Blog IV

Lonely Souls

The theme about love between the short stories of Anton Chekov, “The Lady with the Pet Dog,” and D. H. Lawrence, “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” is treated in two different ways. The first one arises of passion; the second one of a possible suicide.

            Chekov in his short story exposes two couples that are completely different each other. Gurov is married with a woman that she describes herself such as: “intellectual” (p. 382). She lived in her world of female intellectuals. Gurov is a fond of ladies who has a big number of affairs. But his changes when he knows Anna Sergeyena, her soul mate; even thought he does not know yet. He believes she is going to be an affair more, but she has to go with her husband he realizes that he loves her. Maybe he is attracted to her because she is treated such as an ignorant by her husband. She does not feel important in his life, she does not feel part of his life because he believes himself more intelligent than her: “My husband may be a good, honest man, but he is a flunkey! I don’t know what he does there, what his work is, but I know he is a flunkey!” (p. 385).  She cheat on her husband not because of he, but because she is unsatisfied with her life: “There must be a different sort of life” (p. 385).  On the other hand, Gurov after an internal fight he recognizes that he is in love of Anna. That feeling is not only passion, but love. When both of them realize their love they understand that their fight just is beginning: “a long road before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning” (p. 391). They road is long because both of them are married, and both of them have a life a part in the social and labor world. They know that if they want to be together, it means to leave all what they have been built and start a life apart of that world which is really difficult because in that time was not good for people to be divorced.

            On the other hand, Lawrence develops his love story in two people that are single, but they are lonely. Mabel is a twenty-seven year old lady that lives in a male world where she is humiliated. She has three brothers that do not respect her such as person even a sister. Because of the family bankruptcy, she has to go with her sister Lucy, but she does not want to. She decides to suicide but the doctor rescue her. She believes that he save her because he loves her, but he refuses to: “He had never thought of loving her. He had never wanted to lover her. When he rescued her and restored her, he was a doctor, and she was a patient” (p. 399). He does not want to love her, but he goes to the ranch of her family she perceives his sight and she believes that he loves her, but in that moment he does not recognize that feeling. When both of them are in the doctor’s house emerge an internal conflict between the doctor and the human being. He separates this two aspects, and he says the wishing word: “Yes. The word cost him a painful effort. Not because it wasn’t true. But because it was to newly true, they saying seemed to tear open again his newly-torn heart” (p. 400). Lawrence makes born love between two lonely people that need each other because both of them feel incomplete lives in that world that eats the best of each human being in different ways. In Mabel case, it was the male oppression, and the doctors was his career.

Blog 3

The Undertone of the Words and setting

                The short story needs a lot of elements such as setting, characters, point of view, plot, theme, tone, and style to have a good reader reaction. The authors use in different ways these elements to make their tales interesting. Edgar Allan Poe and Kate Chopin is outstanding the use of setting because it is wrapped by the irony tone.  Each story shows the main characters’ necessity of satisfying their desires ironic setting. Chopin relates death with spring and summer, and Poe the carnival party with death.

                Chopin in her story, “The story of an hour”, exposes a woman bored by the marriage routine. Mrs. Mullard is the main character of the story, and she has a heart trouble; as well as, she is noticed by her sister that her husband died. The author prepares the reader with a ironic atmosphere because she said that Mrs. Mullard takes her husband dead in a an uncommon way: “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her” (p. 293). This quotati on is telling the reader that something different happen in the grief process because the outline “did not hear the story as many women have heard the same,” this means that something is going to change in the story. It is not yet told, but the female character is not going to feel like the rest of women. 

                The story mention two worrying issues: heart disease and Mr. Mullard’s death.  The reader should imagine a melancholic gloomy setting, but instead of that, Chopin’s narrator describes a very live and enlightened setting. The narrator says that Mrs. Mullard is seated in front of her room’s window looking at the spring mood: “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant son which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves” (p. 294). This window represents an open door of a cage. She feels her relationship such as a cage where emotions are died. The reader can believe that a recent widow woman cannot perceive the happiness of the outside mood, but when her husband died, she feels the air of freedom and new life. So the author places the reader in freedom setting that is going to be overshadowed by the narrator word “fearfully”.  That ironic word conduct the reader to a believe in the character’s death. But later the words “free, free, free” show the real feeling of Mrs. Mullard. She is happy because of her husband death represents a new live for her. This female character represents those women who are tired of relationship where there is not enough love, but boredom.

The reader can notice that there are changes of mood in the setting; it is just because the author tries to surprise the reader with the real intention of Mrs. Mullard death. When she believes her husband is dead, she feels the air of freedom and new life, but all the world that she created is demolished by her husband return.  Her heart is broken no because its illness, but because she realizes that she is going to be in the cage, and again she is going to be in the marriage routine.  But the author is so astute that finishes the story with a simple and ironic phrase: “When the doctors came they said she had died of hear disease- of joy that kills” (p. 295). It is ironic that an alive husband kills a woman with freedom illusions of an hour.

On the other hand, Edgar Allan Poe in his short story, “The Cask of Amontillado;” exposes a man with a necessity of revenge. His tale has two characters Montessor and Fortunato. This author uses ironic names that predispose the reader to imagine the fatal ending of Fortunato. He is going to be lucky because he will die alone in the catacombs such as good wine is kept in there. Montessor ‘s evil soul is stronger showed when the first person narrator says: “I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation” (p. 226). By this appeal the author is trying to impress the reader by exposing a character that dialogues with himself and laughing himself by his deadly atrocity. Poe through Montessor  reflects the psycho side of human and his joy face to death.

The setting of dark, alone and wet place helps to involve the reader’s psyche in a fearing atmosphere such as Catacombs.  Rich people of 19 century liked old wines, so he used the Amontillado trick. Catacombs means the space where people was buried. Also the times refers to the carnival time that means “say good bye to meat and death is coming.” Ironically, carnival is such a party, but it means waiting for Jesus death.

Blog I

Blog I

Between Heritage and Modernity

Is really important a character in the development of a story? All stories depend of their elements to be successful in literature. In this story, “Everyday Use,” is really interesting the roll of the narrator character in the development of the story and the others characters. The short story is about traditions and modernity. The first ones are represented by Mrs. Johnson and Maggie, and the second one is by Dee. Both elements are around quilts because they start a number of discussions about their usage. Dee wanted them for decoration and Mrs. Johnson wanted them for her daughter because she is going to use them daily. Dee does not understand that heritage is not transforming all what she is for new trends, but keeping roots and valuing them by using them each day.

This heritage and modernity dichotomy is pointed out by each character of the story. Mrs. Johnson is a coarse woman who did not have the opportunity to study, but she was good in men’s labors. She describes herself: “In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man working hands. In winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man” (p. 12). Even though she sounds happy about the way she is, she dreams for her daughter Dee’s esteem. This aspect tell us that she feel a special feeling for Dee which ends in the completely forgetting of her other daughter Maggie.

Maggie is Ms. Johnson daughter who physically is not beautiful and even emotional extrovert. Her sister was the center of every thing; instead Maggie was shy and ugly. Mrs. Johnson describes her in the following way: “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes; she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scarfs down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe” (p. 6). Maggie was such as a second plate in a table. The one that no body wants to try because they do not believe it tastes good. It means her mother and sister do not believe in her capacities. She was there always waiting for the leftovers of her sister even in her mother’s love.

On the other hand, Dee was the favorite and the person who nobody says to her “no.” She was unhappy with her life because she wanted more from it. Dee wanted to know the world and being a studied woman because she dreams herself in an independent woman who represents a change, and step to modernity. Her mother describes her like: “She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She (…) burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know. Dee wanted nice things” (p. 7). She refuses the old things, traditions because of this Mrs. Johnson and Maggie do not believe that she wanted the quilt which represented old fashion.

Alice Walker in a master way Mrs. Johnson character because she describes and recount all her family issues. All her story’s characters are round because represent easily person of that period. Their feeling about tradition and changes in the social circle are well represented in the narrator and character (Mrs. Johnson), Maggie, and Dee. Maggie does not speak a lot, but her attitude and way of being makes her a round character because she complements the plot for a better development. Dee who represents social changes and the new trends makes the reading to understand that year situation about modernity and heritage. Even though the characters’ phycology puts the reader in the modernity and heritage dichotomy, the objects are important such as quilts which represent the heritage. It was misunderstanding by Dee who believes that her roots are represented in family objects. Mrs. Johnson wants Dee understand that heritage are not new decoration or objects, but family values and tradition in daily life. Heritage is a everyday use instead of fancy decoration.

Blog II

Is a Lucky or deadly Issue?

Shirley Jackson was a writer who used terror and symbols in her stories in a master way. The combination of these appeals in her tales provoke in the reader an amazing reaction at the end of the stories because she created a different idea of the real purpose of her short stories. A good example of this combination is "The Lottery;" a short story involved by superstition and a surprisly end. At first sight, the lottery looks like a game which purpose is hapiness, but in the story lottery means death.

The lottery in this story is a rite to decide who is going to died. The tale is setted in a town which is timeless and the inhabitants used a clack boy to make the lottery. The box represents a deadly tradition that people deny finished because of this they have good harvest, and it also represents tradition if they changed it would mean remove all their custums and adopting new ones. This fear leads people to accept an absurd rite. The lottery rite is an exposition ot the cruelty of conformity. All inhabitants hope for the lottery with resignation, even though the elected person to die shows inconformity to his/her final destination. Thanks to its limited narrator the reader can be suprided by its unexpected end.

This short story is structured by two parts: story and point of view. The story in words of Tzvetan Todorov is the recount of the events in the tale. This evento evoke some kind of reality that could happen or characters that could be real or imaginary (p. 163). The order of events tells events step by step. Some times this aspect offers clues to solving the end in this case Jackson was very carfuel of describe the events and do not let the reader suppose any advanced event. This characteristic makes the reader being confused about the real meaning of the lottery rite. He can realize if it is or not a lucky event. The sequence of events could be summarized in the following way:

I. Arrangement of the lottery rite.

a. children are making piles of stones

b. people is getting reunited for lottery event

II. Description of lottery process

a. the narrator tells is going to conduct the lottery: Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves

b. description of the event before and now.

c. importance of the black box in the process.

III. Mr. Summers "declares the lottery open"

a. openning description

b. the narrator focus his narration in two characters: Mr. and Mrs. Hutchinson

c. Draws process in differents characters

IV. Inconformity about election

a. Tessie is not happy because her family was elected.

b. She tries to avoid the decision

c. Her husband shows shame because his wife inconformity

d. Tessie Hutchinson is spaced in the center and hit with a stone on her head.

f. The story ends with a last frase of Tessie: "It isn't fair, it isn't right.

All above sequences do not describe or advance what the characters are thinking or what the lottery means. The writer was very careful in chose the narrator limited because it provokes in the reader a sense of suprise an horror at the end of the story.  This short  tale is narrated in third-person point of view. The narrator limits his narration to describe the events and using dialogues. This method is named dramatic or objective point of view. Edgar V. Roberts and Robert zweing define it as: "The narrator of the dramatic poin of view is an uniddenfied speaker who reports things in a way that is similar to a hovering or tracking video camera or to what some critics have called 'a fly on the wall' (...) The dramatic presentation is limited only to what is said and what happens" (p. 125). This kind of appeal uses commonly descriptions because the narrator is like another viewer of the events: "The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The epople of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank around ten o'clock (...)" (p. 137). The narrator gives to the reader an imagen. He can imagine the narrator sitted in front of this stage observing all the event. The narrator role is just taking reader imagination inside story scene. This will help him to provoke in the reader a great impact at the end of the tale.

Jackson also used this kind of narrator because she wanted to limit him to describe characters' dialogues which say only necessary thing about each character; the next words are from different character about Tessie: "The people separated good-humoredly to let her through; two or three people said, in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, 'Here come your Missus, Hutchinson,' and 'Bill, she made it after all.'"(p. 138). Maybe for the reader would be interesting to know crowd thoughts because he could solve what the lottery was about. But the author did not consider interesting their thoughts maybe because  they would be desipher the real lottery's meaning, and the reader could loose interest in the process and ending of the story because a general thought about lotterey is luck, so people at the end would be suprise by the deathly end.

The recount of characters dialogues show up the cruelty of inconformity. All inhabitants hope for the lottery with resignation,eventhough the elected person shows inconfomity to his final destination. The reader can capture this imagen thanks to the dialogues of the characters. They do not show up anxiety: "Horace's not but sixteen yet,' Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully. 'Gues I gott fill in for the Right,' Mr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. then he asked. 'Watson boy drawing this year?' 'Here, he said (...) 'I'm drawing for m'mother and me.'" (pp. 138-139). This dialogue do not show up any sense on anxiety related to any happy either sad event. It is just a scene of the lottery rite. The writere was very careful in omitting feeling and senses. It helped to preserve the unknown meaning of the lottery; as result, the reader interest is attentive to the process of the story.

Also, this kind of narrator helps the story to show up contrasting people's feelings because before the rite all people behave in an inquisotorial way, but if some of them are elected, he shows his egoism, for example Tessie. She is indifferent to the rite, but she changes her way of thinking when she is electes, Tessie words:"You got any other households in the Hutchinsons?' 'There's Don and Eva,' Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. 'Make them take their chance1!' (...) ''I think we ought to start over' Mrs. Hutchinso said, as quietly as she could. 'I tell you it wasn't fair. You didn't give him time enought to choose. Every saw that.' "(p. 140). Tessie prefers that one of her childeren dies before her. This rite shorw the dark side of human beings in front of death, and that is because an intelligent narrator-limited that only describes the situations and dialogues of the charactes; he is one more viewer of the rite.

In conclusion, the lottery is a example of a society that is rooted in tradition and ignorance which shows indiference in the face of some one's calamity. The rite shows the dark side of humanity and its selfishness.

Works Cited

Roberts Edgar V and Robert Zweing, "The lottery" in Literature. An introduction to reading and Writing. p. 119-141.

Todorov Tzvetan. Analisis estructural del relato. p. 161-196.