Main symbolisms in the story “The Rocking Horse Winner” were: the rocking horse, the money, the whispering, and others that I obviously didn’t find. The rocking horse was, for Paul, an escape. “He knew the horse could take him to where there is luck, if only he forced it. So he would mount again, and start on his furious ride, hoping at last to get there.” The horse symbolizes a way for people to run away from their problems. It is a fitting symbol, because a lot of people try to fix their problems by gambling, whether it be on horse races, or in other forms. The whispering in the house symbolizes greed. The family lives extravagantly even though they have pretty much no money. They are very greedy. The voices in the house whisper “There must be more money” and then they get stronger once the family actually gets some money. This appropriately symolzies the insatiable nature of greed. It doesn’t go away after you get what you want- you just end up wanting more.

The Lottery ought to be renamed “The Slaughtery”. It was very creepy. A major archetype I saw by looking over the story as  a whole was an archetype of savagery and mob mentality. This whole group of people, when they are gathered together, go crazy and stone somebody as a lottery. What the heck? There really is no reading into this story. Its just wierd. The author has serious issues and probably should be denied her right to bear arms. People should definitley keep their distance from her. Another archetype could be one about the leader. In this case, Mr. Summers is in charge of the whole procession, and he asserts himself as the leader. ”Mr. Summers was very good at all this; in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with one hand resting carelessly on the black box, he seemed very proper and important as he talked”.

At first glance, Paul’s case might appear to be the opening “case”- Paul’s meeting with the principal and trying to come back to school. In a sense, this case is like a small court case. But by looking furthr into the story, we as the audience can find a much deeper meaning to the title. A synonym we might use for case could be “plight”. Paul’s plight is his struggle to attain the standard of life that he observes and loves, the glamorous world of celebrities, represented by Carnegie Hall (where Paul works). Paul is stuck in this miserable situation with very poor living conditions and a tough family life. Yet, he feels and wants to be a part of the upper class. He achieves this temporarily whenever he works as an usher. He also achieves this shortly before his death. A main textual support for this deeper meaning is found on page 241: “It was at the theatre and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleeping and a forgetting. This was Paul’s fairy tale, and it had for him the allurement of a secret love. The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odor behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant things.” Through the use of striking imagery and effective similes such as in this quote, Willa Cather depicts Paul’s Case as one of finding self meaning and place in life.

The theme of the short story “The Lesson” is the vast differences in life between the poor and the rich. This story highlights the vast differences of quality of life from the perspective of a child, which serves the purpose of keeping the commentary pretty black and white. This simplistic view from which the story is told causes us as an audience to think. One scene from the story that stands out in my mind is the reaction of Rosie to F.A.O. Schwartz. She says “White people crazy”. This statement reveals how narrow but mature her and her peers’ outlook on life is. They relate spending money on a toy to how much it costs to feed their families. These points to reflect on make this story a powerful one.

Gooseberries was a heavily emotinal, frame narrated story by the cray Russian Chekov. To make it so emotional he used strong diction (ex. “cold and malignant”). but now i will discuss the theme of this story. I would say that the theme is about how your dreams should be more centered on happiness than materialism. For example, consider this quote from the main character Ivan: “It’s the correct thing to say that a man needs no more than six feet of earth”. This shows Ivan’s own feelings about materialism. He believes that happiness is much more valuable than things. He also doesn’t think that people should be willing to oppress others in the pursuit of their own dream. By deriving joy from something as simple as gooseberries, Ivanovitch teaches a lesson on being content.

The narrative piece “Good Country People” illustrates that the mystery of Christian redemption can be a part of daily life even in unlikely locales. In this story, the locale is at Mrs. Hopewell’s house. This is an affluent atheist house, but somehow Pointer is able to get himself invited to dinner and then get himself a date with Joy, of all people. Despite being a phony, Pointer does unwittingly bring Joy to her salvation (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say “close to her salvation”). He does this by pretending to be one of those good country people that Mrs. Hopewell is oh-so fond of. Pointer does this by combing his “preachiness” with a romantic and realistic attitude that appears to sway Joy’s atheist feelings. I also think that an argument of this narrative could have something to do with the hypocrisy so prevalent in religion. I say this because of how Pointer is portrayed as a character, especially how he ends up taking out his flask and describes all the things he has scammed people out of. I think, too, that Joy’s comment to him about Pointer being “a fine Christian” and “just like them all- say one thing and do another” supports this argument nicely.

Alice Walker was born on February 9th 1944 in the state of Georgia. She was shot in the eye and partially blinded as a child. Her life stayed very eventful through the sixties as she considered suicide along with getting pregnant and getting involved with the Civil Rights movement. She went to a couple of different colleges. also, she used writing a lot of times as an outlet for her stresses from all of her life’s drama. More of this drama includes losing a pregnancy due to complications as well as having the only interracial marriage in all of Mississippi at one point. One of her most famous pieces of writing is The Color Purple, which won the Pulitzer.

I dont know much about plot arc. The climax of the story is probably towards the end when the main character finds out that he has to play the game with the general and then ends up winning. There is tons of suspense used by the author in this story. In the beginning he starts creating it and it builds and builds until the climax and thru the final hunt. Thats all i got.

1.) half understandable, half not

2.)“a heightened awareness of ethnic differences does constitute a significant element in the book…explore the function in the novel of the consciousness of ehtnicity” (53) (Ms. Robison’s blog)

3.)There are many deliberate decisions Fitzgerald made in his portrayal of attitudes and ethnicities that you can notice by looking closely at this book.

4.)There were a few parts of this article that were just confusing. This confusion was the result of just too many words, or perhaps it was because the sentences were long and had too many clauses (-cough, cough: “DGP EXTRA CREDIT FOR SPENCER?-cough cough). There were, however many eye opening points in this article. Of course i noticed how ridiculous Tom’s rants about race were, but I never thought to relate that to the people and feelings during the nineteen twenties. Also, the thought that Nick had some underlying prejudices was a completely new idea to me. The author mentioned that even though he didn’t come right out and say it, there was some acceptance of that general attitude which was surprising.

I am enthused, excited, and encouraged about AP Lit! It is scary and different from other classes.