Hills like white elephants by Ernest Hemingway is a short story that was originally published in the literary magazine Transition in 1927. This short story describes a scene between an unnamed American man and a girl (Jig) sitting at a bar outside of a train station in Spain. As the pair waits for their train the two have an indirect conversation about an operation they should or should not confront. After reading into the couple’s dialogue and their uneasy attitude toward this operation you realize the operation they speak of is an abortion. Ernest Hemingway leaves the readers to interpret the couple’s decision. Giving what is unsaid does the girl in the story keep the baby? Does she stay in her relationship with the man?
Although Ernest Hemingway does not explicitly state the couple’s finally decision there are implications that might help the reader conduct their own ending. In the beginning of the story the girl seems to be very dependent on her significant other. She is yearning for his approval and looking for him to tell her what to do. You can sense in the beginning that she is insecure once being ignored after her elephant statement. “I know. But I if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?” As the story continues her insecurity turns to passive aggression. The aggression she holds is what tells me that she keeps the baby. She hoped he would understand that she didn’t want an abortion, but neither one wanted to force each other into it even though she felt pressured. They could have been because she was referred to as a girl the whole story. One can assume she was younger than him. By the underlying tenseness and the dynamic between them I don’t believe they will stay together either. By the end she seemed like she wanted nothing to do with him. “I feel fine,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.” It was obvious that she wasn’t fine. My sophomore year (2010), my childhood best friends and I were inseparable. I rather not use their real names so I’ll call them – Sadie, Laurie, Cam, Pam. This story might sound cliché but this story is true and very dear to my heart. The five of us would do anything and everything together. I must admit we weren’t the most well behaved kids, we defiantly had a reputation. Pam would throw parties at her parent’s house every time they went away, which seemed to be very often. We would steal our parent’s alcohol and even experimented with weed. We were very reckless kids yet most of us had a good head on our shoulders, we knew when enough was enough. But not all of us knew when to stop. Sadie and Laurie started to act out more and more as the months went on. They started getting attention from older boys and hanging around people who introduced them to harder drugs. At first I didn’t see it as a problem, they were still my close friends and I would love them no matter what but it only got worst from there. It wasn’t the same hanging out, I felt uncomfortable and I didn’t want to be pressured into the things they were doing - smoking cigs, hanging around disrespectful boys who wanted nothing more than to get into our pants. But the girls craved the attention, they would do anything for it. People would talk, they would say horrible things about Sadie and Laurie. There was always a rumor floating around about them and at this point I didn’t even know what real. It was sad to watch from the sideline as they both crumbled from the outside in. This was the point that I had to tell myself I need to separate myself from people I knew most my life and it was difficult decision walking away from them but I knew it was best for my well-being. Later on that year Sadie’s mom took her out school because her drug problem and then a couple months later Laurie’s mom her out of school for a similar reason. That year was a learning year for all of us. I do admit I miss the friendship I had with Sadie and Laurie still till this day.
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In this podcast What You Don't Know by Lulu Wang, she talks about a time when she had to make a difficult life decision. That decision was whether to go against her family’s cultural beliefs and tell her grandmother (NaiNai) that she was dying of stage four lung cancer or respect their wishes by not telling her. NaiNai's family kept her ignorant of her own expected death. But was that the wrong decision morally or what kept her alive? In Lulu family's cultural it is customary for doctors to give bad news to the family members rather than directly telling the patient. In this case it gives the family the control of whether or not to tell the patient. After hearing the news that NaiNai was dying from stage 4 lung cancer and has three months to live, the family made the decision not to tell her.
Before hearing Wang's full story I instantly disagreed with the Wang family's decision. I felt just like what Lulu had stated to her mother - "I'm pretty sure a lot of other Americans would feel the way that I felt, that somebody's going to die. It's their right to know." Yet the more I listened the more I could understand the decision not to tell. The Chinese cultural believe that mental and emotional health are completely linked to physical health. In the United States the battle is just as hard with medication. Medication will fight a disease, but destroy the body in the process. We let this happen because we focus more on the medication than mental wellbeing. One notices in the podcast that NaiNai is joyful throughout the months where she was said to have been dying. She was given no medicine in three years after the diagnosis and her loved ones believed that it was because they had not told her. I agree with both sides. Someone who is diagnosed with a deadly disease needs to be treated with honesty, but also joy instead of deceit. Sometimes you have to tell someone close a difficult truth that they know yet have been pushing away. My boyfriend of three years has been struggling with ongoing mental health. He's coped with it in healthy ways and unhealthy ways. One night had been far worse than others. I came home to him completely blacked-out drunk, in rare form. Instead of the night I expected, I had to stay by his side all night on a roller-coaster of emotions. The next day he had no recollection of any of any of the terrible things he had said about himself. It was then my duty to tell him the truths he said out loud the night before and that he needed to become more serious about his mental health. That's a night I will never forget. Sometimes unsettling truths are drawn out through bad methods. But ultimately, if someone is there to help without judgment it can be healed.
The late Maya Angelou was a well-known American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. Maya Angelou’s full name is Marguerite Annie Johnson. My name is Margaret is a short story in Angelou’s autobiography - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. This post will focus on the racism and inequality that Margaret faced growing up in the twenties. In this short story Margaret overcomes a conflict with her superior, Mrs. Cullinan – a wealthy white women, who Margaret works for as a servant. Mrs. Cullinan, while influenced by her upper-class friends, decides that Margaret is too long of a name and changes it to Mary for her own convenience. Margaret is enraged by this disrespect and decides she no longer wants to work for Mrs. Cullinan. Instead of quitting Margaret tries to find ways to get fired until one day she learns about Mrs. Cullinan’s beloved casserole dish and two green glass cups. To break away from Mrs. Cullinan’s oppression, Margaret drops the casserole dish and two green glass cups on the tile floor. I will share my opinion on Margaret's decision to rebel and my own challenges to either resist or not resist oppression, or refuse to obey an authority figure. By Margaret breaking Mrs. Cullinan’s beloved casserole dish and two green glass cups, Margaret breaks free from Mrs. Cullinan’s oppression. Margaret describes Mrs. Cullinan the night she was first called Mary. “That evening I decided to write a poem on being white, fat, old and without children. It was going to be a tragic ballad.” Since she had pity for Mrs. Cullinan. For example, “I smiled at her. Poor thing. No organs and couldn’t even pronounce my name correctly.” By smashing the favorite dish, Margaret gains power over Mrs. Cullinan in a non-systemic, different way. The power Mrs. Cullinan has is purely systemic. I agree with Margaret because she was able to equalize classism through materialism. I haven’t had many times that I can recall resisting oppression but I have in a way challenged the status quo. I live in an area that you are expected to go to the college straight out of high school. I’ve challenged this by taking four years off of school to mature. During those years I’ve experienced the feeling of being looked down upon for choosing a different life style. In this lifestyle I’ve learned in a different way than I would through a textbook. I believe learning through life experiences does challenge the status quo.
Introduction: The focus of this blog post is to educate the consumers through different writing processes by three well known authors: Maria Popova, Anne Lammot and Ray Bradbury. I co-authored these processes with Siani M. Davis, Dominique Candidi, David Miller and Ashley Coley. The Daily Writing Routines of Great Writers (Maria Popova) Quote 1: " I’m a serious cook — and pretend to be normal. I play sane — Good morning! Fine, thank you. And you? And I go home."-Maya Angelou Quote 2: "I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism."-Haruki Murakami Quote 3: “Some new thing is always exploding in me, and it schedules me, I don’t schedule it. It says: Get to the typewriter right now and finish this”(Bradbury 2). Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott) Quote 1: "It reminds me that all I have to do is write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame"(Lamott 4). Quote 2: "writing is, for some of us, the latch that keeps the door of the pen closed, keeps those crazy ravenous dogs contained"(Lamott 8). Quote 3: “Practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts”(Lamott 5) Zen in the Art of Writing (Ray Bradbury) Quote 1: “if you are a writer, or would hope to be one, similar lists, dredged out of the lopside of your brain, might well help you discover YON, even as I flopped around and finally found me”(Bradbury 19). Quote 2: "But along through those years 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"(Bradbury 17). Quote 3: “The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effordor a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping”(Bradbury 13). Our Processes 1: Listen to music while you write for more clarity. 2: Write an hour and if nothing is coming then take a break for an hour. If your mind allows the words to flow during that hour, then write another hour and so on until it stops. 3. Write in a calm atmosphere.
Introduction
For the past four years my focus has been primarily on working. I was working to make a living and working to avoid college expectations. This year my focus is simply on myself. My hope for this blog is to push myself out of a comfort zone I've known for too long and to promote self-improvement through education, health and happiness. __1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness? A quote from Jeremy Bentham on happiness - "as it's not just about doing things selfishly for your own happiness, but rather creating an environment of positive emotions and situations." "Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul" __2.__What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear would the day my mother passes away. __3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? A deplore trait in myself would be disconnecting from close friends. __4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others? A deplore trait in other would be pessimistic, unmerciful, unforgiving and narcissist. __5.__Which living person do you most admire? My mother will always be the one admire the most. __6.__What is your greatest extravagance? My greatest extravagance would be spending 3x the original cost on Twenty one pilots concert tickets. I will admit those tickets were worth every cent. __7.__What is your current state of mind? My current state of mind is anxious yet very hopeful. __8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue? __9.__On what occasion do you lie? __10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance? The answer to this changes everyday. Today I dislike my weight. __11.__Which living person do you most despise? My boyfriend’s once best friend, he has destroyed every last bit of myself confidence. __12.__What is the quality you most like in a man? Honestly/ patience/ forgiveness/ kindness/ empathy __13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman? Honestly/ patience/ empathy/ kindness/ forgiveness __14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse? The mostly overused words in my vocab would be - seriously and literally. __15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life? __16.__When and where were you happiest? I'm happiest anywhere there is an animal, preferably a dog. __17.__Which talent would you most like to have? I've always wanted to be able to sing well. __18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? If i could change one thing about myself is would be my ability express my true feelings in words. __19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement? My greatest achievement so far would be graduating high school. __20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? If I were to to die and come back I would come back as a Guardian angel __21.__Where would you most like to live? I would like to live in California for a few months then Ireland. __22.__What is your most treasured possession? My treasured possession would be my two pugs. __23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Living in fear __24.__What is your favorite occupation? Animal rescue/ interior designer __25.__What is your most marked characteristic? I've heard people say that I am amiable, attentive, a hard worker. __26.__What do you most value in your friends? I most value how my friends are humorous, forgiving, loyal, and supportive. __27.__Who are your favorite writers? Shel Silverstein __28.__Who is your hero of fiction? Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation. __29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with? __30.__Who are your heroes in real life? My hero is my mother. __31.__What are your favorite names? As of now my favorite names are Malakai, Addison and Rush. __32.__What is it that you most dislike? I dislike the regression that is happening currently in the United States. __33.__What is your greatest regret? I will forever regret not taking my education more seriously during grade school. I wish I pushed myself to greater limits. __34.__How would you like to die? I would like to die feeling as though I made a positive impacted for the ones I love. __35.__What is your motto? One day at a time. |