Anderson

I have never read Sherwood Anderson before and I'm surprised at how simple his writing is.  It is obvious that this is a low style, even lower then Hemingway I believe.  In paper pills the story is told in a way I would expect to read a children's story.  The description is there but there really isn't anything "flowery" or unique about his style of writing, other that the fact that it is uncommonly bland.  

I do like Anserson's descriptions.  "The knuckles of the doctor's hands were extraordinarily large.  When the hands were closed they looked like clusters of unpainted wooden balls as large as walnuts fastened together by steel rods." (Paper Pills)  This is a pretty good description in some aspects.  The 'unpainted wooden balls' gives the reader an idea of what the doctors skin is like on his hands.  I imagine hem rough and splintered.  "As large as walnuts" also show the extraordinary largeness of his hands.  'fastened together by steel rods' shows that his hands are not only large, but they are boney, perhaps this even shows us his overall physic, perhaps he is very thin.  

I wanted to see more of Doctor Reefy's suit that he wore for ten years.  For me, "frayed at the sleeves and little holes had appeared at the knees and elbows." is not enough.  Perhaps a stain that remained after five years.  for example: Some tomato sauce had spilled on his sleeve five years ago at a family dinner and never completely came out.  The stain, the size of a quarter almost formed the shape of a heart and has faded over the years.  Wearing the same suit for ten years is a heavy character trait.  I saw it as a good opportunity for more description and was disappointed Sherwood did not have more.

Hills like White Elephants

This piece is so heavy with dialogue, but the dialogue is so simple, it's like reading an actually conversation the way one would speak naturally, without paraphrasing.  I'm not really a huge fan of this.  his writing seems almost childlike.  The style is almost too low.  I think the story would have been more enjoyable without so much of the dialogue and a more paragraphed structure.

Original:

The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer glass on the table and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.

High Style: The woman entered from behind the curtain, that brushed back her curly brown hair as she passed through holding two glasses of dark yellow fizzing beer with cream colored foam spilling over the top.  Next to the spilling beer were two square shaped green felt pads that were now beginning to soak up the dark yellow fizz from the brown tray and the edges of the clear glasses.  She shook the felt pads out effortlessly and placed them on the table while looking at the man and then the girl to see if they had noticed the wet felt.  The girl looked off at the hills she said that had resembled white elephants.  The hills were white as snow and shining in the sun and the rest of the country was brown, dry, and un-matching to the hills that resembled white elephants in the eyes of the girl.

Suspense

The girl, pale and blue-eyed with long stringy blonde hair, stuck out a shoeless foot to take a step quietly down the basement stairs.  Her socks were white with holes.  Her childlike nature made her seem to be the age of a preteen, but Sally was twenty the year her brother died.  She crept down the basement stairs, each creak raised tiny hairs on her spine.  She hadn't been down there since the night she found him dead.  The pale light from the tiny window was bright enough to only fill half of the room of light.  The room was full of old books and the floor was scattered with old clothes that were now moldy and damp.  Sally reached out to pull the light switch in the darker half of the room.  The air was musty and began to affect her allergies.  As she swung her arm around the area the cord was usually found, her eyes began to water and then to close until she lost control all together and pulled her head back, mouth open, and let out a sneeze.  At the same time she found the cord to the light switch in her hand, she pulled down on it and illuminated the room.

Dry September

I think that Faulkner truly captures the southern vibe of this town.  The dialogue is effective in pretty accurately portraying the characters as people from the south.  The opening scene in the barber shop is strong.  It is clear to the reader what is happening.  We are shown the feelings of many different characters at this point, and it is also clear that it is not definite that Minnie was attacked.  It's nice to see the different points of view, it gives the characters individuality.  They don't all believe the same thing, they don't all blame a "Negro."  

I love Faulkner's descriptions.  he writes so beautifully, almost suspenseful as well.

My favorite was the very last paragraph of the piece.  

"He went on through the house, ripping off his shirt, and on the dark, screened porch at the rear he stood and mopped his head and shoulders with the shirt and flung it away. He took the pistol from his hip and laid it on the table beside the bed, and sat on the bed and removed his shoes, and rose and slipped his trousers off. He was sweating again already, and he stooped and hunted furiously for the shirt. At last he found it and wiped his body again, and, with his body pressed against the dusty screen, he stood panting. There was no movement, no sound, not even an insect. The dark world seemed to lie stricken beneath the cold moon and the lidless stars."

There is incredible imagery here, you can feel the sleaze from McLendon's character.  Even words like "mopped" indicates the cleaning of a mess, because that what we use mops for.  He is using the shirt he was just wearing, as a mop, to clean is body.  Words like "hunted" show 

McLendon's nature.  He is not a gentle man, he is clearly angry and instinctual.  After he has just wiped his body, "he pressed his body against the dusty screen." Cleanliness is obviously not important to him.  Why not have the character take a shower if he is sweating?  Having McLendon take a shower instead wouldn't show the sleazy nature of this character.  "He stood panting."  Faulkner has just used words like "hunted" and "panting" this adds to McLendon's animalistic nature.  The last sentence is just so eery, it leaves the reader fearing for his wife, who doesn't seem to have been given a name.

Sister Mary/Lanham

"Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All For You" is great.  It's so simple, definitely low style.  It's basically a recount of everything we have already been taught or if we haven't been taught it, we've heard it at some point.  The text is very simple and Durang does a great job at showing how crazy these nuns are, and what they believe.  The questions Sister Mary asks Thomas when she quizzes him on sin are terrible!  "Mary has had an argument with her parents and has shot and killed the.  Is that a venial sin or a mortal sin?"  It's just such an extreme situation, things don't happen like this as casually as she states it.  She is rewarding Thomas with cookies for the right answer, like a pet...very strange, but definitely plays in super well with the "rules" of Catholicism. 

This play takes a crazy turn and not only already sounds crazy, it just get even crazier!  The fact that Sister Mary finds reasons to make these murders o.k. is completely insane!  I was really hoping that the students would come out winning this one.  But she definitely explains it all, and makes it very clear how serious it all is.

I noticed Durang's use of multiple exclamation and question marks towards the end of the play when Sister Mary is explaining her teachings and why they must be followed.  I guess it's good because it exaggerates the speech.  It is also fun for the reader, it reminds us that this is not a serious text.

Definitely a very enjoyable read, I loved it.

Baldwin

This is obviously a very sensitive subject but Baldwin does a really great job of showing and telling his experience of being a "stranger" in a village who has never seen a black man.  What Baldwin does so effectively is he gets his point across, we know that he is mad, but he doesn't show it distastefully, that's probably what I admire the most about this piece.  He writes about experiences that are terrible.  They are even very uncomfortable to just read.  "If I sat in the sun sun for more than five minutes some darling creature was certain to come along and gingerly put his fingers on my hair, as though he were afraid of an electric shock, or put his hand on my hand, astonished that the color did not rub off."  Baldwin sarcasm in this sentence is clever.  "some darling creature" when referring to a white boy I presume, is great.  He describes this boy and the way the boy touched his hair.  The boy is examining baldwin as if he himself is a creature, as if he isn't human.  Therefore, this is how he describes the boy, and sarcastically calls him "darling."  It is obvious that Baldwin does not feel that this young boy is "darling," which makes this sentence great.

"In all of this, in which it must be conceded there was the charm of genuine wonder and in which there was certainly no element of intentional unkindness, there was yet no suggestion that I was human: I was simply a living wonder."

This sentence directly follows the example I just made.  The words he uses, "charm" "genuine wonder" are words that make this sentence sound and feel positive when it's read.  He is taking this terrible scene and making it better than it was.  Very clever.

On Beauty

It's interesting that this piece begins with emails from Jerome.  It's just enough to let the reader know what's going on by "showing" rather than "telling."  When it jumps into the narrative the text is heavily descriptive. 

 "Levi was slicing strawberries, rinsing them and plopping them into cereal bowls." 

 "SHe reached for an apple and began to cut it up with one of their small knives with translucent handles, dividing it into irregular chunks.  She ate these slowly, one piece after another."

"Grabbing her robust fifteen-year-old by his denim waistband, she pulled him to her easily, forcing him down half a foot to her sitting level so that she could tuck the label of his basketball top back inside the collar."

the language in the dialogue seems to be very natural, what I mean is it is very much like the way that we would speak today.  Also very realistic between the family members. (Dialogue on page 9 between Zora and her mother regarding Monique)

Didion

I must say I love Didion.  To pick a few things I am especially fond of Didion's precise description.  "being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty three."  People may wonder why the ages are important but it helps the reader to remember maybe when they were twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three.  Didion is very good at relating to her readers.  She uses a cute anecdote on the second page of the print out.  "I remember once, one cold bright December..."  The story about the party and "new faces" regarding the previous party where he friend had been in a room of people, five that he had slept with and that he owed money to all but two of the men.  It's a simply story and it may seem insignificant but it works so well.  This is an anecdote that people may be able to relate too and it's funny!  In the next paragraph Didion speaks to her reader and continues to be precise so that we understand exactly what she means.  "I do not mean "love" in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city..."

My favorite:

"I began to cherish the loneliness of it, the sense that at any given time no one need know where I was or what I was doing."

"I remember one day when someone who did have the West Village number came to pick me up for lunch there, and we both had hangovers, and I cut my finger opening him a beer and burst into tears, and we walked to a Spanish restauraunt and drank bloody Marys and gazpacho until we felt better.  I was not then guilt-ridden about spending afternoons that way, because I still had all the afternoons in the world."

I loved the Blood-blood relation, the blood from cutting herself and the bloody Marys.  It's almost disturbing, seeing the image of the blood from her cut and then the bloody Marys.  So many parts of this sentence are just great.  "because I still had all the afternoons in the world" they both had hangovers, and still drank beer and bloody Marys (though drinking the next day does help) 

lastly, Didion always uses such long sentences but they never seem to wordy.  Her use of commas and "ands" break up the info nicely.  I love it.

Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath's "Bell Jar" is a true reflection of who she was as a person.  There is so much here in this chapter alone that goes so psychologically deep.  We discussed the very first line of chapter 10 in class.  "The face in the mirror looked like a sick indian."  To me this line made sense.  Sylvia Plath was a poet and these lines seem to make perfect sense in the poets eye.  This line is specifically referring to the blood on her face.  By comparing it to an indian she means that the lines on her cheeks look like those of probably Native American indian face paint.  The word sick comes from her emotional state.  Perhaps she is pale after the traumatizing events that just took place (the rape).

The lines in the chapter that stand alone as paragraphs I think truly reflect her success as a poet.  The one line paragraphs are like mini poems.  I think it's great how Plath bends the rules in a sense.  We don't usually see one line paragraphs.