JGB's ENG 104

Death is a common theme amongst a lot of stories we’ve read throughout the course of this semester, but there are two where death is a direct source of growth in our main characters. “Mr. Green” and “The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor” are both coming of age stories where the deaths […]

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Not every love story is written in the stars, Lois and Tiny in Elizabeth McCracken’s “It’s bad luck to die,” is an example of this. Despite two people, arguably classified as “freaks,” come together and for a life together, overcoming age, religious views, family, and height. Lois, a young jewish woman of considerable height, meets […]

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Murakami brilliantly captures the complexities of human happiness and suffrage in his story “The Elephant Vanishes.” The way in which the narrator reveals his obsession with the elephant and its caretaker is nuanced and eloquently told. As the narrator tries to make sense of the vanishing elephant and caretaker, and their relationship to each other, […]

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I’m not religious in the least, but my mom was raised strictly Baptist and ended up leaving the church completely. My mom and I have had many conversations about God and religion: how some people utilize religion to find stability in their lives, a moral code, or to better serve a personal agenda. I remember […]

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People’s childhoods affect how they grow up, see the world, and interact with other people. In “The Night in Question,” Tobias Wolff deals with this topic in many different ways, including justifying his own childhood and how it affects how he writes this story. Wolff was raised by his mother, Rosemary Loftus, a devout Catholic. […]

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  Elizabeth McCracken’s It’s Bad Luck to Die is written from first person point of view. The narrator, Lois, is a Jewish girl from a conservative family. One day, just after Lois had graduated from high school, her cousin decides to get a tattoo and makes the narrator come with. This is when Lois meets […]

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Hanif Kureishi’s “Intimacy” and Jeanette Winterson’s “The Green Man” are very similar stories. Both stories are told in first person and revolve around the narrator’s thoughts and feelings, especially the implicit sexual thoughts. The men are both are fathers and husbands. They don’t like their life and they are being emasculated by their wives. The […]

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“The Night in Question” by Tobias Wolff reveals the relationship between a protective older sister, Frances, and her little brother, Frank. Frank and his father, Frank Senior, had a negative father-son relationship because Frank Senior abused Frank starting when he was just a little kid. Frank Senior had decided to teach Frank “the meaning of […]

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“The Elephant Vanishes” by Haruki Murakami employs a unique way of storytelling. Unlike most first person narration, “The Elephant Vanishes” takes on a passive or observer tone. This self-disassociation that the narrator chooses to have with the story he is telling gives us, the readers, a chance to see the internal unbalance of the narrator. By the […]

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Deborah Eisenberg’s “The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor” is about a girl who must grieve the loss of her mother. Her school sends her to say her goodbyes to her mother and to mourn. During this trip, the narrator finds out her father is still alive and has been living a different life […]

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Three years earlier he had driven Frances’ car into a highway abutment and almost died, then almost died again, in detox, from a grand mal seizure. Now he wanted to preach sermons at her. She was supposed to be grateful. She said she’d give him ten minutes. (637) “The Night in Question” is about the narrator’s brother, Frank, […]

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“As if love were about the truth” (pg. 512) The world’s perfect idea of love revolves around this notion that there is perfect communication and honesty, and that is exceedingly unrealistic. It is a goal most couples strive to achieve and that most fall short of. At the end of the day, everyone is human, […]

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Sometimes she let herself imagine what would have happened if he had been killed instead of wounded. (pg.9) One of my biggest fears has always been that I will some day be a burden to whomever I end up marrying. Everyone gets old, and with every passing day the likelihood of some kind of tradegy […]

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In “Deer Season,” Belle Boggs writes about the school’s dynamic changes when the majority of the boys leave to shoot deer. This story offers not only a commentary on feminism but also a demonstration of how girls and boys affect the atmosphere of the school. “He thinks [the girls] dress more casually on this day, no […]

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This, then, could be our last evening as an innocent, complete family; my last night with a woman I know almost everything about and want no more of. Soon we will be like strangers. No, we can never be that. In this story, the narrator ,who is a  father and a husband, is planning to […]

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In “The Green Man” by Jeanette Winterson the theme is about man’s fragile masculinity. Throughout the story various things happen that display the main characters masculinity being shattered and mocked. The first sign we see of this in the story is the characters pride in his grass. It is a very stereotypical man thing to […]

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While reading Can Xue’s “The Child Who Raised Poisonous Snakes” I felt the connection between the child and the snakes was similar to the struggle many parents have over allowing their child to grow older. Sha-yuan told his parents he was able to appear to be near his parents when in reality he was else where, […]

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First and foremost, this story confused me thoroughly. Just when I believed I knew what was occurring, the next paragraph would throw me a curveball. Despite this, however, I feel as though I may have an understanding of one theme of this story. This story portrays the confusion of being an adult. What happened to […]

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“He has been a well-behaved child,” his mother explained to me. “The only trouble with him is that he should never be allowed outdoors.” (644) When I began reading Can Xue’s The Child Who Raised Poisonous Snakes, I believed the story would be about a child with over protective parents, but the parents were not overprotective since […]

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“The parents stopped watching Sha-yuan’s behavior as if they had lost interest and become oblivious. But they appeared anxious and from morning till night they checked their watches constantly. Obviously they were waiting for something. ‘Waiting for their deaths,’ Sha-yuan said. He tapped his belly, which was flat. There was no sign of anything inside.  […]

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To honour. To mock. To fear. To hate. To be fascinated. To laugh out loud. (629) In Jeanette Winterson’s short story “The Green Man,” the main character is trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. He goes back and forth between things that do not relate and brings them back […]

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To honour. To mock. To fear. To hate. To be fascinated. To laugh out loud. (629) This was a complex story, mainly because it was filled with so many switches in the narrator’s train of thought. I felt that this added a sense of realism in the narration. By switching the narrator’s train of thought, […]

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“The Green Man” tells the story of a man struggling with feelings of emasculation, dissatisfaction, and even fear as he realizes his daughter has reached an age of potential sexual awakening. Winterson also portrays the appeal between “wild and tame” in the dynamic between the gypsies fair and the repressed suburban setting the narrator comes from, […]

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“We dont care if he will be somebody.” the mother said. “Both his father and I are only ordinary people. How is it that we should have a son who is involved in such a shameful business? Raising poisponous snakes, that’s frightening.”” In China, the “concept of face” has been a part of their culture […]

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“where did you get the name Sha-yuan?” I asked abruptly. “I’ve been wondering about it myself. Nobody ever gave him that name. where did it come from?” the mother said, looking confused.(649) I too wondered where this name came from, as it felt as if “The Child Who Raised Poisonous Snakes” by Can Xue played […]

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