Barn Burning

This story is about a family who moves a lot, because the father and older brother burn the barns of the farms they are working at. There is a Justice of the Peace in every town who bans them from the town. One day they go work at a rich man's house, the father upsets the family by walking on the runner with dirty boots. When the father and older brother go to burn the barn, the little brother runs and tells the farmer. The farmer kills the father and older brother. The little brother runs away.

This story is about disloyalty, distrust, and lying in relationships. The father and older brother do not establish a firm relationship with their employers or within the family itself. It is sad to say that the little brother knew more of that.

Sweat

This story is about a lady named Delia. She is married to Sykes, who obviously abuses her in the story. She is hard working and any money she earns Sykes uses it to spend on the woman he is having an affair with. He gets a snake and uses it against Delia, because she is afraid of it. He thinks it will get her to leave the house. So one day she went running out of the house when he saw it. He went in and was bit by the snake. She sat under the window and listened to him die.

I think this story is definitely about spousal abuse or abuse to woman in general. The amount of male dominance that one can have on a female. Sykes is a representation with the devil, because the snake closely resembles the snake from the Bible in the Garden of Eden.

Paul's Case

The story is about a boy who is stuck in a fantasy land. He is not pleased with the life he is living and wants more out of it. He works at Carnegie Hall and enjoys doing that because the music soothes him and helps him escape reality. He lives at home with his father and siblings, because his mother has passed away. He starts stealing money from his work and then decides to go to New York. After all the money is gone he realizes that the only place to go is home, but instead he kills himself by jumping in from of a train.

I think that depression is a very important theme. The death of his mother seems to be a big factor. Also the monotonous life that he lives. This story also deals with the issue of class. Paul seems to know that he does not want to live the life of a poor man. He wants to have luxury and an easy lifestyle, but the problem is that he cannot grasp the concept that you have to work for that sort of life. He wants it now and nothing will stop him.

The Yellow Wallpaper

This story is about a woman who is suffering from depression; however, her husband does not think she is. They moved into this house temporarily so that their other house could be fixed or something like that. She is supposed to stay home and get better while her husband goes to work. She writes while he is away, because he does not want her to. Slowly the reader sees her go through the depression, until she thinks that their are woman in the wallpaper. At the end she goes insane thinking she was in the wallpaper and got out.

This definitely is a story of self reflection. She needed to identify the wallpaper with something, so she identifies it with a human, then a woman, and finally herself. The story also deals with the subordination of woman. The husband does not take into consideration what the wife says she is feeling or what she thinks she has. He is right and that is all there is to it.

Young Goodman Brown

Goodman Brown is the main character. He is married to Faith who wears a "pink" ribbon in her hair. He goes into the forest where it is forbidden, because it is a place of evil. He meets a man in the forest who calls himself "the devil." He sees all these religious people from his community who are "doing evil." He sees a pink ribbon fall from the sky, and at the end he tells faith to look away from the evil. At the very end he cannot look anyone in the face and lives a miserable life.

I think that this story deals greatly with religion. First there is Faith. Her name itself is something strong with religion. The pink ribbons also are a symbol of purity. The man with the stick reminds me of the devil in the Garden of Eden. He says every and anything that he can to get Young Goodman Brown into the forest. I think that in life sometimes we do wrong things that we do not want others to know about, whether they are small or little. That is why Goodman Brown was hiding behind trees and stuff from those that were religious to him. Sometimes we want to hold onto faith, but it is so easy to let go of it and turn your back on it. Another important fact is that sometimes in life we can get disappointed by those we think highly of, if they act like humans and do things that can be wrong.

The Facts Concerning a Recent Carnival of Crime in Conneticut

The story was about a man whose conscience comes to torture him. At first he is waiting for his aunt to come, however, a shriveled up man who is his "conscience" comes first. He is tortured by his conscience. The man wants to kill him, but he cannot because the man's heart is too light. When the aunt comes and tortures the man about his life, the conscience because heavy and the man proceeds to kill him. He is left with a life free of his conscience.

I think that the theme definitely plays with the fact of confidence. He is so confident to stand up against his aunt that he drives himself to overcome anything that is in the way. I think that it is definitely psychological. I think he wants to impress his aunt, but the power she has over him is unbearable. He "kills" his conscience as a way of standing up against her.

In the end I think he drove himself into madness. I think he never really saw the "conscience" but had a struggle with himself.

Shades

Shades has a man describing how the night falls onto the earth like a pair of shades. Then he sees the man that lights the lamps and wants to know about him. When he goes to his house no one really knows anything about him. He goes back a year later and the man has passed away.
I think that the story deals with death. Everyone in the beginning seems to fear the dark. It creeps out of all the corners and crevices and engulfs the earth. However, the lamplighter is still the soul within the person. When he dies the lighting of the lamps is gone until someone else takes over. I am gonna go out on a limb and make a connection, when the lamplighter dies he is obviously replaced, which in life someone is always getting replaced.
The lamplighter played an important part in the lives of the citizens of the town. He made it possible to go out at night and not fear the darkeness. However, no one knew the man who did this. He allowed the people to continue living their lives, yet no one seemed to bother, except the narrarator, to go and find out who this man was.