Category Archives: ResponsePaper

After reading “Cathedral,” I do feel that Raymond Carver did take his own advice in adding a little tension in his short story. From the beginning, even before the narrator meets Robert, the blind man, he feels a sense of menace and a feeling of threat towards him. The narrator was already annoyed that his wife had kept in touch with this mysterious man that she worked for once during a summer ten years ago and that he had asked to feel every feature of her face. If that’s not creepy enough for him, the narrator learns that Robert recently lost his wife and was even surprised he had a wife to begin with. He even goes so far to say that he felt sorry for the wife because she would never experience a compliment from Robert or even have him see her facial expressions. The true imminent tension between the two men would be when the wife announced that Robert would be coming to stay at the house for a visit. The narrator of course was ecstatic to have this blind stranger in his house.

However, as the story continued, the narrator seemed to begin accepting Robert’s presence or at least he was going to kick him out. This was apparent when he was listing things that blind people shouldn’t be doing or having and yet Robert was breaking every one of these. He had a full beard, liked his Scotch undiluted, he smoked a great deal of cigarettes, he had an animal like appetite, and he even owned both black and white and color TV sets as well as knowing the difference. The tension in the beginning of the story was significant because it was almost over the top in how a person could not like a blind person, a stranger in fact, too such great extent that he’s going out of his way not to like him.

I think the true detail that gave this story a satisfying ending though not explicitly written was when the narrator finally let go of his intolerance and really began connecting with Robert. It began when they both started smoking blunts. This to me symbolized the easing of the tension between the two of them because of course marijuana is a drug used to make people feel relaxed. Also, I feel that this was when the narrator began opening his closed mind a bit because marijuana is known for expanding your mind. At this stage, the narrator was almost impressed with this blind man, Robert, and began trying to describe to him what cathedrals looked like. The narrator couldn’t quite come up with what he felt was an adequate description of the majesty and immense beauty of such a tall structure of great magnitude.

What gave this story such a satisfying ending for me was when the narrator attempted to draw what he thought the cathedral looked like while Robert felt the clean lines with his fingers. Robert had asked the narrator to close his eyes and when he did, he felt an epiphany. He knew that he was inside his house yet he felt like he wasn’t inside anything. Just pure unending space. Only then did he truly have a glimpse in what Robert’s perspective of life was every single day.

Metaphorically, the blind man had been able to see the entire time while the seeing was in fact blind. But as it says in the Holy Bible, “I once was blind, but now I see.”

The “Story of an Hour” seems to suggest that happiness can be different than what society would intend and that it varies per person. The former becomes very apparent when we see Mrs. Mallard relieved rather than grief stricken, whereas the latter shows itself where the husband’s happiness is to be with his wife, while her happiness requires her to be separated from her husband.  The “Birth Mark” couples the fact that happiness varies per person along with the fact that happiness can change with time. The Husband in the story has a whole chronology of what made/makes him happy described in the story. It essentially goes from loving science to loving his wife to the need to remove the birthmark (which rekindles his love of science) which all then comes to a complete halt with the death of his wife, which in turn ends the story. I feel that this is a very nice touch to the story because it forces us, the readers to infer the husband’s reaction to her death. Though more importantly, it is leaving it up to us to wonder what can then make him happy, if he is even capable of feeling such an emotion at this juncture.  This leads us to the moral of this story which can be summed up by a Chinese proverb; “Gold cannot be pure, and people cannot be perfect.” This suggests that the pursuit of perfection can lead to the degradation and even ruination of the thing that you are trying to perfect. This also has a subtle nuance which expresses that it is possible to ruin one’s happiness, and in some cases making it so that one can never be happy again. After all,as aptly stated by Lady Macbeth, “what’s done cannot be undone”. (Act V. scene 1, Macbeth)

Who is this hot mama? Not my grandmother, I can assure you. She sort of has that lawyer look, right? Or that Best-Selling Author face you might find on the back of some hardcover thriller.

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Wow I did not realize how insanely late I am.

The most important thing I came to realize from Best in Show is the relationship dogs have with their owners. I think the reason this came to mind more than anything else is that my ex was one of the best dog trainers in the country and I saw her relationship with her dog was absolutely incredible. When I saw the way she interacted with her dog, I tried to catch glimpses during the movie of how the owners on screen interacted with their dogs.

Imagine the neurotic couple trying to have awkward, and in some eyes, ridiculous sex. Picture their obsession with the one toy the dog preferred. They could not keep their cool and when the moment to shine came, neither they nor their dog acted properly. They yelled at each other and the dog misbehaved in front of the judge. How about the poodle and it’s lesbian owners? One of them is the “alpha” of their pair and the other is a silly nitwit. The alpha taught the dog to put on a perfect performance so that at the end it was entirely up to the judges whether or not they liked it. There were no slip ups or mistakes. I can already picture the grueling practice routines the dog had to run hundreds of times to make sure that the proper procedure was learned. How about the flamboyant gay couple? It was pretty clear that they loved and treasured each other and their dogs so they had a lot of love in their relationship. From what I saw, I can’t imagine their defeat to even really upset them because they are in such a good place that hiccups like that do not even affect them. You could see it during their photoshoot in the end that they have so much going for them and they are so happy that even when they fail, it does not stop them. I can picture the redneck and his dog as really easy going and really relaxed. While watching the movie, nothing suggests that they practiced for the show or even truly cared about winning. In my mind, they are just living a good life and are each others best friend. Same thing with the adorable terrier belonging to the loving couple. They are just full of love and acceptance so that even though their dog may not truly be anything special, he is a strong contender for the title of “Best in Show”.

I think the most important lesson in this movie comes from the neurotic couple. When they got the new dog and accepted who they truly are, they found a calm not witnessed in previous depictions of them. Instead of being awkward and weird, they looked really at peace with themselves and each other during the last interview and now, their outside world (mainly their dog) fits into their new self-image.

After reading “Hills Like White Elephants”, I immediately thought “Sex”! The way the two characters went at each other reminded me of a show from the 1980’s called “The Wonder Years” in which two teenagers  who knew each other, while growing up, experienced many of the “teen-like” issues, some of which include; first kiss, and first time having sex. The way the man and the girl sort-of argued made it seem like a teenage drama on whether to have sex or not. For example, on page 168, the girl says “And if I do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?”, then the guy replies “I love you now. You know I love you”. To me, this seems like a typical dispute that teenagers will go through about having sex because the female might think that the only reason the guy is with her is to have sex, and then wont “love” her anymore –like we know what the hell that means-. Or the teenage couple might be afraid of their relationship losing its passion after the introduction of sex.

Personally, I didn’t understand what role or motif the alcohol, and beer played in the story. I did not see the point of mentioning it other than it being used as the conversation topic for the couple, and an attention grabber for the audience. Maybe I’m missing something… In addition, I was particularly interested in the way that the story started. Seeing that we are all pretty much young adults, drinking alcohol and partying (I speak in general terms) is a HUGE part of our life, for the most part. So including that in the introduction really grabbed my attention.

Something that particularly kept me at a conundrum was the fact that the story turned out to be about abortion. I am satisfied that I came somewhere close to the topic, but I believe that the author can be quite misleading at times. For example, on page 167 “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig”, then “I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig, it’s really not anything, it’s just to let the air in”. Particularly, the confusing part was determining what “Jig” really is! At first I thought it was a sexual position of some sort, because initially, I thought that the story was about something dealing with sex. The only logical thing to do is follow that thought process. Overall, it was an interesting and captivating story to read that took a strange twist, although its slight ambiguity (In my opinion) was annoying, it gave the story its fascinating characteristic.

I’ve read Hemingway before, so I was fairly confident that I wouldn’t have too much trouble trying to interpret this three-page short story. Yes, his work was confusing, but how much could he do in three pages?

A lot, apparently.

And at the same time, it feels as if Hemingway’s written about nothing at all. The dialogue repeats itself tirelessly over and over again like a broken record until it feels like I’m even starting to think in cheerless, oversimplified sentences. After reading through the story the first time around, I attempted to grasp at the plot. But all I found were words—scattered bits and pieces of the dialogue that had become so ingrained in my memory through the process of repetition that they refused to let go. Among them were:

–          “we can”

–          “we can’t”

–          “perfectly simple”

–          “beer”

–          “I feel fine”

–          “happy”

The American man and the girl are always hinting at something larger through their seemingly mundane conversation, and it gives the reader the sense that there’s a lot more going on behind the talk of white elephants, alcohol and happiness than the simplicity of his work initially leads us to believe. It becomes quite evident that the girl is not fine, and that the two of them are not nearly as happy as they pretend to be. The repetitive wording cloaks the true subject matter of the story, which is only ever implied at best. The two characters skirt around the topic, occasionally touching upon it, but not nearly long enough for us to really comprehend it without an extensive close reading of the material.

And that’s where the title comes into play. Upon finishing the story and looking it over once again, it occurred to me that the story itself was very much like the saying “an elephant in the room.” The idiom is used to describe something very apparent or obvious, but at the same time, goes unaddressed, which is exactly what the American and the girl are doing here. The characters are unwilling to get to the heart of the issue, and thus they continue to keep their conversations pleasantly shallow for fear of disrupting their “happiness.”

In “Against Interpretation,” Susan Sontag famously writes, “the modern style of interpretation excavates, and as it excavates, destroys; it digs “behind” the text, to find a sub-text which is the true one.” What is Sontag saying about how we read?
Immediately after hearing the Susan Sontag quote from “Against Interpretation” I thought of “deconstruction” as defined by Derrida and practiced for literary analysis purposes throughout the intellectual community.  I think that Sontag is talking about this kind of approach to understanding and absorbing a text by taking it apart and examining the pieces.
When you read a text very closely, you begin to interpret meaning in every word choice.  Because the author of the piece is unlikely to be at hand or potentially even in a better place, the reader is left to scrutinize their words at their leisure.  It is impossible to know what the author intended the symbolic meaning to be, and virtually anything can be inferred.  Once a piece has been reduced to its lowest common denominator, the audience is free to claim that the writer means whatever they themselves are imposing upon it.  I think that the danger of this is that a text can be mutilated and dissected to the point that it is rendered completely meaningless and hollow.
I have read several of Hemmingway’s short stories.  I wrote a paper about “Hills Like White Elephants” and what I thought all the “sub-text” was behind the dialogue and imagery.  We discussed the meaning of the “white elephants” in terms of the girl’s eminent abortion, as the proverbial “elephant in the room”.   I wrote about the barren, dry landscape in juxtaposition with the banks on the other side of the Ebro that were lush and fertile, and how this represented her two options, the two paths her life could take from here.  Should she choose to continue living this shallow life of travel, drinks, and voyeurism, or should she start a family and settle down, look for something real?
The story is ripe with symbolism and is a great text to break down.  You can easily defend many different interpretations of the “true” story between the lines.