Last week, I read two short stories for our class discussions. They were “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins and “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe. “Usher” was a nice story to read because it was unique. It was mysterious and it had a lot of hidden details to unpack. It wasn’t the easiest story to read, but, taking it one part at a time helped me tremendously. It was different than other short stories I’ve read. A lot of the time, writers give away all of the elements of the story on a platter. “Usher” used symbols and imagery to convey the inner conflicts of the characters. The ending is also inconclusive. The narrator runs out and the house collapses, but there are still a lot of questions left unanswered. I wonder what the narrator did afterward. Did he just return to his normal life as if nothing happened? Did the house staff die as the house collapsed? Were they there at the time? “The Yellow Wallpaper” was also a great piece, with a strong message about sexism and how women’s issues and mental health, in general, are overlooked by society. My one comment on it is that while reading it, I wanted the narrator to just rip the wallpaper and get it over with. I know it was more complicated than that, but the urge was still there.