Analysis #2

Prior to last week, I had made the decision to take part in service learning but unfortunately because of the way my schedule is I couldn’t. I hope to be able to to service in the future. During this past week there weren’t many events I could chose from that I could relate to Jesuit education, but on Friday I was able to attend a Bible study. I thought I could easily relate this to Jesuit education, the short stories and poem that we needed to read over the weekend. The connections I drew were a little broader than I expected but there wasn’t much I could have done, since there were no other events before Monday’s class.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of the bible study because I had never been to one and I am not very familiar with the bible. We spent the time going over a story in the bible called “Ruth”. The story was primarily about the conflict that Naomi encounters during her return to Israel. At this time Israel was experiencing hardships, but when Naomi returned it was thought to be true God was blessing the people of Israel. Specifically, the change with the barely harvest because Israel was going through a famine.

After reading “The Birthmark” and “Yellow Wallpaper”, I can relate them to the bible study because in both cases there is some sort of conflict between the characters in each story. Although the conflict is different in each one I thought it was enough to connect one another. In the story “Yellow Wallpaper” there is conflict between the husband John and the wife through male dominancy. While his wife is struggling from severe depression, he tries to keep her confined in the room where she is not allowed to write about how she feels. He controls her actions through the story by telling her how long she has to stay in a specific home, when she should sleep, and if he thinks she is eating enough or not. In this short story, the writer emphasizes on the imperfection on his wives face because of her birthmark. John states that his wife must get rid of this birthmark on her face because it has grown more and more intolerable. His want to get rid of her birthmark over powers his true love for his wife. While the two short stories talk about conflict between the husband and wife. The poem “I wandered as a lonely cloud”, strays away from the idea of conflict and writes in a much happier tone of voice. While the stories were complicating as you read, this poem is very simple and easy to read.