Blog Response #8

For this weeks blog response I would like to talk about a couple of the stories in fiction packet #3. The first story I read was The Singing Fish. My first thought after reading this story was that it was a child's imagination running wild. The simplicity of the sentence structure made me believe it was a child's work. During the in class discussion some of the other students thought that it was primitive and caveman like, which makes sense because unique way it is written. For example, "Says me is who, brother says to this. Oh yeah, I say. But who said so to you?" The way the sentences flow seems backwards, so i can see why some of the students see the story as the point of view of primitive cavemen who didn't even know the meaning of grammar. I also noticed that there is a great deal of repetition of words. Time and time again it goes back to the brothers, the girl, mud, the moon, and so on. This reaffirms the thought that I have about the story being in the POV of a child. Children tend to go in circles especially when telling a story. That's just what I got out of The Singing Fish.

I also read The Falling Girl which I though was interesting. I think that the meaning behind the story is that Marta is rushing through her life (the falling symbolizes this) without slowing down to enjoy it. When she first starts falling the sun is setting and she is still falling when it becomes dark. I think this symbolizes time going by as she rushes through life. I really liked the descriptive nature in the beginning of the second paragraph. The part I liked most is "from that airy height the girl saw the streets and the masses of buildings writhing in the long spasm of sunset, and at the point where the white of the houses ended, the blue of the sea began." The creates a vivid image in my mind about a skyline contrasting the dark blue of the sea. There were other women falling as well which I really did not understand what that meant. Towards the end of the story it says "at these low floors only falling old women pass by. you can see beautiful girls from the hundred-and-fiftieth floor up. those apartments don't cost so much for nothing." I guess this could symbolize that the older women are more humble and the prettier women have their heads in the sky.

The last story that I read was Death to the Right Fielder. This story intrigued me because it describes the outfielders as "outsiders" and "onlookers". The infielders "demand communication". I think the position of the players symbolizes the classification of personalities of people. Towards the end of the second paragraph is says "people could pretty much be divided between infielders and outfielders."