I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed

To me this poem was about a woman and her new born child. The woman states that she was born a woman and can not help the burdens that come along with that. When she talks about the weight of another upon her breast I think she was referring to breast feeding a child. In the end it sounds like she places the child up for adoption and hopes when they meet again later in life her child will forgive her and speak to her.

The Raven

Poe seems to always knows how to get you thinking and get you interested with his writings. The poem is revolved around a man and his loss of his love. During his time of depression he meats a talking raven which to me represents all that is evil. The man begins to talk to the bird and the bird uses the word "nevermore" a lot. At first the bird interests him but he soon gets sick of the birds precense and insists that the bird must leave. The raven continues to call out "nevermore" and the man always feels as though the bird is close by.

The Sick Rose

I'm gonna start by saying never again will i even think about this poem, I did not like it. From what I read this poem is about a man who does wrongs to a woman and it was not what she wanted. Crimson joy to me meant the joy the man received from violating the woman. The man was the worm and the woman was the rose, the rose becomes sick due to the worms actions to hurt it. Although I am sure the poem can have many meanings this happened to be what I got out of it and to me it is sad.

To His Coy Mistress

The poem is about a man and his struggle to keep his woman. From the things this guy says its pretty obvious he really likes this girl and will do anything for her. He professes his love for her and its everlasting being, but he also seems to not want to wait for her to feel the same. It seems like he wants her to be with him now and learn to love him later. I personally thought this guys sounded like a creep and I don't think it is natural to be that obsessed.

Death Be Not Proud

First off I found the wording of this poem to be very annoying and often had to re-read sentences to understand them. It starts off with a man who is dieing and his reluctance to give up. Even though the man admits he knows death must be faced by all, he refuses to make it a negative thing. He views death not as the end of his being but as a sleep in which starts in a corrupt world and results in a better place. I liked this poem because in the face of death this man refuses to leave this world in a negative way and insists that his death will have a positive outcome.

My Papa’s Waltz

To me it seemed as the the poem was about an abusive father and his son. From the sounds of it the father is a frequent drinker and becomes violent to those around him. When the poem described the young boy being put to bed it sounded like the father used lots of force and did not care about the child's well being. However after doing a little bit of research online reguarding this poem it seems like there are a fair amount of people who view it in an opposite manner and do not view the father as abusive. In the end though the way I saw it was sort of sad and made me feel bad for the young boy.

A Street Car Named Desire

This play was not really something i would study in my spare time but for being as old as it is it was able to keep me awake.  the plot was kind of sketchy for me and I never really understood fully what this was about.  The play went from legal papers to talking about marriage and hookers from what i understood.  the part i did sort of pick up on though is that the main male charecter was just a commoner and the two sisters seemed to have come from a wealthier family. It was never clear why the wealthy female settle for the simplistic townsmen but the beatings he gave out kept me interested enough to watch more.

Trifles

Trifles had a lot of differing characters in it and in my opinion was a pretty good play. I found that it showed the different ways people react to serious events. Women seem to be more willing to accept things for their face value whereas the men naturally wanted to do research and find things out. It also seemed as though the women were more likely to stay in the shadows and not get involved in the case. All things aside though I found it to be very interesting and I definitely think she committed the murder.

Young Goodman Brown

This story involves a young man and his journey into the woods with another character. Despite the man's hesitance he continues on into the woods with the other character. The man struggles with the decision to join the cult or not. Symbolism in this story reveals itself in different ways, the character who leads the man into the woods to me represents the devil whereas his serpent like staff seemed to show the element of temptation. The devil like character bestows his staff upon the man almost as if he wanted to tempt him into following him further. To me the story shows that even the purist of people can be deceived and tempted into following the wrong path.

A Hunger Artist

This story is about a man that lives without food in a cage. Many people doubted that he went without food but despite the non believers many people would still visit. Once he decided to join the circus much interest in him was lost, at times it was unknown how long he hadn't eaten. At first i thought this man had symbolic reasons for his starvation but soon found out he did not. I did not really care for this story and I have nothing to gain from it.

The Jewelry

The Jewelry is also a story that is heavily revolved around irony. The story is about a women and her need to flash jewelry that isn't real. The husband of the woman insists that fake jewelry should not be flashed and natural beauty beats fake jewelry. Despite her husbands opinions she continued to wear her jewelry until the day she died. Eventually the husband began to run out of money so in hopes of making some quick money he tries to sell his wifes jewelry at a low price, only to discover the jewelry once assumed to be fake was worth much more than the husband had thought. I liked this story and how the jewelry that the husband had criticized ended up solving his money problems.

The Cask of Amontillado

The Cask of Amontillado is about one man and his revenge on an enemy. This short story was full of irony in many forms. Verbal irony is present in most conversations had in this story and the main character often smugly wishes his enemy good fortune. Dramatic irony is shown to the reader because both sides are seen. Many other event of irony are present but one would have to read this story to fully understand them all. This story really interested me and will most likely be my favorite out of all we read.

A Rose For Emily

A Rose for Emily is a short story about a woman who strives to remain young. The main character never leaves her house and fears the thought of being alone, her fear of loneliness results in her killing the one she loved so he could never leave her. From what I understand the setting takes place in a small southern town. Due to the towns size news traveled fast and things were said about Emily and how she lived. I didn't really like this story due to the fact that not too many events took place.

The Lady with the Dog

The Lady with the Dog is about an affair between the two main characters Anna and Dmitri . It all starts in Yalta where they meet and begin to have feelings for each other which intensify as the story goes on. The setting plays a large role in this story and not only consist of the location but also the change of season. Summer time instills happy thoughts for most people, and such thoughts were exactly what the two characters experienced. Dmitri seems to view women merely as objects for his pleasure and it is not uncommon for him to have more than one. Anna however seems to think badly of herself and seeks acceptance. As summer begins to fade away so do the feelings Dmitri and Anna once shared. With winter approaching their affair is put in danger because winter is a time where things slow down and become quiet. At the stories end it seemed to me as though they would continue to have their secret affair and possibly divorce their spouses.

Recitatif

Recitatif was a decent story and also easy to understand. The main characters in the story are two females named Roberta and Twyla. The two girls reside in an orphanage due to the fact that their parents are not able to care for them. Roberta's mother is very ill so she is not able to watch after Roberta, whereas Twyla's mother appears to be a prostitute who has no interest in caring for a child. Throughout the four months spent at the orphanage the two girls formed a bond that would last a lifetime. Both of the female's led different lifes but their life intersected a few times down the road. Each girl had their own way of living, Roberta became more of the adventurous type whereas Twyla seemed to be more of the sheltered type. I found this story to show that bonds made in life can be of great value and how times change.

Arabi

The story Arabi is about a boy who falls in love with one of his sisters friends. The girl he likes in this story seems like the typical pretty girl, the girl everyone crushes on. The boy is the main character and was made to seem round and dynamic, whereas all other characters carry little to no details and are flat. The boy seems to be quiet and he keeps to himself, but throughout the story he becomes so infatuated with this girl that she becomes the only thing on his mind. When it comes to relationships it is commonly known that the male generally makes the first move, but the boy in this story seems to be to shy to make a move or he may lack the confidence. Towards the end the boy begins to doubt that he ever had a chance with the girl and feels dumb for trying to pursue her. I feel that the characterization in this story was well thought out, however it was only for one character.

Girl

The events in this story revolve around knowledge being passed from mother to daughter. I read this story twice and the first time i thought it was an older woman just rambling information out, but then i began to think that the older woman was sharing these things with possibly her daughter. It is still unclear to me exactly who the two figures were but overall this was not one of my favorite stories.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

The story consists of the north and the south having disputes. A farmer from the south is hesitant to fight against the north for fear of being hung. Despite of his fears he fights anyways and as he waits to be hung a new plot unfolds. The farmer begins to think of ways to escape but once the man steps off the board that supports him the rope breaks and the farmer crashes into the water below. In his struggle to escape he is shot at by soldiers but he manages to make it out alive. In his journey home he suddenly feels immense pain, this was the pain of his neck being broken from the rope. The entire story was in his head and he never actually broke free.

This story was a smooth read and i enjoyed it. I just assumed that he would be back with his family by the end. When it came to the rope breaking i thought he escaped being hit by any bullets and survived. Towards the end however i was hit with the realization that he did die and all else was a false reality.

Hills Like White Elephants

I had a hard time enjoying this story and so far it is not one i would recommend. I found it to be confusing at time and often found myself re-reading parts. It was not clear to me what it was he wanted her to do. The first thing that came to my mind was sex, but then i got to thinking about all the chances they had to have sex and didn't. I never got what he was talking about and i also was unsure if she wanted to live in barcelona or not.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

This was an enjoyable read for me and it was able to keep me interested. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is about a family's trip to Florida. The grandmother has no desire to go to Florida and insists there is a killer heading there, she would however like to go to Tennessee instead. When they enter Florida the grandmother tells the children of a house that had 6 white columns and there was a secret panel with silver in it. While driving the grandmother states that the dirt road is a few miles away so they head down the dirt road. After driving for some time the grandmother realized she had made a mistake and the house was in Tennessee not Florida. The grandmother was so upset by her mistake that she jumped a little in the car. The cat that was on the grandmothers lap then freaked out and attacked the driver. The driver then looses control and flips the car. They had no hopes in anyone finding them but to their surprise a car came over the hill. Three men exited the car and stated they could be of help. As they approached the grandmother, she realized one looked familiar. Suddenly she realizes one of the men was the killer "misfit" on his way to florida. Misfit had two other men with him and these men proceeded to kill the whole family excluding the grandmother. As the entire family was being murdered the grandmother insists misfit is a good man, but in the end he kills her too.

"The Story of An Hour"

“The Story of an Hour” is the story of an hour in the life of Mrs. Louise Mallard. As the story begins, the narrator reveals that Mrs. Mallard has heart trouble. Her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards come to her after the death of Mr. Mallard. Mrs. Mallard freaks out and holds up in her room. Louise begins to think that she is happy about her husbands death but suppresses the thought. Once Mrs. Mallard accepts the feeling, she is happy that she will never have to listen to him again. In the end Mr. Mallard walks in the front door. He had been no where near the accident scene. The short story ends with the abrupt death of Mrs. Mallard, whose heart gives out.

I found this story to have a pointless plot setup and I found it hard to enjoy. The story does not have a real meaning or message to it but it is merely a short story. Also to me it seemed a bit unrealistic that Mrs. Mallard found so much joy in her husbands death that she died when she realized he was alive.