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I didn’t really like the short story “wolf’s head lake" it didn’t seem to mean anything. However, I like how it was written. I liked lines like “He’s driving a car just the color of the storm clouds" and “the sky's marbled with clouds and some of them are dark, heavy, tumescence as skin of flesh ready to burst.” I think this was a real creative descriptive use of imagery. But other than a few lines sprinkled throughout the story it seemed anticlimactic and about nothing. For the short story “Recuerdo" I liked the story. I liked that it was able to bring an emotion out of me and also how it presented Rosa’s argument on why it wouldn’t be the worse thing in the world for her daughter to marry an old sweaty man. Now of course I think it’s wrong but I liked how the author was able to put me in Rosa’s shoes and see things through her eyes. I also think this story was an eye opener to what women go through and how men in power could get overlooked just because of what they can offer cause there’s “no need for her to marry a poor young bum who could not even get a job. No need for her to have ten children all hungry and crying. No need for her to dread, even, that the bum might leave her. No need at all.” -Eduardo Guerra
ReplyDeleteIn both of these stories we view men in an extremely negative and malicious light.The writers of these stories are choosing a dark theme and tone when describing these men.It is either due to an experience or a downright distrust of the gender as a whole.In "Wolf's Head Lake" there is a mid-summer thunderstorm foreshadowing the end of good times and innocence of youth. the author is describing the narrator as a maturing young girl pointing out her wet, and puckered two piece bathing suit.She describes the taste of rust and water slapping onto the pebbled beach. The taste of rust closely resembles what blood tastes like and the water slapping on the pebbled beach is undoubtedly where she is lying after an attack. She then describes her assailant as so eone who wears dark sunglasses at dusk while driving slowly in her cabin lined community.He slowly peruses the lake front with his female accomplice looking for naive,innocent and naive prey.She slowly gains the confidence of the girl persuading her to get in the car to go to a carnival.In "Recuerdo" we have a common scene in the summer time in the frontera region of Mexico bordering the Rio Grande River. There are no shade trees or much grass to speak of. Squaller is everywhere.It is hot and dusty.The main character Rosa has to decide between two types of men for her Eldest daughter maruca. Unfortunately the choices are both negative. On one hand we have Don Lorenzo. A professional man with money who has been sexually abused by this man since she was a young girl. Since she is older and not in the same shapee focuses his attention onto Maruca. She then thinks about her husband Pablo who is a lazy drunk who seems satisfied that his wife is whorring herself out to provide for the family.Pablo also has started to notice Maruca also.She seems to be siding with Don Lorenzo.He is promising to give Rosa money and provide Maruca a house if she gets pregnant. She thinks to herself that if only he could be more handsome. There are no good endings in either of these stories.
ReplyDeleteSpiro Zagouris
The first story "Wolf's Head Lake" was kind of confusing and I wasn't able to figure out what the point of it was. I do enjoy all the details it mentions, while reading I could visually picture what I was reading. The ending kind of threw me off. I didn't understand what the knives were about or what was even going on. The other selection "Recuerdo" was very interesting. I was able to go on the journey with Rosa since it's a familiar one to me. I have heard stories like this so many times by my grandparents that I was physically able to see what was going on. This story also shows all the sacrifices a mother has to make for her children and even though it may seem like a horrible choice, she's just trying to do he best and doesn't want her daughter ending up just like her. I feel like that is so hard for women and even men nowadays find hard to understand and the mother is seen as the bad guy for even thinking about letting her marry someone from higher standing who doesn't respect women.
ReplyDelete-Rebecca Muniz
Wolf’s Head Lake by Joyce Carol Oates was very dark and gave insight into an attack in a victims perspective. The story does not make it clear if there was an actual crime committed but there was a dark air that something bad had happened, would happen or had happened. The writer leaves most of the story in the readers head and I imagined that nothing really bad happened but that maybe it was a story of a man and a woman as accomplices and predating on young adults to kidnap or kill. It was interesting and can be interpreted in different ways depending on the lectors viewpoint. I felt so sad for Maruca on the story Recuerdo . It was so horrifying to think that the mother was truly considering letting the disgusting fat man have her young daughter in order to be more financially stable. Many people can consider the positives thinking that the children will be fed that maybe the step dad might molest her and that it would be in the best interest of Rosa to let the disgusting man have her daughter but even then I find it abhorrent and I would rather starve than depend on any man or permit a daughter of mine to raped or molested.
ReplyDelete-Maria Ramirez Montoya
I surprisingly liked both "Wolf's Head Lake" and "Recuerdo," but as usual, I have ways to be nit-picky. For "Wolf's Head Lake," I found it incredibly beautiful and descriptive in unexpected ways, such as clouds being described as skins of flesh ready to burst." Sentences range to being so beautifully intricate like that, to suddenly being cut short. This is associated with descriptions as simple as "He drove slowly," without any of the imagery and figurative language that was used previously. While I adore all the language used throughout this piece, I will say, however, I found the story muddled and confusing. Every was described like a brief moment of time, and maybe it was just me, but I feel like I completely missed the point. Or was there even a point at all? Similarly to how I felt the tone of "An Angel," I feel like this short story conveys a general mood or aesthetic more than anything else.
ReplyDelete- Hannah Daniel
Wolf’s Head Lake is where people go to solicit prostitution. At least that’s what I understood from reading this. For how short they story is, I enjoyed it a lot. Its just another day in the life. The narrator describes where she lives, or is staying at, and we see her/him witness a man inquiring for sex. “She’s got a quick wide smile like a knife cutting through something soft.” I think the author describes how “easy” this person is and how outward she is with being acquainted. Also maybe to how delicate this person might be as she writes of the knife she possesses “something they do…. drawing thin trickles of blood” Maybe this person hurts themselves because of the life they are living. “Recuerdo” is probably the best story yet! The role this mother has is carrying and showing concern for her child’s wellbeing, but she is being manipulated into thinking that is what they want. Maybe it’s a reflection on her life, wanting stability and commitment for her daughter who now elicits attention from men. She even reprimands Maruca for talking with a friend whom is “always by the river that one, with one solider and another” something she herself possibly did in her youth. I’m positive every parent wants their child to be better than they were, and Rosa thinks if her daughter doesn’t have the same problems she has right now, Maruca could have the world.
ReplyDelete-Leonardo Torres
The first text, “Wolf’s Head Lake” seems so distant in its language, as if the narrator is daydreaming as he recounts the story, and only specific details are really what catch her attention, so only these details are the ones expounded on. The story itself is told in a passive tone where, as a reader, I feel like I’m taking a hazy trip through the lake’s outskirts while the narrator is telling me random facts about the place and the inhabitants. The specific mention of using knives to draw blood of the strangers is almost like a jolt to the otherwise mellow ride and I was forced to focus and reread the section a few times to leave without a true understanding of what I was just shown. The next short, “Recuerdo,” is a distinct and almost deliberate contrast to “Wolf’s Head Lake” in so many aspects. It’s longer and follows a sequence. It has a lot of dialogue compared to most other shorts we’ve read in the text, and has much more structure than the first short. I could follow along and understood what was being told through the short and I didn’t feel like I suddenly dissociated unlike the first text.
ReplyDelete- Hubel Gonzalez
Reading Recuuerdo gave me a sense of anxiety and I had chills reading the whole story. To think that a mother, my mother, could ever even consider giving her daughter up to a “fat and sweaty” man just so she wouldn’t have to struggle and the family could have some financial stability is disgusting and terrifying. Maruca goes and cries to her mother that Don Lorenzo, her boss, sexually harasses her touching her inappropriately while she’s at work but her mother doesn’t seem to show any concern. Maruca’s mother goes into work for the next day and Don Lorenzo tells her he is interested in her daughter and the family would be taken care of, especially if she were to have a baby. Her mother tells Don Lorenzo that Maruca finds him “very nice” and this seems to entertain Don Lorenzo’s idea that there’s a possibility. Maruca’s mom walks home with the thought that Maruca should never have to struggle and this led me to believe that she was going to give Maruca off to Don Lorenzo. The story’s title “Recuerdo” makes me thing that Maruca’s mom is remembering this particular day and that she did end up following through with marrying Maruca off to Don Lorenzo.
ReplyDelete-Arianna Martinez
I overall enjoyed both of the stories. “Wolf’s Head Lake” by Joyce Carol Oates had amazing vivid imagery. I had to read it a couple of times to interpret this story into what I believe it could mean. I still don’t know what this story could possibly mean, but I believe that they have kidnapped the narrator and tried to kill her. This story had a very dark tone to it, and it is emphasized by the setting the narrator describes of a storm approaching. I enjoyed how it was written is second person point of view. It made me feel like I was the victim. I believe this is also a reason why the author tried to use as much imagery and metaphors as she could, so the reader may be able to envision themselves in the narrator’s place.
ReplyDelete“Recuerdo” by Guadalupe Valdés may have been fiction, but it is something that still happens around the world. I found it depressing that a mother can believe that making those types of decisions for their children, even when the child comes crying to them about what a terrible person they are. It is even more depressing that it’s the mother who has these beliefs and can’t sympathize with her daughter.
Angela Milan
Initially one of the things that stood out to me about Joyce Carol Oates story “Wolf's Head Lake” was just how descriptive things are. In some sense it shares that with the short non fiction. The language it uses is so descriptive from describing the rolling thunder and the heat lightning. It calls back to those days in the summer where you just look out and take in just how beautiful the sky is right before it rains. The story chugs along and we are introduced to things little by little we start getting different locations mentioned and even the different people that make their way throughout the lake. In Guadalupe Valdés’ “Recuerdo” we get a much more narrative driven story, not only do we have a direction for our story but we have dialogue and multiple characters that can help move the story along. Not to say that the last one didn't move along but it just felt like it was one person who was standing and perceiving the world around her as opposed to one where we have much more dynamic actions being performed. Ultimately both stories seem much different from each other, I can't seem to connect them further than they're both women authors. - Jesús Iván González
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn the text “Wolf’s Head Lake” it provided so much detail that it allowed me to create a perfect descriptive image in my head while reading it although it got confusing from time to time. I felt as if the reading was describing the characters with wrong intentions for the men in the story, so it allowed to be negative. I feel that the reason it was confusing to understand the point of the story was because of the amount of detail it provided. I created the scene in my head, but I felt that it jumped to many descriptive scenes that it just through me off to understand the purpose of the reading. I enjoyed reading “Recuerdo” because it kind of takes us back to how life was back then for women. In the story, I want to say that the mother only cared for her daughter and wanted the best for her life and that was being with a wealthy man. I see it as a reminder of why parents do what they do when they race us. The meaning of the story shares the relationship of a mother and daughter and the arrangement of her daughter’s marriage to an older man. I really liked this story because it shows the care of a mother to her daughter and it reminds us of the love a mother has for her children.
ReplyDelete-Karla Romero
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe first short story, “Wolf’s Head Lake”, is very descriptive on everything that is happening at the surroundings of the person that is narrating this story. The setting is important in this story because it is setting the tone with the early ending of summer. It starts off as “It’s an early dusk at the lake because the sky’s marbled with cloud and some of them are dark, heavy, tumescent as skins of flesh ready to burst.” With the hook, the narrator is already insinuating something bad is going to happen. This story was very intriguing and while I was reading, I was very confused at what was happening, but I was eager to finish the story. The second story, “Recuerdo”, narrates the story of Rosa, and she lives in a poor place near the Rio Grande. One of the lines that impacted me the most from this story was: “Her reflection in a smudged and dirty window told her that she was no longer even a girl.” I felt sad about Rosa, and how she did not even feel like she was a girl anymore due to the fact that she was doing stuff that took away her innocence. And then, Maruca's innocence was to be questioned since Don Lorenzo wanted her to arrange a marriage. I felt very sad when I was reading this story, I think the topic was something that happens in real life (mostly in Mexico) and it is very deep and fragile. However, I enjoyed reading these stories, I liked both of them.
ReplyDeletePaulina Longoria
These two stories showed similarities in their tone and theme. The tones were saddening and helpless. Though the narrator in "Wolf's Head Lake" was written in first person and "Recuerdo" was written in third person, its clear that both characters seem weakened in a helpless manner. Both characters accept life/the scenerio for what it is, even though they are frightened by it. Also, I see the synchronization in the antagonist characters being men (or lovers of men). We see in "Wolf's Head Lake" that this man is sort of creeping around what is a seemingly happy place. Almost like a lake retreat or family vacation. This man and his companion creep and exploit the innocence around them, strategically taking advantage of children (I think). In "Recuerdo" it is saddening to see the lengths some people are forced to go through, in order to escape life of hardships. I can totally understand Rosa's logic. Someone's daughter is precious and should be protected, not used as bait for a comfortable life. All in all, these stories were interesting.
ReplyDelete-Cassandra Ramos
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ReplyDeleteor
call/whatsapp:+2349057261346
i am ERIC BRUNT by name. Greetings to every one that is reading this testimony. I have been rejected by my wife after three(3) years of marriage just because another Man had a spell on her and she left me and the kid to suffer. one day when i was reading through the web, i saw a post on how this spell caster on this address AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com have help a woman to get back her husband and i gave him a reply to his address and he told me that a man had a spell on my wife and he told me that he will help me and after 3 days that i will have my wife back. i believed him and today i am glad to let you all know that this spell caster have the power to bring lovers back. because i am now happy with my wife. Thanks for helping me Dr Akhere contact him on email: AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
or
call/whatsapp:+2349057261346