Walker Extra Credit

As he watches her slowly make her way down the aisle he is overcome by his feelings for her. He loves her, he wants a better life for her. She looked beautiful in her own way as she walked toward him. Beautiful, but not perfect. Staring at her tired face, he is reminded. Reminded of her and all of the work she has done. He wanted to take that work away, to give her a live that she deserved. His only fear was that it would not be what she wanted.

Hemingway Extra Credit

  As a youth mentor, I sometimes go to summer and winter camps in order to be able to form relationships with students so that they can feel comfortable talking to me and other leaders as well. While camps are amazing experiences that I would not trade for the world, it is sometimes difficult to transition back into life with my family one I get home. Life still goes on while I’m away and it is easy to feel misplaced and left out once I get back home. Camp really helps me to understand Krebs’s feelings. Coming home after being gone for a while can make you feel uncomfortable even around those who you are most comfortable with.

SSRJ #4: Carver

In life, one thing that we all have in common is the search for answers. We want to know why things happen. We want to know what to do. We want to know the future. And, most importantly, we want to know why we don’t know. We all want answers, but our methods of finding them are very different. Some people answer a question through research, others would rather just guess. Some people talk through their answers, others keep their thoughts to themselves. Sometimes circumstances will cause us to change the way that we answer a question or solve a problem. I know that through my own experiences that I respond differently to problems and questions when I am under a lot of stress. As I was reading Raymond Carver’s “Popular Mechanics” I took particular note of the way that the characters were behaving. It seemed to me that the main character’s situation was causing him to react differently. If he had really wanted custody of the baby, I would think that the couple would have discussed the matter before he started to pack up his things. In my opinion the main character’s situation, the taunting from his wife, caused him to behave differently than he would have under more normal circumstances.

In my opinion, the literary element that is most crucial to the story “Popular Mechanics” is irony. The story itself is very short, and the reader does not get much insight into the lives of the characters, but the irony found in the last sentence gives the story the same amount of, if not more, power than a longer, more intricate story. Honestly, I am a bit torn by exactly what the author meant to communicate through the irony. On the one hand the entire point of the story could be very simple. The irony could be found in the fact that both parents wanted custody of the child and their struggle to obtain it is what lead to the unfortunate solution to the problem. This is the obvious way to look at the story, two parents, each fighting desperately for their child until their efforts solve the problem by killing him. This was what I had thought that the author wanted to communicate through the story at first. When I read it a second time a thought occurred to me. Maybe the man did not actually want to keep the baby, maybe he wanted to hurt his wife. She was the one taunting him and telling him to leave, could it be that he wanted revenge? There would really be no better way to get back at the woman than to take away her child. If this is the case, then the point that author is trying to communicate is very different. If the irony is simply that the fight kills the child, then both parents would be equally effected. On the other hand if the man wanting custody of the child was a form of revenge, then emotionally both parents might be affected equally but the death of the child would be more of a lesson for the wife. Ultimately it was her behavior that caused the fight that killed her baby.

The thing that I found most intriguing about the story was the man leaving. I constantly wondered why. What do you think happened? Was it a slow steady build of things that finally sent him over the edge or was it a quick reaction to a one-time argument or problem?

SSRJ # 3: Alice Walker

Perspective. Simply put, it means that events in our own lives shape the way that we react to new events, situations or knowledge. We all have a slightly different way of seeing things. In Alice Walker’s “Roselily” the main character is about to be married, she is about to experience a major event in her life, but she is not excited. The main character’s outlook in the story was quite a challenge to my own view of marriage. I have always thought of a wedding as something joyful and exciting, but this was not the case for Roselily.  She was fearful, and she second guessed her decision, emotions that are not surprising to see in someone who is about to be married, but her reasons for these emotions were. Roselily was not marrying out of love but rather out of need. I cannot imagine being in that sort of situation. This is not to say that I thought that every wedding was a happy event, I know that this is not the case. However, to have insight into the feelings of a bride who is marrying out of necessity rather than desire was interesting for me in that is challenges my own perspective, I had to think outside of my own views in order to understand the main character’s emotions.

One of the things that really drew me into this story was the way that Walker placed lines of the wedding ceremony between the paragraphs. At first I had a difficult time understanding exactly what the point of this was. Why? Why bother adding this to the story if it did not really affect what was going on?  After all, it was not difficult to grasp the point of the story by itself, without the lines of the ceremony. It was not until halfway through the story that I began to understand the reasoning behind Walker’s choice. Without the lines from the wedding ceremony, the story is clear, the emotions of the main character are apparent and the information about her past is not difficult to understand. The story could survive all alone, but it would take on a slightly different meaning. I think that Walker’s point in adding these lines was to give the story depth. They make it seem as though all of Roselily’s thoughts and emotions are happening while the ceremony is going on. With the lines, the reader gets the feeling that Roselily is standing, just moments away from being married, doubting her decision.

The main character mentions several times that she feels she is too old. In paragraph eleven it says that she is “finally being married.” The thing is, age is relative. What is considered old for one person is not considered old for another.  Exactly how old do you think Roselily is? Is she really “too old” or are her feelings of insecurity about her age a result of her second-guessing her decision to marry?

SSRJ #2: Oates

Youth is a funny thing. We never really realize how young we are in the moment. Our actions, our thoughts, our desires, at the time we rarely think of ourselves as immature or silly. Reflection however, is a different story. We can look back on our lives and easily see things for what they really were. We can categorize our actions, understand our mistakes and recognize turning points in our lives that may not have been obvious before. In Joyce Carol Oates’s “Three Girls,” reflection on events of the past is what really propels the story. Throughout the story the narrator reflects on an experience that she and a friend had at a used bookstore when they were college students. Through reflecting on her life the narrator really captures the feeling of being a college student.  The narrator strongly identifies herself with being a student and a poet, it is what defined her. Being a college student myself, I found it easy to relate to this form of identification. When you are a full-time student in college it truly does become part of your identity.

The most prominent literary element used in the story is definitely suspense. Throughout the story, the reader is on the edge of their seat wondering what will happen next. Reading this story the first time you would say that the suspense is found in the situation with Marilyn Monroe, through it so many questions are raised. Why is she, Marilyn Monroe, shopping at a used bookstore? Will she be discovered by the other customers in the store? Will she notice the two girls watching her? The suspense finally ends when the narrator purchases Marilyn Monroe’s books for her and the actress leaves the store unnoticed by anyone except the two girls who protected her secret. At the very last sentence of the story another suspenseful situation is made clear. The two girls who appeared to be friends turn out to be something more than that. It is difficult to pick up on the sexual tension between the two girls throughout the story because it is hidden under the suspense of Marilyn Monroe. However, reading it a second time it is easy to see the true meaning behind comments and descriptions that the narrator made. Once you know what to look for, the narrator’s feelings for her friend are obvious.

One thing that I found particularly interesting about this story was the way that it was told. At first it seemed to me like a something out of a journal or diary. As I read on I noticed that the narrator repeatedly referred to her friend as “you.”  To me this gave the impression that the story was a letter to the narrator’s friend. What was the purpose of this? Was it a letter to her friend or was the story told solely for the narrator’s benefit? What do you think happened to the girls after that evening at the used bookstore that would cause the narrator to write such a letter?