Dylan Short Story

I wrote a tossup (buzzer question in quizbowl) on James Joyce's short story collection Dubliners  after reading "Araby" in class and "The Sisters" a few days later. I was inspired to write it because I felt that both stories shared the theme of young men undergoing an experience that helps shape them as adults. I really like this theme partially because I was introduced to Joyce in the "Coming-of-Age Novel" class that I took with Mr. Mitchell last year, where we read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . In the book, Stephen Dedalus goes through transformative experiences which visibly shape him as he grows older in each chapter. I read "Araby" and "The Sisters" as being such chapters in the untold stories of the narrators of each story. Because of this fun thematic connection, I really wanted to write a tossup about them (although it doesn't really go into the connection), since writing down what I've read helps me appr...

When I read the Jenny Zhang short story "The Evolution of my Brother", I immediately made the connection to my own family life, as I'm sure a lot of us did, since we've been cooped up with them for the past 3 or 4 weeks. In particular, the theme of "realizing how your actions treat the people around you" has been sticking in my mind. When I'm at home (in general, not just during quarantine), I rarely spend any time around my parents. The combination of my own introversion and my perhaps suboptimal relationship with them leads me to spend pretty much all of my home-time alone in my room. The only times we really have extended conversations is when we need to discuss important things like college. And I never thought they really had a problem with that. In the story, Zhang states: "I feel self-conscious and stupid crying for myself--for my shame, for my regrest, for how quickly a childhood happens. I wish I had acted better. I wish I had been the ki...