Story #1
A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner I thoroughly enjoyed having to read A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner as the first story we had to read for this Literature class because it combines numerous qualities that I find to be very interesting to read about such as: the time period in which the story takes place, the overall themes within the story, etc. The story is listed as Southern gothic as it takes place in the Southern United States just after the Civil War had ended and it contains a wide array of dark and horrifying images including, but not just limited to: decaying mansions, corpses, murders, strange disappearances, violence, and so on.

After reading this short story, there is no doubt in my mind that I could ever forget it. My sudden realization of what had went on with Miss Emily and the decomposed body of Homer Barron at the end of the story came as such a shock along with many other feelings as well. The overwhelming disgust I felt after realizing what happened is impossible to forget, but I also cannot and could never forget how much I was able to empathize with Emily’s feelings and actions. The poor woman had never been allowed to date any men because her father forbid it, then suddenly the only man she’s ever known dies and she’s left all alone in the crumbling mansion. She becomes so desperate for human contact and human love that she has to murder Homer to keep him with her and keep his dead, decomposing body in her house to sleep next to for many years after. She ends up having to use her aristocratic position within the town to hide the fact that Homer was murdered along with her horrifying secret of sleeping next to (and/or perhaps with) the dead body of Homer.
Story #2
A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor While reading A Good Man Is Hard to Find one should notice the very obvious foreshadowing in the beginning of the tale to get an understanding of what will happen further on of the families trek to their vacation to Florida. Another thing the reader should notice while reading are the characters – especially the grandmother. Her interactions and her words are all important to the way the story comes to an end.

While I did enjoy reading bits and pieces of A Good Man Is Hard to Find, the overall thing that annoyed me the most about it happens to be the characters. Although they are all very well written characters for such a short story, their actions, their behaviors and their personalities are frustrating to read about. The children are the most bothersome and horribly behaved characters to which I have had the displeasure of reading about. I firmly believe that the reason the tale ended the way it did is the fault of the grandmother. Had she went on the trip without making such a fuss about going on vacation to Florida instead of Tennessee, everyone could have been happy. If the grandmother had not recalled the memory of a house along the way to Tennessee, the family never would have went down a backwards, gravel road to a house that did not even exist in that area and never have met up with the notorious Misfit who managed to escape from prison along with two of his buddies. If the grandmother did not have the overly annoying aspect of speaking whatever came to her mind, she would never have gotten her son, daughter-in-law, her three grandchildren, and even herself murdered on the side of a gravel road behind a bunch of trees and foliage.
Story #3
Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway Personally, I did not enjoy reading Hills Like White Elephants without any background knowledge or any hints of what was going on during the conversation between the female character Jig and the male character which has no name, but is referred to in the body of the text as The American. After discussing the story and the meanings behind the dialogue during class, everything that went on in the story suddenly made total sense. The terms that previously had no meaning in my head finally