Angel Jimenez

One of the vignettes from “The House on Mango Street” that affected me the most was “Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes.” The quote “They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out.” Because most of the time when we clandestine to another country we leave friends or family in the other country. Even though I migrated for better opportunities and couldn’t bring them with me, I will be successful in life, and I will give them a lot of things and stay with them for a good amount of time. Also, in this vignette, she says she likes to make a story in her head for every step she makes in life and I’m also like that.

Which vignette from “The House on Mango Street” surprised you in some way, and why? The vignette that surprised me the most was Boys and Girls because boys have a different mindset when it comes to friends. When I was little, my brothers were my best friend. But I didn’t tell any of my old secrets to him or any of my friends, just the new secrets that I had while they were my friends, I told them. But in the case of the girls, they want a best friend to tell them all their secrets. Which vignette intrigued you and why? The vignette that intrigued me the most was Meme Ortiz because she described the Juan dogs that have two names but never mentioned the names. Which vignette puzzled you and why? The vignette that puzzled me the most was Laughter because she explained that she didn’t like her other sisters because they were different physically and mindset from her and Nenny. She explains in very detail her lips. I think maybe she was envious of their physical features or their bonds.

For this comparison, I chose Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “The Most Handsome Drowned Man” style to compare Raymond Caver’s “Cathedral” style. In Caver’s story, he writes straightforwardly about everyday interactions. An example of this is when the characters of the story are having a conversation about a blind friend who is going to spend time in their house. The wife says to make him stay comfortable in the house and the husband says, “I don’t have any blind friends,” I said. “You don’t have any friends,” she said. In contrast, Gabriel Marquez writes in a more detailed and colorful to make vivid images of the story in our minds. An example of this is when he describes how small the village is in the story of “The Most Handsome Drowned Man.” “There was so little land that mothers always went about with the fear that the wind would carry off their children, and the few dead that the years had caused among them had to be thrown off the cliffs”.

In my research essay, I will be talking how fairy tale movies and books, are good and bad for children. also, the impacts of fairy tales in teenagers and adults in a negative and positive way. I chose this topic because as I grow up with fairy tales movies and books it has made an impact on how I see the world. maybe the fairy tales movies and books are some factors of why sometimes I am very naïve and sometimes wise. And also, I think it is very interesting the topic of how fairy tales affect people and their perspective of the world. As of now, I haven’t done any research but, I have some experience of how it has changed me. I will try to do it with more secondary sources than primary sources because secondary sources have commentary of others

in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the story is about the crash of the surface and the profound, as well as the theme of grace and redemption. On the surface, it’s a story of a family’s unfortunate road trip and their encounter with a criminal, The Misfit. However, the deeper meaning explores the characters’ moral and spiritual aspects, their capacity for change, and the possibility of divine intervention, which creates a sense of suspense not just in the plot but in the characters’ internal struggles. I feel the true suspense in the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor lies in the internal struggles and transformation making the story a profound exploration of the depth of human experiences.

“Reading a poem is part attitude and part technique,” implies that a balance of emotional attention and analytical thought is necessary to entirely engage with the poem. One of the poems of week 9 that I think I can relate to and understand is “We Real Cool.” The poem is about how they think they are “Real cool” by leaving school. Lurking late drinking alcohol and doing others stuff that a adolescents can’t be doing.  I think I can relate because in high school, I was, or I tried to be “Real Cool”. I frequently cut classes and l lurked late too. But then I realized I don’t want to be living in the street asking for one dollar when I have the opportunity to have a better life and now, I’m almost graduating from college

I think I would describe the greeting card lyrics “Why Do I Love You So Much?” with the Browning sonnet “How Do I Love Thee”, as very similar love but for different reasons and ways. In Both poems, the writer is describing why they love this person. In “Why do I love you so much?” the poem ends with “because you’re a part of my favorite memories as well as my most important dreams.” Meaning he/she loves her/he because of the time he spent with her and how memorable she is for him. And also, the dreams he had with her in the future. In “How Do Love Thee” the poem starts and ends with the reason and how immense his love is for thee. At the end of the poem sonnet wrote “I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.” Demonstrating his immense love for thee

A timeless experience and behavior, I saw in the reading “Oedipus the King” is becoming defensive and doubting in the form of attacking and making theories searching for the truth. An example is when Oedipus and Teiresias are talking, and Teiresias says that Oedipus killed the other King. Subsequently, Oedipus starts to become very defensive and starts making theories. One of Oedipus’s theories is that Teiresia the blind prophet killed the other king. And doubted the people close to him, we can see this when Oedipus starts speaking with his brother-in-law. Also, we can say Oedipus’s relentless quest in search of the truth reflects humanity seeking knowledge and confronting the bad things of reality. Another experience and behavior is the Irony of blindness because Teiresias, a blind prophet, has insight into the truth while Oedipus, who can see, doesn’t have any clue.

In “Oedipus the King” Oedipus assumed his role as leader, Deeply feeling responsibility for the well-being of his people. He was determined to find the solution to the city’s problems. Similarly, In the United States during the pandemic of COVID-19, The government was determined to find a solution to the spreading of COVID-19. The government took measures to stop the spreading of COVID-19.  Some examples of measures taken by the government were lockdowns, practicing distancing from people, Vaccines, money aid, online studying, etc. But what I saw with my eye were Latinos in the US, the majority were wearing masks, But were not practicing the recommended 7-feet distancing. Some took the COVID vaccine and others didn’t. We were not happy with the government’s aid. (besides the money and for the majority of students the online classes) Because there were so many stories about the vaccine making people sick or getting people dying. Moreover, the government developed the vaccine rapidly, and the Latinos didn’t trust the vaccine because of that. Maybe other ethnicities were doing the same or had the same concerns. But as I lived around Latinos and as a high student, my perspective was limited to people I saw in the streets. Additionally, I remembered that I drank many types of tea back then.

The quote I selected “reading makes us immigrants of us all, it takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere” by Jean Rhys embodies perfectly the essence of the story I chose “The Handsomest Drowned Man” by Gabriel García Marquez. As I was reading the story, I was able to capture vivid images of the island and the houses of the people where the story is taking place. Because of how well, the narrator explains the details of the island and the houses of the people who live on the island. For me, this quote signifies that as we read, the author’s precise descriptions of the story’s settings can enter our minds. And we start to become familiar with those places even though we haven’t seen them in real life or visited them. But because we can imagine them, we can know the place. An example is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s story “The Handsomest Drowned Man” When we are reading the story, the narrator starts explaining the small doors and ceiling of the house. We could imagine some parts of the house. And how the villagers made them bigger, so the spirit of the man could pass through them.

The theme in the nineteenth-century Emily Dickinson poem “The Wife’ is echoed in “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin because these two readings show the complexity faced by women in that era, offering an understanding of their desire for independence and self-discovery.  the two reading describe a female character who is married but they are not in love with their husband. In “The Story of an Hour” the female protagonist doesn’t love her husband and when she hears that her husband has died, she starts to realize that she is free from him and that “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself.” (Kate Chopin). On the other hand, in “The Wife” the female protagonist sacrifices her joyful things in life to surrender to her husband’s petition. “She rose to his requirement, dropped the playthings of her life to take the honorable work of a woman and of a wife.” (Emily Dickinson).

I think the quote “Literature adds to reality; it does not simply describe it” (C.S. Lewis) embodied “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara by taking the fundamental factors of social issues (education, economic inequality, and environmental) and making them into a storytelling work of literature that adds perspective, emotions, and story. The short story “The Lesson” Is about a well-educated and experienced black woman professor who shows the reality and the economic differences of the world to her students to see how her students react and what emotions they get when they are faced with a rich environment that is quite unfamiliar of what they live.

In the short story “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, I felt connected to the narrator in this scene “Suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting, as they saw me rise. Waves of rejoicing swept the place. Women leaped in the air. My aunt threw her arms around me.” Even though, my history is a little different. But when I was 7–8 years old, I was a bad kid. I used to fight, curse, and all those bad stuff. But one day my aunt took me to the church. I never thought of going to the church at that age. And everyone at the church was amazed that I was calm and not fighting.  And when they baptized me, I stopped doing all those bad things. Post data, I didn’t see Jesus either. In the short story “Araby” by James Joyce, I felt connected to the narrator in this scene, “Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance.” Even though my history is a little different. When I was a teenager, I had a crush on a girl who was in the eighth grade, I was in the sixth grade. I never told her anything because I Knew she was going to make fun of me in a good way. But I knew she was not going to take me seriously. She and I used to spend a lot of time in middle school. Before she went to high school, she kissed me, and we took a photo together. I was seeing that picture night and days for weeks. Post data, I didn’t become obsessed with her.

The short story “ The Most Handsome Drowned Man” by Grabiel Garcias Marquez shows how people interact with beautiful and unexpected things. And also how people make stories about things they don’t know about. I believe that the professor assigned this short story as the first reading because it shows how some people have creativity, are curious, and interact with unexpected things differently and how they improve their lives because of that. An example of their life improvements is when the people were thinking of making their house door, and ceiling bigger, so Esteban’s memory can pass easily. And other people can stay the same as before when an unexpected thing happens. An example of that is when the men were thinking about why the women were putting so many things on Esteban. He will be the food of a shark anyway.