What draws a reader into this piece is mainly the stream of conciousness style of writing. It provides the reader a direct look into the mind of a mother of an adolescent girl. Her thoughts mainly focus on teaching her daughter certain skills she will need as an adult woman. Troughout the mother’s thought process she warns her daughter away from becoming a slut because she believes that this is the worst thing a woman could be. I find this quite interesting considering the time period it came from and the background of the author. Kincaid was raised in a family that shunned her academic skills, and within the borders of Antigua where women’s skills outside the household weren’t held to high regard.

Unfortunately Kincaid’s writing comes from a time when women were held to a different standard from men, even moreso than they are today. One thing this piece brings up is the mother’s serious concern that her adolescent daughter will become a slut. It’s a strange double standard to have, why wouldn’t an adolescent boy deserve the same warning? What exactly makes it okay for a man to act like a slut and not a woman? When reading Kincaid’s piece that is exactly what her mother’s echoed words make me think of. Kincaid wrote this in 1978 yet how different would a mother’s thought process be today? Maybe it would get a modern day update to compensate for the advances in technology but I feel like the message about not growing up to be a slut will stay the same. It’s quite unfortunate that to this day we still have such a strange obsession as a society to keep our women “pure”.

In the Story of the Stone Baoyu is sorrounded by women, why would the author sorround Baoyu with women? Would the story have been different if Baoyu was sorrounded by men? Explain how and why.

What prpose does Melville havin creating a character like Bartleby? Is he a commentary on corporate office workers or something more than that?

The most intriguing part of The Story of The Stone is the envisioned entrance to the mortal world. The monk and the Taoist approached a gateway to the mortal world with the inscription “The Land of Illusion” that implies our mortal world is not the reality we percieve it to be. Although this is not a new idea we are introduced to, I still find it quite captivating. The monk and Taoist somehow managed to escape the world of illusion, I assume this is because of the nature of the Bhuddist faith; that those who are very close to their religion won’t be subjected to the tortures of mortal life. What I can’t seem to decipher though is the other inscription on the archway; “Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true; real become not-real where the unreal’s real.” Why the use of different words for truth (truth/real) and deception (fiction/not-real/unreal)? Was it simply to keep the reader captivated by its mysticism? Or is there a seperate meaning for each of these phrases that is less obvious than what we take it as at face value?

If our world is made up entirely of illusions what is the purpose of continuing our existence? To seek the truth, to find enlightenment, could these goals really make it worthwhile to exist in a world full of falsehoods and deception? It seems quite humanitarian to want to seek out the truth behind all the falsehoods of humanity. Enlightenment for oneself can only benefit all those around you, since you will be able to remove the veil of deception from their eyes and help them on their own way to finding truth. The message I get from this story is one that still resonates today, and has resonated through most of the readings we have done in class so far. This is the message that one needs to take matters into their own hands because the ruling forces in our world are corrupt and decieving.