The work that most surprised me that I would never have read outside of class is The Cask of Amontillado. I am an extremely avid reader of non-fiction material; I do not get joy in reading material that has no practical or realistic application inside my life. I do not want to distract myself from reality with stories and thereby comes my avoidance of fiction in general. I would not have found this short story initially appealing because from the title it is a broadly titled story in which I don’t know what is contained within its contents. However, after reading I found that I enjoyed the perspective of a biased narrator and how it is presented to an audience. It didn’t so much matter what was happening in the story but the adventure of being inside the characters mind and their interaction with their external environment gave a more interactive element that I did no think I would enjoy. Since I was mostly reading this story for a class assignment, I find it extremely unlikely that this story is going to have a massive impact on what new things I read in the future. I find it much more beneficial to explore material on the real world and the way things are. It is much more flavorful for me when creating my own theories and hypotheses when I can back cite where my thinking and extrapolations came from.

I found it extremely difficult to interpret the overall purpose of “The Appointment in Samarra”. I understood that initially that there was an underlying tone of death having a personification to him. However, because death had it’s own “motive” and initiative in the story than just a person going to die it was confusing on how death was traveling throughout the story. It was confusing as well to follow which individual was of interest within the story even though there was a limited amount of characters. I understand now that the theme of the story is that - no matter how hard you try, you cannot escape death. The whole horse adventure and different cities to go to added what I see as unnecessary detail to what could be said in fewer words. The biggest reasons it was hard to interpret the meaning behind the text was simply due to the fact that each character was not clearly speaking with quotation marks. With no quotation marks to follow who was saying what I found that I was jumping between who was saying what. The strategy that I used to understand what was happening is to break down who was saying what within the story. By making a mini-timeline of events within my head I was able to figure out what was being said within the story.

“A Rose for Emily” was the story where the artistic structure most contributed to my experience of the story. By exploring regionalism, strict tone, and this use of chronology jumping the experience of my reading was amplified. I noticed that when watching visual mediums of entertainment, I enjoy watching series that involve the use of time travel. This is because it jumps back and forth between sections of time while also creating new experiences for the characters. In “A Rose for Emily” the author doesn’t put the story into chronological order. William Faulkner purposely jumps around on what is happening and leaves out crucial details to keep the reader intrigued and wanting to read more. By doing this, this lead my reading of the short story to be an extremely enjoyable experience because it was an unexpected mystery that could be figured out but not revealed until the end. The strict tone within the story along with regionalism added a unique setting that I could get involved with and explore the intricacies of the story. This includes the dress and acting of the time that would otherwise be different in other time periods and locations. By having this strict setting and keeping a specific language structure I did not break out of the story that the author was trying to tell. Through this story, I believe I am better able to notice specific choices that are made by the author to add narrative and effect to the story. By being able to notice specific elements I might find that I can enjoy certain stories or that there might be tales that break my expectations of the mold.

The work that I would most recommend for people to read is “The Story of an Hour”. The reason I would want someone else to read it is to give perspective on what a marriage in the past looked like. I am anti-marriage not because I am against happiness, quite the opposite. Almost all people go into a relationship fueled by emotion, hormones, and a plethora of other factors they cannot control. It is extremely difficult both legally and emotionally to get out of such situations. The story shows that extreme caution should be made with those decisions. In essence, the tale is that for the limitation of freedom due to the constrains of society. With those limitations have been somewhat due to the progress of social justice there are still other factors to be aware of now that may not be clearly seen in one’s life. The standard I am using to see this story as important is to show that certain decisions may limit an individuals freedom. I hope that someone would gain the ability to self-reflect in their own life on what specific factors are holding them back and to keep pushing forward. Death was seen as the only way for the main character to get out of her situation. There are too many opportunities now a days for that to be the only options. Being able to move forward with unrelenting progression is what I want other people to inspire and achieve in themselves.

I have grown personally from these broad range of text...

The story “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros is a story about an eleven-year old named Rachael going through a conflict during her eleventh birthday. The literary work was chosen due to the fact that the short summary of ‘a girl’s 11^th birthday is ruined by a teacher’ can have many avenues for a writing to go down. Usually, teachers are supposed to be there for the student that they teach. Teachers are technically a third parent to kids because they are responsible for them during the time they are there to teach them. When a teacher is not taking their profession seriously they can end up ruining a kids day or teaching them less then they need to know. The story was picked because it is not expected of a teacher to ruin a girl’s day during their birthday. The four elements to be discussed are that of plot, character and narration (through point of view), language and diction, and symbolism. The theme of the story is one of going through the struggle of today, consoling and learning from past events, and moving forward and onward.

The use of plot is used to prime the theme by setting up specific thoughts that are going to appear in the reader’s head. Plot is what happens withing the story and though the words on page explaining the how and the why of what is happening. Interesting enough, the story does not start immediately but starts out with a small epilogue as a precursor to the plot that comments about birthdays and age. Commenting on how the culmination of past events make up the present you. For the character to character plot it is about the girl Rachael having an item forced upon her that wasn’t her possession in the first place. The plot exemplifies the situation she is put into and how she handles it. The plot primes the theme because the laydown of events is the message the story is trying to tell. Without any plot there is no theme to form. The story shows the struggle the character is going through and the actions they try to take to prevent what they don’t want to do. By going through these events the narrator is experiencing and presenting the struggle that they had to endure.

The use of characters and narration helps to carry the theme within the story. The characters within the story helps to define what type of conflict and interaction there will be for any specific story. If the characters or the attitudes are changed then so does the story change along with it. Narration on the other hand helps to delve into the mind of usually the main protagonist. You get more detailed thoughts on what someone is going through and get more than their interact of other characters. The use of these elements helps to further clarify not only the outer struggle of Rachael’s experience but what’s going on inside her mind while the event is unfolding. With Rachael’s narration you got to see the inner struggle when she was trying to reject the sweater. She wishes that she were older so that she would be more able to express to the teacher that the red sweater was not hers. She did not have the courage nor learned that younger individuals can stand up to older people. However, because of Rachael’s limited experience she did not put enough effort into clarifying the truth of the matter. She went through an event that was uncomfortable to her; So uncomfortable that it made her burst into tears. While she wants to forget what happens it will be very difficult for her to learn until her emotions have settled and matured. The character and narration choice helps to solidify the theme.

The use of language and diction further explores the theme of the story. Language and diction are the choice of words of a story and how grammar is presented to the reader. Different language and diction styles lead to different interpretations by the reader of what is being told within a specific text. If a scientific paper were to be written in an informal tone with slang being used then the ideas and theories being presented in the paper would be taken less seriously. For stories, the certain use of diction sets a specific mood the author is trying to achieve. In eleven there is a much more informal and un-developed literary style. In the second paragraph of the story the word “like” is used to start a sentence which is illnot found for more serious works. This choice shows that you are in the perspective of the eleven year old. That she is sharing her vulnerability and thoughts even if there was a better way to speak it. The thoughts and actions of an eleven-year-old are less solidified and edified but still have a resemblance of a cognitive thought. That blurriness of action and thought leads the reader to have some interpretation on what is presented. Rachel is trying to say a concept she holds in her head but does not know exactly how to clarify it. The choice of language and diction develops the theme because it is showing Rachael directly going through and think about event that are happening and that she is apart of.

Lastly, symbolism is used within the story as an indirect way to put on a pedestal more broader concepts. Symbolism is action of putting physical objects within a story that have an underlying meaning and concept to them. The Russian dolls and tree trunks are used as symbols to say that past events make up a present person. The red sweater is used as a symbol for social ostracization and embarrassment. The runaway balloon is used as a symbol of time passing by and events becoming a smaller and smaller part of one’s mind and overall experience; a smaller portion of personal history. Each symbol is used as an object to...

Troy is a tragic hero because he has a flaw of arrogance [Arrogance - thinking that he knows everything and still ends up making mistakes]. During the opening of the movie everything is going most right within Troy’s life. He has a wife who cares for him, a son doing well in school, and is doing well financially by holding a trashman job. His arrogance within his personality leads his to a less than ideal situation for the people in his life. Because of his arrogance he thinks he can get away with cheating on his wife and still be in a working relationship. Because of his arrogance his son is in a negative mentality against his father and is not allowed to continue football into college. He even thinks that without a driver’s license that his promotion to truck driver means something. In each of these situations he is the one who is declaring what is right and wrong and not deciding other factors of what is currently happening. He does not take into consideration other people’s opinions or feelings when deciding upon an outcome. He has a callous and pervasive attitude towards others and its shows within the conflict of his family. His arrogance leads to his downfall because even though he may be a hard worker, he is not able to collaborate successfully.

To pinpoint exactly what the theme is within Fences there should be an effort to clarify why certain elements are not as pronounced. The best example would be that of race. While Troy is living during a time before the civil rights movement this aspect plays little in how the story progresses. There is a presence for the struggle of African Americans within society by Troy being exited when he became the first colored garbage driver. However, other than that there is little focus on that because most of the characters within the story are the same race. The same line of reasoning goes for gender roles. While they do exist during the time the story is told it does not play an important role in developing how the story progresses. Rose stays as a homemaker and Troy gets money from working. This theme of gender roles plays into the setting rather than the theme. The most important theme would be that of family and the American Dream. The entire conflict within the story arises from familial bonds. Troy has conflict with his son Cory from him play football. Gabriel has slight conflict with Troy from moving into a neighbor’s house. Lyons has conflict with Troy because he was not his father figure during the time he was a kid. Troy and Rose naturally have marital conflicts due to differing opinions on how to handle Cory’s future as a football player. The American Dream plays into this family conflict because Troy is trying to reach his idea of the American dream. He is able to have a child and wife to support with a house and food because of his job. If he was not trying to reach some form of American Dream then he would be a lowly garbage man without dependents to support. However, he has a stubborn and arrogant idea of the American Dream that leads him to have personal conflict with his own family.

There is a figurative and literal definition of a fence within this story. Literally, Troy (and his son) is taking the time of cutting up slabs of quality wood to give privacy and security to their backyard. Fences are usually used as a form of privacy barrier to keep other neighbors from peaking in on you during outdoor activities or at-least to stop them from walking into the property. Figuratively, Rose is trying to create a “fence” around her family to keep them together. She notices the conflict between Troy and his son and doesn’t want them to have a falling out. Rose is trying to create this figurative fence of keeping the family together.

The setting is important in the story because it defines of the characters act and are going to react in certain situations. For example, the different gender roles between men and women has Rose make different decisions then she otherwise might. She is currently has no means to support herself and is inferior to her husband. Instead of helping Cory directly (since she can’t sign the football papers), she has to indirectly influence Troy and his thoughts to make him change views. For Troy, the setting defines his situation in life. He might or might have not killed the man he stabbed but because of racial court bias he was imprisoned for a portion of his life. Being a colored man, is was hard for him to recover. Even now, the best job he can get is a garbage man driver after all these years have passed. The setting, in essence, creates part of where Troy is allowed to and not allowed to progress in life.

Troy is resentful of his past about sports because he was not given a fair shake and allowed to play in the big leagues. He is resentful of not being able to go pro within the sport. This is why he does not want Cory to continue to play football. He knows that Cory is good at the sport and is envious of his abilities and the future success that he may achieve. A father is usually going to raise a son that can do thing better than them by giving past experience. However, Troy does the opposite and tries to hinder his son. Troy is continuing the cycle of father-son abuse that he has to experience as a child.

The resolution of the play was very appropriate for wrapping up what the family was going through during their life. The ending with the light shining down upon the family is giving a sign that there is hope for their future. The major conflicts for...

Brently Mallard was a simple construction worker. Day in and day out he worked the construction yard eight hours a day, five days a week. Every day when he returned from work he might have been greeted by his wife. She may have been preparing dinner one day but the next sitting on the couch watching television. For what work did she do? he thought. Operating simple machines was her daily routine - microwave, oven, dishwasher, laundry machine & dryer, vacuum cleaner - tasks that would take him mere minutes to complete. What was the reason she was here again? Love. Love…Love…Love. The word kept repeating in his mind until it lost almost all meaning entirely. Numbing his mind to the truth of the matter. The affection and mutual enjoyment was gone almost entirely. Bearing no kids they lived a simpler life than most. With their lust and sex life whittling away, it was even simpler than that.

On his way back home, he turned on the radio. In recent news a train accident had occurred in town. Somehow, his name was the first to be listed as a confirmed death. His mind cracked. An inspiration instantly sprouted in his mind that distracted him from steering his car for a moment. Divorce: such a messy process. Arguing, tears, and least of all, mutual agreement for the decision to happen. Too much wasted time for what? A cessation of a simple contract of the state. A date watching a cloudy sky sounded more useful to him, more fun even. Instead of a month of asset battles, he could simply enjoy the rainbow made from a drizzling day.

For was it love that changed him? Perhaps. But that is not what he looked back on now. Family gossip, friend shaming, gossip, television whispers had somehow changed who he was without even realizing it. She played no part when looking upon the past. Slowly, he got a grin on his face. After years being in this marriage, it was not love that he realized carried him through the day to day. It was always the societal standards built around him meant to keep him trapped, docile, and obedient. This is not how he acted 20 years ago - this is never how he wanted to be.

He could finally have a chance to make his own path, not defined by another individual’s presence ~ even with something as benign as where to eat.

Then, with his usual route being exit 23; today he decided to take exit 24 instead.

Critical Preface: “The Story of Half an Hour”

This story puts a modern twist on ‘The Story of an Hour’. Marriage in this day and age is much less of a forced decision upon both parties. However, even in the current age where marriage is voluntary to the majority of individuals there still is a higher divorce rate in the previous centuries. This story connects to that of a stale or slightly disgruntled marriage. When it is “cheaper to keep her” where the emotional, physical, and economic distraught is not worth the effort for separation. This story is meant to focus on the male side of that relationship. The two important changes were that of a gender swap and modern century force forward to bring “The Story of an Hour” to the present day. Traditionalism 200 years ago played a heavy role in not only gender norms, but also in functional aspects in terms of a societal contract. Overtime, into the modern age, this concept of traditional male/female “roles” have little place. Men and women have equal autonomy over their own destiny. The concept of a bread-winning husband and stay at home wife has little bearing other than it was brought down through tradition. This system no longer can or will work. This is what the story is trying to bring to light and adapts from Kate Chopin’s work that marriage still limits the individual freedoms of both parties. The freedom to leave. It is quite difficult to do so after an attachment has been made.

As for the theme itself, the main overarching point of writing a story on Mr. Mallard’s perspective was to try to convey the aspect of being against marriage traditionalism. It’s limited the wife to being, well, a housewife and the husband being a breadwinner. With equal rights being more prevalent than ever, content grows between the two parties when power is split unevenly among them. The husband has little ability to enjoy his house because he is staying at his nine to five job. The housewife could go out and explore other opportunities but it’s much easier to offload the responsibility when a husband is supporting the wife. At-least in this instance the balance of responsibilities become tipped to unbalance the welfare of the relationship.

This story is much more direct and obtuse in its telling in terms of form. It’s much more focused on his situation rather than describing what he was doing unlike Chopin’s work which takes a more artistic approach. For example, “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name”. Chopin takes three sentences to describe a feeling without ever directly saying its underlying concept. In contrast this story outright states these underlying feelings or more directly addresses them: “It was always the societal standards built around him meant to keep him trapped, docile, and obedient.” The sentence cuts through the abstractness and artistic means to convey what someone has going on inside their mind. This approach was taken to simplify the notion Chopin was trying to convey by using emphasis through briefness.

In terms of content this story takes creative alterations on where the story ends. The main change was following Mr. Mallard instead of Mrs. Mallard. While in the initial story Mrs. Mallard was a disgruntled wife, in this story the script is...

Note: If you or a friend is struggling with this topic I would advise this website https://easypeasymethod.org and to seek help wherever available.

This is a qualitative research paper that attempts neutral in its analysis and is meant to add to the literature. Most of my literature review was based off of the systematic review of ‘de Alarcón, Rubén, et al.’ and the primary sources listed in that paper.

Introduction

Pornography is a billion dollar industry. Pornography is a form of media (be it written, images, or videos) in which the primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal. With the surge in internet use across the world pornographic content has never been more accessible. Yet even with the sexual revolution of the 1960s era, pornography is still prominently of conversational taboo. With many sites including Xvideos, Xnxx, Xhamster, and Pornhub being among the most top visited sites in the world, there is a dissonance between what people do not talk about and what they do. This paper looks into: What is the backstory behind pornography users and what are the individual perceived effects of general pornography use?

Review of Literature

This literature review explores studies that examine the prevalence, effects, addiction, and treatment of online pornography use. In 2017 Pornhub published a compilation of their yearly usage data which stated: “we did a lot of hosting this year, catering to some 28.5 billion visitors, which turns out to be an average of 81 million people per day!” (2017 Year in Review - Pornhub Insights). This overview from Pornhub also gives a detailed analysis of overall pornography viewer demographics for year over year data. One oversight of the data, however, is that it only pertains to individuals that are actively going to the site. To make up for this, Solano et al. found that “Using all modalities of pornography, 91.5% of men and 60.2% of women herein reported having consumed pornography in the past month” with “the primary function of enhance[ing] masturbation” (92). With this statistically significant result it must be asked - by what degree does this consumption leak over to adolescent use? Quadara et al. from their sample found that “Fifty-three per cent of those surveyed had seen online pornography at least once-of which 94% reported viewing online pornography before the age of 14” (37). This means that a substantial amount of kids are seeing sexually explicit content before sexual development or education. Donevan et al. shows that this early exposure can have a substantial compounding effect: “The share of boys who use pornography frequently increased over the three survey cycles; those who reported using pornography daily increased from 11% in 2004 to 24% in 2014.” (1125). Interestingly, “there was no change in girls who reported using pornography daily, while the proportion who never used pornography increased from 40% in 2004 to 51% in 2014” (1125). The data collected helps to explain why Pornhub has a seventy to thirty percent split of male to female viewers (2021 Year in Review - Pornhub Insights). The prevalence of pornography within different researcher’s samples gives good justification for pornography to be looked into further.

The substantial usage also then begs the question of its effects. The medium of pornography is sexual in nature and might have inadvertent effects outside of self pleasure. Perry and Davis go into how pornography might have an effect on romantic relationships. They saw that “Americans who viewed pornography at all in 2006 were nearly twice as likely as those who never viewed pornography to report experiencing a romantic breakup by 2012, even after controlling for relevant factors such as 2006 relationship status and other sociodemographic correlates” (1157). These results backup that of Manning which looked into marriage; A bond usually seen as more stable than non-binding relationships. Manning found “married women to be significantly more distressed by a partner’s online pornography consumption than women in dating relationships, and that Internet pornography consumption is viewed as a threat to the relationship” (140). However, the use of pornography may not be the underlying reason for relationship instability. This is because Bőthe et al. found that among their sample “Males and females did not differ on relationship status” (112). Contrary to the assumption that more males would be single due to their predominant use.

Pornography however, might also impact other areas besides interpersonal relationship. Perry and Snawder looking into child relationship quality (how well parents and children get along with each other) noted “that greater pornography viewing predicted negative outcomes on two out of four measures of parent-child relationship quality” (1747). They also dug further into the issue showing that “the negative association between porn viewing frequency and three parent-child relationship outcomes was stronger for participants who attended religious services more often” (1747). This could possibly have devastating effects for familial bonds going into the future. This means that pornography is impacting subordinate relationship (parent-child) as well as mutual relationships (partner-partner).

It is also important to see if pornography use has any other long term effects besides parent-child relationship quality. To explore a tangential topic DeKeseredy and Corsianos looked into how “men enter[ed] the experimental labs with relatively good attitudes toward women. They [then] watch[ed] a sexually graphic and violent video, and then are shown to have more troublesome attitudes toward women” (58). With the underlying problem of that “this is not the first time these men have ever been exposed to pornographic media” (58). So, it is unknown how much of a factor pornography plays in abusive relationships.

One of the more immediate correlations that has been studied is pornography’s effect on sexual health. Bőthe et al. looked into how “PPU (Problematic Pornography Usage) was moderately and positively related to sexual functioning problems” (112). With the conclusion of “Given that PPU was positively and moderately and FPU negatively and weakly associated with problems in sexual functioning, it is important to consider both PPU and FPU in relation to sexual functioning problems” (112). This could...