...Short Story Analysis David C. Franklin ENG 125 Sarah Lahue January 7, 2013 During my reading the short story I enjoyed the most is “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber. In his writing Mr. Thurber uses lots of literary elements from third person limited to symbolism. His ability to go from the reality of life to a fantasy or dream without you even realizing is absolutely amazing. Describe what the theme of the short story is, using Chapter Seven of the text as a reference. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is all about a man that constantly day dreams. He loses touch with reality at every opportunity. Not quite sure if it is intentional or if he cannot stay in touch with what is actually going on around him. To me it seems as though it maybe intentional like he enjoys going to another life and imagining he is someone else. He sees himself like he wants to be someone that is “big” and in charge having people that answer to him. Identify at least two of the literary elements in the short story that contribute to the theme (e.g., plot, point of view, tone, setting, character, symbolism, etc.), providing an example of each element. There are many literary elements in this short story but to limit it to just two I am going to use character and setting. During this short story Mr. Thurber uses the element of the narrator’s point of view being from multiple characters that are actually just one character. Walter Mitty slips into...
Words: 520 - Pages: 3
...if we didn’t have the papers.” (Page 2, line 20-21) Ali Smith is in her short story “The Go-Between” from 2009, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the United Nations (UN´s) adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to ensure human rights. Ali Smith tries throughout her short story to problematize the treatment of the refugees and tries to reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to make people aware of the injustice from the past and maybe present. She shows extended focus on Article 13 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights throughout her short story, Article 13 is the right to freedom of movement. The focus is noticeable in this quote where she describes the inhumane treatment of the border-crossing people. In the short story we follow a 33-year-old man. The man originates from Cameron, but in the story he lives in Ceuta in northern Morocco from where he helps people cross the border to Spain. The man describes throughout the story some of his experiences from helping people cross the border, he describes how his ear got caught in the fence and how he lost one of his fingers in the sea. He also describes the cruelty he has experienced including seeing the police burn the peoples blankets, taking their phones and take all of their food. The protagonist has a strange relationship with Europe, on one hand he seems to have an inner fascination of Europe “I dream when I´m asleep that I’m walking down the big streets of Madrid with their...
Words: 958 - Pages: 4
...Everybody no matter where they come from has hopes and dreams of becoming extraordinary, but how much are we willing to fight for our dreams? And are we doing it for ourselves or are we just doing it for others’ approval? This is a short story called ‘’Two Kinds’’ (1997) by writer Amy Tan dealing with a mother and daughter who have two different ideas of what succes is. The short story is about a young Chinese immigrant girl called Jing-Mei who lives with her mother and father in the United States of America. The mother set voyage for America in the 1950’s after she had lost her family, her home and her first husband and children in China. She has hopes and dreams for herself and her daughter that the American dream surely will happen to them at some point. She wants her daughter to be a child prodigy while the daughter is trying to live up to her mother’s expectations. As I wrote earlier, the story takes place in the United States of America. Unlike her mother, Jing-Mei has lived her whole life in the U.S.A. Her mother did not have the same opportunities as Jing-Mei back in China, so she is frustrated that her daughter is not even trying to seize any of the many opportunities that she has got in her life, and that she is ignoring the fact that she can become anything, even a genius. She is sacrificing a lot for her daughter by cleaning for Mr. Wong and in return he will teach her daughter to play the piano. The only piano teacher she can afford is Mr. Chong who is deaf and...
Words: 936 - Pages: 4
...Weekly Short Written Statement: “Hills like White Elephants” First of all, I want to mention that I was kind of confused after reading the short story. After reading it a second time, I decided to do some research. In found out that the story is about a potential abortion. Of course, I understood that they talked about an operation but I didn’t realize that this kind of operation was meant. Moreover, I was even more confused because the girl drinks a lot of alcohol throughout the whole story. That also goes together with the so-called Iceberg Theory. According to Hemingway, stories communicate more between the lines instead through the actual written story. However, I guess it is quite hard for some readers, especially for those who read Hemingway for the first time, to identify his intentions....
Words: 603 - Pages: 3
...My Son the Fanatic My Son the Fanatic is written by Hanif Kureishi and was published for the first time in 1994. It is a short story based on philosophical viewpoints of life and how valuable it is to tolerate and compromise with each other. The short story is also being contemporary because it’s concerning conflicts and difficulties with religious aspects, which are the main – and most complicated – conflicts existing on this planet. Basically it’s related to the issues of religion and intolerance, that we are to judge and face every day. My Son the Fanatic is about the relationship between a father and his son, which is slowly being shattered due to the son’s change of behavior. The father Parvez grew up in Pakistan but now loves England and is adapted to the Western culture – and that’s what he wants his son Ali to be as well. Ali, however, turns radically from being a smart and clever student, who he formerly has been. During the short story Parvez gently tries to figure out “what is wrong” with Ali. The story is set in London – the family lives here and the father works as a taxi-driver in London as well. The main characters in the story are Ali, Parvez and Bettina. We don’t get to hear about his wife; it seems that Bettina has replaced her and is a sort of escape gate away from his wife. During the story Ali is changing behavior and personality – suddenly he has lost all respect for his father. Since both of them are having a lack of acceptance and Parvez isn’t even...
Words: 778 - Pages: 4
...My Son the Fanatic My Son the Fanatic is a short story written by Hanif Kureishi. It was originally published in The New Yorker in 1994. The story is about a Pakistani father-son relationship. It deals with Islamic fundamentalism in second-generation immigrants. Parvez, the father, is a Pakistani immigrant living in England. He is working as a taxi driver and has embraced the western way of living. He drinks with his colleagues, he eats pork for breakfast and as part of his regular clientele he drives around prostitutes. Throughout the short story you get the impression that Parvez no longer can identify himself with his Islamic upbringing. His son, Ali, seems to also embrace the lifestyle of his British peers. Parvez refers to Ali as a gifted cricket and soccer player. He also has a talent for swimming and a bright future in accounting. However all is not as it seems; Parvez is growing more and more concerned with his sons obvious change in behavior. The taxi driver speaks with his colleagues and to Bettina, a prostitute that has become his friend, about his sons changing behavior. As the story progresses it becomes clear that all of Parvez’s “dreams of doing well in England” dissipate when Ali confess that he is disgusted with his father’s neglect of the Muslim culture and religion. Increasingly disturbed by his sons religious fundamentalism and contempt for the western world he seeks to confront him. The story concludes with this confrontation. My Son the Fanatic is set...
Words: 982 - Pages: 4
...What is loss? Loss is defined as the factor or process of losing something or someone. Loss comes in many different forms. Some examples from the short stories outlined in the following paragraphs are loss of possession, loss of a life, and the loss of what you thought you knew by learning the truth. Loss destroys peoples lives. In the short story “Was it a Dream?” written by Guy De Meapassant, man is mourning after the loss of his beloved wife, only to discover after her death that she was unfaithful to him. The guy is lost because his entire world is turned upside down because not only has he lost his partner, but he's lost the reassurance that was helping him cope by thinking his wife truly did love him even though she didn't. “The Gift...
Words: 1249 - Pages: 5
...A Gift for My Mother There is a big difference between a child and an adult because a child sees things differently than an adult and they do not think about the consequences of their actions. A child do not always know what is right and wrong, even if they do it in a good sense. The short story, “A Gift for My Mother”, published in 2011, written by Viv Mcdade. The main character in the shorts story, is little Lucy from Africa who sees that her mother and father are having problems, then Lucy try to solve the problems on her own way. Lucy is 10 years old and she has a childlike ability to admire the nature around her when she is out to find flowers to his mother. She describes in detail how each flower and plant looks like. Her fascination with nature is pure and unspoiled. ”The leaves of the Msasa trees were shiny, and the sun made it look as if there were diamonds on the big granite boulders.” (ll. 46-47) She also uses the shadows from the trees to measure how late it is. It shows us that she is a young girl who has a different view of the world. ”By the time I got home the long grass was making shadows across the path...” (l. 62). Lucy is a little girl who wants to make everyone happy. She thinks that if she picking flowers for her mother, will she be in a better mood. Since it only works temporarily, Lucy tries to make her mother happy to get some money by selling flowers. ”I longed to give my mother something so beautiful and precious...” (ll. 58-59). Without...
Words: 818 - Pages: 4
...In this essay, I would like to compare and contrast gender roles/marriage and primarily show through two literary works found in my textbook the differences and likenesses of each story, as they are being told to the audience. The short stories that I have chosen to discuss for this essay are “The Necklace”, by Guy de Maupassant and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, by James Thurber. I will try to compare and contrast both stories and give the audience a brief summary, explaining the likenesses and differences and engaging the reader, while doing so. In the short summary of the short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". This short-story tells the tale of Walter Mitty while on a trip into town with his wife, the bossy and serious Mrs. Mitty. Walter is sadly incompetent of doing many things; he forgets a lot of things, is very absent-minded while driving, and cannot handle the simplest tasks. But, what makes Walter unique throughout this short-story is his imagination. While Walter goes through his tasks, he escapes into a world of many fantasies, each brought on by reality. While driving his car he starts to day dream that he is a commander on a “Navy hydroplane" going through a storm. (Clugston, 2010). While passing a hospital, he believes he is a famous surgeon, known throughout the world for saving lives. He imagines he is being interrogated in court on a case, when he hears a newsboy shouting about a trial. Also, when he is waiting for his wife, he imagines himself...
Words: 3290 - Pages: 14
...was a close friend with my older sister. We got to know each other day to day standing outside waiting for the bus. I was never nervous to talk to her, and soon started to crush on her. Everyday when I would see her, my heart would be filled with love, and I knew I wanted to be her boyfriend. We got to talking about our interests, and she had an obsession with video games. As it turns out, I was a gamer nerd myself, and had almost every game you could...
Words: 721 - Pages: 3
...long time. I am not a naturally a person who sits and reads poems or tries to see if there is symbolism being used in a short story. For me, I take life the same way I do what I read, at face value. If you talk to me about June, I will take you literally, like you’re talking about the month of June. I won’t get that your symbolizing an establishment. So I guess that even though literature is very frustrating to me, I think maybe I’ve learned a few things. One of the things that we looked at in this class was themes in literature. What themes are, and how they may or may not flow through poems or short stories. I am going to take a look at two very different short stories, and show how the theme is the same. We will take a look at the way they are written, Walter Mitty, although he is a figment of someone else’s imagination, reminds me of some of my friends, and ultimately myself. The writer’s main focus is Mr. Mitty’s ability to slip into “another world”, completely forgetting where he is at and what he is doing in the present. The world he slips into is a world that makes him more important than the monotonous world he lives in. Although Mitty isn’t completely cut off from reality, he utilizes his ideal world to cope with his seemingly boring life. One of the reasons that this story caught my attention is because I just taught a class recently in my work center, and actually used this as an example of someone who could be unsafe. With Mr. Mitty drifting in and out of...
Words: 910 - Pages: 4
...Commentary of “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro Alice Munro is a Canadian short-story writer. She grew up in a rural environment such as is featured in the story “Boys and Girls”. This story is collected in her first collection of short stories, “The Dance of the Happy Shades”, which has been published in 1968. In the story, the protagonist experiences a process in which she leaves childhood. However, if we have to sum up the main idea of the text in a sentence, it would be the title with a few words more, “The education in boys and girls”. Therefore, we can see that the whole text is subordinate to this concept: characters’ attitude, characters’ comments, character’s name, indeed the style and the horses that appear in the story. Firstly, we will focus on the style. It is a first person narrator who shows us all the thoughts and impressions of the protagonist, this fact help us to understand how the influence of the other characters affects her. Secondly, we have to stress two characteristics of the personages that normally have unimportant role. One feature is the character’s names or more specifically the lack of name in some of them, because no female characters have a name, neither the main, so this fact helps to emphasize the distinction between women and men. Although neither the father has name, this could be explained in the sense that the author wants to stress that Laird, the son, is the winner because this sexist education is favorable to the men side. The other...
Words: 1186 - Pages: 5
...James Tebow 15 December 2011 Introduction: I. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” and Thomas Wolfe’s short story “The Child by Tiger” show glaring similarities in many parts of each stories structure. Even though these stories were set in different time periods and different cultures, there is unity in their conflicts, themes, and author’s purpose. a. In Hawthorne’s piece the basic conflict arises early in the story, this is Goodman Brown’s choice to either join in the satanic activities or maintain his puritan beliefs. b. Goodman Brown realizes the public’s weakness in morality and faith. Brown experiences a great deal of disappointment especially when he sees his old bible teacher Goody Cloyse and Deacon Goonkin with the devil. c. Although Brown saw the people in his community participating in these activities that are contrary to his beliefs, he still was not sure if it was true or only a dream. d. My deepest sympathy goes out to the main character Goodman Brown. He distanced himself from the community after their alleged sinful activity according to Brown, but it could have been a dream which shows what can happen to those who have unproven assumptions of others. II. “The child by Tiger” wrote by Thomas Wolfe shows the ever present uncertainty of human tendencies and what society can bring about. e. The conflict in this story comes later on as a shock to the reader, which is how any good sole can become...
Words: 1683 - Pages: 7
...In the short story of "Volar" by Judith Ortiz Cofer, it shows patriarchy power because the father of the protagonist has the power in the house to decide whether or not they go to vacations. In the story the wife, and mother, ask her husband to go to vacation with the family, but the husband answer "no" because of insufficiency of money. He has the power to decide what to do with his money because he is the only one that makes go to work to make money. One time I hear someone saying "it's my money, and I can do whatever I want with my own money". I think that this quote apply to this short story because even though we don't notice right away, when I read it twice, I notice that the father is doing whatever he wanted to do with his money. I...
Words: 300 - Pages: 2
...Poetry, prose, sonnets, drama, plays, short stories and novels are concepts that first came to my mind when I think in the question “What is literature?” The definition of literature has change over time. The only thing that is certain about the meaning of literature is that the definition will change. The concepts about what is literature about also change over time. In order to get a clear understanding of exactly what literature is, first we need to know its definition. According to the Merriam-Webster, literature is defined by “the body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age; the body of writings on a particular subject: printed matter.” Literature has to do with letters, but some people often think that literature is only one thing, not knowing that it is composed by several elements that we use every day. These important elements include poems, prose, sonnets, drama, plays, short stories and novels. Poetry is created from the soul. It comes from your emotions and it needs every piece of creativity inside you. It has been called the art of “saying the unsayable” because trough this you can express your feelings with no limit, and nobody can tell you that is wrong. If you make a poem and you think it is not good enough, well it is no good. You as the author or the reader, can only judge if it is good or but for you but maybe for some one else it is the opposite as it is for you. A good place to start when looking back at how poetry...
Words: 4267 - Pages: 18
