English Midterm

A Good Man is Hard to Find

The grandmother tries to convince her son, Bailey, and his wife to take the family to east Tennessee for vacation instead of Florida. She points out an article about the Misfit, an escaped convict heading toward Florida, and adds that the children have already been there. John Wesley, eight years old, suggests that the grandmother stay home, and his sister, June Star, says nastily that his grandmother would never do that. On the day of the trip, the grandmother hides her cat, Pitty Sing, in a basket in the car. She wears a dress and hat with flowers on it so that people will know she is "a lady" if there's an accident. In the car, John Wesley says he doesn't like Georgia, and the grandmother chastises him for not respecting his home state. When they pass a cotton field, she says there are graves in the middle of it that belonged to the plantation and jokes that the plantation has "Gone with the Wind." Later, she tells a story about an old suitor, Edgar Atkins Teagarden. Edgar brought her a watermelon every week, into which he carved his initials, E. A. T. Once he left it on the porch and a black child ate it because he thought it said eat. The family stops at a restaurant called the Tower, owned by Red Sammy Butts. Red Sammy complains that people are untrustworthy, explaining that he recently let two men buy gasoline on credit. The grandmother tells him he's a good man for doing it. Red Sam's wife says she doesn't trust anyone, including Red Sam. The grandmother asks her if she's heard about the Misfit, and the woman worries that he'll rob them. Red Sam says, "A good man is hard to find." He and the grandmother lament the state of the world. Back in the car, the grandmother wakes from a nap and realizes that a plantation she once visited is nearby. She says that the house had six white columns and was at the end of an oak tree-lined driveway. She lies that the house had a secret panel to make the house seem more interesting. Excited, the children beg to go to the house until Bailey angrily gives in. The grandmother points him to a dirt road. The family drives deep into the woods. The grandmother suddenly remembers that the house was in Tennessee, not in Georgia. Horrified at her mistake, she jerks her feet. Pitty Sing escapes from the basket and startles Bailey, who wrecks the car. The children's mother breaks her shoulder, but no one else is hurt. The grandmother decides not to tell Bailey about her mistake. A passing car stops, and three men get out, carrying guns. The grandmother thinks she recognizes one of them. One of the men, wearing glasses and no shirt, descends into the ditch. He tells the children's mother to make the children sit down because they make him nervous. The grandmother suddenly screams because she realizes that he's the Misfit. The man says it's not good that she recognized him. Bailey curses violently, upsetting the grandmother. The grandmother asks the Misfit whether he'd shoot a lady, and the Misfit says he wouldn't like to. The grandmother claims that she can tell he's a good man and that he comes from "nice people." The Misfit agrees and praises his parents. The grandmother continues telling him he's a good man. The Misfit tells the other two men, Hiram and Bobby Lee, to take Bailey and John Wesley into the woods. The grandmother adjusts her hat, but the brim breaks off. The Misfit says he knows he isn't good but that he isn't the worst man either. He apologizes to the grandmother and the children's mother for not wearing a shirt and says that he and the other men had to bury their clothes after they escaped. He says they borrowed the clothes they're wearing from some people they met. The grandmother asks the Misfit whether he ever prays. Just as he says no, she hears two gunshots. The Misfit says he used to be a gospel singer, and the grandmother chants, "pray, pray." He says he wasn't a bad child but that at one point he went to prison for a crime he can't remember committing. He says a psychiatrist told him he'd killed his father. The grandmother tells the Misfit to pray so that Jesus will help him. The Misfit says he's fine on his own. Bobby Lee and Hiram come back from the woods, and Bobby Lee gives the Misfit the shirt Bailey had been wearing, but the grandmother doesn't realize it's Bailey's. The Misfit tells the children's mother to take the baby and June Star and go with Bobby Lee and Hiram into the woods. Bobby Lee tries to hold June Star's hand, but she says he looks like a pig. The grandmother starts chanting, "Jesus, Jesus." The Misfit says he's like Jesus, except Jesus hadn't committed a crime. He says he gave himself this name because his punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime people said he committed. A gunshot comes from the woods. The grandmother begs the Misfit not to shoot a lady. Two more gunshots come from the woods, and the grandmother cries out for Bailey. The Misfit says that Jesus confused everything by raising the dead. He says that if what Jesus did is true, then everyone must follow him. But if he didn't actually raise the dead, then all anyone can do is enjoy their time on earth by indulging in "meanness." The grandmother agrees that perhaps Jesus didn't raise the dead. The Misfit says he wishes he had been there so he could know for sure. The grandmother calls the Misfit "one of my own children," and the Misfit shoots her in the chest three times. Bobby Lee and Hiram return, and they all look at the grandmother. The Misfit observes that the grandmother could have been a good woman if someone had been around "to shoot her every minute of her life." The Misfit says life has no true pleasure.

Madeline Usher

Roderick's twin sister who suffers from a strange illness. After apparently dying, she rises from her coffin.

Magada

15 month old baby who gets thown at fence

The Misfit

A misguided, escaped prisoner who stumbles upon Bailey's family after they have crashed. He orders his fellow escapees to systematically murder the entire family and he personally shoots the grandmother multiple times after their conversation. In the last moments of the grandmother's life, the Misfit discusses his personal philosophies. First, he believes that he is innocent of the unknown crime he committed that put him in jail. This is why he calls himself the Misfit because he says his conviction was a mistake. The Misfit also has no spiritual beliefs, therefore he relies on himself to be his moral compass. When the grandmother tries to appeal to his mercy with religion he immediately dismisses her. He questions the meaning of life and has thoroughly examined his experiences to make sense of his current position.

Queenie

A teenage girl who enters the A&P in her bathing suit and is nicknamed "Queenie" by Sammy. Queenie, the attractive leader of the three girls, rouses Sammy's desire from the minute he sees her. When the store manager reprimands her for wearing only a bathing suit in the store, she defends herself by saying she needs to buy herring snacks for her mother. Her response suggests to Sammy a sophisticated world very different from the one in which his own family lives.

Ted Lavender

A young, scared soldier in the Alpha Company. Lavender is the first to die in the work. He makes only a brief appearance in the narrative, popping tranquilizers to calm himself while the company is outside Than Khe. Because his death, like Lemon's, is preventable, it illustrates the expendability of human life in a senseless war.

Stella

Jealous niece who takes the shawl away and causes Magada's death out of jealously

The Things They Carried

Lt. Jimmy Cross blames a Lavenders' death on his own distractions. His distraction being Martha, a young girl who writes him letters. The story is set during the Vietnam war and the various soilders carry different objects due to a multitude of factors. But the emotional weight they all carrier is far heavier than anything physical. After Lavender's death Cross burns Martha's letters and get's rid of the pebble he carries in his mouth from her.

The Shawl

Magda the baby has a shawl that keeps her from crying so she keeps sucking on it but Stella gets jealous and takes the shawl away and then the Nazi gaurds hears the crying and snatches the baby away from Rosa and throws the baby at an electric fence.

Lengel

Manager of the local A & P, Lengel is a man who spends most of his days behind the door marked "Manager". Entering the story near the end, he represents the system: management, policy, decency, and the way things are. But he is not a one-dimensional character. He has known Sammy's parents for a long time, and he tells Sammy that he should, at least for his parents' sake, not quit his job in such a dramatic, knee-jerk way. He seems truly concerned even while he feels the need to enforce store policy.

Symbolism of Paul's suicide

Paul's decision to end his life by jumping in front of a train is thought to represent the impact that commercialization and industrialization has on Paul, who would rather lose himself in theater and music.[9] Paul's choice to get hit by a train as his method of suicide also reflects his relationship towards his father. Paul had the opportunity to use a gun to end his life. However, the gun belonged to his father. Paul had always feared his father. His choice to not use the gun shows that Paul doesn't want to give his father anymore power over his life.

Owl Creek Bridge

Peyton Farquar is hanged for messing with the railroad during the civil war. But there is an alternate story line and the rope breaks and he falls into the river and swims out and gets shot at but then it turns out it was all a hallucination and he's actually dead.

Faiths Ribbons

Purity (White --> Tainted by Red Blood)

A & P

Sammy, a teenage clerk in an A & P grocery, is working the cash register on a hot summer day when three young women about his age enter barefoot and clad only in swimsuits, to purchase herring snacks. Although they are dressed for the beach, Sammy allows the girls to continue shopping while he appraises them sexually. He imagines details about the girls based on their appearance alone, impressions that, to his surprise, are shaken when the leader of the trio, a gorgeous, classy-looking beauty he has dubbed "Queenie", speaks in a voice unlike that which he had created in his mind. Lengel, the old and prudish manager, feels the girls are not clothed appropriately for a grocery store, and admonishes them, telling them they must have their shoulders covered next time, which Sammy believes embarrasses them. Offended by the manager's disregard for the three customers' dignity, Sammy ceremoniously removes his store apron and bow tie and resigns on the spot, despite the mention by the manager of the pain this would cause his parents. Sammy then leaves the store, seemingly in expectation of some display of affection or appreciation from the young women involved, only to find that they've already left, apparently oblivious to his presence.

Grandmother

She has the cat and she lies about her piety and she lies about knowing the house. She is the cause of the crash and when they turn to see the nonexistent house she lets go of her cat pitty sing. Bailey's mother, who lives with the family. She is not identified by name. The grandmother is a very close-minded individual. She has her own set ideals on morality and virtue which she believes everyone should uphold. Her values can be seen when she always dresses up to appear like a "lady" or when she criticises her grandchildren for not being respectful. She thinks of herself as superior because she's able to maintain her precious standards, however, she is actually extremely hypocritical. By becoming so wrapped up in her old fashioned mentality of others' character, she becomes a selfish and judgemental woman. Her hypocritical ways can be seen when she becomes absorbed in pleading for her life and never once asking the Misfit to spare her family's lives. When she is trying to sympathize with the Misfit, she has a realization finally understanding her weaknesses. Right after this moment, she is murdered like the rest of her family.

Managan's sister

Shes a nun

Stokesie

Stokesie is a 22-year-old white man who is married with two children. He works with Sammy at the A & P checkout, and is the only other store checker mentioned. He is a minor character in the story but does show a sign of ritualism; Stokesie often jokes with Sammy that he will not get promoted unless there is a Soviet takeover of the United States within 20 years, but does his job faithfully each day, providing for his wife and kids. Like Sammy, he also observes the girls in the store with interest. He is a glimpse of what Sammy's future might be like; Stokesie's family "is the only difference" between them, Sammy comments.

Lt. Jimmy Cross

The lieutenant of the Alpha Company, who is responsible for the entire group of men. Cross is well intentioned but unsure of how to lead his men. He is wracked with guilt because he believes that his preoccupation with his unrequited love for a girl named Martha and his tendency to follow orders despite his better judgment caused the deaths of Ted Lavender and Kiowa, two members of Alpha Company.

Charley Edwards

The man that Paul see's while ushering

Scorsby

The man who gets all the praise for doing things blindly out of luck

Reverand

The man who hates scorsby

Fall of the House of Usher

The narrator goes to the Usher house because of a letter he receives from Rodrick. Okay, so Rodrick and Madeline are along lines of incest. Madeline is "dead" then actually surprise she's alive and she kills Rodrick and causes the house to fall and the narrator escapes.

Roderick Usher

The owner of the mansion and last male in the Usher line and suffers from a depressing feeling characterized by strange behavior.

Paul's Case: A Study in Temperament

The short story "Paul's Case" is about a young man who struggles to fit in at home, school and in the world. At the start of the story, Paul is suspended from his high school in Pittsburgh for a week. He meets with his principal and teachers who complain about Paul's "defiant manner" in class and the "physical aversion" he exhibits toward his teachers. One of Paul's teachers also mentions that Paul's mother died back when he was a child in Colorado, which is later shown to be of importance. He then goes to work at Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh. Here he works as an usher and is able to be himself by serving those in his section with grand enthusiasm. He stays for the concert and enjoys the social scene while losing himself in the music. After the concert, Paul follows the soloist and imagines life inside her hotel room. Unfortunately, the audience learns that Paul and his father have a poor relationship. Upon returning home very late one night, Paul enters through the basement to avoid a confrontation with his father. Paul's relationship with his father is one of abuse, so much so that while in the basement, Paul gets nervous that his father will come downstairs with a shotgun and kill him. Paul stays awake all night imagining what would happen if his father mistook him for a burglar and shot him, or if his dad would recognize him in time. Paul despises the people on Cordelia street as they serve to remind him of his own lackluster life. Although his father considers him a role model for Paul, Paul is unimpressed by a plodding young man who works for an iron company and is married with four lovely children. While Paul longs to be wealthy, cultivated, and powerful, he lacks the stamina and ambition to attempt to change his condition. Instead, Paul escapes his monotonous life by visiting Charley Edwards, a young actor. Later on, Paul makes it clear to one of his teachers that his job ushering is more important than his schoolwork, causing his father to prevent him from continuing to work as an usher. Paul takes a train to New York City after stealing over $2000 from his new job at Denny & Carson's to finance a new life. He buys an expensive wardrobe, rents a room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and walks around the city. He also meets a young boy from San Francisco who takes him on an all-night tour of the city's lively social scene. His few days of impersonating a rich, privileged young man, brought him more contentment than he had ever known because living a prosperous life is Paul's only hope and dream.[7] However, on the eighth day, after spending most of his money, Paul read from a Pittsburgh newspaper that his theft has been made public. His father has returned the money and is en route to New York City to bring Paul back home to Pittsburgh. Paul then reveals that he had bought a gun on his first day in New York City, and briefly considers shooting himself to avoid returning to his old life in Pittsburgh. Eventually, he decides against it, and instead commits suicide by jumping in front of a train. Paul made the ultimate decision of taking his own life because the thought of returning to his old one was too much for him to handle

Young Goodman Brown

The story begins at dusk in Salem Village, Massachusetts as young Goodman Brown leaves Faith, his wife of three months, for some unknown errand in the forest. Faith pleads with her husband to stay with her, but he insists that the journey must be completed that night. In the forest he meets an older man, dressed in a similar manner and bearing a physical resemblance to himself. The man carries a black serpent-shaped staff. Deeper in the woods, the two encounter Goody Cloyse, an older woman, whom Young Goodman had known as a boy and who had taught him his catechism. Cloyse complains about the need to walk; the older man throws his staff on the ground for the woman and quickly leaves with Brown. Other townspeople inhabit the woods that night, traveling in the same direction as Goodman Brown. When he hears his wife's voice in the trees, he calls out but is not answered. He then runs angrily through the forest, distraught that his beautiful Faith is lost somewhere in the dark, sinful forest. He soon stumbles upon a clearing at midnight where all the townspeople assembled. At the ceremony, which is carried out at a flame-lit altar of rocks, the newest acolytes are brought forth—Goodman Brown and Faith. They are the only two of the townspeople not yet initiated. Goodman Brown calls to heaven and Faith to resist and instantly the scene vanishes. Arriving back at his home in Salem the next morning, Goodman Brown is uncertain whether the previous night's events were real or a dream, but he is deeply shaken, and his belief he lives in a Christian community is distorted. He loses his faith in his wife, along with all of humanity. He lives his life an embittered and suspicious cynic, wary of everyone around him. The story concludes: "And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave... they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom."

Luck

The story concerns a decorated English military hero, Lord Arthur Scoresby, a total idiot who triumphs in life through good luck. At the time of the Crimean War Scoresby is a captain. Despite his complete incompetence, everyone misinterprets his performance, taking his blunders for military genius, and his reputation is enhanced with every false step he makes. At the climax of the story, Scoresby mistakes his right hand for his left and leads a charge in the wrong direction, surprising a Russian force which panics and causes a retreat of the Russian army, thus securing an Allied victory. Another interpretation of the story is that the Reverend is simply jealous of the successes Scoresby has achieved. The Reverend, in the past, was an instructor at a military academy, where he taught a young Scoresby. According to the Reverend, Scoresby was a poor student, and "blundered" his way through promotions. When the war began, the Reverend joined the conflict, but with a lower rank of his ex-student. Throughout the story one can see that the Reverend is bitter, and his apparent distaste for the lord seems at odds with his role as a clergyman. The "absolute fool" in the story is not Scoresby, who ascended the ranks of the military through action, but rather the Reverend, who cannot accomplish anything in his lifetime. He also wrote something above the paper. [He wrote "this is not a fancy sketch. I got it from a clergyman who was an instructor at the Woolwich Military school forty years ago, and who vouched for its truth."—M.T.]

Soilders Home

The story's protagonist is Harold Krebs, a young man who is unhappy after he returns home from serving in World War I. The story begins with a very brief background of Harold Krebs' life. Before the war, he attended a Methodist college in Kansas where he was part of a fraternity. In 1917, Krebs enlisted in the Marines and did not return to the United States from Germany until 1919. By the time of his return to his home state of Oklahoma, the town has already given the returned soldiers a big, elaborate welcoming; Krebs' return seems late and irrelevant as the war had already been over for some time. Krebs was involved in the battles at Belleau Wood, Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel, and the Argonne Forest. At first, Krebs did not want to share his experiences, but as time progressed at home, he wanted to talk about the war but no one wanted to listen. Krebs lies about his wartime accounts in order to gain an audience, though he does not want a ton. By late summer, Krebs is doing typical things: he sleeps in late, reads books, plays pool and his clarinet, goes for walks and reads. He has no interest getting a girlfriend. He just looks at girls because they are pretty, but he does not want to have to work to get one. About a month after his return, his mother requests that he come downstairs to eat breakfast. While Krebs is eating breakfast he reads the newspaper and talks to Helen. He then agrees that he loves his mother, but without much emotion. The conversation ends as his mother comes back into the room and asks to speak with Krebs. His mother says God cannot have any idle hands in his Kingdom. Krebs replies that he is not in His Kingdom. He then feels embarrassed for saying that. Krebs' mother then tells him that she understands how he feels, and that she is worried about him. She says that her father told her about his own service in the Civil War and that she has been praying for Krebs because she knows how he must feel. She then asks if Krebs loves her, and he says no; she cries. Krebs states that he doesn't love anybody. Krebs then realizes that he won't be able to make her understand and saying that will only hurt her. He says that he did not mean what he said but he does not love anyone anymore. Krebs begs her to believe that he did not mean it and so she prays for him. The story concludes with Krebs plotting to leave his hometown and get a job in Kansas.

Plaid and Big Tall Goony Goony

These are the nicknames Sammy gives Queenie's friends, who are somewhat uneasier about their attire. Plaid is a plump, pretty girl in a plaid two-piece bathing suit; Big Tall Goony Goony is cynically observed by Sammy to have the sort of striking features other girls pretend to admire because they know she's no real competition to them (although he concedes that she's not bad-looking on the whole).

Araby

Through first-person narration, the reader is immersed at the start of the story in the drab life that people live on North Richmond Street, which seems to be illuminated only by the verve and imagination of the children who, despite the growing darkness that comes during the winter months, insist on playing "until [their] bodies glowed." Even though the conditions of this neighbourhood leave much to be desired, the children's play is infused with their almost magical way of perceiving the world, which the narrator dutifully conveys to the reader: "Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness.[1]" But though these boys "career" around the neighbourhood in a very childlike way, they are also aware of and interested in the adult world, as represented by their spying on the narrator's uncle as he comes home from work and, more importantly, on Mangan's sister, whose dress "swung as she moved" and whose "soft rope of hair tossed from side to side." These boys are on the brink of sexual awareness and, awed by the mystery of the opposite sex, are hungry for knowledge. On one rainy evening, the boy secludes himself in a soundless, dark drawing-room and gives his feelings for her full release: "I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: O love! O love! many times." This scene is the culmination of the narrator's increasingly romantic idealization of Mangan's sister. By the time he actually speaks to her, he has built up such an unrealistic idea of her that he can barely put sentences together: "When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me if I was going to Araby. I forget whether I answered yes or no." But the narrator recovers splendidly: when Mangan's sister dolefully states that she will not be able to go to Araby, he gallantly offers to bring something back for her. The narrator now cannot wait to go to the Araby bazaar and procure for his beloved some grand gift that will endear him to her. And though his aunt frets, hoping that it is not "some Freemason affair," and though his uncle, perhaps intoxicated, perhaps stingy, arrives so late from work and equivocates so much that he almost keeps the narrator from being able to go, the intrepid yet frustrated narrator heads out of the house, tightly clenching a florin, in spite of the late hour, toward the bazaar. But the Araby market turns out not to be the most fantastic place he had hoped it would be. It is late; most of the stalls are closed. The only sound is "the fall of the coins" as men count their money. Worst of all, however, is the vision of sexuality—of his future—that he receives when he stops at one of the few remaining open stalls. The young woman minding the stall is engaged in a conversation with two young men. Though he is potentially a customer, she only grudgingly and briefly waits on him before returning to her frivolous conversation. His idealized vision of Araby is destroyed, along with his idealized vision of Mangan's sister—and of love. With shame and anger rising within him, he is alone in Araby.

I'm a Fool

Unreliable Narrator The narrator is a nineteen-year-old boy whose life revolves around his job as a swipe at a local racetrack. Though it is a menial job with no future, the young man brags to the reader about it, describing it in a sort of homespun lyricism that purportedly shows his genuine feelings about his career among horses, jockeys, and trainers. Significantly, his best friend and fellow worker is a black man, Burt, and the young man boasts of the good life that they lead, traveling from track to track tending the horses. What the reader infers from all this is that the swipe's protestations are clearly part of a deep-seated dissatisfaction with his life. In narrating his "adventures" at the track, for example, the swipe remarks on the college men in the grandstand, who "put on airs" and think that they are superior because of their education. However, the narrator himself does precisely the same thing. One payday, he walks into a bar, orders a drink and expensive cigars, and spurns a well-dressed man with a Windsor tie and a cane who is standing near him and whom he accuses of "putting on airs. He then goes and meets a family and pretends to be Walter Mathers to impress them and tells them to bet on a horse and he does as well. He grows a relashionship with the familys daughter and they have a moment. She says that she will come back for him yet he knows that they will never be together because he was a fool and lied about his identity.

vegetable sentience

Usher is convinced that non-living things of the natural world, as well as the living things, have "molded the destinies of his family" and made him what he is. While the narrator declares that he will make no comment on this opinion, the idea of pathetic fallacy enters the narrative at this point.

Martha

Volleyball player who sends letters to Sargent Cross and he's totally in love with her.

Rosa

a young Jewish mother who takes care of Magda