Week 4: Reading Journal Ellison, “The King of the Bingo Game” (1944). It took me a little over an hour to read. It was another sad story. This one differed because the narrator, an African American man, lacked papers to prove he belonged to society. This resulted in him starving and feeling desperate because he didn’t have the money to take care of his sick wife. There were probably other factors, but it all led to his psychotic break. All of which is a different narrative from the rest of the previous stories. I haven’t seen many stories discuss the topic of racism or the sad reality for those in the world who aren't white. It gave me insight into the absolute desperation that you would feel to prove your worth to a society that perceives…show more content… I had to pause my readings several times because I couldn’t focus on what was being said. I think it took me at least 2 hours to read because my brain kept feeling foggy that day. I had to write a lot of notes. These notes helped me prepare for my discussion post. O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find made me laugh, at least in the beginning. I disliked the grandmother. She was an older, selfish, and hypocritical woman. She felt morally superior, even to her children. I hated that the grandmother's only response to Misfit's struggles was that he should have "started to pray" and that Jesus would help him (O'Connor 620). I do agree that the misfit is not what the grandmother insisted on being: “a good man” (O’Connor 619). Yet, the misfit is still likable. At least he realized his flaws, unlike the grandmother. Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues" (1957) Baldwin’s Sonny's Blues took me a bit longer to read. It probably took me an hour and a half at the most. I think I took notes that will help me later on in my discussion posts. However, they’ll need a lot of editing. I had a hard time controlling my anger towards the narrator. This was especially true when Sonny looked visibly hurt by his brother's dismissal. "He looked more helpless than ever, and annoyed and deeply hurt" (Baldwin 51). I wanted to scream at the narrator and tell him to get off his high horse and support his brother. One place made me empathize with Sonny personally. It was when, later in the story, he described the total control that heroin gives you. He talks about how heroin hides the suffering in life. There are people in my life who describe doing similar things (not exactly heroin, thank God) for similar purposes. Nabokov, "Signs and Symbols" (1958) Nabokov’s Signs and Symbols took me around an hour to read and another 45 minutes to re-read because the ending tripped
