How to Talk to Your Mother

In Moore's How to Talk to Your Mother, the story of a woman's life and relationship with her mother is told backwards from a couple years after her mother's death. This technique is the cause of an unusual emotional experience. Learning about the death of the woman's mother first was interesting because we don't yet know anything about her. But as I approached the end of the story and beginning of the narrator's life, I already knew what happens later in her life. It was a similar feeling to that of reading the last chapter of a book before beginning the story. Things are perceived differently when the mystery of the ending is taken out of the mix.

The title suggests that the story is a how to article. To me the title and the story itself is showing that had the narrator known about what her relationship with her mother would become later in life, she wouldn't have talked to her the way she did when she was young. I think this is an important message that the author wanted to get across. People think that individuals in their lives will always be there, and they tend to be unappreciated.

I think the strategy used in this story was extremely effective. I attempted to read the story over again from the beginning of the narrator's life and it wasn't nearly as interesting.

Greasy Lake

Greasy Lake is structured in a way that is pretty standard for narratives. The story is written in first person with a nineteen year old guy as the narrator. The exposition is filled with statements about how "bad" the narrator and his friends Digby and Jeff are. We also learn during the exposition that the guys are riding around in the narrator's mother's car in early June. They're pretty bored until they see what they think is the car of a guy they know at Greasy Lake. We also get the impression that the guys hang out at Greasy Lake a lot. It seems to be a local hang out spot for young people who are "bad". After all of this is established, the guys approach the car that they think belongs to a friend named Tony Lovett. The action begins to rise as a greasy man gets out of the car who is not Tony Lovett. There is a fight between the guys. The climax in a lot of stories seems to be negotiable. I think the climax could occur when the narrator gets the tire iron out of his car, because at that point the fight becomes much more dangerous than just a fight. I also felt that it could occur when the guys try to rape the "fox" who was in the car or even when the other guys show up and the narrator and his friends hide because there is a shift of power involved. Finally, I felt like the narrator finding the dead guy in the lake could have been the climax. Each event seemed like the climax as it was happening because the situation just kept getting worse. Or maybe I'm just clueless.
After the guys leave and the narrator and his friends can come out from hide the action begins to fall. They see some girls who ask for the dead guy and over them drugs, evaluate the damage done to the narrator's mom's car, and leave. The story is concluded with an image of the girl, whose friend is lying dead in the lake, with a hand outstretched toward the car as they drive away.

The House on Mango Street is a story that addresses an issue of poverty. I believe that the story is expressing the frustration of the often unachievable American dream. The story is told from the perspective of a child whose family has little money and is forced to move every year. The parents of this family have always dreamed of owning their own home and they have expressed this dream in detail to their children. The family wants a home with running water, real stairs "like the houses on T.V.", a basement, three washrooms, and a great big yard. We know right away that the family doesn't have much money because of the description of the flat on Loomis, so the thought of them owning a home that has these amenities is an unrealistic one.
The family buys the house on Mango Street, but the narrator is not impressed. After all of the dreaming out loud that the parents have done in front of their children this was not what they expected at all. The description of the house is a telling one that is filled with disappointment. The house is small and red (not white) with a small yard and small steps in front. The narrator also says the house has "windows so small you'd think they were holding their breath." All of these statements contribute to the idea of the house being very small and cramped, especially for a large family. The personifying statement about the windows seems to be saying that they aren't letting any air into the house; the narrator might feel like she can't breathe when she's inside. On top of this the door is "so swollen you have to push hard to get in." This statement says that the house is not a welcoming home for the child. She feels almost as if she cannot enter her home.
The story about the nun coming by the narrator's old home and asking her where she lives represents the way society encourages people to reach for the American dream by judging individuals based upon the places in which they live. The narrator hates her new home even though it may be better than her previous ones because it can't measure up to the dream. In the end of the story when the narrator talks about how the house on mango street is supposed to be temporary, she says "but I know how those things go." At first I thought this meant that she felt they would be in that house forever. But then I thought she might be expressing the thought that her family will never move up from houses like this one. Even if she continues to move every year, her family is stuck in a level of poverty that restricts them to this type of home.
I may have possibly just written a blog post longer than the story itself.

Comparison of "Catastrophe"--- A little late

Even though I had some technical difficulties with the video of "Catastrophe" and was unable to see it until after this post was due, I figured I should at least post my initial observations on the written version of the play and the video and then proceed to pray for credit.
While viewing the film in class yesterday the most significant aspect that I noticed was the way the camera deprived the audience of a view of P's face. I did feel that this was interesting because I think that had the play version been able to deprive us of this view it would have gotten across the point that much better. Despite the point of this technique I found it very frustrating to be unable to see P until the end of the play. The other difference that I noted was of course the situation with the hands. While in the play the hands were clasped by A, in the film P is made to point his finger. I wasn't sure what to make of this but the ideas of my peers were helpful when we discussed it after the film was over. The final difference that I noticed was the replacement of the cigar with a flashlight in the film. I personally felt that this took away from the piece and was rather confused why the director chose to do it this way.
I did not notice the difference in what the assistant of director was wearing until it was brought up in discussion but I found it interesting that this difference occured. I don't understand why the director changed so many important things in the film, but I know he must have done it for his own reasons. I personally feel that the video has nothing on the vision that I created in my mind when I read the play, but then isn't that how it always works? It seems that written pieces are nine times out of ten more enjoyable than the films that they inspire.