Trifles revisited

Susan Glaspell was really good at dropping hints throughout the story about other things than directly mattered. for example, we can decide why Mrs. Hale defended Mrs. Wright. When the county attorney is talking about the mess in the house she is quick to point out that there is a lot of work to do on the farm. She says this stiffly as if it was towards her which as a reader makes me believe that her house is probably in the same condition and with this little bit of information I can imagine that this is the connection between them. Maybe she begins to think to herself about what would make her do something like this because these two women used to be so much alike and had the same life on a farm with the same responsibilities. Because they were so much alike Mrs. Hale feels even more guilty for not making time to spend with her neighbor when they may have been good friends and they could have talked to each other about their problems. Mrs. Hale also understands that Mrs. Wright did not have a chance to clean the house before she left even if the police had given her time to do it they would not have let her because of evidence.
           Mrs. Hale begin to tell Mrs. Peters about Miss Minnie Foster, who thirty years ago became Minnie Wright after marrying John Foster. That she used to be happy and lively back then and now she stayed to herself and didn't feel that she could help anyone. She was even so off of herself that she was not sewing well and Mrs. Peters was putting together that she was upset about something. So both women had some sort of proof of the kind of life she may have lived and her mind the day that all of this happened. Both women begin to purposefully look for things that in their minds would show not if Mrs. Wright had done it or not, but if she did, why she would have and if she had reason. Mrs. Hale said one thing that did strike me a little on pg. 919 "I could've come. I stayed away because it wasn't cheerful-and that is why I ought to have come." This made me think of those, and I am guilty of it, of staying away from people who seem depressing or down because we don't want to be down, instead of trying to bring them up a little and show them what hope looks like. It was bad enough in the house that the neighbor stopped coming over. Then the women begin to talk about the kind of man that Mr. Wright was. From context clues I can believe that he was very serious and liked routine and did not want anything extra in his life. Almost like he just wanted to get through life as quickly and quietly as possible. Because he was so quiet and "cold", they deduced that he was the reason she wanted a bird. They had no children and women love to have something to take care of to feel important. When Mrs. Peters begins to talk to the men about the bird she begins to understand more about how Mrs. Wright felt by a mutual event that took place in both of their lives and even admits how upset it made her and she begins to understand that Mr. Wright may have taken the only little bit of love his wife had and killed it himself. She implies that he killed her spirit because "She used to sing. He killed that too." This entire story is not necessarily only men against women, it is about love and life and allowing each other to live it and to enjoy it together with your friends, family, neighbors, and community. That we are stronger when we are many and together than we are alone and vulnerable.

We did not fear the father...yet

We did not fear the father really touched me. Out of all the poems we read in this section I think this was the most real and true to the life of a man in the early 1900's. I know it wasn't written that far long ago, but it gives the feeling of this time to me. A man back then provided for his family and worked all day everyday if that is what it took to feed and clothe his family. In this poem the father works as a barber six days a week in order to pay for the extras in their lives such as "licorice, filled the offering plate, and paid for the keeper who clipped our grape vines under his own pageant." I think it is important also to see that he took care of the people that worked for him and made sure that he was able to pay them by working other jobs. A farm job is difficult to do all on your own or even  with the entire family helping it can be hard. When The father has help he made sure they knew they were appreciated.
           The father also had turned their home into a three-story tenement in order to make or save money and would have had to have been available to his renters at any time day or night if there was a problem. It mentions that the house was over a hundred years old before they began living there so there was probably a lot of work that would have needed to be done, yet he kept it in good condition for his family and renters. This is a lot of responsibility already and then the poem goes on to describe a third job of working nights in a factory. It was loud and probably a little dangerous "shaping molten metal into ball bearings". It certainly seemed dangerous to the son and narrator as he talks about the noise and fear they felt in those eight hours he was gone. Throughout this poem he is doing all of these jobs but he is also being a father and a provider. He is strong and continues day after day to do what is expected of him as all four positions demand it. He was always strong and never complained about his work he just continued on day after day to make sure that everything was taken care of. The children were never scared for him because he stood strong and brave and faced each day with pride and his head up. but it is not until they see their father stooped and tired and in the twilight of his life and losing his strength and youth they they begin to get scared of there father himself. As I look over the poem again I realize that they probably see what is expected of them in their father and when he begins to get older and weaker, they begin to understand that this is what is going to happen to them and they begin to fear not only their father but what their father symbolized. Life goes on and the one day it does not.

My View of The Elephant Man

Reading plays tends to be difficult for me, but when I was reading this play one major idea seemed to confuse me. There is one part at the very end of scene VII where Treves, Bishop and Gomm are speaking and they want to make Merrick just like them. The tone of the bishop sounds like it is almost in wonder and smiles as if he thinks the others are joking. As though he is thinking, "really? like us? why would you want more of us?" but then later in scene XII they are all talking about the ways in which Merrick is like them and those are things that he seems to have been like even before he went into the hospital. They all take what they believe are positive attributes and say that these are the ways he is like them. What I did not really like is that everybody seems to agree that he is just like them but without the experience of the outside world and yet they do not allow him out of the hospital to experience that outside way of life. It seems as though that would be the best and that he would have to learn to deal with the people staring or asking questions eventually and that he may be able to get closer to normality that way. The whole point of him agreeing to go into the hospital was so that he may have a chance at a normal life and they said they could help him get it but he seems farther away from it after going in the hospital then he was in the freak show. It seems as though when he was working and living in the circus that he was just acting the part like the Mrs. Kendal was doing for her job. It just so happens that it was a very rare person could do his job whereas many people can learn to do her job. I do agree that depending on which people are around him changes how Merrick acts, but we as "normal" people do that all the time, we do not speak to our parents or our children the same way as we do our teachers or for that case other students. Many people hide who they are from everybody for all their lives and are able to live like that. I think it is wrong for them to judge Merrick by a different standard that the one that they follow for themselves. It seems that these people are not very good role models and should not be trying to teach another person how it is appropriate to act when they are hypocrites. Merrick seems to be abnormal to these people only because they do not understand why he does not want to be honest about who he is in front of them, when it is he that can see right through them and can realize that they are fakers and he should just go with them and they can give him what he has wanted for a long time, a “normal” life.