Short Stories Thesis

Of the eleven short stories I read, the stories I read independently were: The Girls in Their Summer Dresses, The Rocking Horse Winner, and The Kugelmass Episode. A common pattern I found in them all was the cycle of desire and satisfaction. The main characters in every story desired something – Kugelmass, being able to be with his current wife as well as another woman (fictional from a book) from The Kugelmass Episode, Paul, the son who wanted to bring luck to his mother from The Rocking Horse Winner, and Frances, wife of Michael who wants attention given to her from him and not towards other women from The Girls in Their Summer Dresses.

Common literary elements that I identified in those three stories were point of view and the temporal setting. They all have a third person omniscient perspective. Each of these stories seem as if they take place in the past, not set in modern time (from the vocabulary, the social rules, and physical setting). These elements matter because they all tie into how desires in the past are very similar to what people desire today, and how desire leads to satisfaction, which leads to more desire. As demonstrated in these stories, the stories end with the main characters with their unresolved problems – still having a craving for something even when they were temporarily satisfied.

I can't decide which story to choose for my thesis, but for the next few days I'll be considering which story to use and a strong thesis to correspond with it.

Reading Times

10/23 - The Girls in Their Summer Dresses - 50 min., 10/24 - The Kugelmass Episode - 60 min., 10/28 – Jillian Michaels, Master Your Metabolism - 60 min.

Total: 170 min.

Reading Times

Nicole Johns, Purge Rehab Diaries

10/16 - 30 min., 10/17 - 60 min., 10/18 - 60 min., 10/19 - 40 min.

Total: 190 min. pages 7-129

Literary Element - Dry September

I've noticed that characterization is an important aspect in Dry September. This story was written in 1931 when most whites were bitter towards African-Americans and treated them harshly. Dry September includes direct and indirect descriptions which is extremely helpful to learn about the characters, their relationships, and the society they live in. We are able to find out many things about the characters, especially from their words.

""Except it wasn't Will Mayes," a barber said. He was a man of middle age; a thin, sand-colored man with a mild face, who was shaving a client. "I know Will Mayes. He's a good nigger. And I know Miss Minnie Cooper, too." "Who is she? A young girl?"" "You damn niggerlover!" A white barber, a "man of middle age," is defending a Black man. The other white men defend the white woman instead of the Black man, even though they don't truly know of her. This shows that they were racist and unjust towards Blacks. They frown upon the white barber who is defending Will Mayes. 

"She was thirty-eight or thirty-nine... Minnie's bright dresses, her idle and empty days, had a quality of furious unreality. She went out in the evenings only with women now, neighbors, to the moving pictures. Each afternoon she dressed in one of the new dresses and went downtown alone..." "She ain't married. That's why I don't believe..." "She passed and went along the serried store fronts, in the doors of which the sitting and lounging men did not even follow her with their eyes any more." Since she was old and not yet married, we can assume how lonely and rejected she must feel. We learn that she dresses to impress, and craves for attention with her clothes. She wanted men to notice her. It was uncommon for women her age to be single. "This ain't the first man scare she ever had, wasn't there something about a man on the kitchen roof, watching her undress about a year ago?" "Do you suppose anything really happened?" 

Without having these details, we wouldn't have known about Will Mayes or Minnie Cooper. Will Mayes must have been a responsible person in order that a White man would want to defend him (which was against their cultural norms). We learn that the white people were quick to defend a white person over an accused African-American without taking the time to investigate. They wanted to punish a Black man without getting evidence that he actually committed a crime. We learn that Minnie Cooper is still single and desires a husband. She's lonely. We can assume that her story might've been false since she isn't married yet and she has been claimed to have gone through harassment before. 

Reading times:

Dry September: 30 min.

And of Clay We are Made: 50 min.

Harrison Bergeron: 30 min.

Waltz of the Fat Man: 30 min.

The Rocking Horse Winner: 60 min.

Total: 200 min.

First Quarter Evaluation

I think the first quarter has rolled by smoothly. Coming to class prepared and focusing in class was easy for me. I seldom ever packed up before the bell rang since there is never an idle moment in English class. We are always working. Well, I am. Once or twice, I forgot to bring my outside reading book, but other than those times I was always prepared with my materials. I never went to the restroom during class (afraid to miss something during lectures) and I regularly emailed Dr. deGravelles when I had questions. I hastily took notes during lectures and discussions on things that I felt were important. Keeping my attention on class discussions is easy since I like class discussions. I also stayed away from the side conversations around me, and I only talked whenever I was asked to by the teacher or if a classmate had a question about what we were discussing in English. The only challenge for me was to stay focused in class near the end of the day. Around 2, I feel lifeless. I'm alert and awake when I have English before tutorial, but after tutorial is a different story. Halfway through class, my eyes would shut without my permission. It's a struggle fighting with my eyes to remain alert.

For the second quarter, I will not change anything about how I conduct myself in class or staying consistent with homework/essays. I think I've been working hard in English class so far, and hopefully I will keep these habits. The only thing I worry about is staying awake when I have class near the end of the day. I will try to find a solution for this, because it sucks struggling with my difficult eyes!

Reading Times

By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead, Julie Anne Peters
10/01- 30 min., 10/02- 30 min., 10/03- 30 min., 10/04- 30 min., 10/05- 30min.
Total - 150 min., pp. 3-132

Short stories:
To Build a Fire: 60 min.
To Dah-Duh: 30 min.
A&P: 20 min.
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: 40 min.
Total: 110 min.

10/1

As a Writer in the Present

I like people who don't smile.
Ever.
I like people who smile.
Always. 

In some ways, I love everything.
I like things that I love.
And I love everything that I like.

But even the worst things have something to like in them.
Like a cheeseburger. 
Donut holes.
Or broccoli.
I love food.
But I hate food.

I am a writer who hates to write,
but loves to write at the same time. 
There are certain books that I love.
But there are certain parts to them that I hate.
I am a writer who writes god-awful.
I am a writer who finds quality in my writing.
I am a writer because I love to write about how I feel.
So predict what I say next.

Reading Response

I recently finished reading Crank by Ellen Hopkins. I'm not finished with the book I'm currently reading, and there doesn't seem to be a plot structure within it. So I will use Crank as an example. There was a plot structure throughout the whole book that I thought would be perfect to use for this post. 

The plot structure was very consistent. The cycle throughout the book went from happy and blissful to suffering and sinful. In the beginning, Kristina and her life were perfect. She was an innocent, straight-A junior. Her downfall began when she started using drugs. She was dating two guys at a time and was raped by one of them. When she goes back home to Arizona, she discontinues her drug abuse and manages to remain her grades. She focuses on schoolwork and her relationship with her new boyfriend. But once she gets her hands on drugs again, she slacks in school, ruins her relationship with her boyfriend, and drifts away from her friends and family. Her life spirals into nothing. She has no intention on doing anything in life except for drugging herself up. She then realizes she's pregnant. And for the next 9 months, she ends her drug use and gives birth to a healthy baby. But at the end of the book, she gets back to drugs. I think the reason why Ellen Hopkins wrote the book this way is for the story to never be dull. It was surprise after surprise, leaving me anticipating everything that would happen next.

I'm still reading This is Our Faith by Pennock. It's more of an educational book than a book with a plot. As I read, I acknowledge things that I know and things that I never knew about the Catholic religion. I've always had questions in my mind about some aspects about my religion, and this book answers those questions. I really like it so far as the book offers different viewpoints: atheists, Baptists, and other Christian denominations. I always try to retain my relationship with God, and I like reading religious books since I feel a deeper connection with Him. For To Build a Fire, I was constantly re-reading it to understand the story. I have to be honest, I hated reading/annotating it. The whole story confused me and the end was terrible in my opinion. I felt aggravated the whole time I was reading since it was very repetitive and the author had his point already, but he STILL kept repeating things over and over. I liked descriptive language, though, it painted a clear image inside of my mind (with the help of the pictures.) 

My reading for this week:
This is Our Faith, Michael Francis Pennock: 9/26 - 45 min.
Literacy narrative: 9/25 - 60 min., 9/27 - 60 min.
To Build a Fire: 9/27 - 60 min
Total:  225 min. pp. 83-159 (This is Our Faith)