Dead Man's Path

The story of the old vs the new is the main theme here, as well as what happens when you try to completely abolish the old ways all at once. The whole snooty reactoin of the new ways certainly didn't help matters, and the way they just replaced everything at once without compromise is reminiscent of the way colonization worked.

broke back mountain

What do i even need to say here? It's the gay cowboy story! a powerful romance between two married men, but not to each other obviously. Pretty much everyone has heard of this one, but i'd like to hear the analysis before i say anything interesting.

Everything that rises must converge

This is an interesting take on racism with a hint of realism. more to follow after class.

The voorman problem

Wow... I... I really don't know how to react to that. One one hand it was impressive visually and such, but... I'm not sure what the real point was. Why did this all happen? Why did the psychiatrist deserve this? What even happened here? ...I'm going to need more opinions before I do anything with this.

there will be soft rain

Ah, the post apocalyptic tale. Not even the standard, what would humans do in the apocalypse, but rather one of... what happens to everything else? This ONE house survived by sheer luck, and it was automated for who knows how long. It was eerie just how much it was taking care of itself... and ironically the one thing that killed it was the only other survivor of the bombs, the dog. When the dog died, it triggered the chain of events that lead to the house's destruction. Even when something survives the apocalypse, it still has an ending. Something as automated and self sufficient as the house still died eventually.

All eventually rots away and fades, and that is a fact of life one must accept. Humanity appeared to have already done so at this point, so it was only a matter of time before the machinery they left behind did as well.

The second variety

The second variety is a story of justified paranoia and cycles. One, the paranoia against the claws, where anyone you know could be one. Two, the cycles of creation and destruction at their own hands. The claws developed weapons to destroy other claws, and also ended up betraying each other all the time. In retrospect, the robot knew full well who the other one was, and killed a human claiming it was him, showing an aliance. However the IV-V killed a group of claws and another claw, specifically to gain trust, showing they aren't afraid to sacrifice for their own good.

This is remarkably similar to the humans, developing a weapon, the claws, to kill the russians and eventually getting killed by it themselves. The claws are in the same boat, they make weapons that can kill each other, and probably will after killing the humans. It is a bit of irony, how the weapons make weapons to destroy other weapons. Whether or not the Dick wanted to say that humans are like mindless weapons themselves is unclear, but i would hope not. The humans didn't want to kill ALL humans, just the russians, and mostly because they chased them off the planet.

The claws didn't seem to have much of a reason to want to kill each other, other than maybe gaining trust to they could kill more humans. However, they mass produced the weapons they needed, so they can't ONLY want to do it to kill humans, they clearly are being careful like the human masters were.

the most dangerous game

Oh... I am SO SO SORRY! I've been so sick the past few days, and I... I passed out I could barely move earlier. I can type today,  but i can barely get out of bed right now.

The most dangerous game.

The contrast of having the protagonist hunted by both man AND beast is part of what makes this story so interesting.

How he was a hunter himself also to become hunted by other hunters is a good irony for itself. In most stories it would show a man slowly becoming more native as he descended into madness for the sake of survival. However in THIS story the madman is already there, and he must escape him. So while he becomes somewhat native, he only does so to survive, and escape his predators. He even manages to keep his mind and sneak back to his hunter's house.

While the story itself doesn't explain much about what happened next, it does at least tell us that Rainsford won the duel. The only reason I can assume that the story didn't feel like telling us what happened during the duel is either the author couldn't make a very good action scene, which is false, or he felt like just cutting to the victor with a clever quip would make a better ending, which it did.

God of Love

God of love was much more than the simple story of a man gaining the power to make others fall in love. Unlike most love potion stories that has one person abuse his power, which he does, he actually learns that this is NOT the right thing to do. Instead he becomes cupid himself, and learns how to use his power responsibly.

One would think that making other people fall in love would be a very creepy thing, and in all honestly it sort of is. However the film thought ahead, and made it so the effects were temporary and that they could BECOME permanent if the two people were right for each other. This story is not a romance story, it is instead the story of growth of one man. How he becomes a better person through his new power, even if he has to learn how to use it properly first. It isn't to say that he wasn't always MEANT to use this power, since at the beginning of the film, it foreshadows his skills with his darts when he does his song and dance number.

One could argue that Olympus enterprises were looking for a NEW cupid, and already saw that he fell into certain requirements, one he had good aim, two he had love troubles of his own, and three, he was selfish enough that he would try to use them right away. How is that a good requirement? Instead of never using the darts, he tests them out and develops into a better person as time goes on.

The original Greek gods were mostly very selfish and flawed individuals, however Olympus Enterprises were more concerned with him learning to be better than who he was, indicating them as a more modern revision of the Greek gods of old. As such, they already knew that he was flawed, but they knew that he probably wouldn't kill people at random like the old Greek gods, and would in fact, improve as a person.

Ernest Hemingway, “A Very Short Story” (1924)

This short story... is very much up front about what it is going for here. It wants to tell the reader right off the bat with its title that it is a short, short story. They later go on to sound like a typical sad romantic short story, but they subvert expectations by making the girl only just... having a fling with the guy she was spending so much time and effort on.

However they also don't make her sound evil or anything, they even give her a goal to be married, albeit by accident, to that one special someone. Whether this means she figures she'll get pregnant and be FORCED to marry them, or to actually find someone she loves completely and utterly, is up to the reader.

Sadly the guy in this relationship, after going through so much trouble and recovery end up catching an STD from a person he just met, giving a somewhat humorous vibe to the ending in a way that I can't exactly explain.

What was the purpose of this story? If I had to guess, i'd say that it was to subvert expectations and make it so the reader has to guess as to what's going on everywhere. The reader more or less probably expected another dead bowl of bees or something, but no Hemingway was simpler than that with this ending, they just break up with a dear john letter, and the guy gets gonorrhea.

Was this a parody? A deconstruction? I honestly don't know, and would probably only have a better idea AFTER we discuss it in class, which is why I will be adding more in the comments.

ursula k le guin's "Those ones who walk away from omelas "

Ursula makes the reader think about weather happiness is worth the misery of another. The good of the many over the basic decency of the one. The town of Omelas is perfect, save for the treatment of the child. The children of Omelas do not like this, often going home in "tears or quiet anger." Sometimes this even convinces the children that living in Omelas isn't worth it, so they leave, hence the title. They know that it is impossible to save the child, but they cannot just sit idly by and have children of their own living in a place this secretly evil.

It is debatable as to whether or not the children are strong or weak for leaving Omelas, but one thing IS certain, they can't stand the child being miserable for their own pleasure. They don't understand WHY he has to be miserable, they just know he has to be, and that they can't live with the guilt. It is through this action of theirs that we learn that not all of Omelas is so single minded, they don't all think the same way, they feel different than one another, and possibly one day, ALL the children will leave, and the town will die out naturally.


*Sorry I was so late in making these, I honestly just felt bad about missing the first one and one thing lead to another... I actually don't know how long these are supposed to be, so if you can give a comment telling me, I can extend its length with a comment of my own.