Desiree's baby by Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri on February 8, 1850, is considered one of the first feminist authors of the 20th century. She was leading a conventional life of a housewife until the tragedy of her husband's death. Her husband's death bought about the start of her writing career Chopin's writing career began. Her mother convinced Kate to move back to St. Louis, but died shortly thereafter leaving her alone. Now Chopin, suffering from the loss of her husband and mother, was advised by her obstetrician and family friend to fight her state of depression by taking up writing as a source of therapeutic healing, a way to focus her energy and provide Chopin with a source of income. She took the advice to heart. She wrote a number of short stories but her novel The Awakening, (1899) is amongst the best known, it is a hauntingly prescient tale of a woman unfulfilled by the mundane yet highly celebrated "feminine role," and her painful realization that the constraints by virtue of being a female blocked her ability to seek a more fulfilling life. Desiree's Baby (1893), and The Storm (1898), which is a sequel to her story At the 'Cadian Ball(1892), are also among her best known short stories. Thoughts and reaction: I find that the story is tragic as Desiree and the innocent baby met a tragic untimely death due to their colour and race, which is not something they can help or control. Also the story is ironic and so leaves the reader angry that Desiree and the baby had to suffer because of Armand’s perception of their race and in the end it turns out that Armand himself was from the same race. The reader also feels anger because of the way Armand does not stick to his word as at first he loved Desiree and was ready to accept her as he it says “he looked into her eye and did not care” however his affection was not true as when he came to learn of the girl’s race, he no longer loved her. Also the story opens the reader’s eyes to the unjust treatment of certain races during the time the story was set and we can sympathize with those who were treated lowly because of their race such as the slaves. |
Desiree's baby -
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/160/160-h/160-h.htm#link2H_4_0047 http://ia700504.us.archive.org/6/items/short_story_035_0812_librivox/shortstory035_desireesbaby_lm.mp3 Synopsis: The story starts of telling the tale of an abandoned baby by the name of Desiree, who was left by a big, stone pillar. We come to know that she is taken in by Madame Valmonde who is appreciative of the baby as she does not have a child herself and so they accept the baby as their own despite not knowing the baby’s origin. Desiree grows to be a beautiful and gentle young woman who Armand Aubigny falls head over heels for. He is mesmerized by her and so disregards that Desiree had obscure origins and instantly wants to marry her and so arranges for the marriage to take place. Armand Aubigny is harsh with his slaves (Negros) however we are told that the presence of the baby has softened him and he is a happy and proud father. However the writer expresses concerns about the baby when Madame Valmonde examines the baby and inquires what Armand says about the baby. Soon after Armand is cold and distant with Desiree and the baby and there are people in the house present who Desiree does not recognize and also Armand deals with the slaves mercilessly. His behavior makes Desiree miserable. Desiree is with her baby, who is being fanned by a slave when she notices that the baby and the slave are of the same colour and it dawns on her that this is the reason that Armand has been distant with her. When she questions it he tells her that she is not white and leaves. She informs her mother about this who welcomes Desiree and the baby back into their homes. Desiree tells Armand and questions whether Armand wants her to leave and he turns her away. He blames her for his misfortune. She drowns herself along with the baby. Armand organised to burn all of Desiree’s possessions when he found a letter from his mother to his father that revealed that his mother wasn't white hence he wasn't white either. |
Raymond Chandler
Jonathon Swift
Jonathan Swift was born in Ireland in 1667 to English parents. His father died before he was born, so his mother depended on her husband's brothers to help support her young family. Swift grew up in relative poverty and depended on the kindness of his uncles. They took care with his education, sending him to the Kilkenny School before he entered Trinity College in 1682. He wasn't a very good student at the college, but he eventually graduated and continued working towards his master's degree. Swift was widely believed to share an intimate and close relationship with a girl, Esther Johnson. He first met her when she was eight years old. The two maintained a close but ambiguous relationship for the rest of his life. They were believed to have secretly married, though there is no definite proof corroborating this. But it was certain that she held a special place in his heart throughout his life. In his later life, Swift was linked to another fatherless girl, Esther Vanhomrigh, who presumably was infatuated with him, though Swift later tried to break off relationship with her. With Whig government coming to power, Jonathan Swift left England for one more time. He returned to Ireland and began a series of political writing in Irish support. Some of his notable works during this period are Proposal for Universal Use of Irish Manufacturer (1720), Drapier’s Letters (1724) and A Modest Proposal (1729). Some of his masterpiece, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World and Gulliver’s Travels also came during that period. In 1726 he visited England where he stayed with his life long friends Alexander Pope, John Arbuthnot and John Gay. With the help of them, Swift anonymously published his book Gulliver’s Travels in 1726. The book was proved to be such a huge success that it’s French, German and Dutch version had to be published in 1727. |
A Modest Proposal, by Jonathon Swift -
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1080 http://librivox.org/a-modest-proposal-by-jonathan-swift/ A modest proposal is a satire piece by Jonathon Swift which mocks the way Ireland's politicians are dealing with the problem at hand. The piece is used to show that Swift thinks the lamentable state of Ireland is due to the the hypocrisy of the wealthy, the tyranny of the English and the ineptitude of the Irish. Swift uses a form of parody of a political solution to the economic and social issues as during the time Political pamphleteering was common however he gets the reader's attention with the use of exaggeration as he proposes ridiculous ideas to the issues such as eating infants. This shocks the reader as it is out of the ordinary and this technique is used to really make a statement and proves to be thought-provoking as it leads the reader to think critically about the existing policies and the motivations and values of people. By proposing to eat babies, Swift is trying to indirectly saying that even cannibalism is a better solution than the existing solutions. |
Satires
Satires is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices.
Satire on the sixth form block
The sight of the Sixth form block fills me with dread, the cramped staircase to the common room might as well be the stairway to hell. Those of you that are on the thinner side, consider yourself lucky that you have a chance of fitting through the doorways but perhaps no-one is to blame since maybe it didn't occur to the architect that people come in different shapes and sizes, I mean who would've thought that's even a possibility huh?
Speaking of size, the size of the common room happens to be leaning towards the smaller end of the spectrum but from an optimistic's perspective it could be described as somewhat... cosy. What better way to spend time together than by invading each other's personal space.
When, and if, you manage to get into the common room then you'll be witnessing a work of art (some may say one gone horribly wrong but this is open to interpretation). The once comfortable, plush couches are now tattered and simply in ruins however on the bright side the couches can be considered as journals of the student's activities, they keep a record what someone had for lunch, how useful and rather sentimental, every stain holds a memory.
However if this does not reach your standards and give you the utmost satisfaction than I have an alternative, the answer to the sixth former's prayers. The obvious solution to this problem is to relocate the common room, somewhere more convenient and spacious and I believe we should make use of the resources around us. In literal terms. We should use the space around us, even the streets. We should make use of the land we are blessed with and take full advantage of nature. This would solve the issue of tight doorways because if there is no doorway then it certainly can't be too small to fit through. As for spacious, the outdoor provides us with unlimited space, it really does expand our horizons, quite literally. This also means that every day will be a picnic, what more could we possibly ask for.
Satires is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices.
Satire on the sixth form block
The sight of the Sixth form block fills me with dread, the cramped staircase to the common room might as well be the stairway to hell. Those of you that are on the thinner side, consider yourself lucky that you have a chance of fitting through the doorways but perhaps no-one is to blame since maybe it didn't occur to the architect that people come in different shapes and sizes, I mean who would've thought that's even a possibility huh?
Speaking of size, the size of the common room happens to be leaning towards the smaller end of the spectrum but from an optimistic's perspective it could be described as somewhat... cosy. What better way to spend time together than by invading each other's personal space.
When, and if, you manage to get into the common room then you'll be witnessing a work of art (some may say one gone horribly wrong but this is open to interpretation). The once comfortable, plush couches are now tattered and simply in ruins however on the bright side the couches can be considered as journals of the student's activities, they keep a record what someone had for lunch, how useful and rather sentimental, every stain holds a memory.
However if this does not reach your standards and give you the utmost satisfaction than I have an alternative, the answer to the sixth former's prayers. The obvious solution to this problem is to relocate the common room, somewhere more convenient and spacious and I believe we should make use of the resources around us. In literal terms. We should use the space around us, even the streets. We should make use of the land we are blessed with and take full advantage of nature. This would solve the issue of tight doorways because if there is no doorway then it certainly can't be too small to fit through. As for spacious, the outdoor provides us with unlimited space, it really does expand our horizons, quite literally. This also means that every day will be a picnic, what more could we possibly ask for.