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These two stories really brought the idea of imperialism to my mind and how much damage it has wrought. Without imperialism, we would not be where we are today, but it is possible to say that the ends do not justify the means. These two stories show two possible outcomes of imperialism and neither is very good. Either the person assimilates into the new culture by throwing away their past identity or they fail and only cause harm to the people they were conquered by. While reading these stories I was really pushed to understand how people should be able to be who they really are and exploiting people will only lead to problems.

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These two stories were great examinations into relationships. They look at what could make a relationship fail and examines it from both a male and female perspective and in two different eras. When reading these stories, I saw them as warnings and as a way to help look for signs of problems. One of the main points that I got from both stories is the importance of communication. A relationship involves two people and each person has their own thoughts and emotions and so for the other person to be able to understand those, there needs to be proper communication.

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I think these two stories had some of the strongest messages in terms of gender roles. Both stories pushed the reader to examine the gender roles for men and women and the adverse effects they can have on people. Being confronted with these stories about gender roles, it is almost instinctive to look inside myself and wonder whether or not I have been just filling a role or pushing roles onto other people. It is good being pushed to look inside myself, because it will help me weed out any bad habits or behaviors I may have and try to correct them.

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These two stories looked at together really shows the adaptability of stories themselves. It really exemplifies how stories we know and cherish are extremely old and have transformed through the ages to arrive at the versions we know. This also makes me wonder what other movies and stories are based on past stories. For example, when I heard The Lion King was a version of Hamlet, I was shocked that I did not realize it earlier. Being able to take stories and alter them really allows people to spread the stories to other audiences or change the messages within the story to fit the problems being faced at the current time.

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"Hills Like White Elephants" is a wonderful example of being able to do more with less. Every time I read it, I am amazed at how much Hemingway is able to deliver with such a small and contained story. Hemingway trusts his readers to be able to delve into this story and discover what Hemingway is trying to say. This really makes me look at how people speak to one another. We as people trust other people to understand what we are saying through context, tone, and inflection among other things. Of course, our language sometimes fails us and when that happens we have to try to reestablish the meaning of the words used.

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"A Report to the Academy" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

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"A Report to the Academy" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

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The only immediate connection I could make between the two stories was the ape. This could be tied into my initial thoughts to "A Report to the Academy." As I was reading it, I couldn't help but think of imperialism since the indigenous people were sometimes referred to as apes or savages. From this perspective the apes in each story take on some extra meaning. In "A Report to the Academy," the ape will then symbolize the indigenous people that successfully assimilate into the culture and society that has take over their land, but in order to do this they had to completely rid themselves of their previous identity. On the other hand, in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," the ape is caught attempting to learn the behaviors and runs off. This could be seen as the ape being surprised, but I believe it could also be seen as the ape almost being ashamed of it being caught trying to be like a human and thus it ran away. It then reveals it is still an ape by killing the woman and her daughter. This ape can show how not everyone that came under the eyes of imperialism was not able to merge into the new culture and society.

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"To Room Nineteen" and "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars"

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"To Room Nineteen" and "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars"

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Both The Sun, the Moon, the Stars and To Room Nineteen follow two couples' relationships after an affair. In both stories the man is the who who cheats and both relationships suffer. In The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, Yunior desperately attempts to make things right with Magda who seems to be struggling to come to terms with what Yunior did. In To Room Nineteen, Susan slowly becomes depressed with her life after Matthew's affair and attempts to distract herself from her woes. The Sun, the Moon, the Stars focuses on Yunior, providing the perspective of the male of the relationship, revealing the complexities in his reasoning for cheating and how he believes he can fix the relationship. This story reveals how Yunior feels about himself and of everyone's opinions of him. Through this, Diaz seems to shed light on how society puts pressure on men, specifically Dominican men in this setting, to fit into certain roles even though the roles cause problems. This would explain why Yunior does not really take all the responsibility for cheating and why he has trouble understanding how Magda was feeling. On the other hand, To Room Nineteen focuses on Susan, providing the perspective of the female of the relationship. Since Susan and Matthew believed, with their intelligence, they were living the most correct life, they needed to try to adhere to what a correct life would be and try to ignore any signs that there were any problems. This leads to Susan claiming she forgives Matthew for cheating even though the narrator reveals the two joked about Matthew's eventual infidelity. This puts Susan on a slope where she feels worse and worse but chooses to hide her feelings from Matthew. How could she be feeling sad if they were living the correct life? Susan could not find the answer and chose to try to push past it, but eventually succumbing to these feelings. It seems Matthew and Susan were attempting to fill the roles in what they believed was a conventional relationship which caused the affair and eventually Susan's suicide.

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Both of these readings were focused on female narrators in very different situations, but there turn out to be some similarities. In Sweat, Delia is in an abusive relationship who ends up witnessing her husband die, seemingly receiving his just desserts. Delia works tirelessly to support herself and her husband who seems to be out of a job since there is no mention of him working in the story. This seems to flip the stereotypical gender roles where the male usually works and the woman doesn't. This contrasts with The Yellow Wallpaper where the woman is kept inside. Since she is consistently kept from doing anything it would appear that she as well may be in an abusive relationship. While I will agree that she is in an abusive relationship as well, I claim the circumstances are different. From  the woman narrating, it appears she is losing her sense of reality and since her husband is a doctor he may have believed he would be able to help her, so this could be a case of good intentions leading to a horrible situation. The two women can be compared by the roles they were in. In Sweat, Delia is the person making money, while in The Yellow Wallpaper the narrator is stuck inside and doesn't work. Taking a broad look at these two, I claim these two women could represent the two stereotypical gender roles, with Delia being the money making male and the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper being sort of a domestic housewife. Combining both of these stories, I claim the authors were trying to reveal the hardships faced by females of their time no matter what gender role they may take up. They could either accept the domestic housewife role and risk feeling trapped or take the money maker role and risk the abuse of the male. Both stories result in sad endings, because even though Delia is free from Sykes, she lost many, many years of her life being with him. Thus, the ends of these stories reveal we really should be moving away from these stereotypical gender roles.

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The Bloody Chamber seems to be a great retelling of Blue Beard updated for the modern day. While Blue Beard focuses on the dangerous side of curiosity, The Bloody Chamber adds more to the table. While the husband in Blue Beard has a distinct physical characteristic that pushes people away from him, the husband in The Bloody Chamber is more "normal," but the wife claims there is something off about him early in the story, as if the face he wears is not his actual face. While Perrault uses the blue beard to almost make the reader sympathize with the husband, Carter uses this claim about the husband's face to warn the reader of the sinister plot that is to unfold. Carter provides other hints at what is to come through the remarks of the opal ring and the ruby ​​choker. This could be Carter attempting to let readers know that sometimes there are warnings given to us and the warnings should be heeded, even if there is no evidence yet to prove the warnings are correct. Another important decisive change Carter makes is who saves the wife. Carter has the mother save the wife, and even has the mother be quite the powerful figure in the story. By portraying the wife ' s mother as such a powerful figure and eventually coming to the rescue of the daughter, Carter is revealing to readers that both men and women can be powerful and save people. This is an example of the difference in the times of the two stories. Perrault's story is quite old and thus gender roles most likely were not questioned yet, but Carter's story is much more recent, thus she decided to make some alterations that would make the story discuss gender roles alongside the moral of curiosity. One thing to note is without knowing about s story is quite old and thus gender roles most likely were not questioned yet, but Carter's story is much more recent, thus she decided to make some alterations that would make the story discuss gender roles alongside the moral of curiosity. One thing to note is without knowing about END. s story is quite old and thus gender roles most likely were not questioned yet, but Carter's story is much more recent, thus she decided to make some alterations that would make the story discuss gender roles alongside the moral of curiosity. One thing to note is without knowing aboutBlue Beard , the points about gender that Carter was trying to make might go unnoticed unless one reads the story with the intention of trying to find points about gender.

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Reflections on the Short Story was quite different from other English classes I have taken and it was very refreshing that it was so different. The stories read were a mix of old and new and it really shows me how stories will always be told between people. It is always shocking and amazing seeing how much depth can be put into shorter forms of writing and the stories read this semester were no exception. Some of the stories even discussed topics that are still being debated today and this really exemplifies to me how although humanity has come a long way, there is still plenty to work on with ourselves and as a whole.

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With white elephants being in the title and mentioned in the dialogue, I knew there had to be some significance in it. White elephants at first glance may just sound like albino elephants, but I felt Hemingway could have just used albino if he meant it, so instead I did a google search on white elephant. It turns out a white elephant is "a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of," (it says it's from oxford dictionaries). This actually sheds some light on the situation in the story. The bulk of the context is established through the dialogue present in the story and one important part is something has happened between the American and the girl and they are trying to "fix" it. First, the American claims he has never seen one, to which the girl replies "No, you wouldn't have." This reveals that the girl may already have some experience with the situation while the American doesn't. Later, the girl claims, "They don't really look like white elephants," which portrays her doubts about the possession in question. At first glance it would appear the possession is something that would be a nuisance, but she believes it might not be such a nuisance. This is the last mention of white elephants, but the two continue discussing some "thing" as well as some type of operation. From reading other responses, it would seem the operation would be an abortion and thus the "thing" or white elephant would be the potential baby. This brings a ton of clarity to the story as now we can say the girl is having doubts about the abortion, but the American does not seem to either realize her doubts or does not care about her doubts. Instead he seems to push the idea of ​​things going back to normal if they go through with the operation which would make both of them happy, and the girl goes along with it because she seems to care about the man, more so than herself and her own happiness. It is both amazing and horrifying to see a story published in 1927 discussing a problem still seen today. One last note I have is I am not sure what the research was in 1927 was like, but if Hemingway was in fact discussing an abortion, then we know the girl is pregnant, and she is drinking while pregnant. END. Instead he seems to push the idea of ​​things going back to normal if they go through with the operation which would make both of them happy, and the girl goes along with it because she seems to care about the man, more so than herself and her own happiness. It is both amazing and horrifying to see a story published in 1927 discussing a problem still seen today. One last note I have is I am not sure what the research was in 1927 was like, but if Hemingway was in fact discussing an abortion, then we know the girl is pregnant, and she is drinking while pregnant. Instead he seems to push the idea of ​​things going back to normal if they go through with the operation which would make both of them happy, and the girl goes along with it because she seems to care about the man, more so than herself and her own happiness. It is both amazing and horrifying to see a story published in 1927 discussing a problem still seen today. One last note I have is I am not sure what the research was in 1927 was like, but if Hemingway was in fact discussing an abortion, then we know the girl is pregnant, and she is drinking while pregnant.