I Wrote Some Stuff... I Created Some Stuff

Psychoanalysis of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Based on the readings for this module, identify the key components of one of the major theoretical schools to be studied in this class (psychoanalytic, feminist, Marxist, deconstructionist). On what kinds of questions or concerns is this theoretical approach built? How might this theory be used in an analysis of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”? Discuss specific characters, scenes, or imagery in the story and how it can be approached through your chosen theoretical lens.

Respond to at least two of your classmates. Select posts that take a theoretical approach different from your own and discuss the differences in perspective. What are the benefits of the other theoretical perspective? What are the disadvantages?

I have chosen psychoanalysis as my lens to look through Shirley Jacksons The Lottery. Key components of literary psychoanalytic are symbolism, condensation, and displacement. Freud used these components to break down the human conscious and subconscious. When we think thoughts that lend themselves to decisions we are making these decisions in one of two ways, either consciously or unconsciously through our subconscious which usually manifest within our dreams. Consciously we make decisions based on information we are presented with while in an alert and awake state. Unconsciously we are presented with symbolic images that can manifest from condensed sensory experiences and/or displaced emotions that we attach to people, places, and/or things. This theoretical approach to analyzing literature is built on exploring the conscious and subconscious mind of the author to de-fragment who, what, when, where, why, and how the piece of literature was written. Freud's theory believed that authors wrote not only of what they intended to write but also from that with which they did not intend to write. In psychoanalytical thinking is it not so much about solely diving into the part of the author's personality that makes up each character but also asking the reverse of why the character wasn't something/someone else? In other words, it's asking why and then also asking why not. In the story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson one could psychoanalyze why Tessie Hutchinson was picked but also why Mrs. Graves, Mrs. Delacroix, or Mrs. Dunbar weren't picked. It could be analyzed why Tessie Hutchinson, a woman, was picked but also why Mr. Hutchinson wasn't picked or any of the other men in the village. It would be further analyzed why Tessie Hutchinson was the one who showed up late, then if that had any bearing on why she got picked, while also asking had she came on time would she still have been the one to have been picked, or what if she had never shown at all, would she still have been picked. This story has many avenues that can be addressed through the lens of psychoanalysis because the intention was made clear why this act was being done and it was due to tradition which opens a Pandora's box of questions as to the basis of traditions, especially ones that serve no functional purpose (just as one example).

Analyzing John Dos Passos

John Dos Passos seemed to take the average man and make him something more and then take the man of something more and bring him down to average simply by letting what the press does best, twist words, and then letting the “camera eye” reveal the rest. Take Big Bill Haywood, he was an average man, a man who was not big on feeling like a slave to his employer. That’s why when his first employer, “the farmer”, “lashed him with a whip” Big Bill responded by doing “his first strike” (Bradley, Beatty, Long, 1585). After that he would go on to numerous other jobs, more than 11 not counting his impromptu job of a delivery doctor to the birth of his own child. Then, this average man, full of steam and life, became an “organizer, a speaker, an exhorter, the wants of all the miners were his wants” (Bradley, Beatty, Long, 1586) now and that rose him to “the wants of all the workers…, he was the spokesman of the West, of the cowboys and the lumberjacks and the harvest hands and the miners.” (Bradley, Beatty, Long, 1587) Now this average man had power, with power comes responsibility as well as fringe benefits and expensive perks; perks that sway the responsibility and skew the fine line between right and wrong, leaving Big Bill Haywood to stand trial for the overextension of his power. This then led to jail time and being exiled to Russia where “[h]e died there and they burned his big broken hulk of a body and buried the ashes under the Kremlin wall.” (Bradley, Beatty, Long, 1588).

Big Bill Haywood wasn’t the only person Dos Passos built up to strip down, or present striped to build up, he did this with many people in the public eye for his U.S.A. Trilogy. He also presented those not in the “newsreel” or “camera eye” he gave a voice to the working man that was never going to amount to anything more than another working man. Dos Passos allowed them to voice their thoughts knowing they had at least him as their audience. So when they said things such as, “it ain’t your fault and it ain’t my fault… it’s poverty, and poverty’s the fault of the system.”, (Passos, 14) they didn’t have to feel uneducated, instead, they could feel empowered by the listening ear. He gave a listening ear that allowed them to continue on with their wobbly thought out strung together thoughts that contained blame and fault instead of hope for change. Thoughts that sounded like this, “It’s the fault of the system that don’t give a man the fruit of his labor… The only man who gets anything out of capitalism is a crook, an’ he gets to be a millionaire in short order…But an honest workin’ man like John or myself we can work a hundred years and not leave enough to bury us decent with.”(Passos, 14-15) Seems like Dos Passos character Tim O’Hara was “tellin’ the truth” (Passos, 15) right? I mean Big Bill Haywood did get to have “champagne cocktails at the Ritz and sleep with Russian countesses in Montmarte” (Bradley, Beatty, Long, 1587) before he died in Russia and it did seem like he did have enough money left over to be burned and buried in a remote foreign land under a landmark too non-the-less. What more could the elite want? It’s a shame Tim only felt “like whipped cur.” (Passos, 15) but still felt the ability to fault poverty itself. It seems, that if he didn’t feel so whipped, he might have been able to take a walk in another man's shoes, however, I believe that was Dos Passos's main point behind his modern style.

Dos Passos figured out a way to bring the headlines, “newsreels” together, full front, then describe further out through his “camera eye” what those headlines were eluding to, talking about, lending a voice to, damning, criticizing, personifying, glamorizing, and/or glossing over. Then in an "icing the cake" fashion he added in the narrative voices of common folk so that literary’s could pour over its ingenuity of art, school-age children could learn the history and those oblivious to the comings and goings of anything outside their 8x8 comfort zoned box could be introduced to the world should they have the attention span to finish this brilliant piece.

Works Cited:

Passos, John Dos. “The 42nd Parallel .”U.S.A, Random House, 1985, pp. 14– 15. The Modern Library.
Bradley, Sculley, et al. “Fiction as Social History.”The American Tradition in Literature, 3rd ed., vol. 2, Grosset & Dunlap, 1956, pp. 1585–1588.

A Lit Comparison of William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" and Jean Toomer's "Cane"

Inside of William Faulkners’s “As I Lay Dying” resides racism of a societal economic stance while Jean Toomer’s “Cane” is home to a racism built up of skin pigmentation. Both derive from fear-based ignorance though one captivates its readers empathetic senses and the other allows its reader to feel the impoverished lifestyle of a dictatorial father. Faulkner introduces his reader to a slave owner that makes slaves out of his own kin; where he never allows one of his own to supersede him in any way, not mentally emotionally or physically. Toomer on the other hand introduces us to several unique and individualistic stories of black slavery that take a poetically empathetic look at the cultural similarities disguised as differences deriving from a fear that what doesn’t look the same can’t possibly be the same. No matter how it is laid out, Faulkner and Toomer both know how to write race-related segregation.

Faulkner introduces us to the Bundren family who was headed up in theory by their Pa, Anse Bundren, however, in actuality it was headed by their Ma, Addie Bundren. In order to lead, a person must be strong but Anse was not a strong man; he was a weak man who lived off of what his family provided for him. Anse’s way of thinking followed a line that businessmen follow, “Nowhere in this sinful world can an honest, hardworking man profit. It takes them that runs the stores in the towns, doing no sweating, living off of them that sweats.” (735) So, it was Addie who was the strength, she did what she had to for her children, all of her children, even the one she had through deceit, Jewel. Well, sometimes more so for Jewel because Jewel was targeted by Anse. He was a reminder to Anse that at one time Addie was loved by another man. So when Addie wanted to take Jewel to the doctors “pa didn’t want to spend the money without it was needful, and Jewel did seem all right except for his thinness and except for his way of dropping off to sleep at ay moment.” (742) Therefore Addie knew she had to do what needed to be done behind Anse’s back. Darl said, “Addie Bundren should be hiding anything she did, who had tried to teach us that deceit was such that, in a world where it was, nothing else could be very bad or very important, not even poverty.” To Anse, life revolved around money but to Addie life simply revolved regardless of a person’s financial situation. So Anse treated his family like they were employees, giving the feeling of trapped slavery amongst his family. The only way one could escape it was through death, something that Anse repeatedly says throughout the whole story is that he “don’t begrudge her it”. Addie knew better though, she knew that Anse was just full of words, like many other people were. Words were not needed for true feelings, feelings she had with her children, feelings that didn’t need descriptive wording. Only those people, like Anse, like businessmen, like those people who didn’t know of pride and didn’t know of fear, had to make up a word to convey what they thought they felt. Addie knew words such as begrudge and love, that came from Anse were “just a shape to fill a lack” (759) because Anse didn’t know what love was and he did hold a grudge, he held a grudge for anyone who cost him money.

In Toomer’s “Cane”, contrary to Faulkner’s Bundren family, we have many people from several places all trickling through and around Jean Toomer’s life creating this cast of characters that breathe the desire to stay unequal. It is comfortable to want change but to be faced with it brings about an uncomfortable fear of the unknown. “Fellows about town were all right, but how about his friends up North? He could see them incredible, repulsed. … “… with their eyes still upon him, he began to feel embarrassed. He felt the need of explaining things to the.” (654) He was comfortable with Louisa where they were, sneaking around, but should people that don’t know become in the know, well then, that was a fear that Bob could not repress. It was a fear that made him question the whole pigmentation difference on his walk to see her, on his walk to ‘love her’. “Bob Stone, of the old Stone family, in a scrap with a nigger over a nigger girl.” (654) Bob Stone, like Anse Bundren, had words because he had ideas about what was right and what was wrong, neither of which he knew anything about. Much like Anse, Bob, didn’t know what love was. So when Bob said that “He was going to see Lousia to-night, and love her.” (654) he was merely creating a shape to fill a lack.

Also, much like Anse, Bob got other people to do his dirty work for him. Bob was a businessman, even if he wasn’t a businessman. He wasn’t a man willing to sweat for anything he wanted and when it came to fighting for Louisa he was incapable of standing up for himself adequately, however, that didn’t matter because “White men like ants upon a forage rushed about. … Shotguns, revolvers, rope, kerosene, torches. … They came together.” (656) In the end, the man Tom, who fought Bob for Louisa, was the one willing to do what he had to do for the person he loved, like Addie had for her children, and died.

So it would appear that both Faulkner and Toomer know how to write race-related segregation that goes beyond the color spectrum to the fear that lies at the heart of the segregation nightmare. They both seemed to grasp the importance men imagined having in the modernist era with regard to their significant other and when they are brought to the reality that they have less power then they think, they become territorial and dictatorial in their stance in life. Those around them can not become more superior to them. They will hold grudges and they will use words to fill what they are lacking.

Works Cited:

Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine.The Norton Anthology of American Literature. D, New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 2012. Page. 735,742,759,654,656.

A Lit Comparison of William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” and T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”

Structurally speaking William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” and T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” run on similar lines with death being a prevailing theme in both that can be experienced and perceived in different ways. In Eliot’s piece, there are 5 sections that each possesses its own individual narration, including additional character narration in section three alone. In Faulkner’s piece, we are given 15 different character narrations to help solidify that no two people see any situation the same. It seems that the perspective narrations in “The Waste Land” could be themed similarly to the different perspectives that evolve from Faulkner’s 15 narrations if we look under the pretext that Eliot’s poem “…is preceded by a Latin and Greek epigraph from The Satyricon of Petronius. In English, it reads: "I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys said, “Sibyl, what do you want?” she replied, “I want to die." (Wikipedia)

In Eliot’s “The Waste Land” one of the narrations in section 2 it is repeated to “Hurry Up Please It’s Time. Goodnight Bill, Goodnight Lou. Goodnight May. Goodnight. Ta ta. Goodnight. Goodnight. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.” (383) as it seems she too “had five already, and nearly died of young George.” (383) In Faulkner’s piece, we have a woman who birthed 5 children and whether out of spite, selfishness, or a combination of both Addie Bundren makes her death a task for those who claim to love her. Though she is most fond of her son Jewel, her death has been held off long enough but it is still a thought that “him and Darl went to make one more load. They thought there was time. That you would wait for them and that three dollars and all…” (713) This alludes to an air that both women have had their fair share of life and mothering and they are ready to say “good night” (383) and let “…the two flames glare up for a steady instant. Then they go out as though someone had leaned down and blown upon them.” (714) Leaving “rats’ alley, where the dead men lost their bones” (381) and a “handful of rotten bones that Addie Bundren left.” behind. (714)

Each story is not only the death of a mothering figure or the perception of the loss of a loved one, but the life that breathes around them as life does continue on for everyone around the one who’s time is up. Both Eliot and Faulkner knew just how much the supporting characters mean to the story at large. They could see the big picture and all those present inside one's life. Eliot wrote how the “nymphs”, “their friends” and the “loitering heirs of City directors” they had all “departed” leaving the solace of the bitter cold to run through those who the departed left behind.

“The river’s tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The River bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends, Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors; Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept… Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear the rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread ear to ear.” (383)

That passage seems to be a similar allusion to Faulkner’s section where Darl explains the river where he Vernon and his father taste the bitter cold of a non-violent surface that was cutting them in half. Addie may not be walking with them but she is there as she always had been displaying the allusion of peacefulness when in actuality it’s the “ludicrosities” of “three blind men” who journeyed the “horizon” and “valleys of the earth” as men who focused on their “misfortune”.

“I had not thought that water in July could be so cold. It was like hands molding and prodding at the very bones. Vernon is still looking back toward the bank” (754) … “If ever was such a misfortunate man,” pa says. “If ever was such a misfortunate man,” pa says” (756) … “Jewel and Vernon are in the river again. From here they do not appear to violate the surface at all; it is as though it had severed them both at a single blow, the two torsos moving with infinitesimal and ludicrous care upon the surface. It looks peaceful… for the dead eyes of three blind men those mammalian ludicrosities which are the horizon and the valleys of the earth.” (757)

It seems each river has a personification that is a cold bite with a man’s sing-song words repeated for emphatic dramatic effect to softly speak volumes about the magnitude that each river plays on them all. While Eliot writes a long poem of a scattered nature and Faulkner writes a long story of a poor family’s trek through nature, nevertheless, each author is using combination narrations where not just one person tells the story. This gives each piece the same air of multiple perspectives tying with individual opinions to a central theme that seems to center on death, the fact that we are all headed there, and the journey to it. They both use the bigger picture of a journey to exemplify how complicated life can be while illustrating in multiple voices how different it is for and within every single person.

Works Cited:

Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine.The Norton Anthology of American Literature. D, New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 2012. Page. 698-793.
Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine.The Norton Anthology of American Literature. D, New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 2012. Page. 378-391.
“The Waste Land.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land. Accessed 29 July 2017.

Lit Discussion of O'Brien's "The Things They Carried"

Boom-Down, Like Cement
I chose to read O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” due to its fascinating style of writing. It has this small yet powerful story hidden amongst all this military artillery and combat gear. O’Brien very carefully and cleverly opens this story with a seemingly never-ending list of, well, “Things They Carried”, justifying the title. Within this incredible amount of items that O’Brien intertwines the personal items and the story behind some of them, namely the story behind Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Lieutenant Cross’s story unfolds through the third-person omniscient because O’Brien knows all the things that Jimmy Cross thinks that none of Cross’s platoon knows he’s thinking. “Lieutenant Cross felt the pain. He blamed himself.” (667) Through trinkets that Martha had sent Lieutenant Cross he was able to imagine a world with her in it as his love, and due to the monotonous boredom that comes along with heavy loads and tediously long days away from civilization Lieutenant Cross allowed his mind to become consumed with thoughts of her. O’Brien states one of the most impactful lines when he states “Imagination was a killer.” Throughout all that these men were forced, chosen, and chose to carry, Lieutenant Cross chose to force his self to carry the guilt of not having prevented Lavenders’ death. He chose to place the blame on his wandering mind that was intricately woven into all of these items. “Lavender was dead. You couldn’t burn the blame.” (676) In this blame Cross now burdened as his own, he became not only the antagonist but also the protagonist as well, in a man vs. self type of conflict. A man died on his watch there was no one else to blame, his platoon did nothing wrong and even the enemy, the mostly invisible enemy could not be the sole bearers of the blame. No, it was the man who was put in charge of keeping this platoon safe and his men alive. By carefully ticking off each and every item the platoon men needed, wanted, and chose to carry O’Brien was able to shape each character individually as well, as a unit. Which did the right thing of presenting this platoon as a band of brothers, which is hat they solider into each of them from day one. Had Lieutenant Cross not had his head in the clouds daydreaming about a love he manifested in his lonely hours, then he might have been able to keep Lavender alive, or so O’Brien would have us believe Cross feels through his sequential list of events that happened to this one specific platoon.

War stories are ridiculously hard to tell when the writer or storyteller has never actually been to war. So, by O’Brien carefully listening to his friends tell their war stories he was able to make a list of war-related details, which just so happen to work extremely well at effectively setting the stage for his piece without deriving from the list itself except to background and anchor Lieutenant Cross’s items. It is the items and their respective journeys with their respective solider that set the stage for where they are located. Simple dialogue for emotional effect carries the reader even further along in their trek to Than Khe. “They searched the villages without knowing what to look for, not caring, kicking over jars of rice, frisking children and old men, blowing tunnels, sometimes setting fires and sometimes not, then forming up and moving on to the next village, then other villages, where it would always be the same.” (672) These words strung together in a checklist, ticked off kind of way helps to add to the setting which aids in describing how each solider could become a part of their surroundings or, such as with Lieutenant Cross, lost in thoughts that took them away from the visions of destruction and isolation that kept them moving “humping” forward.

Works Cited:

Charters, Ann. “The Things They Carried.” The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction, 9th ed., Bedford/St. Martin's, pp. 664–677.

A Short Lit Comparison of Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio

There is something similar about Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio’s section Mother in that both main characters are dying, and while dying they reflect on the life they have been apart of thus far. Also, both Harry and Elizabeth had, what seemed like awkward encounters, with their supporting characters Helen and George due impart to their impending deaths and their unusually lonesome personalities. “Don’t pay any attention to me.” (836) it wasn’t that Harry wanted Helen to truthfully leave him alone he just did not want to keep hurting her and be bothered with her steadfast attempts to stay positive. He did not want to hurt this woman who had been dealing and putting up with all of his pungent words that he flung at her and his neglect to care for himself, essentially putting them both in this unfortunate situation. He was dying and she was trying to hold on. It was like digging a knife of guilt into his soul and he retaliated and desired the comfort of solitude so he could continue on with his dying and internal pity party of self-reflection and regret.

“I think you had better go out among the boys. You are too much indoors” (273) It was never that Elizabeth truly wanted her son, George, to leave her side but she was painfully aware of how awkward their meetings were and she did not want him to feel obligated to have to remain there while she sat lifelessly self-indulging in her own inevitable death. For as long as George sat there with her in silence it was like he was digging a knife of guilt into her soul so she encouraged his departure.

There are also distinct and vast differences as well, including main character genders, cause of characters oncoming death, the characters who sit with each dying characters gender, setting, allusions within each stories context, and the fact that Harry dies at the end of Hemingway’s story but Elizabeth is still alive at the end of Anderson’s section titled “Mother”. All of these result in completely different stories however that underlying personality that Harry and Elizabeth posses that is psychologically known as guilt brought on by remorse is present in both stories. Both Harry and Elizabeth feel guilty for not having achieved certain goals in life and now knowing the chance will shortly be taken away for good upon their deaths and they now feel remorseful for time wasted.

“No, he had never written about Paris. Not the Paris that he cared about. But what about the rest that he had never written?” (838)

“Between Elizabeth and her one son George, there was a deep sympathy, based on a girlhood dream that had long ago died.” (269)

Each character seemed to represent a lost quality that each writer, Hemingway, and Anderson, had inside his soul. Harry and Elizabeth each had things that they never accomplished in their lives and it now created a void. Both Hemingway and Anderson express this void through these characters and their loner past that clouds their minds. Harry could not be understood by anyone, or so he thought, and his missed opportunities are now images that plague his sleep. Elizabeth could not be understood, even by the Theatrical group that she wanted so much to be apart of and she magnified their laughs that “It’s not like that” (272) when she ventured to speak her inner thoughts. Both Hemingway and Anderson used these characters as a metaphor for their own personal regrets.

Works Cited:

“The Snows of Kilamanjaro.” The Norton Anthology: American Literature, edited by Nina Baym. Norton, 2012, 836, 838. “Mother.” The Norton Anthology: American Literature, edited by Nina Baym. Norton, 2012, 269, 272, 273.

Short Lit Response to Wallace Stevens/William Carlos Williams Vs. Ezra Pound

Had I not been told that Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams had other professions other than writing I would not have been able to tell by simply reading their poetry. It is detectable that they think differently then Ezra Pound, but not detectable that they were not full-time writers. Their poetry has as much sustenance, if not more, then Pounds does due to Pound’s common inability to be solidly coherent at all times in his writings. It seems that Pound was trying to impress a certain elitist group when he wrote his continuation to Homer’s Odyssey along with many of his other poems geared at furthering the Mythological poetry of the past. This was ever clear with the number of footnotes needed in the Norton Anthology just for the common person to attempt to get through Pound’s relatively short continuations. When reading Stevens or Williams very few footnotes were added because there were very few references made to past works that required readers to read and/or know in order to understand. Wallace Stevens says “Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams And our desires.” (287) This is not cryptic, it does not include words that come from another dialectic point from the past; it is simple and straight forward. It does not boast legal professional jargon nor stories of past clients, nor descriptions of how to run or better our lives. His job did not define his poetry, it provided him money to survive, and possibly a more level head. Pound’s sole career included writing and nothing else, it could then be remarked that possibly Pound was too engrossed in the literary world that he was becoming disconnected to humanity giving his writings a bias towards other writers and not the general public at large.

Works Cited:

Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine.The Norton Anthology of American Literature. D, New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 2012. Page. 287.

"The Gilded Six-Bits" by Zora Neale Hurston Short Analysis

Southern Forgiveness
I chose to read The Gilded Six-Bits by Zora Neale Hurston which is set in the south during the Great Depression. In this story, it is evident through dialect the class setting of Missie May and Joe, a middle-low class husband and wife, who were married within the past year and saving up to start a family. This story was not overly laden with descriptive details about their surroundings but the ones that it did provide were strong within the story. It starts off short, sweet, and to the point in its clear cut description that stated “It was a Negro yard around Negro house in a Negro settlement…” (421) the story then quickly established that Missie May kept a clean house that was “scrubbed white” from a “weekly scouring”. We learn quickly that Missie May’s ability to keep such a clean tight ship is all made possible by the job Joe keeps with “G and G Fertilizer”. These elements gave Hurston’s settings that “something happy” feeling that drove the climb to the climax. It was within this “something happy” that Joe was contented by the wife he adored, that “So long as Ah be yo’husband, ah don’t keer’bout nothin’ else.” (424) This “something happy” was a setting that represented strength, stability, and security for Joe and through his eyes, he assumed it represented the same to his wife. However, Missie May did not here contentment within her husband's words when the walked home from Otis’s ice-cream parlor. Instead, she heard her husband wrapped up in Otis’s money and the way he flaunted it proudly. She didn’t understand his admiration from afar. So it was within that “something happy” that Missie May accepted Otis’s sexual advances in exchange for some of his illusionary gold. As in her mind having this illusionary gold was what seemed to appeal highly to her husband’s happiness. As ironies of life go, Missie was caught and ashamed on a night when Joe got off work early. Joe, upon seeing this unexplainable indiscretion was lost and confused as to why Missie May was unhappy. It took time and patience to heal the wounds of the “something happy” and the assurance that their new baby brought that solidified the “something happy about the place” again.

Works Cited:

Hurston, Zora Neale. “The Gilded Six-Bits.”The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction", Bedford/Saint Martin's, 2015, pp. 421-429.