thesis for "A Death In the Desert"

Though Everett Hilgarde is not unlike his brother Adriance, he is still an individual.

THesis Statement

Because Janie longs to feel normal, she is drawn to Tea Cake.

Scene Response 12/6/07

The final moments of Jody's life:

On the last few pages of Chapter Eight are the final moments of Joe's life. After Janie embarrasses him in front of his friends and a few other townspeople, Joe decides to sleep downstairs in their house. He stops eating her cooking. Soon he becomes very sick. At the end of the chapter, Janie visits Joe as he is lying sick in bed. He is not privy to the fact that he may die, but Janie brings the news. He is going to die. He is shocke. Janie confronts him about how he has supressed her in the past in their relationship. He never let her be herself and seemed not to really love her. Janie also attempts to appologize for the way she embarrassed Joe. He cannot take Janies constant reminders of how he was a bad husband, seeing as though he cared for his reputation immensely. Finally, he passes. Janie lays his hands across his chest peacefully, changing them from their outstreched, decrepit form. Janie, too, can finally be at peace. She seems liberated by Joe's passing. Though she misses him, she does not grieve as long as the others do and she is back to her old self once again.

Reading Response: 12/3/07

Scene from chapters 3-6:

"The sow-belly in the pan needed turning. She flipped it over and shoved it back. A little cold water in the coffee pot to settle it. Turned the hoecake with a plate and then made a little laugh. What was she losing so much time for? A feeling of sudden newness and change came over her. Janie hurried out of the front gate and turned south. Even if Joe was not there waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good." (Their Eyes Were Watching God, p. 32)

In Chapter 4, Janie leaves Logan Killicks. Her grandmother tries to explain true love to her, but Janie does not find Logan to be a suitable husband. They are wed anyway in an arranged marriage. Logan is big and offers Janie security, but he makes her do physical labor in the fields as well as cook for him. Over time, she finds him uglier. In town, Janie spies out Joe Starks, who is ambitious, good looking, and dapper. She is wooed by him, at the very least impressed, and he arranges to meet her outside of Logan's house one night to sweep her off on his way to Florida to carry through with his plan to start a new town. In the scene above, she is cooking and cleaning, when Logan has gone to town, but then she realizes that she has had enough and chooses to leave. Whether or not Joe Starks is there, she will start a new life for herself.

Their Eyes Were Watching God Reading Response 1

"Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly." (page 1).

I think this quote is referring to the habits of women. They are being compared to men. It would seem that the narrator is conveying that men are not "go-getters," or have no ambition. By "women forget all those things they don't want to remember," I believe the narrator is thinking women can "sift through" the unimportant details of life and their goals are in view and they can accomplish tasks. I think a conflict in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" may have to do with men and women.

Quotation Repsonse 10/30

Read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn pp. 197-214, then to 232

Mark Twain: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" p. 203

1. "After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars."

Huck is discouraged here. The journey that he and Jim just made seems for naught now. Jim was captured by an old stranger, in exchange for forty dollars. Huck is detestful of the "scoundrels" who would give away the fact that Jim is a slave. He seems to feel badly for Jim who is about to be returned to his life of servitude. Huck will most likely get him out of his predicament, though. He is proficient in coming up with plans and is sure to find a solution to this problem.

Mark Twain: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" p. 211

2. "-'Good gracious! anybody hurt?' 'No'm. Killed a nigger.' 'Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.'"

This is a conversation between Huck and a white woman that lives in the plantation that Jim had been sold to. Huck is thought to be the woman's nephew who had taken a ferry to the plantation and was a few days late. Huck, obviously not being the woman's kin, had to make up a story of why he was late. He fibbed that the ferry had blown a cylinder-head. You can tell, by this passage, that whites in the South didn't regard blacks as actual people, more so like property (even as Huck had done earlier on in the book when he found out that Jim had been sold). It struck me as strange that this would be so blatantly obvous, though.

Quote Response 10/25

Mark Twain: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" p. 73

1. "We shot a water-fowl now and then that got up too early in the morning or didn't go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all round, we lived pretty high."

It seems here that Huck and Jim seem fairly happy in the situation that they are in. Though they are both on the lamb and cannot even go out during the day without a disguise (like Huck dressing up as a girl), they can often enjoy the little things in life like a good supper of water-fowl or catfish. It even seems ironic that they are so chipper in the condition that they are in (hiding from everyone).

Mark Twain: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" p. 83

2. "'I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't hearn 'bout none un um, skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a pack er k'yards.'"

Jim says this after Huck reads to him about "kings and dukes and earls and such." I found it interesting that he hadn't heard of other kings other than King Solomon. Solomon was known for making wise decisions, one of which was deciding which woman was the mother of a child, of whom both claimed was theirs. Jim seems to make some wise decisions so it seems that he and Solomon are alike in that aspect. It would seem likely, though, since he is an uneducated black man, that he would know more kings in a pack of cards than there actually are in the world.