Victoria Chen

The vignette I related the most to form this week’s reading is “Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes”. In the beginning Esperanza talks about how she likes to tell stories, she says: “I make a story for my life, for each step my brown shoe takes”. (109) That reminded me that as kids we create these phantasy worlds which are fun and entertaining and we would spend hours creating a perfect, little universe in our head. When she talks about her feelings about the house: “The house I belong but do not belong to” I understand because I had a similar feeling growing up at some point. My family had to move across the country and the house we ended up living at raised very similar feelings for me. It felt at times too cramped and it was on the busiest street and noisy. Now looking back I have fond memories of us living there regardless of it being far from perfect. And the last two closing sentences: “They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out.” (110) I think show that Esperanza does feel that she belongs to Mango Street after all.

The vignette “My Name” made the strongest impression on me from this week’s reading “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros. The vignette centers around the story of the author’s name and how she was named after her grandmother who Esperanza thinks didn’t have a very happy life and she hopes she doesn’t inherit her sad destiny with the name. I found it interesting that her name means hope in English and sadness in Mexican, which are polar opposites. This vignette resonated because I think growing up kids like playing with idea of trying on different names and wishing their name was something else or at least I know I did. And another reason I related to Esperanza is because my last name always stood out as being the only asian in my class and was a reason of jokes growing up because it sounded unusual to most people so I can understand who that Esperanza wanted to “baptize herself” under a new name.

I found the following observation by Bruno Bettelheim interesting and relatable for both “Snow White” and specifically “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates : “A weak father is as little use to Snow White as he was to Hansel and Gretel. The frequent appearance of such figures in fairy tales suggests that wife-dominated husbands are not exactly new to this world. More to the point, it is such fathers who either create unmanageable difficulties in the child or fail to help him solve them.This is another example of the important messages fairy tales contain for parents.” (207). I think it’s a very relatable issue for Connie’s upbringing and how she practically had no father figure growing up. It was made pretty clear that her father chose to stay out of her life for the most part and just ask mechanical questions. He neither was genuinely interested in his daughter’s life nor was he involved in educating her and sharing his wisdom as a parent. From the story we get a sense that he was just living under the same roof and being a breadwinner, leaving it up to his wife to be the educator. Unfortunately for Connie her mother’s character has a strong resemblance with the Quinn’s  narcissistic tendencies, where as a parent she showed a clear preference to Connie’s older sister who was less pretty. Which in itself is very odd as no parent should differentiate the amount of love they have for their children.

This week’s reading “Where are you going? Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates brought up a lot of mixed emotions. For starters, the author’s writing style which was compared to Fyodor Dostoevsky as Rena Korb pointed out in her overview, is very intriguing with its elements of gothic horror and chilling effect that sucks you right in. The story unfolded very naturally and I couldn’t foresee such a plot development quite frankly. One of the things that stroke me is the contrast of how the author emphasized the superficiality of the characters and their everyday life until Arnold Friend appeared in Connie’s driveway. From that point on the intensity and grotesque of the terror and break down Connie goes through escalates quickly. One of the things that was very clear from the narrative is a complete lack of moral guidance from Connie’s family. It’s pretty normal for a teenage girl being self absorbed and pay so much attention to one’s looks as she is growing into a young woman and learning. On the other side her mother and Connie’s older sister seem to be on the same emotional level as her despite their age and instead of worrying herself with being a supportive parent her mother argues with Connie “over something of little value to either of them”. “Inverted fairy tale” is a twisted but accurate take on interpretation of this complex story where as per Korb “Connie’s adolescent dream turned into a nightmare”.

Until this assignment I would usually struggle with poetry. Most of the times I would struggle with interpretation or meaning that the author tries to portray. These sources of information about the structure of poems and it’s components I found extremely helpful and gave me a better understanding of how to approach poems. My personal favorite takeaway from the article on “how to read a poem” is to read it aloud and embrace the ambiguity. I find both of these suggestions very helpful. Reading a poem aloud does make you get a better feel of the flow and rhythm while knowing that the meaning of a poem is a subject to a personal interpretation and it keeps on renewing itself every time you reread it is very freeing. Poems certainly have a mystery aspect to them and knowing that there is no right or wrong way of interpretation is quite liberating.Discussin

My research essay is based on “Salvation” by Langston Hughes. My thesis statement is: “ When the big day comes, the author goes through a transformative experience in which both: his faith in Jesus and his morals are being challenged.” This ceremony was a very significant experience that marked the author’s coming of age moment. So for the secondary source information I plan on using to support my essay will most likely be Langston Hughes biographical paper with an addition of a critical analysis as well.   I’m using information from a couple of different sources but mainly using BMCC Database.

The theme of Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state because both women lack freedom to be themselves. Becoming a wife meant that their own aspirations and interests had to take a backseat to their husband’s and  now he has the autonomy to dictate their destiny. The way the society was set up  is that there were certain expectations that a woman and a good wife had to follow and there were no exceptions to those rules. “It lay unmentioned, as the sea develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known, The fathoms they abide”. It went without saying that women would be forced to follow the same set of rules once they are married in order to be perceived as a “good woman and wife” and not bring a disgrace to their family. Mrs. Mallard couldn’t help but feel relieved at the thought that she now has the freedom to be herself:”There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature”.

“ A good man is hard to find” by Flannery O’Connor is a fascinating read and a very complex one. To start off as we get familiarized with the family it’s not very likable all around: the kids are spoiled and entitled, the dad seems aloof and burnt out, the mother is listless. When it comes to the grandmother she is the opposite of a caring, warm granny we subconsciously expecting to see. She is extremely self-centered, selfish and manipulative. Her goal was to change their trip destination to Tenesseee and she was trying to scare her son with the news about the murderer on the loose first. Since that didn’t prove to be effective she moved on to pretending like it would be good for the kids to see something new. The picture we had painted of the grandmother character was that of a superficial lady who cares to look her best even after she is dead.  But something happens to her right before she gets shot by the notorious murderer “misfit”, she has an epiphany. This tragedy that had happened to her and the whole family, revealed her true essence right before she dies. And I think it’s one of the connotations of this story. “it is the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially”  as the author says in the essay about her work.

After reading the rest of the story I got a better insight and understanding of the king’s personality. He as an individual was just a human being made out of flesh and mortal and with many flaws of his own. While he might not be the wisest king, but one of his biggest flaws is that he was so conceited. His arrogance was ironically blinding for him and I think it’s one of the timeless problems for the humanity. Both his and queen’s reactions that followed after they learned the truth illustrated how emotionally undeveloped they are. Additionally their decisions also highlight a universal issue of being selfish, because no matter of how hard the situation or the circumstances sometimes might be, one should be capable of caring of how their actions going to affect others. Jocasta takes her own life without giving a thought about her children and not taking the responsibility to stay and help them cope with the aftermath of their mistakes.

“195 Our sorrows defy number; all the ship’s timbers are rotten; taking of thought is no spear for the driving away of the plague. There are no growing children in this famous land; there are no women bearing the pangs of childbirth. 200 You may see them one with another, like birds swift on the wing, quicker than fire unmastered, speeding away to the coast of the Western God.” In this passage the chorus is crying for help and expressing the devastating condition the city is in. They are saying: “all the ship’s timbers are rotten, taking of thought is no spear for the driving away of the plague.” This is a very powerful visualization where we can imagine how things are deteriorating while no actions are being taking to get the justice the citizens are seeking. The mood is very dark and hopeless, there is no new life and aspiration. The chorus is comparing the women of the land to birds who are swift on the wing: ”speeding away to the coast of the Western God.” They are not bearing children and are being taken by the god of death.

“Araby” by James Joyce did not feel like a love story at all. The narrator describes his day to day life and his surroundings seem like a very gloomy, sombre and a piercingly lonely environment. We get a very overwhelming contrast between “the dark” reality the narrator lives in and “the light” that the girl he is infatuated with represents for him. We don’t know much of the story of his childhood but we learn that he lives with his uncle and aunt. I believe there might be an implied connection that the lack of parents in his life and his very joyless, dull outlook on the surrounding world grows in what seems like “an obsession” with the only source of a positive sensation which his friend’s sister represents. His emotions are overpowering: “Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom.” His emotions seems to be very powerful but we don’t see much of a romantic connotation in his mind. It’s almost like this obsession gives him some sort of purpose or a distraction from a hostile reality.

Ms. Moore is a representation of a new future, “a symbol of changing times” as it was described in the critical essay on “The Lesson”. Ms. Moore stood out in the neighborhood and was different from all the parents not only because she had a college degree but with her outlook on life and her understanding of justice, unlike the rest of people in the community she disdains the church and even her physical appearance highlights her being different “she has nappy hair” and she “wears no makeup”. When Ms. Moore brought the kids to the F.A.O Shwarts toy store it opened up a curtain into the world they didn’t know of and we could clearly see a difference in kid’s reaction. While Sylvia, who is usually so confident and bossy in her hood, for the first time feels shy and ashamed, scared to go into the store. Finally “tumbled in like a glued-together jigsaw done all wrong”, getting everyone’s attention at the store and being out of place. Meanwhile Mercedes acts like she belongs to that world unlike the rest of the kids in the group she confidently squeezes past them “smoothing out her jumper and walking right down the aisle”. She was the only one to have a desk at home and proudly comments that her father would buy the sailboat toy for her if she wanted it. Mercedes feels proud to belong to this “white world reality”. The only lesson she takes home with her from this field trip is that she would like to come back there again with her birthday money. Meanwhile Sylvia’s vision of the reality has been shifted significantly and she is going through a rollercoaster of emotions that challenge her perception of the world she’s been living in up until now. She […]

In the beginning of the story the narrator sounds excited, enthusiastic and full of faith. He believed that Jesus is going to save him and was calm and confident in his faith. He listens to the stories of his aunt and other adults and anticipates the same experience of a light shining down on him and having a transformative experience. But none of that happened to him. And as the story goes on we witness how the narrator’s outlook changes. He starts getting worried as nothing is happening and Jesus didn’t appear to save him. After his fellow friend Westley got up and was saved, the narrator starts feeling ashamed for holding up the ceremony and falls under the pressure of lying just to get it all over with. And in the closing paragraph we see the narrator going through the struggle of feeling ashamed for lying as well as loosing his faith in Jesus.

“The Handsomest Drowned Man” a short story by Garcia Marquez was a very inspiring read and I think that might be one of the reasons  professor chose it as a first read of the class. The arrival of the dead body of the handsomest man totally changed the village and it’s citizens for the best. As the story progresses we can witness the villagers discovering all these attributes about Esteban that ultimately broadened their horizons in a matter of a day and changed their mindsets forever. The appearance of this handsome man really turned their worlds upside down by how different he seemed to them, the fact that he had a huge body and their honest attempts to visualize and sympathize with the discomfort of his existence where everything was designed for smaller people. I think there is an irony in a fact of what an overwhelming positive influence this man had on the village and it’s many generations and he wasn’t even alive when he came into their lives. The village blossomed with flowers and beautiful colorful homes, it’s citizens learned a lot from Esteban and this story shows that keeping an opened mind is key to grow and expand.