Philip K. Dick - Second Variety

Second Variety
by Philip K. Dick
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"They were already beginning to design weapons to use against each other."

"Second Variety" is a thought-provoking short story of the author's ideas of what would happen as a result of the human race developing artificially-intelligent robots for war. The story describes several different varieties of robot-soldiers, such as Davids, Klauses, and Tassos, among others. Each variety is identical to every other robot of the same variety.

In the end, one of the Tassos is able to trick the main character of the story into giving her information about the secret location of the humans' moon base, claiming she would send back help for him. He soon after realizes his mistake, as he comes to the conclusion that she would not help him. He was tricked into giving up the location of a very secret colony.

This provides a very troubling insight regarding how dangerous it would be to create another race who could function with such higher thinking that humans are capable of. The last sentence in the story, "they were already beginning to design weapons to use against each other," explains how similar these artificially-intelligent robots were to humans with their way of thinking and violent nature.

"God of Love"

The God of Love
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The God of Love was a very interesting short film regarding the peculiarities of love. The main character who plays a character like Cupid throughout the film, throwing darts at his love or simply pricking her in the hand with one and causing her to fall for him for six hours. The fact that the prick of his dart only causes the target to love him for six hours the refers to the unexpectedness of love and how quickly it can change without you wanting it to.
The moral of the story seemed to be that you can only control who you love and not who loves you. It is harsh if the person you love does not love you back, but it is still a beautiful human emotion even when it is not reciprocated.

Kate Chopin - "The Story of an Hour"

The Story of an Hour
by Kate Chopin
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"When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!"" 

Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour details the moments preceding her death. I first realized the story was describing the moments leading up to her death after reading the aforementioned quote. The repetition of the word "free" is a poetic device alluding to the perceived feeling of being liberated from worldly concerns that occurs when one dies -- the escape of the spirit from the body at long last, if you will. As I delved farther into the short story, my conclusions regarding the plot of the story were affirmed. On the last page of the story, once again separation of body and soul are referenced: "Free! Body and soul free!"

The very last paragraph of the story spins an ironic tone to the piece as we realize that her husband had indeed survived; yet, it was only when the wife learns news of this did she actually die. It was the extreme shock of learning her husband was not dead that killed her. This is entirely contrary to the way one would expect the short story to end: with the wife dying slowly from the misery incurred after learning of her lover's passing.

It is thus highly ironic that instead of dying from a "broken heart" (resulting from her husband's passing), she died from a heart attack that was induced from such extreme joy learning that he, indeed, had survived. The closing sentence explains my conjecture, when Chopin writes, "when the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease -- of the joy that kills." The main character dies directly after experiencing such intense joy that she was not prepared to handle in her troubled emotional state.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Ursulua Le Guin

"The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child"



I found this story both incredibly interesting and thought-provoking. Inherent in the nature of the story is a question that it poses for the reader: what would I do if I went to see the little child locked in the cellar -- furthermore, is it justified for an entire city to live in such prosperity all as a result of one child's extreme misery?

As much as I would like to play the role of the selfless hero and say that I would walk out of the streets and into the unknown, I'm not sure that I would. I posit that it is impossible to make such a claim without having lived in the circumstances of bliss that encompass the situation. Even getting up and walking out of my life as it exists today after seeing a child in misery like that would be a struggle for me; to leave everything that I know and everybody I love, complete with everything I despise or do not care for, without so much as a word seems an unimaginable burden. I loved this story because of how incredibly thought-provoking it was. This was easily my favorite short story we have covered in this class to date.

Sherman Alexie: This is What it Means

This is What it Means
Sherman Alexie



."Whatever happened to the tribal ties, the sense of community? The only real thing he shared with anybody was a bottle and broken dreams. He owed Thomas something, anything." 

The quote I chose to analyze was one which details the core message of this story: the concept of maintaining relationships with the important people in one's life, as well as the importance of maintaining a strong sense of community on a broader level. Thomas was Victor's best friend growing up, but a friend who was lost as the years leading to maturity separated the two socially. Despite the fact that the story explicitly states how the two of them could never be friends, even after all they had been through on their journey to collect Victor's father's belongings, it still centralizes around the idea of rebuilding the relationship between the two. 

In addition to this quote, Alexie notes a promise made between the two at the end of the novel, stating that the next time Thomas was telling a story in public, Victor would stop and listen. Throughout the entire story, Thomas's love for storytelling was described in great detail -- it appears to be a real passion of his. Victor's promise to listen to Thomas's story in public is his way of repaying the debt that he believes he owes Thomas. This "debt" was a result of him making fun of Thomas despite their friendship as he moved from adolescence into adulthood, his beating of Thomas, and, of course, Thomas loaning him money and traveling across the country with him. However, when Victor promises to listen to Thomas's story, he begins to repay the debt and repair the relationship with his buddy from childhood. The story's message is that community and human relationship is the most important part of life.

Zora Neale's "Sweat"

"Syke, Ah wants you tuh take dat snake 'way fum heah. You done starved me an' Ah put up widcher, you done beat me an Ah took dat, but you done kilt all mah insides bringin' dat varmint heah." 

I chose this quote to analyze because it appears to encompass a great deal of the entire premise of the story in one concise dialogue. It details the hardships that Delia endures living with Sykes, describing how he beat her all through her marriage while she continued to put up with it. However, it focuses in on an important aspect of the story: Delia's fear of the snake. This quote shows exactly how much hatred she had for the creature, which clearly illuminated the symbolism that Neale must have intended the snake to represent. It seemed to be a biblical reference to the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, in which the snake represented the evil lure of temptation. In the end of the novel, Delia lets her husband die from the bite of the snake; she did nothing to help him, when she could have probably saved his life. Clearly his death was something she had wanted for quite some time, given the way Sykes treated her throughout their marriage.