Aaron Hoagland

The vignette that stood out to me the most was “Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark”. In this vignette by author Sandra Cisneros, she talks about her papa and how he tells her that her grandpa has passed away. While her father is telling her this, this is the first time that she sees her father having a moment of sadness. Although her father having this sad moment, he still has to get up before everyone to go to work I assume. I relate to this vignette because I’ve had a moment similar to this one before. My father who also gets up every day at 2:30 am while its still dark out, feeling tired and sleepy, also makes it to work no matter what. During the covid-19 pandemic, I remember my father calling me from work to tell me that my great grandmother had passed away. From the phone call alone I was able to hear the sadness from my dads tone. When he came home that afternoon, I just remember the sad, gloomy look on his face. I never seen my dad like that before, it also made me think about what would I do If I lost him.

The writing style by Raymond Carver in “Cathedral” the author uses a very simple conversational and colloquial tone. Raymond Carver uses a conversational tone and diction to show the narrators character. The dialogue from the character is very vague, simple, mocking. Also that the wording of the conversation being very blunt and straightforward. In “My Daughter and Apple Pie” just by the title its very straightforward with not much meaning or leaving the reader to interpret anything else. In the first few lines “She serves me a piece of it a few minutes out the oven. A little steam rises from the slits on top. Even in the authors works of poetry he tells the reader exactly what’s happening. In contrast to author Gabriel Garica Marquez’s writing style in stories like “The Most Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” the author uses vibrant, descriptive, imaginative story telling. Garica uses imagery and magical realism describing the body and face of the drowned man and how his presence affected the villagers.

The terror you feel from reading “Where Are you Going, Where Have You Been?” is way different than the terror feeling of watching a scary movie. For me while reading “Where Are you Going, Where Have You Been? the feeling of terror I have gotten was pretty low and minimal. The story to me wasn’t very scary or suspenseful at all compared to a horror movie. It could be because I was reading words or so-called horror literature rather than watching a horror film. Where in a horror film I could visually witness horrifying scenes. Scenes that leave you stricken with gruesome images and nightmares inside your head for weeks at a time. Now with reading a horror story it requires your brain to think and try to create mental pictures that can make it a lot less scary for the reader. With watching a scary seeing the horror is way better than reading about it.

In this week’s reading, my attitude & view on fairytales have changed. This week’s reading of Snow White has brought back the magical story telling of this classic. The fairytales for this week has returned that joy & excitement that I have had when I was a kid hearing these classic fairytales. While reading “Little Snow White” by Brothers Grimm, it gave me a new view in the story of Snow White. In the reading, I was not aware of how Snow Whites stepmother was obsessed with beauty and herself. In the reading the stepmother created multiple attempts to kill snow white. However in the movie’s we know that Snow is just poisoned by an apple and then is awakened by a kiss from a prince. Also, from the reading “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” the ending was a dark and grim ending that I never knew. Snow White’s stepmother has cruel ending of having to dance in red hot iron shoes until she dies. A cruel but fitting ending for her stepmother so bent on her on fading beauty, that she will try to kill her stepdaughter. This weeks reading of fairytales have shown me that not all fairytales have happy endings.

After reading the article in activity 1 and “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, a idea I came across that I would of missed if I did not read the article was ideas about violence, irony and redemption. In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” a family is deciding to take a road trip to Florida, however the main protagonist the grandmother is against the idea of going to Florida because there’s a criminal on the loose known as the misfit. The grandmother portrays herself as this good Christian woman while still using racial slurs. In the story the grandmother consistently mentions the misfit. Talking about how the misfit would rob the dinner even if it was only 2 cents in the register. Ironically, the family ends up taking a detour from the route to Florida because of the grandmother. The family then which ends up in a violent car crash while navigating through the woods. Then ironically the misfits end up meeting the family at the worse time. The misfit starts having the family killed off one by one. While leaving the grandmother for last pleading for her life.

During this week of class reading “Oedipus the king”, I would rate my ability to read and understand the play as a 9 out of 10. “Oedipus the king” is a Greek tragedy about a man who unknowing fulfills a prophecy by killing his father and marrying his mother. As someone who doesn’t read plays very much, my rating of a 9 out of 10 for reading and understanding is pretty good. While reading the play, I’ve been able to understand the plot pretty well but I’ve had trouble understanding some words and the placement of words have also been a little difficult to understand. Reading this play I actually found myself liking the story and the characters a lot. This story had themes of fate and freewill which I enjoyed how Oedipus was persistent to find out the truth about himself. In the production of this play, I would want to play Oedipus. I would want to portray the character Oedipus because for starters he’s the main character. I would play Oedipus because his character changes over the course of the story as he unveils more information about his origin and prophecy.

During the Covid-19 pandemic which was now 4 years ago, a lot has transpired during that year. In the year 2020, when covid struck it hit like a bomb leading to millions of deaths of loved ones, no outside contact for months, police brutality, people acting out towards each other in fear of catching covid, schools shutting down, and for me personally and many others the robbery of my graduation. In comparison of the action/events that happened during covid to the reading ” Oedipus the King”, the priest says this line ” A deadly pestilence, is our town, strikes us and spears us not, and the house of Cadmus is emptied of its people while black Death grows rich in groaning and in lamentation”. This line from the priest is similar to how people were feeling during covid. During covid, people started to become fearful and paranoid of catching covid or getting their families sick. It was also a time that people started to have mental health problems, feeling trapped in their homes while also scared to go outside. For a lot of people Covid felt like a time of uncertainty and never knowing if we would recover from this pandemic, which caused a lot of problems for our nation and communities.

In my opinion I rate my ability to read poetry a solid 8 0ut of 10. I’m not a big poetry reader but the poems we read for class were quite interesting and good refresher to reintroduce myself into poetry. To improve my poetry reading ability I can start by reading the poem twice in row, paying attention to the rhythm and emotion, pausing when I come across unfamiliar words. These are all things I need to incorporate when I am reading different works of poetry. I don’t usually read poems or poetry but after reading the poems assigned like “The Mother” I started a newfound interest in poetry. This poem I actually read 3 times because I was able to feel the emotion of the poet. This poem was also a fairly easy poem to understand and find the meaning. Gwendolyn Brooks poem is describing a mother who chooses an abortion, who thens goes through the emotions and thoughts of what could of been memories of having a child.

The quote I chose for essay number two is “Reading makes immigrants of us all it takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere” by Jean Rhys. The story I have chosen that embodies this quote is “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant. Firstly, I chose this quote because it describes how immersive the world of literature can be for readers or anybody. From stories, folktales, poems, and fables, these works of literature can have a reader transcend into the story. As if there actually in the story with the characters or imaging themselves as the main character. The story “The Necklace” embodies this quote, a story about a miserable housewife who believes she deserves the finer things of life, the riches and glam. Who is also married to a poor working man, who’s tries his best to provide for her and himself. The husband knows his wife, who’s wants to be living the rich life gets a invitation for a ball to be around the higher class. The wife whos ungrateful, guilted her husband into giving her money for a new dress, to hide the fact that she’s poor. She borrows a diamond necklace from one of her friends to impress the people at the ball. She ends up losing the necklace and her and her husbands has to work tirelessly to make money to afford a necklace. This is a story that makes you create a mental movie of how things went for the husband and wife.

This sentence from a students essay is ineffective because it is too vague and not specific enough. The sentence is ineffective because it is not explaining what the author is trying to say or his message. It’s simply a general statement that doesn’t give the reader much understanding of what’s going to be talked about. This statement also makes for a bad and ineffective thesis statement. Just stating the author wants us to examine the character of the narrator and intricacy of human condition. With no context or background to support leaves the reader and myself confused. It needs to be more specific so the reader can be able to understand the point of view of the writer. To improve it someone could say, “In James Joyces ‘Araby’, Joyce wants readers to understand the protagonist actions/emotions while dawning on a disillusionment with adolescence while also having a crush on Mangan’s sister.

The story “The Lesson” by Toni Bambara was a insightful read that required me to read between the lines to be able to grasp the lesson that was being taught. Miss Moore an educated women who carries herself different from most people in the communities. Takes eight kids on a field trip to a expensive toy store to show the difference in social class. To help the kids understand the wealth gap between african americans and white people. “Where we are is who we are, Miss Moore always pointin out. But it don’t necessarily have to be that way, she always adds then waits for somebody to say that poor people have to wake up and demand their share of the pie and don’t none of us know what kind of pie she talking about in the first damn place”. Miss Moore is expressing how where your from does not define who you are or what you’ll become. The opportunitiy to change your circumstances  is something you have to be willing to take. After reading this story, I would name my essay “Escaping poverty and its mindset”.

In the narration of “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, I related to him also as a kid in church expecting a miracle or Jesus to arrive. During my childhood to teen years my mother had me attend church most Sundays. So I’m familiar with the atmosphere within a church. To point out Langston Hughes gave a good description of what happens in church. “A great many old people came and knelt around us and prayed, old women with jet black faces and braided hair, old men with work-gnarled hands”(Hughes). A sight and experience that I have seen and felt many times. Being surrounded in church with hands placed on you, everyone praying asking Jesus to touch you. The feeling of waiting for something to happen, waiting to feel something different, waiting to see Jesus right in front of you. Its a feeling that I have also felt like the narrator. As a kid its hard to really feel or believe in what you can’t see or really understand.

I think Professor Conway assigned “The Most Handsome Man” as the first story to introduce us to the writing style of magic realism. To add on how this magical story along with other folktales can establish new senses of identity within ourselves, while also expanding our imaginations. With this story being the first magical read since my childhood. This short story was a very captivating and intriguing read. From the start of the story, the descriptive words used about the villager’s home and the unorthodox arrival of their guest has provided the ability for me to create mental pictures. The way how the villager’s looked at their lives once their handsome guest arrived was truly interesting. This newfound guest that nobody knew the identity of was able to birth a new life, a new meaning to the people in the village. While the villagers gave an identity to this new man birthing “Esteban”. Describing him as this god like person, more handsome and stronger than their husbands. Professor Conway assigned us this story to show the magical realism of unexpected events and that it can change our lives too.