You Thought You Were Getting a Car?... Ohhhh

Lottery: any happening or process that is or appears to be determined by chance. This definition clearly fits the happenings in the story, but the common idea of what a lottery is involves money. With the title of the piece by Shirley Jackson being Lottery, one can reasonably expect one or more of the characters to win some grand prize. This, sadly, is not the case. Instead of having Ed McMahon show up on their doorstep with ballons and an obscenely large check, the people of the small town receive a shockingly intimidating welcome. The sight of hundreds of aggressive townsfolk advancing upon you quickly, rocks in hand, would be scary enough to probably make me pass out. So, the title is misleading because it leads the reader to believe that the prize at the end of the lottery will be one of a celebratory nature, not death.

Short Story - Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa

Plot

The plot of this story is fairly slow in comparison to the length of the piece. A lot of time is spent discussing Shoeless Joe's past of climbing the ranks of baseball, his scandalous downfall, and the fallout from that dirty deed. Still, it is kept interesting because, throughout the work, the author, W.P. Kinsella, ties Shoeless Joe's story to the personal story of the main character, Ray Kinsella. Even though the story is set up to be about a man and his relationship with a baseball field (watering it, protecting it, nurturing it), it ends up being much more about the man's relationship to baseball and the effect one man had on that relationship. " 'I loved the game... I'd have played for food money. I'd have played for free and worked for food. It was the game, the parks, the smells, the sounds.'(519) " Here, Shoeless Joe is describing his love of baseball, which is really what the plot of the story ultimately reveals.

Point of View

This short story is told from the point of view of Ray Kinsella. It is a first-person narrative, which contributes a lot to the storyline. "As he spoke, I instantly envisioned the finished product I knew I was being asked to conceive (511)." Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer, a family man, and a baseball fanatic. By W.P. Kinsella putting him in the narrative position, it gives the audience a deeper look into the mental workings of Ray. If it were told by another person in the story, one of the mior characters, one would never really know why Ray is building the field or talking to what is arguably a ghost on seemingly randomly built baseball field. The only other way to know why he does these things would be to for the narrator to ask him, which would take away from the bare bones of the story.

Characterization

In this story in particular, there are far more minor characters than there are major, as it is in most good stories. Ray and Shoeless Joe are the leading characters. Ray can really be characterized by his passions in life - family and baseball. He is really not too concerned with much else. " 'Consider it done,' I say, hardly thinking of the time, the money, the backbreaking labor it entails (521)." Ray was never too interested in a career. He originally moved to Iowa to follow one of his passions - his wife. Ray is very similar, but he is driven by one single thing - baseball. " 'Years and years later, I'd wake in the night with the smell of the ballpark in my nostrils and the cool of the grass on my feet. The thrill of the grass...'(518) " At one time, Shoeless Joe had been motivated by money, which led him to make the biggest mistake of his life. From that point on, he dedicated it tobaseball. I struggle with the idea that Shoeless Joe really came to Iowa to see some dinky field that a man made up based off of some sketchy apparition, so I consider him to be exactly that in this story - an apparition, but he is super meaningful nonetheless. He makes Ray realize his dream of creating a great ballpark, thereby moving the story along.

Setting

The setting of rural Iowa for the story is perfect. When one thinks of Iowa, they think farms and potatoes, so this is where the true baseball-lovers typically preside. These are raw, real men, out in the fields, working with their hands. So, by having a farmer from Iowa have this passion for baseball and its "fallen angel", the story is believable. Also, as a side note, Iowa would have plenty of free land for a baseball field to be built upon. "...but I fell in love with Iowa. Fell in love with the land, the people, with the sky, the cornfields and Annie (516)." Ray remarks a few times on the high-quality dirt that comes from the Iowa ground, so it would be perfect for the grass that would have to be put down and the care that would have to go into creating the field.

Theme

The main theme of this story is passion. If there is an abundance of one thing, it is this. Ray feels passion for his family, his state, and the game of baseball. "I watch Annie looking out. She is soft as a butterfly, Annie is, with an evil grin and a tongue that travels at the speed of light (516)." In every word of description Ray uses for his wife and daughter, there is affection. Even when pointing out her evil grin, he makes it sound as if he enjoys her evil side. To him, she can do no wrong. It is similar with Shoeles Joe. He threw a baseball game, which one would think to be a detrimental blow to a baseball fanatic like Ray, but his passion for Shoeless Joe overrode everything, and, in his mind, Joe was the victim of a greedy world.

A Mini American Revolution

In the short story Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill is French. This plays an important role in the story. Miss Brill is an Englishwoman living in France. The French and English are notorious for not getting along, whether it be on the battlefield or in the search for cultural supremacy. So, a French woman living in England would likely already run into cultural issues. The added bonus that she is looney doesn't help her case, either. I think Mansfield makes Miss Brill French because it serves to further detach her from her surroundings. She goes on about all the young people around her, usually in love, but there she sits, old and alone. She clearly doesn't fit in as it is. The added ethnic difference stands to emphasize Miss Brill's elephant -in- the -room existence.

And The Golden Rule Backfires

In the short story Once Upon a Time by Nadine Gordimer, it is quite clear that the story within the story is to be a fairytale type of story. This is apparent from the beginning with the repetition of the phrase, "Once upon a time", and the telling of everything they "loved very much" in a laundry list style. The story begins with a man and wife who love eachother and have no problems (unrealistic). Then, the little boy is mentioned and, once again, he is loved very much. Then, he loves the cat and dog very much. Listing the cliches in order like that and using elementary words gives the story that fairytale effect. This atmosphere relates to the theme in the sense that the childlike and naive outlook the parents have toward the problem of the invading poor people is carried over into their attempt to prevent these poor people from becoming a problem for them. They set up a monsterous contraption to scare off any wrongdoers, but what they end up causing is far from innocent. The death of their son is a stab of harsh reality to a sheltered, uptight couple of parents.

Crazy as a Fox? Bat? No, More Like a Pheonix

In A Worn Path by Eudora Welty, one might be led to believe that Pheonix's grandson is dead. When Pheonix goes to the store to get the medicine for her grandson, the nurse says, "Yes. Swallowed lye. When was it?-January-two, three years ago-?" If someone swallows lye, it is dangerous but can be treated with the exact medicine the grandmother went to the store to ask for. It certainly would not take two or three years to go away, so it begs the question where is the grandson now and why has he not gotten better? I believe it is in the cone of reality to say that Pheonix going to get the medicine for her dead grandson is a defense mechanism. She wants to act as though he is safe and sound at home patiently waiting for his medicine, but that is not the reality. Maybe something happened, like the grandmother couldn't get to the store fast enough to save her grandson and by going every week to fetch the medicine, it is her own personal penance. Because she blames herself for the death of her grandson, she can't face the reality of his death and would rather live in the world in her head where he is still around.

Eveline Autistic? Let's see...

In the short story Eveline by James Joyce, Eveline's life full of hard, monotonous work seems so desirable to her when she is faced with leaving it because it is familiar. Familiarity is something that human nature naturally tends toward. This trait is seen keenly in the autistic. They are dependent upon their routine and its constant nature. I am not at all implying that Eveline is autistic. I'de say that would be far from the cone of reason, but it does speak to the tendencies of humans. Obviously, it is not just familiarity that drives Eveline to abort her escape mission. She emphasizes the promise she made to her mother to look after the children before she died. Any child is naturally going to want to fulfill a promise they make to their dying mother, especially when it directly affects the lives of those she loves.

Wall Street Charity

In the story Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville, the subtitle "A Story of Wallstreet" is representative of what the story is even truly about. When this story was being written, Wall Street was just becoming a financial centerpoint in the United States. The materialistic and greedy nature of society at the time was likely what prompted Melville to write a story like this in the first place. It is widely believed that, on Wall Street, money comes first and humanity takes a backseat. This theory could be related to this work. In the story, the lawyer initially is dumbfounded by Bartleby's response to his requests, so he says nothing to him about it, but, later, he begins to feel as though he is only putting up with Bartleby's shinanigans out of charity. As the story moves along, the lawyer grows more and more agitated with Bartleby's behavior and asks him to leave because his presence is making his clients uncomfortable. In this case, the business won out over the lawyers best intentions to provide a charitable service to Bartleby, much like it does on Wall Street.