Jayveon Boland

What work do you feel was most successful and why? My most successful work this semester was Essay 2. Having to develop a thesis centering around a literary quote forced me to discuss one of my favourite literary stories from an entirely different angle. I usually defaulted to discussing the literary device of irony in “The Necklace,” but the instructions galvanized me to develop ideas and theories surrounding the protagonist and analyze her from a physiological standpoint. It was probably the hardest essay for me to develop, but exploring new ideas while making a concise piece was surprisingly fun! On what work do you feel you could have done better? I definitely could have done more on Essay 1. I had a lot of difficulty writing this essay because it was the first essay I’ve done focusing on a secondary source to write a thesis. To get a better handle on it, I asked a friend to go over the Overview with me and confirm if I identified the correct ideas to build upon for the essay. In the end, I realized I simply overthought the requirements of the essay and as a result, I felt rushed completing it. What specific skills developed in this class might be relevant to real-world experience? Conversational skills! Despite not fully participating in the discussion boards, the times I did required me to read the descriptions of other participants and develop genuine response points to receive full points. While it does seem daunting, being able to think of responses can easily translate to real-world interactions of small talk- making networking easier!

One personal experience of mine echoed in The House on Mango Street is texturism and how hair can be used as an identifier for an individual. In “Hairs,” readers learn about the personalities of Esperanza’s family by the way she describes their hair. Growing up, my mom used to call my hair “nappy.” This was usually followed by a statement that if my hair texture was “soft” like hers I could have grown it out. So when I think about it, I didn’t have a “personality” growing up because I was not allowed to express myself via physical appearances such as my hair. The vignette itself reveals a lot about Esperanza’s family through their hair, and that in itself is a beautiful thing!  “Hairs” is my favorite vignette that we read so far because it speaks on the appreciation of different hair textures within one family, which I think is a beautiful thing!

Raymond Carter’s writing style can easily be described as plain. Most notably, the way he conveys his story is simple. For example, in “Cathedral” his first-person narrative uses plain talk, using little metaphors or literary elements to convey the message. That doesn’t mean the story is without charm, his writing style communicates the awkward interactions and underlying emotions humans display. In contrast, writers such as Guy de Maupassant utilize situational irony and humor as literary devices to develop a sense of individuality. For example, in The Necklace, he utilized situational irony to emphasize the karmic results of deceit and manipulation- especially in cases of selfishness and narcissism.

Instead of a pit in your stomach from auditory cues such as high-tempo music or deafening silence, reading horror creates a sense of uneasiness from the written description of what’s happening in the story, With movies in the theater you tend to watch it straight through without interruptions or pauses, but reading horror stories allow you to pace yourself, making the build up that much more unbearable. Another thing to note is that with films you usually see the horrors visually, with little room for interpretation, and with horror stories, it more so falls on ones imagination to think up what exactly the protagonist encounters, and oftentimes the way horror stories are presented, they lead more into character building and details, creating an even more impactful build up for all the twists, turns, and jumpscares. A perfect example being Connie describing Arnold’s eyes as chips of broken glass, emphasizing his dangerous demeanor.

The only idea I would have missed in “A Good Man Is Hard to Hard to Find” had I not read the author’s article would be the designated roles of prophet and witch. While reading the story, I was irritated by the Grandmother’s blatant racism and biases towards people of color and her manipulative tendencies that inevitably resulted in the massacre of her entire family. Readers interpreting the grandmother as a witch may have seemed drastic and unnecessary, but location and time do affect one’s interpretation of written works. While reading, I grew to understand why some referred to her as a witch -hypocrisy aside, the lady was insufferable and had a ‘familiar’ like pet. I also noticed O’Connor reasoning to refer to the Misfit as a prophet – despite him killing the grandmother, his innate understanding of humanity shifted because of the conversation he had with her. The Misfit’s perception of justice and good and evil is warped, and O’Connor essentially used the Misfit to demonstrate any individual’s ability to change/shift mindsets.

When COVID was at it’s height, I still lived home in St. Thomas, USVI. As a US territory who’s main and only industry is tourism, we were a bit slow on the uptake of closing off our borders. Because of that, our island notice an uptake in “statesiders” (fellow US citizens who lived on the mainland/continental US) traveling to our island to vacation because of a current lack in mandates. It took as little as a month for their to be an identified case of COVID within the community, and three months for an upsurge in cases, forcing the USVI to close its borders indefinitely. Despite being a US territory and having confirmed cases, it was a bit difficult for our government to enforce mask mandates because of a lack of supplies (our inventories are usually shipped through Puerto Rico whose borders we also closed in light of the now global pandemic. However, once those regulations were planned out and essential workers we allowed to resume work both in Puerto Rico and the USVI, we were able to continue about life with a new sense of “normalcy” Similar to the citizens in Oedipus, our community immediately sought guidance from our government. Despite having a small number of cases initially, we understood how a “plague” such as COVID would negatively effect our only means of producing profit for the islands. In Lines 62-64, readers note that the community tells their king “You freed us from the Sphinx, Oedipus, our king; and in your care we find ourselves lifted from the surge of death.” Like those individuals we relied on our government now more than ever since our GDP tanked after all four islands were negatively impacted by category 5 hurricanes Irma and Maria no more than three years prior. As a […]

The quote about literature for my second essay was spoken by Margaret Artwood. She used this quote in her manifesto “Survival” in which she critiques the standards and themes commonly found in Canadian literature. While the quote  focused on the specifics of Canadian literature, her intellect and phrasing allows quotes such as “Literature is not only a mirror; it is a map, a geography of the mind.” to be applied in various spaces. I will use this quote as a basis for my analysis of “The Necklace” by “Guy de Maupassant.” As discussed in a few of the supplementary materials in our OpenLab course, Matilda’s fatal flaw in the story was her pride, and her insatiable need to upkeep appearances because of the society she lived in. We see her rash decisions and speculations revolving around the “right thing” to do, even if she never verbalizes it. Through her actions we see how her subconscious operates and the route she takes to achieve what she perceived to be as the “good ending.” Had this maybe been a different era of society, things could have end drastically different for her character, which emphasizes the notion that literature we read both serves as a mirror for human ideals and emotions during a specific era as well as another perspective of the human mind.

In what way do you personally relate to the young narrator in “Salvation” Similar to the narrator in “Salvation” I grew up in a christian-centric household. I also remember feeling perplexed when I never “saw” the physical embodiment of God or the Holy Trinity. Why? Refer to specific scenes or language in the story. The reason I personally relate to the narrator in “Salvation” is specifically because I attended a parochial school for the majority of my academic career and experienced virtually the exact dilemma as the story’s protagonist.  Similar to the narrator’s church, there usually is a yearly ceremony in my protestant school, where we had to kneel in front of this railing of sorts and if my memory serves me, pray until we felt to lord come to us. Like the narrator, I did not see any embodiments of Christ coming down to greet me and was gravely concerned by it. During our English class discussion, I thought about that incident, and looking back on it, I too recall the memory with a sort of irony and humor because of how impressionable I was. Growing up, I tended to take things literally, so I was concerned about eternal damnation because I didn’t “see the Lord” during my ceremony. Thankfully for me, in spite of my guilt for not seeing God, I was able to talk to my mom about it and have her explain the concept of an omnipresent God.