Kate Chopin: "The Story of an Hour"

           "The Story of an Hour" is a story about a woman who found out that her husband has just died. Her immediate reaction was to cry and grieve over the loss of her husband; and she did this while her friend supported her. However, as time went on, she started to think more about what it meant that her husband was gone and she had a 'light bulb moment'. She yells "free, free, free!" because she realizes that she no longer has to succumb to her husband, instead she can live for herself. He was at peace with her husbands death and very relaxed knowing what her life would now look like. Unfortunately, her husband was not killed in an accident and Mrs. Mallard dies "of the joy that kills her". This short story shows how the women during this time period were being oppressed by their husbands.
          "The Story of an Hour" and "The Yellow Wallpaper" both relate in that wives become unhappy and depressed with their lives because all they can do is listen to society, and obey their husbands orders. Women stayed at home all day and became very depressed even though they had a lot. This is what happened in "The Yellow Wallpaper", the husband thought that his wife was acting very strange and needed help, while the doctor side of him saw nothing seriously wrong with her, she was simply depressed and going crazy from it. Furthermore, I am glad that marriage do not currently strictly operate with the ruling husband and obedient depressed wife.

Question: When did marriage start to change (become less strict).

William Dean Howells: "Critcism and Fiction"

           In William Dean Howell's "Criticism and Fiction", he argues his opinion of good literature. Howells idea of good literature is the honest truth. Simple truthful literature is without sugar coating and without being mystified. He says that authors are conforming to fame, and 'whats hot' instead of being original ."If the truth could become a fad it would be accepted by all their 'smart people', but truth is something rather too large for that; and we must await the gradual advance of civilization among them." He also says that authors are being taught to think that what they think is good instead of first finding the good and thinking it. However, he does commend Jane Austen because she was forthright, honest, and  created "material with entire truthfulness." Furthermore, Howells claims that literature needs to convey the simple truth instead of a distorted truth that looks pleasing to the eye.
          This connects to Annie Dillard and her essay "Total Eclipse", Berger, and Freire. These all explain or show examples of mystification. Mystification is someone telling you what to see. Howell explains that if you are writing while being mystified, then this is bad literature. Meaning that if you write something that someone else already told you is the truth, it is bad literature. Instead you should write your own thoughts and speak the simple straight forward truth.

Question: Hasn't everyone been 'mystified', making everything bad literature?

Jonathan Franzen: "Liking is for Cowards. Go for what Hurts"

         Jonathan Franzen starts off his essay by talking about his relationship with his phone. Franzen was very impressed in how far technology had advanced in three years when he got his new phone. He says that a phone and a person have a very unique relationship in that the beloved phone asks for nothing, and gives everything making us feel more powerful. The goal of technology is to "replace a natural world that is indifferent to our wished- a world of hurricanes and hardships and breakable hearts, a world of resistance- with a world so responsive to our wished as to be effectively, a mere extension of the self". He goes on then to talk about how "technology is troubled by real love and it has no choice but to trouble love in return".  Our lives through technology are filtered because we often seem different than who we truly are on the internet. He challenges one to expose your whole self not just the things people would "like" on Facebook, and if these things are rejected, it will be painful. Furthermore his goal in this essay is to contrast real love and narcissistic tendencies of technology.
          This essay relates to the "Is Google Making us Stupid" essay. Franzen talks about the artificial love in technology, and the artificial "liking" on Facebook, while Carr talks about technology building an artificial intelligence. Staying in your room simply gloating around on technology all day is a completely different thing than living life in the real world. On the internet you could fall in artificial love with things that will treat you with everything instantly and in the real world you could fall in actual love with things, and who knows what could happen to you there.

Question: Does he think this is a bad thing?