박종우 world literature

 Araby, James Joyce Rating: 8/10 I thought this short story effectively reveals epiphany. In the story, the boy had a crush on Mangan's sister. The boy wanted to go to Araby and buy present for her. However, he realize that he is badly short of money. In this process, the boy felt emptiness and vain, which leads to boy's frustration. At first, he dreamed of love, but after experiencing frustration, he realize his reality and vanity. Especially, at the last conversation "O, I never said such a thing!"  "O, but you did!" "O, but I didn't"......"O, there's a ... fib!", maximized the boy's vanity.   

 The Sisters, James Joyce Rating: 7/10  While reading this short story, I focused on the word "paralysis". This word first came when the boy thought of paralysis unconsciously but he didn't even know the meaning of the word. Also, he thought of gnomon and simony at the same time. But after seeing the dead body of Flynn, he thought of paralysis again and this time consciously. I thought this story ultimately describes the paralysis of religions and churches. It was intended to emphasize the seriousness of the paralysis by expressing the process of unconsciousness becoming conscious. Through this, I thought, it tried to strongly criticize the paralyzed reality of religion, which was so serious that it was imprinted in the unconscious mind of Irish children at that time. 

 Gooseberries, Anton Chekhov (1898) Rating: 7/10 While reading this short story, I focused on the word 'happiness'. In this story, Aliokhin, Ivan, and Burkin all have different idea about happiness. Their different definition of happiness made readers think about the real happiness. What if that individual's own happiness equals to other people's unhappiness. If individual's happiness comes from another person's unhappiness, then when someone feels happiness, some others have no choice but to feel misfortunes. Through these questions, I could have think of the true happiness.  

 The Lady with the Dog, Anton Chekhov (1899) Rating: 7/10  While reading this short story, I pay attention to Gurov. I thought he is bit far from a hero, however Gurov shows characteristics of round character well. At the beginning of this story, Gurov talk about himself. He went out with or became close to women, but he had never loved them. However, after he meets Anna, he realizes true love and start to change. Even though it is true that there is a sense of rejection because of the theme of infidelity, watching the change of Gurov made the story interesting.   Also, one more factor that made the story interesting was description of women. It can be small detail but specific description of women in the story shows the image of women in that era.