Tentative Paper Topic

Character comparison of "A Rose for Emily" and "The Tell-Tale Heart."

The Lottery

Much like "Young Goodman Brown" the title of this story deceived me. When I think of the lottery I think of winning a large sum of money, something people are usually happy to win. However in the short story "The Lottery" winning is not such a good thing. I never expected the winner to be stoned to death. I think this story shows how conformity can be dangerous. Although, this tradition had been going on for years and years that doesn't make it right. Not all traditions are good tradtions. There must have been people in this community who realized how wrong it was, but yet becase everyone else was up for it, no one wants to put themselves out there and declare it wrong. This happens a lot in society although and this story portrays that, just in an exteme manner.

Young Goodman Brown

The story "Young Goodman Brown" is not anything like the title might indicate. When I first saw it, I thought it was going to be about a “good man” as the title states but ironically this story is about a man choosing evil. I believe this man wasn’t very strong in his beliefs which caused him to be easily swayed from his faith. Faith, being Goodman Brown’s wife plays a very important role in the telling of this story. One could read the whole story with the lower case faith and it would still make sense, because the author intended for this to be taken allegorically. Whether it was a dream or not I am not sure, but either way it did affect him and that is all that really matters. Goodman Brown sees everyone as evil after the initiation has taken place, but I think he is just seeing sinners. However, everyone is a sinner, that is just part of human nature. Throughout the story one can see the fight of the human conscience mind. Goodman Brown often stops on his journey to contemplate his decision but in the end it is the evil that wins over the good and his life is forever changed. I think this story is trying to teach that one needs to be strong in their faith to help them make good moral decisions.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Before reading this story, I never knew one could analyze wallpaper so much. Wow! I think this woman was mentally ill and being stuck in a room for so long just casused her case to worsen. She had nothing to do with her time and so she absorbed and investigated her surroundings, specifically the yellow wallpaper. However, her investigation was taken to an extreme, she began to see things that are not even physically possible. I think this just supports the case that she had to have been mentally ill. I don't really what the representation is of the woman that she was seeing in the wallpaper and through her windows, but I do think that something was haunting her. Maybe, it was her illness and the lifestyle she was foreced to live because of it.

The Tell-Tale Heart

Whenever I hear about murder stories, I always wonder what was going on inside the head of those murderers. This story, "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Alan Poe does just that. It takes the reader inside of the mind of the murderer, who is narrating the story. This story is written in a form where the narrator is directly talking to the person reading it, therefore giving the reader a closer connection to the character behind the story.
The whole motive for this murder is to get rid of the evil eye that is haunting the main character. He claims that he is not mad, but I think anyone who can commit such a crime must be somewhat mentally unstable. The old man that displays this evil eye is described as such a nice man. It is just his eye, which resembles that of a vulture, that triggers a motive for it to be ridded of. I found it interesting the way the murderer went about murdering the old man. He could not find the srength to commit the crime unless he physically saw the eye. When he finally did see the eye, he found the strength to commit the crime. One thing I was very questionable about was why it took so long for the police to get there after the noise was reported. It must have taken him a while to cut up the body, meticulously place the pieces under the floor boards, and remove any remaining evidence. It just didn't seem right to me that all this could be done before the police arrived to inspect the place. When the police first arrived the murderer acted so nonchalantly about the act he just committed. However, eventually the guilt began to eat at him. This ringing noise couldn't have been something that was everyone was hearing. If it was so unbearable to him and other people were hearing it as well something would have been mentioned or done about it. I think this just shows how strong the human conscientious mind can be. It may let you make your own decisions, but once the decision is made it will let you know if it was right or wrong.

A Rose For Emily

I found this story to be very weird and kind of creepy. Miss Emily's character was very unpredictable so I was always questioning her decisions and behavior like: why did her house smell so bad for so long, why did she get aresenic, and why was it that she never left her house and that no one ever came over?  All of this seemed very suspicous and made me think she was going to committ murder or something. Although, the end of the story reveals that Miss Emily was really in love with this man, Homer Barron. The single strand of hair sitting in the pillow next to Homer Barron's dead body signifies how much love Miss Emily had for him. So why did all the suspicious behvavior go on? Did she really kill him? I found it hard to put everything together. However I did see a resemblence as to how Miss Emily held on to Homer's dead body just as she strived to hold on to her father's dead body. But I am still left confused, trying to piece it together.

English 101 and About Me

In English 101 we learned how to do reasearch, write, and cite the material correctly. We focused a lot on MLA style of writing and citing papers, but also a lot of grammer. We did some grammar lessons and SLCS to help us correct our grammatical errors. We wrote a reasearch academic based paper, literary analysis, and several others that I can not come up with a name for at this time.

I am not much of a reader or a writer for that matter. Therefore, unsurprisingly English is my least favorite subject. I don't know that I really have a favorite subject, but in high school P.E. was always my favorite class. I enjoy partaking in sports especially track and cross country. I am not currently involved in any sports but I still like to run and stay active. I hope this class can help me to become a better writer. Good writing is such a useful skill to have, which is why I wish I was a better writer.