Toni Cade Bambara "The Lesson"

In “The Lesson” a group of young African American children that are involved with a women from the neighbor hood that wants to take them on a trip to learn arithmetic. The crew is rowdy and ill behaved, they don’t want this trip but would much rather be in a pool on that hot summer day. Miss Moore gives the kids $5 and tells them to get in a cab and tip 10%. The fare comes out to .85 cents and the children don’t tip him. Once at the destination “FAO Schwartz”, the children window-shop and are amazed to find that prices can exist that are so high for toys. This alternate universe that they have never experiences opens an eyes to their real position in the world. The rowdy children that seem to have no apprehension about any behavior are hesitant to walk into the store. Once inside they find that the cost of some toys rival that of a some of their parents yearly salaries. The only child that seems unaffected is Mercedes, ironically named so; she seems to come from a better off family then the rest of the group. Sylvia the protagonist of the story is changed the most. At the end she realizes that life is a competition and that she was going to have to be better then others to succeed. 

John Updike "A & P"

The protagonist, a young boy who works as a cashier in the A & P, is brought to witness an event that bring the store to life. In the middle of a boring day, in boring Middle America, three young girls enter the supermarket dressed in only bathing suits. Never has anyone seen this occurrence, and the store is entranced by their appearance. Weather the young girls know the attention they are causing or not, the entire store awaits to see what isle they will come out from making it to be like “a pinball machine”. The girls walk barefoot through the store, and eventually find the item they are looking for. Once they come to the young boys register, the manager notices that the young girls are no dressed appropriately for his environment. He comes over and gives the girls a hard time. They seem unaware of the inappropriateness of the situation. As this story was written in the 60’s this event was probably the 1^st in a lifetime to witness of the scantily glad girls. The difference in the authority’s attitude and that of the girls and the young boy is that of not only a generation gap but also a revolution gap. The boy furious at the manager’s treatment of his young idols quits his job to support the unfair treatment of the girls. However once he is outside the store, the realization sets in that the world is going to be a hard place from thereon. 

Alice Walker "Everyday Use"

The small African American family of a mother and two girls evolves thought time. The two sisters are as different as could be, one who is a wallflower, with scars from a house fire many years back, while the other seems to be aggressive, over confident, and conceited. The mother is on the heavier side. The mother reminisces over Dee’s longing for the finer things in live, and her desire to dress more stylish, perhaps more “white”. After her graduation she moves and on this particular return home, her attitude is complete altered. She comes home changing her name to Wangero, insisting that Dee is a slave name. She is all about her heritage, and the importance of all the handmade items at the house. After dinner she starts summoning various items from the house, the mother is ok with it until she asks for a particular set of quilts that she promised to give Maggie the other sister. Wangero wont be putting them to everyday use but hanging them. Maggie has no problem complying for she believes that sacrifice is godly, only then does the mother snap, and tell Wangero, the daughter who never hears ‘NO’ that she in fact cannot have these particular quilts. Perhaps the mother felt that like the “white” people around her, Dee was used to getting everything she wanted, and that now when she had priorly rejected her heritage, and refused the quilts, now she decided she wanted them, and maybe that reminded the mother of a similarity to a “white” person in her eyes. 

Eudora Welty "A Worn Path"

A Worn Path, is a story about an old women that goes on a journey by feet to the hospital where she can get medicine for her sick grandson. She is described as worn through life, with her deep wrinkles, and ragged clothes, it is as if her entire life she has had hardships such as these. In the woods she goes through various obstacles, and even falls on her back. A man helps her up, and against her own judgement she steals a dime that falls out of his pocked and comments "god watching me the whole time". She knows what she did was wrong, but her poverty, the gap between her means and her goals drives her to it. She finally makes it to the place where she can get the medicine, and exhausted, and worn she forgets the reason for her trip all together for a second. She snaps back to reality and is given the medicine as "charity", and also a present of a nickle which she wants to use to buy her grandson a toy. Is is obvious that is it only the two of them in her family, and that she is the sole provider for this child. This woman despite her age will go through any hurdle to help the one she loves. This story is a true expression of family, and the will, and power that love gives you to accomplish anything.

Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find"

This story is a tale about a family that is embarking on a vacation. The Grandmother, the central character of the story, from the beginning tries to covers things into going her way by antagonizing over "good". She wants to go to Tennessee not Florida, the vacation destination, so she tells the family that "The Misfit" an escaped criminal is herd to be around that way. The family doesn't budge and so they continue on their Journey. The mother who seems complacent, and indifferent is accompanied by two rowdy, rude, selfish kids, and an almost silent husband. The grandmother is depicted as trying to exude an image of good lady-like behavior by her wardrobe, and other exterior choices, when her behavior is ironically self involved. They stop to eat and return to their journey. The grandmother tells a tale of a plantation she once visited, and decides she must see it again so she makes up a story to appeal to the kids and they make a fuss until the father agrees to stop. On the way to the house, the cat that the grandmother secretly brought gets out and in turn causes the father to crash the car. A car stops and 3 men come to their rescue, but after the grandmother recognizes and calls out one of the men who is actually the misfit it leads to their demise.

Franz Kafka "A Hunger Artist"

In this short story, Franz Kafka tells the tale of an artist who finds that his art is fasting. I have read other Kafka's works before, and find that they are all rooted in depicting an emptiness in the story that he can never fill. For example in this story it was his stomach. This artist is actually a part of a circus, and his public who cheers him on is also his main source of confliction, for he thinks that they are the ones holding him back from achieving his greatness. He claims that fasting for 40 days is no feat at all, and that people are foolish for praising him for it. As time goes on and his popularity dies, he is left in his cage not as the main attraction but the opening to the animals in their cages. He is left unnoticed, and without the crowds attention fasts for many many days past his previous success's. He strave's himself to death, and claims it was because he never found it hard not to eat because he did not favor any taste of any food. I think that Kafka was a very lost soul.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown"

This story is about a man's journey, Goodman Brown. His name to begin with, is so symbolic, considering it literally says he is a good man, and this story is about the conflict of good and evil. He leaves his newlywed wife to go into the woods to meet with a man of darkness. This is also set in Salem, which is ironic that we read this story a day before Halloween. In the woods he encounters many of his towns people who are seen to be perfect examples of outstanding citizens, Bishops, and pure holy people, all in the woods summoning this man of darkness in some ceremonial inauguration of sin. He realizes that it is a dream, but leaves the woods forever changed. He didn't even have the capacity before to imagine that people who were good could possibly have hidden evil in them. It then depicts his life of weariness and negativity toward everyone.