Wednesday Class
This seventh week of this semester, we as a class had to read “ A Sweatshop Romance,” “Babylon Revisited,” “Paul’s Case,” “The Leader of the People,” “Winesburg, Ohio,” and chapters one through nine of It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis. Anyway, on Wednesday we had a discussion about Realism or if you like to say Naturalism, you may. In more detail, we discussed that it was to be focused on the bigger picture, it usually was or is written in plain language. We also said that the narrator would be considered an omniscient narrator. An omniscient Narrator means that you know the background information or you know people’s inner thoughts. We discussed and focused on the Quotidian, which means the Mundane of everyday life. This also means that characters are described better than the plot. We really focused on the middle class and the problems in that society. The first story we talked about was from “Winesburg, Ohio” or HanThere’s literary no plot in this story, which if you asked me how I felt about that. I was honestly confused at first but then understood why, due to Dr. Rothenbeck’s explanation. This story focuses on the characters anyway. The characters in this story are Mrs. and Mr. Willard and their Wing Biddlebalm. When he was older, he ran out of town, because people assumed he was a pedophile, even though he wasn’t. He also has a history of punching but doesn’t really realize this issue. One day his mother hears him (Wing Biddlebalm) and her husband having a conversation and she wants to kill his father. His father wants Wing to basically stop daydreaming about his future and grow up and be successful Go get a job and get married. Good news is that she doesn’t. But why did she have that thought in the first place? I guess you could say that she wanted her son not to grow up and get married neither start having a family that soon. Another story we had to read this week was “The Leader of the People”. This story is about a family who lives on a California ranch. This California Ranch includes the parents, a son named Jody and his grandfather. At this time people were forced to get married at a young age and they didn’t get choose who they wanted to marry. So you can assume that Jody’s parents weren’t in love. The only reason why they had a child was to keep the family name running and for him to own the ranch one day when his parents are long gone. One thing I would like to mention is about how in “The Leader of the People”, The little boy Jody gets treated by his family. I mean in my eyes I consider it child abuse. No child should be treated like that. I must assume that living on a farm could be very difficult but that doesn’t give any right to anyone to give a hard time, especially if it's your child. Anyways Jody went through his childhood as a happy go lucky kind of kid, even though he went through a lot with his parents. He always wanted to help his grandfather and eventually, his mother comes around and starts showing her son love and respect.
