First Meeting with Conversation Partner

        Monday was my first meeting with my conversation partner, Young Kim.  We met in the cafe part of the library since it was the easiest place for her to find.  I found out that she is from South Korea and decided to come to Texas since her older sister lives in Weatherford.  The crazy thing is, she wakes up every morning at 5am to have her brother-in-law drop her off at TCU then he heads to work.  I could not imagine having to wake up that early every morning!  I asked if she took naps during the day since she was up so early, but she said that instead  she goes to bed early, at 10pm.  I would be exhausted!

     We also chatted about the differences she sees in America vs. South Korea.  I think the main thing she dislikes is the food.  She misses the Korean food, since she fished back home.  Her favorite dish is kimchi, which she had to spell out for me so I could look it up on Google images (best invention ever).  She described it as being very spicy and containing different vegetables.  I showed her some of my favorite things to eat and discovered she isn't a fan of Mexican food, such a shame since the Tex-Mex food here is so good!

     Overall, my first meeting with Young went really well! She's really sweet and seems interested in the culture around her.  Her english isn't so good, but she is willing to learn.  What I had to focus on was speaking a little slower so that she could understand what I was saying.  That is quite the challenge for me since I talk fast.  We don't realize how fast we speak and how we blend words so much until we encounter someone who does not know the language very well.  It reminded me of being back in high school trying to learn spanish and doing listening activities.  They were always so difficult when the speaker spoke quickly or had a different accent than my teacher.  I can only imagine how difficult it is for Young to try and figure out what everyone is saying all the time!  I, for one, am completely guilty of blending or abbreviating words, creating my own new dialect that at times does not sound like normal English!

Curious Case of Benjamin Button

                These pas t two day have been really hectic for me since I had 3 tests in 2 days.  I wasn’t going to read super in depth into this story but after reading some analysis of this story, I stayed up a little later than expected and read.  The impression that I got from the story was that a common theme was fitting in.

                It seemed like all the Button family wanted was for Benjamin to fit in, but considering his condition, that would never happen.  When he was “younger” but looked like an old man, his father wanted him to act like a baby and play with a rattle and when he was older but looked like a child, his son wanted him to act like an old man and wear whiskers.  It seemed like the outside world wanted Benjamin to fit in, but he never was going to.  That is really common today also.  Children are constantly trying to get along with their peers by playing the same games and wearing the same outfits.  It only gets worse when kids try their hardest to be in the “popular crowd”.  Girls start buying expensive clothing, wearing more makeup than necessary, and develop eating disorders to be skinny.  The saddest part is, this process continues throughout adult life.  You see more and more people getting plastic surgery so they can look better and change for society.  People are constantly trying to be like everyone else, but not Benjamin.  He accepted the fact that he was different from everyone else and embraced his differences.  The only problem was, the people around him would not accept those differences.

                This short story also brings up the fantasy that everyone has; the idea of aging in reverse, getting younger as you get older.  He was the envy of everyone is society.  Yet, Fitzgerald puts a twist on this story where his early years as an old man and later years as a child are filled with annoyance.  His father was ashamed of him because he looked like an old man but should be a baby and Benjamin’s son, Roscoe, was annoyed since Benjamin looked like a boy but should be a grandfather.  Clearly, Benjamin’s peak years were from 50-20 where he met his wife, Hildegard.  Yet, that became troubled too when Benjamin kept getting younger but his wife got older.  He became to hate how she wanted to stay in at night and became more of a chaperone at parties whereas he was the life of it.  Their marriage ended when she moved to France because of their differences due to maturity and technically age.  It seemed like from then on everything that Benjamin began ended badly.  His time at Harvard started off great and he was the star football player and top of his class, but as he got younger he got scrawnier and could barely make the team, schoolwork also became much more difficult.  Basically, Benjamin did life backwards and was never quite at the right place at the right time, making aging oppositely more of a curse than a blessing.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Every time one reads The Yellow Wall Paper you find a different interpretation.  The stream of consciousness type writing allows the reader to really feel like they are a part of the story.  When the narrator began describing the house is such complimenting terms, I assumed this story was going to be completely different from some of the darker stories we have read.  She begins with stating that the house is, “The most beautiful place!” and goes on to describe the delicious garden and beautiful lawns.  Yet, as soon as she says that the house is beautiful, there is always something that one does not like.  For the narrator it was the wallpaper in the master bedroom.  I feel like that is true today in American society.  We can never be happy with what we have.  People are always striving to be the best; have the best car, biggest house, most talented children, etc.  The “keeping up with the Jones’s” mantra is still in full swing in 2010.

                The yellow wallpaper that the narrator describes really becomes a character itself.  It is described in every section of the short story, typically at the beginning or end, leaving the reader with this image of life-like walls controlling this barren room.  As the story continues, the narrator describes the wallpaper more and more, showing that it is consuming her every thought.  The narrator becomes so engrossed in the wallpaper she quits sleeping at night, claiming that the wallpaper shakes and changes direction sense there is a woman trapped behind it.  In my opinion, that describes the narrator.  She feels trapped in her home where her husband keeps her contained in the house, stating that she needs her rest to get better from “nervous depression”.  She is also far away from any civilization, causing her to create a civilization in the wallpaper.  The woman who hides behind the wallpaper and comes out at night is the narrator expressing herself when no one else is watching her.

                As the narrator becomes more involved with the wallpaper it is easy for the reader to realize she is becoming more and more mentally ill.  From reading a couple of analysis’ some people believe she has postpartum depression since it alludes to her having a young baby and her husband telling her to get better for their child’s sake.  Unfortunately, leaving her alone to analyze that wallpaper for hours leads to her mental demise.   Her husband had good intentions, but with the Victorian references care of mentally ill patients was a guessing game.  They were often sent to institutions where they were given drugs and shock therapy which did no good whatsoever.  A common theme during this time was frontal lobotomy, which is absolutely grotesque. 

                From my first reading, I had no idea what to think with the last passage.  But after some thinking, I think that the narrator tries to liberate herself from the wallpaper and tears it off like an animal.  When her husband walks in and sees her “creeping” he faints, knowing that his wife has clearly gone insane.  Another thought that I had was that the narrator hanged herself since Gilman mentioned a rope and that the narrator wrapped herself in the rope so that she could catch the woman in the wallpaper.  Clearly, this short story shows the horrors of mental illness and depression, culminating in a complete mental breakdown.

Araby by James Joyce

James Joyce’s short story, Araby, attracted me much more than some of the other poems that we have read so far.  This is probably due to the fact that it is a short story rather than a poem which to me makes it seem easier to read and analyze.  Immediately from reading the title I expected the piece to have a Middle Eastern flair.  I was wrong though when the first three words were “North Richmond Street…” followed later in the sentence by “…Christian Brothers’ School…”  Those six words clearly stated that this story was not based in the Middle East but the United Kingdom, specifically Dublin. 

The young boy in the story, who was never formally introduced, reminded me of any young boy going through his first crush.  Even though it was 1914, the actions and thoughts of the boy immolate children of 2010.  The boy’s crush, who is his friend’s older sister, was constantly on his mind, “Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand.”  He also would lie on the floor of their front door so that he could watch her house, wishing to see her.  All this reminded me of was my dog sitting at our living room window waiting for us to come home.  The young boy has simply become infatuated with her, the definition of “puppy love”.  In 1914 the young boy would silently wait at his front door to see his crush, but in 2010 the young boy probably would have hopped on Facebook to look at her latest status update.  Even though the times have changed, love is still the same.

The idea of the boy going to the bazaar to pick up a date for his crush sounds all too familiar.  He simply wants to get her something that every time she uses it, picks it up, or looks at it, it would remind her of him.  When the boy plans on visiting the bazaar, his whole day seems like it drags and is unimportant.  This part of the story is extremely easy to relate to.  Whenever I have something that I am looking forward planned, the day always seems to move in slow motion, food tastes bland, classes are more boring than usual, and minutes pass by at a snail’s pace.  Your whole thought process is based upon this anticipated plan.  The poor boy had to wait till 9 o’clock to go to the bazaar, no wonder he only heard two lines of his uncle’s poem recitation!  When he gets to the bazaar, my heart melted for him, all this boy wanted to do was get something magical, something that made him stand out from everyone else.  Yet, he was disappointed to find typical vases and flowered tea-sets.  This happens so often today, people spend hours shopping in malls or online trying to find the perfect gift for their loved one, only to return unhappy with what they saw just like the young boy.  What this short story shows is that love is the same in any decade.