Barn Burning was difficult to interpret and just a very difficult read. It begins with Abner Snopes being driven out of town for apparently burning another person's farms down. This immediately tells me that because this was written in 1950, burning farms must have been a somewhat common thing to do. Why? Because there was a standard penalty for it, and Snopes must have gotten the idea from somebody other than himself. Anyway, a lot was extremely difficult to understand because of the way that William Faulkner writes. I mean, I'm only human. And to say that I can also read Shakespeare well and read this with tons of frustration is something to say also. The one part that was especially confusing to me was the very last part, where Sartoris hears the shots that his father is shooting. I read this a couple times, but I did not understand who was murdered with the three gun shots. I think that it is the older brother and the father, but I cannot be positive. Overall I really do not have a lot to say about this story like I had with the other ones because the story was just not that good. In my opinion, of course. But next and lastly I read Everyday Use.
Everyday Use, written by Alice Walker, was a bland and really non-moving story until the end. First, the dream that the mom had reminded me of how anybody loves to be appreciated. The mother has this dream that Dee will come up to her and hug her and tell her how much she appreciated everything that she did, but we can already tell that this dream is not going to happen. The way her mother describes her before we even meet Dee is depressing. It's obvious that Dee is just some kind of vixen that used her family for everything they had, and really does not appreciate them at all. The surprising part is that all three girls believe that Dee has the highest status in the family. Maggie is embarrassed because of her scars and thinks that Dee is the perfect daughter who has gone out into the world and is coming back to tell them all of the things that she has done. The mother also has to practically beg for a nice thing to come out of Dee's mouth to her. It is evident that until the end of the story, Dee has the highest status, although she has not really done anything. The end of the story, however, illustrated that the mother now accepts that fact that Dee is just a waste of her time, and refuses to give her any of the dresses. Instead, she gives them to somebody that appreciates her and has helped her through her entire life; Maggie. This demonstrated that at finally the mother realizes that she has to accept that Dee is just a person who had taken advantage of them. This was a not great story for me, but I'm sure for a female reader this may have been a bit better.
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