A Rose for Emily

A rose for emily is the token story of new generation pushing out old generation. Emily, representing the southern mentality during the civil war era is a legend of her town, almost showing a childish mysticism in her mere presence at the village. thus when she buys arsenic at the drug store many of the townspeople (who is represented by the narrator) come to believe that she will kill herself. This, ontop of the city's authorities trying to have Emily pay for city taxes (after she hadn't paid them for over 10 years because of the kindness of the now deceased sherrif), shows both the lack of trust in this sort of an old mystic understanding of the world but also a less caring and emotional response to the people who come from this age. The new systematic, future is pushing her generations less efficient system out of the way. It shows the lack of empathy in modern society and the greater ability of previous generations to work with and care for its externalities; a much more human approach in comparison to the narrator's lack of empathy for this woman.

The Lady With The Dog

Having read characterization instead of of setting I lost some ability to have a fresh insight into this story, obviously because we spoke about it in class. Chekov uses the setting, specifically the correlation between cities and weather, to chronicle the movement of Anna and Dimitri's relationship and more importantly Dimitri's vision of women in general. by the end of the story it is quite clear that woman have become a less degraded sex as he regards her with respect near the end of the story. I believe most of his ill respect towards women is his passive agression towards the women in his past life whom have tried to belittle him (such as changing the way they say his name to something more "eloquent"), which lead Dimitri to think that all woman were full of stupidity.

Araby

This is a short story about a man's infatuation and his failure to get her something from the Arab bizarre. the theme would seem to be that you cannot buy love nor can you possess it, as shown in the man's anguish that he had reached the bizarre too late to buy the woman a gift. The narrator would seem to be first person from the main character's perspective.

Toni Morrison - Recitatif

Recitatif chronicles five encounters between two orphaned childhood friends and their development as individuals as black and white women. Whether race effects character seemed to be a large theme in this story. I believe the story thought that race does develop one's character, but in neither a negative nor positive way. for instance, Twyla's character initially does not see race and is projected as unaware of the world around her, while Roberta's character slowly develops from a critical awareness to a colorless (although aware) viewpoint near the end of the story; she admits that she cannot remember maggie's color (only that she was old). Twyla also grows an awareness of the colored world around her, but her reflections seem to be more of a self realization that color does hold weight in this world, whereas Roberta's realizations developed from outward actions and promotion against white people into a colorless (but knowing) view of the world around her.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

A very romantic journey through the eyes of dying man's last minutes. In the second chapter it mentions Farquhar's wife and how Farquhar was a soldier at heart; it is no wonder that his last moments are filled by a dream journey of adventure back towards his home and his wife. It makes the journey's dream more apparent when Farquhar begins walking down the road and notices that very few humans had tread it in the past. I actually had to read this story for my english class last year, but sadly didn't ever finish the story (i was reading it before first period and ran out of time), so i'm glad this story came up once more so i could finish it.

Girl

this short short story seemed to be less of a dialogue/monologue and more of a statement of a girl's existence between her and her mother and her upbringing into womanhood. From what I gather, the derivative of the word "slut" in this story is closer to "slovenly" than "whorish". with that being said, the mother's focus in bringing her child upright comes in the form of a woman's place in a man's world (i.e how a woman can be seen as respectable in light of her culture and not her own self). On the other hand, the young girl seems to show more signs of individuality and curiosity over her mother's instructions on what is deemed respectable of woman in the world her daughter will soon be entering. The conflict between these two shows a maturation stage in any girl's life and how one can tackle the situation of becoming a woman; individuality or culture.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

I have previously researched this story after listening to a song by Sufjan Stevens by the same name, so I already had a couple ideas on what the story was about before actually reading it. Although after reading I found a lot of other symbols that further validate and specify my original understanding of the story. From what I gathered, the Misfit is an Old Testament angel who was cast out of God's love after Jesus healed the world with his compassion. After Jesus saved us from sin angels of destruction, such as the Misfit, were no longer necessary under God's regime and were no longer needed for their original purpose, symbolized by the Misfit's psychopathic lifestyle having him being locked up in jail. the grandmother is the kind of woman that an angel of destruction would naturally have killed in the old testament for her selfishness and narrowmindedness. At the end of the story the Misfit mentions how the grandmother would have been a good woman if she didn't need a gun pointed at her every moment of her life; she was only unselfish when she had something to lose.

Hills Like White Elephants

Hills Like White Elephants, like many other Hemingway stories, is chock full of symbolism. The train seemed to symbolize the ever approaching decision of whether the woman should have an abortion and whether the American man was mentally prepared for the woman's decision. The man is constantly asking the woman to consider having another drink, which seems like the man is not mentally prepared to have this abortion. finally at the end of the story the man looks at the other men, waiting patiently with their "bag"s (aka their own "crosses" or problems) and tells the woman that he is ready for her decision.