Trojan Horse

Author's Note: This is a reflection of the short story "The Trojan Horse," adapted from Book II of The Aeneid by Virgil. In this I will talk about the main conflict and how the conflict was resolved, and I compared the story to real life situations. 

The conflict in the story was person verses person, because the Greeks and Trojans are battling against each other. The conflict was resolved when the Greeks won, by hiding in a wooden horse and then getting into Troy and taking over the city and the Trojans. The devious part of this story was how the Greeks won the war against the Trojans. They won by hiding in a wooden horse and making it look like they left and gave up, when in actuality they were hidden somewhere else and in the giant wooden horse. Then when the Trojans took the horse into their city they came out and attacked when the Trojans were least expecting it.

Something like this could happen nowadays, because people are still crazy and devious enough to try this. Also because people would do and try anything to win a battle or war, but this is also a very know trick or story so it might not be very effective nowadays. This could not happen in a school or small workplace, because of the fact that, there wouldn’t be enough room for people to build something big enough to have a lot of people fit in. Also, because there aren’t any battles at school or in a small workplace that this way of battling would be effective. I have not seen this kind of thing in any movies, shows, or books. I have heard of it before, but other than that I haven’t seen it or read about it in anything.

Reverse Racism And Stereotyping

Author’s Note: In this piece I have written about stereotyping, and reverse racism. I compared those two topics to a short story that deals with those concepts and teaches you a lot about them.\

Everyday people make assumptions about people and based on many things such as, looks, where they live and much more. This is just like how the mom acts in the short story, “ After You My Dear Alphonse,” because she demonstrates reverse racism in many parts throughout the story.  “After You My Dear Alphonse,”  is about a mom and her son comes home for lunch and brings a friend of his with him. His friend happens to be black, and the story is about the conversation between the mom and the black boy and how she makes many assumptions about him, his family and his home life. “ After You My Dear Alphonse,” by Shirley Jackson, demonstrates reverse racism  and stereotyping in many different parts.

Johnny’s mom demonstrates reverse racism towards Johnny’s friend, Boyd. One example of how she does this is when she offers to give Boyd old clothes and things, but she is very insistent that he not turn the clothes down or be ashamed to need it, when in reality he doesn’t need the clothes he is not like a stereotypical colored person.  When Boyd says, “ I guess we buy about everything we need. Thank you very much though,” in response to Johnny’s mom’s offer. When he says this it proves that he is not in need of clothes or any kind of charity from other people.

Not only when Johnny’s mom offers Boyd clothes is she demonstrating reverse racism, but also when she assumes Boyd’s dad does a lot of hard manual labor in a factory all day. When Johnny’s mom asks what Boyd’s dad does for work, Boyd says that he works in a factory. Johnny’s mom responds to this by saying, “And he certainly has to be strong to do that—all that lifting and carrying at a factory.” She assumes that because he’s black, he is automatically doing some underpaid labor intensive job, but is sadly mistaken when Boyd responds and says, “He’s a foreman.” When Boyd says this once again Johnny’s mom’s stereotypical assumptions about black people are incorrect, and the reader can tell that Johnny’s mom is getting a frustrated that she is constantly sounding stupid in front of her son.

Reverse racism and stereotyping are not only found in story’s and books, but also in life. For example when you meet someone you automatically make an assumption about them based on where they are from and what they look like. This happens so many times each day, whether you mean to or not, it’s automatic. But something you can control is what you say and do when you stereotype someone. What many people do, and what Johnny’s mom did was treat someone differently based on where they’re from and what they look like, but if you don’t want to treat someone like that you should keep your thoughts to yourself and not say anything until you get to know them. I’m sure Johnny’s mom wishes she’d done that.

In conclusion, reverse racism and stereotyping is common, in life and especially in the short story, “After You My Dear Alphonse,” by Shirley Jackson. Reverse racism has a way of backfiring and making you look ignorant which was proven by the author in this short story. In addition, stereotyping is something that leads to reverse racism, so think about what this author has taught you in this short story. The next time you meet someone new, don’t judge and stereotype them, talk to them and get to know them so that you don’t end up looking like Johnny’s mom in, “After You My Dear Alphonse.”

Superficial Beauty And Culture

Author’s Note: I wrote this as a response to the story “Ribbons,” by Laurence Yep. In this I compare culture in  China and what they believe about beauty to what the US believes about beauty.

In China culture is very different than in the US. For example women in China are considered obsolete and meaningless. A long time ago in China it was considered beautiful for women to have very small feet. So parents in order to make sure they’re daughter can grow up to be considered beautiful and marry a rich man they made them bind their feet when they were young. This would make the feet not grow as much and when the feet did grow they would grow under the feet creating the “beautiful,” desired feet.

They’d wrap the feet in ribbons and this was how they bound their feet. For the grandma ribbons bring back terrible memories for the grandma. But for the granddaughter ribbons symbolized her love of dancing. Because of the different symbols for the ribbons it made it an important title with a significant meaning, which compares the thought of beauty between China and the US.

Not only in China is there superficial beauty but also in the US there is superficial beauty for girls and women. One example is that girls and women are mostly considered beautiful when they are thin, and have little to no fat on them. Also in the US beauty is shown by looking young and having clear, wrinkle free skin with high cheekbones and not having features or parts of your face that make you stick out such as a nose. Women in the US use surgery to make themselves look “beautiful,” this is similar to China in the way that they bound girls feet to give them the superficial “beauty.”

Who Am I?

Author’s Note: This was written to describe a specific character and give clues as to who we are describing so you can guess our mystery character. Christa Buth and I wrote this piece together.

I’m your friend till the end. I may look like a simple child’s toy, but trust me there is much more to me than that. You will see my bright red hair and overalls and think oh that’s cute. Little do you know, I have a plan. My soul is trapped due to voodoo and only one person can get me out of this body. I must kill everyone around him to get him alone, and once I do I must start my life over as a six year old.

You have seen many just like me, but I am different. I talk and walk, but here’s the catch, I have no batteries. As I spend more and more time in this plastic body, it is slowly becoming my own. If I don’t switch soon I will become a child’s companion forever.

You can burn me, drop me, you can smash my head ,but the only way to kill me is to stab me in the heart. But good luck killing me before I kill you. Many have found out my agenda, but I got to them before they got to me. So think twice before coming after me and getting in my way, you could end up just like them.  I may be a nice guy but trust me and my victims, I’m not a nice guy.

Just remember, “We’re friends till the end.”

After You My Dear Alphonse Response

Author's Note: I wrote this to respond on the story, "After You My Dear Alphonse," by Shirley Jackson. I will talk about how reverse racism and stereotyping is in Pewaukee, and the world. Also I will talk about the author's message and what she was trying to teach us.

Shirley Jackson was trying to teach us a lesson about how you shouldn’t believe all the stereotypes you hear about people and places and how to treat different people you would any other person. When Johnny’s mom was asking Boyd so many questions, and really seeming to believe the stereotypes, Boyd was acting all suspicious and seemed to be questioning why she was acting so weird and asking such bizarre questions. This story seemed like it was to teach us how mean and occasionally naive you can sound by believing these stereotypes and expecting them to be true and accurate about everyone.

I think this story compares to Pewaukee because we also believe many stereotypes about people who are in different schools and cities than us. For example, a stereotype about people is Waukesha is, poor or gang related. Usually they are associated as bad news and trouble. Also we associate Milwaukee with gangs, shootings, robberies and people who belong in jail. But I have met people from both places and not everyone from there is the way we stereotype them. This also happens all over the world with different countries and ethnicities. We can all learn from Shirley Jackson’s story, we can learn not to believe everything we hear and not everyone is the same in these places so we should get to know the person without making assumptions based on how they look, their ethnicity and where they’re from.