Gothic Story

Addie Ramonda
Blog post: Gothic Story
9/20/13

Looking through the cold dark eyes of what was once my best friend it finally struck me that I was alone.
We'd been on the ferry for at least 15 hours already. Tired, sick, and ready for our own beds. It was a horrible night to be on the ocean. The waves were about 10 feet and the constant, pounding rain wasn't helping. After a long weekend of swimming we had drawn our last straw.
Haley, Drea, and I decided our best bet was to try and fall asleep. We layer down our sleeping mats and pillows and tried our hardest to let the humming of the boat put us to sleep.
I was awoken suddenly by a loud crashing sound, only coming to find that my best friends were no longer by my side. It took me awhile to adjust my eyes and realize there was absolutely no lights on in the boat. Frightened I quickly got up and searched for anyone, finding no one. I quickly began to panic. Where did they go? Why wouldn't they wake me? I checked my phone, 3:03 AM, we weren't scheduled to dock for another two hours. After what seemed like forever, I had finished searching the boat, still finding no one. I began to cry. I was on a fast moving ferry...alone. I could barely drive a car, let alone a ferry! And what if everyone was dead? Was I next? My mind began to race at the possibilities. I decided to look outside again, just in case I missed anyone. As I opened the heavy, metal door and pushed myself through the cold rain and harsh wind, I instantly started to regret my decision. And regret it even more when I saw her. Lying there, so peaceful. I had never seen her so still, her dark brown hair quietly flowing in the wind. Raindrops, silently dripping from her now white cheeks. Run. That's all I could do. Screaming for help, I ran inside, no one answering my calls. Having no phone service, radio, or anyway to contact anyone, I realized there was nothing more I could do. I laid down next to my quiet friend and awaited our fate.

Psychological analysis of the character Bartleby

AP lit
Blog Post #3
Addie Ramonda

This week in class we read the short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener." It's a story about a man named, Bartleby who is a little strange. He works at a law firm and refuses to be like anyone else. Whenever he is asked to do something he replies with, "I would prefer not to." The lawyers at the firm get very annoyed with Bartleby and are not sure what to do with him since there is not much they can do. Eventually Bartleby ends up dying in jail by refusing to eat. Many people that read this story aren't sure of what the author is trying to have Bartleby represent. I think that Bartleby acts the way he does to show freedom of will. Bartleby by does not conform into what the lawyers want him to do, he doesn't want to do the things that a normal human being does. Bartleby is able to do whatever he pleases by having this state of mind. When reading this I thought that he was pretty stupid in the end refusing food which then ended up killing him. On the other side it shows that sometimes people often don't know that they are too stubborn for their own good, that in some cases it's necessary to put your pride behind you. Some critics say that it was Mellville trying to get across a point. At the time his readers and fans were really pressuring him to write generic stories and he didn't want to. I think it's a clever message although I didn't enjoy this story. I honestly just think that Bartleby was depressed. He lacked motivation and drive, in the end not even enough to stay alive.

This weeks reading

This week we read the short story The Birthmark. This story is about a scientist who wishes to remove his wife’s birthmark, the only thing keeping her from being all around perfect. The story goes through the process of him and his wife discussing the birthmark, all the way to him trying to remove it. In the end the wife ends up dying. While reading it I thought it was super boring and kind of weird. But once I finished the story and started to analyze it and discover the author’s purpose I thought it was so clever. The birthmark was a symbol of our imperfections and that when we try to alter those imperfections we are punished. I was able to use this story for my literary device paper, so worked out pretty well. I thought it was boring because I just wanted it to get to the point already. It felt like it was so dragged out. The time that it was written in is very different then the way things are now so I had to grasp that concept before I read it. For example husbands now would most likely not bring up something that was wrong with their wife such as a birthmark and ask if they could try to remove it. I think as a class we should have gone over the reading. That way we could have seen what other people might have thought the authors purpose was, I'd be interested to hear that. 

I didn’t really think that any of the things that we read this week were very interesting. But once we start reading books I think there will be more to talk about and it will start becoming more exciting.  I thought that writing the paragraphs that then showed up on the big screen was pretty cool, that way we got to read what other groups were saying and could add things that we thought needed to be there. I think that each group should have had to read what their paragraphs said out loud because no group read what the other groups wrote and that way we all could have gotten a little bit more out of the assignment.

I didn’t read anyone else’s blogs but I think I might to see what others are thinking about the class. It’d be fun if the prompts were a little bit more exciting because it’d be easier to write them each week. For example, we should have to add in what we did that weekend or share something interesting that we read or did on our own. Those things could in in addition the original prompt. It's just hard to write all 500 words on something that we didn't do that much of this week.