Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Black Cat, is about a man who loves his wife and animals.
However, he ends up killing his wife and try’s to kill his cat. Poe says this
man is an alcoholic. The difference in this fact of the story is that a
contemporary reader would assume the reason the character is acting violent is
because of his abusive drinking problem, as for a person living before the
twenty-first century would not focus on his alcohol problem. The man abused his
wife and cat when he became drunk during the story. Today, a reader would
consider abusing a wife unacceptable, but not before the twentieth century where
women were more often abused. Another difference between the time period
readers would be the reference to the gallows on the second cat that he took in.
Earlier readers would perceive the horrific feat because the gallows was a
weapon to kill people, but a reader today would not get the same effect because
we do not use them anymore.
Chapter 26-
1984 by George
Orwell contains irony throughout the whole book. In the novel there is a
governed rule of “doublethink”, which is “basically the power of holding two
contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
This is irony at its most literal sense in that it is impossible to act upon. The
character Winston is surrounded by irony. For example, he feels he is out of
harm’s way when he rents an apartment with Julia from a guy he thinks is like
him and can trust. It turned out that the man renting them the room was
actually a member of the thought police, which ultimately led to his acceptance
of Big Brother. Winston demonstrates irony from beginning to end because he
wanted to overthrow and destroy the Party at the start, but by the conclusion
he becomes like every other member. Overall the irony is prevalent in Orwell’s
novel, but despite it the reader can sense his warning to those in future
generations.
Chapter 27-
1)
The short story, "The Garden Party"
focuses on social classes. Laura's social class looks upon the lower classes as
if they are nothing. Her class doesn’t help the lower class and allows the
lower class to perish. In the text, Laura faces a gap between her life and others.
She doesn’t know how to deal with the social difference. The short story shows
one girl coming into maturity from an upper class family who has reached the
age of maturity, though she often recounts and has second thoughts about
certain things.
2)
Laura faces a social gap in the text and wants
to be more than a material seeker. The representation of flight is prevalent and
characters are given certain qualities, such as, Jose, the butterfly. These
qualities are also consistent in the dialogue, as Laura goes to meet the
workers – “away she flew” and “skimmed back to the house”. All of these flights of fancy represent the society
as sophisticated and graceful, which is consistent with the upper-social class
they represent. Although Laura is an upper-class dweller, she enjoys the simple
thing in life, such as, nature, unlike her family.
I think I did well on my perception of the short story and
some details of my answers are somewhat resemble the books examples.
It doesn’t really add to my appreciation, because I
appreciated Laura by just reading the short story. I already felt as if she was
different from the others in the upper-class and thought she was a good
character to use in such a symbolic text.
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