"Everyday Use" with "The Lottery"

Mother and daughter relationships are always hard to maintain. In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use", the mother tells her story of her two diverse daughters. She describes the difference of Dee, the older daughter in collge and Maggie, the daughter who is still living in the "nest". She tells the story of her two daughteres while waiting for Dee's arrival from college. She describes how different they are and in their story telling, you can tell their differences. Dee has broken away from her family and has adopted a life on her own, even having a boyfriend by the name of Hakeem-a-barber and changing her name to Wangero, even though she was named after her Aunt Dee. Dee forgot about her heritage and wants the family quilts for the having it as part of the trend. Maggie wants the quilts because she treasures the quilts as something that is part of her and makes her who she is. The quilts are clothes of the women in her family and have been sown together. Maggie sees it as part of her and her family and sees it as something sacred. Mama sees that is is part of her hertitage as well and wants the quilts to belong to her daugthers, that she loves so much. But she would want the quilts to belong to one person that would treasure and value the quilts as much as she did and the rest of her ancestors did. Alice Walker illustrates the differing views and wants the audience to see how much the quit means and how much heritage and family should mean to an individual whether they have "left the nest" or not. Alice Walker wants the audience to side with Maggie and Mama as the two value their family and the family heirloom that Dee (Wangero) only sees as a fashion statement or a new trend in her generation. The title, "Everyday Use", is significant to the story as to how the quilts are seen for the characters and how Alice Walker wants the audience to see it as well. The quilts are seen as an item for "everyday use" but the use and value of it is different for the differing sisters. To maggie, she values the quilt as an "everyday use" because to her it represents her family and who she is and so it is used as an everyday heirloom to remind her where she came from and who she is. To Dee (Wnagero), she uses it on an  "everyday use" because she uses it as fashion trend. It is a trend in her collge and her generation of having african clothes or items and to her she will use it everyday to be part of the generation and to be popular. To Mama she uses everyday as comfort and for something to remind her as well as to where she came from.  Alice Walker uses the title "everyday use" as a double meaning. An item can be on item but it can mean so many things and can be used for so many things. A quilt is a quilt but it has so many more meanings. It can just be a quilt for comfort, it can be a ratty old thing, it can be used for a fashion statement or a family heirloom. Alice Walker is demonstrating the meaning of what an item can mean to someone and how meanings can change by differing people, time, and how people change views and lifestyles.  What was ironic about the story is how Dee changed her name to Wangero, a name that may be embraced in the Islam and African World. Dee is not embracing where she truly comes from by changing her name to a name that she was named after her Aunt. What is ironic is that she chooses a name that may be related to her family's heritage. She neglects her beautiful name and family for one that she ignorant of. The story is told in a beautiful way through the eyes of the mother of the two sisters. If the story was told by Maggie, it would be told with a sense of jealousy and anger towards her sister but with so much passion for her family and her heritage. If Dee were to tell the story, the story would be seen completely different, while we see what most of our generation sees. We see fashion trends but not family. We would see what we all have adopted to and we would never see the signifance of an "everyday use" of a quilt, that means so much more than just a quilt. It's family. It is heritage.

    "The Lottery" comes across as a short story and starts off in a warm bright setting. Shirley Jackson truly made a set up for her audience to see the perfect twist of her story at the end, one that no one will ever expect. The story starts of as a small town is gathering for the lottery and the lottery is scene as a spectacle that no one should miss. It seems like the lottery is like winning the lottery of our time and day, of winning money. But it's not. Instead, Shirley Jackson willl shows lottery as a different way, than money. She illustrates that the lottery is greed and that in the end it can kill you. The lottery for the town is stoning the person that wins. In reality, the person who wins it all, looses it all and in the story it is one's life. People want to win even for the worse reason. People believe that in winning, they can wiin it all, but Jackson's message is that winning it all is winning nothing at all because in the end, they win nothing.

"Araby"

     In James Joyce's, "Araby", the use of light and dark imagery is used to set the tone, or attitude of the story. Joyce simply uses light and darkness to describe the imagery and plot of the beginning of the story. For example, Joyce writes, "When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners". The season of winter and the time of the day describes the setting of the story which helps the audience illustrate what is going on. The colors of dusk helps then understand that darkness is approaching and Joyce continues to describe the North Richmond Street as dark and only certain "light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas". The whole light and darkness concept of the story is a vital part being that the narrarator of the story is blind. This gives the audience the ability to "see" what the blind can "see", which is seeing darkness and sensing light. It takes the readers back into following the characters footsteps and hiding "in the shadow" as the characters did. Light and darkness used in the story also highlights certain characters and feelings. While the setting is set in a dark street, the writer wants to put a "spotlight" to the characters he is describing. For example, Mangan's sister is described as, " she was waiting for us, her figured defined by the light from the half-opened door". With this use of imagery, the audience can picture a street of complete darkness but picture a girl with the light shining on her. Another example is highlighting the feeling of one person. The narrator of the story is falling in love with Mangan's sister and his adoration for is described as "some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me". This describes how he was in total darkness but when his feelings left him feeling in love, the light gleamed on him to show how much passion is beaming from him to express his feelings for this girl.

     This story is filled with symbolism from page to page. The bazaar is an important symbolism to the narrarator. It can symbolize many things. First it can symbolize freedom. The narrator is living with his aunt and uncle and I believe he wants a chance to escape the darkness that he is living in, since darkness is all that he can sense and see. He wants a place and a chance to see light and to him the light is in bazaar which is freedom from the darkness. Bazaar can also symbolize love or meer infatuation. It has been the narrators' dream to go to bazaar but when he meets the girl of his dreams, the more he is encouraged to go since he promises to go and bring her something. His instant infatuation blinds this narrator even more so, that he wants to leave for a girl he barely knows, instead of his own happiness and reasoning. He goes but as it turns out, his visit is not up to his expectations, which is how most infatuations result in. He is faced with reality.

     The story starts in North Richmond street and uses imagery to set the plot of the story. The use of light and darkness is used to set up the plot of the story and who the characters are and the tone within the story. As the story continues, love takes place and a certain rising action is when he finally talks to the girl of his dreams and falls madly in love with her that you can feel how is feeling by the light that gleams on him and how his "body was like a harp" and the girl's "words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires". Another rising action is when he is ready to leave for bazaar but waits for his uncle to return to let him go and give him money and the story falls back when his uncle does not return and meerly forgets about his nephew leaving. The ultimate climax is when he finally gets to bazaar and the story is rising to the point where he is walking around and steals the two pennies in one of the stalls. The story continues with suspense the gallery is filled with darnkess since the light goes out. And the climax is left at the end for the audience to figure out as the narrator is lef with his eyes burning "with anguish and anger". This climax ends with symbolism as the whole story is almost like a journey of the main character. He takes us on a journey of where he lives, to falling in love for the first time and having his dreams met and when he finally reaches his dreams, it crashes into a reality as he sees his dreams crushed right before his eyes. He dreamed of bazaar and as he walked around, his dream and imagination were completely opposite from what he expected that he learns that his dreams were only an infatuation and unreal that reality finally sinks in and he starts to see what the real world is. He starts from seeing darkness and finally seeing the light, and left with finally seeing reality.

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

     Edgar Allan Poe's, "The Tell-Tale Heart", is a story about an insane man who kills an innocent man staying at his home. When he finally kills the man, he finds that karma has found him immediately and has driven him more mad than he already is. This story depicts two main characters- the old man with pale blue eyes and the man who murders this innocent man. But this story has a hero and a villian. The villian or the antagonist is the man who murders the pale blue-eyed man and the protagonists are the police officers who seek to investigate any wrong doing in the neighborhood. The police officers get a complaint from one of the neighbors about signs of stuggle from the murderers house and because of their presence and their investigation, the antagonist goes mad and he is forced to confess his wrongful actions to the police officers.

     Murder, is what creates the plot in Edgar Allan Poe's story. There is much conflict in the story and within the characters. The first conflict is the man wanting to kill the innocent pale blue-eyed man. The eye drives him mad, that even with no harm done, he murders the innocent poor man and burries him under the floor boards. Another conflict, is the conflict that the murder must go through within himself. He does not find himself insane, yet he kills a man, by planning his strategy out carefully and watches the old man sleep every night. He consumes all his energy into killing the man and the pale blue-eye consumes his mind. He becomes obsessed and he does not realize the conflict within himself. After he kills the man, he thought he was free, but only left to know that the heart of the man is driving him wild. The old man is dead and burried under the floor boards of the home, yet even when the deed is done, he finds his mind comsumed with the old man, except this time, it isn't his eye, but his heart. The beating of the heart is all that he hears and it drives him wild. This conflict is the conflict he has with himself and with his mind. His mind takes control of what he does which makes him insane, and an uncontrollable conflict that he can not fix.

     Poe's short story is a unique and timeless story that always leaves with me chills everytime I read 
"The Tell-Tale Heart". Besides his descriptions and imagery, the diction of the writer sets up the plot of the story. And with the clever uses of imagery and the choices of words, the writer is able to successful create a rising action that builds to the story's climax. But the story, has 2 climax. The first climax is Day 8, the night of the murder. The author sets up his audience and starts the story with the two main characters and sets up the audience to picture that this man has been stalking the victim for 7 days which leaves the last day of the murder, when the murderer is like a predator after its prey. The murder occurs and this is what the audience is set up to read and imagine about. The second climax is towards the end. This story is truley timeless because how the story is left at the end. Although the climax of the story already occurred in the beginning of the story, the audience is set up to read more while the story rises up towards the end. When the Police officers come to investigate and search the house, the murderer is left feeling uneasy and looking pale as he goes mad when he hears a sound that follows him. This climax occurs when he can not keep his secret to himself but reveals to the police officers who suspected nothing, that he indeed kill the man and showed where the victim's remains are left. This climax not only occurs at the end and lets the audience read, hanging on to every last word of the story, but leaves the audience having read the story with 2 climax that only will leave them with no questions but with words that leave with images of the story in their minds. Towards the end, the audience gets their revenge by having the "villian" of the story get their revenge by revealing his murderous deeds to the police, when in fact the dead  man was the one that got his revenge and can now rest in peace.