Karen's Final Response

At the start of this group midterm project I was not looking forward to it. As most often with group projects it is hard to get the group together or on the same page. Soon after we started, however, my view of the group project changed. I feel everyone did an excellent job in their responses and our two discussion sessions were very productive. Personally, I learned a lot from doing this as a group. If it were left up to me I would not have chosen Chekhov because previously I had not had much experience with him and felt like I missed his point in the pieces I had read. I am glad “Misery” was chosen for our group though because I ended up enjoying this story immensely. Doing this as a group discussion helped me as a reader make further meaning out of the story. While a lot of us got the same thing out of the story in many instances (helping my confidence as a reader on my own) there were several things that I had not gotten out of the piece that others did.

Ryann compared and contrasted “Misery” to “The Fly” and also incorporated May’s interpretation in her response, which was not something that I ever thought to do. I feel this was a great way to help us make further meaning out of Chekhov’s story. Jay pointed out a few metaphors that I had not noticed which helped to backup some of the things I had written in my response. One thing that Lauren pointed out was how we should not have felt sorry for Iona in the end because he did have his horse to talk to. Everyone else in the group was sad that he was left with this interaction at the end, but upon hearing Lauren dissect that part, my viewpoint of the ending changed. Kyle and Nick discussed whether the story was allegorical or realist and what the narrator was classified as. Upon reading their discussion of this I realized my biggest short coming of being a good reader is that when I read those two questions never cross my mind. Up to this point I guess their answers did not matter to me. I feel that was the most important thing I learned doing the group project.