Tuesday, November 23, 2010

O'Connor, Olson, and Giovanni Blog

Flannery O’Connor

I remember reading some of Flannery O’Connor’s work before, but I had never read this story. I found “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” to be very dark and depressing. I think the one thing that makes this story so bad is that the grandmother knew they were going to run into the Misfit and she wanted to change the plans for the trip. Her son, Bailey, was too stubborn to change his plans and the grandchildren were too rude to think of going anywhere else for vacation. The mother was not about to say anything to her husband about making different plans because she did not want to start a fight. John Wesley had a good idea when he told his grandmother to stay at home, but everyone knew she would never do this. She tried so hard to get everyone to go to Tennessee instead of Florida, but she never got her way. I felt a little bad for her when she realized that the place she was telling the family about was not in the state that they were in. She had to feel so guilty when the car rolled and they had no way to get anywhere. She also must have felt pretty guilty when she realized that they had run into the Misfit and were probably not going to make it. I thought it was very brave of the grandmother to try to talk the killer out of killing her family. She tried to let him know that he really was not a bad guy but I think that all of her talking hurt the family more than it helped. I was surprised by how long the Misfit let the grandmother live. I guess he wanted her to feel guilty for talking so much and let her know that she was, more than likely, the cause of everyone’s death. I definitely did not see this story going where it did and I was really surprised when everyone was killed.

Tillie Olson

To me, the story “I Stand Here Ironing” is really sad. Emily’s mother is speaking to someone about Emily and she goes on and on about how she never showed Emily the love that she deserved. Her mother was young when she had her and her father left. Emily’s mother had to get many different jobs to make ends meet and she did not get to spend very much time with her daughter for quite a few years. She even had to send Emily to stay with her father’s family and had a really hard time getting her back. When her mother had another baby, Emily was sent away to, what seemed to me, a private school. She could only see her mother when the school would allow it. I felt bad for Emily that she had to stay in such a horrible place. They would not even let her keep the letters her family sent her for some kind of comfort. Someone is talking to Emily’s mother throughout the story and this person seems to want to take Emily with them. Her mother talks about her other children and about how Emily’s sister seemed to have everything Emily wanted. Finally, Emily made something of herself. I felt bad for Emily that she was never truly shown the kind of love that most mothers have for their children. Since her mother was a single parent, I think that she thought that she had no time to show Emily that love. I also think that there is time to show a child love, you just have to either find the time or make it.

Nikki Giovanni

Nikki-Rosa has to be a poem about Nikki Giovanni’s life. She talks about all of the struggles she and her family faced as she grew up. She mentions not having a toilet or a bathtub. She also mentions her family having to sell everything just so she and her sister could “have happy birthdays and very good Christmases.” I like how she ends the poem by saying that nobody would understand but she was happy. I’m Not Lonely is talking about not being lonely after someone important has left you. I think that she is lonely but she does not want to admit it and let the other person be right. She just wants to talk about how happy she is now that this person is gone. I find Poem for Black Boys to be very sad. Giovanni is talking about a lot of the events that many black people had to go through in their life. But she is not talking about them in an informative way. She is telling these things to boys like they are new games that these boys should try to play. I think that this poem show how hard it was for the black people to get all of the other people to take what they were doing seriously. I find it appalling that all of their struggles and pain can just be seen as fun and games.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

The Help Kathryn Stockett

I cannot say that I truly had just one favorite character. The three main women, Minny, Aibileen, and Miss Skeeter, were all favorites of mine. I liked Minny because she reminds me a lot of my grandmothers. She is storng and tries to be strong for everyone, but you can tell she is just trying to hide the fear she has deep inside. She wants to make sure everyone is alright and she takes care of herself last. She let Skeeter put the story in the book about the pie so she could protect the rest of the maids who had put their stories in the book. She also takes extremely good care of not only her own family, but also the people she works for. She will put up with a lot but you know when she has had enough. Both of my grandmothers are exactly like this. They are strong and very caring. They always put themselves after their families and they are both very protective. I liked Aibileen because she was like a mother figure to everyone. She cared about the people that she should probably not care a lot about to begin with. I loved how she would tell Mae Mobley everyday that she was kind, smart, and important. This was something she would have never heard from her own mother and I think that is just downright sad. I liked Skeeter because she was so brave. She stood up for what she thought was right and she would not let anyone change her mind. I liked how she took the risk of writing the book knowing she could be in a lot of trouble if it came out she was the author. She did not even care; she just did not want the people who had helped her to get into any trouble. All of these women were brave, kind, and strong and that is what ultimately made them my favorites.

I think that Skeeter’s mother is a little more sympathetic near the end of the novel than she was in the beginning. All she could do in the beginning was criticize Skeeter and tell her what she needed to fix instead of what made her beautiful. I do not think I could have ever lived with that woman because it seems to me like nothing I did would ever be good enough. Towards the end of the story, when she started criticizing Hilly, I thought she was a little more sympathetic toward Skeeter. For once she was not commenting on something Skeeter was wearing or the way her hair was fixed, she was doing to someone else instead. She also did not seem to criticize her as much when she was with Stuart.

It bothered me a lot that Skeeter was willing to overlook Stuart’s faults so she could get married. I do not think she was truly in love with him; she just wanted to marry him to make her mother happy. All her mother could talk about was her meeting a guy and getting married. I could not believe the way Stuart treated her on their first date. I understand that he was not ready to date yet, but I think the way he acted was foolish. I know if a guy were to treat me like that on a date, I would never go out with him again. I also did not think it was fair that she had to overlook the way he treated her, but he could not overlook the book. She was open and honest with him, and the truth about the book would probably have never gotten out in town because Hilly did not want it to.

I think that Mae Mobley would not have grown up to be racist had Aibileen stayed. Aibileen was teaching her that black and white people were the same and I believe that Mae mobley understood that. She was young when she was taught that, but I have always been told that you should teach children when they are young. She loved Aibileen, and I think she would have known it would hurt Aibileen if she turned out like her mother. I liked how Mae Mobley also tried to teach her brother the thing Aibileen taught her. I also thought it was very brave of Mae Mobley to cover for Aibileen and blame it on her teacher. This showed how much love Mae Mobley had for Aibileen.

I thought that what Minny did to Hilly’s pie was hilarious. I t was nasty but I laughed when I read that. I think the thing that made it funniest for me was the fact that Minny practically warned Hilly the day before. I also thought it was funny that Hilly’s mother won the pie for Hilly at the Benefit. I know that I would have never gone as far a Minny did though. I would have never been brave enough to do anything like that. I was shocked that she even did that. She was already known around town for stealing. If this pie incident happened to get out, she would have never been able to get another job anywhere.

When I first saw this book and how long it was, I thought I would hate having to read this book. Reading is definitely not one of my favorite things to do unless I find a book I like. The Help has now officially been added to my list of books I enjoy reading. I was dreading reading this novel, but once I started reading; I did not want to stop. The ending was a little disappointing to me though. I am really hoping that Kathryn Stockett decides to write another book telling what happens to everyone after this book ended. I want to know if Minny got back at her husband and finally moved on, or if Skeeter did well in New York, or if Aibileen got another job or just retired!