A Good Man is Hard to Find...

Talk about irony! The title and the fact that in the diner the grandmother was saying how hard it was to find a good man. It seems like in her day things were different and she wants to go back to that point in time.

I have read this story before, I think it was in high school, and wasn't satisfied with it then. The second time around I still didn't really like it; I mean, the family is having a good time going on a road trip, then boom! They're in a ditch. They could've been killed in the accident, but no that wasn't exciting enough for O'Connor, she has to have them murdered.

The first couple of pages totally foreshadow that they will eventually meet up with The Misfit, but you don't know how. And then the mentioning of the grandmother's cat tells you that something not good is going to happen there. The fact that she sneaks it into the car the morning that they are leaving, shows that there is something else going on.

Also when O'Connor tells us the way that the grandmother dresses before going on this trip, like a lady in case of an accident, is very telling, so that when you get to the accident, and she is trying to be a lady and save The Misfit you're not really surprised. Truly, the only thing that was surprising was how willing the rest of the family went off unto their deaths. I mean honestly, how did Bailey not know that when the boys walked off into the woods with the other two criminals that they were going to be shot? And then once they heard the gun shots in the distance, how did the mother take June Star off into the woods without any protest? How did they, as parents, lead their children off to die? And then there is the grandmother who is just sitting there talking to her family's killer to calmly? Some elements of this story are just off a little, but I guess it is a valid entry into literary cannons.

A Rose for Emily

When reading through Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" you as the reader are taken through the town's perspective of the life of a very private woman. The responses that were written go into more detail about the differences between the privacies and public areas of her life, but why would he want to write the entire short story from the perspective of a third-person narrator, without any personal connection to the main character?

As a reader, one might not feel any emotional connection to Emily. There were no really telling quotes from her, just a few actions that might give us more insight into who she was; like refusing to pay her taxes and telling the aldermen to see a dead man to exempt her from paying. As an author, Faulkner may have done this to purposely remove the reader from emotion. The story had a very solemn tone, but he may have not wanted that feeling to creep into the reader's mind as they went through the story. If the reader got too close to Emily, they wouldn't see the perspective of the townspeople and how they never really got to now Emily. The people of Jefferson never knew her, never really got anything besides gossip and a few actions to give them a hint into what kind of person she really was.

This was a specific tactic of Faulkner to give depth and reasoning to "A Rose for Emily." The people of Jefferson never knew her and neither do the readers, and I think that was the point.

The Management of Grief...

One of the questions for discussion at the end of the story asks about how close attention the author pays to the significance of particular words. The way that the meaning was emphasized was either straight out saying the meaning or by putting in anther language and then having a sub-script on the bottom.

The way that Mukherjee talked about how she never had to tell her husband that she loved him, that he just knew how she felt, showed the difference between the way the she was brought up verses the way that her daughters are going to go about their lives. Another major difference between her and her daughters, is the fact that she never felt comfortable calling her husband by his first name. Now, there is no way that a woman would marry a man that she couldn’t call by his first name.

The words that were written in Punjabi were ones that would have a particular significance. Words like landowner, hymns, and a Hindu Holy man, have importance to someone who has moved from their native culture into that of Canada and needed to hang onto something that was more familiar to them.

The way that the whole story was put together really emphasized the meaning of those particular phrases.

How to: Make carmels/fudge...

Making carmels or fudge are somewhat alike. Both take a ton of patience adn concentration to have them turn out properly. If they are nto cooked long enough, they will be grainy rather than smooth and creamy. If they cook too long they will be too hard and crack.
First, obviously, you need a recipe. I always use my great-gradmother's just for the traditional aspect. Then you need equipment: a candy thermometer, measuring spoons and cups, a 3 quart pan, and something to pour the finished product into once it hits the proper temperature.

"How"

When reading “How,” by Lorrie Moore, there is no specific description of what it is a handbook to.  Moore decided not to title it vividly something like “How to leave your husband” or “How to have an affair” but just simply “How” to allow the readers to put it together as they go along.

            Now, when I say the reader that is another part of the story that Moore leaves up to us.  Due to the attitude of the style and the different scenarios that are offered to the reader makes it seem as though this particular piece was written for an advice column of a newspaper, but with the detail that is given to the reader, it seems as though the author is going though the same situation as she is advising on.  This makes me think that it may be more like something that she would’ve written in a diary or a journal to convince herself that what she was doing was right, but also trying to distance herself from the moral concerns she may have with leaving him by offering the alternative scenarios.

            The details into the wife’s thoughts are convincingly realistic to a woman in the character’s position, which supports the journal entry theory: “You will feel passing waves of dependency, and sentimentality.  A week, a month, a year, and he has become you family,”  “You will fantasize about a funeral. At that you could cry.”  These insights into the mind of a woman in this situation are almost too realistic to think that the narrator has not been there.

Things you need to know...

• First of all my name is Charlotte.  I am Anne's roommate.
  
• I have a Mini-Schnauzer named Abby, I pre-apologize if she is all I talk about in class.
• I am a junior; Public Relations major; English minor.
• I have two brothers.  One is 24 the other is 13.
• I am from Bloomfield Hills, MI.
• I guess I'm a cancer... 

If there is anything else that you are curious about, feel free to ask or Facebook me.