...The short story stretch over a day and it’s summer, because the boy called Charles Mandres there sits in the back seat, are wearing shorts. The short is taking place in Sussex, England. It’s a rich area in the UK, and the school sense like it and rich environment, because the school is a big building, with swimming pool and gym. At the end of the story is a dialogue between the parents, and Charles, and one of them said: “It’s pricey, of course” so the family are probably in middle class, and want they son to… Charles is the main character in the short story “The Happiest days of your life”. He probably the only child in the family, since his parents want to send him to an expensive school. Charles is a quiet boy, and probably 8-13 years old, since he is beginning at a preparatory school. He had smooth black hair, and his ears was big. His clothes was new and shine…. Charles parents Mr. and Mrs. Manders don’t think about Charles, because they decide that Charles has to go at St. Edwards’s Preparatory School, and they said: “Would you like to go there, Charles? Like Simon Wilcox? ... The child does not answer” so his parents know someone else who goes there, and they want Charles to go there to. And he didn’t answer his mother question, and it can maybe be an allusion to, that he doesn't like the school and maybe don't want to go there… “next term we’ll mash you” it says “We always mash new boys” Charles kept thinking about what the boys said to him at school. And he could...
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...cause we have to follow the set of rules society makes, but that doesn’t give them the right to tell us what to do or interfere in our naturally evolvement. ”Here there be tygers”(1968), is a short story written by Stephen King. The short story is about how a boy’s imagination and free will, can lead a rebellious strike against modern society. The story is narrated from Charles’ perspective and the narrator is a third person, nom-omniscient narrator. The story takes place in the Acorn Street Grammar School. We can’t be sure about the historical time, but two posters on the bulletin board in the hall within the school indicate that the historical time might take place around the 1970’s in USA. The woodsy owl made its first appearance in 1971 and officer friendly was an officer in the U.S Marine Corps who travelled around to schools in the 1960’s to the 1980’s. Within the school, the story especially takes place in the third-grade classroom, the basement and the bathroom inside the basement. The basement is generally described as where the boilers are kept and well-groomed ladies and gentlemen would never go down there but they would rather go to the bathroom. These two places throughout the story confuse Charles, who finds it rather hard to decide where to go to urinate. Charles is a...
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...children’s imagination. Stephen King’s short story from 1968 “Here There Be Tygers” is about a strict teacher and a young boy whose imagination comes to live in the shape of a fearsome tiger, and challenges the order and the strict discipline of a US primary school. The story is narrated from the main character Charles´ perspective. The narrator is a third person, non-omniscient narrator, which means that we see the world trough Charles´ eyes, from a child’s perspective. This signifies that we see things that happen, the way he experiences it. To Charles, the tiger, which he encounters in the men’s bathroom, is as real as Miss Bird. Charles feels that his teacher, Miss Bird, is hostile towards him, the narrator says: ”She meant to pounce. Charles thought that miss bird was about to find out what pouncing was really about”(p.159, l.23-25). This displays Charles´ apprehension towards miss Bird because, from his perspective, it feels like his teacher really is attacking him. From a grown ups perspective, miss Birds behaviour would not seem as aggressive as it does to Charles. Charles has a very strained relationship with Miss Bird. He is very sure about miss Bird wanting to ruin his life by humiliating him in front of the class. This is to be seen in the text when the narrator says: ”Charles had known he would end up with Miss Bird. He had known that. It had been inevitable. Because Miss Bird obviously wanted to destroy him”(p.155, l.11-13) Charles feels that Miss Birds way of talking...
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...Shirley Jackson wrote both “The Lottery” and “Charles. Both have their similarities, but both also have their differences. There are six main ones, however, that shouldn’t be overlooked due to how vastly different or similar they are. “Charles” and “The Lottery” have plenty of similarities, but some of the larger ones include; foreshadowing, dialogue, and irony/plot twist. The two short stories share the literary element of foreshadowing. In “The Lottery”, foreshadowing was used when it mentioned how the kids in the village collecting stones and how the town nervously interacted with each other, implying something fishy was going on; that the lotter was something you didn’t want to win. In “Charles”, it’s used when Laurie first comes home, and his mom...
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...Charles Bukowski has written this short story (Son of Satan). Charles Bukowski was a very famous writer and was famous for describing the atmosphere in L.A., which is why I think the story takes place in L.A. It takes place in the poor part of L.A for the reason that the main character on page 13 “walks in the bedroom and sits on the edge of the bed and looks down at his cheap shoes”. They cannot afford good shoes, so the story takes place in the poor area. That is also why it seems to me that Charles is the main character in this short story. I ponder this is something he has experienced and then have chosen to write about, to tell such a serious story. But Charles Bukowski is also very famous for his very strange stories so it could be both things. But I believe it is something Charles has experienced. And the environment leads us up to the themes. I think there are a lot of themes in this story. But one of the themes is to tell how a 12 years old, who is living in a poor neighborhood and smoke cigarettes with his friends is thinking and how he is behaving. The reason of the boys’ behavior could have something to do with the social heritage and because of the fact that there is no one to look after the three boys. In my view the main themes are to tell that kids who lives in a poor area and no family to say what is right and what is wrong is most likely to become a “Son of Satan”. Our narrator in this story is a first person narrator. We do not know what our first person’s...
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...Kids need to be guided to learn good morals In the short stories “Charles “ by Shirley Jackson and “Miss Awful” by Arthur Cavanaugh. These short stories all tell a similar idea they both talk about kids struggles with their teachers. But they do this idea with different places, characters, and themes. The setting in “Charles” and “Miss Awful” are similar In “Charles” it takes place mostly at home and at the end it is at the PTA School meeting. Like in “Charles” the setting in “Miss Awful” is sometimes at home but unlike “Charles” it takes place mostly at St. Geoff School. The Characters are different in both stories. In “Charles” Laurie is static and does not change he is aggressive, liar and a swaggering kid. In addition he uses...
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...beat up the new kids? That is what Next Term, We’ll Mash You written by Penelope Lively is about. In the short story we are introduced to Charles, the protagonist, and his parents, who take a visit to St. Edward’s Preparatory School, which is a very fine school. While the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Manders, speak to the headmaster, the wife of the headmaster shows Charles the school and let him talk to some of the student. She leaves Charles and the inquisitive student alone and in between all the questioning the words “Next term, we’ll mash you” are said. The main theme of the text is expectations from parents. There is another side theme which could be defined as wanting to please your parent or being obliged to speak up for your own sake. A different and third theme could be social status or ones position in society. The text is a short story because there are few characters involved. The plot takes place over a short period of time and is told chronologically. The narrator is an all-knowing 3rd who has the ability to reveal the characters thought. Mostly, it is the parents thought we hear about and not Charles. We can only imagine what he is thinking on the basis of his appearance. Charles appears as an uncertain and indecisive boy. It tells from these quotes “The child hesitated, stood up, sat, then rose again with his father” (p.2, l.10) and later in the story when he encounters the other student “… and he becomes mute, and he stands in the middle of them with shoulders...
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...terrible mistake. Status, money and power can be very intriguing and Penelope Lively’s short story “The Happiest Days of Your Life”, 1978, is a great example on how one can outshine the other. The parents in the story clearly have the best intentions for their only child, Charles, but the lack of communication between them and their child will result in a bad choice. The short story “The Happiest Days of Your Life” is told by an omniscient author in 3rd person. The story’s point of departure is the protagonist Charles who is the child of the two other characters we meet, Charles’ parents; “He looks straight a head of him, at the road coiling beneath the bonnet of the car. His face is haggard with anticipation. 'Next term, we'll mash you...’” (p. 59, l. 5-7) is a great example of the omniscient author since the author tells us how the child feels and thinks. On the other hand the author does not know of Charles’ father’s thoughts or the other characters we meet throughout the story. We also get a bit of an expression of the mother’s thoughts and feelings, but not as much as we get to know Charles. We are introduced to two different environments in the story; the car and St. Edward’s Preparatory School. The environment in the car is introduced on the way to the school and slightly in the end, when the family is driving back from the visit at St. Edward’s Preparatory School, but the story mainly takes place at the school. “The building was red brick, early nineteenth century...
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...described in his first important work, The Sun Also Rises (1926). Equally successful was A Farewell to Arms (1929), the study of an American ambulance officer's disillusionment in the war and his role as a deserter. Hemingway used his experiences as a reporter during the civil war in Spain as the background for his most ambitious novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Among his later works, the most outstanding is the short novel, The Old Man and the Sea (1952), the story of an old fisherman's journey, his long and lonely struggle with a fish and the sea, and his victory in defeat. Hemingway - himself a great sportsman - liked to portray soldiers, hunters, bullfighters - tough, at times primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this confrontation lose hope and faith. His straightforward prose, his spare dialogue, and his predilection for understatement are particularly effective in his short stories, some of which are collected in Men Without Women (1927) and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938). Hemingway died in Idaho in 1961. From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company,...
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...The science fiction short story the “passengers” by Robert Silverberg is literature of escape. It depicts dystopian world as it explores the social, political, and economic forces that cause the breaking down of civilization through alien takeover; the incidents, people, and obstacles that seem to rip the world apart at its seams, test their ethics, and show us a vision of the environment inverted directly upon itself. Alien phantoms called Passengers randomly take over the bodies of humans for several days at a time. One human in particular experiences frequent inhabitations from aliens and has just awoken from one. Charles Roth somehow is permitted to remember this specific encounter in a fog even though he has never before and is not supposed to by the rules of the aliens. He had a sexual encounter with an inhabited woman, Helen Martin, and then consciously finds her with the attempt to pursue a real relationship with her. Although reluctant Helen, who’s memory has not retained any information about Charles, is convinced to pursue the relationship despite her fear of being caught by the aliens by Charles’ enthusiasm to overthrow the enemy in this small way. The relationships development is quickly derailed as Charles finds himself ridden by another passenger. Charles Roth is the round character of the short story. He’s developed and his emotions are conveyed. The story displays a man that has been taken hostage and is victimized. He’s tired and frustrated and...
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...Richard McQuitery Analyzing “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” English 221 Westwood College “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is a story with connections to Bob Dylan, has themes of control and family, and has an antagonist that is believed to have been based on a serial killer. It is one of many stories of the ages that will be discussed for years to come. Joyce Carol Oates dedicated this short story to Bob Dylan. Oates admitted in an interview that after hearing Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” she was inspired to write the story. (Davidson, 1997) Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you The vagabond who’s rapping at your door Is standing in the clothes that you once wore Strike another match, go start anew And it’s all over now, Baby Blue (Dylan, 1965) After hearing these lyrics in Dylan’s song, it is very easy to identify the scene with Connie speaking to Arnold Friend through the screen door. The song’s eerie tone adds a greater depth to Arnold and Connie’s conversation. In an interview on Youtube, Oates was asked why she dedicated the story to Bob Dylan, and her response was: “…Dylan was in a phase where he was writing music like “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and that song, and some others on the same album were rather like fairy tales and nursery rhymes that had gone wrong. He had taken a kind of simplicity of imagery...
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...The theme of “Charles” and “Miss.Awful” is don’t jump to conclusions about people but look carefully because you could be wrong. This is the theme of both short stories because in “Charles”, Mom judged Charles and his mother. She thought that Charles is a bad influence and his mother will be tired and probabley doesn’t care about her son’s behavoir. In the end her sweet Laurie turned out to be Charles and Charles’ mother was he. Since LAurie’s mother didn’t look at the stories about why he was late and at home he constantly showed behavoir that mirrored Charles’ behavoir. The clues were right in front of her and yet she still jumped to conclusions thinking that Charle and his mother are awful. In “Miss.Awful” Roger and all the other students...
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...Charles Bukowski was a drunk. A literate and amazingly brilliant drunk. Bukowski faced countless hardships in life that affected how he lived and acted towards the world. He had a tenacious childhood, which shaped him into the man he became. Bukowski had an subject world of drinking, sex, gambling, and music in his literate world (Poetryfoundation.org). One of the finest quotes of his work is “Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who/what we are.”. This quote is from his book What Matter Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire. Bukowski composed over forty volumes of poetry, six novels, and several short-story collections along with his screenplay of the film Barfly (Columbia...
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...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...
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...Dancing to Nat King Cole (B) The short story “Dancing to Nat King Cole” is written by the British writer James Wall, and was first published in the online magazine The Front View in 2013. The short story takes place in UK, and is about a couple named Charles and Katherine, one day when they are sitting down in their kitchen and enjoying a delicious breakfast, their daughter Rebecca calls, and asks if they are free for launch, so she can join them, Katherine says yes and tells Charles about it. When Rebecca arrives Charles welcomes her with a surprised face, and asks her why she did not call before she came over, at that point we have an idea that he might suffer some sort of dementia. Later in the story, when he smokes in the restaurant, even thug he have been told time, after time that it is not allowed, makes us positive that he is seek. But it is first in the ending part of the story, where he forgets his own wife; we get sure that he must have some sort of dementia. The main character in the story is Katherine. Katherine is a caring and faithful wife, with a sick husband. She is an independent woman, who not only takes care of herself but also her husband who have some sort of dementia. She keeps all the suffering for herself and tries to protect her daughter from being a part of the pain. When her daughter Rebecca asks about Charles and how he is, she lies and says: “he is fine” (p. 2, l. 56). Even thug she is a strong women, it seems like she slightly are giving...
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