In the short story The Lottery, Shirley Jackson writes about a tradition that people who live in the village believe in. The tradition is called the Lottery. It consist of every family who live in the village has to attend. If they don't attend someone from their family has to pick their ticket out of the black box for them. Who ever get a certain ticket will get stoned.
Argumentative Response: Are there any American traditions that share similarities with the lottery tradition in the village? In this story the tradition the villagers believed in is very hurtful. When I heard about this story The Lottery I thought it was about money. I was a little excited to see what it was about, but no one could have told me it wasn't about money. Since it wasn't about money I would think it would be something good with the title lottery but it wasn't. It was about people who lived in villages gathering their family picking tickets out a black box and getting stoned. They even had young children stoning they parents. In America it's a lot of different traditions. Some traditions relate to different religions. I'm going to speak about one tradition within a religion. The Muslim religion but not all Muslims believe in this tradition just some. I was told by different Muslims how this tradition is accepted in their family. The tradition that some Muslims believe in is having more then one wife. What I was told by different Muslims is that if they husband want more then one wife the first wife have to agree. I have an example on how I know that some Muslims agree with each other on having more then one wife but it hurts the wife to share her husband. One day I was at work talking to a female friend who was a Muslim and shared her husband. She wasn't the first wife she was the second. We were standing outside my job and she lived across the street from my job. We were talking and she saw her husband leaving the house with bags. She said and was very upset and loud, it is my week he suppose to stay with me. I looked at her with sorrow and said wow. I said to myself I couldn't do nothing like that. She have a good heart. The similarity of the tradition the Muslims share with the Lottery tradition is that they are consisted, they go thru with it no matter if it hurts someone. They also gather their family. Narrative Response: When have you made an important choice to break away or not break away from a strong cultural tradition you shared with a family, friend, or culture? I shared a good relationship with my kids father but sorrowfully to say after I had my three children he became abusive and over protective. I loved him so much I couldn't understand why he would hit me and be so over protective. I never cheated on him. I was always nice caring and shared everything with him. He knew everything about me. We had our own place. He would be the one to cheat on me. Girls would call his phone, but it was one girl particularly who would some how call at least once a month. I guess she was his side girl and knew about me. One day my children father female cousin came over from florida and stayed with us for a while. She told me alot of things about my childrens father parents. How his father use to hit on his mother a lot. So we both knew where he got that bad behavior. She wasn't the only person that told me that. His brother wife told me that also. I had to leave that relationship. I took my kids and went back home with my grandparents. I would say it was a cultural tradition because his parents showed him that bad behavior and he repeated what his father did to his mother to me.
2 Comments
In the short story Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway writes about a male he called the American and a female he called girl in this story. He spoke about how the American and the girl was at a train station having drinks and how they were discussing how they felt about each other. He also spoke about how the girl was pregnant and how the American and the girl was trying to decide was they going to keep the baby or not.
Argumentative Response: Does the girl in the story keep the baby? Does she stay in her relationship with the man? In this story the girl stayed in the relationship with the man. The man told the girl a lot of things to make her feel better while she was trying to make a decision on was they going to keep the baby or not. He told the girl he loved her, he told her he didn’t want her to do anything she didn’t want to do, he told her they both can have everything and of course he mentioned more nice things to her. The girl said some things to him like she didn’t care about herself, if she did it he wouldn’t worry, the mountains look like white elephants and she also said what will they do afterwards. While they were speaking with each the waitress told the girl her train would be there in five minutes and the girl smiled at her. Then the man said he was going to take the bags on the other side of the tracks. The girl said come back and have a drink. The train didn’t come. So he had a drink and was watching other people waiting for the train and he also was waiting on the girl. When he went thru the beaded curtain he seen the girl and she smiled at him. She said I feel fine nothing wrong with me. One of the reasons why I said she kept the baby and stayed with the man is because when he walked through the beaded curtain and saw the girl sitting, she smiled at him and said she was fine. It wasn’t nothing wrong with her. Narrative Response: When have you made a important choice to stay in a relationship or leave a relationship -- OR -- stay or leave a difficult situation? I encourage you to write a scene that shows the moment. Consider using dialogue. When I was younger maybe around twenty-two I had to make an important choice to leave a relationship. I was in a relationship since I was nineteen. I had my own apartment when I was twenty and I let my friend move in with me. I was working at a car rental place full time. My friend was a producer and he had a studio where he use to record individuals. I use to work a lot. When I use to call the studio and speak with my friend all I use to hear in the background was boom boom boom with drums, piano and of course people voices singing. Sometimes it would be a recorder and sometimes I wouldn’t know the difference. It was a time when I thought he was dealing with someone that I didn’t know about (cheating). So we decided no females in the studio unless I knew about it. One day I called and a girl picked the phone. I said hello… someone hung up the phone on me. I was so upset I wasn’t at work I was home fifteen minutes away from the studio. I called back no one answered so I kept paging my friend on his beeper, no call back. I jumped in my car speeded off so fast all I heard was the wind from the windows. I was there probably within five minutes. Once I got there I was calling the studio with my flip phone, paging the pager and bangging on the studio door. No one answered. So I sat in my car for a minute and when I looked up my friend friend was about to go in the studio. He was my friend best friend they was in business together. I was happy to see him. So he said hi Regina and I said hi. As he was opening the door my friend busted out the door and pushed me away from the door. As he was pushing me away I saw someone in the studio. Now one of my friend’s friend pull up and say that the girl in there is for me. So the girl finally came out and I asked the girl was that you who answered the phone. She said yes and that’s when my friend friend got in between us and said she was for me. Then the girl left. I told my friend I didn’t want our relationship no more. I chose to leave that relationship because it wasn’t just that situation it was also other situations that happened before than. In this post, I will give three quotes from each of the following readings:
The Daily Writing Routines of Great Writers (Maria Popova), Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott), and Zen in the Art of Writing (Ray Bradbury). Along with the quotes I will give three quotes about my writing process. The Daily Writing Routines of Great Writers: “I like the slowness of writing by hand. Then i type it up and scrawl all over that and keep on retyping it, each time making corrections both by hand and directly on the typewriter, until i don't see how to make it any better.” -Kurt Vonnegut (Maria Popova) “You write until you come to a place where you still have you juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again.”- Kurt Vonnegut (Maria Popova) “I work in the morning at the manual typewriter. I do about four hours and then go running. This helps me shake off one word and enter another”-Kurt Vonnegut (Maria Popova) Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life: “Writing is about filling up, filling up when you are empty, letting images and ideas and smells run down like water-just as writing is also about dealing with emptiness.” -(Anne Lamott) “I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts.” -(Anne Lamott) “… there may be someone out there in the world-maybe a spouse, maybe a close friend-who will read your finished drafts and give you an honest critique, let you know what does and doesn't work, give you some suggestions on things you might take out or things on which you need to elaborate, ways in which to make you piece stronger” -(Anne Lamott) Zen in the Art of Writing: “In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are.” -(Ray Bradbury) “…I began to make lists of titles, to put down long lines of nouns. These lists were the provocations, finally, that caused my better stuff to surface.” -(Ray Bradbury) “You stumble into it, mostly. You don't know what you’re doing, and suddenly, its done. You don't set out to reform a certain kind of writing. It evolves out of your own life and night scares.” -(Ray Bradbury) This blog post was co-authorized by my class mates and I. My Writing Process: "When writing try to be at peace." "Think of the most interesting things you going to write about." "Try not to complete your best writing in one day because you may think of something better tomorrow". In this blog post, I’m going to write about a short story called My Name is Margaret by Maya Angelou. This story is about a colored girl named Margaret who works for a white woman name Mrs. Viola Cullinan. Margaret stated that “during her tenth year, a white woman’s kitchen became her finishing school”. Margaret also spoke about Miss Glory who was a descendant of slaves who also worked for Mrs. Cullinan and Mrs. Collinan’s family, Margaret said Miss Glory told her her history. Miss Glory was a cook for Mrs. Collinan. Miss Glory was very patient with the housework and explaining the dishware to Margaret, said Margaret. Margaret explained how Mrs. Collinan exactness of her house was inhuman. One example of that statement was “Margaret said that cup had it’s place and it was an art of impudent rebellion to place it anywhere else”. Margaret also said that she was “fascinated with the novelty, with the fluttering Mrs. Cullinan and her Alice-in-Wonderland house. Margaret had learned the differences of plates. She also learned that Mrs. Collinan best plates was a casserole shaped like a fish and the green glass coffee cups. Mrs. Cullinan parents was wealthy and she kept up the tradition of her parents said Margaret. Mrs. Cullinan was married. Mrs. Cullinan husband had two daughters from a colored woman. Margaret said she feel sorry for Mrs. Collinan because she don’t know what she missed with those kids. Margaret also said the kids was beautiful. Mrs. Collinan was a plump woman, lived in the three bedroom house behind post office, she was unattractive until she smiled said Margaret. Margaret also said she “thought privately that as ugly as Mrs. Collinan is she was lucky to get a husband above or beneath her station”. Margaret also said Mrs. Collinan “face looked like the mask of an impish elf”. Mrs. Collinan invites her friends over in the late afternoon and when they come the cook Miss Glory serve them cold drinks in a closed in porch said Margaret. One evening Miss Glory asked Margaret to serve Mrs. Collinan and her friends some drinks and she did. As she was serving the drinks one of Mrs. Collinan’s friends wanted to know Magaret name and Margaret told her. Mrs. Collinan friend name was Mrs. Randall. Mrs. Randall said I would call her Mary for short. Margaret said she fumed in the kitchen and said “that horrible woman would never have the chance to call me Mary because if I was starving, I wouldn't work for her. The next day Mrs. Collinan called Magaret by a different name and Miss Glory said who. Then Miss Glory said “you mean Margaret ma’am”. Mrs. Collinan said “that’s too long she’s Mary from now”. Margaret was now trying to find away to get fired bc she said her momma wouldn’t let her quit for any reason. So Margaret would come late and leave early said Margaret. She still didn’t get fired. So one day she was told to serve Mrs. Collinan’s friends on the porch while Mrs. Collinan was hanging out clothes. Margaret had Mrs. Collinan best dishes. So before she served Mrs. Collinan friends she heard Mrs. Collinan scream Mary she said. As she went to serve them she said she saw Mrs. Collinan rounded at the kitchen door and she let her favorite dishes fall on the tiled floor said Margaret. (The favorite piece, the casserole shaped like a fish and the green coffee cups). Mrs. Collinan’s was very upset, crying and wobbling around on the floor as she said “It’s Momma’s china from Virginia” said Margaret. Her friends and Miss Gloria came running in Miss Glory said you broke our Virginia dishes what we going to do and Mrs. Collinan screamed louder. Then Mrs. Collinan friend bent down and said to her was it Mary” and Mrs. Collinan yelled out and said it was Margaret. So Margaret left the house and said “Mrs. Collinan have one thing right my name wasn’t Mary.
Argumentative Response: Did you agree with Margaret's choice to break the casserole dish and two green glass cups? I would agree with Margaret to break the casserole and the two green glass cups because I wouldn’t want noone to call me by a different name without my permission. Especially someone I work for because I have to deal with that person everyday. Of course you should show respect to your boss but if your boss is not respecting you then their is a problem. I couldn’t see how a person would want to call someone a different name without their permission unless they were missable which in that short story Margaret said she would have wanted to capture Mrs. Collinan in the essence of her loneliness and pain. I wouldn’t want to see no one lonely or in pain but if you are a mean person and want to hurt someone feelings and things of that nature well I guess you get what was coming to you. Narrative Response: When have you made an important choice to either resist or not resist oppression, challenge the status quo, or refuse to obey an authority figure? When I was working at a job I made a important choice to resist oppression. At this job I was a hard worker and I always helped people who wanted help. One day I moved up at the job as a Shop Steward. I would help my co-workers with different things that went on at the job fars as managers or other employees. We had a Union, so of course I use to report to the union. A lot of things went on at that job. I use to have meetings with managers about different employee’s. One day I was speaking with a manager and as we were talking we noticed something while we were looking out the window. One of the employee’s pushed another employee. So we rushed outside before they started fighting and pulled them apart from each other. One of the employee’s was my manager favorite employee. So what happened was the manager took a statement from both employee’s and I was there and watched everything that was said. So when the regional manager came he asked what happened and the manager lied on the other guy not her favorite employee and the other person got fired. The other employee said Regina you saw everything that happened can you talk to the union for me to get my job back. I said yes. We had a meeting with the union present and I told my side of the story and my manager was still lying about her favorite employee. The employee did get his job back but after that I had a problem with my manager. She use to say I was being insubordinate towards her and if I call out she said I never called out it was a mess. Through all of that I still respected her and I never lied about her but at the end she got fired. |
Regina KingI will use this Blog to discuss course materials. Archives
December 2017
Categories
All
|