ENGLISH WRITING(1) - Reading Task #1

"For our first reading task for the semester, please read the short stories attached to this assignment: Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" and Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." After you complete the readings, carry out the reading task for the assignment by answering the questions/prompts below:

1. Explain the ambivalence felt by Mrs. Mallard as a consequence of her husband's death as well as her feelings about such ambivalence. What do you think brought about such feelings, and how would you explain the ending of the story?

2. How does Granny Weatherall compare the experience of being jilted with the experience of death, and what will she "never forgive" and why?

Minimum 300 words for the assignment (roughly 150 words per question). Be sure to count and write down the number of words written for the assignment. The assignment is due at the beginning of class on Friday, March 17. As with all reading tasks, late submissions are not accepted. The reading tasks serve as proof that the reading has been completed PRIOR to the start of the class in which the readings will be discussed."

 

 

 

 

❑ overview

 

This is my first writing assignment of writing(1) class, led be Professor William L. Ashline.

 

❑ Essay of “Story of an hour”

 

• The book describes Mrs Mallard’s feelings when she heard the news that her husband had been killed by a train collision accident. She expresses her feeling of joy and being freed outwardly. And she thinks that she don’t loves her husband that much. But I think what she showed explicitly doesn’t matches her real feeling in the inside. She have to live alone all by herself without her husband and just thinkingabout it may make her feel insecure. So I think her surviving instinct pops up and made her feel freed and emancipaded by the dute of a housewife. That way, she can stand up and keep her living running as before. And when she realized that her husband was safe and sound, her heart stopped because of overwhelming delight and feeling of relief. I experienced simmiliar feeling when I got accepted in Yonsei University. I was a junior college student before, and when I learnedthat I passed the final stage in Yonsei University enterance test, I didn’t give it a thought that much. But when my parents, relatives andfriends got excited to the news, my heart swelled I felt rapture and joy. I daydreamed about getting straight A pluses and being a top student. I was such a delight. About a week passed, all the feeling vaporizedand I began to worry about the realistic problems I might encounter. Would I well adjust to the university? Wouldn’t the study too difficult for me? what if I stammer and stutter in from of a whole class while doing a presentation and be a laughing stock till I graduate? What if I found that I didn’t like my major which I chose to study? My moodswayed like a swing at the time. I partly felt the joy of gettingaccepted and partly felt the fear of some problems I might have to deal with. Often time, our outward expressions and our inward feelings don’t match each others. The reason could be vary but I think mostlythe reason is to defend ourselves from the overwhelming fear.

 

❑ Essay of “The jilting of Granny Weatherall”

 

• In the book, Granny Weatherall recalls her memory of beingjilted by men while she was dying. I thing the reason GrannyWeatherall recalled the memory in her deathbed is being jilted anddying conveys a similar emtion to the subject. When someone got jilted, I means that one’s ex-partner got drifted apart and doesn’t care about her/him anymore. In the book, Cornelia and the people around her were quite certain that Granny Weatherall is going to die. They alreadymade up their mind and completely ignores her sayings and even hurt her feelings by treating her like a baby. In the end, she blamed of her husband John for not staying beside her and said she will never forgive him. She even thought of herself are a bride in the weddingceremony waiting for her groom who never shows up. My mother often says she will die earlier than my father because she can’t live without him. I also read an article that a person’s biggest stress whichone encounters during lifetime is a death of one’s spouse. GrannyWeatherall must have felt lonely and sad when was dying on her deathbed without her husband nor her favorite daughter Hapsy.