The Lesson

Respect for Miss Moore. College educated Miss Moore comes (back?) to the neighborhood and takes on the responsibility for teaching the young ones not just school style education but a little about life. If any of these kids manage to escape their neighborhood surely they will look back and give Miss Moore credit. I liked that before she took them to the store she was talking about how 'money ain't divided up right in this country'. Words are one thing but the kids seeing how much she was right really drilled the point home. Even Sylvia who likes talkin like she all tough probably won't admit it to Miss Moore but she's questioning things. Of the people who can afford to buy things in the store she wants to know "What kinda work they do and how they live and how come we ain't in on it?" Sugar says out loud what Sylvia is thinking. Eventually she will probably speak her thoughts but I think that she walked away very quickly when Miss Moore looked at her while asking "Anybody else learn anything today?" shows Sylvia is having a problem coming to terms with what she learned on their outing.

A&P

Oh small town mentality. When I was a teenager we, my family that is, used to go upstate every summer and stay near a blink your eyes and you miss it town. I can remember getting looks as I would walk into a store with my long hair, cutoff jeans and ripped sleeveless rock-n-roll t-shirts. You would think they would be used to it, it being a summer tourist town, but like I said it was small. Older folk cast suspicious, unapproving looks while from the guys my age I would sometimes get the 'Oh to be anywhere but here' smiles. Sammy, our 19 year old cashier storyteller, may not leave his town right away but you have to know he's going to. From the way he describes the shoppers (sheep) to his contempt for Lengel to his fear of becoming like Stokesie (married with two kids at 22) oh for sure Sammy is going to be leaving sooner rather than later. The bathing suit girls have sparked the desire to escape the mundane life in the mundane town.

Everyday Use

I like these feel good stories. The ones where someone realizes they've been, either consciously or unconsciously, favoring the wrong choice of two people. Yaaaay mama. She had been looking at the confident, attractive, intelligent Dee as a success and at the end realizes it is Maggie who is the success. Maggie is the success because without even knowing it, it is her values that have true meaning. Awareness of the heritage of your race is good but if it comes at the price of your family heritage then noooo. Too costly and blind, in my opinion, to what is really important. That being family. When Maggie says Dee can have the quilts it is a concession. As Walker writes Maggie says it 'like somebody used to never winning anything.' However when Maggie says "I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts." That hit me. She is saying it is the memory of the person not the material things that matter. Yaaaay Maggie.

A Worn Path

I think I got it. I think I got it. My wife always laughs at me because I'm very good at writing creatively but not so strong in the insightful department but this time, well, I think I got it. I was starting to think that there was some symbolism referring to race issues and when I got towards the end of the story Phoenix said "I never did got to school, I was too old at the Surrender." Now I'm sure that's a reference to the Civil War so that makes this a story about race relations. I'm taking English 24 this semester and the whole course is dealing with racism so I found this story especially interesting. Phoenix has some spirit. As a 'Negro' who has seen some of the worst racism she is resilient. This is a story not only of the struggle of Black people in general but of the strength of one, Phoenix, who became strong from all she had seen.

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Oh boy. Talk about wrong place, wrong time. Guess they should have listened to the racist and manipulative grandma and gone to Tennessee. Though she dressed as a lady so she would be recognized as one if she were found dead on the side of the highway, she certainly was not one. Found with three bullets in her chest maybe she will be seen as one though. Seems like she believed that the clothes you wear and the family you're from are what makes you who you are. Too bad her grandchildren were rude and her son had no patience for her.

A Hunger Artist

I wish I knew why I liked this story. I read it twice and still I'm not sure but I did like it. Perhaps it is the fascination with something that one does not understand. That would make it similar to the reason people were so interested in the hunger artist. The interest certainly would be in part from not understanding why someone would do what the 'artist' was doing. It could also be a morbid curiousity in watching one wither away. The filled amphitheatres to watch him emerge from the cage to break his fast show an attraction and appreciation to the testing of human endurance. I wish that the artist had once declared his purpose. What was it that made this man do this? Was it disdain for society? At the end after the crowds had died and he no longer received the attention he once had, he achieves his goal by fasting for longer than even he knows and finds that without the attention it is a meaningless deed.

"Could this be the end my friend. Satan's coming 'round the bend" Black Sabbath - Sorry couldn't resist the lyric quote. Poor young Goodman Brown. Did he put himself in harms way to see if he could resist temptation? He talks about his wife having a bad dream as "if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight." and he makes 'haste on his present evil purpose'. Whatever his errand was he knew it was not good. When Goodman Brown is greeted in the forest he is not surprised to see his fellow-traveller. He is even told that he is late so this must have been a pre-arranged meeting. Did he already know it was the devil? I liked the way Goodman is slowly broken down by being shown how the people he thought were pious are not. The final straw being symbolic as after he cries out for his wife a pink ribbon flutters down from the sky and catches on a tree. His wife, Faith, had been wearing a cap with pink ribbons when he left her. Beleiving his Faith is not the woman he thought he loses it. At this point the devil must feel he has him. If indeed the devil was trying to tempt him and turn him 'to the dark side' then he makes a mistake for when Goodman sees his wife at the ritual he cries to her to "look up to the heaven and resist the wicked one." He suddenly finds himself alone, no ritual, no devil and no 'Faith'. Although he was able to resist, the experience has left him with doubts. The things he was shown affect him for the rest of his life. Is it himself that he questions or those around him?