Thoughts of 223

     I must say I am glad to see this semester come to a close. I have really enjoyed this class and the different things that we have read but boy was there a lot of it! I can say with much certainty that I am still not a huge fan of poetry. I must not be a very deep reader because for the most part I do not see the hidden meanings that a lot of people see. Oh well won’t lose any sleep over that. I have found several authors that I will follow up on such as Flannery O’Conner, Kate Chopin, Alice Walker, William Faulkner, and James Baldwin; although Going to Meet the Man was disturbing I think I would like to read some more of his work. I was at a book sale at the Walton Library and found a paper back copy of The Red Badge of Courage that I thought I would give to my son to read, if not for this class I may not have even gave it a second glance. I would also like to find a copy of A Streetcar named Desire to watch. I have enjoyed reading the discussion posting by all of my other classmates and have decided that I have been missing a lot of information when I read because y’all see way more things in those pages than I do.  So a big thank you to Mrs. Siemens for recommending that I take this class it has broadened my horizons.

Sisterly Love

      In the play A Streetcar Named Desire the sisters are like so many other sisters that everyone must know. Blanche is so animated in so many ways from the very beginning of the play to the end. When she arrives at her sisters she feels as if she must have gotten the address wrong surely her sister would not be living here. She says to Stella “I thought you would never come back to this horrible place”. Blanche was great at pretending to be a social drinker she would sneak a drink and put the bottle back and wash the glass out she was definitely hiding her taste for the alcohol. Blanche also carried on about how Stella was only there for the funerals; the actual deaths that Blanche had to contend with at Belle Reve were so hard on her. Because funerals cost so much and no one had prepared for their deaths, this is why she lost Belle Reve (not true).  Not to mention all of the trouble that she caused with her indiscretions at the Flamingo hotel in Laurel and with the teenage boy at the school where she taught. The deceitful life that she had created eventually caught up with her when she tried to tell Stella what Stanley had done, too little too late.

     And then there was Stella always there to defend her sister. This caused trouble between her husband and herself. She defended Blanche saying she is sensitive. When Stanley revealed Blanche’s affairs at the Flamingo Stella replied contemptible lies pure invention. Stella tries to explain why her sister is the way she is the loss of her young husband, finding out he is homosexual but none of this seemed to matter to Stanley. In the end Stella is crying as she packs Blanche’s trunk for her to be taken away by the matron and doctor. Stella feels as if she has let her sister down.

     It seems that in most families there are weaker and stronger siblings. And as we love our siblings we often defend them to the bitter end. After all they are usually the only ones that would be there for us no matter what, whether we agree or disagree with their lifestyle or choices that they have made they are our family.

What troubling times!

 

The story “Going to Meet the Man” was very interesting and troubling for me. I have read over this story several times which is more than I usually do. I am troubled by the way people were treated during this time period. Although I must have known in the back of my mind that this kind of cruelty happened, I never put much thought to it. Not only the extreme cruelty to the black man but the mental cruelty that parents exposed their children to both in the black families and the white. I suppose this is all an attempt to teach them that if they do something bad that there will be punishment for it. I am not really clear as to what he actually did do, was it that he raped Miss Standish or simply knocked her down? Wow, how far we have come since then. Now you can murder someone and the punishment may be that you are put in prison for life, but not strung up and tortured.  Mr. Jesse actually seems to get excited physically at the thought of inflicting pain on another human being. Did Jesse get the idea from his father that desire and pleasure for your spouse must come with the thought of cruelty to others? I guess in his masculine dominating thought process he enjoyed seeing the pain of others. How sad for him!

Accepting the responsibility

I enjoyed reading “The man who was almost a man”. Dave was working in the man’s environment but did not feel as if he was treated like a man. He thought that owning a gun would make him more of a man and people would respect him as one. This only proved to be more of a problem for this young man who was trying to prove himself. In the end it was obvious that he wasn’t a man by the way he dealt with the consequences of his actions. Running away from something will never change the outcome. It is really hard to prove yourself to other people when you do not own up to your mistakes. I can only imagine what it must be like for a boy to try to prove that he is a man. Since I can only look at this from the perspective of a woman. I can only really answer the question of the way he dealt with the consequences of his actions. All of us have done things that are not right and do not want to admit to them. As an adult it is necessary to admit your fault, accept your responsibility, endure the embarrassment and go on. I have felt that this makes you a stronger person and helps to keep you honest. For me living with honesty is much easier than living with deceit.

All of us deserve some pampering

In my ENG112 class last semester I read several of Kate Chopin's writings. The short story "A Pair of Silk Stockings" is about a mother who found some money and was thinking of all of the ways she could spend this money on her children.  The day turned into a mom day which after taking care of the family and getting them off to school she set out shopping. Mrs. Sommers ended up pampering herself with the purchase of some silk stockings, a pair of gloves, lunch at a restaurant that she had never been in, and magazines that were a luxuary at the time. When the day of pampering ended she longed for the cable car to never stop and to go on forever. I for one have felt this way especially when the routine of everyday life seems to be to much. I enjoy the pampering days but always looked forward to seeing my family again at the end of the day.

We can all be redeemed

     Most days on my way home from work I listen to Moody radio. This particular day they were talking to an author named Kasey Van Norman. The book that they were talking about was “Named By God”. The book sounded interesting so I had to download it on my kindle. She writes about her life and the trials that most of us go through. She was raised in church and participated in all of the normal church functions, but was in her late twenties before things started to change for her. One of the things that I think is cool is the tattoo that she has on her wrist that says “Redeemed”. It is a constant reminder to her that no matter what she has done in her past the Lord remains faithful to love and pursue her. She covers in her book our past, our present, and our future. Without facing the things that we have done in our past we cannot move forward. We tend to focus on the past or the future while we are trying to live in the present. “And the future to learn to develop the faith to be change makers in our world through the supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit” - Kasey Van Norman. I could not say it any better. This is a really good book! When I finished this book I bought a copy for my sister in law because I felt it has very powerful stories. It has situations in it that I believe every one of us have been through at one time or another.

Are all girls, bad girls?

Are all girls bad girls? This past fall I learned about an author named Liz Curis Higgs. She wrote a book titled Bad Girls of The Bible. This book looks at some of the bad women of the bible whether they were bad to the bone, bad for a reason, a season or only for the moment. As most of us know Eve started the bad girl trail which we have all walked down. Over the many years since this time nothing has changed. What makes us bad is our disobedience, denial, selfishness, lying, and many other sinful attitudes. There is a bright side to all of this we can all learn through our mistakes and change if we choose to.