Monthly Archives: September 2016

Dear Father,

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Everything at Indian camp was difficult to understand, although I was curious to peek, yet I was too disturb to look at the old lady giving birth. I was shook I’ve never encountered a woman on labor. On page #19 “do ladies always have a hard time giving birth” , I was extremely confused, because of the scream and the pain she was going through physically. As I was reading “The Story Of An Hour”, I thought of such an experiences with you. While the lady was plotting on how to live her life without her husband, she saw nature through the window as she seat and it inspired her to live. On page #19 “the sun coming up over the hills , a bass jumped making a circle in the water”, after all I experienced today, it felt like that was a sign of a fresh start
and a new day .

Sincerely, your son Nick

Thus stories “The Story Of An Hour” and “Indian Camp”, share a crazy plot twist where both Miss. Mallard and Nick felt death really close to themselves. They also encounter horrific situation where Miss. Mallard found her husband alive and on his feet after opening the door and Nick seeing the indian committing suicidal. Likewise, through it all it felt like joy to Nick seeing the indian and her child surviving. Although it caused her death Miss. Mallard also felt a joy of seeing her husband once again.

HW, Reading questions, blog instructions for 9/28

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Hi class,

Wonderful discussion today.  Below please find suggested HW breakdown, reading questions, and blog instructions (blog group 1, please take note!)

Breakdown.  Reading O’Connor story + essay (1 hr); comment or blog post (15-30 mins); working on Essay 1 (remainder of prep time)

Reading questions.  Starting today, we’re going to try something a little different; we’re going to rely on our classroom discussion to guide our reading.  Look over your notes from today’s and last Wednesday’s class.  What are some themes, character types, and recurring conflicts that have come up throughout our American Literature unit?  Are you particularly interested in any ongoing topics that have resurfaced in our discussions?  

Be on the lookout for topics that interest you in the first few paragraphs of O’Connor’s story.  See if you can articulate at least 3 questions, based on those paragraphs, about the story.  Continue to revisit those questions throughout the story.  Make note of where and when you see details that help you answer them.

After you read the story, read Flannery O’Connor’s essay, “A Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable.”  Do you agree with Flannery O’Connor’s assessment of her own story?  Do you think the story illustrates her philosophy of fiction writing?

Blog instructions.  Our second round of blogging begins today!  Group 1, your post is due by 5 pm Tuesday; everyone else, as usual, your comment is due by the beginning of class.  

Group 1, please remember to pick a different category of blog (Clue, Connect, Create) than the one you did last time.  

This time, your post, whichever category you choose, should be based on a question that is raised for you at any point in the story.  Remember, by “question” we don’t just mean basic queries (“Where is this taking place?”) but problems or issues that arise from specific details (“Why Spain, instead of America, for the setting of ‘Hills Like White Elephants’?”).  

If you’re writing a clue post, explain how any one detail – a physical description, an internal thought, an exchange of dialogue – offers a clue to answering your question.

If you choose to write a Connect post, single out a previous work on the syllabus that raised a similar question for you.  Or, compare with another work that featured similar details, but raised a different question.

If you choose to write a Create post, write a paragraph in which you describe the first 5 minutes after the last line of the story.  Whatever you write, your narration should incorporate or bring up your question somehow (perhaps a line of dialogue, or an internal thought, or a physical description).  In a brief second paragraph, explain what your question is, and how your creative piece illustrates it.

Looking forward to wrapping up the first unit in our class!

 

Best,

 

Professor Kwong

Clue in “Indian Camp” by Hemmingway

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After reading and analyzing the short story “Indian Camp” by Hemingway. One of the most appealing element to me was Hemingway’s narrator style. The story centers around a point of view from young Nick who have never been to an Indian camp. The style of storytelling Hemingway tells us here is through third-person limited omniscient. For example, “Nick watched his father’s hands scrubbing each other with the soap” (17). Here, we have third-person limited omniscient point of view. we don’t get much point of view from the Nick’s perspective. If it’s a first-person point of view from Nick’s then the Author would write something like this, “I watched my father scrubbing his hands each other with the soap”. The style of Hemingway tells us this story is through a very limited perspective. I think the author does not want us to go through all the details of what’s happening next. Hemingway wants to tell the story through his way by using the third-person narration.

“Nick lay back with his father’s arm around him” (16). Hemingway starts out in the second paragraph by telling the story from narrator’s perspective other than nick. This gives us clear clue of how the story structures through nick’s point of view but in very limited way. The limited omniscient really makes this story tedious with not much detail. If Hemingway told this story from a Nick’s third person omniscient for example, “The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making circle
he felt quite sure that he would never die” (19). Then Nick would detail how the sun came up from the hills, how the bass looked when it jumped from the water. There will be a lot of more details in the story that can make this story much more effective and comprehensive for the readers.

Dear, Father

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Dear: Father

 I have recently read a Story called “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin. This story made me think back to that night where you took me as your intern in the Indian camp. In this story “The Story of an Hour” the wife has to face the news of her husband death.  This story ends with and unexpected twist.  Where the wife is the one who ends up dead after, she found out her husband is still alive. Like that day on the Indian camp where things led to a horrific event. Where we first struggle in helping that Indian women and her baby survive. Then, we were over joy with the birth of the baby. And lastly, were shocked with the death of the father of the baby. Like in “The Story of An Hour” what appeared to be good news ended up in death. Both story ended with an ironic twist. Father this story made me think that live is not what it seems. Joy can represent a lot of thing to different people. This Indian man seemed like he died of joy. But, what if what he didn’t want was for this baby to be born. Maybe, like the women in the story he did not want this baby to be alive. Maybe, it represented responsibility for him. The women in the story depended on her husband for everything just like this baby would have depended on him for everything. Maybe, he died because, he was afraid of losing his freedom like the women in this story. I think that the responsibility of a new life was to overwhelming for him and that why he took his own life. Like on that day I am still confused and full of questions without any answers.   

Singly, your son Nick

I think Nick can relate to “The Story of An Hour” because he too had to face an unexpected death. He was not prepared of what was going to be unfold in the Indian camp. At, the begging of the Indian Camp story he might felt inventors even excited to be with his father in such an important journey. However, at the end he was left confuse and with so many questions. I believe that Nick in this story represents the reader’s perspective and experience as he or she is reading the story. At the end, of the story I too had many questions. The theme of this story could be that in life not everything has an answer and, sometime things just happen without any explanation.    

 

The Authors’ Attitude on the Indigenous People

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Each author depicts the indigenous people in their own way through each individual story. As we see in “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne,  we see the view and the attitude towards the indigenous people is shown by the dialogue of the old man describing how he helped Goodman Brown’s father set ablaze upon an Indian village. The author shows how he does not care much for the indigenous people since he does not tell or show much else of them either then the fire set on their town. We get no reaction or dialogue in regards to them as well. This can show that the author does not show some sort of sympathy even by the use of Goodman Brown in little to no reaction to the people but rather is more concerned with his father betraying his faith. Hemingway depicts the indigenous people different in his story compared to Hawthorne. Hemingway depicts them is his story “Indian Camp” not much of the indigenous people except that they are obedient to the doctor trying to help a fellow indigenous woman give birth. They do not speak much nor do they show much emotion throughout the story. I feel as if the author uses the indigenous people just to carry out the story till the end then show much care about them in the first place. In addition, even though the indigenous people are the reason for the doctor traveling to their village to help the woman in labor with his son, Nick, and his fellow friend George, they are not even the center of the story. The story mostly revolves around our three outsiders previously mentioned. Another example of Hemingway not showing much care or emotion towards the indigenous people would be when the doctor and his son react towards the dead body of the indigenous man who committed suicide as he is laying in a pool of his own blood. Their reaction was not as shocking as one may be when they come across a body of someone who committed suicide especially Nick since he is still young.