Sissy

Sissy, by Kellog, is a story about a young boy who has the characteristics and personality traits of a girl. I believe that Sissy, or William Shipherd, would not have grown up that way if it wasn’t for the fact that he was raised only by his mother and was not allowed to play with other boys. His mother ever “kept him in girls clothes till he was turned five…” (Kellog 545). Sissy did not have any male influences in his life and this is why he turned out so feminine. While reading this story I could not help but think about little Lord Fauntleroy. Although, Lord Fauntleroy might not have been considered girlie back in his time, today we can see that his features and his personality were pretty feminine. I noticed that he too only had a maternal influence for most of his life, and although he did play with other boys, he looked a lot like a girl.

Another similarity between Sissy and Fauntleroy was the fact that when given the chance both boys wanted to help out another person. Little Lord Fauntleroy helped all the people who were down on their luck as soon as he got some money. Sissy washes Margie the minute he sees her because he can not stand seeing someone so pretty look so dirty. Then after finding out where Margie lived and seeing that “it’s so miserable there” and “They cant half take care of Margie” he begged his mother to adopt her and give her a better life (Kellog 562). He tells his mother that he “believes that’s what God made [him] for- to take care of Margie” (Kellog 562). Most boys, if they got the chance, whether by money or because they had a giving mother, would not bother with making other people happy. They would demand things like toys and candy!

Another similarity between these two stories is the female author. Both stories were written by women and although we would like to think that men and women are capable of the same things, I do not thing a man would have wanted to write these stories let alone could have written them. I think a boy like sissy or like little Lord Fauntleroy, with all their girlish qualities, would be more accepted by women than by any men. I am not even sure if men would want to read a story about a boy who is called “sissy” and a “girl boy” (Kellog 545).

Gilman and Chopin

When reading The Yellow Wallpaper non of my habits changed, because I read that story in high school so I already knew what it was going to be about. I can guarantee that if I didn’t already know the story that I would have had to slow down or maybe even read it twice. It is confusing when the main character says ‘[she] peeled off all the paper [she] could reach standing on the floor…” and then somehow she is not the women peeling wall paper she is now wondering “if they all came out of that wall paper as [she] did…” implying that she was the women in the wall paper the whole time (Gilman 515). In class we went back and read the text more clearly and picked out evidence that she was dead the whole time. For a first time reader these clues were hard to pick up, and I remember reading this for the first time and being astonished when my teacher made so much meaning out of it. It is because of this that when I set out to read Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin, I decided to go about it differently. I read it once really slow, and still by the time I got to the end I was shocked! I don’t think there was any evidence that Armand Aubingy’s “mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery” (Chopin 521). It threw me off when I read the last paragraph for the first time so I had to read it more than once before I realized what it was saying. All in all, I don’t think all short stories have hidden meaning, and if they do then it is definitely not easy to pick it out. I think some of them are just good stories written to surprise you. I also don’t think it makes a difference how you read a short story but rather how many times you read it. The first time I read Gilman’s story, I don’t care how slow I read it, it did not make any sense! It is the second and third time you go back and read these stories that you can pick up on the clues to the ending. For example, in Desiree’s Baby Madame Valmonde exclaims “This is not the baby!” when she sees him for the first time in awhile (Chopin 518). She even “walked with it over to the window that was lightest” to look at the child. Now I can see these hints that the child was mixed but I do not think there were any hints that it was Armand who had African American heritage.