"Eveline"

This writing reminded me of "Angela's Ashes" a novel by Frank McCourt, an imigrant writer form Ireland, the setting is very similar. Eveline is in conflict with weather to leave her homeland and run off with her lover to Buenos Ayres, or stay and be misserable with her father and the Ireland dust!

She lived in poverty, the dirty lanes of Ireland with it's dampness and crowded living conditions. Her friends had all gone and some had died. She felt dead herself. In the end, it seems she chose the familiar old mustly life, instead of taking on the unknown feeling of a new life.


Cynthia Strader

How do I read short fiction

I never thought of reading something twice; what an interesting concept. The reading of "How Do I Read Short Fiction" instructs the reader to really digest what is being read. To think about the charactors, the plot, the very structure of what's being read. The author reveals that reading short fiction "can be difficult to understand" because it demands the writer to compress detailed thoughts and ideas. The reader is challanged to really get to know characters by what they say, to pay attention to the subplots and foils (a minor character in the story). It's almost like one should paint a picture in their mind after reading short fiction. It's not just a story, but an idea or perspective. It should challange the reader, if it's being read correctly.

Cynthia Strader

The Story of an Hour

The final gift of freedom came to Mrs. Mallard a little too late. She had been repressed by her husband Brently, a kind but seeminly dominant figure who she felt shackled and imprisoned by. The news of his death was not the death of her, but the excitment of being "free" and able to live her life as she would, without him in it. Could she live freely? It was an overwhelming thought, and apparently more than her heart condition would allow. She herself would be the one to die, not knowing that her Brently in fact did not die on the train wreck as originally thought, but was alive and well. He escaped death, while she was ushered directly into deaths grip. She could have lived forever with the heart condition; a broken and abandoned heart, but a heart filled with joy was more than she could bear.

Cynthia Strader