The Lesson

This story was very interesting to me and it seems like the another was trying to convey a message about social inequality. The story is told from the point of view of the protagonist, first person narrator, Sylvia. Sylvia is a preteen African American girl, strong willed, intelligent, and the obvious leader of the pack. The story's plot involves a college educated black woman who comes back to an disadvantaged neighborhood on weekends and takes the local children on field trips of a sort.On this particular trip she lets the children experience their first ride in a taxicab to a toy store in Manhattan. It is played out through a chronological series of events from the time they leave their neighborhood, until the time they arrive back there. .Misses Moore was trying to explain to the kids, how society spends money according to your class. It is also interesting how the kids realized they don't need to spend $300 on a toy ,all they need to do is go to corner store, buy a toy that cost about one dollar altogether and make the best out of the toy.

A&P

It is a typical day at the A&P, Sammy explains, just ringing up the purchases of the customers, one after another, with no real excitement to speak of. That all changes, however, the moment three bikini-clad girls walk through the doors, immediately gaining the notice of all of the A&P workers. Sammy’s narrative goes into minute detail about the girls’ physical appearance as he sizes them up in a hormone-driven teenage boy way.Sammy not only takes in the physical traits of the girls, though. He notices their demeanor, as well, paying attention to the girl he calls “Queenie,” who seems to be the leader. He notices her command over the other girls, not to mention the confidence and audacity he believes it takes to walk half-naked into the A&P.

While Sammy seems to have no problem ogling the girls, he is disturbed when he realized the other men who work in the A&P are doing the same, despite the fact that they are older than Sammy. Sammy starts to sympathize with the girls a bit, saying “Poor kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn’t help it”.The story’s climax occurs when Lengel, the store manager confronts the girls about not being properly dressed, resulting in the girls’ embarrassment. Sammy is so bothered by Lengel’s actions that he quits his job, hoping to get some glory for his gesture, but is left disappointed when the girls do not notice what he’s done.

Everyday Use

The whole story is told from the two girls’ mother’s point of view. Right off the bat I didn’t like Dee. She seemed very resentful of where she came from, and was more than eager to get of there. Someone should not be so happy when they’re house is burning down. She says that regardless of where her family chooses to live she will still manage to visit but she’s not bringing her friends (her mother and sister wonder if she ever had any friends). Plus she seems to put her self above her mother and sister, how she would read to them about difficult or unnecessary (to them) things to know and seem upset when her family actually understood; like she put herself above them. Both the mother and the daughter seem simple, and I don’t mean simple minding. I mean they enjoy simple things and getting things done. Dee wanted to be more complex but it really just kind of made her seem shallow. I felt bad for Maggie, scarred in an accident and horribly self-conscious, walking like a dog that’s been run over, a lame animal. It’s sad because she seems like a really nice person but people stay away from those who they see as crippled or retarded. Maggie seems a little slow mentally but that doesn’t make her a bad person. I hate to see people like that treated badly just because of something they can’t help. Maggie envious of her sister, her mother (and thus we) can see it and I can see why she would be.

A Worn Path

The story opens on a chilly December morning. An elderly African-American woman named Phoenix Jackson is making her way, slowly but surely, through the woods, tapping an umbrella on the ground in front of her as she walks. Her shoes are untied. While she taps along, she talks to the animals in the woods, telling them to keep out of her way. As the path goes up a hill, she complains about how difficult walking becomes. It becomes evident that she has made this journey many times before; she is familiar with all the twists and turns in the trail.The story is very cute, especially when the old lady talks to herself and makes funny remarks about herself. I kind of laughed when the sat down for a second and she was dreaming of a little boy giving her a piece of marble cake. Then she realized it was a dream and when she reached for the cake it was only air that she was touching. I was also amused when she tried to make the dog go away by hitting it but it caused her to fall and she couldn't get up.Towards the end of the story i had a better understand of why she was walking to town, but her old age got the best of her. The whole point of the journey was to take her grandson to the doctor because of a throat infection but she forgot her grandson at home............

A good man is hard to find

O'Connor's story is told by a third-person narrator, but the focus is on the Grandmother's perspective of events. Even though she complains that she would rather go to Tennessee than Florida for vacation, she packs herself and secretly her cat,in the car with her son Bailey, his wife, and their children June Star, John Wesley, and the baby. In a comical instance of foreshadowing, she takes pains to dress properly in a dress and hat, so that if she were found dead on the highway everyone would recognize her as a lady. Thinking that the old house is in Georgia rather than Tennessee, she insists that her son Bailey take a detour that leads them to their deaths. Because she has secretly brought her cat along, her son Bailey drives the car off the road when the cat leaps to his shoulders. Finally, she blurts out the identity of the murderer so that he has no choice but to murder them all.

the hunger artist

This a story is told primarily from the perspective of a ‘‘hunger artist,’’ who fasts for up to forty days at a time while sitting in a cage scattered with straw, which is placed on display in a public location, as a form of mass entertainment. In the opening line, the reader is informed that public interest in the ‘‘art’’ of fasting has declined in recent years.At the height of the hunger artist’s career, and of public interest in his performances, things were different. The whole town would ‘‘take a lively interest’’ in his performances; most people made a point of looking at him at least once a day. To prove that he was not sneaking any food, local men, usually butchers, were assigned to guard the cage at night.this story to me was a a very weird story. It just proves what people do just to get some type of fame. Think about it would you really starve yourself so that people can like you and be amazed of how long you can starve yourself. I dont care how much money they were paying him because your health is more important than fame

young goodman brown

Young Goodman Brown" tells the tale of a young Puritan man drawn into a covenant with the Devil. Brown's illusions about the goodness of his society are crushed when he discovers that many of his fellow townspeople, including religious leaders and his wife, are attending a Black Mass. At the end of the story, it is not clear whether Brown's experience was nightmare or reality, but the results are nonetheless the same. Brown is unable to forgive the possibility of evil in his loved ones and as a result spends the rest of his life in desperate loneliness and gloom.

the use of force

This was a very interesting and emotional short story. The narrator for this story may have been thought of as Williams himself, although in reality the doctor in the story is the actual narrator. Furthermore, Williams is also a doctor in reality and that is probably the biggest reason for him to make one of the main characters a doctor. I feel that the doctor in the story is a normal stressed out doctor with some self control issues. I also feel that he is a person who enjoys being a doctor, whereas some are only in it for the money. He seemed to have deep regard about the child's health. However, the little girl got on his nerves when she did not want to open up her mouth.His determination to find out the problem with the girl, and the anger he had from her ignorance, resulted him to use some force when it came to opening up the girls mouth. Furthermore, as any normal person would feel, the doctor enjoyed the feeling of insane anger towards the child. When someone pisses you off it feels good to get them back in some way; and that is exactly what the doctor did.

elephants

The story, told nearly in its entirety through dialogue, is a conversation between a young woman and a man waiting for a train in Spain. As they talk, it seems as if the young woman is pregnant and that the man wants her to have an abortion. Through their tight, brittle conversation, much is revealed about their personalities. At the same time, much about their relationship remains hidden. At the end of the story it is still unclear as to what decision has or has not been made, or what will happen to these two characters waiting for a train on a platform in Spain.

The Yellow Wallpaper

This story was kind of funny and cute.I had to read it at least 5 times to fully understand it. From my understanding this story is about a lady who is going through a depression problem but her husband feel she is going through a slight hysterical tendency. Now a hysterical tendencies are caused in women,they go through a depression stage of being lazy, not happy, and many more womanly issues. The lady in the story expresses her depression very weird. She uses a journal to write down everything that goes on in the house that her husband brought her to so she can feel better.Her husband does not know that she keeps a journal so she hides it every time he comes in the room. The details on the wall is mainly what she writes about and it expresses how she feel as a women to me. It is almost like she is trapped in a house that her husband put her in to have control of everything she is doing.

The Story of an Hour is about a woman named Mrs. Mallard who finds out a tragic accident that killed her husband. Evidently Mr. Mallard was not killed; he was far from the scene of the accident and was not involved with the accident. At the end of the story Mrs. Mallard is the one that passes away. She passes away from being so happy thinking that her husbands’ death set her free.
As Mrs. Mallard sobs about the tragic news many thoughts run through her head. At the moment she is sad but all of a sudden she begins to feel a relief and uplift from her husbands death. As I was reading the story many thoughts ran through my head, I thought to myself why does Mrs. Mallard feel so free from her husbands’ death? Did Mr. Mallard abuse her, was he obsessive, did Mrs. Mallard love him anymore or maybe she didn’t find him attractive anymore. In the story Mrs. Mallard expresses her love as an unsolved mystery. An unsolved mystery is a situation that can be solved but it will take a long time or it will never be solved. In Mrs. Mallard situation she felt that trying to fix her love Mr. Mallard could not be help. Mrs. Mallard couldn’t figure out if she really loved him Mr. Mallard