The Purloined Letter

Meh.... the story was alright at best. The writing quality was obviously top notch due to is being written by Poe, but it's contents didn't really hold my attention. The vocab, while vast, seemed to be more dated then anything else. I actually found myself trying not to skim through some of the paragraphs. The long, run on sentences often seemed to serve no purpose other then to show off the writers keen intelect. Quick summary so you don't think im just trying to be condecending to one of the most famous writers of all time:

Important person loses letter and is being blackmailed over it's contents.
Police can't find it cause the Minister is clever like the marble boy.
Prefect goes to speak with Dublin.
Dublin realizes Minister is smart so he hid in in plain site, avoiding normal police searches.
Dublin goes to ministers, wears glasses that hides his eyes and locates letter.
Dublin goes and steals the letter when he returns the next day to pick up his snuff box.
Dublin sells the letter to the prefect (a small sum compared to the fun he had doing it)
Dublin tells the main character how it happened.

The only thing that entertained me was when he spoke about the child who won the marbles playing odds and evens. It's the same way I could always win rocks/paper/scissors when I was younger. As I grew older though, I started to think that prehapse I wasn't actually gauging their intelligence but rather getting lucky. At least i know that there is school of logic behind what I was doing. Also, the text layout on the long paragraphs on that website was very headache inducing.

The Use of Force

The doctor in this story could easily be viewed in may different ways. I'm torn on which one is the most probable universally acknowledged view, but most likely him overcoming the child's fighting makes him a hero. Granted, anyone could say he was a hero because in the end he was able to diagnosed the child with diphtheria, but the almost sadistic satisfaction he had while attempting to open the child's mouth definitely give us something to discuss. "But the worst of it was that I too had got beyond reason. I could have torn the child apart in my own fury and enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to attack her. My face was burning with it." Now, was this a natural reaction due to his doctoral vows coupled with the child's anger and ferocity or was there something disturbing about it. The only real way that we could determine this is if the story had gone on for at least another paragraph. I say this because it ends with "Now truly she was furious. She had been on the defensive before but now she attacked. Tried to get off her father's lap and fly at me while tears of defeat blinded her eyes." Now that he had seen her tonsils and got what he wanted, if he still kept that sadistic fury in response to her attack, I think that would imply there something more twisted in his head.
One last thing that I noticed in the story, maybe I'm way off on this. Very early in the third paragraph, when introducing the child, the author states "The child was fully dressed and sitting on her father's lap near the kitchen table". Doesn't it seem like unless you mention it, it's assumed everyone is wearing close? I dunno, I was just contemplating a few options: a. It's a random line that im reading into b. The author put it there as to inforce the concept that she was in no way exposed so that the doctor's lust had no sexual conotation c. and finally the possibility that it's from the doctor's point of view and thats somethign that immediately goes through the doctors head when seeing a child (sicko status). Dunno, highly possible I'm trying to make something out of nothing here, but how drunk with power he gets when overpowering the child seems a bit... pervy?

Hills Like a White Potato

This story was certainly not my 'cup of tea'. The back and forth talking between the man and the woman was so repetitive that I automatically went into 'skimming mode'. I then had to go back and read it in-depth in an attempt to conjure some understanding of it. So it turns out that they were talking about an abortion, he wants it initially she is undecided. The scenery she observes is a metaphor for having the child or not. For example the barren side of the scenery was herself without the child and the lush fruitful landscape was her life with it. Their bags with the tags from many hotels implies the man's current free lifestyle and what he would be giving up if he was to settle down and have the child. From the way that I interpreted the ending, it seems that he moves his bags from one side of the tracks to the other, making them go towards the more lush landscape. (Implying that they will have the child) I feel like just about every point in this story is open to argument due to nothing really being stated. There are people who love to read way to far into stories for the sake of satisfying their own literary egos. I hate this story just because it is encourages these over-analyzing 'tards to continue doing so.
I could write a story about a big, fat potato named Bob and his friend Frank the french fry. In the end I could say the Bob is really a figment of Frank's imagination and that the big fat potato is what he sees himself as in the mirror. There would be some moron out there who would call it an "Ingenious literary triumph portraying the inner workings of an anorexic's mind". Crap like this story only encourages them. It's a hell of a lot more difficult to entertain with a concrete story then having "the reader decide for themselves". Just my two cents.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Awesome story. Due to the beginning of the story i thought it was going to be another woman's rights commentary. I was definitely incorrect. It started to get disturbing when night came and the main character was able to see what the design truly was. The implied visuals of a woman pounding against the bars of the outer layer of paper was genuinely bizarre. Then, as she started to see the 'creeping' women out the windows you knew that her insanity was beginning to climax. (I prefer to read the story as her being insane rather then the implied concept of the house being haunted due to my personal disregard of anything supernatural or religious. A crazy woman is far creepier then any ghost-tale.)
The final scene where she has completely and utterly lost her mind gave me the pit of the stomach,
disturbed feeling usually only brought on by a similarly creepy film. The idea of her scurrying around on all fours, grinding her shoulder up against the marks already present on the walls was absolutely sickening. And then to finish it off, he husband's fainted body has no affect on her mental state as she scurried right over him. Creepy as hell.

Now, reading it again I suppose it could be perceived as a woman's rights tale, with her going mad over being kept locked up. That she was the woman behind the wallpaper - but i severely hope that is not what was implied. Sometimes reading too far into things ruin the fun...