Hills like White Elephants

        The story "Hills like White Elephants" takes place at a train station in Spain. There is a girl named Jig and a man who probably is her significant other. As the two sit and wait on the train, they are having a few drinks and discussing an important issue. By using context clues, I notice that the American is a grown man and Jig is a young girl; because the story refers to the American as a man and Jig as a girl. The girl Jig starts the conversation of by saying that the hills she see across the train tracks, look like white elephants. The American man then starts a conversation with Jig. He is trying to convince Jig to undergo an operation. Even though the operation is not stated in the story, there are clues and symbols that operation is an abortion. The American wants Jig to have an abortion for obvious reasons. He could want to have an abortion because if the child is kept, he would have a bad self-image to people of being the father of a young girl's child. The American constantly tries to convince her to have an abortion by saying, "I don't want you to do it if you don't want to." Seem as if he is trying to make her feel bad and that she should follow through with it. The American tries to bribe her by saying, “I’ll marry you, if you get an abortion.” Jig is questioning herself on if she should have this operation done or not. While the two are having a conversation, Jig is focusing on the landscape around her as she thinks to herself. She sees on the other side of the tracks are hills and green grass, while she is on a dry and deserted side.

       Each side of the tracks could symbolize her decision to get an abortion. The side across the tracks could be the good decision and the side she is on could be the bad decision. Finally, at the end of the story the girl must have changed her mind and decided to get an abortion, so that her life would be good and there would be no problems between her and the American. Jig quotes this statement right before they proceed to get on the train, "I feel fine. There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine." The story ends and with that quote leads me to believe that she has made up her mind. The title "Hills like White Elephants" could symbolize the prenatal dream of the mother of Buddha in which a white elephant appears in her dream. It was basically about a couple who was facing a serious issue and did not know the best way to go about the unplanned pregnancy. To further complicate the issue, the girl wanted to have the baby, while the American did not want to have the baby. What we see in the story is a public discussion of the matter. 

Yellow Wallpaper

In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator was a mother whom had postpartum psychosis after the birth of her child. The family went on a trip and the mother was confined to an upstairs room. The room was bared up, the wallpaper was ripped, and the room was basically empty. The women’s husband locked her up in this room and told her this was best for you. He would tell her things to make sense and convinced her, that he knew what he was talking about just because he was a doctor. As the narrator is deserted in the room alone, she begins to write a journal of the wallpaper she sees. As days go by she continues to study the wallpaper and starts to hallucinate. She thinks she sees a woman in the mix of the wallpaper. She begins to rip down the wallpaper, so that she could free the lady that she thought was there. The last day of summer at the house, she continues to rip the wallpaper and walk around the walls of the room. Her husband had come up to get her, but she refuses to unlock the door. When he finally gets the key and unlocks the door; she is found walking around the room touching the wall. She says to her husband, that she is finally free. Her husband faints or dies, but I believed that she killed him. I also believe that the women she saw in the wallpaper were an image of her. She probably felt trapped in the room and when she freed herself from the wallpaper, that is when she was free from her husband and the room she was confined in. This mother was insane and at the end of the story, it is believed that she killed her husband. She had showed many signs of postpartum psychosis, by hallucinating and killing someone around her.

  I also interpret “The Yellow Wallpaper” to have a meaning for women at the time. Why should women be locked up and why should men have all the power and say so. She was pretty much powerless in the story. Her husband was the one who thought he knew best for her and made her decisions for her. She might have felt downgraded and fragile to the situation. This story may seem a bit insane but it has a purpose to it, if you really understand the meaning of why it was written. 

Josef and the UK Disaster

    While I was reading "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", I notice that the beginning of the story reminded me a little of the Chernobyl disaster that happen in Ukrainian in April 26, 1986. As stated in the story Josef Kavalier was a refugee from Czechoslovakia with the help of his old teacher. Josef ended up to safety in New York and many people in the UK escaped the nuclear radiation that was release when the plant had went wrong. The Chernobyl disaster was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. Many people was exposed to the harmful radiation and many were taken away from their home to get treatment. These people were considered as refugees, just like Josef. Both Josef and the people from UK, escaped a tragedy within their country from harms way. The UK people were saved by troops who were working to help the people, but unlike Josef, he secretly escaped with the help of a teacher to safety. Josef left his family and went away on his on.

     As I continue to read this book, I think about other things to compare this story to. How this story can relate to history or even everyday life. But this one topic caught my attention and I wanted to share these two similarities.

Dog Poems

The reading of the dog poems were kind of different. I am so used to reading things about a  human's point of view, that I never thought about looking at a dog's view point. Reading these dog poems makes me wonder, do they really think like this? Do they really talk, but just in their own language? When I see a dog now, I will probably look at them and stare to see what could be going on through their head. I knew that dog's had feelings but these poems opened up a new perspective. The poems gave meaning and emotions. The meaning showed that human's need someone to lift their spirit and dogs are a good companion. It also showed that dogs can take human's mind off of depressed or bad situations. In other words, dogs can make the attention on them so that the owner do not have to worry. Dogs are a excellent pet to have, I would say! They are loving, special, and adorable. Dogs are more like children to owners and they also are protective over the people who do good by them. If I could consider a pet in my house, I would chose a dog because every dog needs a pal. :)