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Roommate in "How to become a Writer"

The one thing that struck me the most as I read through “How to become a writer” by Lorrie Moore was the roommate. Throughout the short story, we follow as the narrator continues their troubled journey through attempting to become an author. Constantly throughout the story, the narrator mentions the remarks made by her roommate. The remarks are typically disheartening and are an attempt to bring the narrator back to earth. We are first introduced to the roommate when the narrator goes off to college and meets her new boyfriend. After the boyfriend recommends cycling as a way to beat motivation and stress, the roommate recommends the narrator finds a new boyfriend.”Your boyfriend suggests bicycling. Your roommate suggests a new boyfriend.” The purpose of this comment seems to be that the narrator’s boyfriend is recommending a fake “positive” response to her issues and the roommate believes that the narrator should find someone who can really give realistic advice. I believe that the p
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Meaning of Lists in “How to be an other women”

In the short story “How to Be an Other Woman” by Lorrie Moore we follow the affair between Charlene and a mysterious man she meets on the bus. As the affair continues we get a deep look into the mind of Charlene from a second person perspective. Charlene spends more time with the man she begins to change her personality. One clear example of this is when the man mentions that his wife Patricia is a very organized person and makes lists. “She makes lists for everything. It’s pretty impressive.” After finding this out Charlene begins to makes lists for herself that document her life and give the reader a closer look at her thought process and mind. These lists have a variety of topics, from the contents of the man’s medicine cabinet all the way to how she feels about the affair and her deeply personal thoughts. I believe that Lorrie Moore included these lists to give the reader a look into the mind of Charlene and compare her actions to what she really believes. After the man brings
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The Eye in the RockPile

     The "Rockpile" by James Baldwin is an interesting tale that portrays family dynamic and religion. I will focus on what I think is a hidden clue that Baldwin included to further his point and give more emphasis to his writing. In short, the Rockpile describes a family who lives near a rock pile where the neighbourhood boys like to play. However in the is family the two boys, Roy the younger son and John the older step-son are not allowed to play at the rockpile and are only allowed to wistfully watch from a distance. One day Roy decided to play on the rockpile and gets hit right above his eye. He runs home crying getting help from his mother. His father Gabriel who is a pastor comes home and blames John for not watching over his younger brother. The dialogue between Roy and his father clearly shows their intimate relationship that eludes John. “You don’t wanna cry. You’s Daddy’s little man. Tell your daddy what happened.” While trying to help his son Gabriel begins to m
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Materialism in "Teddy"

As we read through J.D Salinger's “Teddy” we see the materialism in the adults that we have seen in other stories by J.D Salinger. In my previous blog post, I noted the differences between adults and children in various other narratives in the Nine Stories. I will continue this comparison in this blog post. The essence of materialism is evident in the very first sentence of “Teddy”. “I'LL EXQUISITE DAY you, buddy, if you don't get down off that bag this minute.” Mr. McArdle who is Teddy's father demands that he gets off of his bag. Teddy is using the bag to be able to reach the porthole and look out on to the ocean. Mr. Mcardle doesn't care about what Teddy has to say or what he has been but rather just that Teddy doesn't harm the bag and gets off of it. This clearly shows that Mr. McArdle cares more about the material possession of the bag rather than the interests of his son. This difference is exasperated due to the nature of what Teddy thinks about. We find
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War and Weather

War and Weather As you read through “Paranoia” by SaId Sayrafiezadeh one of the things that you notice throughout the story is the weather. The weather in Paranoia is an interesting detail that really adds to the tone of the story and adds another dimension to the writing. When we are first introduced to the characters in April, the narrator (Dean) tells us how it was starting to get warm and the war would soon come. As you read the story you notice the connection between the temperature rising and building of anticipation for war.     The story begins in April and Dean recounts that “everyone said the war would happen soon” and that war would be unavoidable. Then the temperature began to rise, and May is described as “hot” but does not mention war until later. Rather we focus on the broken nose of Dean’s friend Roberto.As Dean is riding the bus to meet Roberto in the hospital despite the air condition and open windows he describes the terrible heat on the bus and sweating he is goi
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Innocence

As we have been reading through the collection of stories by J D Salinger I have noticed on the thread that seems to impact nearly every story. The loss of innocence has been touched on in many ways in the various stories. Throughout the stories, the mentally fit adults all seem to be flawed. However, the children all seem to have an uncontested innocence and purity that protects them from the outside world.  In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” Muriel is depicted as materialistic and elitist from the first scene. Salinger purposefully notes her clothing and her attitude when waiting to pick up the phone. She does not have any innocence and is rather very full of herself. Unlike Muriel, Sybil is compassionate and rather simplistic. She doesn’t care about materialistic things and the way people think about her but rather just talking to the nice man on the beach. Seymour is an outlier as an adult due to his mental state he focuses on his conversation with Sybil more than anything else
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