Monday, December 20, 2010
UNIVERSAL THEME #5: How People Struggle to Cope with a Changing World
Enriched by our reading experiences, sharing specific examples from the novel and the short stories provides the chance to internalize key themes. Dig deep. Provide an example from one work that reflects the theme listed. Establish the context of your example. Quotes are ecouraged. Be sure to read through the entire post; do not use the same examples as classmates.
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In Gilded Six-Bits, Missy's world changes when she comes to the realization that she needs more money, which she wants to use to buy things she needs, as well as things she wants. To do this she cheats on her husband with a wealthy businessman, Slemmons, in the hope of making a little extra money. This is what makes this story a good representation of the Great Depression, because people were willing to do almost anything to get a little extra money, especially if they didn't have much to begin with beforehand.
ReplyDeleteMissy May's world is turned upside down when she is caught cheating, and her tearful response to Joe's question "Missie May, whut you cryin' for?" demonstrates her realization of what she has lost: "Cause Ah love you so hard and Ah know you don't love me no mo." More than money, the fulfilling relationship she experienced with her husband, filled with laughter and joy at life's simple pleasures, appears to have evaporated, blanketed by her guilt. Ironically, the very person she wronged, her husband Joe, is the one who helps them both cope with the changes in their relationship. His advice "Don't look back lak Lot's wife and turn to salt" offers hope for the marriage. And though uncomfortable moments, including the continual reminder of the gilded coin, permeate their interactions, both Missy May and Joe stick it out through the discomfort to arrive, changed and grown, still willing to love each other and make a life together in a home Hurston describes perfectly "...there was someting happy about the place."
ReplyDeleteIn the Grapes of Wrath, at the peach picking plantation, many people refused to work for a meager pay. However, even more people decided to work for an even lesser pay to replace those who walked out.......this shows the desperation and willingness of poor migrants to make a tiny bit of money to use to survive.....The Joads walked out on the decreased pay, but when they left, they could see that several would fill their place for the reduced pay. In the Depression, this example proved true in many different plantations. Many strikes that occurred on plantations were ruined simply by hiring lower paid workers. John Steinbeck showed this in the Grapes of Wrath.
ReplyDeleteIn the Grapes of Wrath you see different ways that people cope, and you also see how some people just wont cope and they remain in a stalemate in their life. One way that you see someone cope in a rather harsh way is Connie. He leaves Rose of Sharon so he cant do what he wants to do. His way to cope with the depression was just leaving one life behind and moving on to another.
ReplyDeleteIn "Barn Burning" Abner Snopes struggles against what he perceives as a narcissistic cruel bourgeois elite to the point of an obsession. He ends up becoming a misguided distraught pyromaniac who goes on a rampage burning barns of rich people and vandalising Major de Spain's exquisite French rug. This struggle is a fight between the rich and the poor that reflects the alteration of social standards and people's response to them.
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