Journal Twenty- Sherlock Holmes' The Speckled Band

The Speckled Band is about a lady named Helen Stoner who asks Sherlock Holmes if he can help her out with her case. Her sister Julia has just died and she does not know why. Helen told Holmes that one day they were talking and Helen heard a scream. Julia tells Helen right before she dies that it was the speckled band that killed her. Helen tells Holmes that they have a very violent stepfather, so Holmes first thinks about him as a suspect. When Holmes goes to investigate the house, he finds that there is a cheeta living outside and a baboon. He has an idea that gysies might be the cause of her death. Dr. Roylott, Helen's stepfather confronts Holmes and wants to know what his stepdaughter has told him, but Holmes does not say and will not say. Roylott gets very upset and takes an iron poker and tries and scares Holmes by bending it. The whistle that makes the noise and then sees the bell chord after sneeking into Helen's home without Roylott's permission. Holmes figures out that the bell chord is in fact a transfer rope for a deadly snake, which is the "speckled band" that Julia saw. He also concludes that the whistle noise is Dr. Roylott who trained the snake to go down the chord when the noise sounds and then to come back up. Holmes attacks the snake after it is sent to kill Helen, and in turn, kills Dr. Roylott instead.
Out of all three stories, this story was my favorite because I would have never guessed what happened to Julia, while with the other ones, I had an idea of what was going to happen by the end.

Journal Nineteen- The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, is about a man named Jack Worthing but the odd part about it is is that Jack's name is only Jack in the city, but in the country his name is Earnest. Jack has a friend named Algy who has a cousin named Gwendolen, who Jack is in love with. Algy's aunt does not approve because she wants Gwendolen to marry into money, but Gwendolen has always wanted to marry someone named Earnest. Algy's aunt questions Jack about his life, but does not like his answers. Later, Jack goes back to his hometown where his ward Cicily after Algy finds out that "Earnest" is living a double life. After talking to Cicily, Algy shows up and immediatley falls in love with Cicily. He tells her that his name is Earnest and that he is her "Uncle Jack's" brother, and Cicily has also always wanted to marry someone named Earnest. He causes a little uproar when he lies and the police come to the house. Algy's aunt comes to Jack's house later when she comes after Gwendolen because she has come down to see Jack. The girls find out that neither one of their names are Earnest. The say that they will be babtized to recieve the name Earnest, but they never do. When Algy's aunt finds out that Algy wants to marry Cicily she does not approve, until she finds out that Cicily has money. Jack says that. since he is Cicily cannot marry until she is 35 that Algy cannot marry Cicily until Algy's aunt says that Jack can marry Gwendolen. Finally, Jack finds out from his maid that he is actually Algy's brother because he was dropped off in a suitcase. So finally Jack finds out that his dad's name was Earnest, therefore, his name is Earnest. So when him and Gwendolen were wed, Gwendolen does get to marry someone named Earnest.

Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "The Importance of Being Earnest." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. Print

Journal Eighteen- Hamlet

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, is about a man named Hamlet who has just lost his father. He is confused because his mother Gertrude is now married to his father's brother Claudius. Claudius is now the king, husband of his mother and his stepfather. Heratio, Prince Hamlet's best friend, comes to tell him that he has seen his father walking around, but Hamlet does not understand because his father is dead. One night they all wait for Hamlet's father's ghost to appear. When he finally appears, he speaks to Hamlet and tells him that his brother, Claudius is the one that has killed him. He also tells Hamlet that he must avenge his death. Hamlet begins by starting to "act" as though he has gone insane, but in reality, he has truely gone insane. Hamlet is in love with the King's counclor Polonius, Ophelia, but his father does not want them to be together. It is not truely a relationship because they only exchange love gifts from distances and only see eachother from time to time. After Hamlet creates a play to show to the kingdom about how Claudius killed his father, Claudius realizes that Hamlet has figured out the truth. When Hamlet confronts his mother about what he has found out, his mother does not understand and does not really believe him, especially when Hamlet tells her that he sees his father's ghost. Polonius is hiding in the room listening to what Hamlet is saying and Hamlet mistkenly kills Polonius through a rug on the wall. This is the turning point in the story where Hamlet truely starts to become insane. After Ophelia finds out that her father is dead, she too, starts to become insane. Soon Ophelia kills herself by drowning. When Polonius' son, Laertes, returns from France, Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is to blame for the death of Polonius and Ophelia. Then Laertes and Hamlet begin a sword fight. Laertes and poisoned his sword and stabs Hmlet with it. Laertes was also wounded by the poison sword and then Laertes tells Hamlet that Claudius killed his mother. Then Hamlet stabs Claudius with the sword and then they all three die.
This story is a tragedy is one of the more interesting Shakespeare plays that I really enjoyed. The only thing about the story that I would change is that I would have allowed Hamlet to live longer than what he did.

Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "William Shakespeare's Hamlet." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. Print

Journal Seventeen- Songs of Innocence and Of Experience

William Blake's, Songs of Innocence, is about mainly children. It is about the children stories of time where it was published on some type of wood. It was colored and filled with designs to make it look attractive. In contrast, his Songs of Experience is about the "adult life" and what happens afterwards when you make such choices in your life. He also adds a little bit of religion into it, which makes it interesting.
The most interesting set of poems from the Songs of Innocence and Experience is the Tyger (from the Experience section) and the Lamb (from the Innocence section). The two poems compliment eachother and stand for same kind of story. The Lamb is in the correct place because the Lamb is an innocent animal, which is more directed towards Jesus and heaven, and it has the light hearted mood that is more directed for a child if it was to be read to them. The Tyger is more of the suspenceful, cruel animal that fits in the opposite part of the "Songs of Innocence". In the poem, it even says "thy fearful symmetry", which puts more fear in the heart than the grace being put into it by the Lamb poem. The Tyger poem even makes referece to the Lamb poem when it talks about "does he who makes the Lamb make thee?", implying how could something so graceful and innocent be created by the same one who makes something so cruel and fearful.

Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Songs of Innocence and Of Experience." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 1207. Print.

Journal Sixteen- Emily Dickinson

The Album for Emily Dickinson is all about Dickinson and her life. It starts out talking about where she was born, Amherst, Massachusetts, and how she died in the same town she was born in. It says that she rarely ever left her home, but even though she rarely left, she was still very educated. She was educated by a woman who taught her many things such as science and she also read a lot of books in her lifetime. Her father was a lawyer, so she associated a lot with many people who associated with him. Even though she did not get out much, she had a variety of friends in which she exchanged letters to constantly. Dickinson is most famous of all for her poems, though. She had created almost 1,800 poems all without a title. She created her poems about many things such as other people that she knew, and even herself. She wrote poems about how she was feeling, what she did, and even what she wanted to do.
One of my favorite poems by Dickinson is Success, because it talks about how "Success is counted sweetest/ By those who ne'er succeed" which is really true. She means that people try to act like they have actually done something significant in there life, and try and gloat and take credit for someone else's work, when they have nothing to show for it and have nothing to do with it or have not done anything at all.
Another good poem is in the "album" and it is called "Because I could not stop for Death-" and in this poem is where I first noticed her use of capitalizations in the strangest places. This is also where I noticed her use of "-" at the ends of the lines.
Overall, I really like Emily Dickinson's poems because they are interesting, and they make you think about things when you read them. They also make you wonder how she really felt and what she really meant when she said the things she said in her poems.


Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Emily Dickinson: An Album." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 1160-169. Print.

Journal Fifteen- Haiku Poem

Working here makes me
Tired but feel like I'm on
The edge of glory


I chose this poem to write and I called it On the Edge. I made into a Haiku because it was a mood poem and it had the 5-7-5 syllables. I work at Pizza Inn and I work so much that I get tired everytime I even step in the door, but Pizza Inn pays my insurance, clothes, food, gas, etc. for me to live off of because I have to provide for myself. Even though I work so much I still am able to provide for myself with my job and it makes me feel good about myself, which is where I got the "edge of glory" part from. Being able to live and not need the help of any other person gives me a good feeling about myself and makes me feel like I can live for myself and no one else. I had a difficulty finding a way to put these feelings into words, but I found a way to put it into words so that I can keep it into Haiku form.

Journal Fourteen- Eve Names the Animals

Eve Names the Animals by Susan Donnelly is about the biblical story of Adam and Eve. It is from a feminine perspective about how Eve does not agree with Adam on the names of the animals. She does not understand why he is naming the animals what he is and she believes that she can come up with better names than he can. Then she starts to name the animals and she thinks that she named them for particular reasons and that man (Adam) just gave them names that did not mean anything to them at all. After she gave the name lion to the lion she started naming all of the animals because she believes that she did it because she got to know them. She gave them the names for a reason.
Eve claims that Adam named the animals according to their size. The end of the poem was interesting because the last line is "I liked change" (1253). It is interesting how she said "I liked" instead of "I like". Eve made all of these changes and it makes me wonder if she regrets it or if the last line means anything at all.
This poem had a story behind it. It was more for the women rather than the men becuase it kind of spoke of the "man" as uncaring and slow and the "woman" as analytical and smart.


Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Eve Names the Animals." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 1252-53. Print.

Journal Thirteen- Sonnet

The sonnet, Sonnet by Billy Collins, is about a sonnet. Collins writes basically in terms about the sonnet he is writing. He starts out writing about the sonnet and even telling how many lines a sonnet has. Then he goes into the aspect of the "medieval" parts of the sonnet. This is not a traditional sonnet because, number one, it does not rhyme. He is baiscally poking fun of the traditional sonnet by doing so and naming his sonnet, sonnet. He also speaks about different people who write sonnets, basically picking on them. For example, "Elizabethan" referes to a sonnet by Shakespeare.
This sonnet was one of my favorites in all of the other assigned readings because it was the most interesting to read. It was not just straight words because you had to read between the lines and even do a little bit of reasearch to figure out what the arthor was saying and what he meant by what he said when he was poking fun at other writers.

Work Cited:

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Sonnet." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 1073. Print.

Journal Twelve- Sir Patrick Spens

The ballad, Sir Patrick Spens by an anonymous writer, is based in the thirteenth century that opens with the King's letter or "braid letter", the king sends the man on a request, and the man must obey. It says that Sir Patrick is an excellent sailor. He starts to read the letter aloud. He finally sets said with a group of men and he even says that he "fears the deadly storm" (1035). When he finally gets to his destination, he sees many women and he does what he is set there to do. The ending says "and there lies guid Sir Patrick Spens wi' the Scots lords at his feet" (1036).
I am not particuarly fond of this ballad because of the speech. The speech that is in this ballad makes it harder to understand especially when there is a lot of information you must understand to understand the story. The main part of the story was how the King sent Sir Patrick on a journey, but he did not want to go so he continues to talk about it and then he ends up going anyway beacause of the simple fact that he has to.

Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Sir Patrick Spens." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 1035-36. Print.

Journal Eleven- The Raven

The poem, The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, is about a man who has lost his love. He sits in his house while collecting a fire and grieves over his lost love. Her name was Lenore and while he tries to sit in silence and read a book, he keeps hearing a tapping noise. This noise greatly annoys him and he tries to go up to see what it is. He opens the door to where he hears the tapping and he doesnt see anything but darkness. He soon busts open the shutters and he sees the Greek Goddess Pallas or Athena who is the Goddess of wisdom. He starts telling her things and trying to ask her questions such as "what this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore" and all she would say is "nevermore" to anything that he said. Then the raven responds to his question about whether or not he will ever see his love again and the raven tells him nevermore. Heartbroken, he says "and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted-nevermore" (1009).
In this story the raven most likely represents darkness/evil/death, so the man must have done something wrong in life to be recieving that kind of treatment from the raven. But in the end, he can no longer see his love and he dies all alone.


Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "The Raven." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 1006-009. Print.

Journal Ten- Pied Beauty

The poem, Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins, is about the colors of things and they way that they look. He talks about the colors of the sky and then goes on to talk about landscapes, whether or not they are "fold, fallow, and plow" (959) He also compares all things, whether they are "counter, original, spare, strange, fickle, freckled, etc.) (959)
I like this poem because it is short and easily understandable. It is just talking about praising God no matter any other factors of the world that might not look normal, and even if you do not like it, all you have to do is praise God because God is the creater of all things. He also says, "He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change (959)" which is a great line in the poem that He is the person you have to worry about, not anything in this world that is bad, ugly, smelly, rotten, etc. God is the only thing that should be on your mind and He does not care if you have the best clothes, the freshest crops, the straightest hair, he loves all of his creations.


Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Pied Beauty." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 959. Print.

Journal Nine- Morning

The poem, Morning by Billy Collins, is about the arthors morning routine. He goings into details about his morning and what he does in the mornings. You know that is what it has to be about because he goes, basically, step by step in what he did that particular morning. He talks about how it is "the best" (922) and that he might splash some water in his face.
You get the hint that he is going to write because he talks about the typewriter is on the floor and so is the dictionary. He anticipates the afternoon because he sees heavy clouds on the way.
I do not particularly like this poem because he is just talking about the morning and it has no real interesting meaning or anything that happens. I do like the use of discriptions where he allows you to almost see what he is talking about. He especially does it when he talks about "the lawn steaming like a horse" (923). He is also very discriptive in what he talks about he does that morning; a normal morning like any other.


Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Morning." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 922. Print.

Journal Eight- To a Louse

The poem, To a Louse by Robert Burns, is about a man seeing a louse, or a bug, in a woman's hair. He is slightly confused about why a bug would be in this particular woman's hair because he says that she is "fine a Lady!". He does not seem to understand why such a "creature" is crawling though this woman's hair in church. The point of the poem is to show the difference between "the way we see ourselves and the way others see us." The woman that came to church that day probably did not know that there was a bug in her bonnet and she was styled with class and then the man sitting in the church who saw the bug was shocked to see a bug crawling though her hair. What does that bug mean? Does it mean that she appears to be a high class lady with high quality hygine, but truely she is only of low class and it is easy for the bug to be crawling on her?
If others saw the bug they would probably be wondering the same question. You cannot judge someone on appearance and assume that they have high standards and an easy living. You do not truely know someone soley by the way he or she dresses and presents him or herself. Maybe the woman does have a hard life and it is not uncommon for a bug to be on her. Or maybe it is all just a misunderstanding and the bug feel on her from inside the church. Either way, the man seemed to be very upset at the fact that this woman had a bug crawling on her and he did not like the way he saw that woman.


Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "To a Louse." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 889-90. Print.

Journal Seven- Milkweed and Monarch

The poem, Milkweed and Monarch by Paul Muldoon is a rather short poem that has many different meanings. It begins talking about kneeling by his mother and father's grave. He goes about talking about how he does not feel grief for the death of his mother and father and how he would rather feel grief for someone else. In the last stanza he even says that he mistaken his mother's name for "Anger" instead of Regan, which is slightly confusing. One thought is that he is angry about the woman he is thinking about and those thoughts are still overthrowing the loss of his parents. Another interesting thing about this poem is that he continually say that "he could barely tell one from the other".
 He seems to be comparing milkweed and monarch butterflys by saying that they could not be separated from eachother. In the beginning of the poem, he talks about a girl and the thought of the girl seems to outshine the memory of his lost parents. Thinking about the past from his parents and the present of a current love, cannot be mixed very well in his mind; therefore, he is not thinking straight and he cannot tell "one thing from another".


Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Milkweed and Monarch." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 869. Print.

Journal Six- A&P

The story, A&P by John Updike, is about three girls walking into a local grocery store called A&P with nothing but bathing suits on. One of the cashiers named Sammy was at the third check out counter, watching them as they walked in. Sammy notices every move that the girls make. He looks at the way they look and what they are wearing. He watches their personalities and makes judgements about them and even comes up with specific names for them by what they look like and they way they act. The girl that he likes the most, he calls her "Queenie". Sammy also has a coworker named Stokesie. They can somewhat get a long sometimes, while they joke around about the attractive girls roaming the store in bathing suits even though there is no beach nearby. Stokesie is claimed to be going to be working at A&P for the rest of his life, like their horrible, rude boss Lengel. Sammy does not want to follow in Stokesie's footsteps, but he feels that he will end up being in his shoes as well.
The girls end up choosing Sammy's line for checkout and he starts to get excited again. While he stumbles on some words with the girls, Lengel comes over and starts fussing about what the girls are wearing. No matter what Queenie said to defend herself, Lengel would say things like "we want you decently dressed when you come in here" (152).
After the girls leave, Sammy gets very upset about how Lengel spoke to them, so he quits his job right on the spot. Lengel tells him that he will really regret quitting and brings up his parents. Sammy does not listen and continues to walk out the door.
I believe that Sammy wanted the girls to seem him quit, but overall, I think he quit for himself because he did not want to be stuck there forever. When he walked out of the store, he saw that the girls were already gone. He stood there wondering what the "world was going to be to me hereafter" (154).


Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "A&P." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 149-54. Print.

Journal Five- The Birth-Mark

The story, The Birth-Mark by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is about a man named Alymer who is a very nature-oriented scientist. He really enjoys his work and he even set aside time to marry a beatiful woman named Georgiana. Georgiana is a very beatiful woman, but she has a small flaw. She has a birthmark on her cheek and it is red and it is quite small, but even still, Alymer does not like the birthmark. In fact, he hates it. He would rather have it removed from her face and only then he says will she be perfect.
Even after the marriage to such a beatiful woman, Alymer cannot seem to get over the birthmark and makes Georgiana feel horrible about herself. Soon, their marriage starts to fall apart because Georgiana thinks of herself as ugly. Alymer soon has a dream that she had the birthmark surgically removed and he tells her that the deeper that he tried to cut the birthmark off the deep the birthmark seemed to be in her skin. He tells her that the birthmark even went all the way to her heart and he didnt mind wanting to keep cutting through her heart to get the birthmark out.
Alymer and his partner, Aminadab, have been coming up with the creation he calls exilir to remove the birthmark. Georgiana agrees to the procedure after being so upset by Alymer's dream. Alymer brings the drink to Georgiana and after drinking it she falls asleep. Aminadab laughs when she falls asleep. The birthmark does fade almost all the way from her face, but when she wakes up she tells Alymer that she is dying. She, in turn, dies and Aminadab laughs again.
The story ends with a description telling the reader that no human is perfect and that Georgiana died because she was now perfect without the birthmark, but no human is perfect, so she is now dead. The narrator states that Alymer "failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present" (324), basically saying that he could not see past the birthmark and now has lost his beautiful wife in the process. Now he must live with what he has done.


Work Cited


Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "The Birth-Mark." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 313-24. Print

Journal Four- The Lady with the Pet Dog

The story, The Lady with the Pet Dog by Anton Chekhov, is about a Dmitri Gurov. He is a 40 year old man that sees a woman walking her pet dog in Yalta. Gurov talks about women as if they are nothing of any importance to society and even calls them the "lower race" (232) but then admits that he injoys the company of women more than the company of men. He is in a bad relationship with his wife, so he ends up cheating on her many times with other women. Even though the man says that he does not like the kind of dog the woman has, she ends up sitting next to him in a park one day and he pets the dog so that he will have something to talk to her about. The woman's name is Anna and she is a younger woman, which seems to excite Gurov. While Anna is talking to Gurov, she seems to have some sadness in the way she speaks about her life and Gurov picks up on it. She is afraid that her husband will come and get her and but she does not want any hard feelings with Gurov. Finally after they have their affair, she leaves Gurov and goes back to her husband. She expalins to him that it is fate that they are now departing. Gurov starts to go back to what he normally does. He does not want to have a memory of Anna and he expects that his life will go back to normal, the way it was before he met her. Gurov thinks about Anna constantly and ends up going to visit her in her town. He goes to her husband's house, Von Diderits, and then decides to go to the theater to see The Geisha. He has a feeling that Anna will go to the theater that night with her husband to see it, and she does. Gurov waits until Diderits leave the theater for a second to go and smoke and Gurov goes up to Anna and tells her how much he loves her. After talking for a while, Anna tell Gurov that she has missed him and then they agree that she will come and visit him soon. She tells Diderits that she has to go to Moscow to see a gynocologist.
Anna goes to see Gurov, but feels very guilty for what she is doing and she tells Gurov how she feels, but he seems content with the situation that they have before them. He starts to feel bad towards the end because of everything that he has told her and then they both realize that "the most complicated and difficult part of it (their relationship) was only just the beginning" (242).



Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "The Lady with the Pet Dog." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 231-42. Print.

Journal Three- Barn Burning

The story, Barn Burning by William Faulkner, starts out with a man named Abner Snopes who is in court being accused of burning down Mr. Harris' barn. Snopes has a son named Colonel Sartoris Snopes, also known as Sarty. When the story opens it talks about how Sarty is scared probably because he knows what happens with Mr. Harris' barn and he is not wanting to testify in court. Sarty knows that he must protect his father and lie and tell the courtroom that his father did not burn down the barn. The judge ends up not questioning Sarty and ends the case by telling Snopes that he should "leave this country and don't come back to it" (187). After they leave the courthouse, the family is waiting for them in the wagon with their broken possessions. They ride for many miles and they stop at some kind of camp for the night. Snopes wakes up late that night and wakes up Sarty and tells Sarty to follow him. When he does Snopes starts accussing Sarty of getting ready to betray him in the courtroom and then hits him. When they return, Sarty's mother sees that he is hurt and tries to help him, but Sarty says "lemme be" (188). When Sarty's family arrives at the mansion that they have been traveling to, Snopes deliberatly steps in horse poop and walks right through the white carpet in the mansion. The owner of the mansion send the rug to him and says that he must clean it. Snopes makes his daughters to clean it, but it is not bood enough for the owner Mr. de Spain. Spain tells Snopes that he must pay off the rug by providing twenty extra bushels of corn.
Later, Snopes finds himself in the Justice of the Peace Courts where Snopes is trying to reduce the penalty of the extra twenty bushels of corn reduced for the rug. Sarty runs in the store and randomly blurts out that Snopes is not responsible for burning the barns and Snopes sends him out. The sentence is reduced to ten bushels of corn instead, but still finds Snopes guilty. Later that night, Sarty hears his mother trying to stop Snopes from doing something and he realizes that he is going to try and burn Spain's barn.
Sarty runs to tell Spain and when he gets there all he can say is "Barn!". They both run out and Sarty jumps in the nearby ditch and as he looks he hears three gunshots and a red glow near Spain's barn.
The end of the story is Sarty walking away, not turning back. The reader might assume that his father is dead because the story says nothing else about him. Sarty begins the story being scared and not knowing much of anything, but he ends the story no longer afraid.



Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Barn Burning." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 186-98. Print.

Journal Two- Hills Like White Elephants

The story, Hills Like White Elephants, is a story full of symbolism. This story is set in the early time of Spain in the 1920's. In the story there is a couple that must make a very improtant decision and there are two choices to the matter. They must both agree on the decision and Hemingway sets the story in the train station to make a point. You can either go one way or another. The train station is empty and soon later, it starts to get hot, as the pressure for the couple rises. After dicussing a few issues, the girl notices something from the station. She says, that the hills look like white elephants. White elephants a very uncommon and by the way they couple is going back and forth, you can tell that they are dicussing something very serious. She starts to compare the hills she calls white elephants to her unborn baby. She says they are uncommon.
The assumption that I would say they are arguing about is whether or not they should abort their baby. It seems as though the boy is trying to convince the girl that she can make the decision on what she wants to do. He says that he will go through with "it" if she wants to, but then he seems like the does not really want the baby because he says that "I don't care anything about it" (168).
At the end of the story, it seems that the couple has still not made a decision about what to do, so Hemingway leaves the end of the story open for the imagination on what the couple will do next.



Work Cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Hills Like White Elephants." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 166-69. Print.

Journal One- The Jewelry

The story, The Jewelry by Guy De Maupassant, is about a man named M. Lantin who is a cheif clerk at an office. M. Lantin has a wife; though, her name is never mentioned. You can tell that M. Lantin is in love with his wife, especially when they first met at the superintendent's office and he says that she was a girl that "seemed to be the very ideal of that pure good woman to whom every young man dreams of entrusting his future" (87).
In the beginning of the story, the aurthor talks about how much the wife of M. Lantin spent their six years together and how much she loved to go to the theater. She also had a odd love for fake jewelry. He also talked about even though she loved going out, she still continued to keep up with the household; it would even be appropriate to say that she provided him with a life of luxury. One night, though, his wife went out and came back very sick with pneumonia. Soon later, she died. M. Lantin refused to touch any of her belongings because it upset him too much.
M. Lantin began to draw away from his "life of luxury" because he could not stand to life that life any longer. The part in the story where "he saw a place and went in, and trying to sell such a trifling object"(89) was when he first realized that he was going to have to sell his wife's jewelry to survive. It was her favorite perl necklace. The jeweler's tells the man that the fake perl necklace is worth somewhere between twelve and fifteen thousand francs. M. Lantin was not pleased, so he moved to the next jewelry store. The next one he went to the jeweler told him that the necklace was real and was sold to "Madam Lantin" for 25,000 fancs. M. Lantin becomes very upset (after first leaving the necklace at the jeweler's store for inspection) because, as it implyed in the story, M. Lantin only has an average salary, and his wife brought in a lot of the income. It seems that he was betrayed by her. In his eyes, he probably saw her as something very bad and tried to cover it up by saying that the other jewelry were probably presents.
After that day, M. Lantin brought back all of his wife's jewelry and sold it to the store and happily quit his job.
Something very ironic about this story is that he set up a story and talked about how much a man loved a woman and was so upset when she died. Then when he finds out that their entire life together was a lie, he has not problem doing anything decieving (such as selling her favorite jewelry) to make a nice, rich living for himself. But, in the end, he still ended up miserable because he married a woman with a bad temper.


Work cited

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "The Jewelry." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. 87-92. Print.