Due to this story being a first person perspective, we only know what the main character is thinking. We do not get any information about what the aunt’s really thinking about, we only see her emotions like the main character. It impacts the main character AND the readers, because it not only makes him curious, it makes us as readers curious to. We like him, just know his aunt life background, but we don’t get why or what she thinking about until the end of the story. Which I think is a very clever way to also hook the readers in the journey as well.

I really loved the comparison a person’s soul to a moss. Both can get very old and lost. However, it takes just one thing that they love to turn colorful again. The whole time the main character was curious if he can make his aunt fall in love with the city. Once he stated “It never really dies, then, the soul?” He learned that he made her at least a little happy, after being bored for so long and most likely lonely in the country. With music, which from the very start of this story, we found out she loves to the point she made her income from that. That’s what made her fall back in love again, no she did not stop loving it actually. She has just forgotten the magical elements to it, because it was 30 years on a farm.

This sentence shows a theme in the story of the persistence of the feelings of the soul through time. Here, the narrator’s aunt although removed from music for 30 years has her appreciation for it remain. This shows the idea that things that people find close to their souls persists forever.

Here Aunt Georgiana responds to Clark’s question of if she understands the music they listened to. She responds asking who could understand and why. This shows the theme of whether one can truly understand all the emotions and ideas music can bring, and even if one should. Clark focuses a lot of time trying to figure out what his aunt was understanding from the music, but was unable to. He says later that “I never knew what she found in the shining current of it”, so the effort he put in did not pay off. Her exact thinking and whether she understood it all did not matter in the end because either way the music clearly had a strong impact on her.

This gives the reader’s knowledge about how different the city has changed and the country has not. If his aunt has never seen it in a while, it tells us three things. One, it gives us a reminder that his aunt did not have the best life growing up and she had no free time. She did not recognize the city, because she never got the chance or reason to travel back over there. Second, I feel like because of this, her personality is different now than everyone else in the society. The aunt does not get excited for city things that city people do get excited about. For an example, the shows. The aunt is just worried and shock about how the city changed so much. I think with her being out of the city for so long, she does not really fit in. It’s like asking a country person when they visit the city, what Starbucks drink they want. Both would not know what’s going on; and the main character feels like he needs to fill her in. That’s the kind of relationship they have in this part of the story, because all of this started at the two very different settings. Thrid, the country symbolizes as depressed, confide, boring, and a dull place that creates an example of mentally where she has been stuck in. Whereas, the city is busy, bright, motivated, and so she has trouble getting used to it for a reason. The setting is what creates this story as it is, because it affects the characters, and therefore the plot.

If we were able to somehow change how we thought of ourselves and what our viewpoints of the world were, then yes I believe that we would be able to become whatever we desired.

I find that I only congregate around those with very similar mindsets to myself in m free time. For example, I like to work on my cars with others who also like to work on cars. With that being said, I could definitely agree with you on that particular point.

I can definitely agree with this statement. Those who are not open minded are likely to end up very miserable and are less likely to learn new things about the world around them and how to function in it.

Being a connoisseur of things that are old and the days past, I definitely found this to be true as well Savannah. Things used to be so much simpler in the past, which is why I think I enjoy working on cars so much sometimes, it is a very simple hobby when you boil down to it.

I think this really hit home for me just because I work a job nearly every single day now and I find that my schedule is not a free as it once was when I was growing up. I have also come to enjoy the much simpler things in life rather than just trying to rush through them now.

The narrator uses a metaphor to compare their experiences on the homestead to a treadmill which one walks on continuously with no notice to their environment. This gets contrasted by the narrator saying that all the details of the concert hall were sunk into their soul. For the reader, this highlights how from the narrator’s point of view the concert hall and music is much more interesting and affecting as the image of sinking makes the reader think of the details having a very deep effect. Also, one’s soul is essentially the core of a person, further pushing the idea that the effect was very impactful. The idea of a monotonous treadmill and obliviousness to one’s surroundings shows the reader that the narrator disliked their life on the homestead and found the details so boring and unaffecting that they paid them no mind. In all the metaphor allows the reader to get a better understanding of the narrator’s point of view on music and the homestead.

I am definitely one of those people who have the mindset that my opinion is my opinion, and I dint much care for the likes of what others have to say about it.

I feel like every time you turn around nowadays something crazy or unpredictable is happening on the news or out in the wold that we would have thought would have never happened in the past. I think Covid changed my perspective on this a lot though.

Those who surround themselves with their own thoughts or others who are like minded only serves to lessen the likelihood of them finding something new that they may enjoy

The metaphorical comparison of just hearing her Aunt Georgiana’s name and a huge drop below her feet appearing is great imagery that comes from her point of view. As we are able to experience this fear that this name induces. Bring meaning to this character who we haven’t even met yet and connects the reader through the authors point of view.

I think that the most important tenet of the classroom guidelines is challenging each other but staying respectful in how we do it. This is especially important in a class like Sociology where many conversations can turn political and other people may have differing opinions than yourself which you have to respect. This classroom has to be able to be a space where others can share their opinions and contribute to conversations without fear of being ridiculed for their beliefs. If this isn’t followed, then some students may no longer participate in class discussions and thus their voice and viewpoint will not be heard which is harmful to everyone.

Shows location by telling us where the Boston Symphony Orchestra and actually enjoys the performance which shows a characters point of view because it’s happiness. This is important because it expresses everybody more feeling.

We can see theme already by the story telling us the setting and also the point of view of the girl with nightmares. This gives us the location to theme because it gives us both important parts of theme.

Why this sentence shows location to theme is because of the aunt and basically its setting by which it shows that she is working on the farm and shows point of view from the aunt as she’s hard working and pushes her nephew to do better on the farm.

Point of view shows a perspective of what the character sees or does. This is important because it connects to theme and and you can usually put the pieces together on how the person reacts or feels towards something.

Setting is revloved around the whole story because it shows theme and how the story developes. This builds the story and and helps make the story intresting while it can also show where or how people are.

I believe this guideline is most important because it can make the difference between a healthy or hostile conversation. I have noticed that this guideline is often overlooked and that students forget this when choosing their words. So many times, breaking this guideline is unintentional which makes it even more important to always keep it in mind. Students must understand that everyone thinks differently and you never know what is going on in someone else’s head. If we go against this rule, we are taking away from the conversation and causing a contributing member to possibly feel lesser or unimportant. This can also lead to students coming after one another and completely ignoring what the discussion was about. When you critique a person and not what they said, you take their opportunity to learn and understand away from them. If everyone is able to be kind to one another and only comment on people’s ideas to help benefit them, then this guideline should not be hard to follow. This is something that as humans we should keep in mind during all conversations so that we can be respectful towards one another and accurately understand people’s thoughts and opinions.

The metaphor in this paragraph compares his recollections of his past to a vast gulf. This brings to mind a sense of resentment and alienation. This contrast goes to show the narrator’s detatchedness from Georgiana.

Here, we can see that she is in this big beautiful city that she grew up in, that has tons of fun stuff for them to do, especially in contrast to her farm back in Nebraska. However, all she can think about is how she didn’t leave proper instruction on how to feed one of the farm animals. This again shows how much of a hard worker she is, further pushing the theme of hard work and perseverance.

This location of this jam packed farm house furthers my hypothesis of one of the main central themes involving an emphasis of hard work and perserverance. This sentence points out how the Aunt works extremely hard to keep the farm going, and still pushes her Nephew to stay up late learning a new language. It is obvious she is a very hard working and dedicated person, and she wants the same for her Nephew.

This location of these unsettled lands in Nebraska shows us the toughness of his Aunt, and his hence why he isn’t worried when he sees the condition that she’s in, unlike Mrs. Springer. This is could demonstrate a possible theme of perseverance and hard work.

This is told in first person thought the eyes of a man. Information is given to us by this man reciting old memories, in this case to give us context to him and his Aunt’s relationship. This effect builds more suspense, as we are building up to him meeting his Aunt with him. It conveys more of the main characters emotions and makes us emphasize more with him as well.

The recollection of his Aunt makes him question his existence, and makes him ill. Shows that the Aunt has had and will have a big impact on him.

I agree, all because it is one level better than the worst case doesn’t mean it isn’t also terrible. Just like Derek said they should be able to feel safe anywhere without segregation.

I agree, I think what is so scary about that is the fact that the African American people are terrified to the point that it’s almost forcing an painful acceptance that they can’t fight back, they shouldn’t fight back almost.

There are a lot of things that a young boy fears, “monsters”, the dark,etc. For a young colored boy to lose sleep over his fear of whites who oppress him just shows the terror and overwhelming oppression felt by this community.

To a degree, classrooms and the actual structure of classes need to revamped to help stop resisting against a new model of education. In having lessons and units focused around the concepts, principles, etc that are still unknown, it would be interesting how education could be giving more unknowns than known material and find connections and ways to bring an understanding to those topics that have been largely unknown. When I was in Mexico, the culture there allowed me to write, reflect, and ponder much more thoroughly because there was not an inherent push to rush as fast and accurately as possible. The culture of thinking critically was approached differently than in the U.S., and the same can be said of realizing the proper educational environment needs to allow for a huge shift of emphasis to achieve such a shift and change in the approach of the environment, students are learning in.

Rosie, These are some great points about the importance of not interrupting one another. As I mentioned in a few other responses, not interrupting is particularly difficult AND particularly important in an online class. I hope we will find ways as a class to make space for others so that we can all benefit.

I love this quote- to me, it lets me and students know, they can do amazing things when they might feel they are lost, instead of feeling and despair, if we can train our minds to “roll with it” and see where we can take ourselves when we find ourselves not exactly where we expected to be, but also, teachers have to be willing to let students possibly end up with a different meaning of topics as well if they see students interpreting things differently than they imagined.

Matthew, These are all great points. I know that for many students (and instructors!) listening actively and attentively in a virtual environment can be tough. Distance, Zoom fatigue, other distractions so close by, just general life stress from the pandemic,…etc. But I do hope we will be able to find a way to listen so that we can experience the benefits you mention!

Coming from a person who struggles with ADHD, this is the most important guideline for me. Personally, life can be challenging and without this skill I would be adding more to my plate by falling behind. Particularly for sociology, being an active listener would expand my understanding of ideas from my peers and instructor. On the other hand, not following this guideline would limit the knowledge that one could possess.