Deciding whether or not Faulkner was racially prejudice based on his writings is quite difficult. In his short stories, he uses derogatory slang in reference to blacks, and he portrays all blacks as superstitious, irrational, and less-than-educated. It would seem that Faulkner is obviously racist because he portrays all blacks this way and uses the “N” word freely, but at the same time, that was just the way they talked back then. I don’t know that you can read a few of Faulkner’s stories, as we have, and conclude that he is racist. I do think he’s racist, but not of his own volition. I think he’s racist because his parents taught him to be and because all white people in the south were.

The short story, “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, is riddled with complications and conflicts. One of the more obvious conflicts is the one is about the taxes in Jefferson.

            In the story, Miss Emily is convinced that her father had loaned money to the town, and the town’s way of repaying that money was to not tax her family. When the new generation became the mayors and aldermen, “this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction.” They mailed her tax notices and letters from the sheriff and the mayor asked her to call or come by to discuss the matter. She replied that she no longer went out; so they went to her. When they visited, she stated, “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves.” They stated that they had, and that they were the city authorities. Miss Emily confessed that she had received a paper from the sheriff and that she has no taxes in Jefferson. The councilmen contested that there was not anything on the books to show that she didn’t need to pay taxes. She promptly told them to see Colonel Sartoris, and that she did not have taxes in Jefferson. The complication was that Colonel Sartoris was dead.

            The climax is when, after the funeral, they open the upstairs room that hasn’t been opened in a long time and find the body of Miss Emily’s lover, Homer Barron, dead and rotting in the bed with Miss Emily’s gray hair beside him. The story resolves with Miss Emily’s death and burial.

1.  What else do you think Hemmingway may be saying through the setting in this story? I think that he's telling us that Nick is alone. He isn't in a relationship, and perhaps he just got out of one judging by the extremity of his isolation. Maybe he's trying to be far away from a particular thing or person.

2.  Why does he use the contrasting setting of the burned out area with the lush, green setting?
To show a contrast between where Nick came from (the burned out setting) and where he's going (the lush green setting).

3.  What does Nick's traveling through the burned out area to the lush green area symbolize?
It symbolizes that he's moving from a bad time or experience in his life to a new, better place or a fresh start.

4.  What does the swamp area symbolize? I think the swamp area symbolizes maybe a relationship in that it is hard to get out of and can completely engulf you and you are almost blind when you are in it because of the tree branches.

5.  When does Nick, if ever, plan to go to the swamp? Maybe tomorrow, but maybe next week or next month or year...just...later. Not now.

Earnest Hemmingway utilizes setting to its full potential. He uses dialog sparingly, and only with short, concise tags. He simply tells you who is speaking. There is no outright explanation of how they say it or what they mean. He gives the reader something to do and I like that--most of the time.  Occasionally I enjoy a book that is simple and tells me what is happening and why, but for the most part, I like to feel that I have accomplished something in reading a story. If I had read the entire Nick Adams collection, I would probably enjoy it more. However, I have only read three of them and so, do not feel aquainted enough with them to give an educated opinion on them. I liked the stories I read well enough with the assumption that they fit into a much grander tale, but taking each story for what it is, I'd say it's a waste of time to read. Without the other stories, there is no background information telling you who Nick is, what's going on with him, or, frankly, why he exists in print.

"The End of Something" shows when Nick breaks up with Marjorie after a long time of being together. "The Three Day Blow" shows when Nick went to see his friend, Bill, and they get drunk and talk about relationships. Bill talks about how it was good that Nick took his advice and broke up with Marjorie. Nick is not so sure. He misses her and misses the relationship. "Big Two Hearted River" shows Nick in complete solitude from the outside world. He has gone camping to fish for trout. He leaves the confusing world with it's relationships--girls and friends--and heartbreak to be on his own. To not depend on anyone but himself. To rediscover truth in solid, unchanging nature that has no opinions or judgments on him. To find peace.

Five short stories—“The Lady or the Tiger,” by Frank R. Stockton, “A Haunted House,”b by Virginia Woolf, “The Chrysanthemums,” by John Steinbeck, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” by Katherine Anne Porter, and “The Chaser,” by John Collier—all present different male/female relationships in different lights: happy, loving, devoted, dysfunctional, and skewed. We will dive into the relationships in these stories and examine their fundamental natures.

    In the course of our lives, perhaps the most influential and life-shaping relationship between a male and female is that of a father and a daughter. In “The Lady or The Tiger,” by Frank R. Stockton, it is stated that a father, the King, loved his daughter, the Princess, “above all humanity,” and that she “was the apple of his eye.” However, the events in the story suggest otherwise. In the story, when the Princess is discovered to have a lover, the lover is immediately cast into prison. The prisoner loved the Princess, and she him, and “neither he, she, nor anyone else, thought of denying the fact.” It seems to me that a loving father would recognize that his daughter was happy with this young man, and would let them be married. But, the King “would not think of allowing any fact of this kind to interfere with the workings of the tribunal” because he “took such delight and satisfaction” in his court—more, perhaps, than he would in seeing his daughter happy. So, the father in this story was way more concerned with his work than the happiness of his daughter, and he loved his tribunal more than his own flesh and blood. Perhaps this is where the Princess learned how to love. (If you have read “The Lady or the Tiger” you should know what I’m talking about).

      A different kind of love, and probably the most satisfying, is between a husband and a wife. In Virginia Woolf’s “A Haunted House,” it speaks of a ghostly couple with a tender and reminiscent love. In the very beginning of the story it is stated that the ghostly couple walked “from room to room…hand in hand.” To me, this suggests right off the bat that this eerie pair is not eerie at all, but a tender, loving couple that show their devotion to each other. In fact, they were so devoted that after the woman had died, “he left [the house], left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky” because he could not bear to live in that house without her. But, after he died, he “sought the house and found it,” and found her—his wife. (“Again you found me. Here.”) This couple could not live one without the other, but once they were reunited in death, they would live forever with their joy and treasure—“the light in the heart.”

      “The Chrysanthemums,” by John Steinbeck shows Henry and Elisa Allen who also have a loving marriage. Henry is very in-tune with his wife, and Elisa still goes through the trouble to impress her husband after many years. There are several examples in the story that show how aware of Elisa and her talents, thoughts, moods, likes, and dislikes Henry is. After Elisa’s experience with the tinker, she feels stronger than she did before and Henry noticed that. He could sense that she was a bit out of character.”…you look different, strong and happy.” And then later, when she goes back to normal, he says, “Now you’re changed again.” And then somehow, to show her that he likes her that way, “he took one hand from the wheel and patted her knee.” Elisa “put on her newest underclothing and her nicest stockings and the dress which was the symbol of her prettiness” to show her husband her love for him. “She worked carefully on her hair, penciled her eyebrows and rouged her lips” just to look nice for him. One thing I thought was interesting was when she “went to the porch” after Henry came in and “sat primly down.” I thought this was of significance because we learn earlier in the story that she wears men’s clothing, clodhopper shoes, and heavy leather gloves most of the time, and she works in the garden all day and gets dirty, but for her husband, she will “sit primly” like a lady. In the end, Henry and Elisa may not have the most exciting marriage, but it is firm and caring.

    “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter speaks of a relationship of devotion and endurance between Ellen and John. Although Ellen (Granny) was bitter about her jilting from George, she loved her husband, John, very much. As Granny lay in her death bed, she decides she wants to see George again so she can tell him that she had “a good husband that [she] loved.” She also states, in reference to the jilting, that she “found another a whole world better [than George],” and that “[She] wouldn’t have exchanged [her] husband for anybody except St. Michael himself…” And after many years without John, she still refers to herself as a “married woman.” But what I liked most was when she talked about John’s picture on her dresser: “John’s picture… [shows] John’s eyes very black when they should have been blue.” What was fascinating was that with Granny being senile, and not even being able to remember that her youngest child died, she does remember that her true love had blue eyes. With Granny being a woman so hardened by hardship, one can tell that she always had a soft spot in her heart for John.

     In John Collier’s, “The Chaser,” Alan Austen believes that women should be so obsessed with their men that they have no time for anything else in life and that the woman he likes should be like this, even if it requires permanent alterations. The old man in the story who is selling Alan his love potion says that “[Diana] will want to be everything to you,” and that “she will care intensely. You will be her sole interest in life.” To this, Alan replies with, “wonderful!”  And when the old man warns Alan that “she will want to know all you do, all that has happened during the day. Every word of it,” and that she “will want to know what you are thinking about, why you smile suddenly, why you are looking sad,” Alan cried, “That is love!” The old man knew that that was not love, and so do we, but Alan is too naïve, and too excited that the potion only costs a dollar to realize the potential unhappiness there. But, what most bothers me is when the old man says, “However gay and giddy she is, she will change altogether. She will want nothing but solitude, and you,” that Alan thinks that it’s okay to completely alter a woman’s personality if it makes her want him more or if it will make him happier. In conclusion, I would hate to be Diana.

    After examining these five short stories, I have learned that these five relationships are, in many ways, similar, but at the same time, they all tell their own, individual stories with their own thoughts, and feelings. Each couple has their own ways to display their love or disinterest—just like real relationships. Each relationship, although similar in that they’re between a husband and wife or father and daughter, etc…, is unique because the only thing that can ultimately define a relationship are the people who are in it.

    "The Chrysanthemums," by John Steinbeck, is about a thirty-five yea-old woman that is pining for attention and something different in her life--something new and exciting apart from her farm wife life. She is working in her garden when her husband comes and says that he can sell his steers and so, to celebrate, he's taking her out for a night on the town. He jokes that he will take her to the fights, but he know she wouldn't like that. The story then turns back to this woman with “planting hands” and it describes how she goes about growing her famous chrysanthemums with the 10-inch blooms. Then she sees a wagon coming up from the road and it stops at her gate. She gets up and talks to the man and he wants her to let him fix things. She is opposed at first, and then he talks about her flowers and she changes her mind and lets him fix her pot because they connected. She comments on how she would like to travel and fix things like him. He says a woman couldn’t do it and that it just wasn’t the life for a woman. She thinks she is strong. He lies to her and tells her that a lady down the road wants some chrysanthemums and so she gives him some of her shoots in a planting pot and he leaves. She gets ready to go out that night, and as they drive down the road, she sees her shoots and the sand they were in on the side of the road. She asks her husband about the fights and whether or not women ever go. She talks about the blood involved, then decides she wouldn’t like the fights.
     I’m not quite sure what I think about this story. It was kind of interesting to read—especially the part when the man in the wagon came and started talking because I thought there could possibly be some conflict, but then there wasn’t really. It wasn’t until upon further contemplation that I grasped what Steinbeck was trying to convey, but I still don’t see the point of writing this story, and I don’t see the point in conveying what Steinbeck conveyed.

Fairness

 

As I read the short stories, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, and, “The Lady or the Tiger” by Frank R. Stockton, I was immediately reminded of the principle of fairness, and that’s what the topic of this paper is.

In Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery,” the villagers view the lottery as a fair way to eliminate people from their society. They see it as fair because that’s the way it has always been and because of the randomness of the selection process. However, how is the idea that you don’t get to choose your own destiny fair? We, as a society, don’t realize that we carry on foolish, unfair, and wrong traditions simply because we have always done them.

In Frank R. Stockton’s, “The Lady or the Tiger,” the narrator explains the “fairness” of the king’s court. He tells us that it’s fair because the one on “trial” has his destiny in his own hands because he gets to choose whichever door he wants, and so, by his choosing either the good door or the bad door, he is displaying either his innocence or guilt. There are a couple things wrong with this system, however. The first thing wrong that I see is the fact that even though the one on trial can choose the door he wants, he doesn’t know what is behind either door, so he isn’t making an informed choice, and so, not a choice at all. This isn’t fair because he isn’t even given the opportunity to be informed to make the best choice. The second thing wrong is that, regardless of which door the accused chooses, it could still be imminent doom. For our purposes, let’s say that a married man was in the arena. If he chooses the door the tiger is behind, he gets eaten. If he chooses the door the lady is behind, he gets married—but he already has a wife and family of his own. What if he doesn’t like the maid behind the door? Is not marrying her a punishment in and of itself? What I’m trying to say is that choosing a “reward” for the accused may not be a reward at all! It may, in fact, be worse than death by tiger.

In conclusion, the ideas of fairness presented in these two stories are so askew that they make the reader choke in disgust, but at the same time are so comparable to ideas in our own society that it frightens me to think of the things we do to retain power or keep tradition alive as in “The Lottery,” or our twisted political ideals of fairness or the way things should be run as in “The Lady or the Tiger.”