Rhonda Eng 232 White Heron

Sarah Jewett was raised in a fairly wealthy home. She was mostly preoccupied with helping her dad as a physician. She didn't go the school much and got most of her education through her dad's library. She starting writing at a fourteen, secretively, tales and sketches. Her stories are geared around people in New England. She doesn't write based on literary naturalist but based on suffering and defeat. She also reflects on how that nature reflects good will in people's life. You will find out how nature is affected in this short story the Heroin.

Heroin is a story based on a young girl who is in love with nature itself. She doesn't do very well with handling people and had moved in the rural area to escape the city. One day there is a boy that comes by and she is scared of him. Later on they do become friends. He is a hunter and an ornithologist in search for a special bird. The way that he goes about captioning this bird makes Sylvia very uncomfortable. He wants to shoot the bird and mount it like a trophy. He offers her ten dollars if she would help him find that bird. At this time ten dollars would be a lot of money. Instead she doesn't help him find the bird even though she knows where the bird is.

I really like the moral of this story because I hate trophy haunting. The only way that a person should be justified for killing an animal is if they are going to eat the meat. There is nothing worst in life than to kill something just for the act of killing. I honestly feel that people that kill animals so they can have a trophy on the wall should pay a fine. I am so glad that Syliva saw fit to spare this bird from being murdered.

Rhonda Eng 232 A New England Nun

In order to appreciate Mary Wilkins work I feel that it is relevant to recap some of her history. She was a very sick little girl due to her poor living situations. She lived in England and her stories are based on the life of those in England. After the war there were very few people that lived in the rural areas of England because they had to find better jobs. Those that stayed in the rural areas were unable to make a successful life of their own and many of them never got married.

In the story "A New England Nun" I feel that Mary was trying to portray this same aspect of never getting married. Many were left behind in a rural area with the lack of opportunity. We get this sense that it is a rural area when they are talking about everyone is ranked the same. That no one has more or less then the other person in that neighborhood. With Louisa and Dagget we know that it was rural area when it comes to relationships. Louisa and Dagget had waited for fifteen years to get married. At the end we later realize that marriage was something neither one of them wanted.

Louisa reminds me of my grandma in the sense of her obsessive compulsive behaviors. My grandma was a knitter and she was very picky when it came to her work. When I read about the part when Dagget knocked the stuff off the table I couldn't help but laugh. I automatically started recanting my grandma's reaction when we knocked her stuff over. Then we have the obsession of everything clean and organized. She had an end table that sat in the living room with crossword and word search puzzles. When we would go over there she would let us use those puzzles to play with. Low and behold though if you didn't put them in the right where they were originally. Boy she would get so mad!

Rhonda Massengill Perception of Emily Dickinson Poems

Emily Dickinson is struggles throughout this poem with the decisions she has made. She knows that there is a heaven and a hell just like so many people today. She refers back to the times when she was in church with the communion services. She states "thy consecrated (sacred) bread to take And thine immortal wine" this is in reference to communion services that Baptist Churches take part in. I know this because I am Baptist and I know all about the communion services. The communion services are done to resemble what Christ had went through on the cross. The bread is his body and the wine represents the blood that Christ shed.

Emily also refers to how she was raised and how that it impacted her life. She was raised in a home with well educated people. We can conclude this by the fact that she wasn't able to talk unless with "prose" which refers to proper language. This had an impact on her life because she was constantly striving to say and do the right thing. I know ,with me, my parents taught me to not give up. Quitters never win anything in life. I am so thankful for this little
motto because when I want to give up I can't without feeling guilty.

Emily also talks about how death is a sure thing. That everyone is going to have to face death and we all have to make a decision. Emily states that "the soul selects her own society" and I have to agree with this statement. We are all born with the free will to chose how to live our life. How we live our life will determine where we will go when this life is over. Emily states that she believes in heaven and hell but she seems to be confused on how to know that you are on the right path. I think that many of us struggle with not knowing. Faith is when you believe in something even though you can't see it.

Rhonda Massengill Huckleberry Finn Journal

I really enjoyed the story once I got pass the first few chapters. I really felt as if the first eight chapters took to long. I know that the first few chapters help us to relate to Huck and realize why he went through what he went through. Huck was adopted by a woman named Miss Watson because Huck's dad was a drunk. He was not only a drunk but was mean to his son. Huck also learned that the only way to make it through life was to take advantage of other people. He was taught this through the action of his dad. His dad was a theft and stoled all that he had ever gotten in life. His lifestyle had soon found him out because the black man named Jim had found him dead.
Next I wanted to talk about some issues that the author addressed throughout this story and what I feel he felt about it. The first issue was the issue of religion or Christianity. I felt as if the author felt that Christianity was to hard for anyone to live by. I felt as if he had looked down on those that did believe in Christianity. Stated that nobody benefits by living a Christan life then those that a Christan tries to help. Then we have a brief mention of how he felt about foreigners. I think that the author didn't agree with the trade market. He had mentioned that a man should talk like a man and so forth. I felt as if he wasn't much for foreigners and felt as if they should stay where they belong. Then we have the issue of the rich man or the king. He felt as if the only way that people got ahead was by being dishonest. Through the authors way of thinking we can presume that he was a common person. That they author wasn't raised in a rich home and had to make an honest days work to make a living. Lastly we have the issue of slavery and how the author felt. Throughout this whole novel I never got the feeling that the author was against slavery. I felt that he felt it was okay and a means of life. The reason why I felt this was because they were going to free Jim not because it was the right thing to do but because he was already a free man. Miss Watson had died and she had freed Jim of all his slave duties.

Rhonda's Eng 232 Reading Journal

I like to read anything but romance novels they are my least favorites. I have just recently finished the Twilight books all but the first one. I love to read probably more than I should. The reason why I say this is because I get caught up in books and can't put them down till their finished. I look forward to reading and learning about new stories. I know there will be some that I will enjoy more than others. Can't wait to get started with Huckleberry Finn which I will do today.