ENGL 10103

I felt that this class helped me a lot. I liked how we analyzed each story and felt that it helped me better understand what I was reading. I also really liked the selected readings for the course. The only one I would change would be "The Fall of the House of Usher." I had a hard time with this story and think it could be replaced by "The Tell-Tale Heart." The films we watched in class were also very entertaining and correlated well with the class. Hamlet was the only film I would take off the list, but that is because I had already seen it and it is long and hard to understand. I really enjoyed watching "Northanger Abbey" and my favorite story was a tie between "Our Nig" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

A Good Man is Hard to Find

I thought "A Good Man is Hard to Find" was very interesting. I liked how society can be included in the definition of "Man". As the grandmother gets older, society has become more corrupt.

 "A good man is hard to find," Red Sammy said. "Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more."  

The grandchildren have no respect for their elders. They say whatever they want to no matter who they are talking to.  Oates placed a lot of emphasis on "being good." Every chance the grandmother got she told "The Misfit" he was a good man, and came from nice people. I also thought it was ironic that at the very beginning of the story the grandmother asks John Wesley what he would do if the Misfit caught him. Later the entire family is killed by him. 

I was confused at the end, Was the Misfit the son of the grandmother???"Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children !"

Jean Ah Poquelin

5. Discuss how Cable uses “local color” (one of our study words) to create a sense of realism of the South. Do you feel Cable satirizes or criticizes ethnic stereotyping and/or the romantic myths of the “noble aristocracy” of the “Old South”?

Cable uses local color in "Jean ah Poquelin" when the characters are speaking. Many of the characters speak with a French accent or in French because of their ancestry and many French settled in New Orleans. It is representative of the Creoles in the south. I do think that Cable is criticizing the stereotyping and "mystery" associated with the Old south. In this story Poquelin represents the old south, while the mob and the townspeople represent the new south. Throughout the story you see Jean ah Poquelin as mysterious and almost scary because he keeps to himself and his house and won't allow the road to pass through, and this causes the characters to suspect that he is a witch or his house is haunted. It isn't until the end that you find out he was just caring for his leper brother. I think that twist causes the reader to think about judging someone without all the facts.

Sheriff's Children

Chesnutt starts out portraying the Sheriff as a noble man, but as the story continues he appears to be no different than any other white man in the town. Yes, the Sheriff wants to protect the prisoner until trial, but it is not until he finds out the man is his son does he want to find the real murderer. I am sure people were angry at the fact that the prisoner was the son of the white sheriff and a black woman 

Goophered Grapevine

The story begins with the narrator who is telling his story about purchasing his grapevine. Within his story is the story about the vineyard that Julius is telling. Julius had been making a profit on the abandoned vineyard and no doubt wanted the vineyard to stay abandoned so he tells the couple about curse. I am not sure whether the vineyard was actually cursed or it was just an attempt to stop the selling of the vineyard. 

I think that Henry is definitely portrayed as a commodity in the "Goophered Grapevine." When his owner realizes that he is able to do great work in the summer and is then unable to work in the winter he cons several men into buying Henry and eventually selling him back when he can't work. He is able to profit more from selling and re-buying Henry than the work he can actually do. In a way it 

"Our Nig"

Overall, I found that Mrs. Bellmont was the head of the house rather than the men. The only time her authority was questioned was by Mr. Bellmont, and only in extremely rare instances. Everyone knew that Mrs. Bellmont and Mary were treating Frado unfairly and cruelly, but they aren't able to succeed in keeping her safe. In the beginning it is almost as if they know it is wrong but turn the other way and only later, do they begin to question Mrs. Bellmont more outspokenly.  In the end, the other members of the Bellmont family do a better job of looking out for her well being. 

4)What kind of narrator is used in this piece? Is he reliable? Speculate as to why Poe would use this type of narrator for his work.

Poe uses a first person narrator in "The Fall of the House of Usher." A First person point of view is told from the narrator's perspective and the reader's knowledge of the story is limited to the narrator's knowledge. I think the narrator is reliable to a degree. Because we only see his side  we cannot know everything that is going on. If it had been told in third-person omniscient we would know everything, including the feelings of all the characters which would help  us better understand what is actually going on. I feel that Poe used first person narrative so that the reader would have to draw their own conclusions of the story instead of being told exactly what is going on. It adds to the suspense and mystery of the story and makes it more interesting and unnerving. 

"Young Goodman Brown"

2. How is the allegorical? What statement does Hawthorne appear to be making with his allegorical tale about human nature?

When I first read the story I took it very literally. I understood it that Goodman Brown was being taken to the forest by a friend and happened upon people he knew and they were all going to the same meeting place. The people he saw along the way were well known religious and political people from his town. At the meeting they were converting people to do evil and it was revealed that much evil had already been done, women killing their husbands. Then Goodman Brown is converted but wishes his wife to remain pure. Then he wakes up somewhere else. After reading the Major Images Found in Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" the story made much more sense as an allegory. The man leading Goodman Brown through the forest was the devil, who also resembles his father. While walking down the road they come across different people and Goodman Brown hides in the trees because he doesn't want people to know what he is doing. All the people he sees along the way and at the meeting were people who had done evil things. The reason Hawthorne shows pious people as having done evil things is that all people have evil in their nature, people are not inherently good.