week 4

The last three stories we read were "A Mother", "Grace", and "The Dead". By the time I got to these stories I understood them more than the other ones. "A Mother" was about a mother who ruined her daughters career. Her daughter was playing in a concert but had not gotten paid. Because of this the daughters mother complains to the to men running the show which causes her daughter to get fired from the show. Therefor, ruining the daughters career for the rest of her life. In "Grace" a drunken man falls down a fight of stairs outside of a pub. The police are called but they do not seem that concerned neither does the mans friend who called the police. Later the man goes to talk to a priest about his sins but the priest does not seem forgiving. The man doesn't see how a whole life could be changed in one night by talking to a priest. "The Dead" was about love. Gabriel finds out that his wife was in love with another man before him. He had died waiting for her outside in the cold. Gabriel realizes that he does not love his wife as much as her first love did because he would not die for his wife. He has an epiphany and is the first one in these stories that realizes he is wasting his life away and needs to change things. If he doesn't make a change soon then his life will pretty much be worthless.

After reading The Dubliners I definitely am more educated about Ireland's history. I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed reading it but I learned a lot. It was interesting to read a different style of writing and it trying to understand it was very frustrating. In response to Jordan I agree. I felt that with almost every story you had to have background information to understand what was going on but we were not provided with that. I had to go to spark notes for every chapter to actually know what was going on and when I did not I felt as if I had no idea what we were talking about in class dicussions.