The things they carried-Tim O'Brien

     Some remarkable themes of the story “The things they carried” by Tim O’Brien is to show how the character changes from being a “small kid” not in his appearance but in his interior developing some maturity. The other main theme that we can notice in this short story that O’Brien highlights it’s to show how tuff can war is and how can these change a person because of the difficult situations that are lived on it.
     At the beginning of the story O’Brien presents Cross like a little boy who daydreams the entire day about unrealistic stuff and by this loses his focus on his main task. The author often repeats the mentioning of Martha; Martha is a women that symbolizes destruction, distraction, freedom and causes desire, she is also the thought in cross’s mind that keeps him distracted of his duty, leading to Lavender’s death. His death is also a factor that is often repeated by O’Brien and as Martha it symbolizes something for Cross Lavender’s death also does. This time it’s not freedom or desire but it’s a ghost for him that represents all the death soldiers in his battalion and his irresponsibility for not taking care of them because of his insides thoughts. However Lavender’s death also symbolizes something good for Cross. This is because thanks to him Lieutenant Jimmy Cross gives a radical change making a huge step from a “small irresponsible boy” to a responsible leader that is focus on task the whole day. With lavender’s death Cross’s illusions for Martha also dyes because all the guilt he feels leads him to face his true reality and no matter how much he desires to be in a different situation he faces the harsh moments he is going true and assumes it with responsibility.

     By this we can notice how war changed Lieutenant Jimmy Cross taking a huge step and how can the different hard situations lived mark a person’s life. 

Gryphon- Charles Baxter

    -In Gryphon, describe three ways Baxter intertwines the conventional and unconventional and for what purpose this interplay is used.-

In the short story gryphon Baxter intertwines the unconventional and unconventional with the two teachers; Mr. Hibler is the conventional teacher that teaches an ordinary consecutive lesson day after day, always following the plan and the rules. “Mr. Hibler always starts the day with the Pledge of Allegiance” He never shares experiences or “bends” the plan. While Mrs. Ferenczi is an unconventional teacher, always trying to get the students outside of the box.

When the students are studying arithmetic and a student says that six times eleven is sixty-eight Mrs. Frenczi doesn’t correct him and when another student says it’s wrong she just says that when she is in the room six times eleven is sixty-eight. “Why is it sixty-eight, when you’re in the room?” “Because it’s more interesting that way” she can not support what she is teaching so she just says that it is more interesting this is very unusual for a teacher. But with this she tries to make her students open minded.

I think that Baxter purpose was to show the reader how the changes on the people mind can be difficult but at the end it will always help.  For example at first when Mrs. Frenczi applies her way of teaching the students oppose to her but at the end they accepted and with it their minds became creative. 

Hopeful story

I think that in the short story "Interpreter of maladies" Jhumpa Lahiri constructs a "positive" hopeful end.
During the story we can notice the bad relationship between Raj and Mrs. Das  and the way in which Mr. and Mrs. Das treat their kids.. However at the end after Mrs. Das talks to Mr. Kapasi we can see her change in her attitude. It’s a positive fact that Mrs. Das is trying to solve the problem, when she talks to Mr. Kapasi she is trying to make everything better and when Mr. Kapasi identifies the problem "Is it really pain you feel, Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?”  Mrs. Das makes a radical turn. At first she didn’t act as a mother toward her kids but now when Bobby was being attacked by the monkeys she tries to save him; also when she goes outside she doesn’t put her sun glasses on as she had done during the whole story. The dark sunglasses covered her eyes and by this it created a barrier with the family covering her expressions towards them. Also when Mr. Kapasi’s card flies away it shows as that he would be forget her and this is good for both of them. And the last clear symbol that let us know that the story has a positive ending is the fact that the monkeys are finally calm. As we can see during the story they were always restless and bouncy such as the relationship between them and when they are calm Mrs. Das gas already changed and she is trying to make things work.

With all this symbols it’s hard to say that it’s not a positive ending.

How does Jhumpa Lahiri use the minor action and subtle details to express the unmet needs of the characters?

In the short story interpreter of maladies Jhumpa Lahiri uses a lot of minors details to show some of the character aspects such as their personality and their needs. Some of the details that can show the reader the really bad family relationship between the "Das" family are. Mr. Das loves his camera and his pictures, in the story we can notice that he care more about them that what he actually does about his family. During the trip he keeps looking to his book of India trying to highlight good places to visit and to take some photographs, with this two small details that Lahiri uses we can notice that Mr Das is always trying to give himself happiness instead of giving his family it.
An other minor detail that give us a lot of information of the relationship between Tina and Mrs Das (her mom) is Tina´s doll; as we know Mrs. Das has short hair and the doll also does as if it was cut. Tina is always hitting her naked doll against everything as if she was expressing her feelings of lack of attention towards the doll. It could also be what she feels for her mom and what she would like to do because by the small detail as the kid cut the hair of the doll we can see that she wants the doll to look as her mother.
A quote that gives us a lot of information but its something minor because the author does not build on it is when Mr Kapasi ask himself if Mr and Mrs Das had a bad relationship as he and his wife did so with this Lahiri  shows us that Mr Kapasi does not really love his wife and he is constantly comparing his relationship with other´s family´s relationship. and after he says that the reader can feel that Mr Kapasi feels an attraction towards Mrs Das.

I think that Lahiri gives the reader a lot of knowledge of the situation with small details and in my opinion this helps the reader to understand and focus on the story with some sort of images that will pop in the readers mind .

Introduction to a short story BY: Tobias Wolff

What is the motivation to read a short story?

According to Tobias Wolff our interest on reading short stories is because we can associated it into our daily life, the events occurring to the characters on the short stories are situations that we go thru or we know that someone has experienced. As Wolff said "The experience of something read can form us no less than the experience of something lived through". So what it means is that our motivation or interest to read these stories is because the make us remember those good moments, happy moments or harsh and sad moments. In our day to day life we keep committing mistakes and sometimes is so frequently that is hard to tell that we made a mistake but when we are reading the stories that has a similar situation, we can identify the mistakes that we are committing and by knowing them try to stop doing them.

I agree with Wolff that that is a true motivation. However I think there are more. As the time has moved, the society has changed and many of the times the people prefer to read something short that they can understand rather than a big book that would probably not catch their full attention.
But I understand that for a writer the motivation is completely different. First of all, a writer can not write with confidence if she /he does not have the passion to do it. Wolff cites a quote from Jack Yeats that help us understand one of the many possible motivations to write as he says: "The social act of a solitary man" my interpretation to this quote is that writing gives any man the possibility to express their ideas, thoughts, opinions and believes in a freely way and with them inspire and help someone. The writers are people that help the society a lot, because through literature they express questions, problems, solutions, discoveries and many other aspects and if helping other people does not motivate  someone to say, or in this case write, something what would it do?

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"no news from Auschwitz"

Assigning the title "No news" to a article in a famous world wide news paper can have different reasons; first of all its a completely irony that there is an article in a news paper that its main purpose is to share news with people, its called “No news”. But this title has to do a lot with the article because the article never gives us news, it just give us opinions and information all ready known.

Also the title “No news from Auschwitz" stands for other things shown in the article, as we know Auschwitz was a extermination camp during the dark period of the holocaust. So the title can stand for the people that suffered the cruelty to be killed in this camp as if there are no news from their lifes, no news of the extermination camp and it can also stand for the people that go to Auschwitz but does not write as Rosenthal did, that does not write in honor to those who suffered in this camp. I think this title stands for many reasons and its a title that will cause the readers atention. By this article Rosenthal speaks for those who died in a gas chamber in the extermination camp "Auschwitz".

I think that this article should be in the "opinion" section because the article shows the author opinion about "Auschwitz", those that visit "Auschwitz" but dont have the "consideration" to write something in honor to those that died there after being submitted to cruelty; Besides this article would not fit in any other section in the news paper. So its an opinion article.

The bass the river and Sheila Mant BY: W. D. Wetherell

One small decision took me to a really harsh moment and i would like to highlight this is because sometimes we don't think farther than the moment and this is a huge mistake that we make, because each decision has a lot of consequence´s than we don't think about. I was young and we were on a beach were the only way to get in or out was by boat it was 530 when the first group that were the ones that would ride boat and then car left, my mum and my grandmother had a bad experience with the boats so they decided to go on that group and the wanted me to go with them but i thought " is faster by boat, ill just go with my dad, my aunt, my uncle and my cousins" so i said that i would ride the boat, this small decision led me to harsh moments in a boat for almost 5 hours without fuel in the strong sea with some huge problems as the short anchor and the huge waves that each time pushed us into the cliff, or the not service in the radio or the phones. Looking back to this moment i think we were lucky that a small boat came with fuel at almot 11:00 pm.
  This short story is about a boy that likes a older girl, but at the same time he loves fishing, he spends all of his summers in both of them the girl and the fishing.¨i had learned all of her moods¨ - ¨i didn't go anywhere that summer without my fishing rod¨. but after all his effort is made he finds out that both things together wont work when he sees that sheila (the girl) thinks that hi passion (fishing) is stupid and pointless.
This short story can be represented in live in many ways, this is because as we get  older and science we are little we have to take a lot of decisions, small and useless as ¨what candy should i get¨to important big decisions as ¨what is my career going to be¨. at this point in the story the narrator have to decide between fishing or the girl. because no matter what he would try at the end he knew that both of them will not work. This kind of situations are also applied in live, when we get to some decisions most of the times we have an "easy" and a "hard" way, As humans we tend to take or to want to take the easier way; This is why we have to be prepared and have mental strength to take a good decision. At the end of the story the narrator chooses fishing rather than Sheila and i think it was a hard but wise decision. Its hard because he really liked her and tried to impress her and observed her and spend a lot of his time in her, but was wise because his crush over her eventually will be over or if they dated it would not last much because there huge differences, instead the fishing is his passion that he can build that he can improve that he can keep, so i think that he took a good decision

Malcom X theme for english B

After reading both Hair memoir and theme for english B poem we can notice some similar aspects and some different aspect. The main theme of both is the racial tension that was ocurring around this time. However we have really different point of views. At tirst malcomX or little Malcom wanted to look like a white guy and conked his hair but afterwords he realizes what he made was really silly and gets really dissapointed To himself. What this shows is that he dossent accepts the idea of changing just to be accepted on the society. Langston Hughess does support the idea of changing to be accepted so we can see how people suufer and thinks about the tenssion and the things they do or support to become part of the society

Hair second post

Malcom x memoir hair is his story of when he was a young adult and wanted to conk his. By the memoir we can notice that he was not white and he had some economic problems. During all the memoir he had a peace that showed how exited he was on conking his hair and that he would swallow the pain of the procedure to get straight hair. But at the end of this memoir he changes his pace And also his point of view. His pace becomes a quick and strong one and his point of view changes to be mad to his self and regretful of his acts. I think he does this for different reasons one of this is that he wants to show the reader how he feels know for what he did on the past, and another reason is that he wants to express what with the time he realized.
In my opinion malcom feels really bad because he sort of feels that he has desecrated his culture and his color by doing what he did that make him look a bit more like a white guy.
This memoir let me a "message" or a reflection that is to think twice before doing something that after a time I can regret just for being with the society or looking good.

After reading Malcolm x biography my point of view to the memoir changes. It is easier to understand why he changes the peace. He was someone that suffered a lot of racist tension making him even go to prison. The fact that he was not white changed his live from being a really good student prosper to be a lawyer to be a narcotic and criminal. After reading the memoir I can see why he wrote it. What happens with his hair is behind what he felt but when he wrote the memoir he was showing how he wanted to become more alike white was the worst mistake he made "making one first big step towards self degradation"

Jaime cabal

1 entry dual perspective from the author

In the memoir by any other name by santha rama rau the author lives kind of a dual perspective when i am saying this what i mean is the two kind of "ideas" 1. Regaedless of name a person mantains who they esential named 2. One concrate separated identity loss tittle and personality.

In my personal opinion whati can see is that premila cynthia's sister changes her personality in her knew school because she was trying to fit into the comunity in wich they are that is this" british - indian" mixture wich is created in the Anglo indian school.
We can noticed this because she wanted to take sandwiches as every body made and wanted to look like them. We can also noticed tihs because when premila stops being pamela after they live school she goes back into her normal personality.This show us the point or idea that means that when you are renamed you change there personality creating one kind of dual personality wich kind of changes according to one name you are called, the comunity in wich you are and depending in where are you trying to fit in.

In the other hand the author give us some quotes in wich the meaning of it is that no matter the circumstances in wich you are You are your identity or personality would not change, no matter wich comunnity or wich name you are or is being used.
In this the quote of" you can bury a dog's tail for seven years and it still comes out curly " she is trying to say here that no matter if she was cynthia or santha she would not have this kind of dual personality..

I think that when you are renamed you become a different person that who you are in your original name. The author tries to also show that not necesarlly you change but i stay with the idea that it actually does affe t you and you develope a dual personality that you go switching at the time you are in different communities were you are trying to fit in

So my "final answer" would be that if your name is changed also your identity and personality does.

Jaime Cabal