Toni Cade Bambara - THE LESSON

The Lesson is a story about a young girl who is trying to find the right path for her future. Sylvia is young and naive, from the New York ghetto, but definitely street smart. She has no education and a pretty foul mouth. When Miss Moore takes her and her cousins to FAO Schwarz, it is the first time where Sylvia realizes that there are people out there who have more money and who can afford expensive toys for their children. That there are people who are more 'privileged' and have different lifestyles. When they return to their hood, it seems like nobody really had changed their mindsets, after the trip. Of course, everyone was talking about the nice expensive toys and how they wanted them, but it seems as if only Sylvia was in deep thought about the deeper meaning behind Miss Moore's lesson. I think that she might ponder about possibly getting an education like Miss Moore, and to become somebody important in this world, somebody of greater significance.

John Updike -- A & P

This story is about a small town boy who is trying to break free from the mundane routine of his day job and the narrow minded characters he has to deal with day in and out. It seems as if Sammy is a bit superior to the other characters, in terms of mindset. He has a vision of a world beyond their town, beyond the A&P market. He has dreams and desires, which are kind of metaphorically projected onto Queenie, she is symbolizing what is out there for him. She is the source of his spontaneous outburst of anarchy, in a way. When he quits his job, he does it to run after her, to impress her, but in the end it is more of subconscious choice he is making: He is trying to escape, and he knows while having the job he is trapped in this town. With quitting his job, he gets a new opportunity to start anew. Queenie is not important anymore. What is important at this point is this crossroad that he is standing at. He can choose to lose or chose to start anew.

F. O'Connor -- A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND

The short story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" by Flannery O'Connor is a real downer. Two people who couldn't be more different find each other and annoy each other to pieces, until one shoots the other.

Lady grandmother, as I like to call her, certainly is a jaded heart. She is in denial about her unhappiness, as it seems a lot of religious people are. As long as Jesus is around, nothing can be all too bad, right?
But what is it that Lady grandmother is looking for? Salvation? And what is it that the Misfit is looking for? The truth? Authentic faith? He has no faith in humanity, and neither has Lady grandmother, who doesn't believe in any good men around. Yet she tries to convince the Misfit that he is a good man - for her own good, to be "saved" in the OTHER way (meaning NOT TO DIE). Because one thing is clear, Lady grandmother was certainly not ready to die, even though she made jokes about wanting to 'die a lady'. She died a pretender, in my opinion. I believe she had good intentions, but many also were totally selfish. Her idea of the perfect world was the past. The Misfit's idea of the perfect world was something non-existent. He thought the world was a mean place, and I believe that he thought that Lady grandmother was a mean person as well. He shot her out of exhaustion, not because he felt good doing it. He seems like a sociopath who loves to screw with his own head. He's a philosopher, but in a twisted way. He wonders about the meaning of life and probably has a higher IQ than anybody else in this story. A lot of serial killers are proven to be of high intelligence. It makes one think that people who have an intellect above average just don't "fit" in this world, because it is a world of ignorance and materialism.

E.A. POE -- THE PURLOINED LETTER

This story is about the intellectual Auguste Dupin, who outfoxes the thief and Minister D., when he steals back a letter that D. had stolen from a royal lady in the first place. Dupin and D. are both mathematicians and poets. The Prefect G., who is trying to investigate the case and searches D.'s whole house for the letter, doesn't get anywhere with his mathematical strategies. He lacks the imagination and creativity that the poets have to solve the case, and outsmart the thief. When Dupin is asked for advice, he instead takes the matter in his own hands, knowing that he has the ability to get into Minister D.'s head and turns the tables. He is not only a litte bit smarter than D., he also shows the Prefect, that a poet is more than just a fool, a prejudice that, in that era, brought forth the Prefect's fail in solving the case himself.

William Carlos Williams -- The Use of Force

In this story we have a man who is two things: A doctor and a private man. The doctor's goals are to help the child overcome an illness, so she can live a healthy life. The private man wants to play, and it is a game of power. He is totally aware of it, yet he is making excuses the whole time, trying to reason what his motives are, and trying to convince himself that his intentions are pure.
In the end he realizes that he is longing for a physical release, that he truly enjoys the fury that was caused by the battle he fought -- against a child.

In my opinion, the story is a summary of nature of man. It is inevitable that any man, no matter what occupation, no matter what religion or ethnicity, has certain needs and certain desires, that he can hardly control, or maybe not at all.

Ernest Hemingway - HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

In Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" we witness the dissolution of the relationship between Jig, a woman and The American, her travel partner and lover.
I believe that the two are too different to be able to be together. I sensed so much tension between them, like I myself have come to experience in the past, while traveling and trying to start lives with different people, yet neither of them turned out to be the right one. Gladly I didn't get pregnant, like Jig has. She happens to be with a very stubborn, immature and confused man.
For her it would be best at this point to part with him and go her own way, make her own decisions and start a new life that she has dreamed of - after all, another man will come along at some point.
But in the end she goes with him, because as a woman of her time, she has no other choice and decided to be safe, rather than on her own, even if this decision will hurt her more emotionally, it will give her security in the long run. I am not talking financial security, but knowing that a man is by her side means a lot for a woman, and gives her strength. If the strength that The American gives her is healthy, thats questionable, but this is her fate.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story about an intelligent young woman who is unhappy in her marriage, falls into depression and is then slowly hunted into insanity - by the ignorant treatment of the people surrounding her, especially her husband.

I believe that the woman hung herself in the end. She was a creative and intellectual woman with a vivid imagination. She had this idea of wanting to be free and being able to write and find peace with doing that. Her husband had more the idea of a conventional marriage, where the woman had to obey and, even though she was taken care for lovingly, still somehow treated like a little child, which is also very apparent in the story.

She was lonely and she had understood, after living in denial for way too long, that she would never be that woman that she wanted to be, as long as she was with her husband. He was it who drove her insane, with his thoughtlessness and misdiagnosis. Hanging herself was the last way out, she didn't know it any better.

Kate Chopin -- The Story of an Hour

The Story of an Hour is the short-lived liberation of a woman stuck in an unhappy marriage.
Louise Mallard finds out about the death of her husband, which has her shed tears at first, until she starts to feel the beauty of that "new spring life" by herself.  However, after an hour of breathing 'fresh air', she finds that her husband is still alive and has returned to their home. She dies immediately from a heart attack, which is traced back by doctors to "the joy that kills", yet it's apparent that she died out of shock for losing what she had just found - her self assertion and liberation.

I think that Louise was of high intellect and had many wishes and dreams, probably just like any other woman of her time, and obviously just like Kate Chopin. But as so many like her, it was impossible. She was lonely, repressed, sad, unhappy, unsatisfied and had given up on living out any emotions. She probably didn't even think that she had any emotions left inside of her. I don't think that life was that bad. We don't know if she was in an abusive marriage, unbearable to take, but she most definitely was provided for. But I don't think any of what she had in her marriage was fulfilling to her. Every human being has dreams and emotions and wants something good, well, most likely the best, out of life, and so did Louise.

When I first read the story, I could feel that her husband would return in the end, however, I didn't think Louise would die. I figured she would use her newly found free will and self-assertion to be stronger in their marriage and find ways of being happy with Brantly. I was shocked Chopin had Louise have a heart attack and die, since I wished for her so much to break free without Brently being dead, which would have been a TRUE liberation, rather than just a temporary naive high of emotions that came with his sudden death.

Preparations. Test, test. Hello.

This blog is for the Short Fiction class I am taking this semester. Hope that this is going to be somewhat insightful. My name is Anna.