Ms. Johnson
10 IB/ Per. 5
5/31/09
Africa: The Spider’s Web
Summary: A servant in Kenya awakens from a dream of death to a morning full of regrets. Throughout the story, he explains his point of view that Kenya has been taken over by rich slobs and compares the process to the making of a spider’s web. He is the slave of a woman whom he and his village had once considered a hero for standing up against a white woman, and was dragged away by her husband, Mr. Njogu, “Njogu succeeded in dragging Lois away from decent society. He said paying the dowry was for people in the mountains” (Kibera, Pg. 66). It is because of this that she had fallen into place with the cowards who tried to unite African society by tearing it apart and her irritability is what causes the main character, Ngotho, to rebel and he ends up deciding to kill himself in the end. Some themes include: The struggle between social classes as seen in Ngotho’s rebellion, betrayal in Lois’s going from heroine to suppressor, and death from Ngotho’s death dream and his suicide at the end.
· Flashback: “Was this the girl he once knew as Lois back in his home village?” (Kibera, Pg 65). In this quote, Ngotho is trying to think back on what had made Lois the way she was. The author has flashbacks like this throughout the story and he uses them to reveal his anger with (and how) his society has degraded.
· Metaphor: “The queen flapped her wings and landed squarely on the ground” (Kibera, Pg 69). In this quote, Ngotho is comparing his master to a queen bee. This is significant because it reflects his view of her in how she rules her household, she how she has everything done for her, and when she wants to, she can sting those who anger her.
· Symbol: “He threw a light stone at it [the spider’s web] and only alerted the spider” (Kibera, Pg 67). Kibera uses this symbol of the spider’s web being alerted by a small stone to signify, as is revealed later in the story, the Kenyan’s possible resistance to the ruling power’s influence. He’s saying that even if they did try and resist, all that he believes could be done was just to disturb the spider, but not get rid of it.
· Protagonist: “He was glad to cook and wash a black man’s towels for a change” (Kibera, Pg 66). This quote is significant because it reveals that the Protagonist is a slave. This is important because the reader is more used to the Caucasian side of the story, when instead, in this story the reader gets to see the effects of European colonization from the African’s point of view.
· Characterization (Descriptive Detail): “He looked all so sensibly handsome and clean” (Kibera, Pg 68). Ngotho says this to reveal that Mr. Njogu looks all prim and perfect on the outside, when he really is just a coward on the inside, submitting to the rule and imposed society of their suppressor instead of protecting his ancestry.
Japan: “A Gray Moon”
Summary: A man is riding on a train in Japan on a lonely autumn night when he sees a boy, behaving very peculiarly, sitting on the train. The boy seems to be a bit crazy. As the train gains more passengers, they inquire about the boy’s situation. He is not drunk, or starving, or sick. Later on, the narrator finds out that, on the train, the boy was only going in a circle. He says it doesn’t matter. In the end, when the date is revealed, the reader can infer that the boy was a worker who had lost everything, including probably his home and family, in World War II.
One theme in this story is that World War II had left some Japanese people with practically nothing; there was no point to anything anymore. This is shown through the boy’s helplessness, and indifference to whatever was going on.
Atmosphere: In “The Gray Moon,” Naoya Shiga uses words and descriptions to create a forlorn, gloomy, uncertain atmosphere for the story. For example, he uses words and phrases such as “Caught unawares,” “act of betrayal,” “sorry” and “ashamed” (Shiga 172) to describe his feelings when he shoves the lonesome boy off of him when he falls. This creates a helpless feeling in any reader’s heart.
Setting: The setting in this story is also very significant. In the first two paragraphs, Shiga says, “I stood in the roofless corridor of Tokyo station, the air was still and chilly… The wide, deserted corridor seemed all the wider for its emptiness” (Shiga 170). This is effective in two ways: it sets up the plot of the story (the fact that they are waiting for, then eventually on a train is very significant to the plot), and also introduces the mood of the sorrowful piece (the wide, empty corridor gives the reader a sense of loneliness already).
Simile: There is a simile in this short story to help explain the actions of the boy. When the boy is trying to find comfort, Shiga says, “Like a child, he had made the piece of wood into a person in his fatigue, and was trying to snuggle up to it” (Shiga 172). The simile, comparing the boy’s yearning for comfort to a child’s, is very effective. It shows how truly depressed and desperate he is, therefore being effective to the theme of the story (all of the boy’s comfort is gone).
Narrator: Shiga writes “A Gray Moon” in the form of an "I novel", a first person recollection of his own experiences. This provides a great, insightful point of view on the situation, and makes it incredibly realistic. The realism of the events that happen in “The Gray Moon” make it all the more effective to the reader.
Surprise Ending: Naoya Shiga ends up pulling everything together and explaining it in the very last sentence of the story: “The incident took place on October 16, 1945” (Shiga 173). After being perplexed the whole story as to why the mysterious boy acts the way he does, the reader comes to realize that the event took place merely two months after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This explains why the boy seems to have lost everything, and is so sad.
Chinese/ Vietnamese: The Water Nymph
Short Summary The story revolves around an unnamed protagonist and his life in a small village. The story consists of various flashbacks and memories along with events happening in the present of the story. The narrator recalls memories of work, studies, family, honor, and love among others. Most of the recollection entail the mysterious water nymph, or Me Ca as she is known in the village. This character seems to play a crucial role in the protagonist's life, yet in the conclusion of the passage he uncovers that she was a figment of an old man's imagination. This strikes the character deeply, and the reader is given the impression that he is going to venture out into the world and take life at its fullest.
Themes that were introduced include: the need for humans to find an excuse for why things happen (Shown through the explanation of extraordinary things that humans can do through the myth of the water nymph), along those same lines, how fate can play tricks on us sometimes, which is shown in how the main character had a bunch of run-ins with Me Ca, the water nymph, and yet it turns out that her very existance was the fabrication of an old man’s imagination.
Flashback-By using flashback to describe the events of his character's life, the author prevents from falling into rigid time line while keeping a slight element of mystery. The writer transcends into his memories strongly but without leaving the reader lost: Nineteen seventy-five: that was year to remember. My village held a very big festival,” (Thiep 45). The character's reminiscence prods the reader into trying to connect the different events into a single meaning, keeping him/her attentive throughout the story.
Denouement- Although there is hints of the true nature of the water nymph throughout the story, the author doesn't disclose the complete truth until the end of the story. The main character finally uncovers the truth of the water nymph, as told to him by an old man; “I invented the story of Me Ca[the water nymph],”(55). The audience has grown a connection with the protagonist, and this uncovering of a lie hits them as hard as it hits him. The memories which involved the nymph seemed tarred, and its something the character seems to realize. The story concludes with him having a sort of epiphany, aware of how he must taking advantage of life and reach out.
Symbol: In his story, Nguyen Huy Thiep uses the Water Nypmh to symbolize the inexplainable. This becomes aparant to the reader through Me Ca's constant appearances in different forms to the main character, and yet she still remains a mystery to him. For example, at one point in time, she appears as a young thief who escapes his grasp in a river, as a young woman with whom he falls in love with, and finally, she helps to save him from some thugs, "Me Ca saved you" (Thiep Pg. 48). These are all significant because even though Me Ca supposedly has all of these run-ins, she is still unknown to the main character, and these events even become more inexplainable when the main character finds out that the Water Nymph was just an old man's fabrication. These elements allow for an air of mystery to surround most of the story which never truly gets unraveled at the end.Setting: The setting of this story plays a large part in its telling. The majority of this story takes place around a river, providing plausable encounters with the Water Nymph, "The frightened thieves dived into the river and swam" (Thiep Pg. 43). This quote is significant in that it helps to reveal the main caracter's first encounter with the famed water nymph. It also seems that whenever the character is by the river, he has an encounter with Me Ca. The first time is when he's chasing a theif and she out-swims him, then later in his life when he meets a woman whom he falls in love with who shares the water nymph's name, when she saves him by a band of thugs by the riverside, and finally when he finds out that the water nymph is a story made up by an old man.Surprise Ending: The ending of this story is a big surprise to the reader. The reader follows along the tale of an anonymous protagonist and his several run-ins with the legendary water nymph, one of which includes when she supposedly saves his life. However, the both the reader and the main character are surprised at the end when Me Ca, the water nymph, is discovered to be the invention of the imagination of an old man, "I invented the story of Me Ca" (Thiep, Pg. 55). This surprise causes the main character to abandon his current life, which without the story of Me Ca to explain everything doesn't make sense, and he decides to go out and start things anew.
Latin American: An Act of Vengeance
Summary: The story starts off with the house of Senator Orellanos being sacked by the outlaw who was known as Tadeo Cespedes. During his raid, he rapes the senator's daughter, tortures the Senator, and ends up killing everyone in the household with the exception of the daughter. This act of violence causes the daughter to swear revenge, and so she goes off to live by herself. Cespedes, getting tired of the life of a bandit, becomes a successful politician but is constantly haunted by the memory of that day. He goes back to the house to make reprimands, and when the two look into each other's eyes, the sense of shared suffering causes them to convert that hate into its opposite, love. This, unfortunately, doesn't last because the daughter doesn't feel as if she can love the man she had hated for so long, so she kills herself in order to get the ultimate revenge on the man whom had taken away so much from her.
In the story, a few themes make themselves known. The first one is revenge and is seen through the Senator's daughter when she swears to execute the perfect revenge and plans exactly how she's going to do it for the several years between the rape and their falling in love. The second theme is love. This one is seen through how she loved her father so much that she could obsess over the revenge of his death for years, and then also when the two opposing forces meet and, despite all odds, end up falling in love.
· Motivation: “From the moment they had carried her father away… Dulce Rosa lived for revenge” (Allende, Pg. 14). The author uses her rape and the death of her father to motivate Rosa to become bent on revenge. It is because her determination of completing this deed that she never marries, and that leaves her available to marry her attacker, plus it is through their shared suffering that the two fall in love in the first place, as well as it is the motivation that had driven her for so long, it is also what drives her to kill her self in the end.
· Characterization (Dramatic rendition): “Some gentlemen… proposed marriage. She rejected them all” (Allende, Pg. 14). This rejection of marriage, among other things, serves to prove how determined this woman was avenging her father and herself.
· Allusion: “Only with the civil war. Ever since he had begun to shave, he had a weapon in his hands” (Allende, Pg. 12). This alludes to the civil war that was going on in Mexico, which was one of the things that caused Tadeo Cespedes to become so violent, a tendency that sparked the conflict between him and the daughter.
· Irony (Irony of situations): “She searched her heart for the hatred she had cultivated… but she was incapable of finding it” (Allende, Pg. 16). This is one of the major turning points in the story, and it looks as if it’s going to be a fairytale ending when Rosa forgives Cespedes. Unfortunately, this does not occur, and the daughter ends up killing herself in confusion from a mixture of love and hatred towards the same man.
· Surprise ending: “He found Dulce Rosa Orellano… lying motionless in the same bloody organdy dress” (Allende, Pg. 17). This is very much like the Irony of situations in that it comes unexpectedly, but this time, it is reverting back to the original motivation of Rosa instead of having her get married like she was planning to do.
European: The Garden of Stubborn Cats
Summary: There’s a factory worker named Marcovaldo who, on occasion, will just follow cats around on his spare time. He, after a while of having done this, befriends a tabby cat. The tabby, one day leads him to the ceiling vents above a fancy restaurant, where he snatches up a fish from the pond below. His tabby friend steals it from him and runs to an empty lot full of cats where the tabby has somehow gotten the fish stuck up in the tree. A hand sneaks out of a window by the tree and snatches up the fish. Marcovaldo finds out from the women who look after the cats that the hand and the lot belong to a woman called Marchesa. When Marcovaldo asks Marchesa why she keeps the lot as it is, she responds, saying that the cats are keeping it that way and are holding her prisoner in her own home. Marchesa dies that winter and the future efforts to develop the land are thwarted by the animals that had made the lot their home.
There are a couple of themes in The Garden of Stubborn Cats. The first one is human qualities in animals. This is seen in the intelligence of the animals that Marovaldo encounters, whether it is the tabby tricking him into getting the fish or the animals preventing Marchesa from getting her property sold. The second theme, human ignorance, is seen in how there is a hidden world of the animals right under our noses in the city.
· Setting: “It’s the only undeveloped bit of land in the downtown area” (Calvino, Pg. 626). The setting is important because seeing as the garden is the last bit of undeveloped land; it causes a large portion of controversy. It is the struggle between Marchesa wanting to sell the plot and the animals wanting to keep it as is that turns out to be the main struggle in the end.
· Exposition: “On occasion, to pass the time, Marcovaldo would follow a cat” (Calvino, Pg. 622). This helps to let the reader know why Marcovaldo got sucked into this little adventure.
· Point of View (Third Person): “They’re afraid I’ll sell the plot… They won’t leave me” (Calvino, Pg. 627). Here, the point of view in the third person not only allows the reader to see all that is going on, but also to see the world from the cat’s point of view.
· Conflict: “you found a cat perched on top of it, hissing fiercely” (Calvino, Pg. 628). The main conflict throughout the story is the world of cats pitted against the world of humans. This is seen in the last few paragraphs of the story, where this quote is taken from, in how the cats are meeting the efforts to develop the plan with great resistance.
· Denoument: “They’re afraid I’ll sell the plot… They won’t leave me” (Calvino, Pg. 627). Here, Calvino is revealing that part of the main conflict. This is in context to how the world of the cats is presented as a mystery at first, and then gets a little more revealed through Marcovaldo’s discovery of the garden, and then finally fully in the circumstances in the aforementioned quote.
Comparative essay:
In the 5 stories, The Spider’s Web, A Grey Moon, the Water Nymph, an Act of Vengeance, and The Garden of Stubborn Cats, many similarities can be found throughout each of the stories. One of the major similarities is that the stories all reveal human flaws, oftentimes through the acts of the protagonist. For example, in the story The Garden of Stubborn Cats, the main character, Marcovaldo, stumbles upon a garden full of animals, dwelling in their own society, separate from the humans, “The city of cats and the city of men exist inside the other, but they are not the same city” (Calvino, Pg. 621). The human flaw that is being demonstrated here is the human being’s ability to be ignorant to things that are right below our noses. The flaw is shown in how the cats have a separate society from ours, their own city with ours, but yet we are too ignorant to see it for ourselves.
Besides similarities, there are also several differences, each occasionally being culture specific. A good example for this culture-specific difference is found in The Water Nymph. In this story, the legendary water nymph’s birth is quite unique, “a pair of dragons coiled tightly around each other…when the rain stopped, there was a newborn baby girl” (Thiep, Pg 39). The legend of the dragon itself is not culture specific, but the dragon’s ability to perform acts thought of as impossible unless by magic is very culture specific. The magic that the dragon casts is how the water nymph, Me Ca, is created from the joining of two dragons.
There were many good things and bad things in each of the stories. In The Water Nymph, again, something that was good was the incorporation of mythology into the story. Mythology is one of those things that people all over the world have in order to explain the unexplainable, so this was a good thing in that it was something that almost every person alive could relate to. There were bad things in these stories as well. In The Spider’s Web, The story is worded in such a way and the thoughts so un-connected that it makes the story often hard to understand and through that, frustrating to read.
One of the things that the authors of this era tended to focus on was moving forward in people’s and thing’s lives. In The Spider’s Web, the main character was lobbying for change from his government and getting rid of the current, suppressing system from England. In The Garden of Stubborn Cats, the person who owns the lot is trying to sell it and have a new complex built on the site. In The Water Nymph, the main character decides to leaves his home and travel to some new place towards the end. This common theme of progress in each of the stories would make one think that one of the main things that authors from this time would particularly enjoy writing about was the advancement of both humans and things.
