Alvin Tan

The vignette that made the strongest impression on me was “A Smart Cookie” on Page 90. This vignette shows Esperanza’s mother thinking back to her past and how she could have been something more compared to her present self. She tells her daughter Esperanza to stay in school and study since she doesn’t want her daughter to end up like her who is disgusted with the reason she didn’t stay in school. This made the strongest impression on me because while I don’t have as much experience compared to Esperanza’s mother I sometimes also think back and think that I could have done better in certain things. I also hope that I do not end up like the mother in the future who regrets not taking action in the past due to feeling shame or that I am not good enough to do something for whatever reason I made up back then.

The vignette that made the strongest impression to me was “Cathy Queen of Cats” on Page 12. This vignette shows Cathy talking to Esperanza about her impressions on a bunch of people. Cathy talks about how that person is bad or that one is fine or how someone she used to know named Alicia was her friend but stopped liking her after going to college. The reason this made a strong impression on me is because the title and the content of the vignette were so different. I was expecting a story about a cat lover and how Esperanza would meet her. The vignette instead is about someone and her impression of people she probably never even met and the cat part of the title is just in the vignette when Esperanza talks about how many cats Cathy has. It also showed how impressionable kids can be as Cathy considers herself to be someone important most likely because someone told her she was and she also thinks badly of people most likely because she was told about them and never actually met them.

There were many observations that I found insightful to “Little Snow White” but the ones that I thought were very insightful were the use of the colors red and white and what the animals who visit snow white when she is in the coffin represent Although, I know that white is usually put hand in hand with innocence I didn’t know what red was supposed to symbolize. So when I saw that red represented Snow White and her sexual desire I didn’t believe it until I read more. The step mother showing how she eats specifically the white part of the apple had new meaning to me and it showed the step mother taking away Snow Whites innocence. This can be taken further with the animals who visit and the order they do so, The owl being wisdom then the raven being a consciousness that is mature and finally the dove being love. With Snow White eating the red part of the apple and awakening her sexual desire the animals showed how Snow White while in the coffin was maturing by becoming smarter, then having a more mature mindset, and finally she was ready for love which would not be possible in the romantic sense if innocence was still around.

My understanding of the story “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is very basic. I see a story of a normal American girl and her normal everyday life until she is caught in the sights of someone. The story which seemed innocent at first had become a tale of horror the moment a car that Connie didn’t know showed up on her driveway. Rena Korb saying that it can be seen as an inverse fairy tale was something I didn’t even think about but it made my understanding a bit better. The story which starts off innocently about a superficial girl and her day to day life as she tries to find love is very fairy tale like. However, Arnold, while he might have seemed like a charming prince at first on the surface, was everything but a prince. It reminds me of the original stories of fairy tales like Snow white or Cinderella where the original stories were much darker. In that sense this story could be seen not as an inverse fairy tale but more alike with the original stories.

In “How to read a poem” it says that you need to complete what the poet has started and one way to help was to read aloud. The poem I chose was “The mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks and at first I read it silently. What I got was a poem about a mother who had to abort a baby and is haunted with regret for her actions but in the end loved her children. On my second read I read it out loud and I got a different experience as I noticed how some words at the end of the lines had rhymed and how the commas had helped set a slightly different tone. I still felt a tone of regret but throughout the poem I felt the mothers love for her children all throughout. In the lines,” If I stole your births and names, Your straight baby tears and your games, Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths,” When read silently I had the tone of a mother who knew that she stole the future of her children and was regretful with what she did. After reading it out loud I had seen a mother who knew what she did and was instead sad and apologetic to them that they never had the chance to live their own life.

Before doing all these activities I used to think poems looked very simple at face value but now I know that there is more to poems than I thought. When I used to read poems If I didn’t get the message or the point at the beginning I would just assume that it was too difficult for me to understand. After reading the activity 2 article “How to read a Poem.” I have better ways to try and understand a poem. The questions in the article can give me a base line of questions to ask myself when reading the poem to get a better understanding. I also didn’t know about some of the forms of poems like sonnets. I found it interesting that sonnets can be in different categories even though they are both sonnets. In activity 3 I found it interesting how an Italian sonnet has two different stanzas with the octave being 8 lines and the sestet being 6 lines. I also found it interesting how the octave would show a question with the sestet showing the answer.

For my research essay I chose “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara and my thesis word for word is ” Miss Moore wants to show them the unfairness of the world and its distribution of wealth, in the end only two students actually get the lesson.” I have recently, to the best of my interpretation of the story, tried to show how certain actions of Sylvia and Sugar are different from the other students which may show why they were the only ones who actually got something out of the trip to the toy store. I think the kind of secondary source of information that would be helpful to me would be how other people would interpret some of the actions or things the kids have said to help show my point on why only those two got the lesson. So far I have used One search to try to find what other people have written on the actions and words of the children. I have found one result that talks about one thought Sylvia has made that could help my thesis statement.

These two pieces of literature “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin “The Wife ” by Emily Dickinson took place during the 19th century and show what women had to deal with. They had little freedom and had to do certain things because of their gender. The poem “The Wife ” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state as in the poem it shows a wife who has to give up what they like in order to do what people expected women to do. In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard at first is sad at the news of her husband’s death. but later realizes that she no longer has to do what is expected of her and she now is free from expectations. Just like the poem Mrs. Mallard also once had to give her freedom away but not anymore. In the poem “The Wife” it says,” or the gold in using wore away.” The wife in the poem can’t use her gold anymore but Mrs. Mallard can now that she has her freedom back.

On a surface level “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is a story about how a family meets their untimely demise to a serial killer. However, I think the interior of the story is about how people may act like they know what their moral compass is like but most don’t. In the story the grandma thinks of herself very highly. She talks about how she once was sought after by a rich man who brought her watermelons every Saturday, and dresses nicely so that if she may die during the trip people will know that she was a lady. Throughout the story however, she shows that she is racist and manipulative and selfish. On the other hand we have the misfit who is a serial killer and facing death the grandma tries to plea to him to not kill her. She tries to show him that he is a good person because of how he looks and that he can still be saved. However, the misfit knows that he isn’t a good person and is evil. He knows exactly what he is and doesn’t try to pretend that he is someone that is good or neutral but just evil.

Throughout history there are people out there who experience things only they will forever for the rest of time. While everyone else in history may experience things others will never they also experience things everyone will. In “Oedipus the King” one experience or behavior that everyone experiences is the will to keep a secret to your grave. The Herdsman knows the truth of Oedipus but he doesn’t want to tell the secret as it is terrible and he knows that Oedipus will not take it well. Another experience or behavior is when Oedipus learns the truth and he then gets stuck in grief and despair. He begins to hate himself and wishes that he had died instead of being saved. Both of these are something everyone no matter the time period experiences as we all have things we wish to keep to ourselves or hate ourselves for something we did intentionally or not.

545 the doer of deeds that none dare name? Now is the time for him to run with a stronger foot than Pegasus for the child of Zeus leaps in arms upon him 550 with fire and the lightning bolt, and terribly close on his heels are the Fates that never miss. This passage in “Oedipus the King” happens right after the citizens hear Teiresias talk about how he has knowledge on who killed the previous king and Oedipus tells him to share the knowledge. Teiresias refuses to tell Oedipus what he knows despite the fact that Teiresias was called here by Oedipus and they start arguing until Teiresias leaves. Since the citizens hear about it but do not know who it is they start talking about whoever it is and how they should run away instantly. They say that the killer needs to have,” a stronger foot than Pegasus.” and yet they also say that,” the Fates that never miss.” which could indicate how the citizens think that even if the killer is faster than a mythical creature it would not matter, as in the end they will get what they deserve as indicated by what the three fate sisters see.

“Araby” by James Joyce is a story about a boy who thinks he is in love and his realization that what he is feeling is not love but a simple attraction towards someone he thinks is attractive. The narrator himself realizes this a little before the end of the story in paragraph 5 where,” if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration.” even when the narrator assumes he is in love he is confused about why he became like this. We the readers can also tell that something is wrong as the we don’t even learn the girls name. There is also nothing mentioned about her other than her beauty like in paragraph 9 where,” The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing.” When the narrator finally gets to go to Araby it is mostly closed except for a few stalls and he goes to shop at one. When asked by someone if he wished to buy something he says that he doesn’t and he pretends that he is interested in the vases and tea-sets. After leaving he realizes that he wasn’t in love with the girl as he didn’t even know anything about her. Instead he was in awe of her beauty and mistook it for love and is angry at himself for deluding himself into thinking it was love.

The two characters I choose from “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara are Mercedes and Sugar. Mercedes is the only one of the eight children that doesn’t seem fazed by the insane prices at the toy store. She barely even talked when visiting the toy store that I forgot she was a character until she finally said something. When she did start talking it was to join the conversation about the paperweight and desks and unlike the other children she has a desk and stationery. When entering the store she is the only one able to walk into the store and act normal. After the day is over and everyone is asked what they thought about the store she is the only one who actually wanted to go back to buy something. Sugar’s experience is different as she went from a child who would yell about wanting this and that. She then like the other children was surprised about how expensive everything was and felt out of place when in the store. When asked about her experience only her and the narrator Sylvia understood what exactly Miss Moore wanted to teach them about inequality.

In “Salvation” by Langston Hughes the narrator is different than he was at the beginning of the story. In the beginning he was told by his aunt about how she was saved by Jesus coming into her life and he believed Jesus would also come into his life, but he thought Jesus would come physically. While he waits for Jesus everyone ends up on the altar and he is left alone. Even though he doesn’t see Jesus he is starting to feel pressured by everyone around him and guilty for taking up their time. He ends up lying about being saved and everyone celebrates. The narrator who once was a young innocent child had changed for the worse. He once had faith in Jesus but he ends up losing that faith and is doubtful that Jesus is even real and also feels guilt for lying to everyone about seeing Jesus.

The reason that this story was the first to read in this course could be to help us students with our imaginations. This could be because “The Handsomest Drowned Man In the World” is filled with imagery from the beginning to the end. Right from the very beginning we are told that some children find it and think it was a ship, but later change their mind and think it’s a whale. When the body washes up on the shore we are given even more descriptions of the body on how it is covered in various things from the sea. As the story progresses we learn about how heavy he is, what he smells like, his body features, and even see how the women in the village clean him up using various tools. By the end of the story everyone in the village is enchanted by the body who they name Esteban and we learn about how they change things in their village to fit Esteban’s body size.