16-1 August Wilson

August Wilson was a major figure in American drama of the last two decades of the twenty century, and the beginning of the twenty- first century. Wilson was one of seven American authors to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Wilson was fourth of six children. Wilson was born and grew up in Pittsburg Pennsylvania which has been his central place of his plays. The play “Fences” was a great story that I really enjoyed reading. The story starts out with the main character talking and drinking with one of his buddies from work and automatically some sort of racial conflict is brought into the story. The main character is talking about how the white workers are the ones that get to drive the garbage trucks  and the blacks have to load them These is already one thing that hints towards the enormous amount of racial accountability in this play. We soon find out that there are many very important characters in this story, and that the main character, Troy, is having an affair with another woman and that him and the other woman have a child but the mother dies in birth. The younger of the two sons was very afraid of his father and angry at him at the same time. The father died when the daughter from the affair was seven years old. The younger son was practically forced by his mom to stay for the funeral and she was just there because she had no choice. At the end of the story everybody stayed for his funeral. In the end he was surrounded by his whole family, but he still died lonely and alone.

15-4 Billy Collins

Billy Collins was born in New York City in 1941. He is the author of several books of poetry. Collins got his PhD in Romantic poetry from the University of California. Collins taught at Lehman College. His poetry Books is about how the books in the library come alive on the college campus. Each book has a coat that is the cover of the book. The authors talk to each other and some family is beside each other. These books speak their own language to each other. His mother reads to him and the characters and places come to life. Within the walls rain soaks New England or standing in a trench coat. The books can take someone to places they haven’t been before anything is possible. We read these books that after we finish is only crumbs on the page that makes a trail. We read in circles looking for more light until the words leave a trail of crumbs.  The birds eat the crumbs that we have left behind from reading the book. We have to listen hard to hear the brother and sister talking to each other as they recede to the woods. The books have come a live but one must listen real close to hear what the books are saying to one another. We don’t hear what the books have to offer and the places they can take us. I enjoyed this poem it made a lot of sense when you think about all those books and shelves full of authors talking to each other. Some kin to each other some not but as the words a read they fall from the pages like crumbs that the birds pick up and eat. When we are done with them just as we are the books, some will never be picked up again but some will.

15-3 15-3 Bobbie Ann Manson

Bobbie Ann Mason writes about blue-collar people in small town and just your normal everyday houses for the average families. Clerk stores workers, waitresses and truck drivers. Men and women who “believe” in progress and are more optimistic in life and the lessons they have learned. She didn’t like television. She believed that it was a waste and was only empty hours. Bobbie grew up in Kentucky. She learned about and met many small-town working people and the culture surrounding her. She spent a lot of time on the farm while growing up in Kentucky. “Shiloh” by Bobbie Ann Mason is a story about two common everyday people, Leroy and Norma Jean. Leroy and Norma are husband and wife, he works as a truck driver, and Norma Jean works at the Rexall drugstore. Three months earlier Leroy was hurt in a highway accident that left his leg in pretty bad shape. He can no longer drive his bid rig, so he has been staying at home recuperating. The accident scared him so bad that he’s not really sure that he wants to drive anymore. Leroy like most people who work away from home a lot, started seeing his life and his wife differently. He realized that he had let a lot of things pass him by very quickly while he was out on the long hauls. His wife has been use to him being gone for all these years and it seems that now that Leroy is home he is getting on Norma Jean’s nerves. Leroy is sitting around the house smoking pot and building things with notched popsicle sticks, he tells Norma Jean that he wants to build her a log cabin, she tells him that none of the new subdivisions in their town is going to allow a cabin to be built in them he rides around town and realizes that this is true.Leroy starts to see his wife in a different light, he realizes how much he loves her, but Norma Jean seems to be distant and indifferent towards her husband. She is getting in shape by working out and she is attending classes at college trying to better her career path. Norma Jean’s mother is very judgmental of Norma. She feels as if her mother punishes her when she catches her doing something she thinks she shouldn’t be doing, like smoking. Norma Jean is tired of her life, she wants something different. Leroy knows in his heart that something is different about his wife. He mentions this to him mother-in-law that he thinks their trouble at home and she suggest that he take Norma Jean to Shiloh a small town a few hour up the road from their house. While they are visiting, Shiloh, Norma Jean tells Leroy she wants a divorce. I think he is shocked and in disbelief.

15-2 Amy Tan

Amy’s parents emigrated from China to California. Amy was born in California and has spent most of her life there. She graduated from college in 1973. She spends three years in postgraduate study and then worked as a reporter, then an editor and as a technical writer for computer companies. She published “The Joy Luck Club” in 1989. I remember this! I think it was a series when I was a child that I read after buying it at the book store at school. These were stories of Chinese women and their Chinese American daughters.

The story Half and Half” by Amy Tan is the story of a Chinese girl, Rose, who lived in America with her mother, father and her six siblings, four brothers and two sisters. Her parents had moved to America from China and had done very well for themselves. Since being in The US they had managed to buy a house in the Sunset district and had been blessed with seven children. Mrs. Hsu, the mother, was a religious person. She attended First Chinese Baptist Church every Sunday, but a day at the beach with her family changed all of her feelings about faith. The entire Hsu family went to the beach to play in the water, fish and just have a wonderful time. The fun filled day turned tragic when Rose, who was responsible for watching her youngest brother, Bing, took her eyes of him for one second and he fell into the ocean and drown. That was the day Mrs. Hsu lost her faith, she and Rose went back to the beach the next day, where she talked to God and threw her mother’s ring in to the water as payment trying to get Bing back. She felt she had been faithful and good and she wanted God to return her son for her servitude to him. When Bing did not return she lost faith sticking her bible under the table leg in her kitchen. This is the day that Rose learned about fate. Twenty years later Rose is sitting in her mother’s house and she going to tell her that she and her American husband Ted, the dermatologist, are going to get a divorce. During their marriage Ted has always taken the lead, and Rose just agreed to whatever he wanted to do. I don’t think she ever forgave herself for her brother’s death, she felt as though she didn’t make a good decision on the beach that day and she is ok with Ted making all the moves and her following his lead in their marriage.
Ted has a patient who has a bad experience after a medical procedure and the patient sues him, the wind is knocked out of his sails, he no longer believes in himself. Ted wants Rose to now make the decisions in their marriage and this has cause an unbelievable strain in the relationship. Her mother tells her that she has been told what the problem in the marriage is and now she must fix it. She must start thinking for herself!! She realizes that fate is shaped by half expectation, and half by inattention. She gets her mother’s bible out from under the table leg, in the section where you list Deaths in the family she sees Bing Hsu in erasable ink.

15-1 Alice Walker

Alice Walker was born in Georgia she was one of eight kids from a poverty stricken sharecropper’s family. Her parents supported her writing and after graduating top of her class she got a scholarship to go to college. Her most known work was the Color Purple which has been made into movies and plays. Everyday Use was a good story\that opens with the mother day dreaming of being on a talk show and meeting her daughter again. She wants her daughter to be like her thin, witty, and expressive. But in actually she is a heavy woman that does best at hard labor. She sees how important hard work is and doesn’t have time for fillies ‘She has two daughters Maggie and Dee Several years ago their home had burned down and Maggie one of the daughters hands and arms were burnt badly. Dee the other sister left and said she wouldn’t be back or bring her friends to the little house they lived in after the fire. Maggie feel like she is less of a person because of the way Dee treats her. Maggie see’s Dee as being very pretty and smart. But Dee is very snobby to her family when she returns she brings a man that she might be married too. Dee has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo because she thinks the name is better than the one she was born with. They start taking things from the house saying where they can use it in their home. She gathers quilts and other things. The quilts were to be Maggie’s handed down from the family. Dee says Maggie will just mess them up and they are not for everyday use. Dee sees the things as being something to be put into a museum and not something to use everyday. Maggie and Dee’s mother grabs the quilts from Dee and gives them back to Maggie; her mother knows that Maggie will take care of them and she will cherish and appreciate them.

14-3 Nikki Giovanni’s Poetry

Giovanni’s Poetry Rosa is about black childhood. Black love is black wealth.  They see love being very powerful and they are rich not from money or material things, but from love from each family member. People shouldn’t feel sorry for the black kids. They have love from their mom even though their dad is a heavy drinker. They had good holidays with their family, even birthdays were good. People that had become famous and moved from the poverty stricken places didn’t talk of how happy they were as a child, even though they didn’t have in-door toilets. Basically some people don’t for get where they came from, however some people do. Giovanni doesn’t look at life as being sad and wants the white people not to write of their bad times because they were quite happy. Barbecue was fixed in a large tub for the people of Chicago, but the others took baths in the same tub where the water felt really good to a kid. Their father had to sell his stock and it was hard for their mom to see her dreams be sold with them. I guess it makes you think was it because their farther drunk so much and how they also fought. I am not Lonely was a very good poem. The girl wasn’t scared as she had been. No bad dreams as she once use to have. I would say the girl has turned into a woman. Some one she used to know and sleep with was in her bed and she thought they were going to leave and after they did she got use to her big bed and being all alone. She had a feeling they would leave and they did, which she has adapted to be a lone in her big bed to roll around in all by her-self.

14-2 Tillie Olson

Tillie Olson has gained wide critical attention as a prose stylist and spokeswomen for the poor, the oppressed, and the despised people of America.  She was born in Nebraska to Russian immigrant parents. Olson’s story of I Stand Here Ironing is a story written from a mother’s point of view of her troubled daughter Emily. Her mother has just gotten a call from the girl’s school, which they expressed that she “needs help”; her mother looks back on how she has raised her. As her mother thinks about this she thinks how she  put so much into her daughter when she was younger.Her mother looking back feels what every mother thinks of their kid what all mother feel about their child that they are beautiful, because we love them. The bubbles remind her of how she spit bubbles and cooing.The babies feet and hands and overalls are things that she pictures and remebers of her as a baby.she talks about Emily as in ecstacy which is a big change from her attitude throughout the story.her mother looks back and sees that she can’t spend the time and care for her, because her husband has left them and she has to support them by working.The woman downstairs don’t spend the time with her as she would or any mother to a child would.She has looked for her husband and he didn’t want to see his family suffer eventhough he knew they would but he wouldn’t be there to actually see the poverty. He was a very selfish person that must have been out of sight out of mind kind of person. Her being a young mother trying to work and raise a child by herself wasn’t easy. Now she looks back and sees that while she was trying to make a living to care for her she slipped through without what her mother thought she needed. I see her mother feeling as though she has failed not only her daughter but her self when she was only trying to support them.

14-1 Flannery O’Connor

Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah Georgia where she lived until she died, at age thirty-eight. She is known for her wit, simplicity and masterful reproduction of colloquial speech of her native South. She is known for her short stories. Mrs Freeman has been working for Mrs. Hopewell for four years, and the two women often converse over breakfast in the Hopewell’s kitchen. Mrs. Hopewell considers Mrs. Freeman to be extremely nosy. Hugla is Mrs.Hopewells daughter that is called Joy and her mother refueses to call her by her legal name. Hulga was choosen for it’s uglyness. Mrs. Freeman loves calling her by the name Hulga, because she likes what she thinks is ugly things. Hulga makes eggs while her mother considers how she probably should not have earned a Ph.D. in philosophy, since it has not brought her any good. Hulga has been sick and probably does not have long to live. That is the reason she still lives at home.
As Hulga makes eggs, her mother wonders what she said to the Bible salesman who visited the day before. He told her that he was just a poor country boy and that he had a heart condition that might kill him soon. He didn’t want to go to college, he just wanted to sell Bibles. Mrs. Hopewell ask him to stay for dinner and Hugla ignoired him which really borthers her mom. After dinner, Manley the salesman leaves. Hulga was standing in the road and he stopped near her to talk. Mrs. Hopewell wonders what was said between her daughter and Manley. Eventually, Mrs. Hopewell brings up the Bible salesman, and Mrs. Freeman mentions that she saw him leave clearly, she saw him talking to Hulga. Hulga and the salesman connected about the fact that they both might die soon from a heart condition, and he invites her on a picnic for the next day.She goes to meet him at the gate.Manley has been waiting for her behind a bush across the street, and as they walk toward the woods, he asks her about her wooden leg. She is bothered by his question. He kisses her and she really don’t think it is that great.They continue to kiss, and without her leg she feels entirely dependent on Manley. But she begins to panic and wants her leg back. He opens his brief case to reveal that there are only two Bibles inside, and that they are fake; they open to reveal a flask of whiskey, a pack of cards, and some medicine in a box. Hulga is shocked and asks, aren’t you just good country people?” He laughs and implies that he is going to rape her. She yells at him, “You’re a Christian!” and accuses him of being a hypocrite. He still refuses to give her her leg instead, he slams it inside his brief case and climbs down the ladder, leaving her up in the loft On his way down, he calls to her that she is not so much smarter than him; he doesn’t believe in God.  Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman are in the back pasture and as they watch him leave, Mrs. Freeman comments that she could never be as simple as he is.

13-3 James Baldwin

James Baldwin was born in Harlem. He has been called one of the important black writers of the twentieth century. He was the oldest of nine kids. At age fourteen he underwent a religious experience and began to preach. Sonny blues is about two brothers and the two sides of the African Americans. Sonny’s brother has been arrested for drugs he reads the newspaper to find this out. As he takes the sub-way to the school where he teaches he can’t believe he is in jail. He hears the kids and thinks of their child-hood. As the teacher leaves he meets an old friend and tells him of his brother’s arrest. He has given up on helping Sonny and this makes him mad. He feels like he has given up on Sonny also. The man tells Sonny’s brother he thought he was to smart to get caught. The friend tells him he would have killed himself a long time ago if he was smart. Meaning it would be better to die than to have a drug addiction. He later admits that he had turned Sonny on to drugs. Sonny’s brother wants to know what will happen to him now. He tells him they will send him to get help for the drugs. He writes Sonny while in jail since it has been a year since he has talked with him. Sonny is released from jail and has a desire for music and he wants his brother to hear him play.  He recalls when his mother has ask him to watch after Sonny His mother tells him about his dads brother that was killed by a drunk driver that ran over him. He doesn’t get why Sonny loves his music and finally he agrees to hear him. After he hears him play the blues, he has a better understanding of his desire for music.

13-2 Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath’s poem represents the romanticism era. She was born in Boston Massachusetts. Plath writes of her mother and father personalities in her poems. At age seven-teen she published her first poem and her first short story. She went to Smith College on a scholarship. But she became filled with apprehension of horror and death. She was obsessed with isolation and entrapment. Unable to handle her inner and outer worlds she went to a hospital for treatment of which she later writes about by using false name of Victoria Lucas. The word “Lady” she uses with the title has to do with female power. In the poem Lady Lazarus is about being reborn and her resentment of those who care for her. She is frustrated at people’s inability to understand her despair and unwillingness to carry on with her life. Each time she recovers from her death actually from her suicide attempts she is overwhelmed by people that care about her as she returns to the same place she was when she died. I think Plath has an obsession with death but she is very frustrated when she wakes to the same place and same people. She wants to die and wake up somewhere else she thinks she is going to wake up at a different place and she doesn’t so she gets upset and tries to kill herself again. The end is where she rises out of ash from fire. She is on fire and she eats men like air but really it’s like fire where she devours them. Ash, ash you poke and stir everything is burned up where nothing is there. All has burned up. She sees dying is an art that she can’t quite capture to the extent that she can’t stop coming back to the same place.

13 -1 Randall Jarrell

               

      

Randall Jarrell was a teacher most of his life. He stated if he was rich he basically like teaching so much that he would teach for free. Jarrell was a poet and attended Vanderbilt University. Because he had been in the arm forces he wrote of his time there.

The poem Losses written by Jarrell he wrote of death in the air force. I guess this was what he had seen in his time in the arm forces. He writes of death and the loss of death it wasn’t about dying we have died before, but the loss of the person. And how many losses there were. In the new planes with new people I gather was that the other people he had been with before had died. He writes of how their death would be made by a mistake that someone had made. I see this being how important his job was.And how a mistake would kill the people in the plane. The people they had killed and never knew them or seen them. We read our mail and count our missions. I would think he was thinking just how many missions they had left before they were done and could leave. When we lasted long enough they gave us metals. But if they died they were low of causalities. So some of his fellow forces were dead and the cities were burned from the maps they were given with their mission. If they crashed they were given the wrong information and used wrong navigation to establish their position. The planes were taken down by the power lines that they had not navigated right. We blazed up on the lines were the power lines that they struck while in flight. I enjoyed this poem even though it was of death and dying.

12-1 A Raisin in the Sun

I don’t know about anyone else but I felt that I was watching “Good Times” With the mother and the father fussing and the small place they lived. I have to say I did enjoy it.

Walter has a lot of dreams for his family. He wants his father’s money from his death to open a liquor store. His wife Ruth wants a home but she has just found out she is pregnant. She is thinking hard about getting rid of the baby. She doesn’t want to bring another child into the place where they live which isn’t the best neighbor hood. Their home is full with Walters’s mom and his sister. His son is sleeping on the sofa in the living room and they share a bathroom with the neighbors in the building. Lena’s husband had died and she was getting a check for $10.000 from his life insurance policy. She wanted a bigger home buy everyone had their thoughts of where the money should go for. Walter the liquor store, Lena wants a home. Walter’s sister Beneatha is going to college to be a doctor and her tuition isn’t cheap.

Walters’s mom puts a down payment on a house. Mr. Lindner a man from the housing association comes to tell the family they don’t want black people in the community. They are afraid that because they are black they will have trouble in the community. They tell the family they will pay them not to move. The family is very unhappy the welcoming committee isn’t very welcoming at all. Walter isn’t happy with his mom decision his mom has made. His mother feels bad and she gives him what is left. He is to put his sister money in the bank for college and use the other as head of the house. He invests the money with a man named Willy he steals the money and never returned. Walter and his friends were going in together and get a liquor licenses and open a store. But Willy didn’t come back with the licenses and took the money. Walter, after being upset with the loss of the money is getting a plan to get the money back. He calls the man from the home association to come back over. Mr. Lindner arrives thinking that they are going to accept his offer of the money to not move into the white neighbor hood. But Walter stuns them all he doesn’t take the money and tells the family they are moving. The man leaves and they tell the movers to load up and they move into the house that Walters mom had bought for them. Mom finally thinks Walter has become a man.

11-3 Richard Wright

 Richard had a very disturbing life growing up. His father abandoned the family and left him to be raised by his grandmother and mother in a harsh and unfair environment. He had a very limited education due to the black community and environment he was raised in during the 1920’s. He graduated from high school as valedictorian an already had a story published in high school before graduation. Still he had no recognition for any of his talents because of the segregated society, like many other blacks in his society at that time. He moved up north to Tennessee and then further up north to Chicago. He had many different small jobs trying to stay afloat during the depression. He became involved in the National Negro Theatre and other projects. Over all Richard had many struggles in his life starting in his early childhood into adulthood.

           

The story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” was a very good story about a boy named Dave that wanted a gun. I believe he related being a man to having a gun. Dave went to the store to get the Sears Roebuck catalog to find a gun to order. Dave’s mom didn’t want him to have a gun. He sweet talked his mother after supper about how Joe had a gun he would sell to Dave for two dollars. His mom gave him the money and told him to get back home with the gun she wanted it for her husband. Dave played around in the fields acting like he was shooting it. It was late when he returned home he waited till his mom was in the bed. He woke up the next morning with the gun under his pillow. He took some flannel and tied the gun around his thigh and went to work helping in the fields. Jim Hawkins wanted to know why he was there so early. He had left before his mom could get up. He didn’t want to hand over the gun. He took jenny to the fields to plow and while he was playing around he shot the gun and it hit Jenny. He saw her bleeding while she was jumping around. Dave tried to put dirt in the hole and stop the bleeding but there wasn’t nothing could be done. Several people heard the shot and came to see what was going on. As Dave was questioned the crowd had gathered and as Dave told his story they laughed. Mr. Hawkins told Dave he would have to work and pay for the dead mule. Dave went home went to bed and when everyone was asleep he got up and went to find the gun he told everybody he had threw in the creek. He found the gun and shot it several times. He felt like a man on his way home he hears a train. He gets on the train and runs away from his problems. Really he never became a man but a coward for not staying to face the punishment. 

11-2 Welty

        

Eudora Welty was born in 1909 and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin. She studied advertising at Columbia University before returning to Mississippi, where she had various writing jobs.

 “Powerhouse” is a story that really demonstrates the different idea's between black and white societies.  How each group cooperates with one another and the values that each community sees as important.  Powerhouse is a black band playing at an all-white dance hall. The story is during the time of segregation.  Although the band is playing their hearts out, the audience is not really dancing.  Music is everything to Powerhouse, and no matter where they are playing.  They have left their family at home to play in different places. The only communication they have is through the phone. This band wasn't exactly in their comfort zone.  The white community simply viewed them as entertainment for them even though it meant so much more to the band.  The people at the dance seemed like it was almost an embarrassment to have some black guy playing his heart out. The white people were so wrapped up in segregation they couldn't just see them as people and appreciate what they were doing.  People had their song request, but he only referred to them as numbers, which makes them feel like just another number.  They were being treated as "blacks" not humans.  The songs were announced by number and not their real names.  When they took a break and went to the all-black cafe, you could really see the difference in the two cultures and how they were treated. This story brought the concerns of segregation and how bad it really was especially to the black people. People are the same we are all human the only difference is the skin color, but we all are human’s with a heart. No one is better than any body else. As we see here people couldn’t see beyond the color if their skin.

10-1 Steinbeck

John Steinbeck grew up with a drive to be successful.  As a young boy he supported himself taking numerous jobs just to make it through.  When he finally began writing he showed deep empathy for migrate workers and those who struggle to survive.  He felt that they lost the enjoyment and the feeling of living with all the manual labor.  Steinbeck was able to write about these things because he fully understood them and experienced it first hand.

I enjoyed Steinbeck's story, "Flight" the story is about a young man who wants to become a man. He is the oldest child of the family and his father has deserted them.  He now feels like it is his job to be a man. His mother takes care of him and her other children.  She wants him to act more mature and grow up. Pepe’s dad had left a knife and Pepe had started carrying it. He loved that knife and he carried it around everywhere. He pulled it out a lot and threw it into the ground to keep it sharp and rust free. He cherished his father’s knife very much.  One day his mother sent him into town to get some medicine in case anyone got a stomach or tooth ache. He loaded up and went to town and was to stay the night and come back early in the morning. But something happen he was home earlier than normal. He had gotten into a fight killing a man with his knife. He told his mother the story and they packed his horse’s saddle bags so he can leave town. He tells his brother and sister by and they don’t understand why he is leaving. His journey takes him way into the woods where brush and thickets makes it hard to travel. The cliffs of rocks are hard for the horse to climb. Pepe being on guard at all times he hears animals and a person on a horse passing through. Pepe doesn’t have an easy travel into the mountains; he gets cut on a sliver of granite rock. His horse is shot and killed and he has to start walking to hide from whom ever may be after him for the killing. In the end Pepe was shot and killed, there he was the man he always wanted to be.  

10.3 Langston Hughs

Langston Hughs was born in 1902. He became the leader of the writers who created Harlem Renaissance. He lived and worked in Paris and Italy before he returned to the United States. He had always had an interest in writing poetry.  He attended Columbia University. His most popular works were news paper sketches written for the Chicago Defender. Throughout his life he worked as a cook’s helper, a busboy, and a seaman.  Hugh’s was a humorist and a historian on the lives of black Americans.  Hugh’s wrote everything from short stories to lyrics.  As a young man he was even elected class poet.  Hugh’s used his work to speak out for the black community and its culture.  In his poem, “The Weary Blues” Hugh’s puts rhythm and structure into wonderful jazz inspired lyrics.  A picture is painted of a man playing the blues. He uses the blues to deal with society.

The story “On The Road” was a very unusual story. A man named sergeant was walking in the snow cold, hungry, and sleepy he was trying to find a place to go. He had been to a lot of shelters seeking food and a place to stay they were all full. He sees a parsonage and the man turns him away. Then he sees a church and white mans church. He tries to open the door but it was locked .Then he tries to push the door open when the cops come and the church falls along with the cross. Sergeant walks down the road still looking for shelter. He looks beside him and Christ is there talking to him. He thanks sergeant for getting him off the cross; he had been there a long time. Christ tells him he is going to Kansas City. They part ways and sergeant goes to the jungle to sleep. When he wakes he walks to the train station to jump on a coal car. When he pulls himself up a cop starts beating him. He tries several times and can’t make it. The cop tells him he isn’t in the jungle anymore and this isn’t a train car it’s jail as he beats him across the knuckles. Then he realizes he is in jail and it must have been a dream. He wonders if Christ made it to Kansas. He sees the dried blood from the beating at the church the night before. Then he wonders if they had arrested him and was it a dream all along.

10.2 William Faulkner

William Faulkner received a noble prize for his literature in 1949. Faulkner began his career as a poet. As a young man he wanted to join the military but he was rejected.  Instead he went to Canada.  He published many works in his time and is now a topic in every American Literature classroom.

In the short story "That Evening Sun" we see the story from two different points of view.  Quentin tells his story from the view of a 24 year old and then he tells the story from how he remembers as a nine year old.  His mother and father have a maid by the name of Nancy.  She is very afraid of her husband Jesus.  She is convinced that he is going to kill her.  She begs night after night for people to walk her home so she does not have to be in the dark.  She thinks he is waiting with a razor blade ready to slice her throat open.  It gets so bad that she even wants to stay the night and begs the children to come and stay with her.  The children are young and they don’t really understand. They are not really concerned with her situation but more concerned with what they won’t have if she dies. They don’t understand death and the process of after someone dies they don’t return. 
Nancy and Jesus’ relationship was like a rollercoaster.  I am assuming there were many reasons.  It was mentioned how she was always around the white men and it was suggested that she was pregnant by one.  The "watermelon" under her dress was indeed a baby.  This story portrayed the severe inequalities between black and white people.  How the white people view the black people and their horrible perception of people of color. I enjoyed this story; I guess I see how prejudice people really were and how come it took so long to get through these eras. Even though I know some people are still prejudice, it’s hard for me to understand because people of color are still human and have feeling just like anybody else.

10-1 Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois.  His father was a physician and he taught him how to hunt and fish. Hemingway like many other writers worked for some time as a journalist.  Hemingway sought out to join the military, but was rejected due to poor vision.  He found a way on by volunteering as a driver and was later transferred over to work in the Italian front.  Unfortunately for him he was wounded in an explosion.  After his recovery he worked as a foreign correspondent.  Hemingway’s writing help create a revolution in literary style.  He used precise imagery, and an impersonal dramatic tone.  Hemingway became the spokesperson for a lost generation.

Ernest Hemingway's story, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" is a great story. Mr. and Mrs. Macomber are on an African safari hunting trip.  At a glance Francis Macomber seems like a strong man, but it becomes apparent he is a coward in so many ways.  His wife Margot is very beautiful and takes full advantage of his inability to be assertive and stand up for himself.  Robert Wilson is their guide for the trip.  Robert was a very unconventional man; he defiantly did not follow the rules.  He did things his way rather it broke the law or not.  He even brought a double cot along when he thought he could sleep with women.  As he guided them on their hunting trip, Margot began showing interest in Wilson.  As the story progresses her interest becomes more open and she does not try to hide it from her husband. She kisses Robert in front of Macomber and eventually she sleeps with Wilson.  When they were hunting lions, Macomber became very scared and fled. This showed how much of a crowd. Throughout the story he began to transform from a boy to a man.  Another opportunity arises and they are hunting water buffalo.  Margot at first was enjoying the hunt, until she saw a change in Macomber.  He was gaining confidence and she was losing control.  When he does not run, she can’t handle it and shoots him.  Wilson is shocked and knows this was not an accident.  He is in a position where he can not say anything; she has too much information about him. Now they are even.  Even though Macomber dies and Margot gets away with it, the story ends on a happy note.  Macomber finally was a man that was a crowd and then he died.

9-1 Their Eyes Were Wathching God

 The novel begins as Janie the main character returns to her home town. The gossips watching her on the porch wonder why she’s back, and if “Tea Cake” has taken all her money, leaving her no option but to return home.  Her friend Pheoby Watson comes over to talk to Janie and find out what has happened. Pheoby doesn’t hold back telling, what happened on her search for happiness and how she had been abandoned by her parents and raised by her grandmother. She wanted Janie to choose a stable man to marry. Her grandmother wanted to know that she would be taken care of before she died. Her grandmother didn’t listen to what Janie wanted and found her an older man named Logan Killicks that she worked for instead of being his wife. She later married Joe Starks; a man that she thought was going to be what she had always wanted. After he was elected Mayor, he changed and became mean and abusive. The love that she wanted so bad he couldn’t give. His professional life as a Mayor was great where he had to solve the town’s problems but, he couldn’t love the way she wanted.  Don’t we all know someone like this? She was married to him for 20 years and after his death she was wealthy. Men seeing a rich women came from all over to see her.  After these men, Janie fell in love with a younger man known as “Tea Cake” he was a bean picker that didn’t have much money. She owned the store that her husband ran and one day “Tea Cake” walked in, his real name was Vergible Woods. He taught her how to play checkers and let her be herself by saying what she felt. Tea Cake may have had a gambling problem as he takes her money to gamble and gets in fight. But he returns with three hundred dollars instead of two that he had taken from her clothes where she had the money hidden. They decided to move to the Everglades’ where they could make money by day picking beans and by night by playing cards and gambling.  Later, after a good year of picking beans they decided to stay another year. As the year passed they saw Indians moving due to a hurricane. The hurricane came a few days later and just a bought killed both of them.  During their struggle to stay a live “Tea Cake” was bitten by a dog.  Which later he became ill and started having hallucinations that Janie was trying to kill him.  He wasn’t to drink water and when he did he would go mad and try and kill her.  He was so worried about her that he had a gun under his pillow.  But Janie found the gun and got her rifle ready.  After he returned from the outhouse he went for his gun.  Janie got hers and shot Tea Cake.  He died in her lap. Mean while she had been giving tea Cake medicine and they were waiting on a serum. However the serum didn’t come in time.  Janie went to jail and they decided she didn’t need to stay in jail long. The doctor testified that she had been in love with Tea Cake and had been giving him medicine. But there was nothing she could have done. That’s why Janie came back to town and without her husband that she had finally found love with.  This was a great story a little drawn out at times, but very sad for Janie at least she had her friend Phobey Watson to come home too.

Susan Glaspell

8.3                                              Susan Glaspell

 Susan Glaspell was a playwrighter who told stories about real women.   Glaspell portrayed women in a way that expressed their struggles.  Men often sterotyped women as they always have done.  Glaspell was borned in a middle class family.  Many of her earlier works were based on her upbringing in her hometown of Davenport, Iowa.  When Glaspell was older she became more aware of the world around her and of the inequalities that women had suffered.  Glaspell wrote many plays throughout her life and eleven of them were featured in the Provincetown Players.  Among the many plays that Glaspell wrote “Trifles” a play that gained the most recognition. This particular play starts in an abandoned kitchen in the home of John and Minnie Wright.  There in the house is Henry Peters (the sheriff), Mrs. Peters (his wife), George Henderson (County Attorney), Lewis Hale (County Attorney), and Mrs. Hale (his wife).  They are investigating the murder of John Wright.  Lewis Hale tells the sheriff and the county attorney what he saw when he came to the home the night before.  Mrs. Wright was sitting in her rocking chair very calm, when Mr. Hale came to visit.  He had intended on asking her husband about getting a phone.  Ay this time it was possible to get a group line where they could all talk to one another.   As he searched the house he found Mr. Wright dead, he had been strangled by a rope around his neck.

While the men searched the home the following day the women were left to look around the downstairs alone, the men told them they could take some of Mrs. Wright’s things to the jailhouse.  They all noticed how untidy the home was, but the men were more critical.  As the men criticized the home over and over you could feel the women becoming defensive.  As the story progressed the women began to take on a more sympathetic role for Mrs. Wright.  They began searching through the downstairs and found her quilt.  It was beautiful, but the last few stitches were done very poorly as if she was nervous.  Instead of turning this over to their husband as evidence, they decided to undo the stitching.  They also found an empty birdcage, and when they began searching found the bird in a box dead.  When they took a good look at the bird, they realized that the bird’s neck had been broken.   The women began putting the pieces together.  Mrs. Wright’s husband wasn't very nice.  As a young girl Minnie was lively and loved to sing, but after marrying Mr. Wright her light had fizzled out.  The women began feeling sorry for her, and decided to hide the evidence.  The men searched the house looking for some kind of evidence or motive, but they could not find any.  The women came to realize that Mrs. Wright did kill her husband and in the end they did not tell on her.

Willa Cather

8.2                                                 Willa Cather

Willa Cather was born in 1873 and at the age of nine her family migrated to Nebraska.  She grew up among European immigrants who were full of courage, sensitivity, and perseverance which she used in her novels.  She challenged gender roles by dressing unconventionally.  She wore her hair short and dressed in men's clothing.  In 1900 Cather began publishing poems and short stories. Among them were "A Wagner Matinee" and "Paul's Case."

The first short story "A Wagner Matinee" was the story of a women and how she became lost in life.  Her nephew received a letter in the mail informing him that he was to take care of her for a bit.  His Aunt Georgiana the woman who raised him was coming to town and he wanted to show her a wonderful time.  As a young woman his aunt was a music teacher and had a great passion for music.  She met her husband and he convinced her to run away and elope.  She went from having a wonderful life to having nothing.  I do not think she hated her life life or her husband by any means, but she did regret it to a point.  They got land and lived on a small farm.  She spent the rest of her days working on the farm and raising children.  He was very close with his aunt and she had shared her loved of music with him.  She spent a lot of time teaching him many different works and taught him to play the piano.  There was a time when she told him not love the music too much or it might be taken away.  There was a deep sadness created by that scene for me, the thing she loved the most had been taken from her.

When his aunt arrived he decided to take her to the Oprah house.  She was not at all now like she was before, she had aged considerably.  He was worried she would not enjoy the Symphony Orchestra.  At first it seemed like she did not want to go, but I am guessing because it had been so long since she had been she felt a little uneasy.  Once in the Oprah house they sat together as the show began and as the songs played his aunt was moved.  They shared moments of sadness and happiness.  He was reminded of many times as a child and their time spent together.  She was in bliss and enjoyed every moment of the Oprah.  It took her back to a time way before the farm and before she was taken away from her music.  When the Oprah was over she did not want to leave.  It was back to reality, and back to what her life had become.

Often times I think that happens to many people.  Life sweeps us away.  In the business of life we lose our passions, goals, and dreams and before you know it life is almost at an end. 

The second story was Paul's Case.  Paul was a misunderstood teenager that desperately wanted attention.  He was a teenager that was basically hated by all his teachers.  They had a right not to like him, because he was constantly causing trouble in his classes.  He would tell elaborate stories about being friends with the actors at the music hall and things he did that never happened.  He felt his life was plain and boring.  He sat dreaming of a life he didn't have, and resenting his family for being so plain.  His father was no help and certainly did not encourage any of his hopes and dreams.  His family was not poor by any means, but his father did not like to give him money.  He let him work at Carnegie Hall as an usher to make some extra money.  It was there he became obsessed with he lives of the musicians and actors that graced the stage night after night.  He felt at home during the performances and was swept away.  He was a very peculiar person though.  After he was off work he would often follow the performers to their hotel and imagine what it was like to be there. 

One day at school he decided to take his smart little comments too far with one of his teachers.  Normally he gets out of trouble and normally he can go back to his life without much consequence, but not today.  That comment was the last straw.  He was taken out of school and away from his job.  His father told the people he worked for not to let him in anymore.  Paul was pulled out of his fantasy world and into reality.  This did not set well with Paul, and soon he was headed to New York.  He had stolen deposit money from his dad’s business.  He wanted to venture into the hotels he dreamed about and live the life of the famous.  He wanted to escape reality and be someone else.  He rented a wonderful room and enjoyed all the amenities of being rich and famous.  This bliss could not last for too long of course and soon all the money he had stolen was spent.  His name was in the newspaper and his father was looking for him.  He soon realized that he number was up.  He began to run with the little money he had left, and when he realized there was nowhere to run he took his own life.

                                                 

Zora Neal Hurston

8.1                                                                     Zora Neal Hurston

Zora Neal Hurston Was born in a town of Notasulga Alabama.  It was thought that she was born in 1891, but it was uncertain and she states that she was born in 1901 or 1903.  She lived in an all black town until she was thirteen years old.  Her father was a carpenter and preacher and her mother was a school teacher. Her mother encouraged her lot. Her mother passed away and she was sent to live with relatives that her father sent money to take care of her.  She worked as a maid and went to college.  She wanted to be a writer and was awarded a Fellowship to collect Folklore.  Her work was often criticized; her intentions of writing were to write about people and not their skin color.

 In her story of “John Redding Goes to Sea’    John Redding as a young boy and an adult wanted to leave home to explore the world. He would throw sticks in the river and watch them float away. He always wanted to leave home and see where the sticks floated too. His mother tries to keep him from his dreams. First, John's mother is determined not to let John pursue his dreams she pleads illness and threatens to disown him if he leaves.  John's marriage to Stella seems to tie him down permanently to his home, as his new wife agrees with his mother to discourage John's desire to travel. Further, his mother's fits keep John from even joining the Navy.  Later, when John is killed while working with a crew to build a bridge on the St. John's River, his father forbids his body to be retrieved from the river as it floats toward the ocean. At last, John will get his wish to travel and see the world, but now he is dead.

                                                                                  

Robert Frost

                                                            Robert Frost

7.1                                                                                 

Robert Frost was born in 1874.  Frost wrote poetry as a teen and graduated from high school as valedictorian.  Frost tried college several times but he didn’t like conventional academics.  Frost made his living by farming and teaching.  Frost really liked nature but wasn’t into religious dogma.  Frost wrote many popular poems’ that to this day is still used.  Frost loved farming and nature that’s where a lot of his poems came from.

Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice” is one that I really like how he uses fire and ice to represent the end of the world.   Fire is a desire and lust which is a transgression. Ice is hate that humanity embraces. Through the hate and desires of the world it will end, which could be looked at as a sin.  These acts of nature versus the acts of humans will eventually take over the world. 

The other poem I like is “Home Burial” which is very good but very sad.  A couple loses their child.  Neither one of them understands the other and their feelings. They blame each other for the loss of the child.   The wife wants him to talk about the loss, but he deals with death like all people very different.  Her husband uses threats to communicate his emotions to his wife.  Over time it get worse and she decides to leave after she has had enough. He is still making threats after she goes to come bring her back home no matter what force it requires.   Here he is left at home alone which will be his own home burial.  

The other poem I liked is “The Road not Taken” I have ask several people what they think the meaning of this poem is and every time I get a different answer.  I happen to think that it means the path isn’t as easy and very confusing with the outcome undetermined.   In the end the road taken is the path less traveled but who knows which path is less traveled.  This saying has been around for ever.  Sometimes the road less traveled is the toughest road to follow.  So how do we know which road to take?  I guess it’s like life it’s a choice we will have to make. 

                             

                                                                                              

The Other Two

6.3 Edith Wharton                   “The Other Two”

Edith Wharton was born into a wealthy and privileged society and by no surprise she married into money.  Her childhood gave her the best education by tutors and she was taken for extended tours abroad.  Here is where she gained her love for European art and culture. Edith and her husband traveled a lot from America to Europe visiting relatives while living off their allowance provide by both of their families. After several years of marriage they divorced in which Edith was married again later on. She divorced again and later married her third husband.  Mr. and Mrs. Wharton are newlyweds that while on their honeymoon got cut short due to her daughter age tweleve became ill from Typhoid.  Mrs. Wharton’s daughter was from a previous marriage.  Her daughter usually visits her dad Mr. Haskett, once a week but due to illness he is asking to come to their home to see Lily.  Mr. Haskett just wants to have an active roll and see that Lily is doing well.  He uses laws as well as emotional appeal to ask for visits with his biological daughter.   The conversation discloses the complication that Alice has to deal with from her ex-husbands which causes a number of disputes and arguments between the newlyweds.  Mr. Wharton wasn’t thrilled at the idea of another man being in his home, but later grew to understand the reasons were wholesome and reasonable.  While dealing with these problems he also has to deal with the fact that he has taken over a business deal with her other ex-husband.  He lets these issues with her ex-husband’s worry him, but the more he is around he figures out that it doesn’t change his feelings for her. Her husband meeting and being around these other two men makes him realize why he really loves his wife.  Her first marriage caused Alice to appreciate what she has and brought out her kind nature.  The second marriage ended in infidelity which taught her to appreciate the marriage bond. In the end her husband realizes that because of her past she is everything he has ever wanted and he owes it all to her two ex-husbands for making his life so easy. 

The open Boat

 6.2                                        “The Open Boat”                                                 

    The Open Boat was a story about four men and their emotions, and, struggles as they try to survive against the forces of nature.  I really enjoyed this story after I really got into it.  At first I didn’t put it all together.  This was an inspiring story that these men would do anything to stay alive and fight for their lives in the middle of the sea.  The four main characters are the captain, Billie, oiler and the cook, whom survived the SS Commodore a major ship wreck. The captain was already injured and would only get weaker in the struggle to survive.  They didn’t have any food, which didn’t help matters any.  These men were very different but worked together in order to survive. They are now in the middle of the sea in a small boat fighting for their life.  I liked how Crane used the example of the bath tub to capture the size of the small boat they were in.  They have grown to know one another and only have each other to get back to shore.   When they see the lighthouse they’re optimism changes.  They know it is almost impossible to reach land that they have finally found.  This would be heart breaking knowing you can see land but unable to get there.  The men decide that they have no other choice than to swim to shore.  Three of the men decide to swim while holding on to the boat.  Billie being the strongest of all the men thought he could make it to shore, and swims a head of the others.  When the others get to shore they find Billie dead he had drowned.  This was very disappointing to me.  I just knew they were all going to live after all they went through. 

Stephen Crane's Poetry

6.1                                                                                   Stephen Crane’s Poetry

Stephen Cranes was raised in a Methodist home. This was the idea that man had significance in the universe. We all have free will and God is good. Like many kids he grew up to attack these ideas with humor and savage irony.  He planed on going to the military but went to college instead.  He became a free lance journalist and began to publish poems in 1895.  Crane was known for his use of irony and his christen symbolist.  Crane wrote many novels as well as poems and  is known today for his novel” The Open Book” After reading several poems by Crane it seems that his has somewhat a bitter view of the world.  He concentrates on the profound conflict man has with himself and God. It seems that writers write about issues that they have endured at some point in their life and maybe that’s why Crane seems to struggle with religion. The poem “In the Desert” made me think of a bitter person, so bitter his heart had no love at all.  But he liked it because it was his heart therefore he would be the only one that knew why he was bitter.  Maybe he wasn’t bitter maybe he really loved himself. I feel that if the poems were named I could understand them better, however: I also think that’s why some poet’s don’t name their work; they want to be the only one that understands their work. Another poem I thought was really deep was “A Man Said to the Universe”.  The man spoke to the universe which replied the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.  So the universe had no sense of obligation to acknowledge him.  Like the book stated Crane was the master of irony, which I see him as being bitter and sarcastic and he accomplished this not by talking to people but through his poetry. I see him as a very distant person that suppressed his feelings on the outside.  But when he wrote his exploded with what he wanted to accomplish.  Sarcasm isn’t all negative it can bring quite a few laughs. Much like Cranes work

                

                                                                            

Kate Chopin

5.2                                                                                                                             

 Kate Chopin was born in St.Louis Missouri and lived there most of her life.  Kate being born into a wealthy merchant family advanced her the education in a Roman Catholic convent school.  Kate was married at age nine-teen to Oscar Chopin a wealthy business man, that later died from swamp fever.   The couple had six kids together and after his death Katie was left with enough money to take care of them. Even though Katie had plenty of children and things to keep her busy she started writing.  She was writing unconventional and received a lot of criticism.  Katie wrote poetry, sketches, and, fiction dealing with Louisiana Creoles.  Her writings challenged normative female scripts of the nine-tenth century.  Today her writing would be better accepted than it was in that era of time.  Today people are looking for excitement to read instead of the truth or boring articles from papers and magazines.

“The Awakening” by Kate Chopin has been one of the most criticized novels due to the passion and infidelity. Today it is one of the most well recognized books. The main character Edna was a wealthy young woman married to a well received business man.  The family is spending their summer in the Grand Isle with the kids. The women envy Edna and make snide remarks about her and the family, “she has the perfect husband”.

He makes enough money to give them a comfortable life. Her husband is always concerned about his kids and sends his wife a little present while he is out of town.  Edna is spoiled in the eyes of the other women, but looks can be deceiving because Edna isn’t as happy as everyone thinks. Edna doesn’t enjoy all the things that the other women like.  Most of the other women are devoted to their husband and kids but, Edna is distant.  She isn’t the motherly type; she seems preoccupied with other things.  Her husband considers these issues but pushes the thoughts away, thinking the best of his wife. 

Edna meets Robert while they are staying at Grand Isle.  During the time with Robert she begins to change.  Her attention becomes more and more directed toward him.  First she thinks nothing of it, and soon afterwards it develops into much more than a friendship.  She finds herself wanting him when he is away.  Everything in her life seems to be changing and, everyone is noticing the change.  People are asking questions about them and what is going on between them. Kate Chopin‘s writing in this novel illustrates how a women opens up and discovers herself.  Edna finally felt lively and free with Robert.  I guess you could say Edna had several processes of “awakening” a long the way.   Edna decides to leave her husband and kids for Robert.  But he makes it clear that he doesn’t want her and she is married to another man.  Here is another awakening moment where I feel she makes a big mistake by leaving her family for a man she hardly known’s.  For the first time Edna had her own thoughts feelings and emotions.  But these emotions weren’t the ones of young love these were an awakening to reality.

                                         

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

5.1                                                                             Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was broken from then starts.  She was from a poverty stricken home which offered little in education.  As she got older she did get married but wasn’t very happy.  There is where is wrote of her felling of unhappiness.  During the era of which she lived she was expected to be a faithful wife and mother.  Women were to obey their husbands and conform to societies expectations.  It wasn’t long before Charlotte started being depressed. Charlotte had seen the doctor which: he told her to take it easy and refrain from writing, painting, and, reading. She still continued to be unhappy and depressed. Then she realized that freedom and independence was her best option. I understand her in these feelings if someone is unhappy and depressed and the answer for good heath for a person it might end in divorce.  She did divorce her husband. She married again later to George Gilman which was a successful marriage.  She was a strong advocate of women’s rights; even after being divorced and remarried she continued her crusade.  Charlotte had a philosophical impact on women. She was also an advocate for health care, civil justice, labor rights, and poverty. Her topics grew as well as did her audience. 

The story “Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman reflects from her own experiences to create one of her most famous stories.  Her experiences with mental depression and suffering helped to create such a complex story.  One of her ideas for writing the story according to the text was to expose the mistakes made by medical science in treating the mentally insane.  This part reminds me of a soap opera where they lock people up to maintain their safety that I feel is all wrong.  Speaking from a once very depressed person that had lots of depressed friends, all I and they wanted was to be left alone.  I wanted no one around me. But the best thing for me was when my friend’s called and took me places and then I seen the world in a better light and my life could have been so much worse. So I have now figured out how to just be thankful for what I have and try to help others that sometimes like all of us have struggles.  Being locked up with her illness by her husband isn’t helping her at all.

At first she is amazed with the yellow wallpaper, and soon infatuated as it takes on a life of its own, and consumes her entirely. She is the yellow wallpaper.  Charlotte is escalating out of control and is trapped in her own mind. Charlotte being in isolation is making her illness worse day after day. What made matters worse was her husband wouldn’t listen to her pleas for help. He thought by her being away she would be safe and ok. But on the inside of her mind she was going crazy.  He wanted her to get better, but he did not listen to her. Then she begged for them to destroy the yellow wallpaper, just like she begged for a change in her life. Charlotte had to do as she had done before with her first marriage, she had to take control. So she took down the wallpaper and freed herself.  This directly relates to Gilman’s life when she broke free from her first marriage. She ripped the wallpaper down and felt freedom and relief.