Nikki Giovanni's Poetry

     Nikki Giovanni was very explicit in her poetry. Her poem Nikki-Rosa was very open about her feelings towards the way that whites grow up and the way that blacks grow up. It actually surprised me that she was so straight forward. Most people hold their true feelings back while she told it how she felt. The stereotype about most young blacks is that they grow up poor. She wanted to make it known that she liked her childhood and that she was happy most of the time that she was growing up.
     I really liked Nikki Giovanni's poem I'm Not Lonely. I felt like I could really relate to that. Sometimes even though you are alone that does not mean that you are not happy or feel alone, sometimes people want to be alone. They ask for me time. They just want to be free from the cruel hard world or maybe get away from their lives because things are bad.
     Again one of Nikki Giovanni's poems Poems for Black Boys was very straight forward about race. She obviously has some issues regarding people's views on blacks versus whites. I like people that speak how they feel and do not hold it inside. I am very much like that. Although I say things respectfully, I still like to voice my opinion.

Tillie Olsen's Readings

     Tillie Olsen was a very noble woman. She was known for speaking out for the poor, the despised people of America, and the oppressed. A lot of her writings were about the lives of the coal miners, immigrants, farm laborers, sewer workers, and the rest of the hard working poor in America. She was born to Russian parents. She couldn't get much formal education so she educated herself at the library. She won a lot of recognition for exposing the lives of the poor. One of her finest works was a story about coal miner's family and the struggle to endure down a long road, was noted as one of the best works of the proletarian movement in American literature.
     In her story I Stand Here Ironing was a very heart felt story about a young woman whom was raising her kids on her own. She talks about her experiences as a mother and how her first child she did things exactly like the book. This is funny because I too did that. I would not dare feed my child earlier than the book said even if the child would cry. She speaks of the almost same thing. She would feel so bad a tremble when her baby would cry and even though her breast would ache she would wait for the clock to turn the exact time before feeding her precious baby. After your first child you learn quickly that things do not have to be exact. Actually with time and experience in life you learn that nothings goes exactly as planned and you have to live and learn.
    

Flannery O'Connor's Readings

     While being recognized for her simple was of writing she its noted for her southern style as well as her wit. She was born and died at a young age in her hometown of Savannah, GA. She wrote fiction mostly unexplained evil and haunted ways. She was best known for her short stories. They always portrayed acceptance of human condition.
     In Flannery's Good Country People it was definitely as people described her work to be. It was a short story about a very disturbed woman named Mrs. Freeman. She would go into states that she looked as if she was expressionless. Mrs. Hopewell knew that she when would go into these states that she would be better off not talking to her at all. She might as well talk her head off for no reason because it was like her body was there but the rest of her was not. Even though Mrs. Freeman has these issues Mrs. Hopewell was never ashamed to take her nowhere in public. She felt that the Freemans were not trash that they were good country folks.

James Baldwin Poetry

     James Baldwin has been referred to as the most important black American writer of the twentieth century. His father was a minister of a church. He was born with eight brothers and sisters. He was born in Harlem. His father was very strict on him. At times he found himself competing with his father. He was involved with the civil rights struggle. Homosexuality was a frequent topic to his work.
     Baldwin's poem Sonny's Blues was like I was reading a story. Sonny got picked up from the police for selling and using heroin. The narrator could not believe it and continued to express his grief and his feelings of being so surprised. Sonny was his brother and he could not find it in himself to believe that it was true. He had never turned violent or evil as people say about people that use drugs. He couldnt imagine his brother going down hill so badly.

Sylvia Plath's poetry

     Sylvia Plath's work was much described as extreme romanticism. Her work has been referred to as "the longest suicide note ever written." Much of her work reflected the way that her parents were and their attitudes towards things. She was only seventeen years old when she first published her first poem and short story. She was often consumed with thoughts of horror and death. She soon became unable to cope and was checked into a hospital where she has intense psychiatric therapy.
     You can definitely feel her pain within and read the thoughts of death in her poems. In her poem Lady Lazarus portrays a woman who sees her own enemy as her looks. She feels like she keeps dyings so she thinks that she has nine lives like a cat. She has very low self esteem.
     Her poem Daddy was very sad. She states that she was like a shoe in his life Im assuming like he was always stepping on her. She says that she was always poor and white. She was very afraid of his if she was daring to even breathe or sneeze. She always felt that she could never talk to him which is very sad of a father and and daughter.

Randall Jarrell's Poetry

     Randall Jarrell was a very intelligent man. He was a fond admirer of literature and was a professor most of his life. He once stated, "If he were a rich man, I would pay money for the privilege to be able to teach." People thought of him as possibly the most heartbreaking English poet of his entire generation. He was a very prominent man. He received a MA from Vanderbilt University, he served in the Air Force. which some of his poetry came from his experiences while in the Air Force, and he wrote six volumes of poetry including novels and critical essays.
     His poem Losses was very heartfelt. You can definitely tell that this was a writing that came from his experiences from when he served in the Air Force. It defines the term heartbreaking poet that many describe him as. He is so detailed in his wording its almost like you were there with him.
     His poem A Girl In a Library seems like he really was sitting in a library one day admiring a girl. He describes her yet again very detailed almost as if you can see her. I can also feel emotion from him in this one as well.
    

A Raisin In The Sun y Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry was the writer of A Raisin In The Sun. She was a very smart black author. She was the first black writer and the youngest to win The Best Play of the Year award in New York City. Hansberry came from a rich family that were strong advocates of African Americans in society. Her parents seems to be a pretty big influence on her considering a lot of her writings were about what her parents felt so strongly about. Her play A Raisin In The Sun was very popular. While reading it I felt the passion and pain for the family. It is so sad that people used to not be treated equally because of their skin color. All the Younger family wanted was to be equal in America. To live like the white people did in a nice home and be able to give their kids the things that the white kids had. As the story started it described a poor black family that lived in a very small apartment where they had to share the bathroom with their neighbor. I couldn’t imagine trying to share a bathroom with a neighbor, I do good to share it with my family that lives in my home. Then the mother talks about getting a settlement from her husband who died. This was supposedly going to save the family since all of their problems were mostly money. They all seemed to have different plans with what they wanted to do with the money. When the money finally arrives Lena decides that the best things to do is to buy a house in a nice neighborhood. What the family finds out later is that it is in an all white neighbor hood. A man living in the community comes to them and asked them not to move in to save controversy for everyone. The main objective I got from the story was about races being equal and how and how bad things were then.

The Man Who Was Almost a Man by Richard Wright

The Man Who Was Almost a Man by Richard Wright Dave is struggling with trying to figure out how to make people believe that he is a man. Trying I guess to prove his manhood. He goes to buy a gun. I am not sure why he feels that a gun is going to make him feel like he is a man but alot of young boys feel like this these days and it is completely the farthest from the truth. What happened to fighting a fair fight one on one with just your fist. Not any guns, knives, brass knuckles, sticks, or any type of weapons just straight up fighting? Dave feels like he is invisible with that gun. Nobody will mess with him or try to run over him. He states that he will shoot whomever, white or black, so he obviously struggles with racial problems as well. To me this is a mass murderer or serial killers thoughts in the making. He may need counseling.

Eudora Welty - Powerhouse

Eudora Welty was an upcoming writer in the early nineteen hundreds. She seems to have been a very smart woman. She went to several colleges. She also wrote for a newspaper and worked for a radio station. I did not really like the story Powerhouse that she wrote though. It did not really keep my attention. To me it was very hard to understand. Powerhouse was in a band. It is a little obvious that there was racism in the band members by them saying that "They were in Negrotown." They then go to a bar where one of the band members talk about one of their spouses being dead and the telegram that they got about it. Like I said I didn't get much from this story.

Steinbeck's "The Flight"

I thought that this story was very sad. I felt that Pepe should have lived a long life. The story was basically about a young man named Pepe that had not yet became a man. Pepe soon has to go to town for his mother and gets into a fight with a man and stabs him with a knife that his father gave him. He panics and goes by his house to get some things and then heads up the mountain. Pepe does not know that friends of the guy that he stabbed are following him. They shoot him and a piece of the metal goes into his hand. It eventually gets infected and he dies. It was a very sad ending and I did not like the way that it ended. It is like the bad guy wins and the young innocent boys loses.

“On The Road” by Langston Hughes

In the novel “On The Road” by Langston Hughes he seems to use nature to represent the relationship between blacks and whites. He uses snow to symbolize the whites and night to symbolize the blacks. This makes the book less invasive and the people that read it will not look so much into that part as to what the book is really leaning towards. He uses the example, Sargeant didn’t see the snow, not even under the bright lights of the main streets. He is tired of the snow and or the white people that have made his life so difficult his whole life. The best part of the whole readings is how he reminds is that if you mix snow and dark it makes perfection. In other words they go perfect together, harmony. There is nothing more beautiful than seeing falling snow flakes in the night.

"Barn Burning" by William Faulkner

"Barn Burning" by William Faulkner is kind of a sad novel. I could never imagine my parents putting me in a situation where I would have to keep a deep dark secret that my parents had that they were committing a crime. And to beat it all that they would say that If I didn’t keep the secret and told it that I would be betraying blood and I would ultimately not have them as a family and would have nobody to turn to if I ever needed help. That is a terrible thing to put your child through I think. It is also terrible that Sarty feels that he has to defend his father when all of the people are calling his father terrible names and yelling at him when he is going to court for burning Mr. Harris’ barn. Sarty is really fighting his fathers battle. I was happy to read that since he felt that he needed to do the right thing that right when he was about to confess his fathers guilt to the court that the court dismissed him and he was free to go and still had his fathers respect and loyalty.

"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemmingway

"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemmingway was a little crazy. Short life is definitely right. I could not believe that his wife shot him in the head because she was afraid that he was going to leave her once he gained his courage. She should have been a good wife and stood by him no matter what. Instead she was embarrassed and acting like a tramp to sneak off with the tour guide. Anyhow, I do not understand how him not wanting to fight a lion shows that he is a coward? I would be running too. Anyone these days would definitely run, man or woman. It does not prove that you are a manly man even if you did stand up to the lion. A lion and a robber are two different things. You are not prepared for a robber where as you can see and hear the lion coming. The lion only has its body to fight you with where a robber would have a gun or something that could kill you before you knew that they were there. So what if a man stood up to a lion but was not manly enough to protect his family. Wonder what they would say to that? The only one in this book that should be embarrassed is the wife but not from her husbands actions, but only from her own. She has shamed her husband, her self, and the vows that she took before God.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston

The Novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston was a little hard for me to understand exactly the placement of the story and how it started out, but after I kept reading I understood it a little better. Janie Crawford left her home searching for love. After a forty year span and four different men all of different backgrounds it seems that she found true love with the poorest man. This goes to show that money is not everything. Money does not solve every problem and make someone happy. True happiness comes from within. Janie comes back to her hometown dirty and in overalls and her neighbors wonder what happened to Janie. Janie tells her story to her friend Pheoby Watson. Her first look for love was from her grandmother, then from her first husband Logan, who was an old potato farmer. Although as her grandma thought, he offered security he did not give her the love that she so desired. Next was a marriage to Joe Starks, a mayor that gave her everything. It was like he could give her everything but love. He could handle all the problems with the city and money and power and business, but the love and respect she simply asked for he could not provide. She was married to him for 20 years. Janie’s last and final marriage was to a bean picker named Tea Cup. Janie gave up everything that she had to go to the Everglades and live with him. She finally found happiness until a hurricane took over the land and Tea Cup was one of the unfortunate ones that did not survive. Janie was devastated. She could not stay in the Everglades because of all of the memories that she had. That is why she went back to her home town with nothing. Or did she have something after all? I think so. She had the memories that could never be taken from her that she was once very happy and loved.

Susan Glaspell's Readings

Susan Glaspell defined a strong woman. Coming up as a writer in what seemed to be a man era, she had to fight that much harder to make it. The story Trifles is kind of crazy to me. The fact that they portray that the ultimate reason that Mrs. Wright killed her husband because he killed her bird is very surprising to me. They mentioned that her husband Mr. Wright was a very hard man. He was abusive and killed her youth. That alone could definitely push a woman over the edge though, I will agree. I am not sure if leaving was an option as the story did not mention whether or not Mrs. Wright had any family that should could have gone to or not to get away from abusive husband. It is sad that things turned out this way. That the fact that the only thing the woman felt that she could do to escape her husband’s abuse was to kill him. You still hear about things like this happening even today. It was ironic that the two women that found the bird’s dead body was actually women and not the men that were upstairs and came past and laughed at their conversation. The women looked out for their fellow woman. Which is actually what the author stood for.

Willa Cather Readings

In the story A Wagner Matinee  It is very sad how Clark describes his aunt Georgiana and how her life ended up. She was first a music teacher and then married into a bad marriage and it completely changed her life for the worse. Life is unfortunately not much different than the way that they portray things in this story. I felt really bad for her when Clark described the way that she looked when she got off the train. I can only imagine how shabby she looked if he went as far as to say that he was almost embarrassed for the way that she looked. I was glad to hear that she got to go to a musical, especially one that she was slightly familiar with. It is sad that she could not afford to dress like the other women there. I can imagine that they stared at her and made her feel uncomfortable, like she hadn’t experienced that enough already. It was touching that she cried during the performance and the fact that she did not move after it was over. I too have felt that way before. Not wanting to let go of something or wanting to stay in that exact moment forever. In the story Pauls Case it is especially sad that he felt the only way to correct the mistake that he had made was to kill himself. I am sure that his father would have found it in his heart to forgive him, I mean he did pay the money that he stole back. Sometimes tragedies like this happen where a simple conversation could have cleared up much needed miscommunication.

Zora Hurston Readings

It is very interesting to me to read things that someone who lived so long ago wrote. I know how different times were back then. In the story John Redding Goes To Sea, John Redding is a very anxious boy who is curious of the things beyond what he has experienced. He leaves his home to go explore those things. Not everyone is supportive on John decisions. His mother, Matty Redding tries her best to stop him from leaving. As a mother I feel that she should not be so possessive and she definitely should not have used illness and saying that she would disown him if he chose to follow his dreams. That is a little crazy to me. I mean as parents we are here to teach and guide our children so that they can venture out into the world and make it as an adult. Prepare them and hope that they succeed. I feel that John should have went ahead and joined the Navy when he was given the opportunity no matter what his mother said or screamed or wanted. She would have seen how good it would have been for John to teach him loyalty and how to become a better man. It was a very good ending when after he died his father forbid his body to be removed from the water. He finally got to travel the world like he so much longed for when he was living.

Robert Frost/Poems

The Home Burial poem by Robert Frost was very touching and sad to me. It is always sad  lose a child and the fact that it sounds as if they buried the child in their back yard for the mother to see the grave stone is shocking. There is no way that if I lost one of my children that I could live in a house where my child was buried in the yard next to me. It was surprising also to me that the husband didn’t know at first what was wrong with her. As a husband I feel he should have definitely known that she would be in a state of depression.

The Road Not Taken is somewhat like life is now. It always seems that you always have two choices, a good choice and a bad choice and a lot of times it seems difficult to determine which one is good and or bad. But as he stated in his poem two roads, maybe one day he will take the other road. But sometimes just as in life there is not always a second chance to the roads that we take. There is not always a second chance. We make bad decisions sometimes and there is nothing that we can do about it. Some regret from these bad choices. Some are smart and learn from their mistakes and do not make the same mistakes again.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

I sometimes found the conclusion to the story to be hard to determine. In The Awakening Edna’s life would seem happy, like a typical life of a wife and a mother back then. But as you continue to read you realize how unhappy Edna is in her life. She feels that she is missing something. Although her husband provides all of the material things that he wants and her family needs, she is still very unhappy and feels a void in her life. She goes on a summer vacation and meets a man named Robert. Robert really likes Edna but seems to be a good man. Robert leaves and leaves Edna a note. She goes back home with her family and things do not feel the same. She distances herself from her husband and kids. She eventually leaves the big house and her family to go live in a small house alone. When she finds out that Robert has come back she is sure that the void that she feels will be gone because he is her true love. But as noted earlier he is a good man. He cannot live with knowing that he broke up her family. He refuses to be the cause of her families distance. So he leaves again. She then realizes that she will always be alone and no matter what she will continue to feel that void that her husband cannot fill.

Kate Chopin Bio/Intro

Born in St. Louis, Kate Chopin’s parents Eliza and Thomas O’Flaherty were Irish immigrants who became rich merchant and arranged for their daughter to be educated in a Roman Catholic Convent school. This was definitely a plus for Kate so that she could have a better life when she grew up. She later became one of the acknowledged belles of society. When she was nineteen she married Oscar Chopin. Her husband died later of swamp fever and she moved all of children to St. Louis. She would definitely have to be a strong woman to take care of six children on her own. She began to write again. When her first writing failed she began to sell her stories to magazines such as Vogue. She would often write about subjects that challenged normative female scripts of the nineteenth century. Her novel The Awakening was judged as being too strong drink for moral babes. They also judged by saying The Awakening should be labeled poison. She was in amazement that she was being criticized his harshly. So Kate withdrew and ceased to write almost entirely. Five years later she died. It was not until after she died that her work was recognized as going beyond the conventions of popular fictions for women to portray the anguish of women and men who are bereft of hopeful illusions and impelled by forbidden desires.

The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Gilman

The Yellow Wall-paper is definitely about Charlotte Gilman’s real life. The character John must be her husband, which is a doctor.  Sadly, her brother is also a doctor and agrees with John that there is nothing wrong with her as far as being sick that the only thing that is wrong is her mental state of mind. She does not agree obviously. But since they are both of high standing she feels that no one else would believe her if she tried to argue with their assumption so she just keeps quite about it. Her husband has her on medicines every hour. She feels very sleepy after taking them. She knows that she is not allowed to work until she gets better. She still wrote some in spite of them but says that it does exhaust her. The house that they live in sounds like a mansion, I guess due to her husband’s doctor pay. It is gated and is surrounded by little houses that the servants live in. There is a huge garden too. She says that the room that she lives in is not decorated too well though. The wallpaper is missing and looks like a little boys room. For some reason she talks about that wallpaper bothering her a whole lot. Apparently it is only a three month rental that they are living in so her husband does not feel it would be worth renovating it since they will only be there a short period of time for her to get better. It sounded towards the end that she had a little more than a nervous issue. She thought that she came out of the wallpaper! That is a little creepy to me. Hopefully if this ended up being the case for the true person it was about that she got the help that she needed.

Charlotte Gilman Bio/Intro

In the biography of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, I felt a similarity between her life and mine. I too grew up without a father and therefore watched my mother struggle to raise me. I admire her strength to continue to strive for the things that she wanted in life. I look up to her for being strong enough not to follow suite and be a house wife. Had it not have been for the women that wanted to make things for themselves and make a name for women in the workforce  in corporate America, all women would probably still be living in the old days and just bearing the kids and cleaning the house. Men would probably still run everything and women would not be considered equal or somewhat equal anyway. I think that it was a little crazy that when she became mentally depressed from her unhappy marriage that the neurologist recommended that that she be in the “rest-cure” for her nervous disorders. His “rest-cure” required that she isolate herself from the modes of self-expression and intellectual growth that had sustained her sense of independence?!? It is completely absurd that doctors would actually tell someone not to express themselves. Or to stay away from the things that she loves to do. This is a prime example of how people viewed women back then and how they felt women should carry themselves and their limitations. I am so glad that things are no longer like that and women are free to do whatever they would like. Although most women still do the house work and take care of the kids, a lot of women juggle a job in there too, like me.

Bierce/Occurrence at Owl Creek

Ambrose Bierce is a veteran hero as well as a famous writer. He has fought in the Shiloh, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary ridge, which have been noted to be some of the bloodiest battles ever. He grew up with an unhappy childhood which are reflected in his work. I think that also the deaths while in the service also play a role in his work. He is known for his stories filled with deaths and separated children and parents. With this being said, his story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was of coarse of non-other than death. The story starts out telling about a man staring down into the water with his hands tied behind him and a noose tied around his neck. He was Im sure thinking about his soon arriving death. He continues to tell how the man, Payton Farquhar, could only think of his family and how he would love to see them. How if he could somehow escape how great that would be. He also describes he fall and how the rope breaks and he falls some twenty feet. This allows him to fall in the water and swim to safety. The soldiers were still shooting ammunition at him but luckily they did not hit him. He continued to swim until he reached land and was almost home with his family until he gets shot again! Until the end you do not realize that the who time he is still tied up and only dreaming of his escape.

James/Daisy Miller

Henry James grew up wealthy. His father provided his children with tutors and took them back and forth across the ocean to give them a European education and expose them to the international ways. James entered Harvard Law School in 1862. He must have learned a lot from the tutors and was exceptionally smart to get into that college. But he soon withdrew to follow his dreams on a literary career. At the early age of twenty one James published his first book. James ended up residing the rest of his life in Europe.

The writings of Daisy Miller: A Study was very interesting to me. I think his story had a meaning of hard lessons learned type of deal. Daisy Miller was a very rich American girl who was visiting Rome with her mother and brother. They may have money but they lack morals. Daisy meets a man while in Rome by the name of Winterbourne. He does not realize it at first but he falls deeply in love with Daisy. Mrs. Costello, his aunt, gives him a warning to stay away from her, but like most he does not listen. He returns back to Romle to be with Daisy. Eventually Daisy betrays him. He learns his lesson the hard way when Daisy finds herself another man named Mr. Giovanelli. I bet he wishes that he would have listened to his aunt and none of that would have been an issue. I think this story was a lesson learned for both Daisy and Winterbourne.We cannot betray the people that we love. We must be loyal and like the good old book says, treat people the way that you would want to be treating. Some out there have to learn this the hard way because they are stubborn and dont listen the first time.

William Howell/Editha

William Howell was not a very well educated man, but had a lot of credit and opportunity around him for writing and editing. His father being a printer, he seemed to get experience early on in life. He started helping his dad at the early age of seven.

Editha is about a woman named Editha and her boyfriend George. It had just been released of the start of the Spanish American War. Back then in 1898, women wanted their men to go to the army and be proud of him for being a hero. She automatically assumed after hearing about the war that George was going to join. George had always grown up being told that the war was not a good thing. So George was definitely hesitant to join. Once Editha was aware that George may be scared to join, she took this personally. She felt that George did not love her and want to be with her if he would not join. She wrote him a letter telling him how she felt. She was very happy the next day to find out that he had joined just to prove his love for her. She was there when he left with him asking of her only one thing. He asked that if he should die that she check on his mother. She agreed and proudly seen him off thinking he would definitely be returning. She gave him a letter to open later which he did not wait and opened immediately. He very shortly after than died. When Editha went to see after his mother like she had promised George, his mother was very angry with her. She yelled and screamed blaming her for her sons death. He would have never joined the war if it had not had been for her. I completely agree with the mother. I have three sons and would have most definitely been very angry. Women are not like that about adamantly wanting their men to join. I would never push my husband into going to war. First of all there is no use for war considering it solves absolutely nothing. And two I would not want to risk losing him.

Joel Chandler Harris Readings

            It seems that around the time that he was writing that many readers were fascinated by local color stories like it was mentioned in the text. It surprises me Harris wrote a lot of his books based on his experiences from blacks he had known while working as a youth on a Georgia plantation.

            How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp For Mr. Fox was very difficult to read due to all of the misspelled words and the dialect. I do not like how Harris portrayed the black community with the poor dialect. It was almost like he made them sound uneducated. There are places that whites and all races still sound like this today but if a journalist were to write a story I doubt that they would use their dialect, they would just write the word they meant to say in the correct way. Anyway,  I did get from the story that Mr. Fox was always trying to hurt Mr. Rabbit. This kind of portrays how the bad guys never wins the battle.

            I enjoyed reading Free Joe and The Rest of the World. This reading was much easier to read than the one about the rabbit and the fox. It had a little slang but not much. It portrayed the life of slavery versus freed slaves. Even though some of the slaves were so called “free” they truly still did not live a free life. The whites still judged the freed slaves like free Joe and so did the blacks that were still slaves. Even though Joe was free he still wanted to see his wife. It is so sad that the slaves were always separated from their families. The story shows that Joe and Lucinda had an unbreakable bond that nothing could shake. They would not let them see each other but Joe still vowed that he would faithfully wait for her no matter what.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Week 2)

I remember reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain in high school. I don’t think that I understood it very well because of the dialect of coarse but this time around it was not as bad. The book is about two young men Huck and Jim that both find themselves kind of in the same situation. They are both searching and wanting freedom. Huck wants freedom because his father is very abusive. Jim wants freedom from slavery. They find that the only way to get away from everything and have a better life is to go down the river. So they take a raft and float their way to freedom. They seem to learn from each other and teach each other the things that one another is missing. Jim misses his family. Huck questions his whole life and the things that he has been taught. Miss Watson and Widow Douglas do everything they can to raise Huck with religious and moral upbringing, but it didn’t help with Huck. Huck does feel guilty for helping Jim escape because he left his wife and kids. I think that this shows that some of what Miss Watson has taught him has sunk in. He has a good heart. He does some bad things throughout the novel such as steal food and clothing, but he does not see this as bad because it is things that he needs. But Jim also explains to Huck that he overheard Miss. Watson say that she was going to sell him and that he was going to be sent away, so he wouldn’t have been able to be with his wife and kids either way. Throughout the adventure, Jim protected Huck and treated him as his own child. Jim became like a father that Huck never had. They had chances to leave each other many times but chose to stay together as friends and be there for each other. They did not care what other people thought, they knew the true meaning of friendship and loyalty.

Introduction to my blog

Hi! My name is Crystal. I am 26 years old and am a mother to 3 beautiful children. I am majoring in Nursing with a minor in Psychology. I really enjoy reading and love to learn about history and science of everything around us. Reading seems to be very relaxing to me. I get lost in my book and taken away from the hectic routine we live called life. I am a huge fan of James Patterson books, absolutely love the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer, any autobiography books, murder mysteries, etc. I am currently reading My Lobotomy by Howard Dully. I am looking forward to the readings in this class. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a very popular choice and A Good Man Is Hard to Find sounds good! Let the reading begin! Good luck to everyone!