Blog 4 Option 1

Faith is something required for life as we know it. For example, if I didn't believe in my legs to hold me up, I would be afraid to walk. And if I didn't have any faith in the person trying to convince me that I can walk, then I would not listen to him. And then I would starve. It is this initial faith that allows the speaker in Raymond Carver's “Cathedral” to follow Roger's wisdom, and learn a way to help a blind man.

Raymond Carver's “Cathedral” is a realistic scenario that centers around just a few powerful symbols, and one man's brief lesson on what can be accomplished with the integration of faith. In the exposition of the story, the speaker makes clear his ignorance, and some of the things that make him uncomfortable. He concludes his endurance through his wife's tape with, “I'd heard all I wanted to,” letting his anxiety for what came next on the tape move his attention on to the man ringing the doorbell. The cathedral is something most readers recognize and associate with something people put their faith in.

It is hard for me to imagine reading this story, and understanding the importance of faith that the author is trying to emphasize without the cathedral. For me, aware of the benefits of hindsight, a number of other things might have worked, such as a diesel engine, or a brick and a dead guy with a bloody head wound (I realize that not many people have faith in violence, but I can see the sense in having faith in the brick as a better weapon than an empty fist). For me, a diesel engine would have worked because, from my experience, diesel engines are reliable. But most people haven't had the same experience with diesel engines that I have. A cathedral is a more universal symbol of faith, and drives home the author's point to a bigger audience.

The speaker describes his irritations, knowing that it is possible to get over such uneasiness, but not knowing how. In knowing this, the speaker initially puts his faith in this little snippet of his intelligence, which proves the speaker's capacity for faith all along. The speaker simply expanded upon his own faith. For this situation (drawing the cathedral) to take place, Roger must have faith in the speaker to have the capacity to learn from him. This is a wide-reaching demonstration of the importance of faith.

Blog 3 option 1:

The setting in “Araby,” by James Joyce, is one of the elements that helps the reader understand the narrator's enduring mood of gloominess and obsessive tendencies. While most kids had the chance to grow up on a street where other kids lived and the people were friendly, less fortunate kids like the narrator of this story grew up on a lifeless street with very little interaction with other people.

The underlying dysthymic feeling created by the setting is reinforced in a number of bitterquotes by the narrator. He mentions at one point how he stared at the clock. Just before that, he said, “The air was pitilessly raw and my heart misgave me,” only because he could not see his crush in the way he always got the chance to once a day. The narrator's spying denotes his fear of social interaction. He is desperate for a silver lining, and works hard to get his daily glimpse at his version of hope.

Hypocrisy has a way of misleading a child into believing something inaccurate. When the narrator's uncle finally shows up for dinner, he claims, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” But at the same time, the narrator probably sees how his uncle does not recognize his pain, and what could have caused it. The narrator at one point mentions his father talking to himself. At another point towards the end, the narrator apparently feels a bit excluded due to the way the lady at the bazaar talked to him impatiently, like he was interrupting her conversation with her friends.

The narrator's suffering in this story is evident by a disturbing level of detail used to describe his feelings at such a young age of his life. He personifies the houses as having faces that did not change, just like the life inside them. The neighbors did not seem to have seen much of each-other. This is a feeling that happens to be reinforced by the way he describes his attempts to talk to his secret love. This shows us youth's capacity for sensitivity, and it is doubtful that he would have had the ability to express his feelings to the extent that he was able at the age of thirty-two by writing this story.

Blog 2, Option 2

With my initial beliefs about general psychology in mind, I developed an opinion that John was somewhat unreliable after the very first time I read “The Yellow Wallpaper.” This is simply because some of the treatments he subjected the narrator to would nowadays be considered downright archaic. Plus, women do tend to have a better intuition than men, regarding awareness to their own feelings (although not necessarily better logic in how to handle them), so it would make sense that a “physician of high standing” would misunderstand the narrator's suffering. Several more quotes of her own indicate ideas that would nowadays be considered excellent treatment for most cases of depression, such as “congenial work, with excitement and change,” and her desire for company. Many of the things the narrator says about the wallpaper made sense to me given the circumstances. The narrator probably has a good sense of artistic normality, thus explaining her quest to find reason in the stimulating, but disturbing pattern of the wallpaper.

To be honest, it was only after I read the prompt to this assignment that I paid close attention to the reliability of the narrator. With the idea in mind that depression of any kind can contribute to questionable behavior, things immediately started to grab my attention the second time I read the story. The second sentence, and its mention of a haunted house as the ideal romantic getaway can already be considered evidence of a troubled mind.

But possible causes of depression cannot be ignored in the investigation of the symptoms. Perhaps most of the narrator's unreliable information is fueled by John's ignorance. “He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him,” indicates to me a reason to generally mistrust John. Unreasonable feelings are seldom the product of reasonable thoughts. It also provides supporting evidence for the narrator's reliability. Assuming John really does care about her, it would make sense for her to ignore her own logic, and do what he advises. His shaky methods could have worked to inadvertently fuel the narrator's obsession. John's treatment of her, as previewed by his reaction to her first impressions of the house, reflects the way women were usually treated by men, especially educated ones. So it would only make sense that she trust and obey her husband. Even though it's the narrator who ends up creeping around on the floor like a nervous phantom, I cannot help but to see most of the fault in John's behavior.

I have no reason to mistrust her until her behavior turns toward the insane. Still describing what she is doing from the first person, she adds in her creeping escapade as though it was simply a continuation of her struggles and accompanying coping strategies. The only reason I would see to mistrust her would be if she was misinterpreting what John was saying from the very beginning, and therefore writing his words incorrectly, and John really wasn't the fool I have suspected him to be.

I did think that maybe the author might be expressing her feelings about her own mental difficulties, because she tells the story from the point of view of the person considered to be mentally troubled. I do not see anything wrong with wanting to write. I do, however, see sense in suspecting that maybe the narrator's ridiculous behavior is a somewhat-intentional cry for help, to communicate to others that her condition is still worsening. Her language during this episode indicates rebellion against John and Jane, who have been suppressing her from writing and doing other things that she enjoys.