USHER

This story written by Edgar Allan Poe is about a narrator who receives and letter from an old friend and goes to visit him upon his request. Roderick Usher is the mans old friend and they have not seen each other since childhood but the narrator feels compelled to see him anyways. Once he gets to the house which he observes is a massive mansion of a family estate he notices that it is very gloomy and the walls on the exterior are crumbling and fungi covered the mansion as well. Once inside the two men talk and the narrator notices there is something off about his old friend. He remembers him being weird in childhood but not to the extent that he is now. "He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses;the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.(665)" This is when we learn that Usher is mentally ill and disturbed and he also says he must die in the house because if not he will be lost. What Usher's biggest problem is that he suffers from fear of everything and the future. To me its obvious that Usher has severe anxiety issues and well as many other physiological illnesses that would have been better had he been treated. He might even have suffered from hysteria that doctors claimed women suffered from at the time. But Usher gives reasoning as to why he might be suffering and that is because his twin sister just died and she was his life long companion. Both of the men put his sister Madeline in a coffin and bury her in a tomb under the mansion. Over the course of the story the narrator and Usher partake in many different activities such as reading books and reviewing art as well as painting together and the narrator seems to be affected by the oddness of the house. At the end of the story the narrator can't sleep and is up in the middle of the night and Usher comes into his room with a lamp. Usher also can't sleep and the narrator reads to him a story and as he is reading he keeps hearing loud screams. He doesn't want to freak Usher out so he says nothing but hears the screams again. And then the insanity of his friend bleeds over into the narrator. "...but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame.(674)"The narrator is so shocked at what he is seeing that he leaves the estate immediately. The whole story is about mental illness and i believe after staying in the house for over a week affected the narrators psyche in some way. 

-Sam

Bartleby, the Scrivener

            Bartleby, the Scrivener is an interesting short story written by Herman Melville.  The narrator, a lawyer who runs his own practice, tells his story of the strongest man he has ever known, Bartleby.  Bartleby the newest member of the narrators staff along with Nippers, Turkey, and Ginger Nut.  Nippers suffers from indigestion, Turkey is a drunk, and Ginger Nut receives his name because Nippers and Turkey often send him to get them ginger nut cakes.  While Nippers, Turkey, and Ginger Nut always do what they are told, Bartleby refuses.  One day, when Bartleby is asked to help proofread a document, he simply replied, “I would prefer not to” (295).  Shocked, the narrator asked “What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you to help me compare this sheet here—take it” (295).  Bartleby once again replies “Prefer not to” (295).  This shows short narrative shows that the narrator is not used to people saying no to him and not immediately responding to his commands.  This shows strength in Bartleby’s character.  We tend to see the response “I would prefer not to” (297) quite frequently throughout the story.  The narrator says “With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence.  But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and disconcerted me.  “I began to reason with him” (297).  The narrator would have been infuriated with anyone else for not following his demands, but for some reason the narrator found interest in Bartleby.  Perhaps Bartleby being the first one to stand up to the narrator, makes the narrator respect him even more.  Do you think if Nippers, Turkey, or Ginger Nut started to act like Bartleby, would the narrator respond the way he does to Bartleby? Bartleby continues to refuse duties, until finally he is doing no work at all and yet the narrator cannot get him to leave. As the other employers get angry, the narrator decides to take action.  The narrator moves his office but cant seem to get rid of Bartleby.  Bartleby haunts the hallways and begins to concern the narrator to the point that he takes a few days off of work.  Upon his return he learns that Bartleby is in prison.  The narrator goes to the prison to make sure Bartleby is well fed but a few days later, he died because he would not eat.  Some time afterward, the narrator hears a rumor that Bartleby worked in a Dead Letter Office.  Do you think that Bartleby’s job lead to his depression and death? Or do you think that he was just insane?

They All Just Went Away

     Throughout the essay "They All Just Went Away" Joyce Carol Oates defines the ingredients of a home, and what or who a home includes. Oates has many adventures playing in abandoned and prohibited houses when she was a little girl. Each house has a story to tell about the people and events that happen with them. The old houses are permeated with memories and lifeless remnants. Oates describes the dark history of one of the houses with an alcoholic father who tries to burn his family alive while they are sleeping. Can you imagine your father ever even thinking of doing this? I have a great relationship with my dad so this just blows my mind. I cant even picture this! The value of a home is depicted when Oats describes the livelihood of the Weidal family. Value is not only defined with dollar bills, but also by how much a person wants or needs something. A home's value is the result of how much effort the families are willing to sacrifice to make the home desirable to them. For example, Oates describes Mr. Weidel as a wife and child beater, a lousy drunk, and it is also insinuated that he is a child molester. No one desires to go over to the Weidel house because no sacrifices are being made to make their home admirable. If a person wants to go home there must be something worthwhile to bring them back.
     The Weidel family is a good example of what happens when the relationships people hold to so dearly within a home are inexistent. Mr. Weidel seems to have no feelings for his wife and children; Mrs. Weidel clings to her husband even when he beats her, and the children are either wild partiers, mentally unstable, or have outrageous tempers. Homes are important because they provide people with comfort, security, and loving relationships which makes everything else less important.
     "They All Just Went Away" relates to everyone's personal life because every person in the world has a place they call home. I know I do. This essay brings life to the meaning and value of a home. Oates uses the Weidel family as an example of how important and worthy homes are to people no matter what kind of family a person comes from. Do you have a place you can call home?

The Yellow Wallpaper

In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman explains a story of the narrator’s decline into madness. She has a husband named John who is a physician. He diagnoses the narrator with postpartum depression, which was normal for women in this time period. He then basically locks her up in a room upstairs and controls where she can travel within the house. She slowly begins to go mad from staying in this room for so long. She keeps a journal where she writes her thoughts and explains how the wallpaper in the room changes in her mind. She becomes fixated on the wallpaper. She says, “The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction” (pg. 281). This reveals just how obsessed the narrator becomes with the wallpaper. She has no contact with the outside world, so it’s obvious that she will go mad at some point.

            Her relationship with John seems complicated when I read it. She loves him and believes that he’s only looking out for her well-being.  She stated, “Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day” (pg. 281). She thinks that he wants to see her better, and looks over the fact that she’s locked up in this rental home. Even so, she hides things such as the journal from John because she feels that he will think it’s absurd to have.

             In the end, she truly loses her sanity when she believes a woman in stuck behind the wallpaper. She locks the door and begins peeling and ripping off the wallpaper to get the woman out. John walks in and was so shocked, he faints. Do you think anyone would go mad from being locked-up in a room for this long without contact with the outside world?

-April Cust

Family's Influence

Relationships with our families affect who we grow into ourselves as we get older. Whether they are the ones to catch us when we fall, teach us a lesson, and most of all to teach us who we are on the inside. These authors tell their stories through their experiences with close family relatives

Daniela Gioseffi writes in Bicentennial Anti-Poem for Italian-American Woman about her relationship with her grandmother. Daniela admires the amount of dedication her grandmother and how much sacrificed for the sake of her family, mainly her husband. Nora Marks Dauenhauer also writes about her grandmother in Grandmother Eliza. Nora writes on how her grandmother saved many lives, including her own. While Daniela expresses her appreciation of her grandmother through her sacrifice, Nora writes on her grandmother’s dedication to giving. Nora’s grandmother always pushed herself to be there for others, just like Daniela’s grandmother. Helena Maria Viramontes writes in The Moths about her grandmother, Abuelita, and how their sharing passion for flowers united them. After her death, Helena refers to herself and her grandmother as moths so they could return to the flowers together. Instead of focusing solely on grief, she learns through her grandmother's compassion how to find peace. Their grandmothers use their wisdom to teach their grandchildren the positives in life. 

Vince Gotera writes in Dance of the Letters about his father, who helped improve hid education more than just simply reading to him. Vince stresses the critical point of having his father physically there with him to help him through the reading. Proud to have his father present, he begins to mature himself. Scott Russell Sanders writes in The Inheritance of Tools how his father’s death affects him. Scott writes about the memories of his father and how his time with him built him into the man he is today. Both Scott and Vince write about how the attention from their father affected both of them into maturity.

All these authors have been affected greatly by their family. Have you guys ever been deeply affected by your family?

Daughters&Race

Daughters&Race

Life with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant is a story told from a black fathers perspective on raising his daughters. The story contains not only a gender issue but a race issue as well because they are African American. One of the main issues in the story is how the daughters get picked on for having braided hair in school as apposed to all the white girls with straight hair. Linnet the daughter tells her father that she wants long blonde hair so she can conform with everyone else. The mother though feels that by conforming with straightened hair for her daughters she is giving into assimilation and there for abandoning her racial pride. This is why she forces both her daughters to get short afro cut hair cuts as they are referred to in the essay. She wants her daughters to appreciate their race and not think that beauty is modeled after what white people look like. The father disagrees with the mother and feels it would be fine to let his daughters have longer hair if it meant they would not  get picked on. This example is what the true meaning of the essay is about which is the mother supports the empowerment method of her race no the emancipation method. "In a Booker T.Washington tone, McCall goes on to describe how the establishment of a black beauty culture serves as a source of empowerment for black women:' Then there is the issue of the Miss America Pageant which is the whole family is watching the beauty pageant and the daughter think that the black women is going to win and she does against a bet she made with her mother. The mother and father are both elated because in their eyes "It is impossible for blacks not to want to see their black daughters elevated to the platforms where white women are." My favorite point in the essay is at the end when the daughter are playing with their dolls and are playing with their father and the father asks them how did two black dolls create a white baby doll. His daughter answers him by saying, "we're not racial. That's old fashioned. Don't you think so daddy? Aren't you tired of all that racial stuff?" To me this shows that the kids aren't even thinking about racial differences which is good thing and once step closer to a more free and equal society.
-Sam Kanusher

Roots

                In Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan, Tan describes her relation between her Chinese roots and her American roots.  On the contrary to her mom, Tan grew up learning and speaking fluent English. Today, she is a famous writer. Tan discusses the burden of having to always speak for her broken English speaking mother.   She tells us stories of struggles she had with her mother and the English language.  One story she shares is when her mother went to the hospital for a follow up appointment to find out about a benign tumor found in her CAT scan the previous month.  Even when her mother spoke her most perfect English, the doctors seemed to have not taken her seriously and did not provide her with the care she should have been provided with.  Tan tells us, “She said they would not give her any more information until the next time and she would have to make another appointment for that” (pg.110).  Tan’s mother refused to budge so they called Tan.  When she spoke in perfect English on the phone with the doctors, “lo and behold – we had assurance the CAT scan would be found, promises that a conference call on Monday would be held, and apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through for a most regrettable mistake” (pg.110).  When dealing with Tans mother, who was hard to understand the doctor was reluctant to help but when talking to Tan, who spoke perfect English, he was more than willing to do anything possible to help.  I was highly offended by the doctor’s actions when reading this part of the story.  Doctor’s jobs are to save people’s lives no matter what age, gender, sexuality, or race.  I feel that Tan should have taken some legal action against the doctor. 

                This story is about leaving your home country and living abroad, and how your roots will still never leave you. It is about changing ethnic qualities, and keeping them all at the same time. It is about struggling and confrontation with a hostile environment towards different cultures and breaking those boundaries. It is also about the generation gap.  It shows how Tan was ashamed of her mother’s non-conforming ways, but how she was always there to support her mother.  Perhaps, Tans mother’s struggles along with her strive to be able to speak English, made her feel proud of her roots?