Trifles

waahhh waahhh wahhh women don't get enough respect. that what they should change the name of this play to. Clearly the sheriff and the county attorney are arrogant and stupid. But i just can't stand the way that the play tries to use this to portray all men. Men are practical, and if it was not for our right-brained ways, society would be doomed. I was watching Dr. Phil the other day, yes, i enjoy watching people worse off than myself. Anyway, he was explaining how men are linear thinkers and women are more circular thinkers. Not necessarily bad either way of course, but i'm just tired of men being made fun of for the way we think. Like those stupid commercials that stereotype men doing stupid things. How would women like it if we stereotyped all women as emotionally unstable and naggy? not a great way to sell products now is it. What women fail to realize however is that by buying into this anti-men crap, they are actually falling for the stereotype that was possibly even developed by a man who is marketing products to women. I guess what i am saying is i wish that we could embrace the way we think and be glad that we are different instead of criticizing each other. Its not like we can change each others brain structure. F Trifles, and yes, worrying about your freaking fruit when you have murder charges against you is retarded. Shame on Mrs. Wright.

Lonely Hearts

So i hope that Wendy Cope was making fun of personal ads here. If not, it's pretty pathetic. Its very rhymy which is nice. I like the repeated line at all the end of them. The truth is, these people should probably just be saying in their ads "I'm washed up and nobody wants me. I'll take anyone that doesn't have expectations as high as mine." The last stanza is really funny, yeah, who knows where it may lead? probably a rape in a dark alley. Cope is probably trying to just make these people see how pathetic these ads really are. I would not doubt it that most of these are real ads that were just changed a little bit for rhyming sake.

Rites of Passage

Reading this poem, i just say to myself "Awwwwwwww." Its like the little boys think they are men. Olds describes the boys as men many times throughout the poem. That is how the boys portray themselves. The poem seems to be mocking leadership, interesting for a 1983 poem. The Cold War is still going on strong. The boys unite together with a common hatred. They could easily kill a two year old. Kind of like the United States and Russia during WWII. Hey we can sit here and argue over who is better, or we can unite together and easily kill the Germans right? Of course we all know how that turned out, as soon as WWII was over we were fighting Russia's allies all over the planet for 50 years. Also i noticed she said the boys saw each other as small in each other's pupils, as if to say the boys were insecure, not confident, in their own toughness. And that is what had fueled their hatred in the first place, insecurity. I also like at the end, she adds: they are playing war... to celebrate my son's life." lots of irony here she is using. The 6 and 7 year old boys being talked about as if they were men, generals, but at the same time being described as having the fragility of balsa wood. The irony that they are playing war to celebrate the boy's life.

The One Girl at the Boys' Party

First of all, this is the most sexual poem I have ever read in my life. Granted I am no Robert Frost, I can catch a sexual innuendo when i see one. There are many sexually descriptive words used in the poem that are just down right dirty. The boys "tower and bristle" and the girl is "smooth and sleek." the boys "strip to their suits" and her body is "hard." just to name a few. Finally the last few lines seem to be describing some orgasmic scene. Hardly appropriate for a little girl that is wearing a swimsuit with "hamburgers and french fries" printed on it. I don't know about you guys, but i'm picturing the girl from little miss sunshine. I know you're probably thinking wow Bryan is such a pervert but i swear i don't go scanning these poems to find this stuff. It just springs out at me... that was a poor choice of words. So this is a bit of a sensitive subject, a young girl starting to become a woman. I'm not sure that Sharon Olds did this subject a lot of justice, portraying in such a perverse way, especially in the time period that this was published, the 1940s. As my father always tells me, "they never used to put that kind of stuff on television!" everyone time we see a maxi-pad commercial. Ah, the good ole days when we didn't talk about this stuff. So kind of a touchy subject in a time period where this stuff wasn't talked about. It must have been pretty controversial.

A Drowning Incident

So while i found the ending of this story to be very strange, and at this point indecipherable i did notice some of the things Rather told us to look for. One of the biggest things i noticed was the color, and I really think I am onto something here. He stepped on the cricket and out came some thick white liquid. The puppy had a white belly, green guts and i believe the black hairs were mentioned a few times as well. I also noticed he describes the planks as a metallic grey and the boy's face at the end to have grey patterns on it. Color is EVERYWHERE in this story and i think each has its own meaning. White, i believe is a given, innocence. He feeds the innocent cricket to the BLACK widow... The puppy has a white belly. When he discovers the dead puppies his eyes were described as wide and white. So heres a good question then, what does the green represent? The grey could be emptiness, so why is the little pier a greyish color? Anyway, i really think there is something there with the color and I'm excited to discuss this more in class. I know theres also something there with the boy killing the cricket, and then finding that someone killed the puppies, some kind of dual storyline going on there. But most of all I'd like to know who "he" is at the end of the story. Yes so... tell me if you have any ideas.

Repent Harlequin!

Ok, so I change my mind. This is my new favorite short story. I'm a sucker for stories that are about going against the grain. Throughout reading the story I immediately noticed some parallels to the book 1984. Finally at the end there was a reference to the story which sealed it for me. It was stated that "there was always a war going on." It never mattered who it was with, or why they were at war, but they just always were. The government has massive amounts of control over everyday life and they insist on people being about as punctual as fedex. In 1984 the government insisted on controlling peoples thoughts, or rather preventing thought. There were consequences for breaking the laws and i particularly like how it is done in "Repent Harlequin!" It's just a little nifty how they calculate the time you have wasted everyone else and shave it right off the end of your life. The story mainly focuses on time, and how we should not let it dominate our society, but i think there is a bit more to it than that. Not only do I believe the story cautions about time ruling our society, but this lesson could be applied to many other things as well. Money, sex, and social status just to name a few.
I love the way the Harlequin attacks the ticktockman. He says get stuffed, i will not repent. The system is stupid and the fact that you even have me here is contradictory to why I am here. Absolutely amazing dialogue shared between these two characters. How many times have we all felt like saying that to authority?


Go little man!

The Saboteur

The Saboteur was one of the more entertaining short stories I have read. However, I did not like it as much as the other two we have read. Anyway, so my favorite part of this story is all the similarities that it draws to a Dave Chappelle skit called "When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong." Mr. Chiu takes his 'realness' a bit too far and in return gets sent to jail. This is always what happens in the Dave Chappelle skits. I thought it was interesting that Jin chose a character probably much like himself. Mr. Chiu is a scholar who questions authority for the first time, and then realizes why he never questioned it previously. He gets owned. It appears as if brawn will prevail over brain as unfortunately it often does in the real world. However, it turns out they paid for what they did. Like a jock bagging groceries, the entire city got owned. I like how it is all in 2 brief sentences at the very end. It is kinda how I like to end all my stories "and then everyone died." I also found it entertaining how much he enjoyed prison. He slept easier and he was tired of sleeping with his wife after their two-week honeymoon. I also liked how he compared one of the guards to a donkey. It kind of gave off the barbaric vibe which I thought conveyed their characterization very well.