Tag Archives: blogging

Visting BHS – Group 2

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The first ad, is from the Long Island Star newspaper, published on January 10th, 1822. The newspaper is from Brooklyn, NY, about an indentured boy between the ages of 11-12 named David Smith. Our first highlight was the description, “Indented colored boy.” We were confused on why they said indented, and later were informed that it might have been a slang term for “indentured.” The ad also made us wonder a lot on why it was posted in the first place. The Master doesn’t want the boy, and as a group, we came to an agreement that the only reason that he posted up the ad in the first place is the fact that the boy was not a slave, and was an indenture, a servant with a contract that will expire after a certain amount of years and will later be free, he might be responsible for any negative actions that David Smith did while he ran away. He was described as a “great rogue,” and that the master tried to give the papers to the boy’s father but he refused to accept them. That also raised the question, since the boy’s father is colored as well, is he free or not? and will that affect the outcome on the privilage of accepting those papers.

The second article we got was an ad from Louisiana Slave Pamphlet, from 1835. It was about a runaway, Henry, which was about 18 years old, and was described as “middle sized, swelled cheeks, silky locks, black skin, well built, and speaks English and French.” Last seen on April 27th, carrying a basket of vegetables at the market. And it was supposed that he had fled on a steam boat. There was a $100 reward on whomever found and returned him. We noticed this ad was a bit different from the first one because this one had an icon, had a reward and the boy was described in a lot more detail than the David was.

In the ad, the boy resembles the lost song (either Buglar or Howards) of Sethe in the novel “Beloved.” Because in the ad, it says a rogue boy weas lurking in Brooklyn and owner couldn’t handle him.
In “Runaway Slaves,” Louisvilla Journal has published about a runaway slaves profile detail that says, he might go to Nashville where his mother lives as a free person.

Comparing to the novel “Beloved” and “Runaway Slaves,” the mother mentioned in Runaway slaves resembles Baby Suggs and her son Halle. Because in the novel “Beloved” Halle was out of the seen most of the time and he really takes care of his mother. He may be sold and reached Alabama but scaped. In “Runaway Slaves” the newspaper ad mentioned that a man named Jim or Armstead ran away with a horse, probably he will run to his mother where his many acquintance lived.

Group Project Runaway Slave BHS (Brian, Danny, Simone and Nicole)

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In the first slave advertisement it is a reward of $20 to find the slave named Joe. They give a brief description of his outer appearance saying how tall he is (5’4), well-built and that he has no beard. He is also 20 years old. Also they mentioned that he has a scar on his face in order for others to recognize him. The article warns captains to not harbor this slave and if spotted to report it.

In the second slave advertisement it’s not a reward but a captured slave. This slave was arrested for calling himself Caesar and said that he belongs to Colonel Grem of Fort Hudson. In the advisement they said that he is being held in the jail of the Parisher St James. He is 35 years old and lost his right leg and the end of his left foot.

These slave advertisements compared to the Franklin/Schweninger “runaway slave profile” are brief and to the point. Although I found it interesting in the first document because the slave named Joe was 20 years old and according to the runaway slave profile, teens and early twenties was the common age for men to run away. They also mentioned his “built” and height which in the runaway slave was common for owners to state that. In the runaway slave profile they said that slaves were identifiable by marks or scars and in document 1 you can see that when they mentioned Joe having a scar on his face. It also mentions about missing limbs although in document 2 doesn’t mention how he lost his leg but it could be from an accident or disease that caused him to lose his leg according to the runaway slave profile. They never mentioned any of the slaves skin color in the advertisements or what their clothing may look like and that was also two of the things that were part of the profile of a runaway.  (Nicole Romano)

 

Danny: Bullet Point 3&5

3. When looking at the different documents we came upon an old news article that was reward amount for the slave that escaped and if found the reward on top was the payment for finding them. The wanted news article described the runaway slaves to be between 2035 years of age, both black and male, one was Joe and he had a scar on his face, no beard, well built, and was around 5 feet four inches tall. The article as posted by the state of Louisiana 1835 may 15th. Another article described a man who was jailed for referring himself as Cesar who belong to the colonial green of fort Hudson.  He was 35 years of age and lost his right leg and the end of his left in a big accident that isn’t specified. This article was published may 30th 1835.

5. When reading the “runaway slave profile” Franklin/Schweninger  the story described the runnaway slave to be young men in their teens or twenties and 78% of those were between the ages of 13-29. Rarely was there an older slave runaway but when there was one they were between the ages of 40-50. Most were described as having dark skin, not so well built, and height varied. But when seen in the newspaper article the two men described were between 20-40, well-built and unlike the ones described in the “runaway slave profile” the ones in the news article were injured in different ways. One had a scar on his face, and the other had no leg/ foot.

 

Brian: Bullet Point #6

The reality of connecting the acts of the “slaves” in Beloved to the descriptions given in the advertisements and even just connecting it to the actions taken by the “owners” is startling. The thought that these articles represented another human being is one that i still have problems accepting. For example in the case of Sethe she ran away without taking anything to help disguised herself. If her owner had created an ad for her its description would have been spot on until she gave birth and got the coat from the man and his son to carry her newborn child in. In the first advertisement we have an offered reward for the return or capture of a slave and a proclamation that warns ship captains to not harbor the slave whose name was Joe. Comparing these two things a fictitious account of a slave to that of a real advertisement sheds a light onto an issue that should be remembered and teach a new generation about where they were and how far they have come. In Beloved we learn the story of Sethe who has run away and is on the run for quite some time trying to make it to safety. She goes through many trials and tribulations before making it to Baby Suggs house her mother-in-law. This as it pertains to the ads is basically that she had somewhere to go to and someone that could help her when she got there. The people mentioned in these ads probably had no one and would have been on their own after arriving to safety. In retrospect I think both the story and these ads are part of history that should never be forgotten because it is what helps us to realize that we are an advancing people who are better off due to our experiences. I mean better as a collective whole and not just individually.

Simone McPherson

The size of the rewards are very small, they are just ads from the newspapers. The ads include from document 6; a $20.00 reward for a runaway slave named Joe, who doesn’t have a beard but has a scar on the face, about 20 years old, who is also 5’4 and well built. In document 5, describes a man named Caesar who is about 35 years old. He lost his right leg and the end of his left foot. During these times which is rounded to about the time of 1835. The slave owners have given good descriptions of their runaways and it seems like they are a value to them, since they want them back.

Attached are four pictures the first two are advertisements for run-away slaves the third is the citation for all the images and the fourth is a code that was the law for all slaves

The Significance of Memory in “Beloved”

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“She had good hands, she said. The whitegirl, she said, had thin little
arms but good hands. She saw that right away, she said. Hair enough for five
heads and good hands, she said. I guess the hands made her think she could do
it: get us both across the river. But the mouth was what kept her from being
scared. She said there ain’t nothing to go by with whitepeople. You don’t know
how they’ll jump. Say one thing, do another. But if you looked at the mouth
sometimes you could tell by that. She said this girl talked a storm, but there
wasn’t no meanness around her mouth. She took Ma’am to that lean-to and rubbed
her feet for her, so that was one thing.
And Ma’am believed she wasn’t going to turn her over. You could get money
if you turned a runaway over, and she wasn’t sure this girl Amy didn’t need
money more than anything, especially since all she talked about was getting
hold of some velvet.” (Morrison, 77)

In this passage of “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, we read about a memory of Sethe’s past when she was running away, six months pregnant with her daughter Denver, and she encounters a little white girl in the hills, who helps her along her path, and also helps her deliver her baby. Taking into consideration the time period in which the novel is written, during the years of slavery-and afterwards- we get a sense of what kind of character the little white girl Amy is. It says here that during that time period, anyone who turned in a runaway slave could get money for it, but Sethe did not believe that Amy was going to turn her in. Even though the little girl was of white lineage, she had knowledge of what a negroe slave was, and knew that someone was looking for her, she still did not turn her in or made the effort to belittle the African women that she found in the hills, badly hurt and pregnant. Instead, she took the time to make her as comfortable as she possibly could, and cured her of her illnesses.
“She said the girl talked like a storm, but there wasn’t no meanness around her mouth,” were the words of Sethe. From this quote I got the understanding that Amy, although having knowledge of what slaves where, was still a bond person and had the courage to help another in need. If it may have been another white person that would have found Sethe in the hills, they most likely would have turned her in to receive a monetary reward for it.
From this passage specifically, although we don’t receive much information about what live as a slave was, we can interpret from “Beloved” that it was not an easy task for the slaves to run away. There were many hardships that made running away very difficult. We can also interpret that there were still people with kind hearts like Amy, which without receiving nothing in return, still helped a black woman in need. This, like many other memories of her past, was one that Sethe didn’t like to recall because it reminded her of the troubles that she went through as a slave. Throughout what we have read so far in “Beloved,” the reader gets a pretty good insight of Sethe’s memories, that help piece together parts of the story that are scattered around.

 

 

The BHS Experience.

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Our recent visit to the Brooklyn Historical society was very beneficial to my understanding of my hometown and also of our reading of “Only The Dead Know Brooklyn.” I had no knowledge of the Brooklyn Historical society prior to this class and once I heard about this trip I was looking forward to it. I can now say that I enjoyed the trip, not just because we got to leave the classroom but I found everything about the BHS so interesting and inspiring. I loved the architecture, and the mood of the building. It isn’t like a mundane public library. The resources are rare and precious and the BHS is very cautious about how their resources are shared with the public.

Being there was also constructive because we were able to have a hands-on experience with the materials. The group I worked with had a display of two maps of Brooklyn. One map was a railroad map and the other was a transit map. We also had folders that contained photographs of scenes in Brooklyn in much earlier times. I particularly studied a photo that showed the beach at Coney Island from the summer of 1958. I, along with one of the BHS hosts had noticed that many of these beach-goers were fully dressed in the summer time. I thought that this could be attributed to the different culture at the time and maybe people were more reserved in the way they dressed, even at the sunny beach.

Our study of the maps went along very well with our reading of “Only The Dead Know Brooklyn.” In the story “the big guy” claimed to use a map to find his way around Brooklyn. He found he’s way to Bensonhurst, Flatbush, and Red Hook. I found this interesting because these neighborhoods are not exactly very close to each other, and I mentally made a comparison to the time this story took place (it was published in 1935) and today and how maps are hardly used. Every now and then I’ll see a subway passenger squinting at a map, but technology has advanced and nowadays many people use GPS or search for directions online. One can make the argument that technology has made us lazy in this regard because reading a map successfully requires extra effort.

One thing I must point out, however, is that I could not locate Red Hook on the transit map I studied. I just could not find it, but I was indeed able to find “Bensenhoist.” Brooklyn is a very big and deep borough, and I agree that one may never able to to know Brooklyn through and through.

Essay #1, blogging about our first BHS visit, and more

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Essay #1:

Essay #1 is due on Monday, but I haven’t heard much about Part 2–how is it going? Please bring a paper copy of both parts of Essay #1 to class on Monday. Once i see that everyone has these materials, I will ask you to do some reflective writing about your writing process and will then provide directions for submitting your work electronically.

If you still have questions about Essay #1, please ask them! I know there must be questions, and better to be brave and ask them now than wonder and guess and have no guidance.

Blogging for homework:

At the Brooklyn Historical Society on Wednesday, I asked you to blog for homework. I’ve added some more suggestions to the instructions, so this might be more helpful:

After class, write a blog post in which you elaborate on the materials you examined in class. You might begin with your one-sentence presentation. If your item can be posted on the blog, please share the photograph; if it can’t, you might describe it for your readers. This blog post is the place to say all the smart things you observed and interpreted but didn’t have a chance to present to the class. You can reflect further on the questions of how the “big guy” in “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn” gets to know Brooklyn, and how you have, or you might think about what was missing from our exploration at BHS, what you would have liked to examine. This blog post could also be the chance for you to include other materials that you know about or seek out. Remember to include a citation for any materials you use, including the items from BHS and “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn.” Choose the category Homework, and tag your post with whatever tags you think represent your work.

For those of you who missed class, please use the BHS visit 1 handout I distributed at BHS and any of the following materials to complete the assignment:

Map of the New York City subway system. 1955. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Who Lives Where. Guenter Vollath. 1985. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection. (not the first map in the post)

Brooklyn and how to get to the World’s Fair. 1939. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection. (first map)

Dry Dock 1, 1928, v1973.5.875; Photography Collection; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Coney Island Beach, ca. 1968, v1988.12.41; Otto Dreschmeyer Brooklyn Slides Collection, V1988.012; Brooklyn Historical Society.

And more:

We will begin blogging in a rotating cycle again, so if you have any other requests or suggestions, please let me know what they are. Our next round of blogging will be geared toward preparing for the midterm exam, which will be on 3/20 in class.

The indirect work of William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”

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So for two class sessions, we’ve been talking about the piece called “A Rose for Emily” and how the chronology was presented in this. To me, the effect of this sequencing was quite interesting. It makes the reading a bit more difficult but the author can give more of an interesting way of learning about a specific person, group or even the whole story, like the one we read so far. The order of this piece was a confusing one but if read more thoroughly, one can understand and find that it is an attention-grabber for most of us. As for me, this definitely got a hold me and I would rather see more of this kind of non-linear narrative. Non-linear narrative, also called disrupted narrative, is where events are out of chronological order or does not show direct patterns towards the events happening. It is often used to mimic the structure and recall of human memory but has been applied for other reasons as well. Maybe some of you guys can share if you would want more of this type of narrative and try to challenge ourselves in the slightest way?

This piece was portrayed nicely with the sequence of events, Faulkner wrote “That was two years after her father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart–” which is mentioned in the second section of the second page. He comes back to this event in two parts, with the father and later on, with Homer Barron. Basically, we are going through her life and it was since it started with her already dead. I think this is one of the ways that can be a good attention-grabber for most of us, getting to know Emily but also seeing how it all down to her dead. The effectiveness of this piece wouldn’t be good but that’s if people do not prefer this type of narrative. Having it linear would’ve completely turned around the story, having her alive and just basically being said by others, in which, would be another type of narrative. Even movies can be portrayed in non-linear very nicely like “Kill Bill 1 & 2” and “Pulp fiction” and t.v series such as “Lost”. Some of you guys can share your opinions and tell me if you found this piece interesting. If so, was it the type of narrative we have here?

Blogging on Tuesday for Wednesday’s class

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If you were asked to blog by 5:00 on Tuesday so that everyone can comment on your posts by 10:00am Wednesday, what do you plan to blog about? Here are some ideas, but I hope others will reply here with other ideas.

  • In class we looked at a selection from “Women and Economics” about housework. Does the short story “The Cottagette” present a solution to the issues raised in Gilman’s non-fiction “Women and Economics”? Explain your stance.
  • We began discussing the issue of narrator reliability. Consider narrator reliability in “The Cottagette” or “The Yellow Wall-Paper” or compare the two. Include examples by quoting from the text to show what informs your sense of reliability.
  • “The Yellow Wall-Paper” was once believed to have been out of print from 1920 until feminist scholars re-discovered it in the 1970s. Here are two possible topics to consider based on this statement:
  • How do you read “The Yellow Wall-Paper” or “The Cottagette” as a feminist text? What does that mean?
  • According to one examination of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and its publication history, the story did remain in print in between its reprint in 1920 and its feminist re-discovery in the 1970s–in horror story collections. In what ways do you see “The Yellow Wall-Paper” as a horror story? Include specific references to the text to support your claims.
  • What connections do you see among the stories assigned from the start of the semester and either or both of Gilman’s stories? Are there trends you can identify? Or contrasting situations/characters/styles that are worth noting in their difference? Be specific!

These are just a few ideas that you might consider. For your post, choose one of these, or venture off on your own topic, using any of these as a guide to make sure your topic is as focused. Use the texts to guide you, consider that your audience will have read the same materials but might not have thought about them as much as you have or in the same way that you did, and enjoy sharing your ideas. On the nitty-gritty end of things, remember to include a title that reflects what you’re writing (it shouldn’t be able to apply to everyone’s post and can certainly be longer than one word), choose appropriate categories and tags (or add if you want a tag that isn’t there already), write at least 300 words, proofread, and publish! If there are links or media you want to include, please do.

Commenters–get ready! Everyone who isn’t writing a blog post will need to comment by 10:00am Wednesday, so make sure you’re ready to comment on your classmates’ work with 100-150 words of insights and reactions to share with the class.

Bloggers for Monday’s class

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If you were asked to blog by end-of-day on Friday so that everyone can comment on your posts by 10:00am Monday, what do you plan to blog about? Here are some ideas, and I hope that others will reply here with additional ideas.

  • What effect does the style of narration have on your experience of the plot or characters? Use two different styles to reflect on this, at least one from one of the stories we’ve read or are reading for Monday.
  • In class we talked briefly about how “Young Goodman Brown” is an allegory. What does that mean, how does it play out in the story, and how does it strike you as a reader?
  • We’re going to look at three very different pieces by Charlotte Perkins Gilman for Monday’s class: two short stories, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and “The Cottagette,” and a chapter (XIV) from a non-fiction work called Women and Economics. How do the different narrative styles compare? Or how does the information conveyed in the non-fiction chapter come through in either of the short stories?
  • What connections do you see among the stories assigned from the start of the semester through Monday? Are there trends you can identify? Or contrasting situations/characters/styles that are worth noting in their difference? Be specific!

These are just a few ideas that you might consider. For your post, choose one of these, or venture off on your own topic, using any of these as a guide to make sure your topic is as focused. Use the texts to guide you, consider that your audience will have read the same materials but might not have thought about them as much as you have or in the same way that you did, and enjoy sharing your ideas. On the nitty-gritty end of things, remember to include a title that reflects what you’re writing (it shouldn’t be able to apply to everyone’s post!), choose appropriate categories and tags (or add if you want a tag that isn’t there already), write at least 300 words, proofread, and publish! If there are links or media you want to include, please do.

Commenters–get ready! Everyone who isn’t writing a blog post will need to comment by 10:00am Monday, so make sure you’re ready with 100-150 words of insights and reactions to share with the class.

This semester’s blogging assignment

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Throughout the semester, we will use the blog to develop and share our ideas about and analyses of the materials for this course. For each class, you will need to share something, whether it be a blog post , a comment or a summary. You are always welcome to do more than the schedule requires, and I hope we will develop a lively online community that becomes integral to our course.

For each class session, I may suggest a blog topic, or bloggers can choose their own topics. Blog posts should be focused, using direct quotations from the text to drive the responses or reflections in the post. A post should be about something we are about to read or something we have just read, but it might also bring in materials we have read earlier in the semester or materials that interest you from outside of class. Authors of these posts should think critically about the reading material, and should consider how a particular element of fiction or term relating to narrative functions in the material—it might amplify the text, or it could be complicated or problematic, but any of these would be interesting opportunities to explore. Blog posts should be approximately 300 words, and should be proofread before posting. Please include links, images, etc, as appropriate.

Those who are not responsible for contributing a blog post on a given day will be responsible for commenting. Commenting shouldn’t just be “I agree” or “Good point.” These might be the start of a comment. Use the space to offer a counterpoint, to bring together different ideas, or to direct us to a particular point the blogger didn’t include. Comments should be approximately 100-150 words. If you want to add additional comments that are shorter, feel free to.

Freedom (Blogging Assignment)

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Freedom is defined as “The absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.” In the short story entitled “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin Mrs. Mallard the protagonist is experiencing her idea of freedom. This story begins with us finding out perhaps the most important piece of imagery that is “Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble” (Chopin). This sets up the entire plot line and helps it to come full circle. We start off by leaning that Mrs. Mallard’s husband has been killed in a terrible railroad accident. In knowing that she is afflicted with a heart condition her sister Josephine and a friend of her husband named Richard move to break the news of Mr. Mallard’s death to her as easily as possible.

At first she reacts as you would expect anyone learning that a loved one has passed on with disbelief and then that turns to great sorrow for the diseased. She then locks herself in her room to morn. Then however she comes to the realization that with her husband dead that she can peruse all the things she couldn’t do while he was alive. Slowly she comes to terms with his death and starts to relish in it.  At first in the story we see dreary and sad images or words that puts forth certain emotions from the reader for example “the delicious breath of rain was in the air” (Chopin) and “In the street below the peddler was crying his wares” these could be viewed as sad and mournful lines portraying her feelings. Then however this starts to change she hears music and the clouds start clearing showing the blue sky and she realizes that in marriage she became repressed and dull. However with the death of her husband she feels a change coming and realizes that she is no longer trapped in that world but is “free, free, free.” (Choplin)

In realizing that she is free she becomes happy and filled with joy. Her eyes became “keen and bright” (Chopin) and “Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed with every inch of her body.” (Chopin) This shows that she accepts her husband’s death and had come to terms with in herself and in doing so she has gained her freedom. She then goes back downstairs, leaving the room where she had locked herself in to bask in her freedom. There however it comes to a horrible end where her husband walks in and the shock of seeing him alive along with her weak heart kills her.

The idea of freedom here however is one that can be debated. Yes she experienced some semblance of freedom with the supposed death of her husband but that was short lived. I think that she was never really free because even after the death of a loved their memory will linger on and impact all that she does. Yes she could have gone out and done anything on a whim now, but really was that truly what she wanted. To her she was now a free woman, free from the chains that bound her in matrimony.

There is also the idea of her attaining freedom through her death at the end of the story. I don’t personally think that death is freedom yes she was free from the relationship with her husband but then that calls into question the idea of life after death, where she can experience that freedom. I can see no plausible basis in fact that she was truly free because what really happens after death. Freedom is something that we as humans like to think we have. Its an idea that has been cultivated and drilled into our heads for all our lives. The idea that all our choices are ours and that we are free to make them. However everything we see and do influences our decisions thereby canceling out our supposed freedom. We can then question whether our decisions really are “our” choice. You are influenced into doing things even if it is subconsciously entering your mind. Thereby I conclude that Mrs. Mallard was never really free because true freedom doesn’t exist.

Freedom & “The Story of An Hour”

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Death complicates the meanings of usually positive outcomes like healing, or freedom, and they become what they are through an extreme method. Those who are sick or bound wish for healing and freedom, but they may not get it the way they had hoped for. This, I believe is the case of Louise Mallard. She was married to a man whom she “sometimes” loved. It was not explicitly said in this story that she was unhappy in this marriage; she did mourn the death of her husband. Love was present, but it wasn’t overwhelming. I believe she goes through a process in this hour and processes usually aren’t sudden, however, processes don’t need to take forever. She had her time to reflect and grieve, and as the story progresses we see that there is a gradual change.

Paragraph 9 says: “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it,  creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.”

I believe that is the moment where the emotional shift takes place; the moment where she is finding strength to move on from this momentary grief. If we notice the language of the author, these are not sudden movements taking place. There is creeping, and reaching, and waiting.

Paragraph 10 says: “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to posses her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will..”

“When she abandoned herself a little word escaped her slightly parted lips.”

Here we can see the process continuing, and the “thing” that was approaching had now arrived and we know what it is when she starts saying “free, free, free! Body and soul free!” These seem like shouts of joy but again if we pay attention to the author’s language we see that they were more like whispers. She said these words under her breath. From this I get that this freedom was somehow what she wanted but maybe she got it in a way that she didn’t, which is why she struggled with the feeling at first: “she was striving to beat it back with her will–as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.” As the process progresses she embraces this bittersweet freedom. Her mindset has shifted. She’s sad but she is ready to move on. The feeling of freedom is now setting in, and she is becoming comfortable with it. The process is winding down towards the end of the story and we see that she feels optimistic about her life now.

In a moment her freedom is stripped when she sees that her husband has not died. In a moment directly after it, this complex freedom returns with her death. She does not die with her freedom, but she dies and gains it.

The Story of an Hour

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Gender roldes have changed drastically throughout the decades.  Females have gained a lot more freedom: voting and the right to get paid as equal as a male.  Freedom is something that cannot or should not be bought, but not many have.  There are other wats to escape from what our world’s reality is.  Every individual has their own point of view on whether something, in fact, is a type of freedom or liberty.

In Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of and Hour,” Mrs. Mallard, who suffers from a heart condition, finds out that her husband was killed in an accident.  “It was [her husband’s friend Richards] 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,'” (Chopin para…2).  When Mrs. Malllard first received the news of her  husband’s passing, she was in shock, but after it had all sunk in, it was hinted, at the reader, that she was actually happy because she had had a miserable marriage.

Death was an escape for her through out the story once she was informed about her husband.  “There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window,” (Chopin para…6).  The feeling of having the advantage to start a new life was starting to settle in, creating a positive mind set that allowed her to see the good on such a gloomy day.  The thought of being able to depart from her marriage, allowed her to calm down.  “‘Free!  Body and soul free!'” (Chopin para…14).

Mr. Mallard comes home towards the end of the story, and Mrs. Mallard new beginning was ended within a matter of seconds.  The shift in her emotions were so drastic, that she passed away.  “When the doctors came the said she had died of heart disease–of the joy that kills” (Chopin para…20).  Death is known as the stage in the circle of life, that you can finally rest.  Mrs. Mallard had escaped marriage for a few minutes, and was stripped from the happiness.  She had mentally prepared herself to start over; seeing her husband enslaved her quickly, which allowed herself to free herself from the world.

Whether it was her or her husband’s time to go, one or the other had to depart in order for freedom take place.

Blogging Assignment

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To get us started on our blogging assignment for the semester, we have six volunteers who will post by 6:00pm on Tuesday–everyone else will comment by 10:00am on Wednesday. They will consider one of the following three questions–but if you want to suggest another, please do so quickly!

How does setting work in “Young Goodman Brown”?

Does Mrs. Mallard have freedom at the end of “The Story of an Hour”?

How do the men and women read details differently in “A Jury of Her Peers”?