Juice Response

    I enjoyed Juice, by Renee Gladman, for the most part. The story was very short but it was interesting. I appreciated the futuristic aspect and point of view from which the story was told. I found that the chapter about the meaning behind Juice, Proportion Surviving, was my favorite. I found that it helped me understand the story more and I found that I related to it.
    The story is about these people in a town that was hit by many plagues and the people in the story are the survivors. They were split up into these tribe-like groups where they travel around looking for resources and things to help them remember the past. In Proportion Surviving, the subject of juice is brought up. The simplicity of something we all take for granted adds to the emotion we get from feeling the pain and agony of these characters. At the beginning of the chapter, there is talk about how many people dream of the daytime and morning, how everyone is excited for the sun to come up. My theory behind the fact that everyone loves the morning and that there is so much talk about the juice we all drink in the morning is that these people are hoping that, in the morning, they will wake up from this terrible dream, or what they hope to be a dream. Usually, the morning symbolizes a new day, a new beginning. For these people, that is all they want; a new beginning. On page 24, the main character says, "I was in my juice" after explaining a certain type of happiness. I felt that that directed toward using juice as another way of meaning morning, and a fresh start.

Fiction Packet Response

    I enjoyed reading this fiction packet a lot more than the poetry packets. I felt like I didn't have to read deeply into the stories to find a hidden meaning or anything. The stories were more straight forward. Although I say this, I did find a few of them to be slightly confusing. However, I still enjoyed quite a few of them, like "The Colonel" and "Misdemeanors", for a couple examples.
    The Colonel story interested me because I kind of grew a sudden hate for the characters right from the start. I don't know if anyone else felt this way toward the family. Just the way they carried their lives, in such a pompous way, like they're better than everyone else. They even had a golden bell to call the maid, so they didn't have to get up and trouble themselves. People like that just irritate me, so I read this story with some envy and hate. I liked that this story did that to me though because I usually just enjoy a story for it's simplicity, or how I can relate to it. On the contrary, I read this one with envy and not being able to relate; however, I still enjoyed it just as much as I would have if it was reversed.
    The Misdemeanors story was funny, I thought and I like funny things, they appeal to me. The story took a not so serious scenario and made it into a serious one, while, at the end, making it funny and not serious again. The fact that the man went to jail for robbing a bowling alley, but tells everyone he's an ex-con is funny in itself because he is trying to act tough and make it seem like he didn't go to jail for something extremely stupid and idiotic. Maybe if he had stolen more money, he would own up to his actions. But, he only got away with pockets full of pennies. I actually laughed out loud when I read, "So here come the police and they find the Old Man barefoot, with his socks on his hands like gloves, and his pants hanging down to his knees because his pockets are full of pennies." I just painted the picture in my mind and couldn't help but to laugh, which I did not do very much while reading the poetry packets.