Jan's Short Story Exploration

     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 ...

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 ...