Analysis
- What I got from this story was that no matter what, to get a happy ending you are going to have to go through some tough times. A is the happy ending, and after each of the other options A was the conclusing thing. The other stories all ending up being depressing, but no matter what a certain person had a happy ending. The characters battle many different situations, but they always end up with A. You have to go through pain in order to have happiness is what I think Atwood is trying to say in this story. I think she did it in a neat way of showing this. She also took a different approach with stereotyping the characters. She didn't follow the normal stereotypes of the genders. She adds a little twist to each little story.
Abtract
- The story begins off saying John and Mary meet. Then what? A begins off with a happy way of look at the marriage of John and Mary. They get married and have two kids and live happily ever after. B says Mary falls in love with John, but John only uses Mary for sex. They have the same routine everyday, and this makes Mary cry a lot. One day, John complains about the food, and this upsets Mary even more. She has never heard him complain about the food. Mary's friends tell her they have seen him with another woman named Marge at a resteraunt. It makes Mary more upset that they went out to eat because he never took her out to eat. Mary is so upset she ends up killing herself. John and Marge end up having the happy ending. C says John falls in love with a much younger Mary. She feels bad so Mary sleeps with John. She is in love with a guy named James. John is in love with Mary though, but he is also married to Madge. One day, Mary and James get high together and end up having sex. John walks in on them, and is heart broken. He ends up shooting James and Mary and himself. Madge marries Fred and they end up with the happy ending. D is when Fred and Madge are very happy, even though there is a huge tidal wave that knocks down house. They are still in love, and end up with the happy ending. E is when Fred ends up dying, so Madge devotes herself to charity until the end of A.
Analysis
- This short story gives the perspectives of love from four different people. They all have a different way of looking at love. Instead of hearing words like happy, wonderful that are normally linked to love, you hear words like pain, jealousy, and misunderstanding. They all have different points of view because they all have different experiences with love. This could be looked at from a feminism critisim because Mel kind of over powers Terri's opinion. He tells her to shut up, and he basically says her way of seeing love is wrong.
Abstract
- Four friends are all sitting around having a drink. Mel and Terri are married, and Laura and Nick are married. Terri starts off by saying what she had with Ed was true love because he would die than not be with her. Ed was her boyfriend, but when they broke up, he took it hard. He threathens her and Mel because he is so in love with her. He ends up commiting suicide because Mel is with Terri. Mel is slowly getting very drunk as these stories are going on. He brings up a story about an old couple that were hit in a car crash. They were literally on their death beds, but the husband was upset because he couldn't see his wife. Laura claims her and Nick are in love. Even though she had loved other people before meeting him. They all had loved someone before marrying eachother. The story ends with the couples finishing off the gin, and there was no more discussing on what everyone thinks of love.
Analysis
- This story can be looked at from a psychological critism. In the end, the Arnold ends up getting Connie to come outside without even forcing her. He plays mind games with her in which she choices her destiny. She decides to go off with him without phsycally forcing her in order to do so. This story is also a lot like today's society. Connie acts like someone way different when she is in her house, but when she is at the mall, she becomes more slutty and flirty. I don't think her parents have any idea what she is like outside of the house. Connie lives off vanity, so when boys are responding to her flirtiness, it boosts her self esteem. She believes looks are everything to her. I think Connie has some insecurities, so that is why I think she acts the way she does.
Abstract
- Connie is a fifteen year old girl. Her parents were always in favor of her sister June, so Connie has a self esteem issue. She is an innocent little girl when she is at her house, but when she is out with her friends, she becomes very different. She was more flirty towards boys, and even is taken to their cars to have sex. One sunday, Connie gets up and takes a shower. Her family goes to a barbecue, but she decides not to go. After awhile of being alone, a car pulls up her drive way. It is Arnold Friend, and his friend, Ellie. He begins to yell at Connie giving her compliments and insisting she comes in his car for a ride. He is being kind to her even though she keeps denying to get in the car with him. Connie becomes instantely freaked out by him, so she threatens to call the police. He says if she picks up the phone she will come get her. He is getting closer to the house as he continues to persuaded her. He also mentions if she doesn't come with him then he will kill her family. She freaks out and picks up the phone, but Arnold doesn't do anything. She doesn't call anyone, and actually she begins to head out with Arnold.
A Good Man Is Hard To Find
Analysis
- This story is about religon. It can be looked at from a psychological criticism because granny kind of gets into the killers head. She tells him she believes he is still a good man even though he is about to kill her. The killer begins to reconsider it, but still ends up killing her anyways. She ends up finding her "good" man who is god. The writer of this story is a very religious so that explains why that is the good man in the end.
Abstract
- A family is taking a trip to Florida. They get lost on the way, but Granny never tells them this. They then run into a man, and Granny recognizes him as the killer. He now feels obligated to kill the family, and he kind of feels guility about it. The guy ends up killing her family, but the granny tells him she still thinks he is a good man. This makes the man question if he should really kill the woman. He says if she were always had a gun pointed at her, she would be a great person.
A&P
- This story is about man who works at a store called A&P. This could be a gender critism. The man obviously lusted over one of the girls, so he felt bad for when she was humilated in the store. I thinking looking at today, when a man lusts over a woman, he will do crazy stuff for her. He quit his job because not just because she was humilated. She was wearing skimpy clothing which I think made him want to quit more. He became obsessed with seeing these girls in their bathing suits because he looked at them every chance he could get.
Abstract
- The narrator works at the A&P grochery store. Three ladies walk in only wearing their bathing suits. The narrator watches them the whole time as they move through the aisles. He especially watches this one girl that has no shoes on and the straps of her suit are off her shoulders. They eventually find what they need and proceed to the narrators check out stand. The manager looks out from his office and sees these ladies. He comes over to inform them that this is not a beach, and they need to wear more clothes next time they are in. The one lady becomes embrassed and blushes. They are out the store when the narrator says he quit because he feels it wasn't right to humilate those girls. He leaves even though he needs the money and searches for the girls. He can't find them.
Analysis
- I found The Lottery a very confusing story. It was easy to read, but I kept asking myself why they are innocently killing random people. I would understand if they thought it was a sacrifice, but there wasn't anywhere that said it was. This can be related to things that have happened in our past. If you think about it, we have been through things that we thought were right because we didn't know any better. This is a lot like the lottery because they didn't know that this was a bad thing to do. It was a tradition, so children and adults thought this is what is supposed to happen and never questioned it. It can be related to slavery. We used to think that it is right to have slaves because everyone else had them, and no one thought differently until people stepped in.
Abstract
- The town gets together every year in the summer to hold a lottery. Everyone from the town comes in, and they call each person up to a slip of paper. Mrs. Hutchinson was late, and she didn't want the lottery to take place. Ironically, her husband draws the slip that has his family up for the lottery. They all grab a slip of paper, and everyone is relieve except for Mrs. Hutchinson who draws the slip of paper with a mark on it. The town grab stones, and they stone Mrs. Hutchinson to death.
- This story can be look at from a historical critisim. Nobody would never really understand what is going on if they didn't know what happen that caused the civil war. It would seem like a cruel and unlikely thing that would happen if people didn't know that blacks used to be slaves. You could critise this story from many of the other critisims, but I think this is the main one.
- This story is about a men's club that find's cruel punishments for black people. They ask this boy to come in because he can recieve a scholarship to go to college by meeting with them. The boy comes, but it turns out to be a bad place. They first send out a naked woman to get them arroused. This shows that the white men are in complete control of the black men. They then blind fold the men, and say they need to fight for the scholarship. The put fake change on a shock mat, and the black men reach for it. It sends a major shock into them. It is torture. They end up fighting blind folded, and the young man wins. They allow him to read his speech, but he is chocking on his blood as he reads, and the men are not really paying attention until he said equality. This makes them stop and ask the boy some questions. He meant to say social responsibility. They end up giving him the scholarship, and he goes home to tell his grandpa. His grandpa informs him that he used to do whatever the white men said, so he was a trator.
- You can look at this story from a feminist and gender critisism. The man kind of over powers the woman in the story. This is a traditional role today and back then. She works very hard on her garden, and this is what a traditional role of a woman would be. She never tells her husband that she is unhappy which is like some women. They had their feelings from their husband because they are in the end, scared of them. She also ends up dressing up just to impress her husband to make him love her more.
- Elisa is married to Henry. She is a very hard worker when it comes to her garden of chrysanthemums. Her husband teases her by asking her if she would like to go to the fights, but he ends up saying she wouldn't like going anyways. This upsets Elisa. A man appears after Henry leaves to the fights looking for work. She offers him to fill pots. She takes a bath and looks at herself. She tries to make herself appealing to her husband by dressing up and putting make up on. the husband is surprised by her appearance. It kind of puts Elisa down, but she goes out to eat with him. She is excited to go to eat with him, but he says she is different. In the end, her husband upsets her, so she cries.
- I think this story is relating to people who are scared of facing the darkness, so they are always looking for light. All the men are scared to be alone. It hints it a lot in the short story. They all live alone, and they want to stay at the bar as long as they can because they are scared to go home and be alone. The room is "light" and leaving it will only leave them in the darkness.
- This is a story about three men. There is a young waiter, old waiter, and a deaf man. The two waiters talk about what they know about the deaf man. He has tried to commit suicide, his wife has died, and how they need to send him home before he gets too drunk. The man doesn't go home any sooner than 3 a.m. because he will be alone after that. The waiters both don't want to go home either. They would rather stay at the cafe because they have nothing waiting for them at home.
- The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall can be looked at from Formalism. The story is from Granny's thoughts before she dies. It is things that she remembers from her life and how she feels about death. I think it was pretty important to do it from her perspective because it would be a completely different story, but it is in 3rd person.
- Granny is in the hospital because she is slowly dying. She already came to peace with it by paying her last visits to her family before she was there. She is very annoyed by the doctor and her daughter that she is there, so she seems to be very grumpy. She thinks about what she needs to do tomorrow and how her dad lived to be 102, so I think she is in slight denial that she might die. She lays there remember times in her past. She remembers being a hard worker and when she almost married George. She begins to kind of forget things because she thought she saw the doctor 5 mintues ago, but it really was a whole day. She begins to think more about George, and it makes her mad. She believes he is in hell. It causes pain thinking about him. She tries to reach out to god, but then she dies.
- The Rocking-Horse Winner can be related to marxism. The boy becomes very obsessed with winning the money that it eventually just kills him. The short story was pretty easy to understand because the language wasn't difficult to comprehend.
- The story is of a poor family, but the boy recieves a rocking horse that tells him what horse will win in the race. The boy becomes obsessed with winning the money for his mother because she doesn't like being poor. The boy would do anything for his mother, but the mother only cares about the money. The boy is so obsessed with winning money he eventually dies.
- I find this story really weird because the Gregor never worries about himself being a bug. No one ever questions why he is a bug. Kafka uses his life kind of to write this story. His father was also a big selfish business man. This is a lot like the father in the story. He had a harsh relationship with his father, and I think that is why the father is the way he is in the story.
- The short story starts off with him waking up as a bug on his bed. He cannot firgure out how to turn over, so this process takes awhile. He is very worried about how he is going to catch the train and get to work. He misses work, but someone from his work comes to check on him. He finally gets out of bed and tries to open his door. When this happens, everyone behind the door is shocked. Gregor just keeps to himself, and his wife leaves him food and milk to drink and eat. He over hears some of the conversations that they have in the family room. The father won't let his mother see him. The only thing Gregor wants is for his daughter to be a violinist, but she is being a maid pretty much. One day, his dad begins to throw fruit at him, trying to kill him. They still have no idea if he is really Gregor or a bug. He eventually is locked in a room and left to die.
