How I Met My Husband

The whole book I knew that Chris was sleeze. He creeped me out when he watched her through the window and then told her she was beautiful. He had already been in the army and she was only 15. He must have been signifigantly older than her. Also, he had a fiance. There was a lot of dramatic irony in this story. One example is when she admits to being intimate with Chris and is bawling to all the ladies. She has no idea what it means to be intimate. After Chris and Edie are done being "intimate", he jumps off the cot and splashes water on both him and her. I think this is symbolism for him cleansing off the wrong doing that he had just done. The top of page 145 was confusing to me because Chris' fiance says that in order to prove that Edie had or had not been intimate with Chris, she was going to "examine" her. She says later that she had no idea at the time of what she had been saved from doing. Was she really going to check? That is very strange.

Interpreter of Maladies

When I first started reading the book, I didn't think the taxi driver was being that creepy. Then, I realized that he was 20 years older than Mrs. Das. I noticed some foreshadowing when Mr. Kapasi notices the difference in the skin color of his "son". It shows how his wife is unfaithful and he has no idea that the kid isn't really his son. I think this unfaithfulness is a result of their arranged marriage. I don't understand why his wife is so cold to the younger daughter. She doesn't hold her hand or paint her nails when she asks. Instead, she shakes her off and talks to her like she's an annoyance. I saw some similarities between this story and "How I Met My Husband". They both involve letters and they also both have an unrealistic idea of love. The idea of "sweeping their lover off their feet and living happily ever after". I thought it was odd how the author emphasized the dress of Mrs. Das. She showed a lot of skin and her "largely bare legs" (pg. 147) I didn't understand the purpose of her dress or why they would mention this.

A Rose For Emily

All of the flashbacks in this story confuse me. I can't tell what the chronological order of events are and where each book begins and leaves off. Book II is the most confusing. It begins 30 years before her funeral, 2 years after her father dies, and 1 year after Homer goes missing. After reading over this section several times, I finally started to understand what was happening first. Another thing I didn't really understand was the tax situation. She didn't have to pay her taxes for a long period of time. It seemed like the mayor or whatever it was felt bad for her because of the loss of her husband and her father so he didn't make her pay them. Then, all of a sudden, she had to pay them again. We see this on page 282 and it explains it in more detail, that I don't understand. Also I didn't think that the title of this story fit the tone of it at all. A Rose For Emily? how about, "Emily; A Girl Who Naps With Dead Bodies". That would have been more appropriate. I don't understand why the author decided to name this story so positive.

Elegy for My Father, Who is Not Dead

This poem is speaking about the future. It includes a lot of symbolism between the father and the son. The father equals strong faith and conviction. The son is doubt and uncertainty. There is a father vs. son comparison throughout this entire poem. The father is optimistic. He talks about life after death. He also thinks that he will be reunited with son after he dies. The son is extremely pessimistic. He thinks that the "ship will sink". He doesn't believe that he will have life after death. Death is compared to a trip. The "new world" is a metaphor for the after life. Father has the positive attitude. The son has a negative attitude.

Delight and Disorder

The broken rhyme scheme of this poem contributes to the theme of disorder. The phrase "wild civility" is an oxymoron. The poem is talking about how imperfections and inconsistencies are not always a bad thing. It reminds me of Shakespeare and how he was accepting of the imperfections of his "mistress" as well. The theme of beauty in imperfection is common amoung poets. The speaker prefers disorder to preciseness in a woman. The rhyme scheme can be compared to his type of woman because it is not perfect, it's a little off. It makes him happy to see flaws in the things he loves.

Edward

Edward is a psycho. He supposively kills a hawk, horse, and his dad. In reality he just kills his dad. His mother asks him three times what he has killed because she knows that he is lying about the hawk and the horse. The reason she knows that he is lying is because she told him to kill his father. She "gave counsel" to him. When he is lying to his mom about the things he killed he uses very ironic adjectives to describe them. He says that he killed his "good" hawk, his "fair and free" horse, and his "dear" father. This shows the reader that he was against the killing that he did. It seems that Edward is talking about committing suicide at the end of the poem. Whatever it is, he is definitely leaving and not coming back. He is leaving his wife, kids, and mother and he doesn't care.

Lonely Hearts

The first thing I thought of after reading this poem was EHarmony. It is satirizing the people who advertise themselves and search for love. All of these people are looking for the same thing, love, but they are so different. The author describes the most random people. They seem to be outcasts of society. They all have extremely specific expectations. The repeated lines in the poem are "do you linve in North London? Is it you?" and "can someone make my simple wish come true?" This last line is very ironic. The word simple is ironic because they dont have simple requests at all they are very specific. Also those two repeated phrases contribute to the layout of the poem as a villanelle.