The Teacher

THEMES: appearance vs. reality

IMAGERY: beds, fire/stove, hands, snow, alley, stairs

CONNECTION TO THEME: The fires in the story represent the characters in the story time to think and reflect, as well as solitude.

TEST: Every time there is a fire in the story, it represents George Willard or Hop Higgins’ time to reflect. The first time that we see this is when George Willard goes to the woods and has a fire. “There he built a fire against the side of a log and sat down at the end of the log to think.” (page 157). This quote on the first page of the story just opens up to the symbolism of the fire in the stories. The next time it is shown is when George goes home. “In his own room in the New Willard House he built a fire in the stove an lay down on top of the bed. Be began to have lustful thoughts…” (page 158). The paragraph goes onto say that George dreams of the teacher, imagining the pillow in his arms as her. This quote shows the reflection and time to think every time there is a fire in the story. The fires in the story also represent the characters time to reflect in solitude and think to their selves. An example of this is when Hop Higgins, the night watchman, watches the fire alone at night. “Hop Higgins sat down by the stove and took off his shoes. When the boy had gone to sleep he began to think of his own affairs.” (page 159).

Paper Pills

THEMES: miscommunication, lonliness

IMAGERY: nature, crops, religion, windows, white, hands, balls/shape, seasons, black vs. white, paper

CONNECTION TO THEME: The windows in the story represent the doctor’s acceptance to his wife’s death and his own loneliness.

TEST: The doctor in the story had only been married to his wife for one year, and the windows in the story show the doctor’s acceptance to her death. The doctor is a lonely man who “sat all day in his empty office close by a window that was covered in cobwebs.” (page 35). Outside of the window, there is a world that has forgotten about the doctor. However, the doctor sits inside all day next to a window with cobwebs. The cobwebs symbolize the town’s recognition of the doctor, as they cover the outside world. “He never opened the window. Once on a hot day in August he tried but found it stuck fast and after that he forgot all about it.” (page 35). This quote goes with the quote on page 36, “For ten years he had but one friend, another old man named John Spaniard,” (page 36). The connection to this is that the doctor had given up on trying on the outside world, after the death of his wife. He had forgotten all about the outside world and didn’t feel he needed to become a part of it anymore. The windows show his ignorance to Winesburg and acceptance in his own loneliness.

CONNECTION TO THEME: The crops in the story represent the rejection in the story.

TEST: The crops in the story, such as the trees and apples show rejection in the story through the doctor and John Spaniard, the doctor’s friend. John Spaniard is the doctor’s only friend, and owns a tree nursery. The fact that he owns a tree nursery and is the doctor’s only friend shows the rejection between the doctor and the rest of Winesburg. “On the trees are only a few gnarled apples the pickers have rejected…One nibbles at them and they are delicious…Only few know the sweetness of the twisted apples.” (page 36). This quote shows the rejection from the rest of Winesburg into the twisted apples, which Doctor Reefy collects into his pockets. Doctor Reefy is connected with picking the apples, the tree nursery, and the orchards because he is rejected from Winesburg, which we know from page 35, “Winesburg had forgotten the old man,”.

CONNECTION TO THEME: The black vs. white is shown in the story as white means innocence and black means loss of innocence.

TEST: White is seen throughout the story as innocence by the doctor’s white beard, white horse, as well as the two men who were interested in the tall, dark girl who married the doctor. However, the dark symbolizes evil and the loss of innocence. “One of them, a slender young man with white hands, the son of a jeweler in Winesburg, talked continually of virginity…The other, a black-haired boy with large ears, said nothing at all but always managed to get her into the darkness, where he began to kiss her.” (page 37). The man had white hands and talked continually of virginity, which symbolizes his innocence. However, the man with black-hair never talked and pulled her into the darkness to kiss her, which showed his lack of innocence and his desire of using her.

Hands

THEMES: Man vs. himself

IMAGERY: boys, berries, animals, fields, hands, white, dreams

CONNECTION TO THEME: The boys in the story represent innocence and carelessness in “Hands”.

TEST: Boys are the story’s connection to innocence, playfulness, and carelessness. Like seen on page 27, “A boy clad in a blue shirt leaped from the wagon and attempted to drag after him one of the maidens, who screamed and protested shrilly. The feet of the boy in the road kicked up a cloud of dust that floated across the face of the departing sun.” (page 27). This quote shows the playfulness in the boy, as well as his carelessness. Boys also show the lack of care and concern in the story. This is shown many times, one on page 31, when George Willard says, “There is something wrong, but I don’t want to know what it is. His hands have something to do with his fear of me and everyone.” (page 31). Another example is on page 32, when there is speculation on Wing Biddlebaum’s motives. “He put his arms about me,’ said one. ‘His fingers were always playing in my hair,’ said another.” (page 32). This shows the boys innocence and lack of concern, as they were not alarmed about Wing Biddlebaum’s motives until their fathers (men) had brought it to their attention.

CONNECTION TO THEME: The hands in the story represent change and fear.

TEST: Hands shows the change throughout the story, and the fear within that change. Back in Wing Biddlebaum’s youth, the days where he was Adolph Myers, he was known for being a natural-born schoolteacher. His hands are what changed all of that. His hands that touched the boys, and those words that still remained with him, “Keep your hands to yourself”. From his hands brought change and brought him to Winesburg, where the hands “became his distinguishing feature, his source of his fame.” (page 29). With his hands, he was no longer the man known as the excellent schoolteacher, but as the man with the hands who “had picked as high as a hundred and forty quarts of strawberries in a day.” (page 29). This change also brought fear, which is shown in almost every sentence in the story. The fear was that his story would get out, the fear of his own hands, the hands that are to blame for the story. “The hands alarmed their owner. He wanted to keep them hidden away.” (page 28). Throughout the story, he is trying to hide his hands, like how he is trying to hide himself. As Wing says earlier, the only person he has ever come close to in town is George Willard. George says on page 31, “His hands have something to do with his fear of me and everyone.”

CONNECTION TO THEME: The dreams in the story represent the desire to restart life.

TEST: Every time that dreams are brought into the story, they paint a picture of what Wing Biddlebaum desires. These dreams are often about the way life could restart, or be completely different. “Out of the dream Wing Biddlebaum made a picture for George Willard. In the picture men lived again in a kind of pastoral golden age. Across a green open country came clean-limbed young men, some afoot, some mounted upon horses. In crowds the young men came to gather about the feet of an old man who sat beneath a tree in a tiny garden and who talked to them.” (page 30). This is symbolic to schoolchildren listening to their teacher, Wing Biddlebaum’s old life as Aldolf Myers. 

The Book of Grotesque Imagery Blog

THEMES: fear of death, age doesn’t determine youthfulness

IMAGERY: bed, windows, trees, smoker, youth, age, pregnancy

CONNECTION TO THEME: The bed in the story represent the writer’s reflection in the story.

TEST: The bed in The Book of The Grotesque represents the place where the writer can let his mind unwind and have thoughts race through his head. Page 21 tells us that the writer was a smoker and was concerned about his heart. On page 22, “The idea had got to his mind that he would some time die unexpectedly and always when he got into bed he thought of that.” This goes back on page 21, where it tells us that he had some difficulty getting into bed, the place where his thoughts were let out and he thought about death, something he feared. The bed is also the place where he lets his mind dream, until he gets out of bed and begins to write again. “It made him more alive, there in that bed, than any other time” (Page 22). This shows the pleasure that he had sitting in bed by letting his mind go and just think.

CONNECTION TO THEME: The windows in the story represent the writer’s connection to the outside world.

TEST: The writer is very cut off from the world, as all he does is stay inside and write, waiting to pass away. The want the writer desires to have the bed closer to the windows shows the writer’s want to be closer to the outside world. One might also view the windows as the writer’s connection to youthfulness and being reborn. “The windows of the house in which he lived were high and he wanted to look at the trees when he awoke in the morning” (page 21). Trees represent rebirth and growing up. On page 22, he talks about the youth growing inside of him, and makes many other connections to his youth as well as others’ youth. The writer wants the bed, where the youth grows inside of him, to be up next to the window, where the youth is happening right outside the window in the form of trees. 

Truths

What were your truths as a child? Which truths did you "lose"/"give  up" as you grew older? Why was this important?

What truths do you grapple with or see others around you grapple with?

As a child, my truth was that after you died, you come back as into life as a new person. I lost this truth when I grew up when I realized there was also heaven and hell. This wasn't very important, because there are still no solid evidence that what I believed as a child and what I believe now is right or wrong. Growing up, I also realized there wasn't a Santa Clause or Tooth Fairy, a truth I believed as a child. This was important because I realized that my parents must have gone through a lot of hard work to pretend there was a Santa, especially to have presents from Santa and my parents.

Others grapple with the truths of religion. Some people after an unfortunate event lose their trust in their truth that there is a god, while some other people may feel stronger that there is a god. Other people, such as the older kids in elementary school grapple with the truth of Santa Clause. There is that one year of elementary school where half of the class believes in Santa and the other half does not. During this time, you have people giving reasons why they believe there is a Santa or why there isn't a Santa.

Eyes and Teeth

The short story called "Eyes and Teeth" is from the book "Coming of Age in America" by Wanda Coleman. The story is told by a girl who is playing with her cousin, Buzz. They are both the oldest of their family, and their mothers are sisters. They are playing hide and go seek, when Buzz hears his mom talking to his aunt in the kitchen. She says that she loves her new baby, and his color. She goes on to say how ugly Buzz is, and how she can't stand to look at him. When he hears this, he starts crying and runs out of the room. His mother then notices that Buzz had been listening the whole time, and runs to try and apologize. What I didn't like is that the story wasn't very clear on what happened. I did like that the story was dramatic. I don't think this would be a very good story to use later on because it was so short.

A Spell of Kona Weather

A Spell of Kona Weather is a story from the book Coming of Age in America. The story is told by Annie, a girl who is living with her grandma and sister, Lulu. They live with their grandma because when their father died, their mom went insane and left them. Lulu has just gotten out of the hospital, as she drove off a cliff after hearing news that her lover, Jimmy, had died in Vietnam. Lulu has been acting strange ever since then, swimming alone and far, stealing things from her grandmother. One day, Annie and her grandmother are getting in a fight because Lulu had told Annie that she got a letter from their mom asking her to come visit her in Oregon. The grandmother says that this is just one of Lulu's made up stories, as their mom was in a mental institution in California. She said that a few years ago her brain "got zapped", and ever since then she hasn't been doing much writing. Lulu overhears the conversation and sprints out of the house towards the beach, and once arriving, starts swimming. Annie hates swimming in the ocean more than anything, but when she saw Lulu swimming away from her, she had to follow her out and catch her. She catches her and they go back to sit on the beach. Later that night, the grandmother decides that it is best for Lulu to go away for a while, like their mom. The theme of this story was that the post effects of a death can drive you insane, like it did for both the mother and the daughter. I liked this story because I thought it was interesting to hear about all the stories that Lulu made up, and then to learn about all the secrets hidden from the two sisters. I think that this would be a good story to analyze because of the theme.

Bastard out of Carolina

"Bastard out of Carolina" was a short story from the book Coming of Age in America by Dorothy Allison. The characters in this book are the mom, the cousins, Grey and Garvey, and the daughter. The story is told by the daughter, who has just been caught stealing candy from the local stores with her cousins. The mom is reprimanding her, and says she never wants to catch her stealing ever again. The mom says this because she doesn't want her daughter to end up like her nephew, who now can't stop stealing things. The mom makes the daughter go downtown to the store where she stole the candy and confess to her crime. She is then banned from visiting the store by the owner until her mom thinks that she is ready to go back. The theme of this story is to do the right thing, even when no one is watching. I liked this story because it gave you a good background on what was happening, and they went into detail to explain the family and their struggles. There wasn't much that I didn't like of this story. This was on of my favorite stories that I read of the seven, because it was the most interesting. Even though the story is very short, I think that it would be a good story to read for the future, because a lot happens.

The Jacket

The Jacket is a short story in the book "Coming of Age in America" by Gary Soto. The story is told by a Mexican-American, who's mother bought him an ugly green jacket. The story talks about the ugly green jacket he had to to wear for two years, his fifth and sixth grade year. The story tells the tale about the jacket the boy had to live with for years, and the embarrassment and teasing he had to endure because of it. There were many times in the book where the boy tried to throw the jacket away, but it kept coming back. The boy kept the jacket to please his mother, even though he cried over it, because he wanted a leather jacket. He was always upset because his mother had such a bad taste in jacket. There wasn't much that I didn't like from the book, because it was so short. Because it was so short, only four pages, I don't think that it would be a very good story to use later on.