Everyday Use

In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, she begins the story by opening up about Dee and Maggie’s life and their ways of living which is told to her audience by the mother. Maggie was a very laid back child and for Dee she was very high strung always the one who got everything she ever asked for, pretty much spoiled. The trial of the story starts with Dee coming back to her old hometown, a completely opposite person then the girl that left before. The Mother then realizes that she has treated her children unequally, always giving Dee everything she could possible, and making Maggie feel a little left out. The Mother defends her daughter by telling Dee she wont allow her to keep the items in the house and plan on giving them to Maggie to make up for lost time. In the story Dee changes the person she once was, and the Mother as well changes her thoughts on how she treats her children equally, as for before she seemed to of favored one more then the other. At the end of the story mama ends up giving the quilts to Maggie, which I think was a wise choice anyways, Maggie would have put them to better use then Dee would.

Half and Half

Half and Half deals with both the Chinese and American Cultures. The daughter and mother were both Chinese cultures, and the mother wanted her children to marry in the Chinese heritage. When the daughter told her mother in the beginning that she would marry an American man her mother thought it was beyond the worst idea since she had her heart set on a Chinese man for her daughter. I thought this story was very sad and tragic all the way around and the meanings between both stories were relatively the same. The mother was a woman who very much believed in faith and the love of God, although she kept her bible as a holder to go underneath her table, this symbolizes her anger and frustration towards God for the death of her son. The mother ended up losing her small little boy in the reefs of the ocean and never seen him again, she set her faith in God to help bring him back safely to her but things didn’t work out as planned. The daughter in the end put her faith in God for him to save her marriage and that’s all she could really rely on to keep her marriage together.

Shiloh

In Shiloh, it takes another turn in a couple’s marriage as well. Norma Jean’s husband was a truck driver who rarely spent any of his time at home. When he was in his truck accident he had to spend most of his time at home with his distant wife. They rarely had anything to talk about, I don’t think that Norma Jean hated the fact that her husband was at home more, but more so that he never did anything but sit around smoking pot all day with NO job. He never cleaned the house he was just a couch potato. Their communication between one another was terrible, they lost their little boy years before but never seemed to talk about it. I think in the end things just built up so much that Norma Jean could no longer take it anymore and decided she didn’t want to be with this stranger she thought she once knew. Her mother always seemed to but in on everything as well, when she found out Norma Jean was smoking she made such a big tizzy over the whole situation never one time going up to Norma Jean and talking with her about it, which could be where Norma Jean learnt her lack of communication skills, which may have been a downer that caused their marriage to fail in the end.

Girl

In the short story girl, the mother seemed to ramble on different ways for this young girl “Jamaica” to become a woman. When you look at this short story its much like a very looooonnngg run on sentence. The mother puts the word ‘slut’ in several times, I’m really thinking she thought her daughter was indeed a slut or wanting to be one. She always explains to her daughter about how she should treat a man, but if it couldn’t work out between the two, to not take it so personally when you have to end up letting them go. The girl learned how to cook, sew and do many things a house wife would normally do in their everyday life. I don’t think the mother should have went about in the way of telling her daughter the things in the way she did, I thought it was quite rude. I know my mother wouldn’t ever try and get something across to me in the manner that this lady did with her own. I found some really good points in the short story that I took a step back and thought wow this woman has really lived out in the world, she knows so many things and how the world works to be the woman she is.

Giovanni Poetry

In the first poem that I read, it talks about black people and their memories of their past and of how people may perceive it. I dont think that it could neesarily be inplyed to strictly just black people because it really doesnt matter what age, race or background you have. If people were to look back on their past at least for myself in particular, I could name more things that stand out that were not good as some things that were absolutely wonderful. In the 2nd poem it seems like this person is actual in fact very lonely they are just trying to sugar coat it for someone else so they dont see the fear and sadness in her. i think many people sometimes do this and try to convince other people or soemtimes even theirselves things thats not true. The last poem I really was unsure about what she was trying to get across to her readers.

Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor seemed to be a very lonely individual as the way she writes her storys or a grumy woman, she died at a very young age, I'm not sure what was the cause of her death. In the story "A good man is hard to find" I'm still a little confused on how the title related to the actual story, unless it is basing it off of the misfits being horrible men, and there seems like there isnt any good man out there that wouldnt kill a family. The children in the story were very rude and disrespectful to their grandmother and the parents. I think that the parents should take more action i discipling their children when they start to whine or treat people the way that they did. I think it's ridiculous how children can act like that and I think it is definately way out of line and something that they should have handled. The grandmother was a older type lady which she was very confused with where they were going which is what caused the accident to start with becuase she got the family lost. I think that its horrible that the misfits ended up killing her, I thought the story had a very tragic ending, although it didnt start off very pleasant to begin with.

Tillie Olsen

I can relate with Tillie in his particular story she has written. Many times I get caught up in my own world and things that need to be done without acually focusing on the things that are more important in my life. I have a two year old son and in Tillie's story the man said to the mother "you should smile more often when you look at emily". When I read that it turned back towards my son Im sure everytime I may look at him I may not always have a smile on my face as I should because he is the most precious thing in my life. I think that she should have as well paid more attention to Emily, and not send her off to that hospital. The choices that the mother made could have easily been avoided if she had chosen to take different paths when making critcal decisions concerning her daughter. If that had been done so, then her and Emily's relationship may be better off then it is at state now. I also feel like the mother and father should have gotten jobs at different times of the day rather then leaving her alone, that can be very hard on a child I believe. Overall it was a very good story.

Serena

I absolutely loved this story, when I first looked at the book I was so unsure just by the looks of the cover, but the more I got into the book the less I put it down. Serena was a very selfish woman, she only thought about herself and no one else. She seemed to have a mindset that nobody was ever going to be better than her, and that’s pretty much the way she lived her life. When she finally killed her husband her reasoning was basically he wasn’t up to her standards and he was inferior to her, but I think she more than likely had a jealousy issue with the fact that she couldn’t bore children. Serena killed not only her husband but several others including, Widow Jenkins because she couldn’t find someone, and then of course her husband because “he wasn’t good enough” as well as Harris. Serena never cared about the way she treated other people that was around her, she didn’t think about what kind of burden she placed on people’s lives either. This book told a great story of conniving people, dishonesty and sacrificing as well. I would definitely request for other people to read this story.