Blog Essay Reflection

Let me begin by saying, thank you all for your thoughtful and constructive comments. I really enjoyed this format, afterall, this is the year 2009, we would be remiss to not utilize all the technology available to us. If I had to make a critique of this blog I would say that we were all a little too easy on eachother. We're all adults here, I would've been pleased to see a lot more scathing critiques. That being said, let me now focus on the positives. I noticed that a lot of comments to my blog posts dealt with peoples' personal connections to the text. I think that a personal connection is always a good way to appreciate a text. When you can relate to the story or a certain character you have a great starting point from which to dive into deeper analysis. I also notice, looking back on the comments to my blog posts that many times my classmates directed my attention to aspects of the story that I had not given much attention to. For instance, in Greasy Lake, I did not really focus my attention on the symbolism of the lake and the dead body, I let them just be details in the overall story. Upon closer reading I realised that the lake was an important focal point and symbol for corruption and decadence. And the dead body was definately a symbol for the loss of innocence. One of the main advantages to this blog format was that I was able to see the humor and irony in stories that I hadn't noticed. I have this curse where when I read a story I assume it has a dismal, poignant message, sometimes a writer is just being clever and wants the reader to laugh out loud. I really value learning from other people that a story can be fun, and humorous. This helps make the unbearable heaviness of literature more bearable. Way to go gang, neato! This concludes my reflection essay.

Essay Draft

So, I'm going to write my paper about the story "Cold-Hearted" in my last post I covered the character development of Genius. And the plot structure. I would also like to spend some time talking about conflict and tone in this story. The main conflict seems to be between Lawrence and his father, Genius. One of the reasons for this seems to be food. Lawrence thinks that his father is too ethnic, and that his food reflects this. Lawrence seems to want a "normal" American life, his appreciation of TV dinners shows this. Lawrence seems to be a little embarassed by his father, at the same time he is constantly seeking, but not expecting, his approval. There are several times in the story when this conflict takes a hiatus, for instance, when Genius lets his son smoke a cigarette with him, as a kind of celebration of the fridge. But for the most part Lawrence has a difficult relationship with his father. You can see this when he comments on the fact that he will inheret his father's only suit, "as long as the man doesn't come with it." Also, it's clear that Genius sees his son as a useful set of hands, more useful than his first three daughters, Genius is very old school in this sense.
The tone of this story changes, at times Lawrence is simply annoyed and frustrated at his parents. At other times he is attempting to find redeeming qualities in them. Lawrence, for the most part, quietly observes.
Another aspect of this story that I appreciate is the stylish language. Here's a few examples of my favorite lines: "a won-at cards slant-eyed prize, garbage-picker special, tethered to the car like Gregory Peck on the back of the Great White Whale;" and "Hey, goong hee faht toy. He chuckled. This way New Year start off in very good style." and "I don't want people to say, Oh look at that big shot, he mus have won that nice refridgerator." The dialog really stuck out to me, it was usually in contrast to the narration.

Cold-Hearted Assignment

I would like to focus on the story “Cold Hearted” by David Wong. One of the reasons is that I really like the father’s character, he seems pretty stern, but he’s got a style of his own. I would like to focus on the character development of Genius, the father. Often times it is Genius’ silence which conveys his feelings. He is able to communicate with his son without speaking. And when he does speak it is usually something pretty entertaining and insightful. One of my favorite quotes from Genius is, “I have two kit, I feed two mouth. I have four kit, I feed four mouth.” He has a very concise way of speaking, this can partially be credited to his difficulty with the English language. I would also like to focus on the plot structure, I admire the way Wong tells this story, which seems to be going nowhere but then it ends in this epiphany. This seems to be a very pedestrian story about a quirky father who brings his son on a seemingly ridiculous mission to obtain a discarded refrigerator. It shows how you don’t have to be a monk on top of a mountain to experience a moment of enlightenment. On the contrary, everyday life can yield profound moments.