Author: Evan

Why is mustache spelled wrong in the title?

The Moustache by Robert Cormier is about a young teen who wants to become more mature so he grows a mustache. He goes to visit his grandmother and on his way he envisions himself going really fast but decides against it as he thinks that wouldn’t be mature. His grandmother was very happy to see him since she thinks that he is her husband as he also had a mustache. The grandmother was hallucinating which helped her think that Mike was her husband also named Mike. After he visits her he realizes that he didn’t want to be mature, but the ironic thing is, is that in realizing that he didn’t want to become more mature he became more mature.

In the beginning Mike wanted to grow up and stop being a teenager. He wanted to become mature as soon as possible. In example he wanted to go really fast in the car but doesn’t as he thinks that mature people would do that. He visits his grandmother who is hallucinating and he he plays along with it for a bit before trying to tell her who he is and eventually just leaving. He leaves the building realizing that he didn’t want to grow up.

During the car ride home he goes really fast as he wanted to do in the beginning of the story. He also played loud rock music to listen to something. Mike in realizing that he shouldn’t want to grow up and he wanted to stay a teenager, ironically he actually became more mature. In a kind of last ditch attempt I guess to try to stay a teen he shaves his mustache which made him look and feel a bit more mature.

In conclusion after going to visit his hallucinating grandmother he decided to shave his mustache and try to stay a kid a bit longer. The mustache showed that he wanted to grow up and become mature much faster than he should’ve and once he shaves it off the story shows that he realizes this fact of wanting to stay young a bit longer. But sadly, in the end, by realizing that he wants to stay a teen and shaving off his mustache he actually becomes more mature than he was before.

Uncle Willy by William Faulkner is about a young kid who runs away with a crazy old man that everyone calls Uncle Willy. Uncle Willy is a drug addicted eccentric man who is popular with the kids since they think he’s cool. The church tries to keep him off of drugs so he runs away with a kid and ends up dying in a plane crash. The young boy who runs away feels very betrayed by Uncle Willy’s assistant Job who calls their old town to come where they are and when Uncle Willy runs away he crashes the plane and dies.

Willy isn’t sad about the death of Uncle Willy, he feels betrayed by Job and how no one understands why he liked and looked up to Uncle Willy. He cries while they were going home not because Uncle Willy died but because someone in their group betrayed them and how now no one will understand why everyone looked up to him. He thought that he was a fun loving man whose ideals, which were doing whatever was fun, made it so that he didn’t fear death which made it seem like he couldn’t die.

Willy feels super betrayed by Job since he seemed very loyal working for Willy for such a long time. From Jobs perspective he was trying to save Uncle Willy’s life, Uncle Willy was in danger but in the kids eyes he didn’t care about death, he only cared about having fun. So the death part didn’t bother anyone except Job.

In conclusion all the kids look up to him since he is so carefree and looks looks he has a fun life when in reality his life is ruined and he doesn’t realize it yet. He does’t fear death and only cares about having fun in life which is proved when he runs away and does drugs.

In Ray Bradbury’s short story A Sound of Thunder is about an old hunter named Eckels who wants to go back in time to hunt a T-Rex. He is very cowardly until he learns about the gun he’s using where he becomes confident as he thinks he is in control. He becomes terrified once he realizes that he may die and is not in control. He also sees the precautions taken by the hunting company but doesn’t want to believe that something he does could endanger the entire human population. He doesn’t want to believe that they weren’t in complete control.

Eckles likes being in complete control, which is mostly why he hunts to seem like he can do anything and is in complete control. Once he sees the guns he becomes very confident in his abilities with such a powerful weapon. He thinks he is in complete control until he sees the power and size of the T-Rex. He wants to be in control so he hunts to feel superior and stronger than everything else.

Once he sees all of the precautions taken by the safari company he either doesn’t understand why they take such precautions or he doesn’t want to. He wants to believe that they are in complete control so he doesn’t think that if he messes up he could ruin civilization completely. He proceeds to mess up and stray off of the path in a panic. The safari leaders also don’t really take the butterfly effect seriously, they only care about money and the history of humanity is a kind of afterthought to them, they really don’t take this sort of thing seriously at all.

In conclusion The Sound of Thunder is a deep story which sort of reflects how humans want to show that they care about the environment but they don’t really care about it at all. Along with this the story talks about the consequences of time travel and how the smallest action could bite you in the butt with a gigantic effect. Overall the story was a deep story that reflected on many aspects of humanity.

Miss Awful by Arthur Cavenaugh is a about a young, playful, carefree boy named Roger and his third grade class. They have a substitute teacher who is insanely strict and makes everyone hate her and be annoyed by her since she gives so much homework. Roger dubs her Miss Awful and all of the students, including the parents don’t like her since she insults the kids so much. On her last day the kids become rebellious and want to take revenge and she loses hope and becomes miserable thinking that she failed to teach even one student, but Roger understanding this spells out a few words to show her that she didn’t waste her time with the class.

The teacher whose actual name is Miss Orville was evicted from her home and all of her plants except for one were taken away. So when her last plant was destroyed by the children she gave up and stopped caring until Roger showed that she hadn’t completely failed. Miss Orville installed a kind of tough love strict kind of style to help her students learn more since the other laidback teacher wasn’t teaching them much.

Roger changed over the course of the story from being a young, carefree playful, boy as well as being a bit dense. Roger at first hates her for being so strict but he is better for it he becomes smarter, more mature, and is better overall from his teacher. Roger in the end figures out that Miss Orville actually is being good for him and that since she is so strict he learns more than he ever has.

In conclusion Roger changes a lot throughout the story and becomes a better person overall. Roger becomes smarter more mature and becomes less playful and carefree. Miss Orville gives up until Roger understands what’s happening and cheers her up.

Hearts And Hands by O. Henry is a short story about a young, naive woman in the upper class who meets a two men handcuffed to each other on a train. She turns out knowing one of the young men and is worried for a moment that the man that she looks up to and respects. the other man ends up actually being the marshal and the other one turned out to be the criminal.

Miss Fairchild, the lady, is most likely in the upper class as with the fake Mr. Easton. Miss Fairchild doesn’t want to believe that the person she knows and respects is actually the criminal even though signs point to the fact that he is the criminal. Miss Fairchild and the rest of the upper class doesn’t like to think that other people with that kind money and prestige would do crime. That means that if other people of their class are willing to do a crime that means that they are also able to do this crime.

In conclusion people of the upper class don’t like to think that their own class could commit crime. Their judgement becomes clouded and they don’t want to believe that they are capable of committing crime.

The Lady, or the Tiger by Frank R. Stockton is about a tyrant’s daughter whose lover is put in an arena. In this arena the princess is forced to choose whether her lover gets mauled by a tiger or is married to another lady who she knows. We end up not knowing whether the princess has the lover choose the door with the tiger or the door with the woman.

Now the king is described as a semi-barbaric man in the story. He is described this way since he was somewhat influenced by the Romans who were actually considered polished and progressive. He in his arena was doing what he loved which was controlling peoples fates by chance, he was the judge. He controlled them as a tyrant and the audience found this ritual like thing entertaining but they most likely wouldn’t find it entertaining if they chose the tiger in this arena.

In the moment that the princess had to choose her lovers fate she effectively becomes the judge of the arena. In her choice she would either give in to her jealousy and barbaric side and give her lover the tiger. She could go into her love and compassion and give her lover to someone else.

In conclusion whatever she chooses she loses but it depends on whether she wants to live the rest of her life in guilt or live the rest of her life in envy. but whatever she chooses her lover will do whatever she wants him to do for he loves her and is enough of a fool to do anything.

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner is about an old woman who is stuck in in the pre civil war era since she was a noble before the war. Her father was very strict but when he died she went into denial showing that she was pretty emotionally attached to him. The next thing that happens in the story is when a young northerner that Emily tries to court. Emily fails to court him since it turns out that he likes guys. She then goes to the druggist to purchase a lot of arsenic, and we later realize that she murders Homer.

The town itself has a lot of problems since they hold Miss Emily in such high regard as a noble person she is able to avoid paying taxes, and is able to basically force the drug person to sell him arsenic. Along with this they allow her to do anything she wants along as it isn’t too bad. Miss Emily is able to intimidate anyone she wants to get anything she wants and she gets away with murder and no one expects it to be her that murdered him.

In conclusion the town is too pre civil war era. The town is too intimidated by Emily and allows her to intimidate everyone and into giving in to her commands such as tax evasion. Along with this she feels that she is superior to everyone else since she was a noble lady in the pre civil war era.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is about a daydreaming married man who is subservient to his wife. Walter Mitty daydreams about himself in 5 different stories. In each daydream he dreams about a man who is supposed to be himself except for the fact that these people were brave, fearless, and confident.

In the first daydream he thinks that he is a captain of a ship and is leading him away from a dangerous storm. In this story the captain is a cold, distant, courageous person. He doesn’t even refer to this daydream character as himself, he refers to him as the captain. He is awoken from this daydream by his wife who tells him to drive slower and he complies without question. This is the first instance that we are shown that he is very compliant and quite timid.

The second daydream that I will be talking about is his last daydream where he is faced with death by a firing squad. He wants to see his death coming meaning that he doesn’t fear death even at the face of deaths door. In this daydream his character does not fear death and is most likely brave. Before this he is awoken from this by his wife who was looking for him for a while but this time he kind of talks back to her saying  “Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?” She looked at him. “I’m going to take your temperature when I get you home,” she said.” Her response is talking about how she thinks that he is sick and that how she doesn’t think he has the audacity to talk back to her.

In conclusion The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a deep story about Walter Mitty’s hopes and dreams that he doesn’t want to actually do. Walter Mitty’s stories reflect on what he actually does in real life to some extent. And finally he resigns to his fate as being subservient to his wife with his daydream about the firing squad.

How should we view human life. Is it considered priceless, does it depend on how old you are, or can it have a price on it. When Ireland was in an economic depression Jonathan Swift decided to propose that people should sell their children for food since everyone was hungry. He made it seem as if he viewed human life as livestock. He compares the remaining children (those who weren’t eaten) to livestock.

He says that they should sell an infant carcass for 10 shillings which is technically 8 more shillings than the cost of the infant. He even goes as far as to suggest “the carcass; the skin of which, artificially dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen.” meaning that he wanted to sell children skin for clothes.

Now the last part of it was cannibalism. This was the last part that was morally wrong. Cannibalism is weird because we are told it is weird. If you really think about it we eat meat which used to be alive and if you weren’t told it was human meat you may not have minded.

In conclusion this proposal of Jonathan’s was a quite twisted idea in that he was willing to sell children for food. Now his idea wasn’t all that bad since it would give money to the poor and give food to the rich. his idea may have been fine but the execution and cannibalism made it very dark.

Everyday use by Alice Walker is about a young woman who goes back to her childhood home before she went to college. She and her mother have an argument about heritage and some quilts that the daughters grandmother made.

The young woman, called Dee during her childhood, changes her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo which has parts from different native american cultures. After going to school she loses her touch with her family after becoming successful. Instead of wanting to use the quilts as blankets she wants to use them as decoration which shows that instead of wanting to be a part of her culture she wants to show that she cares about her culture while not caring about it in actuality.

Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo’s mother and younger sister are more in tune with their heritage. I don’t think that they understood that Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo wanted to preserve the quilts while the other two were planning to use it everyday.

In conclusion I think that the author is trying to say that school can make you lose touch with your family and heritage. After Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo went to school she rose above the economic class of her home and loses touch with her roots.