Informal Response to Departure from Winesburg, Ohio-- Megan Beers

        

Essentially Departure is about the end of of George Willard's life in Winesburg, and it touches on the important lessons that he took from each character within the book. He been awake since two pondering about his journey to the city, George Willard arose at four and prepared for his departure from Winesburg. George took his bags and walked the streets of Winesburg under the sunrise (sunrise=hope). He walked to Trunion Pike, where he had walked numerous time when he was young, the land was now flat and green (green=growth) As he headed back into town many of the street clerks asks him how he feels to be leaving. The train to Cleveland, where it connects to either Chicago or New York departed at seven forty-five so George leaves the New Willard House at seven for the station. Tom Willard, now shorter than his son, carries George's bag. On the platform numerous townsfolk, even his boss Will Henderson and Gertrude Wilmot who had never paid attention to George, wished him good luck, awoke early enough to shake his hand and to express their hope for George before he leaves.  When the train arrives George hops on quickly feeling relieved. 

 Departure begins in the midst of spring with the field green and showing growth. Anderson’s seasonal symbolism of this story is used to show a renewal and rebirth. George’s departure for the big city is a time of rebirth as he will start fresh, in his role as a man. George becomes in this short tale the archetypal young man setting out to make it in the city; appropriately, the city is not named. As George leaves his home town behind, he dreams a little about what his future life will be, then awakens to realize that "the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood."(252)

           Before his departure, many townspeople come to shake George’s hand. Throughout the novel “hands” being a major symbol that denotes a pledge of faith, sincerity and justice and it is symbolic of support and strength. “On the station platform everyone shook the young man’s hand.” (251) Many of the characters that showed up at the platform, have touched George somehow and helped to create his dream(Wing Biddlebaum) of leaving and creating a new life for himself. Although this seems kind of ironic because after he boards the train he chooses to forget his life in Winesburg and move on with his new life. 

 

             This is a rather hopeful ending for a text that has not been very optimistic. George is off to make his fortune in the world, but he can only do so alone and by saying goodbye to all his human connections. He is impatient with the people there to see him off, because this is his adventure, not theirs. In this story George is a metaphor for everyone's lives; we are all alone on the train of life, and any connection we make with others is destined to be short-lived.

Analyzing Adventure from Winesburg, Ohio

        The story Adventure in Winesburg, Ohio is an evaluation on how people cope with reality. The story is about Alice Hindman, a 27 year old drug store clerk who still lives her mother. When she was 16 she was the lover of a young man named Ned Currie, who leaves for a job in Cleveland and never returns to Winesburg. The night before he leaves Ned makes Alice his "lover" in a field, and from that night on, for ten years Alice stays faithful to him. Now ten years older Alice still can't imagine marrying anyone else. Still she feels a desperate urge to feel loved, so one when she comes home from work on a rainy night and while getting undressed a strange urge comes over her and she runs out into the rain, naked, and accosts an old man who is passing on the sidewalk. Suddenly she is ashamed and runs back inside and and accepts "bravely the fact that many people must live and die alone." In the chapter Adventure in Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson characterizes Alice as an isolated woman to portray the lonely, frustrated people not just in Winesburg but throughout the world.

            Throughout the book Winesburg, Ohio Anderson the unhappiness of women, married and unmarried, is a reoccurring theme within the novel, but unlike the other women Alice’s unhappiness stems from her solitude. Many of the elements contribute to the readers idea of her isolation: her widowed mother remarried, her employer being a reserved old man, the drugstore clerk who walks her home never stays and sits on her porch as she wishes, and the old man who she confronts naked it half deaf. The old man in the street being half deaf represents her frustration and lack of support, she cries for help but he can’t hear it and doesn’t respond. Alice is limited by life denying truths and guilty of allowing them to run her life.  Alice's blindness to the changing social customs limits her capacity to progress forward in life. She becomes consumed by the idea of herself and her memories. Alice is also a contributor to her own isolation because she is consumed by her image and never pulls away and creates something new for herself.

            The extremity of Alice’s emotions leads to her downfall, her tendency to limit her own abilities by her fixed habits and unmovable convictions also isolates Alice from her community. Symbolic of her self consumption, as she ages her head grows too big for her body. She denies herself the reality of life by thinning her experience to a dream world. She refuses to meld the dream world with the real world which takes the value away from experiencing life beyond her time with Ned. Alice has one vision of love and refuses to let it go. Anderson is trying to exemplify Alice’s extremity to show that all humans want to love and be in love. The challenge though, shown in Adventure, is differentiating the difference between lust and love.

Analyzing Hairball eww Megan Beers period 3

       
This week in class we continued our short story boot camp assignments and gave presentations on them, I was very interested in reading Margaret Atwood's short story, Hairball. The main character of this story is, Kat, a contemporary woman in her thirties who undergoes a loss of identity. Kat has the qualities to become an independent person but focuses more altering her image to suit wants and trends of society. The story begins when Kat has an unusual ovarian tumor (containing teeth, hair, and bones) surgically removed; she names it "hairball" and places is on her mantelpiece to show it off. Throughout the story Atwood gives hairball humanistic traits to reflect Kat true identity. Atwood also uses a feministic point of view to describe Kat's past and the life outside of the "hairball."

One of the major themes in this story is search for identity, and I believe that Kat’s “hairball” is supposed contain the identity that Kat wants to show to the world. Once the hairball is removed the doctor notices that it has hair, bones, and teeth; which leads the reader to believe it could have been some sort of human formation. Later in the story it is revealed that Kat has had many abortions, which lead me to believe that the cyst was a malformed baby, which is the stressor for Kat’s obsession with hairball. The way the narrator describes hairball, resembles the way the she explains Kat’s background. Unique is the common term between the two of them, but when Kat explains to people her surgery she exaggerates about the qualities of “hairball.” It’s almost like Kat is starting to live her life through how people view her and her cyst. One of her main struggles is finding a voice for herself instead of trying to impress society. An interesting piece of information that I found was that Atwood originally named this story Kat but then changed it to Hairball. This is important because it shows the versatility of the references, meaning that they are interchangeable because of the traits each one has.

This story also has a very feminist vibe to it. The feminist critique highlights the relationships between men and woman in a working situation, and how the writer conveys the female experience instead of focusing on the male perception. Atwood uses this style critique throughout the whole story. The relationship between Ger and Kat is definitely a great example of how this critique is used. Ger only wants Kat to prove to society that is has edge. Their relationship throughout the story doesn’t really have any complexity to it, obviously its only an “business” affair but the way that Kat describes it, it almost seems that she wants more; she wants to conform to society almost in way. Atwood also emphasizes feminism by having the story told from Kat’s point of view. She expresses the female want and drive and shows there is complexity to females than the male literary world allows to be seen.

Megan Beers Blog #3 Period 3 Clinch

            On Friday in AP literature our class started our short story bootcamp unit. We were put into groups and assigned a story and become experts on. Right now my group is working on the short story Fiesta, by Junot Diaz. This story revolves around a latino family who immagrated to the United States from the Dominacn Republic. This story is told from the point of veiw of the youngest son, Junior, who yearns for his abusive father's affection and is conflicted with his unclear idendentity. Junior is also faced with burden of keeping his father's secret about his mistress. Throughout the novel Diaz uses element of the Latino culture to show the true identity of Junoir and his family.
            One of the major parts of the Latino culture used in the story is the spanish dailect. During the "fiesta" many of Junior's relatives call him "Yunior" which emphasizes the soft "j" sound in certain Spanish dialects; and Junior regularly inserts Spanish words and phrases within his dialect. By iserting these words, Diaz is trying emphasize the family's love toward their heirtage and the pride that they have towards using these words in their everyday speech. I believe the lannguage is also used to convey the sheer size of the father's affair. In the story they refer to his mistress as "sucia" which translates to "dirty female." This term definately reveals Juniors feelings toward his father's unfaithful actions. The woman has no other identity, and by associtation Junior's father is also tainted. Overall throughout the story the conotation of the words said about the father is negative and dirty, and Diaz uses the Spanish words to emphasize the how the father's actions affects the family.
             Throughout the story Diaz uses gestures to emphasize the emotional significance within certain events. one of the main gestures displayed is, Juniors vomiting spells in his father's van. In the story the reader is told that Junior only throws up in his father's van, which alerts the reader that there is a deeper meaning into the vomiting. Later we are also told that Junior first met his father's mistress after a trip in the van. This explains his how his illness is linked to an emotional factor. Everytime he enters the van he associates the van with his father infidelity. He attempts to hide and keep in the truth which cause him to reject whatever he can. This can be a form of catharsis, which means "The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions." Instead of releasing his emotions about his father's affair, junior chooses to hold it in and releases his meals instead of the truth.
            One of the major themes throughout this short story is search for identity. A key element to the story is Junior's want for affection from his father. Junior is named after is father which shows a clear connection between the two of them. Junior recieves the most punishment out of all the kids, from the father, which also leads to his yearning for affection from him.