Week 5










L.A.  Freeway and Skyline


Good afternoon, class.  Hope you are doing well.
     Today we will review "Up in the Tree,"  which was the subject of your group responses last week, "Joy" and "A Penny for Your Thoughts." There will be a quiz on "Love in L.A." and time to complete your compositions, due next week in class.
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I’m Nobody! Who are you? (260)   by  Emily Dickinson  (1830 - 1886)

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –  
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –  
To an admiring Bog!


In the poem above, Emily Dickinson addresses a theme given a very different expression in "Joy," by Anton Chekhov:  the need for recognition and status.  In  the short story "Joy" there is the great sense of exhilaration when one's name is published in the news! And there is certainly irony in the fact that the news story is merely an account of an accident.  ----------------------













Darkness, irrational fear, cruelty–they exist, and bedevil us.  Art sometimes serves to show us the 







whole "ugly" picture, and, too, how people have attempted to make things right, fought for it, with 







civility and dignity and some compassion for all involved. In "A Penny for Your Thoughts," by 







Chester Himes, a Texas ranger comes out of retirement to stop the hateful lynching of a black soldier 







by a frantic mob.  -------------------------













Readings for next week: "The Last Leaf," by O. Henry, a story about the life of artists in early 20th century New York, Greenwich Village.











Homework:  Complete short fiction composition.


























































































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