Difficultys when reading YGB

          In the short story young goodman brown by Nathaniel Hawthorn, there were a few things that through me off. the first thing is, I cant understand the close mindedness of these people, the puritans. It seems to me that in the effort of becoming pure, people need to give up a lot of things that are unnecessary, and as a result they begin to resent the purifying processes of daily life. That resentment festers and grows into a deep hatred for the religion and consequently you have people retaliating in there own ways. However, they can not be public with there retaliation because the religion is so closely tied to their government, that someone hearing you talk about the rules in a negative way may lead to your exile or even your death, because the puritans where that strict. So it seems to me that being the best puritan you can be and getting that recognition from the people in your society is the mentality that eventually leads the puritans to driving themselves into insanity.  It is a very heavy worry to be self conscience. often times people find the answers in their religions, but when the religion is what is causes the worries than that is when you have to question the purpose of religion. what they failed to realize is the temporariness in everything around us. they felt so strongly about following rules and staying pure, that they hindered the mental and social growths of their societies. i guess i am confused on the logic that they found....

I find it curious why the puritans would make these rules so strict knowing how hard it was to follow them. goodman brown is a recognized and well respected person in his society so that should speak to his character a bit. we know that puritans like him! and Puritans pretty much dont like anything that isnt good in gods eyes. But even HE is tempted to go to the forest. Why would such a high calliber man be tempted? well my answer is it is becasue he wants the power that hes been missing out on his whole life! he wants to dabble in the devils water, and who can blame him, its only human to want to do forbidden things.

 the fact that he wants to go to the forest is not the problem here. the problem is that he has never gone to the forest ever befor! if he had gone, the temptation would have been far less and he wouldnt have had to feed his hunger.

week 8; the revision of week 7

Week 8

I chose Gender criticism and “the story of an hour”

            In the short story, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, is an oppressed woman; looking through the lens of the gender criticism. The fact that she is mentioned in the very first sentence of the short story speaks to when the story takes place as well as to her personality. “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently possible the news of her husbands death”. The story is already speaking to how weak she, a woman, is. As a reader I am left anxious to read on why it is that she needs the news to be put to her gently, could it because she’s weak? Or she doesn’t take news well? Or she is fragile? There are a lot of possibilities that it could be. An opening line like that speaks about the character of the protagonist and leaves the reader with an impression. In this instance it is that women are weak.

             However there are instances of literal irony in the way the author describes her such as “She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength”. That seems to be on the complete opposite side of the spectrum from the Mrs. Mallard of the quote prior than the most recent. The Literal irony is in that she is said to be strong on the outside and seen as weak on the inside. If she were so strong on the conclusion of the story would be a lot different. If she was so weak how did she have the strength to not collapse into pieces in front of the people when she was told? Ironic.

            The conflict that Mrs. Mallard find herself in is this; she can not comprehend the devastating news of her husbands death, the gravity of it drives her to the point were she is looking for anything to help her. She is looking for anything to take the pain away. That is why she does not object the spirit that approaches her through the window. The author mentions, “Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously” because of the spirit that she felt in the air.

            The crisis of the story is that she has a poor ultimatum. Her options are; fall apart and die, or get it together and hope to find love again. Being the weak woman that she is, she can not hold herself together to get through this, but if she could than she would have a real shot at finding another life partner. Because it is possible, after all she is a young lady with fair skin, it’s not like she’s a 55 year old widow who now must give up.

            The objectification of women seems to be shown in the story as well. The author gives her no lines in the story so Mrs. Mallard never speaks for herself, rather the only thing we know of Mrs. Mallard is what the author has told us about her. That is interesting when you think about the fact that the author of this novel is a woman. Perhaps that means that at the point of history when this story was written, even woman recognized other women as objects.   

Week 7 posting

Week 7

            In the short story, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, is an oppressed woman, looking through the lens of the gender criticism. The fact that she is mentioned in the very first sentence of the short story speaks to when the story takes place. “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently possible the news of her husbands death”. The story is already speaking to how weak she, a woman, is. As a reader I am left anxious to read on why it is that she needs the news to be put to her gently, could it because she’s weak? Or she doesn’t take news well? or she is fragile? There are a lot of possibilities that it could be. An opening line like that speaks about the character of the protagonist and leaves the reader with an impression. In this instance it is that women are weak. However there are instances of literal irony in the way the author describes her such as

“She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength”. That seems to be on the complete opposite side of the spectrum from the Mrs. Mallard of the quote prior than the most recent. The Literal irony is in that she is said to be strong on the outside and seen as weak on the inside. If she were so strong on the conclusion of the story would be a lot different. If she was so weak how did she have the strength to not collapse into pieces in front of the people when she was told? Ironic.

            The objectification of women seems to be shown in the story as well. The author gives her no lines in the story so Mrs. Mallard never speaks for herself, rather the only thing we know of Mrs. Mallard is what the author has told us about her. That is interesting when you think about the fact that the author of this novel is a woman. Perhaps that means that at the point of history when this story was written, even woman recognized other women as objects. The author mentions, “Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously” because of the spirit that she felt in the air. As a reader my first idea was that what she was waiting for what was coming to her and she was getting excited as she waited. That shows the weakness in women in that she is emotional. In the story we have seen her go from normal, to weak, to devastated, to strong, to excited, and to curious. That is a very womanly thing to do, I do not know of any men that have mood swings. At the end of the short story I took away the message that woman have many sides to them and that is the way that it is. The author left an impression on me that clearly says, woman have flaws.