Friday, September 23, 2016

My Opinions on Some Short Stories

The short stories that I have read so far in this unit are:
  • "At the Pitt-Rivers" by Penelope Lively 
  • "The Moment Before the Gun Went Off" by Nadine Gordimer 
  • "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin 
  • "Goat's Tobacco" by Roald Dahl 
  • "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury
My favorite of these stories was "The Veldt" because I can relate to it, it has a powerful message to me that applies to basically everyone nowadays, that parents instead of dealing with the child’s problems will instead just give them a new iPhone or iPad to distract them. I also liked "Goat's Tobacco" because of its simplicity, I didn't personally connect with the story but I still liked it because of the fact that it was humorous but managed to be straight forward. I liked "The Moment Before the Gun Went Off", but because it was so confusing to understand if the man was guilty or not made me not appreciate it straight away. Once I understood it, I liked it. I don't know how to feel about "At the Pitt-Rivers" because it is showing the fact that the older generation can't teach us everything. Clearly the old man couldn't teach the teen how to find the "right" person or how to understand love. I disliked the fact that everything had a deeper meaning to it that you had to look for, like the whale. Personally "The Story of an Hour" was just plain confusing. I didn't understand who was dying and who wasn't, I was also confused about whether or not his wife actually liked him but I guess it was the fact that I wasn't able to relate to this story (because none of my close family members have died) that just made me not comprehend the plot.