Setting & Point of View Journal

Preparing for the Journal
Read and annotate the Setting & Point of View stories and watch the Setting & Point of View PowerPoint before beginning this response.
Completing the Journal
Write 1 developed paragraph (at least 5-7 sentences) on each of this week’s stories (3 paragraphs total). Use the following questions to help you develop the paragraphs. You may write more about each story if you wish.
The narrator of “The Cask of Amontillado” justifies his murder by referencing “the thousand injuries” (Poe 866) he has suffered at the hands of Fortunado. Do you believe his explanation? In other words, do you think he is a reliable narrator? Does his 1st-person perspective make him more or less trustworthy in your opinion?
“Everyday Use” was written in the early 1970s, when many educated young African Americans were embracing their African heritage while rejecting the values and history of their parents and grandparents. In the story, Dee is one of these upwardly mobile young African Americans. Do you admire her accomplishments? Do you agree with her wish to preserve the heirloom quilt and her opinion that her mother and sister “don’t understand . . . [their] heritage” and need to “make something” of themselves (Walker 73)? Is there anything ironic about what she says to them about heritage?
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story was written in the early 1890s, when women had far less power in their marriages, and effective treatments for depression were almost unknown. She says that her husband’s status as a doctor is “one reason I do not get well faster” (Gilman). But because of her severe post-partum depression, the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is clearly mentally unstable, which makes her an unreliable narrator. We can’t fully trust what she tells us about herself, about her husband, or about the rest of the world she lives in. What are some examples of story events which are probably taking place in the narrator’s mind? Do you think we’d have a different view of events if the story was told from her husband’s perspective? Why?

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