Home is where the heart is. Many Muslims make a spiritual journey to their homeland. Students drive all hours of the night to return home for the holidays. Families all gather at home to celebrate Christmas. There is just something about home and the place a person grows up in that keeps them coming back for more. To me home is paradise and home is heaven on earth. Returning home to find little shoes and backpacks strewn about the house, dirty dishes in the sink, and Spongebob Squarepants blaring from the living room TV are many things I look forward to after a long day at school or at work. Song was right in “Heaven.” Home is perfect and home is where everyone wants to end up.
For some reason we as Americans feel the need to find where we came from. I remember my mom doing research for hours and hours on the phone and on the internet looking for her family and where they are now. My mom worked day and night to piece together our family tree. When that family tree was finished we set out on a voyage across the state of South Dakota to experience the life that my family members from generations past experienced. We went from Hudson, South Dakota all the way over to Rapid City, South Dakota tracking down family members and relations. Not the idea of the perfect vacation for a twelve year old but looking back now I appreciate the work my mom went through to give us that vacation. I’m glad that I was given a copy of the family tree. The family tree gives me a sense of home and a sense of family.
Growing up in a small town in South Dakota I was taught that in the end, after everything is gone and all of your friends have left you, you still have family. These morals and beliefs I was given through my childhood I hold very dear to my heart. It is true. I find myself looking forward to seeing my family and looking forward to cooking dinner in the evening. I feel that without family and without home I would have nothing. In fact I know that I would have nothing.
I feel that Song truly captured this in her poem, “Heaven.” The speaker feels this yearning to go to China. China is home. China is heaven. This yearning to return home is felt by many and is not only a feeling felt by adults and scholars. Students can not wait to return home for the holidays, home is a place of relaxation, a getaway, and a place to catch up with family. Home is a very important part of everyone’s life.
Heaven is a great poem and I feel that Song wrote the truth about all people. Not just Americans and immigrants, but all people. Everyone longs to come home and to spend time with family. Home holds a special place in everyone’s heart and Song wrote about this special place that everyone holds dear and near to their hearts.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
A Bold Statement About Short Stories (Reader Response)
Although short stories are a very important part in the literary canon, I do not feel the want or desire to read them. To sit down and read a ten page story that really lacks a true ending and is not allowed the length to have true literary content is not very appealing to me. Although Mukherjee had some great ideas and views on migration and beginning a new and better life, I still do not hold her stories to be at the same level as some of the other writers on our Other Voices list. Mukherjee’s stories lacked in story lines and endings both of which I find to be very critical in enjoying a piece of literary work.
In “The Middleman,” we watch as the main character, Alfie, runs into trouble with his acquaintance. Much like a soap opera, this big man also known as Clovis T. Ransome steals the wife of the president and is running an illegal operation, of which the details are never truly revealed. In the end Ransome ends up dead and Alfie is left alone, all of this happening after Alfie sleeps with Ransome’s wife who turns out to be quite the hussy. A great story truly it is but not one that would end up on the literary canon. True at the end of this soap opera tale Alfie comes to the realization that he’s living life for the wrong reasons and there are basic rules to survival. Although short stories are lacking in length, Mukherjee could have definitely bettered this story. Give us an ending, give us more of what Alfie learned and who Clovis T. Ransome really is. Filling in the blanks to this story would give this story the opportunity to be ten times better.
Story number two, “A Wife’s Story.” This story was by far better than “The Middle Man.” Yet much like the first story this one leaves me asking so many questions. Sure she wants a better life than cooking and cleaning, she wants to get a degree and become a person of true significance, and she can not possibly imagine living life back where she came from. This story starts with a great beginning, the main character is living a somewhat normal life, but then we find that the man that escorts her home is not her husband and that her husband lives in a completely different country. She does not want to stay in that country because she does not agree with the treatment of women there, but my question is if she is going to defy all of the cultures views by leaving and getting an education, why does she not leave her husband all together. I just do not feel like the author knew where she was going with this. This woman is torn between this husband and his culture and what she really wants. But any woman brave enough to leave the culture to become someone new, would leave the husband as well to become someone new. I just don’t think Mukherjee put an ending on a story I feel needs to be finalized.
My opinion may be based purely on the dislike for short stories but I really did not enjoy any of Mukherjee’s stories. None of her stories had a true ending and there were so many parts in each story that were left out. In a novel the reader receives a full picture; in a short story the reader gets half of the picture because of lack of length. I would rather read a 300 page novel that gives me an ending than a 10 page short story that leaves me wondering what I just read. To be quite frank, I do not remember any of Mukherjee’s short stories other than the first two I read because they all seemed to have the same quality. Mukherjee’s short stories may have meaning to those of the immigrant population, but not being part of this population I feel that her work is lacking in content and meaning.
In “The Middleman,” we watch as the main character, Alfie, runs into trouble with his acquaintance. Much like a soap opera, this big man also known as Clovis T. Ransome steals the wife of the president and is running an illegal operation, of which the details are never truly revealed. In the end Ransome ends up dead and Alfie is left alone, all of this happening after Alfie sleeps with Ransome’s wife who turns out to be quite the hussy. A great story truly it is but not one that would end up on the literary canon. True at the end of this soap opera tale Alfie comes to the realization that he’s living life for the wrong reasons and there are basic rules to survival. Although short stories are lacking in length, Mukherjee could have definitely bettered this story. Give us an ending, give us more of what Alfie learned and who Clovis T. Ransome really is. Filling in the blanks to this story would give this story the opportunity to be ten times better.
Story number two, “A Wife’s Story.” This story was by far better than “The Middle Man.” Yet much like the first story this one leaves me asking so many questions. Sure she wants a better life than cooking and cleaning, she wants to get a degree and become a person of true significance, and she can not possibly imagine living life back where she came from. This story starts with a great beginning, the main character is living a somewhat normal life, but then we find that the man that escorts her home is not her husband and that her husband lives in a completely different country. She does not want to stay in that country because she does not agree with the treatment of women there, but my question is if she is going to defy all of the cultures views by leaving and getting an education, why does she not leave her husband all together. I just do not feel like the author knew where she was going with this. This woman is torn between this husband and his culture and what she really wants. But any woman brave enough to leave the culture to become someone new, would leave the husband as well to become someone new. I just don’t think Mukherjee put an ending on a story I feel needs to be finalized.
My opinion may be based purely on the dislike for short stories but I really did not enjoy any of Mukherjee’s stories. None of her stories had a true ending and there were so many parts in each story that were left out. In a novel the reader receives a full picture; in a short story the reader gets half of the picture because of lack of length. I would rather read a 300 page novel that gives me an ending than a 10 page short story that leaves me wondering what I just read. To be quite frank, I do not remember any of Mukherjee’s short stories other than the first two I read because they all seemed to have the same quality. Mukherjee’s short stories may have meaning to those of the immigrant population, but not being part of this population I feel that her work is lacking in content and meaning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)