SSRJ #4 Carver

SSRJ #4 Carver

    My initial reaction to this compelling short story was confusion. His literary style along with the plot of the story makes this story very moving. This piece made me think how two people can have so many differences that they completely forget the safety of there own child. Its mind bending to me that people can get so caught up in emotion that they let an event happen as portrayed in “popular mechanics” by carver.  This short story was beautifully written, I believe it was designed to let the reader imagine their own details. His simplistic writing style leaves many questions unanswered. He says, “ Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water. Streaks of it ran down from the little shoulder-high window that faced the backyard. Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too. “. The last sentence creates a mood for what is  to come throughout the rest of the story. One question I would like to ask, What happened to the baby, and what caused these two to get in such an argument that they would endanger their own child?

SSRJ #3- Colette

SSRJ#3- Colette

           

I thought this piece was very interesting as it took a simple event usually overlooked and made a great piece of literature out of it. At first I was questioning what this piece was about but as I read on I begin to enjoy it more and more. I find it humorous how we as humans can take notice to every detail on certain things as revealed in “The Hand”. Colette allows for a broader interpretation of marriage. She gives insight into beyond the ordinary description of marriage. Colette uses the husbands hand as a symbolic instrument as the recently married wife analyzes it. As she is analyzing the hand she is detailing the events leading up to there estranged marriage. Describing a cozy yet uncomfortable feeling as he lay their resting she is picking out flaws in his hand. I believe as she is picking out the flaws in the hand it may symbolize her fear of what is ahead in the marriage. In this short story Colette is disguising an accurate interpretation of love and marriage. The question I would love to be answered is, does love justify marriage? How could these two be in “love” after only meeting months ago.

SSRJ #2

                                                 SSRJ #2                               Brent McDonald

                                                                                                        English 1b

Ernest Hemingway- Soldiers Home

Just finished reading “soldiers home” by Ernest Hemingway, I feel like I can truly relate to the character “Krebs” in this short story. He leaves his home town for a couple years only to come back and find nothing has changed except his once simple world is now so complex. He feels desensitized to love and is losing hope and doesn’t feel he needs affection in his life. This piece made me think about my return home from college after spending two years living in San Diego, I find I need to adapt to a more complex lifestyle than I was once a custom to when I previously lived there. When trying to interpret this short story you can see the author is trying to perceive a certain message through the main character, Krebs. He portrays krebs as a lost soldier trying to adapt to a new society who must indulge in a book to really understand what he had been doing for the past two years. This story interprets that one may go years without discovering the true meaning of what they are doing, and this meaning can be found in various ways. One question I am curious to know is, How common is our soldiers coming back from war completely desensitized to love?