Blog Entry 3

Irony is when an unexpected outcome takes place. In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour", there was a big  twist in the story that I didn't expect at all. When it was first describing the character Mrs. Mallard and how they were trying to find an easy way to give her news of her husband's death due to her heart illness. I thought the story was going to be way different. I felt bad for Mrs. Mallard at first, having a heart disease and then having to hear about your husbands's death would be a hard thing to experience. But then as I continued in the story, something happened that I didn't expect. "Free, free, free.. but she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely" (338).  When i read this, I was surprised. To me, it was as if she was happy that her husband had died in the accident. So it made me wonder whether something was happening in the household that we as the reader didn't know about. Maybe she was being abused by Mr. Mallard or that she was always under his control and that was her only escape from his hands. It was very ironic to find out that the husband showed up at the house alive and to find Mrs. Mallard had died. She was so happy of being free that she passed away before she could even be free. I was defiantly not expecting that at all. In Edgar Allen Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado", I thought it was going to be a somewhat of an upbeat and encouraging story. The character talks about his friend tells Fortunato. He tells hi that he has an Amontillado that he wants him to look at to see of it is in fact the real thing. They travel to the cavern and then he tells Fortunato that it is too cold from him to go and that he can ask someone else to look at it. The way he kept asking and persisting that someone else look at it and not him showed me that he was concerned about his friend's health and was looking out for him. However, one comment that he made in the story me question his motives and made me a little suspicious. "How long have you had that cough?" (526). But when he had replied saying, "My poor friend found it impossible to talk for minutes" after Fortunato coughed, made me think that my suspicion was incorrect and that he really does care for his friend. But i was still wondering about that comment in my mind. The ending was a complete one eighty of what I would have suspected. But after looking though the story a second time, the comments that he made to Fortunato made complete sense and he had planned to kill his friend the whole time. Authors use the use of irony for many purposes. They want to throw the reader off of what the reader suspects will happen. This technique was able to throw me off completely with both stories. Having an ironic ending makes the story to the reader memorable and unique from other stories while keeping the reader entertained. These stories were very interesting in reading and shocked me to the max.

Blog Entry 2

Authors when writing a story choose to either write from a first person, second person, or a third person point of view. In a first person point of view, the narrator tells about the events that they have personally witnessed or describing. A great example would be "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Gilman. Throughout the whole story, she talks about her disease or illness that she has. She is confined in this room that she says doesn't mind her but the wallpaper. "I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper. It dwells in my mind so!" (568). The author choosing to use first person gives us as the audience a good look at how being confined in a room or to bed rest and not being able to do anything can really mess with a person's mind. It added tension and doubt because it shows how the narrator relies on John as company even though he is not always there due to work as a physician himself. She also creates doubt of whether or not they do like or not like the wallpaper. It is intriguing the more she looks at like, the more she stares at it, the more she wants to figure out the pattern and actually says in the story that she doesn't want to leave just yet so that she can solve the pattern of the wallpaper. To me, the narrator gets crazier the more she is confined in the room. The method in my opinion hurt her more than helped. Second person point of view is considered the least known and more difficult to use. It can almost considered a first person point of view telling the listener what they have done before. "How to Become a Writer" by Lorrie Moore, uses the idea of second person point of view. The speaker in a sense is telling the audience what they should do or giving advice on "How to Become a Writer". The narrator frequently uses "you" as a sense of saying, "you should do this". "Take all the babysitting jobs you can get. You are great with kids" (198). "Tell your roommate your great idea, your great excuse for imaginative power: a transformation of Melville to contemporary life" (150). Even though the narrator is giving advice and using you, they use their own experience in the story to get the point across as for example, when they describe their parents getting divorced or even loosing their virginity. It is still considered second point of view. "The Lottery" uses a third person point perspective creating suspense and drama. It was like as if we were there watching the whole lottery unfold in front of our eyes. It showed what the other characters are doing to prepare for the lottery. It was suspenseful because while reading it, I thought it was actually talking about winning money. The more the narrator was describing what was happening and the characters reactions, I realized it wasn't that at all. The story described the kids grabbing the smooth and rough stones before the lottery and the suspense of each family drawing from the black box. Each author creates its own point of view to suspense, drama, and tension in their stories.