Every Day Use & I Stand Here Ironing

Every Day Use By Alice Walker
This short story brought a sense of local color, with the customs that the mother, protagonist, told us about in her life. Living in a rural area, living like people did in the old (butchering your own livestock) days, and not being formally educated. When I reread the story I felt like there was a motif of the hurt feeling between all of the characters. When the mother is thinking of Dee or Wangero, the antagonist, and how she always wanted something better, it felt like that sort of hurt her. Maggie, the daughter was hurt by a fire physically and mentally, she was always timid and not wanting to be upfront about anything. Wangero or Dee, was hurt when she abruptly was told that she could not have the quilts and churn top.

I liked this story, I have read parts of it before. I think it was unfortunate that there was fire and that they have a poor quality of living even though they seem to like it. The mother, I feel, was right for not letting Dee take the quilts, she was never there, and really did not have a connection with the family other than being a daughter. The characters are very diverse which was interesting when reading. I could really relate to the mother hoping Maggie put everyday use to the heirlooms, and Dee wanting to treasure it with out use. My grandmother has many objects from the farm she lived on that now sit in her basement, she tells about different things and treasures them in use or not.

I Stand Here Ironing By Tillie Olsen
The mother and the narrator of this story took me through her life revolving around Emily, her first daughter. Conflicts dotted around the plot. Allusions to the Great Depression were many in number and hidden in the texts, having a tough time finding jobs and overall poor quality of life for the single mother. The entire story was a flashback to the mothers first occurances with Emily and as the young girl grew up, the story came back to the present only at the very beginning, around the middle, and at the end.

This story was interesting, but kind of depressing in a way. The characters obviously had a rough life, especially Emily's. I can't imagine growing up in the Great Depression. Even though i know that I live in a bad recession, I still see food in my kitchen, and have a kitchen and a house, so I know I'm lucky. The other thing I can't fathom is sending my child away because they couldn't learn things as fast as the other kids, or having to give my child up for a few years. It seems impossible.

The Story of an Hour By Kate Chopin

Mrs. Mallard, a young woman, is told her husband has died in a railroad accident at work. She is sad and departs from her sisters company to be alone for a few minutes. Mrs. Mallard begins to think about her freedom without her husband, she is almost delighted at the thought of doing what she wishes as a free woman. She believes also that she never truely loved her husband. After realizing these things, she comes out from her room and as this happens Mr. Mallard walks through the opposite door, alive and unhurt. Mrs. Mallard dies of supposed shock from seeing her husband and her heart condition.

This was very ironic, and mostly sad. The story itself had situational irony, the Husband supposedly had died.. but in the end the only one who had died was Mrs. Mallard (Louise). What I thought was sad, besides thinking people had died when they had not, was that Mrs. Mallard only thought about being able to "live for herself" after she believed her husband had died. Of course, in the time period of the book it would most likely of been a norm, but I found it sad none the less. The second thing I thought was sad was that she thought she never really loved her husband. Again, different time periods have different customs, rules and such, but I always dislike hearing about unhappy relationships, especially in marriage.