Kate Chopin, The Awakening

This novel that was assigned to us, in my opinion, was one of the best I've ever read. The story was written in the early 1900's, which made the text a little hard to follow with the wording that was chosen, but once the reader was able to flow with the writing, the novel was intense and captivating.

The main character, edna, is caught between a rock and a hard place when during the course of the story, discoveres that her heart is not in the right place considering the situation she is in. She does some deep soul searching and exploring to find the place she really belongs, but to no evail finds that place. At the novels conclusion, she finds herself faced with a grave decision that she can not make, and takes her own life.

The author tells the story from a unique point ovf view as being not only the main character in first person view, but also omnipresent, writing in a third person view. At times during the story, you feel as if you are the main character, and at other points, you are everyone else and all knowing. The novels ending, however, was a bit of a shock. I believed that Edna would have made a decision rather than kill herself and leave everything behind. But the ends justified the means and the novel ended as such.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

This reading I found to be not as interesting as the first was. This story really did not grab your attention as the first and drug on and on relaying the same ideas over and over. I picked out two conflicts in the story. There was the man vs. woman conflict, and the doctor vs. patient conflict. Both were throughout the story, but I felt that the man vs. woman conflict was stronger. The woman in the story was always being told what to do; also what she could and could not do. I understand after our class discussion that the author wrote the story with the purpose of the disease being the main point, however when I read the story, this was not the case for me.

Douglass, Narrative of Life

In this first reading, Frederick Douglass depicts his life as a slave in the south before the abolition of slavery. This account is unique in the fact that black men and women at the time could neither read nor write, and for Douglass to account for his life in his own words makes the text that much more meaningful.

The power of an actual slaves words are far more powerful than any account in a history book or any story written by an outsider looking in. The detail in the narrative was not day by day, he told his story event by event. Every event he described had meaning to him, and therefore Douglass felt would have meaning for the reader also. The book I'm sure was contraversial back then from the accounts retold Douglass. I'm glad that his story was published so that generations to come will be able to read his words and truly understand what slavery was like and how wrong it really was.