"Story of an Hour"

Before I even read this story I was thinking it was going to talk about someone greatest story maybe about winning something or there hour of victory and fame. I started reading this short story and almost had tears. The paragraph "It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. " These sentances made me sad. It was so slow and it almost gets you thinking that anything could happen to your loved ones at any second you could be Mrs. Mallard.
After that feeling came confusion. Mrs. Mallard just seemed to be crying out of sadness but as it appears later she is crying cause she is happy and free. She says in the fourteenth paragraph ,"Free! Body and soul free! she kept whispering". When she said that it was kind of shocking. It was shocking because, normally people don't cry and say free when a loved one dies.
Than finally the ending was so sudden. When it ended my reaction was, "wow, OK i guess that's it". Don't get me wrong, I am not saying it was a bad story. My opinion it had a very strong ending but it was juts kind of abrupt. Overall i really enjoyed reading this short story!

The story "A & P" is simple but full of meaning. It was about a boy who worked in a supermarket who one day unexpectedly quit his job. That only seems like a boring story line but the meaning behind his action speaks louder. One day when he was at work, a group of girls comes in only wearing bathing suits. Since the main character Sammy is a male around 19, he can't help but to notice them. He follows them around the store, analyzing their every move. When they reach Sammy, the manager of the store comes up and comments on their attire. Sammy could tell they were embarrassed by the manager so after they start to walk out of the store, he makes a decision to quit his job. He realized that it was not the smartest choices of this life but he figured that there was no turning back now. From the beginning you can sense he is not happy with his job but the way he describes the other customers and refers to them as "sheep." He also talks about his other coworker and his hopes to be a manager one day. He compared his self to seemed to not like who he would become if he stayed at his job. The biggest lesson I learned was when Sammy realized that there was no turning back, that he had to go through with his impulse decision. However hard life would be after, it was had to be done. I feel that you need to make those impulse decisions in order to figure out your next move. Not everything can be planned out perfectly and sometimes all it takes is someone else to break the rules to give you the confidence to break your own.

"The Story of an Hour"

This story is kind of sad. Mrs. Mallard, although loved by her husband, is happy that he has died because she now feels free. She had thought that life had gotten to be long, but now looks forward to her freedom to do as she pleases when she pleases. Mrs. Mallard notices the trees and the birds singing. When she discovers her husband is alive she dies. Why? Is it because life just got way too long for her or because of the shock that he is alive after she had made plans for her future?
I can understand how she feels to some extent. I have often planned things to go one way and suddenly something comes up and it all has to change. I guess I would never be unhappy that someone was alive after thinking that they were dead - especially a spouse.

The Story of an Hour

As terrible as it sounds, I could almost relate to Mrs. Mallard in The Story of an Hour. I married two years ago at age 21 to a man 10 years older than myself, and have regretted it for most of our marriage. The part I can relate to in the story is simply the wishing to be free part (not that I would be happy for my husband to die). So in the story when Mrs. Mallard was looking to the future, "But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long progression of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome," I can relate in the sense that freedom is a treasured thing and I miss not having mine.

"And yet she had loved him - sometimes. Often she had not." I thought this was a poignant line that really spoke to me as well, because I do love my husband, but there are times when it feels like all I want is to be free of him and all the emotional hurt he has caused and causes me.

I thought the ending of the story was both sad and almost funny. Mrs. Mallard was deliriously joyful at the news of her husbands death which meant her future independence. Then... "Someone was opening the front door with a latch key. It was Brently Mallard who entered..." And Mrs. Mallard died then and there. In a way, I guess Mrs. Mallard got her freedom, but she wouldn't enjoy it in the ways she had planned.

A Rose for Emily

Love can make people do things they would never think to do. It can take you places you've never been and it can cloud the judgement of the most rational mind. In "A Rose for Emily", Miss Emily was a solitude woman who lived a sad tragic life. She really did not have anyone to confide in except for her father. After he passed, she met Homer who became her boyfriend. After a few years and no longer seeing Homer, the towns people had thought he deserted her but in the end I found out she killed him.

What I do not quite understand is the feeling of solitude that Miss Emily had to of had to cause her to harm the one thing in her life that obviously gave her joy. She experienced fear with just the thought of losing him. Enough so, she felt the need to have to kill him in order to keep him. She was so consumed in herself and her own world she didn't seem to have enough faith in Homer and his committment to her. What she didn't seem to realize is that she actually lost him when she killed him. I am also curious to know if the servant knew he was up there the whole time.

"A & P" Journal 2

This story is about a nineteen year old boy named Sammy who works at a grocery store. He is working at the cash register watching the peole shuffle around getting everything on their shopping lists. He calls these people sheep, as they all act the same. Not really noticing the surroundings about them, just making sure they do not miss a thing on their grocery list. John Updike writes, "The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle, " describing what Sammy saw these shoppers as. He is ringing up an older woman's groceries, who is watching him intently, as three girls in bathing suits walk in. He stares, making a mistake on the register while doing so. The woman gives him lots of grief, and he is unsatisfied thinking she has been doing it for years. "She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up," wrote John Updike as Sammy describing the testy woman. Sammy is mesmerized by the blonde haired girl in the bathing suit. He called her the Queen. The girls picked up a can of Herring snacks. While Sammy is ringing them up his boss Lengel comes over and tells the girls, "Girls, this isn' the beach." Sammy begins to get irritated and the girls argue a little. As the girls are walking out Sammy proceeds to tell Lengel that he quits. Sammy takes off his apron and tie and walks out the door. Sammy did not see the girls anywhere when he walked outside. When he looked back inside Lengel was at his register ringing peoples groceries up. I think that Sammy's reason for quitting was alot based on how Lengel treated the girls. I also believe that it was kind of a spur of the moment thing that Sammy did by quitting. But, I think that there was more to it. Perhaps he wanted to feel powerful in quitting his job, not really wanting to go through with it but it was to hard to back out of. I think that this is a vey realistic situation as still these days if you were to walk into a grocery store with a swimsuit on, someone is likely to say something to you. I think that the way that Sammy quit in the end was unexpected, and that you can not live your life making rashional decisions like quitting your job when there is really no incentive or reasoning at all.

A Rose For Emily

After reading this short story, I was very disgusted. What a horrid way to end a story! After the story, I scanned over the "Reading and Reacting" that's in the lit book. It said it one part that they interviewed Faulkner about why he titled the story "A Rose for Emily", he replied, "I pitied her and this was a salute, just as if you were to make a gesture, a salute, to anyone; to a woman you would hand a rose, as you would lift a cup of sake to a man." This really made sense to me because when I read this story, all I was thinking about was how sick this woman was. But after all, she is a human just like the rest of us and should be giving some respect. Now I know this is just a story, but this should make us think of real people like Emily in the world around us. Was is really in every one's best interest to always be saying "Poor Emily" as they did throughout the story, or were the townspeople just saying it to ease their conscience? I wonder how much they really cared about Emily. Or were they more relieved when she passed? As much as I thought this story was horrid and digusting, I can see that this story can be an example to all of us; even the people that we think are sick or "crazy" are still human and really should be treated with love and respect. Because once they are gone, they are gone and will not be coming back. Emily, to the town, was "...a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation opon the town..." Could she have been more if the people had tried, got past the "poor Emily" stage, and really tried to be her friend?

The Story of an Hour

"The Story of an Hour” turned out totally different than I had expected it to be from reading the first couple of sentences. I thought that when Mr. Mallard was told about her husband it was going to be what killed her since she “was afflicted with a heart trouble”. I couldn’t image being in such a fragile state and then having to find out horrible news like that; it would be really hard to take. I then thought she was grieving since she just found out about her husband’s death, but then she said “free, free, free”. This took me back and then I realized she was unhappy with her marriage and felt relived and free to be finally out of it. I did not see this happening, but what I really didn’t see coming was what happened next. Mrs. Mallard’s husband was shockingly still alive. Then, the shock of seeing her husband alive killed her. I felt horrible! I thought that she might die since her heart trouble, but not that way. This story was filled with many twists and turns that I was not at all expecting.

"A Rose for Emily"

When reading "A Rose for Emily", I took a few things out of it. First off , I believe Emily was mentally ill and could have used some help from friends or neighbors. To me it seemed like no one cared and would try thier best to avoid her, when clearly she could have used some guidance and mental stability. Homer Barron seemed to do some good to her and probably kept her alive for longer had he not been introduced into her life. I found it very descriptive at the end when the author describes the break in into Emily's home. Talking about the dust and cob webs and rotting flesh really set the area and showed how disgusting the house was. I personally thought the house was a huge metaphor for describing Emily. The townspeople described it as being an "eye-sore" but just like Emily, it was a tradition of the town. It was out of place and disorderly, but it kept people talking just like Emily did. Overall I didn't care too much for this short story and wouldn't recommend it to many people.

"The Story of an Hour"

In the "Story of an Hour" I felt that I knew something bad was going to happen within the first sentence.  "Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble" I believe this foreshadowed that something was going to go wrong later on in the story. If it is being mentioned right away in the story it must have a great deal of significance.  I also became emotionally attached to the character, I had a great deal of empathy towards Mrs. Mallard. I originally thought that the news of her husband was going to be what killed her but to my dismay it wasn't. It twisted at the end, at first I had a sigh of relief when I found out that her husband was in fact still alive. I felt happy for Mrs. Mallard and that it was going to end well but instead the complete opposite of what I thought happened. She was so shocked that her husband was alive that it killed her. If only her husbands name wasn't mistakenly on the list, she might have still been alive. It ended up turning into a tragedy. What was suppose to be a happy ending in fact wasn't.

A Rose for Emily

In the story, "A Rose for Emily," the question of Homer Baron being gay, and Emily being African American is impossible. Homer states that he is not the marrying kind, but this does not mean that he is gay; it probably means that he moves around a lot with his work and enjoys the company of many women, not just one. Emily is not African American because she is given privileges not given to African American women of her era. She lives on a street that was once grand or the most select street. She has the patterns of behavior of white families that once may have been well off, but may have fallen on hard times. Emily has lost her father, her first source of support, and her only suitor. The fact that Emily lost the young man she thought to marry explains why she poisoned Homer - she was not going to go through the embarrassment of losing another "husband." By keeping him in the bedroom upstairs she, in her mind, feels she is properly wed, and he will never leave her. The gray hair on the pillow shows she spent time with him for quite awhile after he passed away. The narrator is someone who knows the whole history of the town and seems impartial to it. It could even be the negro who works for her...

"A Rose for Emily"

When I read "A Rose for Emily", I felt sorry for Emily. It seemed to me like the whole town was intrigued and jealous of her and her family's name. It seemed like the town wanted to take her down a few notches. This may of been for her family's wealth in the past. The town felt a need or the right to be in her business and watching her every move. They seemed to get pleasure from her being alone and unhappy. I think Miss. Emily always wanted to be married, although her father didn't want her to be. I believe she was with Homer Barron to fulfill her need and to have someone. I think this also kept the towns people guessing. I believe she killed him to honor her father's wishes that she remain and keep the Grierson family name. Miss. Emily was the last of her kind "A tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894."

A Rose for Emily

I enjoyed reading the short story "A Rose for Emily". Although it was at times hard to follow along with the story due to it not being told in chronological order, in the end it all came together well. I put together a timeline of the events that were important to aid me in putting the story together piece by piece. Miss Emily represents an elder in a community that people are taught to respect because of her status, even though the townspeople don't think very highly of her. It seems as though she thinks that she is better than the rest of the citizens due to her family being of greater descent. People still look down on her perhaps due to jealousy, even though they claim to pity her. "At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less."(pp. 26) They seem to pick out the bad in her, and point out her flaws. Because this story is told by a towns person, that seems to be the theme of the story. I think that Miss Emily missed out on a life due to her father, and after his passing she tried to make up for everything he kept from her. When Homer refused to marry her, "he was not a marrying mad"(pp. 43), she wouldn't take no for an answer. This is why she poisoned him, to keep him with her forever. That way Homer could never leave her, as the other men in her life had. Even with his death, she had him in her bed, his lifeless body rotting beside her. The foreshadow of his death started in paragraph 15, with the smell shortly after her "sweetheart went away". And yet even as he lay dead and rotting, she slept beside him, perhaps in embrace the way she did the night she poisoned him. Her love for him outlasted his death, as he was in "the long sleep that outlasts love". (pp. 59)

"The Story of an Hour"

When I started reading “The Story of an Hour” I got the impression that Mrs. and Mr. Mallard had a very good relationship and the whole story would be about how Mrs. Mallard handled the death of her husband. Mrs. Mallard’s initial reaction to the news of her husband’s death was that “she wept at once, with sudden abandonment.” The text continued to say that “when the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.” I felt that this backed up my initial impression of the plot of the story. I think that the external images expressed in paragraph 5 were written to give the reader an image of the scene. “There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds.” This sentence gave me the idea that it was a perfect day where nothing could go wrong. In paragraph 7, Chopin uses the phrase, “suspension of intelligent though.” This quote gave me the impression that Mrs. Mallard was going into shock from the news of her husband’s death. The text also states that her “gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky.” I believe this is another example of Mrs. Mallard’s stunned disbelief of her husband’s death. Despite these initial feelings of grief, in paragraph 11 and 12, Mrs. Mallard threw me a curveball. According to the text she “did not stop to ask if it were not a monstrous joy that held her,” and “she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.” This told me that Mrs. Mallard was happy that her husband had died! As I read on I found more evidence that their marriage struggled. This completely changed my initial impression of the story. It was changed from what I thought was a loving wife that would have to endure the death of her husband to a joyful wife who was looking forward to the years ahead. It also made me question Mrs. Mallard’s loyalty to Mr. Mallard because the text stated, “And yet she had loved him – sometimes.” I believe that the most important passage in this short story is the last one. Mrs. Mallard was happy that her husband died only to die herself. I believe that it is the most important because it shows that you can’t go through life pretending to be happy when you’re really not.

"A Rose for Emily"

In the "Rose for Emily", the story is told through the perspective of the towns people. It seems almost obvious that they would not nearly be as interested in her if she had appeared to be in their standard of normal, but instead they loved to talk about the negative things that occured in her life. Even when she began to date Homer, they talked about it because it grief, " could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige." Through the readings of the text, I highly doubt that Miss Emily was African-American. Not only did she have a very high standard for herself, as well as the towns people thought that she used to have a high standard, but they openly refer to other African Americans in the story as almost side objects. But for the town, Emily is a source of gossip, something to talk about. If she was anything more than the pharmacist wouldn't have simply looked away when she was so persistant upon the arsenic. I think that the way that the story is told in jumbled up pieces because it is told through the perspective of the townspeople and each story is thrown in as it is remembered. That also makes each story much more theatrical, as it grows with each tongue making it more and more of a tale than just a story of a person. It almost seems inferred that Miss Rose may have poisoned Homer and then lay next to his deceased body. It certainly comes off as someone who is living through the delusions of her every day life with something that is sincerely morbid. In her mind her actions were not sick, she loved him, or maybe the idea of him and was unable to let that go. All through her life Miss Rose was able to keep people talking and making her life a spectacle, and now even in her death she hasn't failed by giving them something to carry on and talk about the mystery of what had happened for years to come.

A Rose for Emily

In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” the ending is kid of disturbing to me like when they break down the door to the room that hadn’t been opened for a while. The passage that I first made me picture a dusty room was, “A thin, acrid pall of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal…..Among them lay collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust…… The man himself lay in the bed.” I can picture a bedroom with a chair, a dressing table, and a bed that are all full of dust. I picture the man’s toilet things on the dressing table are tarnished silver. Then the bed with the man in, “What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay: and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.” That is kind of gross to me because how could you let someone rot like that and even thinking how bad that would have to smell.

"The Story of an Hour"

When I first started reading "The Story of an Hour" I thought it was going to be a story about the reaction of a loving wife to the new that her beloved husband had been involved in a railroad accident that killed him. Mrs. Mallards' initial reaction to this new was that "she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sisters arms". When she was finally alone though, she took a look outside through a window and saw all these happy and wonderful sights and she wispered "over and over under her breath: Free, free, free!" Then I began to realize that instead of a loving wife grieving for her dead husband, she was actually an abused wife who was, in a way, grateful that she would never again be abused by her husband and she is now free to do what she wants to do. But at the end of the story there is a huge twist, Mr. Mallard walks through the front door, it turns out he hadn't even known about the railroad accident. When Mrs. Mallard sees him standing there she colapses and due to heart trouble dies right there. I feel she died from shock that her husband is still alive and she would have to endure abuse once again. I never saw this ending coming and it actually surprised me. I really enjoyed this story.

"The Story of an Hour"

When you think of "The Story of an Hour" you would never think of death. Then when you read the story one would think of a time in their own life like that. That is what I did when I started reading the story. My own mother past way when I was only ten years old. Then as I was reading this I was thinking of my dad and, what he went thought with the fact that his wife is not here anymore. In the part were it said, "she knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands, folded in death," I was that same thing when my own father looked at my mother for the last time. When things like this happen they happen for a reason. If your friend was to get in there car and go to the store up town that could be the last time that you could see them. Just like when Mr. Mallard had come home and then had to look at his wife to find out that she had past away right before he got there. If you had to come home to something in that way how would you feel?

The Story of an Hour

This story put together alot of details in a very short essay. It talks of Mrs. Mallards husband's friend Richards finding out about his tragic death in a railway accident. He verified it through two a newspaper office and than assured himself through a second telegram before telling Mrs. Mallard the news. They wanted to tell her the news with great care because of her heart problems. Richards went to the house with her sister Josephine and broke the news to her. She cried and than went upstairs to sit in an armchair, locking the door behind her. She stared out the window into the sky with a glaze over her eyes. She thought about the rest of her life without her husband, living and making her own decisions. Kate Chopin stated, "She saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely." It was hard to tell exactly what she got all the joy from of thinking about her husband not being there. Was it because she felt like a prisoner in her own house? Did she have absolutely no love for him at all? Or was it more deep than that and she was a victim of abuse? In the end Mrs. Mallard comes down out of her room to her Husband opening the door having no clue about the whole accident. Mrs. Mallard died from heart disease. Chopin stated it as,"of joy that kills." I think that Mrs. Mallard was so overwhelmed thinking of living her life for herself that when she seen her husband alive it struck her down and that is what killed her.