 10th to get here.

Emily was a very strange character. She killed Homer because she was afraid he was going to leave her and because he didn’t love her like she loved him. I think Emily is crazy and should have been taken away by some mental institute; I mean she sleeps with Homers’ corpse for God’s sake. Her father kind of ruined her for life. Him running men out of her life didn’t do anything positive, it was probably the reasoning for the crazy/negative things she did. And like Homer, Emily kept her fathers’ body in the house also. I don’t think her personal condition can be described, but her father had such a strong impact on her that she thought he was the superior to anything or anybody.

Hills Like White Elephants

"Hills Like Whit Elephants" was written by Ernest Hemingway. The first thing I noticed about this story is how the male in the story was referred to as a man while the female was referred to as a girl. This suggests the time period this story was written in and also that the "girl" was younger than the man was. I also noticed that Hemingway noted that the man was American and said nothing of where the girl was from. I think she may have lived in Barcelona or somewhere in Spain, which was also mention in the first paragraph.

The way that Hemingway writes is very different. The whole story was merely a conversation. When the girl said that the hills looked like white elephants I think it was just a conversation started but the man had something else on his mind. Later the girl says, "They don’t really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees." The man mentioned to Jig, which is a really awkward nickname, that it was really a "simple operation." The type of operation is never written out so one can read it but the context clues suggest an abortion.

I could tell that Jig was young and very naïve, she was very insecure and needed to be constantly reassured. This is why much of their conversation was repetitious. The man describes the operation by saying, "It’s just to let the air in." I think referring to an abortion like this can only come from someone who is ignorant and inexperienced. The girl wants the man to be happy and doesn’t care about herself. The man tells her that everything will be like it was before because "it" is the only thing making them unhappy. Through her uneasiness I could sense that Jig did not want to have the operation. The girl was simply a "girl" and only wanted to make him happy and would go through with the operation.

Lady With A Lapdog

"Lady With A Lapdog" was written by Anton Chekhov. Dmitry was the main character in this short story and he had an ignorant attitude toward the opposite sex, women. In the very beginning of the story he referred to women as "the lower breed." It is obvious he has no respect for woman or her feelings. This is probably because he was never taught to respect a woman and being forced into a marriage, with an older woman in his early twenties, did not help the situation. He spoke of cheating on his wife as if it was as simple and natural as breathing. He didn’t care and this all came through in how and what he said. Throughout the story Dmitry did change and it shows that he is a dynamic character.

When Anna, the lady with lapdog, was first mentioned I really wasn’t expecting for she and Dmitry to hook up. I think Dmitry’s intentions with her started out as just wanting her to be his next mistress but changed when he mysteriously fell in love with her. I believed that Dmitry has fell in love with Anna. Anna is young, shy, and also has a husband. She is also very dramatic and demands respect from a man who is very disrespectful to women. But she gets the respect. It is obvious that she is also not happy in her marriage, even though she is skeptical about having the affair at first she goes through with it, which shows what her heart truly wanted. Dmitry’s whole demeanor changed when he met Anna and when he can’t get her out of his mind it’s evident that he is in love. The story ends on a note where the reader can make up the end. I think that Dmitry loves Anna and even though it’s hard to express this love he eventually does it and becomes a better man all around.

Proposal: Essay 2

The past chapter was full of stories about families. I enjoyed reading many of the story and loved the movie Ordinary People. For this essay I want to focus of "Bone Black." I want to explore how abuse can effect children in a family. I believe that whether the children are hit or not they are being abused. They are taking in ideals that can scar deeper than physical wounds and since they are younger this sometimes can become a way of life. I will discuss how negatively both parents are viewed. The girl in "Bone Black" lost respect for her mother (the one being abused) because of the lack of communication, she didn’t feel like she stood up for herself. And when the daughter wanted to stand up in her mothers’ defense she was either deferred away for the situation or couldn’t get through as being positive. I want to research more on abuse and why people do it and show how it affects each individual in a family differently.

Ordinary People: Part 3

Maybe I wasn’t paying that much attention, but now I know that Conrad slit his wrists. This has to be painful, and one would venture to say that he was brave in trying to kill himself. I know for a fact that could not put myself in that much misery. When Conrad get into the fight with the boy from the swim team, I felt good. I felt like he got something off of his chest and he of all people didn’t need any extra baggage to cause more depression in his life.

When Conrad found out that the girl from the hospital Karen had killed herself, I thought for sure he was going to relapse. But he didn’t, which made me feel relieved. This was also a very remarkable moment in Conrad’s life, he had a breakthrough and overcame another hard milestone in his life. Conrad’s conversation with Dr. Burger the night he found out was very weird, because he spoke to Dr. Burger as if he were Buck. It revealed that he was angry with Buck, but couldn’t admit to it. He felt that he did the wrong thing by staying with the boat while Buck couldn’t and died.

I was kind of disappointed with the ending of the movie. The father and mother had an argument and the father revealed that he didn’t know if he still loved his wife. The mother proved her selfishness even further by leaving the father and son. I didn’t necessarily need closure; I just wanted for the mother so badly to have a break through. I wanted her to accept what had happened and love her remaining son as equally as she had loved her deceased son. She didn’t necessarily have to stay with her family but would have been great to see a barrier broken down.