"We Wear the Mask"

I chose to reflect on the poem "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
First of all, this poem is referring to us, the general population, as the author uses the words "we" and "ours" throughout the entire poem. We are everywhere, anywhere that we go throughout our every day life. He is talking about the people that we encounter at the store, work, church, maybe even within our families. We are talking about every day life, at any given time. The author says that we wear a mask. This mask grins and lies for us. It hides what it beneath it. The mask is a cover for us so that we do not have to show what is beneath it. It hides our expressions, our features, and our true feelings. It can hide anything for us. And we use it, a lot, almost all of the time. When we had torn and bleeding hearts, the mask will smile for us. For vile humans with evil intentions, the mask will cover us and protect us so that nobody would know. Because our mask protects us from all of these things, we only want people to see us with our mask on.

This is meaningful because in my own personal interpretation, I see the mask as something we all do. When we are feeling sad we don't always wants people to know or to see us in that condition so it is much easier to just smile and go on about our day the best that we can. If you ask someone how they are in passing, you do not expect for someone to stop and say that they are not well, they are in fact so sad, and having a horrible day. No, most just reply with a simple "good" and move along. I believe the author is eluding to the fact that this is something we all do at times. We can do this for many different reasons, it is not always because we are sad.

"Poetry Makes Nothing Happen"

My first thought after reading the poem is that it is loaded. It is full of different stories that poetry had something to do with. There are many stories with different people involved. In the first 5 lines of the poem we hear about a man names Mike Holmquist who stays awake on his drive home by listening to the radio in his car, music I'm assuming, with is a form of poetry. This makes it possible for him to get home safely, it is what gets him through his drive home. Lines 5-10 tell us a story of a woman names May Quinn. Her husband must be sick, because he has many medications in their medicine cabinet. May Quinn I think is a woman who is sad, depressed, and has thoughts of hurting herself. She is home and in the bathroom when she thinks of taking her husbands medicine from the cabinet. Instead, she picks up a book and fell asleep reading it. It was a book of poetry, that she found refuge in that night. That night, the book stopped her from ending her life. Lines 10-15 tell us a story of Jenny Klein who was busy writing a paper on a Bishop poem one afternoon. She missed her ride because she hadn't finished. After finishing her paper, she was in a better state of mind than she had been before. When she arrived home she got news of a cancer diagnosis. She handled it much better than she would have, after writing the paper over a Bishop poem. Lines 15-20 tell us about a father who was at home with his little girl, Naomi Stella. They were in the living room together when the news gave report of troops dropping down in Afghanistan, war. Naomi's father quickly turned on a nursery rhyme for her, to distract her while he soaked in what was going on. Lines 20-30 then go on to name more people, Faith Chaney, Lulu Perez, Sunghee Chen, who I assume all have stories like those people named earlier in the poem. The author is saying that everyone says that poetry has done nothing for them, but in reality poetry is everywhere around us. At one point or another poetry has gotten us through something, or made a bad situation a little more manageable.

These things all matter because no matter how small it is, even so small that we don't notice, poetry has probably gotten us all through something in our life. Poetry comes in so many forms, nursery rhymes, music, books, religion, these are all examples. It means that maybe we should pay more attention to those little things around us, and realize that they do make our lives easier sometimes, and that maybe we can find refuge in things like that if we just realize that they are there and what they do for us.

week 6- A & P

 “What question (or questions) does the author want me to think about?” Questions are far more important in literature than concrete answers.

This story is a little harder for me to find many questions for. What I interpret of this story is that Sammy is a good, well-mannered boy, working at the grocery store of a small town. He still lives with his parents and seemingly has a good relationship with them (he mentions that his mom irons his shirt for him). Although the story is mainly about how three girls look in their bathing suits than anything else, I am focusing on Sammy and what his actions in the story say about him.

Possibly the author wants us to ask ourselves what the real reason is behind Sammy quitting his job right there on the spot. Which makes me think that Sammy is taking a stand for something that he believes in. When is it right to begin expressing what you believe in, or taking a stand for it? Which is what I believe happened here, Sammy took a stand. He didn't like the way that his manager spoke to the girls, who were unlike the rest of the "sheep" in the store. Was Sammy trying to say that he had had enough of this cookie-cutter lifestyle that everyone, including him to this point, was living? He saw the girls as black sheep in his world, and he admired them. He then took a stand against his manager for what he saw as wrong behavior on his manager's part. What would Sammy have done if his manager was not there? What would he have done if the girls would have ended up in Stokesie's line and not his? What is Sammy's life going to be like now that he quit? You can tell that he has an immediate feeling of guilt, but that he is someone to not finish what he started. Will he go on the rest of his life taking a stand for things he believes in? In which case, would this be considered a turning point in Sammy's life? Is this a deciding moment for Sammy, where he will make the choice of regretting his decisions, or standing by them and reinforcing his beliefs and reminding himself why he made the decision that he did. Really, this story makes me wonder what is next for Sammy.

week 6- boys and girls

 “What question (or questions) does the author want me to think about?” Questions are far more important in literature than concrete answers.

There was no real moral, or point to this story. It was not a story to teach you a lesson, or something to be learned from. In this story the author was just telling us how she grew up and the views she had throughout her childhood on being a girl. I think what the author wanted me to think about while reading this is my own childhood. Whether you're a boy or a girl, when you're little, it isn't so much about your gender as it about what is good and what is bad in the world. What do I genuinely like? When you're little, there is no judgement about what you like or don't like. It isn't until you begin getting older that people start expecting for you to act in a certain way. You are only then negatively judged if your actions do not coincide with what is expected of your gender (for her generation). I think she wanted us to think about the way that kids are raised. What expectations do we have right from the get-go when we find out that a baby is a girl or boy? Do we set ourselves up for failure when we create these expectations in our minds? How would we feel as a parent or sibling if that baby did not grow up to meet those expectations? If we pressure them enough, will they change? What does she think of me if we are both girls, but I have chosen to life my life a little bit more traditionally than she? Does my daughter think highly of me or does she think that my purpose is unimportant or less than that of her father?

Those are all things that I think could cross a person's mind while reading this story. If you are trying to think of things in different characters point of view, you could come up with many many more questions to ask yourself. As a little boy, how did Laird see his sister when she was still stronger than him, and how does he see her now that he is bigger, and stronger as his mother said that he one day would be? 

When there is no moral to the story, no lesson to be learned, just a glimpse of some memories from the childhood of a person, I feel like there is a wide range of ideas to be taken from the story. Whereas if it were a fairy-tale, there would be a moral, a single lesson that you should have learned by reading it. Not this story, from this story you can walk away with many questions to think about.

The Birthmark

In this story, Aylmer is a successful scientist, portrayed as a very smart man. He take some time off in order to get married to Georgiana. Georgiana is beutiful to Aylmer, all except for the birthmark on her cheek. I immediately dislike Aylmer because being the intelligent man that he is, he should know better than to insult Georgiana by asking questions that reference her getting her birthmark removed. If it was a big enough deal to him, he should have dealt with it before they got married. When he makes these remarks it makes Georgiana feel as though she is not loved by him. Many people admire Georgiana's unique birthmark (it is in the shape of a hand). Aylmer eventually gets to the point where the birthmark consumes him, and represents more than just a mark on her face. For him he sees the birthmark as a sin and even a sign of weakness (mortality, which is something that Aylmer despises, as he later dedicates his work to finding a potion that could make him immortal). It consumes Aylmer to the point of him dreaming of killing Georgiana even after he removes the mark from her face with a knife. Georgiana gives in and agrees to wanting her birthmark erased from her face and Aylmer is delighted at this. When Georgiana comes to Aylmers laboratory, she faints. Even Aylmers assistant states that he would not remove the birthmark if he was in Aylmers position. After Aylmer has been back at his work for a while, and has shared many ideas with Georgiana about potions he could create, and idea that he has, she realizes that she feels funny. Aylmer has been adding something to her food, or she thinks he may have put something in the air that she is breathing. One day she reads his journals, realizing that he never actually accomplishes exactly what he set out to do. She cries. Aylmer comforts her, but he is angry with her. He carries this anger with him and when Georgiana comes to visit him in the laboratory he explodes again, telling her to quit prying in his experiments. He has brainwashed Georgiana. He comes to her with a potion and shows her that it can clear spots, so she drinks it. As she sleeps, the birthmark disappears. When Georgiana awakes she tells Aylmer that he has rejected the best that the earth could offer, and then she dies, just as the flower had died earlier.

There is a lot of symbolism in this story, with the birthmark, and all of Aylmers creations. His creation of the flower is what stands out in my mind. It grew so extremely fast, and died just as quickly. This story goes to show that we should really value earthly things, and stop trying to make everything bigger and better and just appreciate things the way that they are.

The Thing in the Forest

This story reminds me of a fairy tale. There are many direct references in the story to a fairy tales most of us have read in the past such as Hansel and Gretel. Of course this fairy tale is a little bit darker than most that we know from our childhood. Penny and Primrose meet while being swept away from their homes to safety. They became orphans together along with another little girl named Alys. When Primrose and Penny decide to take a trip in to the forest, they leave Alys behind. Now we have to decide whether we choose to believe that the girls did indeed see the monster that they claim to have seen, or if they made up this game in their minds? I believe that they did see this worm-like monster, who they deem is the reason for the disappearance of Alys. They never speak to anyone of this, but they carry it with them for the rest of their lives, and they end up choosing careers that keep them devoted to helping children.
Now, when Penny and Primrose meet up again by chance later in life, Penny (now a psychologist) states that she has never questioned whether she really saw the monster or not after Primrose posed the question. They decided that the monster was real, as children, but not to tell anyone for fear of their disbelief. As adults, they make the same decision, as they sit in silence, soon to part again.

I really liked this story, it was interesting, it never got boring to me. Byatt's story contains many allusions. She references so many things from past literatures if you just take a second to look for the references after you realize that they are there, which I did not at first.

Week 4- A pair of two tickets

This story was of an amazing woman, who did everything that she could to save her life and the life of her twin daughters while fleeing for safety only to find she had been made a widow two weeks before she arrived to where her husband had been stationed. It is also a story of a young woman, who is trying to find answers about her mother and lost twin sisters that she wishes she would have asked before her mother had passed away. She has wondered for a long time what her mother's true feelings towards her were, whether she wished she was her sisters. She has also always wondered what her mother meant by telling her that she Chinese is in her blood, and there is no way to escape it.


This was such a complicated situation. To go to China for the first time, arranged by her aunt Lindo, to meet many relatives she has never seen and to meet her lost twin sisters, this must have been a confusing mix of feelings. I can't imagine being in her shoes, having the pressure of telling her sisters what had happened to their late mother, a woman that they were planning on meeting.


When June May arrives in Guangzhou, some familiar details she find are the amenities of the hotel. One thing she finds that makes her realize she is not in America is the shampoo she finds in the bathroom. She is constantly making comparisons between America and China because I think in a way she is making comparisons between herself and being Chinese and trying to find her differences and similarities.

Week 4- Interpreter of Maladies

In this story, I feel as though I am reading about 3 separate lives. The life of Mr. Kapasi, the life of Mr. Das and the kids, and the life of Mrs. Das. The life of Mr. Das and the kids is, in a way, separate from Mrs. Das' life on her own. Yes, she is physically there, sometimes, when she is not isolating herself in that way, but she is mentally absent. She is self-absorbed and does not show her love (if she has any) for her husband or for her children. I believe that this self-absorbed isolation began after her affair with Mr. Das' friend that stayed with them for a week while he was interviewing. The affair lead to the birth of Bobby. Neither Boddy nor Mr. Das is aware of the affair, or of the fact that they are not biologically related. Mrs. Das has kept this a secret and plans to keep it a secret from her family. For this reason, I look down so much on Mrs. Das' character. She is dishonest, unloving, selfish, and lost. She is a very unhappy person who cannot see past her own dismay in order to realize what is in front of her. She has a devoted husband, 3 children whom love her, especially her daughter, Tina.
I want to cover the questions at the end of the story from the book:
1.I think Mr. Kapasi sees them as foreign in the way that they dress, they belongings they carry, and in the way that they relate to each other. Although he is used to foreigners, he says that there is something different about them, in particular, Mrs. Das. He entertains the idea of building a relationship with Mrs. Das because of her expressions of interest in his semmingly uninteresting and underwhelming life. Although he is flattered by her interest in him, he cannot move past her infidelity and how selfish she is.
2. Mr. Kapasi's encounter with the Das family may alter his sense of being Indian because although they appear Indian in their physical features (minus the way that they dress), nothing else about them resembles what he finds as important about his culture. You know this because of the places he takes them (religious shrines). He knows much about them and admire the fact that they find these things as interesting as he does. But after getting to know the Das family, Mr. Kapasi probably thinks more highly of himself.
3. The thematic significance of Mrs. Das' revelation to Mr. Kapasi is that things may seem shiny and beautiful on the outside, but once you learn about their foundation, their upbringing, their story, you might not find those things so appealing. It is human nature to be attracted to things that we find attractive.