The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas

The story written by Reginald McKnight called "The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas" takes place in a Texas public school where a young African American man deals with the rigors of the newly implemented integration policy within his education. He remarks about how he now gets ten white kids to himself as well as his other fellow black students. Only two others are in the class. Ah-so, the only girl, sits in the front and keeps silent save for the remote times when she might read aloud in class. Marvin, a big guy who spits on his arm and sleeps all day, never moves or attempts to participate. The narrator makes some semblence of trying to answer the teacher's questions despite a barrage of racist jokes she passes day in and out.

The primary part of the plot deals with a larger but poor white boy by the name of Oakely that sits behind the narrator. He constantly threatens him from behind his desk, taunting and gesturing. Oakley likes to tell stories about how his brother died in Vietnam and how he needs to get all the practice he can before being sent to the country so he can kill. One day the narrator turns and asks the boy after a threat that he thought his brother was dead so why did he keep bringing up a dead brother that couldn't teach.

Later, in the story the two get into a dodgeball match. Both come to the end untouched while the other kids in the gym class were put out. The coach decides that they must have a death match. Using volleyballs, they take turns slugging at the other. The narrator finally beans Oakley in the face and even goes so far as to draw blood from him. While in the locker room Oakley and the narrator again face off about a fight after school. The white boy picks on him because he believes his is "richer" than him and for the fact he talks like a "city" kid as well as the fact that he is black. The narrator becomes exasperated and asks why Oakley doesn't attack Marvin, who happens to be more his size. Marvin gets up and leaves the room quietly and this doesn't dissuade the bully's decision.

At the end, Oakley begins pushing the narrator around once more outside of the school. The boy seems to snap and starts telling the bully to call him a nigger. Refusing and only slapping him, Oakley continues to pester the boy until Marvin finally socks the perpetrator in the face. After standing and staring at the narrator, some teachers come and haul both Oakley and Marvin away.

Going back to class the next day, the narrator remarks how despite never having really been noticed before the two boys' presence was felt more keenly now that they were not back in the school. He looks a moment at Ah-so who turns around and smiles at him briefly before staring at her desk once again.

Ironically in the story, the narrator described Marvin as being the one person who he seemed to dislike the most. He constantly brought up that he did not want to be like him in that he never did anything in class and seemed to take the labels that the white class or "society" put upon him. In the end, it was Marvin who saved the narrator, never saying why he did it. Marvin simply wished to be Marvin.

Learning about Death

Donald Barthelme's "School," is more what we might consider a narrative in that the teacher of the kids in the school describes the story from a first-person style. He doesn't so much say what he is doing as the text progress, but retells events over a great span of time.

At first as we read, the instructor, Edgar, speaks of his class's adventures with trying plant trees, snakes, and herbs. Later, they move onto salamanders, gerbils, and finally puppies. Unfortunately, all of these creatures die as the class progresses through what might be considered more simple life-forms and onto more complex ones after. The second to last page depicts how some of the people in the local town die.

Eventually, the class begins to ask about the nature of life in a small dialogue asking is life defined by death. The teacher replies that death is defined by life. Both these things are true in their own ways as one shouldn't be so preoccupied with death to not enjoy life. But one should not take life for granted either as it does not last forever.

In the conclusion of the story, the class urges Edgar to make love with his assistant,Helen, and at first is hesistant but in the end does so. He tells the class that they shouldn't be frightened to learn about anything. This parallels the fact that he travels through discussions of death with the children as well as shows them an "assertion" of why they should not be frightened of learning through the wonder of sex. This might be a metaphor for the class beginning to learn about the nature of life, love, and how they come about seeing as the rest of the story is shadowed in death.

Birthmates

In Gish Jen's "Birthmates," we see a middle-aged Asian man who goes to a hotel for a business conference in a somewhat rougher part of town. We're not sure entirely what he does, save that it has to do with computers or software.

At the beginning of the story, Art, the main character, seems to constantly be worried about security and even goes as far as to carry around the handset of a telephone to posssibly be used as a weapon in the supposedly crime-ridden neighborhood.

He wanders into the lobby trying to find where he needs to go for the conference and runs into a bunch of kids playing. Apparently, Art is the target of some dare as they try and steal the phone handset from him. They aren't successful at first and Art drifts into and out of memories of his wife and how they were trying to have a baby that was not successful because of infertility. Art also remembers one of his associates, Billy, and how he seems young and "hip" so as to keep up on the latest news of society. This seems to make Art a little jealous.

Later, he gets hit in the head by the phone as one of the kids steals it and he wakes up in a room with a woman who used to be a nurse named Cindy. She takes care of him for a time and he takes off and makes it to the conference. There he continues to debate his existence and that of the people around him. He thinks of how he'd like to have possibly gotten with the nurse woman and even how he was happy about his associate Billy leaving so he might be able to move up in the job market.

The last thought he has is of the baby he and his wife might of had and how...despite it being a hopeful event...that baby would have had a hard time in life because it's bones were very brittle.

Girl

So I do have to say this is probably one of the most unique stories I've ever read. It seems like a memory someone might have had sitting on a bench thinking about the things their parents have told them throughout a few years. Unfortunately for the girl in the story "Girl," most of these things seemed to have negative feelings attached to them.

A large portion of what is written in the story seems to be stereotypical things a mother might have taught her daughter in the fifties; from how to do laundry, to cooking, to how to handle her first boyfriend. The mother teaches a variety of skills but after each time she teaches there always rests some measure of doubt that the daughter will ever grow to reach the potential of being an actual lady. The matron constantly says things like this is how the girl should sit at a table so the men around her won't recognize her for the slut the parent thinks she'll become.

Towards the later end of the story we start to see that the mother is even more ruthless than we might have thought. She mentions how to manipulate men, how to create abortion medicines, and how to overall get what one wants socially.

Overall, I would like to know why the mother doubts her child so and what exactly made her to be the woman that she is.