Delving into Literature

<Araby>, by James Joyce Rating: 7/10     A typical crush story has been drawn through this story, but  the ending added some sauce, preventing it from being boring or cliche. The narrator is a type of guy who cannot lead to make a relationship happen and passive towards his crush. I've seen many friends who are like him and gets stressed, so I felt sympathy for him. I was even proud to see the boy have a conversation with Mangan's sister and tell her that he will bring something from the bazaar. It was definitely a step-up move by him. I hoped that he would make more progress in his relationship between her, but his uncle was the villain, the problem. It was frustrating and heartbreaking to see the boy arrived to the bazaar way too late to buy something by uncle's neglect. I could not believe how nonchalant his uncle can be about it just because it isn't really much of a deal for him. I was immersed into the narrator's feelings when he couldn't hold back h...

 <The Sisters>, by James Joyce Rating: 7/10      This story's ambiguity made me concentrate and delve into it more. We readers cannot know exactly about Father Flynn's confess nor the relationship of him and the boy. However, in my perspective, it was pretty predictable given the details throughout the story. The most notable point was the presence of Father Flynn remaining despite his death. After seeing the corpse, the boy doesn't eat crackers worrying if the eating sound would bother Father Flynn in his coffin. This shows the impact Father Flynn had on people around him, making me think that him and the boy would've had an inappropriate relationship. Considering how it's reasonable to see Father Flynn's paralysis is coming from Catholic and the fact that the Catholic society was corrupt and so wrong in the past, it makes my thoughts more certain. A confess is something you do when you have something in your heart that bothers you and want to spit it out...

  <Gooseberries>, by Anton Chekhov Rating: 9/10      What is happiness, and how do we achieve it? It seems these two questions are what Chekhov wanted us to think about deeply.  I believe that there is no definition of happiness, but wrong perspectives on happiness do exist.  However, the "hammer quote" really hit me, and it must be written for a meaningful purpose. I believe Nikolay was caught up in this thought that he must always move towards bigger success and material wealth. If you must compare your position in the society to others in order to feel secure and happy, that happiness will not be worth it in a long term. It's very impressive how this story reflects today's society although it has been written more than 100 years ago. It's truly sad to see so many people feel insecure and dreary if it's not for "someone standing with a little hammer." Even the ending where Alyohin and Burkin is unsatisfied, unmoved, and not interested in Ivan...

<The Lady with the Dog>, by Anton Chekhov  Rating: 7/10      First of all, I liked the description of Dmitri and Anna's love. Though their falling in love cannot be justified as they are having an affair, I liked how Chekhov portrayed the atmosphere and interaction between them so lovely. At the beginning of the story, I was disgusted by the attitude of Dmitri, and even more frustrated by him and Anna falling in passionate love in such a short time. However, I recognized myself having a little of change of thoughts as the story went on. If I was concentrating on how unjustifiable the actions of "the temporary couple" are at first, I started to see Dmitri as a person who can also fall in true love and work hard for it. I know that their love shouldn't have happened, but at the same time, I had a thought that Anna is destined to be with Chekhov, rather than someone she doesn't truly love (this is just my assumption). I think this story was intended to make our...