Possible Paper Topics

As of now, my paper topics are:

•  Discussing the narrators of a rose for emily, and a tell tale heart
• Giving a different spin on a tell tale heart and why he kills the old man

Young Goodman Brown and The Lottery

Young Goodman Brown:
I was very confused by this story. At the begining of the story I thought he was going to the woods to go to war, but as I kept reading I thought maybe it was just a gathering of some sort, possibly religous. I thought maybe it was a religous gathering because he seems to have faith, which is also his wife's name, very ironic, but he also seems to be trying to keep his faith and not get pulled in by the devil. The woods seems to have a dark atmosphere that reminds me of the devil. But overall I was very confused by this story.

The Lottery:
I enjoyed this story more than Young Goodman brown. It was much easier to follow and understand. This wasn't your average lottery that we have today. This lottery was a negative thing, not a reward. They basically have a lottery to see who will get killed, which I don't fully understand. Why do they want to kill of people from their community?

The Yellow Wallpaper

I thought this story was one of the better stories we have read so far. I think the woman is in a mental facility because it says the windows are close and have bars on them, and the door has a gate in the hall. Because she is in a mental facility I think she feels excluded with nobody to talk to or that nobody will believe anything she says because they think she is insane. I believe this leads to her obsession about the yellow wallpaper in the room. I think she began to relate to the girl in the wallpaper. The woman in the wallpaper was trapped in the room, just she was so she felt she could relate. She wanted so bad to have a normal life with people to talk to so she began to go insane from the isolation. At this point she was just so deseperate that she started relating with the girl in the yellow wallpaper.

A Tell-Tale Heart

I enjoyed reading this story more than "A Rose for Emily". I found that it was easier to follow and had a lot more detail. The narrator of this story is the murderer, and it was always clear what he was thinking or planning to do.  He kills the old man, who had never harmed him or been mean to him in any way, but simply to get rid of the old man's "evil" eye. He confesses to killing the old man because he can't take it anymore. He is consumed with guilt about what he did. Throughout the story he tries to convince us that he is not a mad man and that he isn't insane, but throughout doing so, he only proves to us that he is. I think by him hearing the unbearable noise that nobody else in the room heard proves to us that he really is insane, and the only person that he is trying to convince otherwise is himself.

A Rose for Emily

I was confused by the ending of this story. Based on how upset she was when her father died and the denial she felt then, I'm guessing she was too upset to go outside again or to tell anyone. I also think this leads to the final detail about the "long strand of iron-gray hair". I believe she wanted to still be close with him so she laid in bed with the man in denial that he was really gone. Miss Emily went through such a tradgedy of death not once but twice that she didn't know what else to do. She probably didn't want her own life to continue and that is why she never left her house. I think she stayed inside to die alone without because she couldn't bare to lose anybody else she became close with.