"The Glass Menagerie" By Tennessee Williams

          In the “Glass Menagerie,” I found myself feeling pity towards Tom Wingfield. During the play you learn that he enjoyed reading and writing poetry. He would write poetry at his job at the warehouse which eventually led to his termination. From what little was told about Tom's education I knew that poetry was something he held close to his heart. His mother on the other hand was not fond nor supportive of his interest. Tom confronted his mother for taking his books, and this was her response, “I took that horrible novel back to the library-yes! That hideous book by the insane Mr. Lawrence. I cannot control the output of diseased minds or people who cater to them. BUT I WON'T ALLOW SUCH FIFTH BROUGHT INTO MY HOUSE!” (1005). Tom felt as though he had given everything he had to his mother and sister but got nothing for himself. He got up every morning and went to a warehouse job that he despised to support his family. He would have liked nothing more than to have been free like his estranged father. His nights were spent at the movies desperately seeking the adventure that he had seen on the screen. To me, Tom wanted to be free from his responsibilities to his family and do as he pleased. He knew that it was only a matter of time before he followed in his father's footsteps, which meant leaving his family behind. When Tom was fired from his warehouse job for writing poetry he embarked on his new journey away from his family. Tom never showed any type of love towards his family, but I knew that he truly cared about them. As the play came to an end I got the sense that he was very distraught about leaving Laura. “ Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes....Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!”(1048).  

"The Yellow Wallpaper" By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

          In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” John's wife was struggling to free herself from her isolated and confined way of life. John was a physician and didn't want his wife to work at all until she was better, yet he didn't believe that she was truly sick. She disagreed with his course of action, but went along with it anyway. They relocated to a colonial mansion for the summer in hopes to help her overcome her nervous depression. She was confined for most of the summer in an airy room that had been covered with wallpaper that was old, faded yellow, ripped, and lacked any distinct pattern. She had begged her husband to be taken to another room in the house, for she could not stand the wallpaper. He had not allowed her to move out the room. He then told her it would be good for her condition. She had a very creative imagination and loved to write, but her husband deemed these qualities as unhealthy for her. The wife said one day about the wallpaper, “ I wish I could get well faster. But I must not think about that. This paper looks at me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had on me”(269). She was beginning to see the wallpaper as something other than what it truly was. It's as thought she was making a connection with it. She had the ability to create something out of nothing. “I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store”(269). I began to understand the depth of her imagination and creativity. She had no way to express her creativity. Unfortunately, her family saw it as an illness. She was starting to see an image take form in the wallpaper, “ But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so – I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to sulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design”(270). I began to realize that the image behind the wall paper was indeed her. “ There are things in the wallpaper that nobody knows about but me, or ever will...And it is like a women stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern...The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out”(272). She noticed that the wallpaper would change depending on the time of day. “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern, I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be”(273). The woman she was seeing in the pattern of the wallpaper was herself. It's not until the end of the story that she realized that the woman in the wallpaper was indeed her. “ “ I've got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!””(278). She inevitably became insane because she was isolated, put on bed rest, and was unable to utilize her creativity. I believe the wallpaper symbolized the imprisonment her imagination and creativity.    

"The Things They Carried" By Tim O'Brien

          “The Thing They Carried” illustrates both subjective and objective baggage carried by a solider. Even though a solider is at war, they will still reminisce about their prior civilian life. The personal emotions they had before the war remained their during the war. “On occasion he would yell at his men to spread out the column, to keep their eyes open, but then he would slip away into daydreams, just pretending, walking barefoot along the Jersey shore, with Martha, carrying nothing. Sun and waves and gentle winds, all love and lightness”(345). First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross's priority was for the safety of his men, but his love for Martha had overpowered that responsibly. Cross was unable to focus on the task at hand. Instead his emotional burdens of Martha was all he could think about. “Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father, who taught Sunday school in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma”(342). In my opinion Kiowa carried the New Testament with him because it was given to him by his father. It's as though he has his father by his side in a time of war. “Lieutenant Cross kept to himself. He pictured Martha's smooth young face, thinking he loved her more than anything, more than his men, and now Ted Lavender was dead because he loved her so much and could not stop thinking about her”(344). Lieutenant Cross will always blame himself for the death of Lavender. He was so obsessed with his infatuation for Martha that he let it affect his duties to his men. The emotional baggage he had about Martha now created a greater burden that will follow him for the rest of his life, the death of Lavender. These men had one of the biggest burdens of all, the survival of the men that marched with them. The soldiers not only had subjective issues, but they also had to endure objective burdens. “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity. Among the necessities or near necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C rations, and two or three canteens of water”(341). Not only had they carried the above items they were also responsible for all of their gear and weapons. These men had to carry out their fallen solider as well, “In April, for instance, when Ted Lavender was shot, they used his poncho to wrap him up, then to carry him across the paddy, then to lift him into the chopper that took him away”(342). These men had so much weight on their shoulder both physically and emotionally. It didn't mater if they had one hundred pounds of gear on them, their emotional baggage weighted just as much if not more.

"To Build a Fire" Jack London 1908

Early morning in the sunless, frigid, and vast Yukon a lone hiker set forth on a journey. The sky was drab, but not a single cloud was to be seen. During the brightest hour of the day it seemed dark and dreary. What it must feel like to go the entire day and never see the sun rise? The crisp arctic air was piercing enough to keep even the wildlife at bay. The man traveled with a native husky that wanted nothing more than warmth. It became cold enough to freeze ones own saliva before it reached the earth's floor. The Yukon was surrounded by a vast forest of trees. In his view, he saw snow that lacked a single indent on its surface.

This was the journey the hiker was embarking on .  This image captures the desolate, sunless, and frigid wild.

The dreary, yet brightest time of day.  He had traveled most of the day and never saw the sun. 

The husky is covering itself with snow to maintain warmth during the frigid winter.

This illustrates the vast forest that the hiker was surrounded by during his journey.

The untouched snow indicates that no one has been in this area.  It's a sign that the hiker was the only one that had dared to be out there in a while.

"Cathedral By Raymond Carver"

  

Who is the main character or protagonist of the story?

          The protagonist in “The Cathedral” is the unnamed narrator. This narrator is by no means a hero in this story; rather he is an isolated man who seems bitter about the other men in his wife's past. His wife had a unique friendship with a blind man named Robert. Often, his wife would read to Robert in Seattle. The narrator seems to not understand this relationship; furthermore appears to be a bit jealous of this man whom his wife has grown so close to. His wife invited Robert, who she hadn't seen since her time in Seattle, to come stay at their home for an evening. Her husband was not thrilled about this at all; it was as though Robert's visit was an inconvenience in his life. He had certain stereotypes of blind people. These stereotypes made him quite reluctant to have Robert over his home.

Make a quick list of the character's physical, mental, moral, or behavioral traits. Which seem especially significant to the action of the story?

          The husband is a very negative, immature, isolated, and shallow individual. He is extremely negative about Robert's marriage to Beulah. He makes this statement about Robert's wife, “And I found myself thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led. Imagine a woman who could never see herself as see was seen in the eyes of her loved one. A women who could on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved”.(84) The husband thought that just because Robert couldn't see his wife that life for her had to have been horrid and depressing. He shows a lack of interest in anything that is important to his wife such as her poems and her conversations with Robert. He believed that because Robert was blind he would be slow and unhappy. He got these ideas from movies that had characters that were blind. “Maybe I can take him bowling,”(83) he said to his wife. His joking about the situation showed his level of maturity. He made this statements to simply annoy her. All his wife was asking him to do was make her friend feel comfortable. All he seemed to do was drink a lot and spend most nights alone in front of the television smoking marijuana.

Does the main character have an antagonist in the story? How do they differ?

 

          The antagonist in the story is the wife. She is a very caring, compassionate, and friendly person. She has made it a point to keep in touch with a blind man she barely knew. Robert, the blind man, became her very dear friend who she shared everything with. She was able to connect with people on a deeper level than her husband. Even though Robert was unable to technically see anything it had no impact on their friendship. They talked, laughed, and enjoyed each others company. She didn't pass judgement on him because he was blind. This was the complete opposite of her husband.

Does the way the protagonist speak reveal anything about his or her personality?

          Yes, the way the protagonist spoke presented himself as being very self centered, bitter, and a jealous individual. When he first spoke about how his wife met Robert he showed a real lack of interest in what she had shared with him. He got extremely jealous when his wife told him about the only time Robert had ever touched her. Robert had asked to touch her face. I believe he did this to get a visual image of her before she left. Her husband was amazed that she had let this man rub his hands all over face and neck. I also believe he was bitter that his wife had someone in her life that she could share everything while he chose to share nothing with anyone. He didn't seem to be that interested in anything she wanted to share with him.

If the story is told in the first person, what is revealed about how the protagonist views his or her surroundings?

          The husband seemed very oblivious to the one person in his life which was his wife. It's as though he didn't even see her. He didn't care about her friend Robert and what he had done for her sanity. He disliked the fact that she had shared with Robert what seemed to be every detail in her life. At night he chose to loose himself to drugs and the television while his wife was asleep upstairs. He had created his own existence and didn't let anyone in. That was okay with him. He was content with just being by himself.

What is the character's prime motivation? Does this motivation seem reasonable to you?

         The husband's prime motivation was to just get through the arrival and departure of his wife's blind friend Robert. This motivation seemed ridicules to me because his motivation was built off stereotypes about blind people. He had never met Robert but had an opinion that they wouldn't be able to engage in any sort of activity together.

Does the protagonist fully understand his or her motivations?

         I think that the husband knew exactly what his motivations were from the beginning. He blamed Robert for having nothing to do but wait for his arrival. He was being put into a situation that he rather not be in. His wife brought this stranger into their home and he wished she hadn't.

In what ways is the protagonist changed or tested by the events of the story?

         The protagonist started to change his perception towards blind because of Robert. In my opinion, as soon as he started observing Robert's mannerisms things changed. He had this preconceived notion of how a blind person was supposed to act and look. When he had his first encounter with Robert he was surprised that he had a full beard, and that he wasn't wearing dark glasses to cover his eyes. I felt this started to make him question some of the stereotypes he had of the blind. He also had this notion that the blind did not smoke because they were unable to see the smoke that they exhaled, but to his surprise there was Robert lighting up a cigarette. Next, when he, Robert, and his wife were eating he closely observed Robert at the diner table, “I watched with admiration as he used his knife and fork on the meat”.(86) He started to realize that Robert was capable of doing things on his own. It wasn't until he was alone with Robert watching television that the major change in him took place. They had been watching a show with cathedrals and he felt obligated to say something about them. As he was explaining what was on the television screen, he asked Robert if he even knew what a cathedral was? Robert responded with a no, only what the man had been saying on the show. Robert challenged the husband by asking him to describe a cathedral for him. The husband had a very challenging time trying to use his words to illustrate this image for Robert. Robert then told him to get a pen and heavy paper which he did without question. They then sat on the ground and drew a cathedral together on the heavy paper bag he had taken from the kitchen. As they are finished the drawing Robert told him to close his eyes and to continue to draw. When they were finished, Robert asked him to open his eyes and look at the drawing. With his eyes still closed he told Robert, “It's really something”.(93) I believe he now had respect for the way Robert viewed life and the people in it.

"A Rose For Emily" William Faulkner

           In the short story, “A Rose For Emily”, the story seems to be told in an objective point of view. You never read into Emily, her servant, father, cousins, or Homer's thoughts. The story was being told in the third person, and I couldn't quite put my finger on who was exactly narrating the story. I believed that it was someone in the town that was narrating “A Rose For Emily”. The story opens with “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant-a combined gardner and cook had seen in at least ten years”(33). This opening illustrated that the narrator not only knew about Emily and her life but also knew about the people that lived in the town. As I continued to read, my thoughts about who the narrator was shifted to not one person but to multiple people that lived in the town. I came to this belief because the narrator had said, “We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door”(36). When the narrator said we I knew that the observations about Emily were not by one singular person.

          The narration of the story is very unusual because it is told in third person. The narration seems to be told by more than one person, possibly the entire town. As well, the story doesn't flow in chronological order. For example, the story flashes forward and backwards from points in time to other points in time with no real structure. In the beginning of the story, the setting was Miss Emily's funeral, then the story reverts back to her older years when she refused to pay her taxes. The story then regresses back to when her father died. It then flashed forward to when she met a man that would not marry her and finally ended with her death. I'm not sure why Faulkner chose to write from this point of view, but I really enjoyed reading “A Rose For Emily.” Seeing Miss Emily's life through the eyes of the people in the town gave me an impression of what kind of person she was. I saw Miss Emily as a lonely, high class southern woman who was unwilling to change from the old generation into the new. Maybe Faulkner set this point of view so you, the reader, could make your own opinion about Miss Emily and how people viewed her. The whole town was intrigued by Miss Emily and her life but no one seemed to know her except for what they could observe with their eyes.

          Having the point of view be objective helped to illustrate the theme of the story. My belief was that the entire town was captivated by Miss Emily's isolated life. She lived her whole life in her house only stepping outside on a few occasions. As the town she lived in began to fade from the old and grow into the new Miss Emily didn't want to move forward with the changing times. An objective view allowed me to see that Miss Emily didn't want to change with the town, for example, “It was a big, squarish house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most selective street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores”(34). If the point of view had been from Miss Emily's perspective I imagine I would have envisioned the setting of her house quite differently. When the new generation told Miss Emily she needed to pay taxes she refused. When the town got free postal delivery she had refused to let them put numbers and a mail box on her property. Everything narrated by the people of the town illustrated how Missy Emily was an isolated woman who would not embrace a new generation.

"A Good Man Is Hard To Find."

          

           The plot of “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” surprised me; however, the foreshadowing in the first couple of pages gave me an idea of what might happen later in the story. The grandmother had introduced this dangerous man known as The Misfit, who had just escaped from the Penitentiary and is headed to Florida were Bailey and his family are going for vacation. While getting ready to depart for their vacation the grandmother made sure that she was dressed like a lady in case their was an accident and she was found dead. She wanted to make sure that whoever found her knew that he was a lady. Although I had an idea of what was going to happen in this short story from the foreshadowing, Flannery O'Connor had a twist at the end that I never saw coming. In other stories, novels, books, movies, and television shows I have read or viewed it's very rare to see the innocent get murdered and have the story end. I thought at some point in the story the grandmother was going to die, but I wasn't certain if The Misfit was going to be involved in her death. The twist at the end when The Misfit murdered Bailey, his family, and the grandmother was what I never saw coming. Having the kids and baby in the story forced me to never think that the story would end with their death. With the ending of the story being so morbid it makes the story's end more tragic.

           As I started reading this short story, the first thing I thought was that the family is going end up face to face with The Misfit at some point in there journey to Florida. The grandmother was trying to convince her son Bailey to visit east Tennessee instead of going to Florida again. She read from the local newspaper to Bailey, “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed towards Florida and you read what it says he did to these people. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it.”(356) I believe this was foreshadowing what was in store for the family. I knew that they were going to see The Misfit somewhere during their trip to Florida.

          Flannery O'Conner went to great detail describing the grandmother's attire the morning they were leaving for the trip. There was one major part that caught my attention during this part of the story. It was when O'Conner compared the grandmother's attire to that of the mother of Bailey's children. The author wrote, “The children's mother still had on slacks and still had her hair tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress a small white dot in the print.”(357) The explanation of the grandmother's attire was to illustrate that, “ In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.”(357) Once I read this I had a feeling that the grandmother was going to die in a car accident somewhere on the highway from Georgia to Florida. Another key point in the story for me was when Bailey pulled the car off to the side of the road. His children had been yelling and kicking his seat because they wanted to go find the silver behind the secret panel in the plantation home. I truly thought Bailey was going to turn around and tell the grandmother to stop telling the children absurd stories about hidden silver in some house, and that they would continue their drive to Florida. I never thought that he would give into the children's tantrums. As they were driving along the dirt road I imagined that they would find the old plantation abandoned, destroyed, or that maybe The Misfit was hiding out in this old home.

          During the accident, as the children fell to the floor, the grandmother flew to the front seat. As well, the mother and baby were thrown from the car to the ground. My immediate thought was that this is the accident the grandmother had made sure she looked liked a lady for. I believed that she had died in the accident. The foreshadowing earlier in the story was correct about there being an accident but the grandmother had survived. After the accident the family spotted a car coming towards them. As the car came closer, they noticed there were three grown men inside. Two of the men got out of the car and walked to either side. When the third man with the gun emerged from the vehicle, I knew this had to be The Misfit. Why else would there have been three men driving out in the middle of nowhere? They had to be men that didn't want to be noticed or were hiding from something. When The Misfit asked one of the other two men he was with to check and see if the car would run I thought the family would end up stranded in the middle of the woods without a car. It wasn't until the grandmother yelled out,” You're The Misfit!...I recognized you at once.”(364) that I knew no one in the family was going to make it out of the woods alive.

Introduction

My name is Vanessa Ortiz, and I am a 25 year old female who is passionate about nutrition, and Weightlifting.  Nutrition is a lifestyle habit that improves my mind, body, and health.  Weightlifting helps me feel alive and strong.  These passions have helped shape me into the woman that I am today.

As a child, I knew absolutely nothing about nutrition.  As I got older, it only got worse.  It wasn't until I began experiencing horrible intestinal and abdominal issues that nutrition became a critical component in my life.  I went to multiple doctors, and they couldn't find anything wrong.  I noticed that certain foods were the cause of most of my problems.  Upon realizing how important proper nutrition was, I decided to pursue an education with the direction as a registered dietitian.

I've been athletic my entire life, but I've never found a sport that has made feel as alive as Weightlifting. There is something so empowering about being able to put heavy weight overhead, especially as a women. It's an amazing feeling to be a part of something that not only makes you feel alive every day, but allows you to train around other strong women.  I have fallen in love with Weightlifting so much that I now compete in USA Weightlifting Meets and have become a USA Weightlifting Club Coach.