Critical Lens Essay

Accomplishment by definition means the completion or fulfillment of something. That definition tends to vary sometimes depending on the person life. An achievement is not only as a trophy but it is more of a moral value than anything. Two pieces of writing that illustrate this is the poem “soybeans” and Shirley Jackson’s narrative “fame”. The characters in both passages have some sort of achievement to their name.

In “fame” the author takes pride in her work she is often boasting about her career because that is her most prized accomplishment. Mrs. Hyman is one of the main characters in the story as well as Mrs. Lang. The story is told in the form of a dialogue. Where both characters are jealous of each other for most of the time.

The conversation starts off as a calm phone call. Mrs. Lang asked to speak to Mrs. Hyman for a personal interview and they were having it over the phone. Mrs. Hyman was so boastful in her work all she could talk about was her new book but Mrs. Lang wanted to find out about her personal life. There was a detection of jealousy by Mrs. Lang. Mrs. Lang asked many random questions to Mrs. Hyman all swaying away from her book my Hyman continued talking about her book anyway. It received a book jacket which meant it was a very special book probably a best seller which is a great accomplishment. Mrs. Lang was a newspaper reporter with her own column called the North Village Notes and that was her accomplishments. At the end of the day both characters both have achievements to go home with.

In the poem “Soybeans” it surrounds two characters one a farmer and one a wealthy business man. Both characters are very different but share one similarity and that is in fact beans. They will further converse to each other about beans and what it take to grow them and how the wealthy man really couldn’t understand