"SQ" by Ursula Le Guin

"He said: 'An asylum means a place of shelter, a place of cure. Let there be no stigma attached to the word 'insane,' to the word 'asylum,' to the words 'insane asylum'! No! For the asylum is the haven of mental health...'"

Mental health is an incredibly important and increasingly salient topic in our current society. Kids are being put on ADHD medications, having a therapist is a fairly common thing, etc. etc. And many people believe that we are overmedicating, overdiagnosing, and that people should just get over their issues. Now, I'm sure there are many improperly diagnosed mental illnesses out there, and there is controversy over whether ADHD is something we should be medicating in children, but if a treatment or medication genuinely improves someone's life, should they not take advantage of it? 

This is why I was unsure how I felt about this story at the beginning. It appeared to be a satire on the prevalence of mental illness treatment, suggesting that the treatment is negative. The style of writing suggested, through passages like the one quoted above, that Dr. Speakie was a monster of sorts, taking the people away from themselves and locking them away for "treatment." I sympathized with the words being said, but felt that they were being used satirically. 

However, the theme of the story takes a significant turn as the plot progresses. First, World SQ scores continue to rise, and more and more people choose to be and work in the asylums instead of living in the outside world. The asylums gain farmland, resources and general autonomy. Meanwhile, the ever-shrinking population on the outside, including Mrs. Mary Ann Smith and, for a time, Dr. Speakie, continue to struggle to separate themselves from the "insane." Eventually, Speakie breaks and admits to be incredibly insane by the criteria of his test. 

The people on the outside seem to be followers (Mrs. Smith is incredibly sheep-like and blindly follows everything Speakie says, the janitor is straightforward and seems to enjoy his simple life), and the people inside the asylum seem to be leaders. The rebels in Australia had very high levels, and all they wanted was freedom. If the desire for freedom is considered insane, then only the leaders and independent and imaginative thinkers would have high SQ scores. These are the people being put into asylums, which are becoming the more pleasant and thriving place to be. 

On the outside, Speakie struggled to deny his so-called insanity, because he seemed to feel it was wrong to be a free thinker. He internalized and tried to hide his individuality so much that he became genuinely insane.

A possible theme here could be that the people we classify as crazy, as outsiders, insane, are really the ones gifted with creativity and the capability for independence. They shouldn't be hidden away or squandered, because they are the ones with potential and strength. The story isn't criticizing the improvement of lives through treatment, like I originally thought; it's criticizing the stigma around mental illness and the concept that sanity means following the leader.

"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard O'Connell

"'Here in my preserve on this island,' he said in the same slow tone, 'I hunt more dangerous game.'"

 I was not expecting this story to be about people-hunting. I had heard the title "The Most Dangerous Game" before, and had seen the movie poster, but I assumed it was about some sort of game set up by an old billionaire -- something along the lines of a book I read in middle school, "The Westing Game." Upon reading that by "game," the author means "animals to be hunted," I have to appreciate the wit. That's an interesting play on words, whether or not it was intentional. 

As I read, General Zaroff's little hints as to what he does became clearer and clearer. He refers to the people he hunts as a type of animal, which makes his motives unclear for a while. The quote above is an example of that -- he's enjoying himself, making these jokes that are going over Rainsford's head. This is the first step to understanding Zaroff. He is an old man who lives alone, save his dogs and Ivan, and spends his time entertaining himself. His own wit is all he has to live with, and he is getting bored with it. He wants a challenge, such that none of his "animals" have yet provided him. And if they have, he's still managed to best them. 

Zaroff appears at first to be a predator, living for and loving the kill. However, he is a little more complex than that. He likes the challenge that hunting people gives him, but there is a part of him that wants to lose his game. The game isn't a one-time thing for him; when he wins, he simply moves on to the next one, hoping for a challenge. But he knows that the only thing that would provide him a challenge is the kind of person who would elude him and kill him. So, it becomes clear that General Zaroff has a bit of a death wish. It makes you wonder about his character, really -- he's so detestable, kidnapping and hunting humans for sport. But you have to wonder what pushed him to this point. He must have such a sad existence if he is so bored with the world as to need this strange, twisted activity just to feel something. It seems as though his hunting is also an elaborate and kamikaze-esque death wish. 

At the end, when Rainsford surprises Zaroff in his home, O'Connell writes, "The general sucked in his breath and smiled. 'I congratulate you,' he said. 'You have won the game.'" Zaroff smiled. He was prepared for this moment; he knew it could come at any time and was ready to accept it.

A question to end on -- did Zaroff plan for Rainsford, an apparently well-known hunter, to wash up on his shore? Or did he just get lucky?

"God of Love" by Luke Matheny

Fozzie: "What's this dish?"

Ray: "It's chicken pot pie, Pennsylvania-Dutch style."

Fozzie: "Doesn't she like seafood?"

I had actually watched this film before, in my freshman year film production class, and it's one of my favorites. I love its creativity, of being a sort of mythological origin story for the god of love, but without announcing itself as such until the end. My other favorite aspect of it is its social commentary.

Ray was head over heels for Kelly, but she didn't feel the same. By just about any rulebook, he should have stopped there, out of respect for himself if not for her. But frankly, he didn't really care that she didn't feel the same; he had his mind set on changing her. In the quote above, Ray's friend Fozzie points out that the food Ray was planning for his date with Kelly wasn't what she liked. This is the most direct example of how Ray disregards Kelly's actual opinions. While she's under the effects of the love dart, he spends his time trying to impress her, and enjoying the attention she gives him. It's clear that that's all he really wants -- her attention. Not until the end does Ray realize that Kelly should be with Fozzie, the one who really does care about her.

This is a very common issue in relationships in the world today, where they aren't based on love, but rather on a desire for possession. We want someone to want us, and so we focus on gaining their attention, but we don't actually think about what the other person wants. A relationship between Kelly and Ray would be shallow and short-lived, because it's only skin-deep. Ray, as we see at the end, is better suited to aid others while, on a personal level, spending some time on his own. This seems representative of how we need to learn and understand ourselves before we can love someone else.

"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin

"When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease -- of the joy that kills."

This piece repeatedly broke my expectations. I expected existentialism, maybe a story about Mrs. Mallard falling into some form of depression or finding a new life after her husband's death. I didn't expect the happiness, but I find it very interesting and I might even agree with it in her situation.

Rather than falling into a depression at the news of her husband's death, it seems that Mrs. Mallard is falling out of one. She becomes almost giddy, hopeful and excited for her future of freedom. What's really interesting about this reaction is that she wasn't quite unhappy in her marriage. She describes how he has never looked at her with anything but love, and how she had sometimes loved him too. But she seems to have felt restricted by that marriage, by that very love. "There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself," the narrator says. While there had never been anything significantly harmful about their relationship, it had become an obligation, a set of rules and limitations within which she had to live. 

But now, despite what was such an objectively great tragedy, she felt happy again -- "...she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window." She suddenly found herself free of the restrictions that she hadn't realized existed, in much the way that a person getting glasses for the first time might suddenly realize how much of the world they've been missing. 

Then, just as suddenly, it all comes crashing back down when her husband walks through the door. Suddenly the freedom she didn't know she wanted had been taken back from her, suddenly all of the restrictions had returned. And apparently, that shock was enough to give her a heart attack. I find it funny that the news that "should" have broken her heart actually gave her great joy, and the news that "should" have given her great joy actually broke her heart. This story does a great job of painting the differences in perspective, particularly with respect to relationships; where some see support and love, others see restriction. What is terrible for one person may be great for another, and vice versa.

What I wonder is whether Mr. Mallard, after Mrs. Mallard's actual death, had the same epiphany of freedom. Did he grieve, or did he explore?

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin

"But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."

I'd like to start off talking about the tone used in the narration of this piece. It's told in third person, very removed and almost coldly descriptive. The narrator describes without truly expressing emotion, although they occasionally seem to know more than they let on.

The people of Omelas live life happily at the expense of one small child who lives in misery in a basement. They are all aware of its mistreatment, and go to see it at least once in their lives. It becomes the object of their emotions. In their lives, they have general peace. Things are good, there is no war, everyone seems to have just what they need. In a life like that, emotion grows scarce. When there is nothing to want and nothing to need, the people have nothing to make them feel true emotion. This is where the child comes in. It is there so that the people of Omelas may feel sad for it, or angry for it. Then, as they are told that there is nothing they can do about it, they convince themselves that that is true. On pages 81-82, the narrator says, "But as time goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good out of its freedom... Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it."

Most of the people can convince themselves that it's okay for the child to live like this, because they assume that that's just how things are. The world is a certain way, and it would affect their standard of living to change the child's life, so why not let it be? They even convince themselves that the child is happier this way. 

But then there are the ones who walk away. These are the people who realize that they aren't okay with a place that works like this. They don't do anything directly to help the child, probably because they know people would fight back, but they remove themselves from this society. They "seem to know where they are going" because they do know -- they are going away from there, to find someplace better. 

This piece is reminiscent of the idea of helping the poor. Our society stands in a certain way, and if we were to bring the poor to a level equal to that of the rich, it would upset the established order, and that causes discomfort. However, people are perfectly willing to use the suffering of the poor as an inspiration to them in their lives, much as the people of Omelas used the child's suffering to motivate their art, their kindness. The poor people and the child are there as an example of what not to be, and the people who walk away from Omelas are the people who aren't okay with using another human life solely to inspire your own emotional ends.

"This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona" by Sherman Alexie

"'Nothing stops, cousin,' Thomas said. 'Nothing stops.'"

As I read through the story, the thoughts that were cropping up in my head culminated in this sentence. I remember thinking things like, "Wow, Thomas is still willing to go so far out of his way for Victor -- friendship never ends!" And then, I got to this line, and realized that that "endless" friendship was quite possibly the whole point of the story. Thomas is the part of this story that strikes the strongest chord with me; he's a dreamer, and fairly spurned by his entire community. They're tired of his stories, so they avoid him and ignore him. But his stories are all he has, so he sticks to his guns and keeps going, and keeps on caring about Victor, because as he says -- nothing stops. 

The reason for the end of Thomas' and Victor's friendship is never explicitly stated, but it's heavily implied that once Victor's friends decided they didn't like Thomas, he followed the crowd and stopped talking to him as well. It doesn't seem to have been of his own accord, because in one of the flashbacks, Victor explicitly asks Thomas to tell him a story, and because they get along so well during their trip. This seems to be making a statement about the power of public opinion on a friendship; although by definition we shouldn't care what others think, many people are strongly influenced by it. And when we're forced to face our own actions, like Victor was, we tend to see the wrong of our ways. "Victor was ashamed of himself.  Whatever happened to the tribal ties, the sense of community?" 

Another section of the story I found interesting was the roadkill when Thomas was driving. They had been commenting on how there were no living things in the desert area when they noticed a jackrabbit. Then, the narrative continues, "Thomas and Victor were busy congratulating themselves on their discovery when the jackrabbit darted out into the road and under the wheels of the pickup." I had trouble working out the meaning of this metaphor for a while -- I could feel that it was an important metaphor to the story, but I couldn't quite put it into words. The jackrabbit could represent a friendship, like the one that once existed peacefully between the younger Thomas and Victor. It was a truly close friendship, seemingly a diamond in the rough. But when the focus was taken away from the relationship itself and shifted onto the objective and social look of it, the friendship was ruined, just like how the jackrabbit was killed when the two men were focused on their pride for having found a living thing in the desert. The focus was on themselves, not the discovery, and by means of that lapse in attention the subject of their excitement was killed. 

As a whole, I found this to be a clever, well-written piece on friendship and family. It manages to be both funny and poignant, and utterly relatable, through Victor's honest self-reflections. It leaves you wanting to be better to the Thomas in your life.

"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway

"What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanliness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine."

Maybe it's not entirely professional of me to start off with a general opinion, but I love this piece as a whole. It's does a realistic job of showing the world's perspective by juxtaposing one person who understands the existentialism/depression/insomnia-ridden lifestyle of the old man with one who does not.

The quote I included above is said by the older waiter, the one who understands the lifestyle of an old man who comes to the café every night, after his younger, less empathetic coworker has gone home for the night. He is talking to himself as he closes up the café. In his thoughts spoken aloud, he explains the way he perceives the old man to view life -- full of "nada." From this perspective, the world is full of and made of nothing, which can be very hard for a person to handle. As such, the old man simply needs a place to sit at night, a place that is well-lit with a calm atmosphere.

Beyond simply explaining the perceived perspective of the old man, this passage does a nice job of explaining the character's general feeling of an existential take on the world. The concept of nothingness, of there potentially being no greater being or overarching meaning to life, is one often viewed with a fairly rational amount of fear. But, as the waiter says, "it was not a fear or dread." Someone who has accepted the concept of nothingness into their life doesn't fear the nothingness. They understand the idea and are not afraid of it; they don't push it away to the back of their minds like others might. For someone who openly accepts the idea of nothingness, "...light was all it needed, and a certain cleanliness and order."

On a personal level, I like that Hemingway chose to have the waiter exemplify the feeling of nothingness by replacing the words to prayers, because religion is a common area of disagreement for people who do and do not sympathize with the existential mindset. Religion, to those who believe in it, is a source of hope. Religion to people who do not believe in it, on the other hand, is a source of false hope. This is shown nicely by the sheer number of "nada"s thrown into the waiter's phrases. Hemingway turns a prominent piece of common ground for religious believers into a very empty group of sentences.

Another favorite bit of mine is the end of the passage; I love the way the text switches directly from the waiter's monologue about nothingness to the waiter smiling in front of "a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee maker." The specificity in the description of the coffee maker feels so hollow and irrelevant after this thick paragraph about how everything is nothing, yet it's there and remains part of the story, because life goes on. And the old waiter smiles on. While earlier on in the piece, the younger waiter had repeatedly said that if the old man feels the way he does, he should have just killed himself, the older waiter is able to through the same type of thought process and come out of it smiling. It feels like a lesson in resilience, an example of how a person can see the world in such an empty way and still go on living life.