It seemed to me that she only wanted what was more convienient at the time. However, I am not saying that I would not do the same. When she was ill from the medication then she just wanted to die and when she was not so ill or just tolerating the pain a little better then she wanted to live. I think that she was just exhausted from the whole ordeal, not only her cancer but life in general.
Before reading this story I was simply interested in the title. The Farmer's Children by Elizabeth Bishop. How many possibilities does that leave open, not because it is so deep but because it is so simple. How much simpler can you get than to be a farmer living off of the land and then to portray an even simpler subject the farmer's kids. I had quickly come up with some ideas in my head of setting, chracters and plots. I had imagined a little old farm house with ma and pa kettle and their children out playing in the yard but what could this story possibly have that would put it into a book entitled "The Best American Short Stories of the Century" with such a simple basis.
As I began reading it was just as I had imagined. The children were shoved out of the house so some much needed chores could be done by the mother and the children were eager to go out and play. They did not play with their playstation or get on the computer and surf the internet but rather were content with using something that has been somewhat lost, the child's imagination. So far so good it is still simple. The children are then assigned the task of having to go to watch over the barn and at first this seemed to me like such a huge responsibility for these young immature boys but when considereing the times and the life of hard working farmers it all had credibility. The story starting to have a little excitement almost forced you into believing that something bad was going to happen to the children but because of the story's simplicity I was too afraid to even take a guess as to what was going to happen. And then it happened, something did happen to them and it was not a twisted someone broke into the barn and murdered them but they went peacefully in their sleep.
Did you have any ideas in your mind of what this story was going to entail before actually reading it and only knowing the title?
Do you think that any one person should be to blame for the death of the two young boys, Cato and Emerson?
Do you feel that the father had a right or even a reason to fire Judd?
Jerz: Am Lit II (EL 267): McBride, The Color of Water Miracle at St. Anna
ok so in our previous readings for the class I was flustered by the amount of description that some of the stories had for example "The Great Gatsby" I just found that all of that description loaded the stories down to a point that I lost some or all interest in the story itself. HOWEVER, I absolutly loved the description in this book. Each little minnie story that was being told gave me a percise image of what I thought the scene looked like. I have seen almost every war movie imaginable and reading this book placed me in a different part of each movie. I am one of those readers who can be easily lost and because of the length of this one I thought I was done for but I was able to easily follow along.
Jerz: Am Lit II (EL 267): Proulx, ''The Half-Skinned Steer''
Holy Moly!!!! I was so far lost in this story. I can not follow when an author jumps back and forth from one story to another. The very begining was most confusing for me. Was this half skinned steer really an escape artist or was this all in his imagination? Did he really get lost trying to find this ranch that he claimed he had remembered so well? Just a little side note who did not see him locking the keys in the car, I mean come on he is in the middle of nowhere yet he has to lock the doors
I am not sure of everyone else's opinion but I sensed some points of homosexuality in this story. I think the first place it really hit me was on page 771 in the last full paragraph on the page when she says "There was a man there named Josh who didn't want nearly enough from me, and a woman called THea who wanted way too much, and I was sandwiched between them..." The whole story of their times together reminded me of the television show Will and Grace.