Britney

A significant idea that I came across in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is the theme of morality and redemption.The grandmother presents herself as a morally upright Christian but instead demonstrates selfishness and manipulation throughout the story. Without reading the article I would’ve thought that it was going to be centered around a man in the story but in reality the grandmother in the story lacked morals more than the Misfit, she just likes to portray herself in a certain way, very ladylike and elegant but she lacked a lot of care even for her own family, the misfit says at the end of the story ” she would have been a good lady if there was somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”, this shows how the misfit viewed the grandmother as a deceitful person who was just crying for mercy and saying the nicest things while a gun was pointed to her.

My ability to read poetry after the past two weeks has improved a bit. I have become more familiar with certain terms such as imagery, some of the poems we read have opened up my imagination and I could vividly feel or even envision what the speaker is writing about in their poems. Although I still struggle with understanding some of the text when it’s written a certain way it feels a bit tricky to comprehend the meaning behind certain stanzas. I also still struggle reading slowly and reading a poem the way it should be read, sometimes I read it like a run on sentence instead of pausing the way I should and that plays into me getting confused. I do enjoy reading certain poems because of the feelings they’re capable to invoke like sadness or joy but some of them use certain words that leaved me feeling puzzled.

I can personally relate to the young narrator in “Araby” by James Joyce because of the feeling of disillusionment. I feel like this feeling isn’t just invoked by someone who we admire to be a potential romantic partner but by many others scenarios in life. In the story, the protagonist gets infatuated with a girl who lives across the street from him. He always admired her from a far and had little to no real conversation with her, yet he felt these strong yearnings for her beauty and innocence. By the end of the story the protagonist ends up going to a bar that the girl told him about, he showed up to bring her back a gift since she couldn’t go. He was then faced with reality of feeling foolish, ashamed and disillusioned when the expectations of beauty and innocence were not met. I have felt this way before with job opportunities, as a sub para I have had my experiences where I had hope a school would keep me there for the rest of the year but then I’d be let go. Meanwhile the whole time I’m working there I would remain hopeful that I could secure a permanent spot, only to feel let down and disillusioned when I’m let go

The quote I have chosen to focus on is “Literature is not only a mirror; it is a map, a geography of the  mind” by Margaret Atwood. This quote embodies the story I have chosen to focus on which is Araby by James Joyce. To me the quote means that literature not only shows you who you are but also your thoughts and feelings as a writer, some writing pieces are very strongly written where you could tell the author feels strongly about what they’re sharing with us, as well as when they narrate for characters in certain writing pieces. In Araby James Joyce voices how the protagonist feels throughout this journey of emotions towards a stranger he is infatuated with. The author takes us inside the mind of the main character describing his thoughts and feelings, he is very eager and borderline obsessed with this girl til the end of the story where he starts to feel disillusioned.