Fathers and Sons

            After reading so much Ernest Hemmingway this semester, I think that the one story that best illustrates the Nick Adams stories is Fathers and Sons. This story illustrates the struggles that Nick had growing up. These struggles he had as a child did not leave him when he became an adult. They only changed. His struggles with his father were translated into the struggles that he had with his own son, trying to be a good father.

            Nick does not know what to do to be a good father, but he does try to do a better job than his father. When his son is curious about his grandfather, Nick fibs about what kind of man he was. He wants his son to have a good image of his grandfather, and not the same image that Nick has.

            The reminisce in the middle of the story is a very interesting change. It does not particularly make sense to the rest of the story. Nick is driving through the area where he grew up and is thinking back on it. It is interesting because most of the story is about the role of fatherhood, but the flashback does not touch much on fatherhood, but rather maturation. The flashback pairs well with the story before it however, Cross-Country Snow. The two stories deal with Nick growing up and learning about life. Perhaps Cross-Country Snow is why Hemmingway put that particular memory of Nick’s in Fathers and Sons. Since he linked two stories together often, the similar memories in each story would help to link them.

            Doing what is right by our children is a big part of human nature. People are always struggling with how to raise their own children better than their parents. I think that more often that not, ones parenting skills are no better or worse than that of their own parents. They are only different methods. There is no one perfect way to raise a child, and as Nick is learning in Fathers and Sons, you can only do what you think is best for your own children. 

The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wall-Paper was one of the stories this semester that had the biggest impact on me the semester. Much like the public when it was published, this story was shocking. I did not expect it to be so vivid or detailed. This story transports you into the narrators mind. Since it is written in almost a diary format, you feel that you know exactly what the narrator is thinking. If it was told in first person, this would result in an entirely different story than the one that Charlotte Perkins Gilman told.

One of the biggest parts of the story for me is the subsections. This illustrates the worsening of the nervous disorder. As each section is read, you feel for the narrator and feel how she is going insane locked up in the room.

I think the fact that the description of the room is very important to the story. I know that I have seen wallpaper before, that has foil or something else in it, that makes it appear that it moves. This is very disconcerting, particularly when I was a child. Wallpaper is not supposed to move at all. I can understand how the narrator would be very disconcerted with the wallpaper after being locked in the room all day with nothing to do but stare at the wallpaper.

            The story made a big impact on me since it really transports you there and you feel like you are just as bad as the narrator. The shockingness of it plays a very big role in it as well. As a very hyperactive person, I can understand how much worse I would get if a doctor had prescribed me the rest cure. Even if there was nothing wrong with me in the beginning, I feel that after the rest cure, I would have gone crazy as well. 

9/11

The biggest event so far in the lives of my generation was 9/11. This is the day that we will always remember what we were doing. Much like Pearl Harbor, or man walking on the moon for future generations, 9/11 is what will be forever imprinted on the minds of our generation. I was in 5^th grade in 2001. My parents drove me to school that day like any other day. When I got to school, my teachers were all acting very strange. They kept leaving and going into the halls, talking to each other, and more or less doing no teaching what so ever. In my English class, three of the 5^th grade teachers were in a corner of the room listening to the radio very quietly.

None of our teachers were allowed to tell us what was going on. When discussing this day with my contemporaries, I realized that this is not what happened in most schools. For most of my friends, their parents came and picked them up from school or school was cancelled all together. Teachers were much more upfront with them than my teachers were.

Walking out of the school, across the fields I was still carefree and happy. I did not realize anything in the world was different until I walked outside of the fence and spotted my mom’s car. Now this was not strange. My mom picked me up from school every day. No, the strange part was that my dad was sitting in the passenger seat. On that day, I could not remember another day when my dad had picked me up from school spontaneously. Occasionally he did, but I always knew about it before I left for school that morning. Mom would remind me that my dad was picking me up from school, and to be patient if he forgot and was running late. It was after I got into the solemn car that my parents told me what happened. I did not understand the true consequences of that day until I had grown many years older though. 

The imaginarium

            Growing up, my backyard was pretty legit for the suburbs. It was a big hill that ended in a fence and then a small lake. This meant that you can run up and down the hill, and then when you are tired, its time to go fishing, right out of the backyard! My dad and I had a garden in our side yard, where we grew a bunch of delicious vegetables that I didn’t eat. I was a very picky eater when I was a little kid. Eventually though, my mother decided to redo our backyard, and completely ruin it for my childhood games. The terrace she added prevented me and my sister getting in our wagon and riding down and slamming into the fence at the bottom. The fountain in the middle made any further football or soccer games impossible. Even my dad’s garden that we spend so much time on was banished since it was not aesthetically appealing enough. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother and she has excellent taste. The unfortunate part of this is that children do not care much about taste.

            There was one very positive benefit for me during this landscaping. When I came home from school, there was a giant pile of dirt in my backyard that stayed there for about a month. I would run up and down this huge pile of dirt and have the time of my life. I would get home from school, put on my cowboy boots, and go explore and see what had changed. The dirt came from digging up our yard, so as a result I found a plethora of lost treasures. I found a house key, many fun sticks that could be used for imaginary games, lots of “cool” rocks to put on display in my bedroom and even an arrowhead.

Looking back now, this pile of dirt was probably only slightly taller than I was at the time. That didn’t matter to me though. This was my imaginary wonderland. It was a battle field and a castle. It was a cave and a mountain. It was anything and everything that my young mind could imagine. 

Latest Meeting

At our last meeting, My conversation partner and I met outside for a short and sweet conversation. It was just before Thanksgiving, so we talked about holiday traditions with our respective countries. I asked her if they had Halloween where she was from. She responded that they had Halloween, but nowhere near to the extent that we have it. People will have small decorations on their houses, but that is about the extent of it. Children do not dress up and go door to door asking for sweets from total strangers. The most interesting part of this was when she explained the most likely reason why this was. She said that in her country, the streets are not safe enough for children to be out wandering at night, even accompanied by a parent.

            At first my reaction to this was how is that possible. What kind of country would one live in where you can’t walk down the street at night with your children. Then I took a second and rethought the whole thing. I realized that there are neighborhoods in our cities now that are like that. I think of Halloween in my neighborhood at home. Carloads of kids are trucked in to trick or treat in better neighborhoods. I thought of the places where some of my classmates from high school grew up. Not all of our neighborhoods in America are like those where me and the majority of other TCU students grew up in. Many are unsafe and dangerous. Sometimes all it takes is a little perspective on what the truth really is to realize what a person is saying and where they are from. If you look at things from another angle, sometimes you can find a whole other side to the story. 

They forgot Halloween

With Halloween as the next holiday on my mind, my apartment has a witch’s boot filed with candy and pumpkins scattered around, I choose the October issue from 1950’s. To choose something a little bit different, I went with the Ladies’ Home Journal. Flipping through the magazine, I realized that it has much of the same concerns that women today worry about. How do I look good, balance my family life, and get everything done for a reasonable amount of time without spending too much money. There are many advertisements for making recipes homemade, but with fewer ingredients.

There is an entire article about “going steady,” with advice for women and girls on what is and is not appropriate. The biggest difference I noticed between now and then was their suggestion of what “your age should be…” They say that there is no point in dating a boy before you are 18. This is interesting, since not that long before this many women were married before they were 18, and now most kids start dating in elementary school or junior high. A lot of the advice talks about getting hurt when you break up. It assumes that most people cannot handle it if they get their heart broken too young. I think that this is ridiculous, because getting your heart broken is part of growing up and maturing. If you never take the risk, you will never gain anything. This takes the opposite approach of the old maxim: It is better to have loved, and lost than to never have loved at all. Also, there is a section on how to walk in high heels. This was entertaining to me, since their heels are only one or two inches high, and incredibly stable to walk in. My closet is full of heels at least twice that high, and I have learned to walk in them all on my own without ever reading about it in a journal.

The journal also has many fictional stories, or perhaps they are true experiences, of what it means to be a lady. There are several stories of young girls and their experiences, along with watercolor pictures depicting them. These stories tell of what girls should be feeling about their everyday experiences and how they should react to them. These stories help me to imagine what it was like to be a young woman 60 years ago. They give more detail into the thoughts and feelings of these women, rather than just advice on the things that they are struggling with, which just happens to be the same things that I am struggling with and my friends are. Does he like me? What do I wear to this? Etc.

Another main focus of the journal is help from appliances and modern day conveniences. These are electric rangers, toasters, pre-packaged food, Aunt Jemima pancake mixes, dri-polish mixes. Everything is about easier and faster and better than before. There is even a letter to the editors “modern mothers have cinch” that says “instead of asking all the young women conveniences how they manage (and pretty poorly, seems to me), ask my mother-in-law, who is now eighty-three. She has had fifteen children, no modern conveniences and little money.” Lots of social opinions seem to focus on how a woman acts in the home, and how she utilizes her time. The advertisements are all encouraging the use of their helpers and such, but there seems to be a faction of older readers who do not agree with this method of cutting corners in the home.

Some of the advertisements are no different than current advertisements. Paper towels tout their strength, and how you can re-use them. This is no different than paper towel commercials on TV today. Obviously some things never change.

For the October issue, there is no mention of Halloween. No cute Halloween cupcake recipes, no tips on making costumes, or any other mention of the upcoming holiday. Since I was curious about the difference, I went to the Ladies Home Journal website today, and the very first picture that I was greeted with was of cute ghost Halloween cupcakes. Many of the overall stories are still the same. There are topics of beauty, relationships and women’s hygiene. Other top topics are community and do-good. I’m sure that these are topics that the 1950’s readers of LHJ would approve of.

The price of the journal has not increased as consistently as the products advertised in the magazine. The issue in 1950 cost 25 cents and issue, and now you can get an entire year for $6.00. That’s 50 cents and issue now, so it has only doubled in over 60 years. Not a bad bargain if you ask me. I wish that you could say the same about groceries and the price of cars. My budget would be in much better shape if that were true.

There is a much bigger focus in these journals on cleaning the house and cooking quickly. Also, the 1950’s LHJ focuses more on parenting than the current version does, but I think that is because women then spent more time in the home raising their kids, and less time out and in the offices like modern women do. Lots of the daughters described in the magazine are the perfect daughters. They are popular and well liked, beautiful and do well in school.

Overall, the general issues discussed have not changed, but how the women go about them have changed. Women focus less on the home, and just accept modern conveniences as a way of life. The way of life in general is the same. Women still want to do well in their relationships, although the emphasis has shifted from husbands to boyfriends, and cook good food. Looking through the magazine has been very interesting, but taught me that as much as things change, people in general still stay the same.

Second Conversation

After a lot of confusion the first week on who my conversation partner actually was, I finally got it figured out. I have been talking with more than just my conversation partner, because many of the IEP students will hang out after their classes are over. Many of them come over to talk, resulting in a very different experience than my first conversation which was one on one. My partner is very shy, and usually gets tired of speaking English after a while. Not that I can blame her!!! Lina, my real partner, is 18 and very nice. Her English is excellent, and I have learned that she is in one of the higher levels of English.

Norelly, who is my accidental partner, is much older than Lina and me. She has a more difficult time with English, and asks me to slow down often. Lina, Norelly, and a few other IEP students and I all were talking today, about a wide range of subjects. They are teaching me some Spanish (not that I am learning it very well) and I am helping them with English. One thing that this is helping me with is actually learning more about English. Today, I was trying to explain the difference between "may" and "can". I know that "Can I use the bathroom" is grammatically inncorrect, but I cannot tell you why. I also cannot tell you why "may" is correct and what the difference between the two is. Thinking about the subtle differences in words is a whole new thing. Some words mean basically the exact same thing if you look at their definition, but in a sentence they can have incredibly different meanings. Talking to my conversation partner(s) has showed me how much language is learned, rather than taught. I also have a newfound admiration for all teachers who teach another language, because they have to answer questions that I don't think I ever could answer.

English is hard, I get that. I just can't explain why.