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The Lesson

While reading “The Lesson,” it took awhile for me to find the purpose and meaning of the story at first. The “lesson” in question is gradually revealed to the reader at the same time as it is revealed to the main character, and I found that interesting.  Similar to how the purpose of the events in the story aren’t introduced but rather revealed, Miss Moore doesn’t introduce her lesson either. She allows the students to make their own observations and ask questions, and even when the main character Sylvia asks “why did you take us here,” Miss Moore only asks why she seems so angry about it. This teaching method let the kids come to their own conclusions on economic inequality—instead of being taught about it, they experienced it firsthand. At first Sylvia is very stubborn and closed-minded towards Miss Moore and her teaching methods, but seeing the price tags on the expensive toys and the underlying feeling of shame and awkwardness when walking into an expensive store filled with fr...
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Hills like White Elephants

After first reading this story, I was confused and didn’t really understand it. Yet after a second and even third reading, I was able to grasp the concepts portrayed and understand what it was about.  Throughout the story, I noticed a pattern of not only miscommunication, but also lack of communication thereof. Not once in the entire story do the characters mention what the “operation” which sparked such heated conversation between the two travelers was, though through context clues we can deduce the operation is an abortion. Such context clues include the hills resembling a pregnant belly, and the girl mentioning that the hills look like white elephants, which symbolize a gift no one asked for or wants, which in this case is the unwanted baby. Neither of the characters ever put words to the elephant in the room, or in this case, the elephant in the “womb.” Another important detail is the contrast between the male and female characters. The main female protagonist, later revealed t...
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Story of an Hour

From the first few sentences, I immediately assumed that “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin would be a typical story about a woman’s journey of grief and loss. Yet slowly as the story progressed, it was revealed that this is a very different story than I expected.  Mrs. Mallard’s husband has allegedly been killed by a railroad accident, and her sister is cautious to break this information to her because of Mallard’s heart condition. From her first reaction upon hearing the news of the loss, Mallard seems to be acting in a peculiar way for a woman whose husband has passed away, but not in a noticeable way yet. It isn’t until she is alone in her thoughts, looking out the window and relishing the little things in life—patches of blue sky in the clouds, the trees and birds outside—that she is overcome with a sudden burst of emotion. This emotion at first appears to be extreme anxiety which overtakes her, and perhaps it starts out this way, but eventually she is overcome with a wash ...
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