Print out, read, and annotate The Lottery (Shirley Jackson)
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a village with a very strange tradition. The whole town gathers together and each household draws a paper, and if you pick a certain one, your family must choose again. One person in the household will get that paper again, and then the village stones them to death. Something that occurs more than it should in America is mass shootings. I don't know if this would be considered a tradition, but it does share similarities with the lottery tradition in the village. In both occurences, people are killing for no reason at all. Some shootings are done by students, for example the Columbine shooting. This shows a loss of innocence that you also see in the short story when the children are throwing the stones. If you wanted to read more about mass shootings in America, here is the link to an article I found: The Math of Mass Shootings. Every year, my mom's side of the family comes over on Christmas Eve. Family is something very important to me and it is something I value very much. Every year Christmas Eve always ends in a screaming match between my mom and her brother, and they end up leaving and it never really ends well. As much as I love my family this is a tradition I don't think we should keep. My father and I both agree on this, but since we don't see my moms family too often, the tradition stays. Christmas is approaching, and I think this year should be very interesting. Over the summer, I got into a bit of trouble. When my moms brother found out, he called me nasty names and said I deserve everything coming to me. As much as this hurt me, I still am going to treat my uncle with respect this Christmas eve. Hopefully this tradition of fighting every year turns into a tradition of being happy with my family.
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Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway is a short story about a couple struggling with a decision. Although it doesn't come out and say it, we can use context clues to infer that the couple is trying to decide whether or not to have an abortion. The man seems to be pushing the woman towards having one, while she does not seem like she wants to. You can tell she is upset because she keeps asking him to keep talking and is obviously upset. The story never tells you if she really gets one or not, it is left to the readers imagination. I think that the woman in the story kept her baby. I think this because at the end of the story she says they could have everything if they kept the baby and seems annoyed with the man. She also says "There is nothing wrong with me. I feel fine." This could be her way of saying the baby belongs in her body and she feels fine with keeping the baby. I am not sure if she stays in her relationship with the man. Maybe if he supports her decision and changes his ways they stay together. He says he would do anything for her, so this could mean he can support her and the baby, but it does not seem like he is ready for parenthood. He keeps saying it is perfectly simple and that they will be happy after. He also says he thinks it is the best decision to abort the baby. This makes me think he will not change his ways and the woman will leave the man when he is not a supportive father. One time I made the choice to stay or leave a difficult situation was when I took AP Statistics junior year. I had a really difficult teacher and really struggled in the class. This class caused me a lot of stress and I would have a lot of anxiety going to it every day. Multiple people dropped this class, and I took the idea into consideration. I had to make the choice whether to leave the class and save myself from a lot of stress and anxiety, or push through for the rest of the year. After talking with my parents and counselor, I decided to stay in the class for the rest of the year. I am happy with the decision I made because I do not like to quit or give up on things and nothing comes easily.
Introduction: In this blog post I will be responding to a series of questions for my English 100 class about the podcast, What You Don't Know by Lulu Wang. In this story, Lulu's family decided not to tell her grandmother she had terminal cancer in hopes that she would get better. I will discuss my personal views and opinions about the story and share a narrative about when I had to tell someone a lie that had a major impact on a good friend. In the beginning of the podcast, I did not agree with the decision Wang's family made to deceive her NaiNai. I felt this way because if I was sick with a terminal disease, I would want to live every last day to the fullest and spend as much time as possible with the people I love. However, I am not really sure how I feel about the decision now, because at the end of the podcast NaiNai was still alive long after she was predicted to. The podcast also revealed that NaiNai did the same thing to her husband by withholding medical information in hopes he would get better. If that was my grandmother, I would have a very hard time keeping that secret from her and would feel very guilty about it, although it may have been the best choice for her in the end. A few years ago, I had to tell a lie to my best friend, not because I wanted to, but it was the best choice for everyone. Her grandmom was very sick and passed away while she was away on vacation with me and my family. Her mom asked me to keep this from her for the rest of the week so she could have a good time and so her mom could break the news to her herself. I chose to do this because I knew her grandmom would not have wanted her to be upset and I needed to respect her families wishes. A few years before, when I was sleeping over her house, my friend did something very similar for me. I was sleeping over her house, and that night, my grandmom died. My mom had asked her to keep me off my phone and to keep me occupied so I wouldn't find out until I came home the next day and my parents told me. We both told these difficult lies for what I believe are good reasons, and in the end it was ultimately the right choice.
My Name is Margaret is a short story set in the 1960's about a housekeeper named Margaret. The woman she works for is very rude and disrespectful towards Margaret. Margaret eventually rebels and breaks Mrs. Cullinans china and leaves. In this blog post, I will share my thoughts on the story. Mrs. Cullinan refused to call Margaret by her real name and called her Mary instead. She claimed it was shorter and easier. Throughout the story you can tell this upsets Margaret because she says "imagine letting some white woman rename you for her convenience". Margaret's anger built up and she broke Mrs. Cullinan's most prized possessions. I do agree with the choice she made. This choice set her free of the job she so badly wanted to quit. We aren't told of the consequences in the story, but Margaret may have had some harsh punishments. These consequences may be woth it though because Margaret did get what she really wanted when Mrs. Cullinan says "Her name’s Margaret, goddam it, her name’s Margaret". She challenged Mrs. Cullinans racism and privilege and stood up for herself. |
On this blog I will be posting about myself and my views on the world for my English class. Archives
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