Matty The Short Story

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"Who's to know"

Alternative title: “Who’s to know” The original title “Barbie-Q” is probably a play on the word “barbeque”, since at the end of the story the narrator mentions that the dolls come from a factory that burned down the night before. I really like this title because the fun wordplay actually describes a pretty disturbing image of a human-like doll being burned and slowly melted. Freaky. This contrast shows in the story as well. The narrator takes an unwavering fun and excited tone throughout the entire story, even during the mention of the factory fire. When she hears the news, she is really excited because the fire means she gets to buy some toys on the cheap. However, if you think just a little harder, her excitement completely overlooks the disturbing reality that a whole factory burned down and probably some people with it. I don’t know if this signifies some other deeper meaning to the story, but I just found the connection between the tone of the title and this scene very interes

Climate Change

Connect any of the stories we’ve read this semester to the current global crisis. How does the story help us understand our time? How do current events affect how we understand the story? The story “There Will Come Soft Rains” depicts a destitute, post-apocalyptic scenario: humans are presumably extinct. The house, which represents the last trace of humanity on Earth, begins to deteriorate, breaking down and eventually being consumed by fire. It’s a bleak scene, as nature reclaims what ultimately always belonged to it. Based on the historical context, this story, which was written in 1950, can be interpreted as a criticism of the tensions of the Cold War. It illustrates the potential future of humanity wiping itself out through nuclear war, leaving nature to slowly reclaim the Earth, until the last house which represents millions of years of our civilization turns to dust. This story presents the idea of nature being a higher power which is above petty human conflict—it’s a forc

OK Boomer

Sentence Analysis “The Lottery” page 297 “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them . (...) Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery” The phrase “OK, Boomer” was floating around for a while and was pretty funny. It’s a phrase used to mock attitudes stereotypically possessed by the baby boomers—typically judgemental or outdated views regarding changes in today’s society which differ from their idealization of their youth, for example: criticizing our continual reliance on technology, or denying the existence of climate change and oppression of minority groups. Given the publication of “The Lottery” being shortly after World War II, we discussed the possibilities in class that it’s an allegorical story about bystanders who stayed silent while the Holocaust happened around them, or that it’s a criticism of conscription. I think another ta

How short is too short

Prompt 1) Q&A: How short is too short While the length of different literary mediums are not strictly defined, we as consumers have a good sense if something is too long or too short. We often make critiques on the length of films or shows, either being too rushed or too drawn out. On the one hand a film can’t be so short that it doesn’t allocate enough time to significantly develop the characters and plot, but it also can’t be so intricate that it bores the readers. In my opinion, The Fall of the House of Usher falls in the latter category. That thing put me to sleep . You could probably cut out 50% of the words and still achieve the same effect as the original text (a slight exaggeration, but you know how it is). When I read First Person Shooter , my initial impression was the opposite—it tried to do too much and ran out of room, so it left many loose ends. It left me wondering: was this short story too short? The thing that bothered me most was the subplot of the main ch