Lady with a Lapdog

I have just finished reading the story “Lady with a Lapdog” by Anton Chekhov. This was a very interesting story to say the least.

The main character, Gurov, was a man that had an arranged marriage to a woman that he did not particularly like. His character was an interesting one. He always seemed to be changing to me. In the beginning of the story he seemed pretty normal then he just seemed like a womanizer, then he couldn’t get Anna out of his head, then he just realized how much of a lie he was living. He had a very interesting and dynamic character. The other thing about his character I found interesting was how lightly he talked of cheating on his wife. He spoke of it like it was an everyday occurrence. The whole voice of his character was very interesting to me.

There were a lot of comic relief lines in this story as well. This struck me as strange as well. There were a few lines in this story that were just out of place. The conversation he had with his wife before he went to Moscow was very comical and seemed to play as nothing more than just a relief from the drama of the story. These moments were pretty interesting.

I think the mood of this story shifted a lot too. In the beginning it sort of felt like a light comedy and then it shifted to a slight drama,. Then it shifted to a big drama, and in the end it sort of ended up like a romantic comedy. I thought the ending was really good though. I like an ending where I can come up with what happens next. I like being able to imagine what happens after the story has ended.

This was a very interesting story and I think it ranks up there with some of my favorites.

Essay 2

In this unit we have read many great stories. There is one story and one claim that I want to focus on for our next essay however.

The story "Sonny's Blues" was a really good story. I could relate to it because I have grown up with two brothers and I would do anything for them. I liked how the two brothers relationship was in this however because i think it strengthened the overall outcome between them.

In my next essay I want to focus on how in lots of different stories and movies the relationship between two brothers is struggled and awkward even, but near the resolution of the story they are closer than ever and the awkwardness sort of melts away. I think i could be able to write an essay on this topic

Ordinary people

We just watched the film Ordinary People directed by Robert Redford in our class. There were many different characters that had changed a lot by the end of this movie. I really thought that the ending was fitting and I thought it contrasted the beginning of the movie very well.

The main character that we follow in this movie is Conrad Jarret. From the opening he seems like a normal 15 year old boy. We then see him wake up from a troubled sleep and his character evolves from that. His personality changed a lot by the end of this movie. At the beginning he seemed like he was so tormented by events of his past that he could not be helped. Throughout the course of the movie he sees a psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Berger. Through his sessions with this very liberal psychiatrist he slowly changes his way of thinking. In one of the most important scenes in the movie Conrad finally finds that he needs to stop punishing himself for events that he couldn’t have helped. This was a very intense and memorable scene which was made even more real by the phenomenal acting. By the end of the movie Conrad was nearly the opposite of his former self. It is like he transcended from his former self into a new state of being that was free from the torments of his earlier character.

Conrad’s feelings towards his friends and peers slowly changes throughout this movie. At the beginning he seems to be indifferent but when he goes on a date with a girl he likes from his choir class his feelings toward them seem almost intolerable. A couple of his friends interrupt them and the girl, Jeannine, finds them funny. Conrad doesn’t find them that funny and the awkwardness between the two grows until the end of the date when Conrad drops her off. This was he most awkward part of the movie to watch and Conrad still being tormented inside makes it clear. Another example is when he beats up one of his former friends for saying bad things about Jeannine. His reaction was very human which made him seem like a very real person to me.

Conrad’s Father Calvin was another very important character in this movie. Ever since the boating accident with Conrad and his older brother Buck in whom the latter died, Calvin was very cautious with what he said around Conrad. Calvin never yelled at Conrad and only supported his actions of seeing Dr. Berger. Calvin changed a lot by the end of the movie as well. At one point in the movie Calvin saw the same Doctor that Conrad was seeing and they had a very in depth conversation. Calvin talked about how much Compassion Conrad’s mother, Beth Jarret, showed Buck but no one else. He also stated that at the funeral the only two people that didn’t cry were Beth and Conrad. He also said that the reason Conrad and Beth didn’t get along was because the two of them were so much alike. In the end of the movie Calvin finally stated that everyone’s thinking that Beth was strong for never crying or showing emotion was just the opposite. He called her weak for not being able to cry or show emotion. This was a very true statement because only a strong person could come to grips with their emotions and not care if they were accepted or not. He then said that the woman he loved had more or less been buried with all of her love when Buck died. This was a very memorable quote for me because none throughout the entire movie had spoken their mind about her until that point and I was very relieved that her husband was the one to do it.

The final major character in this movie was Conrad’s mother Beth. This woman had an awful character throughout this film. She was more concerned with the family’s appearance to others than the emotional stability of her husband and son. She also changed but not really for the better. Throughout this entire film she never once showed emotion. She also frowned upon Conrad seeing a psychiatrist stating that smart people can deal with their own problems. She also is upset with Calvin for talking about their son with other people because she doesn’t think that what goes on in their family doesn’t concern any outside people’s thoughts. Throughout the film she also shows how much she doesn’t care for Conrad. In one scene where they are at her parent’s house she refuses to take a picture with just the two of them in it. She also throws away a perfectly good breakfast the second Conrad says he isn’t hungry. In the end of the movie when Calvin accuses her of being weak she finally shows emotion. She begins to cry and then reinforces his opinion of her by leaving for a while. She was a very unlikable character but she was played outstandingly.

This was a very interesting movie to me. It really showed how strangled and struggling a family relationship can get when a member dies. Some can pull through and become closer than ever, but some, like this movie, can almost completely fall apart. It was a very interesting look into appearances as well. From an outside perspective this family could seem very normal and not have a problem but appearances only run so deep and it was obvious with this movie.

I Stand Here Ironing

I have Just finished the story “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen. This was a very interesting story about a mother’s relationship with her daughter.

I noticed a couple of things that were really interesting to me in this story. The quote “There is all that life that has happened outside of me, beyond me” from the mother on the first page struck me as important. It set up for the relationship between the two in farther into the story but it also was true of any parent’s relationship towards their child. While their child is growing up there is a ton of things that the parent is not a part of. It interested me that this was in this story as well.

The mother in this story lived a very struggled life with her first daughter. This relationship is the focal point for the story. The voice that she is speaking in this story is that of regret. She is flashing back on her life with her daughter and is talking about it with a tone of remorse and that she should have done many things different. I think this was an interesting voice for the mother to have. Her voice didn’t change much throughout the story either which was interesting as well. Despite all of these depressing things that have happened in her relationship with her daughter she still keeps going in the mentality that things might not ever get better. It was very heart wrenching to read it like that.

The fact that this story is told from the point of view of the mother instead of the daughter was also really interesting. I think that this was an interesting insight on how a mother goes through the relationship of mother and daughter. I ave never really read anything about this so it was a new point of view to read from for me. I think this gave me a better insight onto the reasons that mother’s do things for their daughters. Despite the daughter’s objections and arguments the mother always does what she thinks is best despite the total outcome.

This story was really interesting for me to read. I am not a girl and have not had that mother daughter relationship struggle that a lot of girls have so reading about what happens between a mother and a daughter was really interesting for me.

Sonny's Blues

I have just finished reading the story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin. I found this story really hard to analyze after the first time I read it. The language that he wrote it in was kind of hard for me to understand the first time but after a second read through I began to comprehend more and more of what he was writing. I still found certain aspects of this story hard to analyze however.

The one thing i noticed about this story is how different the ending was from the beginning. It was different from other stories however because when I was done reading it, it just seemed like a completely different story. It was an aspect that I found very interesting in this story.

The main character in this story is never named which is a fact that I really enjoyed about it. this is similar to a movie "Fight Club" where the main character is referred to throughout most of the movie simply as "The Narrator". Anyway, the narrator in this story changes a lot from his introduction. Just like in the story "Cathedral" the changes that are made in his character are pretty sudden. Throughout the entire story he is trying to protect his brother from drugs and thinks that he is fighting a losing battle the entire time until he realizes at the end that his brother is so much more than he thought. I really liked this about this story. It was a pretty big shift in the story as well.

There are several different moods that are in this story as well. While reading this story i felt differently about every page. It started out as a pretty depressing mood and then went into a very mellow laid back mood and then went into a kind of awkward angry mood and ended in a pretyty happy mood. it took the course of a typical drama sort of movie. I thought this choice was very interesting.

The way that the narrator tells this story through many different flash backs is a kind of interesting method as well. I think that the end of the story might not have had as much feeling because this way you knew how the narrator felt about his younger brother in the present even after their complicated past, and then to have his views changed suddenly made the ending a lot more effective. If he had used the linear traditional style than it might not have felt like much. This is also becoming a really popular style to do movies in.

This story was a very interesting read. It used some styles that i had never read in stories before and it was a new reading experience for me. I can really learn a lot from this story and i think it was a very interesting read.