My Favorite and Least Favorite Story

Out of all the stories we read, I would have to say Bradbury's "The Veldt" was my favorite. I also chose this one for my Film Adaptation paper. I found this story to be a fun and easy read. This story also reminded me of the Disney movie Smart House that aired years ago, but I loved it. As I was reading it, I kept relating it to that movie and it gave me a good mental image of what the Hadley's house would've been like.

My least favorite story was probably "Girl." Being one long, drawn out sentence, I just felt like it was a pointless read. Nothing about it intrigued me and I didn't understand the meaning of it. Maybe if there would've been more background information on the mother and daughter, it would've made more sense. To me, the story was just too underdeveloped. Overall, I liked the majority of the stories we read this session. I never thought I would enjoy them as much as I did!

The Man Who Was Almost a Man

In Wright’s “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” the main character is a seventeen year old boy named Dave who considers himself almost a man. The story begins with him walking home from another days work in Mr. Hawkins field. In route to his house, he begins fantasizing over getting a gun and practicing shooting with the hopes that the other men won’t talk to him as if he were a little boy anymore. Although, when his wish finally came true, a disastrous event took place when he accidentally shot the mule, Jenny. Despite the damage that took place the first time he shot the gun, Dave remained intrigued with it. He snuck out in the middle of the night and gave the gun another shot. He loved the power that came over him when he pulled the trigger. He then proceeded to jump on a train with nothing but his gun.

The gun is very significant in this story. The whole story revolves around Dave and his long for a gun. Dave doesn’t want to be considered a child anymore. As readers, we learn that Dave associates manhood with owning a gun. For example, when he was talking to his mother, Dave said “Ahm almos a man now. Ah wans a gun” (Pg. 1612). This statement makes it very obvious that he feels as though the ownership of a gun will make others view him as a man, instead of a little boy. In order to gain respect from the others around him, he needed something in his power that he could have control over. Therefore, the solution was easy; Dave had to buy a gun.

A Worn Path

The author of “A Worn Path” tells the story from a third-person limited point of view. This point of view lets the readers think more themselves and allows the reader to sympathize with Phoenix, because her thoughts and actions are blatantly exposed. With third-person, the reader can view Phoenix from a distance and gain insight into other people’s perspectives.

I was most sympathetic towards Phoenix. She is an elderly black woman trying to take care of her sick grandson while living in a white world. She is also dealing with different kinds of conflict. The two conflicts I saw were Man vs. Nature and Man vs. Society. We see Man vs. Nature when Phoenix faces the hardships against nature while traveling along her worn path. As a black woman living in an all white world, Man vs. Society arises. The encounters with the hunter and the attendant show conflict between Phoenix and society.

The Lady with the Dog

In Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog,” Dmitry Gurov is the protagonist. He is not yet forty and has three children and a wife. He had been talked into marrying his wife in his third year at college, and now she looked twice as old as he did. Because he disliked being at home so much, Dmitry went on a vacation at a resort in Yalta. During his stay, he keeps seeing a lady walking around with a white Pomeranian. Eventually the two of them meet and start having an affair, even though both of them were married. Anna is Dmitry’s lover in the story. She is a young woman in her twenties who has also ventured to Yalta to get away from her dissatisfying life. When Anna and Dmitry first meet, readers learn that she grew up in Petersburg, but had gotten married in the town of S., where she had been living for two years. Once the affair began between Anna and Dmitry, she feels a great deal of remorse and fears that Dmitry will no longer respect her. She expressed to Dmitry that she has been deceiving herself for so long. She is married to an honest man, but claims he’s a “flunky.” The only reason she married him was to cure the curiosity that was burning within.

Dmitry’s character changes drastically from the beginning of the story to the end. Despite the fact he is a married man, Dmitry has been deceiving and unfaithful to his wife for a long time now. Because of this, he referred to women as the lower race. However, without women, he couldn’t exist simply because he was bored in the presence of men. In the company of women he felt more comfortable and at ease. When he first started the affair with Anna, he assumed it would be more of a casual acquaintance. He had learned from previous love affair experiences not to get involved because they always end badly. However, once the two had gone back to their separate cities, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. His character starts to change when he then goes to Anna’s city to find her. It was very unlike Dmitry to behave in such an spontaneous, romantic way, but he has finally realized that he has found true love and can’t live without her. In the end, he is willing to sacrifice everything in order to live openly with Anna. From beginning to end, Dmitry’s character transformed from a casual seducer to a man who is happily in love.

The Girls in their Summer Dresses

In Irwin Shaw’s "The Girls in their Summer Dresses," there are two different types of conflict presented that are causing Michael and Frances' relationship problems: Man vs. Man and Man vs. Self.

The conflict between Michael and Frances is Man vs. Man. The two of them are having an argument because Michael's tendency to look at other woman everywhere he goes. Frances doesn't understand why he has the need to do this when he says that he loves her very much and is happily married. As she keeps bring the subject up, Michael tries to explain himself, but even he is unsure as to why he looks at other women.

There are two different conflicts dealing with Man vs. Self: Michael vs. Himself and Frances vs. Herself. With Michael, he is having conflict with himself when he looks at other woman. In a sense, I think he knows it's wrong, yet he still continues to do it. While trying to explain himself to Frances, Michael states, “When I think of New York City, I think of all the girls...all on parade in the city. I don't know whether it's something special with me or whether every man in the city walks around with the same feeling inside him, but I feel as though I'm on a picnic in this city” (pg. 1338). When looking closely at France’s conflict within herself, you can see that she was hesitant to bring up this sore subject on their planned Sunday. After his first response, she tried to drop the subject and carry on with their day, but she continued to egg him on and search for more answers. In the end, when Michael had full exposed himself, she had finally heard all she wanted to hear and told Michael to stop talking about the pretty women and to keep it to himself. One might question whether or not Frances regretted bringing up the subject at all.

The Birthmark and Desiree's Baby

In the beginning of Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark,” Hawthorne describes Aylmer as a man of science who has a great love for his young wife, Georgina. However, soon after their marriage, Aylmer becomes troubled with the crimson hand that lies upon Georgina’s cheek and brings up the thought of having it removed. He said to her, “You came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection” (pg. 649). It had never occurred to Georgina to remove her birthmark because she was a woman of great beauty whom many men desired and viewed her birthmark not as a sign of her imperfection or flaws, but a kiss from an angel or a fairy marking. While she wasn’t troubled by her husband’s remark at first, but as his continual remarks on the removal of the birthmark begin to become more and more persistence, she too begins to develop a hatred for it as well, especially when she notices him reacting anytime her face becomes pale or flushed enough for the birthmark to appear intensely visible. Because of Aylmer’s blunt disgust for the birthmark, Georgina’s view of it is also altered. What she thought was seen as a “charm” was now a defect to her perfection. Eventually Georgina becomes equally obsessed with the removal of her birthmark mostly because she sees how its presence disturbs her husband so much.

Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby,” had many surprising twists in its plot. The story begins with the background information of Desiree herself. When she was a child, she was found sleeping in the shadow of a big stone pillar next to the gateway of Valmonde. Monsieur and Madame Valmonde, a wealthy couple in Louisiana, found Desiree and adopted her into their family. As she grew older, she married a wealthy man named Armand Aubigny. The two of them loved each other very much and eventually gave birth to a child. As months went by and the child grew older, they realized that the child wasn’t white. The child’s skin was part black. Armand automatically assumes that Desiree is part black because we are unaware of her origins, since she was adopted. He willing supports her decision to return to the Valmonde estate to be with her mother. Once she had left, he never saw her again. He created a huge bonfire to burn all of her belongings along with the letters she had written him before their marriage. While going through the pile of letters, Armand comes across a letter that his mother wrote to his father. In reading this letter, he discovers that his mother was black, meaning that he was the one who was part black, not Desiree. When I was reading this story, I didn’t expect this ending. It definitely added a twist to the plot. Overall, I enjoyed this one.

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Today I read Flannery O’Conner’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” The title itself in this short story has meaning. “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” is about a mother and her son, Julian. The mother is forced to take part in a reducing class at the downtown Y, due to her high blood pressure. However, because of the recently racially integrated bus system, she forces her son to ride with her. Throughout the story, the setting mainly takes place on this bus. As they make their way downtown, you can see the tensions rise between the mother and son when black men and woman board the bus. The mother discovers the black woman, whom boarded with the small child, is wearing the same hat as her. She tried not to think about that and instead focused on the cuteness of the little black boy. When Julian and his mother got off the bus at their designated stop, the black woman and her son followed. Julian’s mother was adamant to give the little black child a nickel. In her attempt to hand the child the coin, she found herself lying sprawled out on the sidewalk. A few moments later, she was dead. Through the exposure of the human weakness portrayed, O’Conner creates a message for the readers. Well known for her representation of Roman Catholicism, O’Conner attempts to reveal and uncover the sinful nature of humanity that goes unnoticed in the modern, secular world to her readers.