1. Although I don’t know whether or not I’ll ever be able to be completely satisfied with myself or my work, I have made notable leaps since the beginning (and even middle) of the semester. For the midterm assignment, I set a few goals for myself, which included writing a drama piece (to finish out writing in every genre); working on dialogue so that each character had a unique, identifiable voice; and trying to balance out my copious exposition with action and dialogue. I feel as though I reached all these goals, at least on my in-class pieces. My fourth work was a drama piece, which helped with my genre-rounding goal, but it also pushed me toward writing better dialogue and balancing the composition of my pieces out. To expand on my last
…show more content…
Even on my third reading, I’m not sure what the author was trying to accomplish.The plot makes no logical sense, the ending doesn’t fit the beginning, and it’s just really disturbing. The author was probably sitting at his desk and thinking, “Hmm, what do kids like to read about these days? Sex? Okay, great. I’ll make a teacher have get all hot and bothered with his teaching assistant in front of a classroom full of kids. Genius.” Uh, no, pal, it’s not genius. It’s just weird. To be fair, the author does have a strong, unique voice, with most of the story sounding like the narrator had whispered it word for word into the author’s ear, but then in the middle it gets weird and unbelievable. There’s an intriguing setting with a school where everything dies; however, we never get any closure about the school or why these weird incidents are happening or even what is happening at all. Plus, the last few sentences are just awful. “Then were was a knock on the door,” Barthelme wrote, “I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. The children cheered wildly” (152). Is there a giant gerbil walking into the room? No wonder the children are cheering. Or maybe they’re just screaming. Just like with the rest of the story, I guess we’ll never know because Barthelme won’t give us closure of any
Even on my third reading, I’m not sure what the author was trying to accomplish.The plot makes no logical sense, the ending doesn’t fit the beginning, and it’s just really disturbing. The author was probably sitting at his desk and thinking, “Hmm, what do kids like to read about these days? Sex? Okay, great. I’ll make a teacher have get all hot and bothered with his teaching assistant in front of a classroom full of kids. Genius.” Uh, no, pal, it’s not genius. It’s just weird. To be fair, the author does have a strong, unique voice, with most of the story sounding like the narrator had whispered it word for word into the author’s ear, but then in the middle it gets weird and unbelievable. There’s an intriguing setting with a school where everything dies; however, we never get any closure about the school or why these weird incidents are happening or even what is happening at all. Plus, the last few sentences are just awful. “Then were was a knock on the door,” Barthelme wrote, “I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. The children cheered wildly” (152). Is there a giant gerbil walking into the room? No wonder the children are cheering. Or maybe they’re just screaming. Just like with the rest of the story, I guess we’ll never know because Barthelme won’t give us closure of any