Journal 6 - A&P

In the story "A & P", written by John Updike, the focus is on Sammy, a sales clerk at the local grocery store, and how he gives up his entire salary and current life to stand up for three young girls. The thought that Sammy is only standing up for the girls is because they are attractive and Sammy wanted these girls to hear him stand up for them. After the manager embarasses the girls very publicly about how "we want you decently dressed when you come in here", Sammy very loudly proclaims that he quits, but not quite loudly enough for the girls, who are leaving the store, to hear him (The Norton Introduction To Literature, 152). At this point, Sammy realizes that he gave up a good job, salary, and possibly his parent's pride, to impress a few girls.

The way that the writer has the narrator point out when things take a turn for the worst helps to move the story along. By using this style the writer makes it possible to skip over watching the girls walk around the store some more and get to the guts of the story. Also, the description of the girls, "sort of oaky hair...done up in a bun that was unracelling...a kind of prim face" gave the readers a wonderful picture of what the girls look like (150).

Updike, John. “A & P”. The Norton Introduction To Literature. 10^th ed. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 149-154. Print.

Journal 5 - Everything That Rises Must Converge

                In the story “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor, the use of symbols is amazing. Throughout the story, Julian is trying to get his racist mother to see the error of her ways and to simply understand that there was nothing wrong with the black people of this world. Julian took his mother to her reducing class every Wednesday night because “she would not ride the buses by herself at night since they had been integrated” (The Norton Introduction To Literature, 520).

This night was different though, Julian was extremely testy and couldn’t tolerate the way his mother talked about the colored people and the pride that he should have for being the grandson of a former slave owner.  Julian’s mother was dressed and ready to go, putting the final touch on the outfit by putting on a hideous purple and green hat, and off they were to the bus stop. Once on the bus, Julian’s mother couldn’t help herself but talk to all the other passengers about how nice it was that “we have the bus to ourselves” (523).

After a few moments, a well-dressed black man stepped on the bus and Julian went to sit with him, but couldn’t seem to get the man to start conversation. A few moments later a large black woman and her young son got on the bus. The woman, gaily dressed, and wearing a hideous purple and green hat, sat beside Julian and her son beside Julian’s mother. The hat, which looked much better on the black woman, showed just how much his mother and black folk were alike. Julian laughed at the thought of his mother seeing that, “the women, in a sense, swapped sons” (526). A hat which cost the same amount as Julian and his mother’s gas bill was bought both by a proud white woman and a black woman who got no respect from the white people on the bus.

When Julian and his mother got off the bus, so did the black woman and her son. Julian’s mother was rushing, wanting to find a nickel to give the little black boy, but could only find a penny. Against Julian’s advisements, his mother attempted to give the boy “a bright new penny” and ended up being punched in the face by the black woman who shouted, “We don’t take nobody’s pennies!” (528). Julian could not see his mother not learn from this experience, and so he told her that it was exactly what she deserved, that not one black person would take the pennies of a condescending white woman. Julian’s mother had a heart attack on the way back home, and Julian blamed himself because of him shattering the world she thought she lived in.

The end of the story centers on Julian’s mother wanting to give the young boy a penny. The penny, which dons Abraham Lincoln’s face, the man who started a war over the immoral thoughts of slavery. The black woman, who was obviously just as well off as Julian and his mother, would no longer take the condescending smiles and stares of white people that thought they were better than herself. Julian’s mother needed to be taught a lesson, it’s only a shame that she had to learn it so close to death.

Work Cited

O’Connor, Flannery. “Everything That Rises Must Converge”. The Norton Introduction To Literature. 10^th ed. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 519-529. Print.

Journal 4 - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

While reading this story, I got to really like Farquhar. I thought he was only trying to do what he thought was right, fighting his side of the war that was underway. I could see him in my mind, standing there, waiting to be hung in perfect appearance, "His features were good,-a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead...long,dark hair combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well-fitting frock coat...a moustache and pointed beard...and had a kindly expression" and then the happiness and amazement of falling to the river instead of to his death (731). Routing for him the entire way, I was willing the soldiers to miss the poor man trying to swim to his freedom. I felt robbed of the story when, at the last minute, he dies. I wanted him to be reunited with his family, for it wasn't his war to fight. Though his country decided to start a war with itself, and I'm sure he was an owner of slaves, he was only doing his part. Of course, if it were his own allies that had caught him trying to sabatogue the enemy, they only would have helped, and there would have been no story.

I would have loved to hear more about the man that is introduced at the beginning of the story, his perspective of Farquhar being hung, shot at, and dying. To end the story this way, I believe, could have been more effective. It would have been easier to understand that it was only a somewhat dream of Farquhar's that he had survived, fallen into the river, and once again saw his wife.

Work Cited

Bierce, Ambrose. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. The Norton Introduction To Literature. 10^th ed. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 730-736. Print.





Journal 3 - Barn Burnings

Honestly, I did not enjoy reading this story at all. When the story starts, we're in a small town court room where Sarty is crouched watching a trial of his father, a sharecropper, and their master. Sarty's father is being accused of letting his hog run around, eating his master's corn, and then finally burning down his barn. Sarty is called on to be witness, and as Sarty walks up to the witness stand he thinks to himself as his father stares at him, "He aims for me to lie...and I'll have to do hit" (187). 

When the trial ends, Sarty and his family move to a new home where they begin sharecropping all over again. One night, Sarty, his father, and his brother go to the master's home, rudely barging in. As they walk into the home they track muddy foot prints onto a very valuable rug. After Mrs. de Spain asks them to leave, Sarty's father turns around and Sarty follows him home.

The next day, Sarty's sister's are attempting to clean the rug that was ruined the night before, not quite bringing it back to it's former glory. Later in the week, Mr. de Spain brought Sarty's father to court to work out the payment for the rug, which now showed burned-out holes where the stains had been. Sarty's father was charged ten bushels of corn this planting season to pay back Mr. de Spain for the damages and loss.

When the Snopes return home, Abner tells Sarty to, " Go to the barn and get that can of oit we were oiling the wagon with" (196). Sarty knew exactly what his father wanted the oil for, told his father no. After hearing this, his father struck him, threw a can at him, and told his mother to tie him to a bed post so that he could not warn the de Spains of his plan.

Sarty eventually escaped and ran to the master's home to give them warning. After giving Mr. de Spain the warning, Sarty just kept running. After a short rest at midnight, Sarty once again got up to walk, "He was only cold, and walking would cure that...He was a little stiff, but walking would cure that too" (198). Sarty never returned and never looked back.

At the end of all of this, I was both disappointed and amazed. Sarty finally learned that blood may be thicker than water, but doing what was right did not mean lying for your family, no matter how much you love them. Mr. Snopes, Sarty's father, never learned a single thing throughout the entire story. He went on doing whatever he wanted with no thought to his master, and eventually burned the new master's barn to the ground. Sarty's family, minus Sarty, would have to up and leave once again, all because the father was so selfish as to try and make things difficult for the master and try to watch out for his family. This father, who was often compared to steel, hard, cold, heavy, and hard to mold, was exactly that, even to his own family. With the open ending, I just like to think that Sarty grew up differently and raised his own family right.

Work Cited

Faulkner, William. “Barn Burnings”. The Norton Introduction To Literature. 10^th ed. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 186-198. Print.



Journal 2 - Hills Like White Elephants

I chose to write about Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”. I was unsure exactly how this story was going to take place, or even what it was about until I got to the halfway point of the story. At this point in the story you can plainly tell that the couple that the story focuses on is heading to Madrid, by train, that they have been drinking at the bar inside the train station, and that they are talking about something of great importance. The two characters never explicitly tell us what it is they are talking about, like they’re ignoring “the elephant in the room”, and making small talk or talking about the topic of interest as “it”.

The topic of the conversation seems to be something that the woman does not want to go through. The man tries to comfort her saying, “It’s really an awfully simple operation…It’s not really an operation at all”, which makes the event spoken of sound like something of a medical nature (The Norton Introduction to Literature, 167). As the conversation progressed I began to think that what they were talking about was marriage.  Of course, the conversation could also be centering around abortion of an unplanned baby when the woman says, “And if I do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?” (167). The thought of abortion left me when the man says, “I’m perfectly willing to go through with it if it means anything to you”, which sounds like the man promising a commitment to the woman (168).

The thought of the marriage is the one that stuck the strongest with me, even after reading the story for the third time over. It all made sense: the man making sure not to press the subject, even saying that it’s just a simple operation, the woman saying that she doesn’t mind going through with it, but asking the man “Doesn’t it mean anything to you?” (168). Mentions of how other people had gone through this procedure and were very happy also lead to the thought of marriage. I enjoyed the story, and couldn’t help but think that the title was a clever use of the old saying of “ignoring the elephant in the room”.

Work Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants”. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10^th ed. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 166-169. Print.

Journal 1 - The Jewelry

Before reading “The Jewelry” by Guy De Maupassant, I knew that I was going to get something out of it. Having read another of Maupassant’s works, “The Necklace”, I knew that his style was to teach us something. In “The Jewelry” a man named M. Lantin is our main character. Through the story we see the love Lantin has for his wife, the annoyance he has for her love of costume jewelry, and his grief and despair in losing her. Eventually, Lantin finds himself in debt and the first solution he thinks of is to sell his late-wife’s jewelry. He decides to do so because of many reasons, but mostly because, “he had always borne a secret grudge against the flash-jewelry” (The Norton Introduction to Literature, 89).

The next day Lantin goes to two jewelry stores to have one of his wife’s necklaces appraised. After hearing that the necklace was in fact real, Lantin brings all of his wife’s jewelry to the store in which it was originally bought, and the final sum offered was nearly 200,000 francs, nearly five years of his current salary. He sells it all, enjoying himself to fine wine, expensive meals, and going to the theater which “for the first time in his life he went…without feeling bored” (92). Six months after Lantin has come into his fortune he marries again, this time to a woman whom has a quick temper and “made his life miserable every day” (92).

What everyone can learn from this story is that money does not give happiness. When Lantin was married to his first wife love made living a poor, humble life worth it. With all of this new found wealth, Lantin lived without a care for a while, but ultimately, without love, ended his life in misery. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and the lessons we can learn from it.

Work Cited



De Maupassant, Guy. “The Jewelry”. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10^th ed. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 87-92. Print.