Discussion

Discussion: “A Rose for Emily”

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In addition to reading William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” this week, please also read David Streitfeld’s New York Times blog post, “As I Lay Dying: The Web Fixes Faulkner” and think about the life of the text after the author writes it. In Streitfeld’s discussion of Faulkner’s story, he notices how the Genius.com incarnation of “A Rose for Emily” mistakenly switched a controversial word for a similar-looking word with an entirely different meaning. Commenters on that blog post engaged with what they thought should have been done differently, or critiqued Streitfeld’s argument.

One way to engage in our discussion this week would be to add an annotation about “A Rose for Emily”–some detail that you think elucidates readers’ understanding of the story–on Genius.com, and then link us there in your discussion comment and explain why you think this is important to add to the understanding of the short story.

Another way might be to write a comment on Streitfeld’s blog post in response to his argument.

Those are both very high-stakes! Lower-stakes versions could be to draft those comments on our site in this discussion and get feedback from your classmates before (or instead of?) posting them in those higher-stakes places. Or to react via a comment in our discussion to someone else’s comment on Streitfeld’s post, or to someone’s annotation on Genius.com.

But what does discussing the substitution of an r for an n in that word do to help us engage with the story? It shows that it’s relevant–Streitfeld’s  blog post was recent, from last month–and introduces us to the world of online annotations, in the form of Genius.com. To move our discussion deeper into the story, I ask you to engage in a discussion here with a second comment, about some other aspect of the story. Maybe you want to think about the effect of this different style of narration,  how it’s told, or who the characters are, or what genre you think it belongs to (if “The Story of an Hour” had certain leanings into horror, would you say “A Rose for Emily does, too?), or again, thinking of the significance of a detail in our understanding of a story.

Feel free to respond directly to any of these questions by writing in the reply box below, or reply directly to a classmate by clicking Reply below their comment.

And as always, feel free to also ask questions below.

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Homework, Week 1

The story of An hour/ A Jury Of her peers

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The story Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspel depict a very sad storyline of crime; a dead husband widow to Mrs. Wright.  Overall the jury was a brunch of local influencial residents (in relation to the community) to evaluate a crime scene. Mrs. Wright left a path of confusion;  for example a dead bird in a box ready to be buried with a broken neck. It seems as if the couple was having a very hard time. But she was guilty alright.

The story Of An Hour by Kate Chopin was a great case of belief.  You must have faith in order to survive in this dreadful world. In brief a man was pronounce dead (Mr. Mallard). Mrs. Mallard was to be informed but she have bad heart issues. So she was told in prices between her sister Josephine and her husband best friend Richard. Mrs. Mallard grew stress and withdrawn her self. However Mr. Mallard was not dead instead she died from a bad heart disease.

Both stories show great deal of morals. It is essential to cherish what you have. But importantly the story leave evidence of love betrayal by both spouse due to there reaction for example how was Mr Wright strangled, or better yet did Mrs. Mallard wanted Mr. Mallard home again.

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Homework, Uncategorized

Discussing “A Jury of Her Peers” and “The Story of An Hour”

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In life the most stress is felt when you are faced with sudden experiences that shape the world around you in one instant. In the story The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin, Mrs Mallard was faced with this same experience. The story starts with the “death” of Mr. Mallard and proceeded with the heart breaking news being told to his sick wife. Through many troubling thoughts Mrs. Mallard came to the acceptance that life was a free flowing stream and the only way to avoid drowning is to simply flow along with it. As a new way of life presented it self Mrs. Mallard realized that as a life ended a new one starts. This thought then became her drive for the years to come. Suddenly, just as fast as her new foundation was build, it was shattered by the sight of the “beloved” husband. Not only was she speechless but also breathless. Mrs. Mallard was not the only one, the story A Jury Of Her Peers By Susan Glaspell  shows how sudden experiences could have extreme rippling affects. This story revolves around the case of an unknown murder where a wife is left in the hot seat. As the story starts, a sheriff by the name of Mr. Peters has the opportunity to work on the case of the murder of a man by the name of Mr. Wright. As the tedious task of clue hunting went on through out the story, the wives that were brought to the seen played the most crucial role. As the story draws to its end, Mrs. Hale, a close friend of Mrs. Wright brought the twisted truth to light which stemmed from a “twisted” altercation between Mr. And Mrs. Wright which may leave her incarcerated.

 

In both cases, it can be said that both women over reacted but was their actions morally justified? Mrs. Mallard reaction to her husbands death may have seems unusual but in her perspective, she was trapped. Once her husband died she was now able to see the steal cage that has been surrounding her life and finally made the attempt to flee when the doors suddenly closed. When it comes to the case of Mrs. Wright, it seemed as if she was not only trapped by an controlling man but forced into a cage that she was simply too large to fit in. After years of mental torture she finally broke free by ending her husbands life. Both women faced struggles in two unique forms but to judge them in a negative fashion does not seem fitting. Instead in my view, they were pushed to take justice in their own hands and should be seen as individuals that finally got to their breaking points.

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Glossary

Peddler

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Peddler noun \ˈped-lər\

a : one who offers merchandise (as fresh produce) for sale along the street or from door to door

In the street below a peddler was crying his wares.

The Story of An Hour paragraph 5

I thought a peddler had something to do with a boat. I realized it meant a merchant which helped me understand the setting better. She [Louise] wasn’t overlooking a canal (like in Venice, Italy) and there wasn’t a man on a gondola peddling.

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Homework, Week 1

Response to “The Story of an Hour” / “Jury of Her Peers”

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Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour” (1894) is about the reaction of a wife who is informed of a train accident that her husband supposedly died from. Mrs. Mallard, the protagonist of the story is informed of the news and like any typical wife would do, she burst into tears. The question is, is she crying in sorrow or crying in joy. It was revealed on the second page that she “loved him sometimes. Often she had not” which implies that she really didn’t love him at all. Mrs. Mallard appears to be in a different world at this point, staring blankly into the blue sky thinking about how things would be without him. Blood was warming her up as she recited “free, free, free!” In other words, she was really relieved the incident happened and knowing that her husband is gone, she is able to break free from the constraints her husband placed on her. However in the end, that vision of freedom was short lived. Upon the arrival of Mr.Mallard who was clueless of the accident, Mrs. Mallard’s joy fired back at her causing her to die from a heart attack which was “the joy that kills”.

Susan Glaspell’s, “A Jury of Her Peers” (1882), in a short summary is about an incident relating to the death of Mr. Wright and how Mrs. Wright can possibly be connected to it. Pretty much, Mrs. Wright wasn’t all that fond of her marriage. There was lots of evidence of a problem in their relationship. The investigators of the case, the Hales and the Peters were the ones who noticed signs of abuse and distress against Mrs. Wright. Based on the evidence found, it was concluded that  Mrs. Wright did in fact killed her husband.

Both stories were made in the same timeline and can be related to how things are handled in this timeline. To be honest, in both stories, I think anyone can understand why each wife would think of their husbands that way. If the relationship goes to the point where one spouse resents the other, I think anyone would feel that way. This is why both stories can be related to how things are handled now. Setting in both stories play an important role because it pretty much brings us, the reader into the story. From “The Story of an Hour”, we are brought into the scenery and we can imagine how things look like. From “A Jury of Her Peers”, we are brought into the crime scene and we can picture how things appeared. In the end, I guess these examples are the other end results of an unhealthy relationship.

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Introductions, Uncategorized

A Small Section Of My Life

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Hey class. I’m not as motivated as the next guy to add too much personal information while knowing this can be publicly viewed, but as far as the things you should know goes. My name is Gavin Young, I was born Brooklyn, N.Y. but raised in Jamaica, W.I. While growing up in Jamaica I acquired my education from Meadowbrook Prep, the equivalent of an elementary school in the United States. I was well disciplined and well behaved while being raised in a family with strong religious beliefs. On my journey throughout the years as a youth I got drawn to many passions which involved Astronomy, Engineering, and ideas of futuristic innovations. This was mainly caused by the exposure to many of my family’s professions and the sharing of thoughts of future goals with the kids in the neighborhood. In the case of my family, I can say it is fairly large with relatives scattered across various countries but as far as close siblings goes, I was raised with my only sister on my mother’s side.

After graduating Meadowbrook, I left Jamaica to expand on my education in the United States where I started Middle School. While there I experience another world that seemed much simpler than the one I knew before. With this perception of my new environment, I excelled academically and later moved on to High School. In the Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment High School, also known as BASE, I faced new challenges that pushed me to realize that anything can be done with effort and critical thinking. I later joined a class called Science Research where I was mentored and pushed to write tedious papers which also required a research paper due at the end of my senior year. My research paper was based on religious and superstition while analyzing their correlations. The option to stop was given each year of course, but where is the lesson in giving up? This class later gave me skills I would not have acquired otherwise and I’m grateful I made the choice to stay. With that being said, I view this particular class as my most important decision and high school experience.

Graduating High School gave me a great feeling of accomplishment. Even though I stumbled on many bumps along the way, it was a great experience nonetheless. Even so, I still felt empty inside because I was a part of an environmental school when my passions demanded tech, science and discovery. What made this feeling even more noticeable was my hobbies, which involved countless hours of watching Science programs, Reading Science based book (I recommend reading The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, it shows many possibilities of human innovation that I find fascinating and plausible) and keeping up with tech and scientific breakthroughs while I was stuck checking Ph. levels. My passions which have been manifesting in my mind since I was a young child finally drove me to apply to a college with a strong tech program but convenient enough where I could still be home (Brooklyn). I was later enrolled as a student of The New York City College of Technology, where I currently study Computer Engineering Technology and also where I started my new journey. To be continue…

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Homework, Week 1

My Thoughts on “The Story of an Hour” and “A Jury of Her Peers”

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In “The Story of an Hour,” when Mrs. Mallard hears the tragic news of her husband getting “killed” in the railroad disaster, she is devastated (p.2). She realizes that she is a widow and her husband is no longer with her. She also sees that she has “no one to live for during the coming years and that she would live for herself’ (p.10). Mrs. Mallard was living for her husband. Every moment of her life was a reflection of Mr. Mallard because she put her hope, trust, faith, and life in Mr. Mallard. And when I state “reflection,” I mean Mrs. Mallard represented her husband. When a man marries a woman, their soul, mind, and body are glued together, representing them as one person. So, when she heard that husband passed away, it was as if her life crumbled apart. She no longer had no reason to live when the person that was her everything or her life was dead. “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature,” meaning that there would be no motivation for Mrs. Mallard to cook, eat, or etc. when all those things were being done for her husband (p.10). So, I believe this led her to having heart problems. Also, she could have mourned for her husband and make the decision to continue living her life. However, Mrs. Mallard had her identity as a wife to Mr. Mallard. When his death came, she lost her identity, making her lose her will to live, which ultimately led her to dying of “heart disease” (p.20).

In “A Jury of Her Peers,” Mrs. Wright (Minnie Foster) the once “lively choirgirl that sang in the choir and wore pretty clothes,” was no longer lively (Page 268, p.1). Mrs. Wright marriage to her husband made her bound or chained to not doing the things she loved to do, which was singing. Although, Mr. Wright was seen as a “good man in town” (Page 274 p.6), “he was a hard man” (Page 274 p.8). “Just to spend the time of day with him was like a raw wind that got to the bone” (Page 274 p.8). Also, their home “never seemed a very cheerful place” (Page 265 p.7). Therefore, Mrs. Wright was living under constant anxiety. Her “nervousness” was exhibited by the strange way of her sewing her quilt (Page 272) and her untidy kitchen (Page 266). Also, Mrs. Wright probably was living in fear of what her husband was going to do or say to her, so she lived in silence, except for her pet bird that sang to her (Page 277 p.8). However, Mr. Wright silenced the bird by killing it. After the bird’s death, I think Mrs. Wright had enough of being silent and wanted to be free. So, Mrs. Wright killed her husband in order to gain freedom from the 20 years of being oppressed by her husband.

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Week 1

Story of an Hour/Jury of her Peers

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In Jury of Her Peers, the conversations of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters provide us with a picture of Mrs. Wright in her younger years. We see a beautiful young women with a wonderful voice.  That women is in stark contrast to the women Mr. Hale walked in on that morning, a women living with worn out clothing, in a lonesome house, with no children, and once again, no pets. After all those years, when she finally had something that gave her joy, only to see her husband take that away from her as well, it is very easy to validate her actions. In a way, her husband took her life before she took his.

The Story of An Hour begins with a frail woman receiving terrible news.  As the story progresses we see what this news meant to her, a chance to be free, a chance to live. After living for someone she didn’t love for so long, and to be given another chance at freedom, I would say her thoughts toward her “late” husband are completely acceptable.

Both stories are set in the same time period, a time when women were seen as housekeepers, and are there to serve their husbands, and raise children. I think the attorney saying  “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” is a great example of the general attitude toward women at the time. Although in today’s day and age the attitude toward women has changed, both stories are still very relevant. There are many people trapped in loveless and abusive relationships, and it would be easy enough to adapt the story to present day.

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Principles of Narrative

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