The Impact of English 103

     In Accelerated Composition 103, I have gotten the chance to read many short stories that I would not have been introduced to otherwise. All of these short stories had a deeper meaning and I usually did not grasp this meaning until we went over it in class. I think it is interesting that an author can write a story that could mean one thing literally and something completely different when it is analyzed further. The stories that I enjoyed reading the most were the Stephen King stories. The stories we read were "Harvey's Dream" and "Boogeyman". I liked "Harvey's Dream" because it was different than a lot of the stories we have read. In this story, a man is suspected of having alzheimer's disease. He wakes up in the middle of the night and does things around his house and sees his neighbor come home with a dent in his car. His house phone rings and his daughter is on the other end of the call and something seems to be wrong. She sounds like she is hurt and when he wakes up in the morning he thinks he dreamed the phone call. When he starts explaining the story to his wife, she starts realizing that everything he said he did had been done in the house. She starts to panic and then the phone rang and the story ends. The audience were left to choose if the man character has alzheimer's of if it was just a coincidence. In "Boogeyman" a man went to a therapist to talk about how all of his children have been killed and it was his fault. He says that his children always woke him up crying and looking at the closet. After all of his kids were found in their cribs dead he found out that there was a boogeyman in the closet so they moved to a different house to try and escape it. After a while, the boogeyman ended up finding them in their new house. The man would leave his children in their room even if they were crying and obviously scared, because he wanted them to be able to sleep in their own room. All of them, however, ended up dying and he feels like it is his fault. At the end when the man left the office there was no one at the front desk so he went back to ask the therapist about it and he walking out of the closet and pulled off a mask and it was the boogeyman. Once again, the audience was left to decide if the boogeyman ate the therapist, or the therapist was the boogeyman the whole time. In both of these stephen king stories, the audience was left to decide the ending of the story and what happened. I was interested the entire time in both of these stories and they were by far my favorites. My dad is a high stephen king fan and loves reading all of his novels, so reading these stories has made me want to read more of Stephen King's writing. here stories had made me become more creative and think about things for myself. I think t has also impacted my writing and I have learned by reading all of these stories how to write better.

"Harrison Bergeron"

     In "Harrison Bergeron" America has turned into a society of complete equality. People who are supposedly supreme are given handicaps to make them not so supreme. Everyone is made equal and it is implied that this is the direction America is heading in now if we try to continue pushing equality.
     Harrison Bergeron is a symbol of the most advanced and supreme human being in this story. He is said to be a wonderful athlete, dancer, and is extremely good looking. In order to fix this, they give him weights so he is less strong, they put a red nose on him and black stuff in his teeth to make him ugly. The government tries to make him just like all of the below average Americans so everyone will be equal.
    In this story there is a ballerina scene at the end. The character Harrison Bergeron is a boy who does not believe in this equality he is being forced into, and he does not want to be a part of it. He continually pushes to change this equality and has been put in jail for it. After escaping jail, he breaks into the dance studio where the ballerinas are dancing on television, and shouting "I am the Emperor". Harrison then starts to break all of his handicaps and take off his weights. This is a form of rebel against the government because he does not agree with everyone being equal. Then, Harrison says that the first ballerina to stand up will be his empress. When a ballerina stands up, Harrison takes off and breaks off all of her handicaps as well. This is a symbol of them breaking free of the imprisonment they have been in for so long. They start dancing after this and it is described as "defying gravity". The dance is so majestic and they are kissing the ceiling and kissing each other. To me, this is a symbol of their hopeful rebirth. They are showing off their beauty. I pictured this scene as baby chicks hatching from their eggs and entering a new world. They broke through their handicaps and were able to experience a world that was so much more beautiful to them. The ballerina showed this through her dancing. The dance she was doing before with her handicaps on was not as pretty and majestic because she was weighed down. However, without her handicaps on, she was able to reach her full potential  and dance beautifully. She kissed the ceiling because she was able to get up that high without her weights on. It was something she has not been able to do and she was embracing it.
     In the end, the Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers, arrives and shoots both Harrison Bergeron and the ballerina. This was a symbol that any hope of changing this new form of equality in society will be shot down. If the one American who was strong enough and smart enough to change this was shot and killed for it, than there is no other hope for anyone else to try. This equality was the new way of life and everyone needed to except it.