Kyle Response III

My initial reading of "Misery" offered me a very remedial understanding of the story. There were a lot of gaps present following my reading. They were mainly surrounding where Iona's true misery lied and the role of some of the components of the story. After reading again I understood more of the story and began to see that Iona's misery was not fully contained within the death of his son, but was caused more by the fact that he had no one to share his sorrow with. After talking to the other group members, this idea was solidified further. We decided as a group that the majority of Iona's lamenting was not with the fact that he lost his son but because of the fact that the only person he could share anything with was his horse.

The horse was another gap for me in reading and discussing this portion aided me a lot. My initial thought was that the horse was supposed to be a shot at humanity, saying that the horse that can't even comprehend, listens better than anyone else that Iona tries to talk to. This idea was altered very much by the discussions we had as a group. We developed the idea that the horse was a representation of two things. One of these things was that the horse have Iona someone to talk to, the only person he had. The other representation was that the horse was humanized and was what I had initially interpreted, but in a different sense. The interpretation differed because in this scenario the horse was not really supposed to symbolize being more sympathetic or listening better than humanity but literally being more "human." Chekhov humanizes the horse to say that it possesses more "humanity" than those that Iona tries to share his woes with.

This whole process of analysis and reading of short stories has taught me a lot. The most significant learning I have had thus far is the "eye" to read with. This means to not get too caught up in the story and relinquish the ability to read critically but also not to stay too distant and not experience the story as it is intended to be. This concept helped me immensely in being able to discuss the story. Also, having different ideas in discussion and reading different reflections really opened my eyes and I find is the most effective way to critically analyze and enjoy a story in order to extract a fuller meaning of the story.