Boombox Generation

     I was bothered reading this story because of the spelling errors, the nonexistent quotations, and the random capitalization of words throughout the whole thing.  I’m not sure if it’s the author’s intention or if it’s supposed to add to the story somehow, but I don’t get it.  Along with that, I was also confused as to what the main characters were, humans…robots…?  It was hard to follow the story because I didn’t fully understand it.  After reading it, I didn’t really know how to feel.  “Jon” is definitely not one of my favorites.

     If equality means same intelligence levels, physical appearance, and abilities among a population in the year 2081, I hope equality is never achieved.  Equality is supposed to be about having the same rights regardless of your gender, age, race, etc.  It’s nerve racking to think about a world where everyone is the same and it’s because of the governments doing.  I was rooting for Harrison, the ”extremely dangerous” criminal, because he was the only one trying to overthrow the rediculous rules of their society.  His death, along with the ballerina’s, was tragic; not only did two people die, the rest of society did as well.

     Brandi’s mother is a joke.  She has no responsibility for her child and no respect for herself.  She’s with different men all the time and blames Brandi for everything wrong in their lives.  She finds ridiculous ways to bother Brandi; the story mentions the mother dragging Brandi out of bed just because she forgot to drain the bathwater.  Brandi’s mother is also amazing at pawning her child off onto other people so she can have the house to herself and not have to worry about feeding her.  The mother is abrasive as well and can’t face confrontation.  When the narrator brings up the missing items from his apartment, she freaks out and acts sarcastic asking if she should call 911 because of her daughter’s crime.  She’s a mess and has already damaged her daughter a lot. 

     I think that the author is trying to convey a message about the imperfections of life.  You move into a new neighborhood and help out a troubled child but she never gains respect for you.  You did your good deed but never receive any glorification for your actions.  The narrator of this story experiences so many of these imperfections, and so does Brandi.  No one signs up to have an absent father and worthless mother, but that’s just the way life is for some kids.  The story, even though fictional, describes a lot of situations people face every day.

In this story, the narrator admires the 103 year old woman he is renting from.  He is astonished by her age and the things she’s experience over that time.  The narrator starts taking care of his landlord in little ways which helps him take care of his wife once she arrives in the states.  His experience with both women are similar; at first things are awkward, but then he learns how to adjust to life with a new person.  I’m not saying that his relationship with his 103 year old landlord was the same relationship he had with his wife, but when he placed with both of them, they were strangers to him.  He learned to adapt and love these people around him.

     In this short story, the family takes a road trip and the grandma decides to hide the cat in the car with them.  She feels that he shouldn’t be left alone for three days and stores him in the backseat with the luggage.  The grandma startled the cat when she realized they were driving to the wrong house, and the cat attacks the driver causing the accident.  I think the grandma caused a lot of problems in this story and that the children were unbelievably disrespectful.  If everyone would have had better manners, maybe they would have survived.

     The narrator of the story is crazy.  The room she’s in used to be a nursery so the wallpaper has a childish print on it and it’s peeling off.  The woman is apparently ill; I only believe she is ill because of the wallpaper.  She is obssessed with the people that apparently live behind the wall paper and make it move.  She starts ripping it off towards the end of the story, but by that time it is turning yellow and has an odor.  I don’t really understand anything about the woman in the wallpaper or why the narrator’s husband fainted at the end… It seems to me that this woman is mentally unstable and needs to be taken out of the house.

This story displays how disturbed Miss Emily is.  She was attached to the men in her life.  When her father died, she disappeared from the public; the same happened when Homer Barron “left” her.  We find out at the end of the story that Homer was actually stored in her attic after his death.  And next to him was where Miss Emily would lay.  I find it disturbing, yet sad, that she was that attached.

After reading the first paragraph, you can tell the narrator is in a tough position and is having a hard time facing something.  You can tell there is conflict and that emotions are going to be displayed by the narrator and other characters as they face, and battle, the conflict.  I think the narrator’s face is “trapped in the darkness which roared outside” because he is realizing the extent of the conflict and how it will be affecting him.  It gives a clue to the reader that the conflict is harsh and personal.

I think that the dad in the story needs to get over the fact that his daughter is a lesbian.  Once he accepts that, he will be fine.  The story mentions that he sometimes forgets his daughter is a lesbian and has a good time reminiscing.  But then, for whatever reason, once he remembers she’s a lesbian, he feels he has to be upset and angry with her lifestyle.  His behaviors are what caused her to write the article, so if he was more understanding, he wouldn’t be complaining about the article either.

I think that Sammy made an impulse decision to quit.  His boss was yelling at the girls because they broke the store policy, which makes sense.  I don’t think the boss’ behavior was the only reason Sammy quit.  He was quite into the girls however, and maybe quitto seem compassionate.  There must have been other reasons that caused Sammy to quit; if he just quit because his boss “embarrassed” the girls, that’s foolish.