“The Joy of Cooking” by Elaine Magarrell

“The Joy of Cooking,” a poem by Elaine Magarrell, metaphorically represents the speaker’s sister and brother through the use of a tongue and a heart. However, it is through these metaphors that the speaker characterizes her siblings. When one thinks of the tongue, their thoughts oftentimes are directed towards speech and what a person says. In the poem, the speaker describes herself as “scrubbing, skinning, and trimming” her sisters tongue. These actions relate to preparation of something, and in this case, a meal. Because of the use of the tongue to describe her sister, it shows that the girl might have an attitude or arrogance to her personality that the speaker is determined to get rid of. Therefore, the speaker would be scrubbing, skinning, and trimming away her sister’s insolence and attitude. The characterization of the speaker’s brother through the use of a heart also tells a great deal about his person. The heart is described as “firm and rather dry,” (Magarrell), which symbolizes that the speaker’s brother does not show much love and is lacking in care for others. Moreover, the fact that the speaker suggests stuffing the brother’s heart to make it interesting shows that the brother needs more in his heart, whether it is love or care for others. He is portrayed to be rather empty through the speaker’s description, and her cooking recipes suggest ways to make him more interesting.

“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden

After reading the poem, “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, I realized a difference in the point in time of what is actually occurring in the poem to when the speaker views the subject matter of the poem. The actions in the poem were occurring when the speaker was a younger child, living with his father. Yet, there is a change in time to when the speaker views the past events of the poem. He is portrayed to be a grown man at that point, with realizations of his father that he had never had or even considered as a child. It was only through the passing of time and the maturing of the speaker that he realized how much his father actually did for him when he was a boy, and how ungrateful to his father he had seemed. The poem describes how the father did things as little as waking the speaker up or shining his shoes, to providing for him and keeping him warm. However, as a child, the speaker never understood that these actions of his father were signs of great love and care for his family. One line in the poem, “No one ever thanked him,” (Hayden, 781), portrays how the speaker in the poem took his father for granted. He never gave him any recognition for his selfless acts of love, even though the father did deserve them. Yet, now as an adult, the speaker has realized what his father actually did for him as a child and that he did not ever give him the thanks he deserved in return.

“The Drunkard” by Frank O’Conner

“The Drunkard,” a short story by Frank O’Connor, a young boy becomes drunk after drinking his father’s alcohol at a bar. After this occurs, the boy’s drunkenness is seen from four different perspectives, each with a different view of the situation. First of all, the boy tells of his own experience, how mother. First of all, the people to originally see the boy’s drunkenness are the men at the bar where the father and his son are. They show much disapproval in regard to the situation, and some men even went as far as to say, “Isn’t it the likes of them would be fathers?” (O’Connor, 348). They are appalled that a father could let that happen to his child, and they question his responsibility. Secondly, the boy’s father has a certain perspective of the events of the story. He is personally incredibly embarrassed that he was so careless that he did not notice his child taking his drink, and he fears a negative view of his person from his neighbors and wife, like those at the bar showed. While taking the boy home, the father even constantly tries to quiet him in order to avoid the stares and attention of the neighbors. These neighbors are actually the third perspective. However, unlike the bar customers and contrary to the father’s fears, they seem to find the boy’s state rather entertaining. He is attempting to act like an adult, and the women think it is hilarious and are laughing at him. However, probably the strangest perspective is that of the boy’s mother. She pretends to be very upset with the father for being so irresponsible, yet, once he has left, she thanks the boy for drinking the alcohol because it prevented the family from a long struggle with the father’s drunkenness. In the past, the father would be fine if he did not drink, but after he did, he could not stop. The boy’s consumption of the alcohol prevented the father from reverting back to his drunken ways.

“Once Upon a Time” by Nadine Gordimer

The short story, “Once Upon a Time,” by Nadine Gordimer takes a rather unconventional twist on the characteristics and aspects of children’s fairytale stories. While reading the story, it seems as though the author is writing a strange, society-focused story. In the story, the members of a suburb have had some burglaries, so they begin to add more and more security measures out of the fear that they will be next. However, many aspects of children’s fairytales break through. The story mentions an old witch, who is actually the husband in the story’s mother. Just as in classic fairytales, she is portrayed to be wise and even a little ominous in her warning to “not take anyone off the street,” (Gordimer, 232) as they might cause a burglary. Furthermore, later on in the story, the witch gives her grandson a fairytale book, which in effect results in the conflict of the story. The story ends with the death of the grandson, after he tries to reenact the daring rescue of a princess that he read about in his fairytale book. His desire for adventure and bravery contradicts his parent’s fear of a home attack, and in the end it is their fear that kills him. The parents wrap their house in barbed wire called “Dragon’s Teeth,” another allusion to fairytales, yet in the end, it is the dragon that slays the little boy when he gets caught in the wire and torn up. Although the story does not seem like a fairytale at first, Gordimer incorporates aspects of fairytales in order to get her point across.

“A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty

After reading Eudora Welty’s short story, “A Worn Path,” a question became apparent. This question was whether the grandson of the main character and focus of the story, Phoenix Jackson, was actually alive, or whether he had died a few years ago. Personally, I believe that Phoenix’s grandson had died a few years ago. First of all, during the story, Phoenix does have a hallucination of a boy giving her some cake. This proves that she does have some tendencies to imagine things, and the loss of her grandson could have sparked the illusion of a boy. Furthermore, in the story it mentions that the boy had been in the same condition for two to three years at this point. Phoenix’s grandson had swallowed some lye, an acidic substance, and it is much more likely that he would have either gotten better or died after such a long period of time. Also, the fact that Phoenix claims, “My little grandson, he is just the same,” (Welty, 229) may represent that she still sees him the way he was before he died, unchanged after two years. Moreover, when a nurse asks Phoenix how her grandson is, she is unresponsive for a few minutes. In my opinion, this lack of recognition or comprehension supports that her grandson is gone and that he is now only a figment of her imagination.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry: Ruth vs. Beneatha

In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, there are many characters who greatly contrast with each other. However, two characters that especially differ from each other are Ruth Younger and her sister-in-law, Beneatha Younger. While Ruth usually keeps her feeling to herself and reacts calmly to situations, Beneatha has the tendency to lash out or attack when she is angry or upset. When Walter Younger loses all of the family’s money, Beneatha exclaims in response to this turn in events, “Oh, God! Where is the bottom! Where is the real honest-to-God bottom so he can’t go any farther!” (Hansberry, 142). However, during the same scene, Ruth expresses her disappointment and sadness for her husband through her silence and facial expressions, as the stage directions state, “Ruth stands stiffly and quietly in the back of them, as though somehow she senses death,” (Hansberry, 126). Furthermore, Beneatha is very determined that she will have a career and not end up a house wife like Ruth. Beneatha wishes to be a doctor, and is doing everything she can to make that dream come true for herself. However, Ruth is content with her position as a house wife and a housekeeper for other families and does not crave a job like Beneatha’s. Because of these differences, Ruth and Beneatha prove to be contrasting characters.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry: Mama's Plant

After reading the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, one symbol stood out to me. This was the plant belonging to Mama, a character in the play and the head of the Younger family. The plant is described as the only greenery or vegetation that the family could keep in their home because they had neither space nor a garden. The plant was confined to its pot, just as the Younger family was confined and trapped within their tiny apartment. This sense of restriction, caused by the apartment, also restricted the characters in their actions and success. Walter Lee Younger, Mama’s son, wanted nothing more than make a name for himself in the world and prove himself to his family, yet his inability to do this trapped him within the apartment, which prevented him from seeing a way out. His desperation led him to make a business deal that resulted in the loss of all the money that the family had, as Walter states, “All of it…It’s all gone,” (Hansberry, 129). This loss almost prevented the family from escaping from the entrapments of the apartment. Furthermore, Ruth, Walter’s wife, became pregnant during the play, but she began to consider an abortion just because she did not want her child to have to survive in a cramped and dilapidated apartment. Ruth was described as a woman who would never ever consider an abortion, which makes the emphasis of her decision and desperation even greater.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry: The Allusion

In the poem “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes, Hughes writes in response to the question, “What happens to a dream deferred,” a line in his poem, “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” (Hughes). The title of the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is actually an allusion to this poem by Hughes. The plotline of the play mainly consists of the hopes and dreams of the characters in the story. Yet, these dreams primarily go unfulfilled, or “dry up” as the excerpt from the poem suggests. One character, Walter Lee Younger, desperately wishes to invest in a liquor store because he believes it will bring him the money he wants and feels his family deserves. However, Walter’s dream dries up when he loses all of his investment money to a scam artist. Beneatha, another character and Walter’s sister, has had the dream of becoming a doctor ever since she was a child. Because of her desire to succeed in this goal, she works hard in school and has the support of her family. But, as her family goes into turmoil and disagreement, her raisin also begins to dry up as she loses her will to become a doctor. Beneatha states that medicine was “the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do,” (Hansberry, 133), and she wanted to be a part of fixing others. However, it turned out and became apparent to Beneatha that lost dreams were oftentimes more detrimental to a person than an injury, and she could not fix lost dreams. The dried up dreams of the characters relate back to Hughes’ suggested raisin, withered by the sun.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry: the Activist, the Bystander, and the Confused

 Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, has many compelling and complex characters that add to the plotline of the story. However, three of these characters can be classified into one of these groups: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened. A character who makes things happen in this story is Mama, the strong-willed leader of the family. Mama is determined throughout the entire plot to make life just a little better for her family and to make their dreams come true, which she believes she can accomplish by buying a new, bigger house. As Mama receives ten thousand dollars after the death of her husband, she chose to buy the family a house while also providing some money to her daughter for her medical education and some money to her son for businesses investments. Mama just wants to see her family happy and successful, and she makes a point of ensuring that that is exactly what happens. Consequently, a character who watches things happen is Travis, Mama’s grandson. Although Travis is a minor character, he is there to watch the chaos of his family unfold. Because of all of the arguments, distress, and sadness the other members of the family cause each other, Travis is often forgotten about and sent away to prevent him from getting in the way. However, as a young boy who reveres and cares for every person in his family, he respects them and stays out of their way. The character that wonders what happened is Ruth, Mama’s daughter-in-law and Travis’ mother. Ruth married Mama’s son Walter in hopes of having a wonderful life together, yet things took a turn for the worst and they are living in a state of anger and despair. Ruth states to Walter, “I don’t know where we lost it…but we have,” (Hansberry, 87). This expresses Ruth’s confusion as to what happened with her family. They do not get along anymore and disagree with each other, and it affects the family’s ability to function. These three characters represent the activist, the bystander, and the confused.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry: Character Changes

After reading the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, I noticed a dramatic change take place in one of the characters, Walter Lee Younger, as the story progressed. He begins the story as an angry, hopeless man, declining into depression, yet by the end of the play, Walter proves his worth to his family with his final actions. When the play commenced, Walter was depicted as a rather antagonistic character. His interactions with his wife Ruth were tense and oftentimes involved argument and anger, especially regarding money and the Younger Family’s financial situation as they were very poor. In response to a question as to why he cares so much about money, Walter responds, “Because it is life, Mama!” (Hansberry, 74). That mindset was the reason behind Walter’s initial downfall. Because he focused so much on money rather than actually caring for his family, he hurt his relationship with his mother and sister, his wife, and his son, and lost their support. Furthermore, after Walter truly does lose everything, he breaks down even further, and so do his relationships. Because he wasted his sister’s education money on a business deal gone south, she absolutely detests him, stating “He’s no brother of mine,” (Hansberry, 145). When Walter describes how he is going to grovel in front of a man who is trying to prevent the family from moving into an exclusively white neighborhood in order to get money, he crosses the line with his mother and loses her support too. Yet, his family’s complete lack of faith and loss of hope for him wakes up Walter and brings his true pride as a man to the surface, repairing his relationships. He finally realizes that true wealth and happiness come from one’s family, not from money, and he states to the neighborhood committee man that since his father spent his life earning the new house for their family, they are going to use it, regardless of what their neighbors would prefer. When Mama and Ruth agree that Walter “finally came into his manhood,” (Hansberry, 151), it shows that he has finally changed for the better and proven himself to his family.