"A Jury of Her Peers" March 10th

I really liked this story. I thought it was well written. At first when I was reading I was a little concerned that the wife was innocent and that she was going to end up paying for the crime even though she didn't do it. What I really liked was the buildup to the ending. There was a lot of imformation and a lot of dialogue and details that just made the story work. I think the story was pretty female oriented. I really enjoyed how the men were doing all the walking around and investigating and poking fun at the women for discussing her quiliting, fussing over the preserves, and the general state of the house. The men didn't pay attention to the details such as the bird cage that had been forced open, they took the women's word for it when they said the cat got it. I think this story was to give women a little more credit in life and I really ejoyed that. I also liked the details like the quilting square that was very different from the others, like she was worried, the men didn't notice that. I was surprised in the end that the women stood up for Minnie Foster and didn't show the bird for evidence. It shows the common bond women have with one other and they were in a way standing up to the oppression of men.

"Cask of Amontillado" March 6th

I really enjoyed this story. At first I didn't understand exactly what was going on but I came to find out through class what was going on. To summarize, the main character had some animosity towards the other character and was planning on killing him for revenge. We never know exactly what the guy does to the main character but I guess if death is necessary than it was a pretty bad thing he did. So he plans to kill him by leading him down into the Catacombs and walling him in. I think this story has a lot of Irony in it because he's killing him in a dark place where death is frequent. The ironic thing however is that he is walling him in alive. The setting here is very important because at the end of the story he says that no one has disturbed his resting place, if it was anywhere else someone would probably happen upon him. I don't exactly know why I liked the story, probably because it was kind of dark and scary, but also because the main character was very munipulative, he would use reverse psychology in order to lure the other man down in the catacombs by telling him his health is too important and he wouldn't want him to get sick from being down there. I just overall really enjoyed the story.

"Happy Endings" Feb 27th

I don't know how I felt about "Happy Endings" It was kinda cool to have all the different endings and different ways the story could have gone, but it was mildly depressing. The whole message was that no matter how it goes you die in the end anyway. So that made me think that why do we try to live a life that has a purpose if it all really doesn't matter because we die at the end no matter what. So then I got depressed and didn't like that theory anymore, because I don't really believe it. We all die, this is true, but we can either die happy or sad, fullfilled or empty, rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, there are so many variables that can change the course of our lives. For some of us death will be a sad thing, an end to a happy life, leaving the one you love, for some its salvation, an out to a horrible life, some it may be just a thing to expect. Some of us will die with loved ones surrounding us, and some may die all alone. I don't think that death should be categorized in a story like this as inevitable and the end, but its more of the resolution to a complicated series of events that lead up to death, and the ending feeling when death comes should be what its all about.

My final project ideas

I was thinking about what I should do for my final project. I was thinking I might look up literature about the Holocaust. I think it is one of the most interesting events in history and I think I would find a lot of good poems and stories about it. Because of all the emotion I think it could be really good to use, It would be an easy subject because it was so famous and people were really effected by it and therefore wrote a lot about it and how it did effect them.
Also, my other idea was to write about relationships. I think there are a lot of stories and poems about relationships, good ones and bad ones, I'm one of those romatics who love sappy movie and book, like Nicholas Sparks, I just really enjoy a good romance novel or poetry about love.
I also was thinking about beauty, because I really enjoyed Shakespear's "My mistresses eyes are nothing like the Sun" and how it talked about her lack of beauty, but it could also come with more modern literature such as literature about eating disorders and women struggling to be beautiful, Ive read a lot of modern poetry about young women struggling with beauty, whether it be plastic surgery or the media. I'm going to have a tough time deciding what I should do.

two versions of America Feb 16th

I think in Whitmans poem hes seeing the world in a blind way. I don't think he understood that black sloves were American too. He was from the north and while he didn't condone slavery he probably didn't put blacks in the same category as white people. I don't think in his poem he meant to exclude blacks but in his time they weren't really considered citizens...more property. Even in his poem he leaves women out in a why by saying yes they were singing america but when all the men went out at night, the women were not included in that group. When Langston Hughes was responding to his poem he was simply saying that blacks are just as American as Walt Whitman portrays those in his poem. He was saying that even though they were not treated as such that maybe they should have been included.