Nina Godridge Nov.15 Post

Hello peeps, it is Nina Godridge and I am ready to review this week's readings. To start things off, I wanted to speak firstly of " Female Trouble" by Antonya Nelson. As I was reading this, I tapped into the mind of the protagonist McBride. The structure of the story was his lovers during the current setting of the story. Each women had a difference in characteristics that lead McBride to be infatuated with them that he would have sex with them all the time, well not all the time, but sex was on his mind whenever he was with Daisy, Martha and Claire. I really liked the second person narrative for this short story as I felt like I wasn't able to read into McBride's true intentions for each women, but overall get a sense of his mind and how it was mostly over run by his sexual desires to be with these types of women. There was also a feminine undertone to the story, especially because of Martha's role to Daisy once learning about the pregnancy; the two women band together to help raise a life. McBride's initial problems with Martha is that she would speak of babies and he wouldn't want to listen. So once Daisy's daughter Donastella is born, McBride knows he won't be around much longer. At the end he drives off, far away from his problems, but now I am wondering. Why did Claire kill herself at the end? Was she too in love with McBride to know it would never work? Or did she know that he'll never love her as he loves Martha. Either way, when he drove down the highway he must have known what he had done to make him want to leave and never look back. 

" Old Boys, Old Girls" by Edward P. Jones wasn't exactly my cup of tea when it came to this week's readings. In the beginning we learn the basics to why Caesar Matthew has landed time in prison, he killed two people to which one he named " Golden Boy." Throughout the story I was horribly disturbed by the words and actions done by Caesar, even though it was told in the third person narrative, I was horrified by all the series of events, while even at times it was hard to catch up where he was and what he had done. All I knew by the end of the story was that a woman who had been part of his life before he went to prison, Yvonne Miller, was murdered in her own bed. Caesar walks in one the scene, cleans up the entire apartment, cleans her body in the tub, and then dresses her and places her back on the bed. He knows who might have killed her, but the story never says it out loud. I truly don't understand how the title is linked to the plot of this shorty story, but I do know this - everything that took place was truly beyond my own comprehension. 

Now " Tony's Story" by Leslie Marmon Silko, this six page short story had a clear emphasis on the problems of race in the protagonist's home/society. As him and his friend Leon are Indians, they are prejudiced by members of the community, but mostly by the police force. I was taken back when I read the scene where the officer just strolls up to Leon and then punches him straight in the face. There is a huge scene at the San Lorenzo Day's festivities because of this. The progression within the story, especially when Tony's father tells him to not to spend too much with Leon implies something that isn't said about his character. It's not until the end where the two are in the car, and the Old Man police officer pulls them off the road, with a 30-30. that Leon had given Tony, he shots the officer done and together they burn his car along with the body to destroys all evidence of what transpired that night. Tony found it inside of him to kill and man, and Leon understood what his life would succumb to when he handed the gun to Tony.