The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Reading The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was extremely interesting and thought provoking to me because I was able to discover a lot of dramatic irony and symbols.  One of my main objectives during this class was to be able to analyze literature more efficiently and more accurately.  I have always taken my time when reading assigned literature, but have never fully understood the hiding messages behind the word.  This story, however, was different.  The author did a great job in creating enough irony and symbolism in the story without hiding it too much.

I read this story a few times over in order to gain a better understanding of the plot, but noticed some dramatic irony the first time through.  Dramatic irony is when the reader knows something that the character in the story does not yet know.  The first, and most obvious, exemplification I noticed in the story was when the narrator initially describes the room.  When the narrator said, “It was a nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there and rings and things in the walls” it is clear to me, the reader, that the room did not used to be a nursery.  The room was, indeed, used to house an insane person. 

This was also one of my favorite stories to read simply because I was able to track the narrator’s thought process.   In the beginning of the story, she is positive about the house, only expressing dislike of the yellow wall.  Towards the middle of the story, when she realized the figures on the yellow wall resemble her, she begins to turn insane about being trapped in the house.  Finally, toward the end, the narrator is obsessed with the yellow wall and begins to tear it down off the wall.  She turns completely insane. 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman did a fantastic job in creating this short story and it truly marked a turning point in my literary analysis abilities. 

Hills Like White Elephants

The short story, Hills Like White Elephants, truly caught me off guard.  I understood from the beginning that The American, the male protagonist of the story, was confronting his girlfriend, The Girl, about her pregnancy.  However, throughout the story I did not read into the rudeness and selfishness of The American.  We discussed in class that he was being rude to The Girl and not showing sympathy for her feelings.  Looking back, I see how inconsiderate he was being toward the girl, but in the moment I was oblivious.  When I read the line of The American saying, “if you don’t want to you don’t have to.  I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to” I was under the impression that he was open to either decision, as long as she was happy. 

During our class discussion, I realized the symbolism behind the Hills and noticed the pressure between The American and The Girl.  He was not ready to give up his life to a wife and baby.  Supposedly he loved his wife, but could fathom being tied down.  The symbolism I discovered represents the split in the relationship between The American and The Girl.  The train station, where the story took place, represented the relationship between the man and the girl as being at a crossroads.  The man and the woman were in the middle of nowhere in Spain and had to decide where to go from there; similar to whether they should have an abortion or not. 

By the end of the class discussion, I was no longer in the dark about the class discussion and sympathized for the The Girl.  This was a major decision in her life and The American was not making anything any easier. 

The Lottery

One of the more moving stories we read was The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.  I had read this story during my AP Literature class during my senior year of high school, and it affected me greatly then.  However when I re-read it during this class, I felt even more moved.

Tessie, the main character who was the unlucky loser of the lottery, was not expecting this to happen to her.  In fact, she did not arrive at the drawing on time simply because she was forgot what day it was.  This showed how truly unexpected her death was.

When she finally arrived at the drawing and discovered she was the chosen one, I found it interesting that she tried to excuse herself from being killed.  Like in society today, people are not nervous about the wellbeing of others unless it directly affects them.  By being late to the lottery, Tessie was almost making a joke of the whole system.  However, once her name was called, it became reality.  She began fighting for her survival, insisting it was not her turn.

Another part of the story that moved me the most was what happened after Tessie was chosen.  It seemed as if the town has no sympathy for her, and was rather excited to throw rocks at her.  The ladies who Tessie considered her friends were almost “gathering the troops” to see the end of Tessie’s life.

This story truly exemplified how cruel people can be and how unsympathetic people can be as well.  Let’s hope our society does not accumulate to such madness!

Pikes Peak

It was the sixth day of our family vacation to Colorado, and honestly, everything was going quite well!  The Sharp family outings are usually directly proportional to the activities our mom has planned for us, and this trip seemed to exceed all expectations.  During the five previous days of the trip, we went water skiing, whitewater rafting, ATVing in Estes Park, rocking climbing, and of course hiking.

It wasn’t until the Cog Railcar was about 15 minutes into its journey up the mountain that I truly understood why my mom picked this as our next adventure.  We were riding on the Cog Railway to the top of Pikes Peak, a 14,115 foot mountain top in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  We cheated and took the railway, but there are some brave soles (I’m talking about you, Professor Williams) who climb to the top of this monstrous mountain.

The view on the way to the top is breathtaking.   You can see for seemingly hundreds of miles out into the Colorado landscape.  As we went higher and higher up the mountain, the clouds started to appear.  Once reaching the top of the mountain, you definitely cannot see the Colorado Spring land.  You feel like you are on a different planet! 

We got off the railcar and went into the one building that is located at the top.  I was not feeling well, so I was in the bathroom or sitting at a table for most of the time while my family explored.  Once feeling a little better, I decided to eat a famous donut that is made at the top of Pikes Peak.  Even though I wasn’t feeling well, I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.  And man, was it delicious!

Due to the cloud that was lingering over us, we were not able to explore much outside.  My brother, Quinn, and I entertained us with some fun “insert face” posters! 

On the way back down the mountain, I was able to capture some awesome pictures.  The land was so green and luscious, it actually reminded me of my trip to Tuscany!

Enjoy these pics!

This blog post was actually inspired by the first day of my Literature and Civilizations II class.  Or teacher opened our class blog and told us that we had until the end of the semester to discover where this picture was taken.  After about 0.59023 seconds of thinking, I knew EXACTLY where the picture was taken!  Pikes Peak!  Does this picture look familiar, Professor Williams??

The Kissing Aunt

Every family has one of those relatives.  The one who is always overly excited to see you at holidays and goes above and beyond to show you their love?  Yea, my family definitely has one of those – and it’s my great-aunt Joanie.  Commonly known as the “kissing aunt”, I cannot walk into a Christmas, or Easter, or wedding gathering without receiving a giant kiss on the cheek.  What makes it ten times more awkward is that she is 4 feet tall, and almost two feet shorter than me. 

This past Thanksgiving, I was going out of my way to avoid receiving a kiss from her.  Over the past 20 years, they have gotten less and less exciting and quite annoying.  I really really hope she is not reading this right now.  Yikes.  Anyway!   Despite her crazy habit of kissing each of my family members of the cheek, she makes some extremely delicious apple pie.  We usually go over to her and my great-uncle’s house for Christmas (Because both of my grandparents have died…my great-aunt and uncle have carried on the tradition) and feast.  We end up all sitting around the dinner table together, sharing stories and talking about school.  This particular Christmas, though, the kissing aunt decided to give us gifts identical gifts – just another way to show her love for us.  All the cousins were sitting in a line together, she counted to three, and we each opened our package.  Inside were identical sweatshirts that said “____University” and inserted our respective last name.   It ended up being quite the family gift, and all of us cousins got a kick out of it.

Even though sometimes her kisses get a little over the top, I still lover her.  Without her, our family spirit would be a little dimmer.   

My Daily View

Living in the Greek community at TCU comes with its perks.  Not only are you semi-off campus, but also you are living in a “village” filled with constant activity and entertainment.

Looking out my window right now, I spy about most of the fraternity houses on campus.  Right across from my window, however, is the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house.  It being Christmas time, their house is creatively decorated with several lines of Christmas lights, a few wreaths that have made their way onto the ground, and one cheesy sign that reads shines “Merry Christmas!”  Whoever took time out of studying for finals also put clumps of cotton in the creases of window of their chapter room.  Interesting addition, Mr. Sig Ep!

To the right of the Sig Ep house is a large parking lot.  This brings me to tell you about a random event that occurred in the parking lot  a few weeks ago!  I was walking to my car in about the third lane over to the left, when I saw a raccoon on a person’s car.  This raccoon was not only on the car, but extremely dead and actually bleeding.  I doubt that someone actually ran their car into a raccoon oddly enough that it would be placed perfectly on their hood.  I later discovered that it was our chapter president's car and that someone had put it on her car as a prank!

Here’s what I discovered that Sunday morning…..view discretion is advised...

The rest of the scene from my window is pretty bland. It’s currently raining, which makes it even less exciting.

On certain Friday and Saturday nights, it is entertaining to look out my window around one or two in the morning.  People, living up the college dream, are coming back to go to bed.  My Chi O sisters and I decided a few months ago to purchase a laser pointer and to use it on those people walking by.  Those people who have been drinking (of age…of course) fall into the trap of the laser pointer and will commonly follow it for several minutes.  Few people have actually discovered where the laser pointer is coming from, for when they search for the light, we quickly turn it off and shut the blinds.  They will never know!! Mwahahaha!

   

Tuscany

This past summer, I traveled to Germany, Italy, and Switzerland with 13 other honors students through a program called Cultural Routes.  The trip is a study abroad option within the John V. Roach Honors College at TCU.  Though I could go on for hundreds of pages about the experiences I had while traveling, I will enlighten you with one special day of the trip. 

We were in our third country, Italy, and had the “travel thing” down pretty well.  As a way to reward us, Dr. Pitcock, one of our instructors, let us have an entire day free to explore whatever city or town we desired in Italy – being reasonable distance away.  My friends Brandon Somerhalder (holllla!), Blaire Butler, Sarah Rose, and myself knew we were not looking for another typical day in Italy.  We wanted adventure, thrill, and, of course, amazing scenery.

We hopped on a train early that morning without knowing exactly where we were going.  The night before we had looked up review online of “best kept secret - small towns of Italy”, decided to head toward Tuscany.  I fell asleep on the train and have no recollection of how long the ride was before we stopped, but next thing I knew, we were getting off in a small town called Cortona.  We hopped off the train, and our adventure began.

About an hour later, after a long bus ride, we found ourselves at the top of a large mountain overlooking the Tuscan land -- It looked right out of a movie.  The land was a luscious green filled with old Italian buildings.  Here’s actually the first picture I took right off the bus!

Throughout the day we simply explored.  We walked through the winding streets of the village, taking endless self-timer photos and eating gelato.  After an energizing lunch, however, we decided to amp up our experience.  Granted we had already discovered an old theater house and climbed on the wall surrounding the village, we wanted something that we would remember forever.

We were walking down a windy side road in the village when we came across two locals.  Actually, they approached us, and asked if we were studying abroad.  Little did we know, this was the start of a great friendship.  After seemingly five minutes of small talk, the couples took us under their wing and showed us around the city – the whole time talking with them about America, food, and the wonders of Cortona.  We started off by meeting their entire family in this small house built into the side of the mountain.  Everyone was so welcoming!  After all, it is italy!  We then went to a local art shop and admired the hand-sculpted bowls and beautiful paintings.  Walking into the city square, we noticed there was some sort of festival going on.  The couple explained to us that it was a ritual of the city and that most of the locals attended. 

A few hours had passed by and it was beginning to turn dark.  Since we had to be back by dinnertime, we, unfortunately, had to say goodbye.  We took a picture with the couple in the main square and headed toward the train station.  Our crazy adventure in Cortona was coming to a close.  At dinnertime with the rest of the group, we definitely had the best stories from the day.

No description of our day can truly justify the wonderful experience I had explore Cortona.  The food, the locals, and the overall atmosphere of the village were truly breathtaking. 

Here are a few photos from the day including the picture with or locals. :)