The Crazy Horse Lady

Prompt: Reflect on the impact of setting on the characters and plot in "Christmas 1910."

Response:
"We all left our houses unlocked for each other and for just such a wayfarer, so no one felt it odd in those days if you came home and found a stranger making himself comfortable."
The "home-y", rural feel that the great plains of South Dakota give to both the reader and the characters in the story a sense of amiability and freedom from formality. Such a setting enables the semi-romantic encounters which Abba and John Marsh share in the few stolen moments of the night before, the night before Christmas.

"To the west, the sky was thickening up pretty bad. A sky like this in Kentucky might not say the same thing to a man."
This reflection on the signs of the skies turns out to be a catalyst for capricious behavior on the part of Abba. The setting pushes Abigail onward with Sam to chase after John Marsh- creating a place in which Abigail can realize who her true love is. At once, these thoughts spur Abba to seek John in a romantic and movie-esque fashion- and yet draw her closer to the animal on which she chases.

"I Would Prefer Not To"

Prompt: What emotional response does Bartleby elicit from the narrator? Provide a text example of an interaction between the two that illustrates one of these reactions and explain.

Bartleby elicits an unarticulated sort of frustration from the Boss (which is what I'll refer to him as for the remainder of this blog post- as his name is never mentioned in the short story) that eats at him till he feels guilty for his anger. If you did a close reading of the passages therein, you might have noticed that there were a number of boundary problems between the Boss and Bartleby.

Bartleby would prefer not to look over his copies
- Anyone in their right mind would not have dealt with the insolence of this unexplained "eccentricity" of Bartleby's. Not only does the Boss not wield the power of the paycheck, but he also allows himself to be sequestered into an acquiescent position of powerlessness. It is not hard to imagine that the Boss feels emasculated by his experiences with Bartleby.

Bartleby turns the Boss' office into an apartment
- If someone in their right mind had managed to shrug off these issues with Bartleby, then the incident of finding him convert the copyist office into his home would have certainly been the last straw. But it's not. The Boss' pity, the "human side", gets the best of him and he is not able to say "no" to Bartleby in an assertive and meaningful manner. The Boss' boundaries, at this point, should have been backed up with concrete consequences- such as a situation involving the police (which is what happened in the end anyway).

A Rose for Emily

Prompt: To what extent do concepts of honor and tradition influence the action in "A Rose for Emily"?

Response: The tradition of the Southern town (which the Griersons, at one point, called home) is one of chivalry, gossip, and conservatism. Colonel Sartoris, essential, lets Emily off of her tax evasion on the account of the fact that she is a woman- and that she can make retribution by way of china-decorating lessons. Along with this comes the expected rumor [mills] that pop up around the town to propagate the news of Miss Emily's personal life, including the burgeoning of her relationship with her "love interest", Homer Barron. Tradition, in the vein of honor, also affects the plot of "A Rose for Emily", in that where conflict would normally arise- there is only acquiescence, pity, and unarticulated fear; the council's meager attempt at convincing Emily to pay her taxes, the pharmacist's innocuous warning about the rat poison, and the community's failed efforts to find out what was going on in that "big, squarish frame house that had once been white" are all examples of how Emily's "imperviousness" stood stark and ostensibly invincible in the face of casual precedents and social norms.