1. The cafe takes place in a town in Spain or any other one that speaks Spanish. The time is around World War I when people shoud not be late in the streets, otherwise the guards would get them. The cafe was described as clean and pleasant. This setting can be interpreted as a security place where the old waiter and the old customer can find peace in an empty establishment and be comfort without any noise once it was late night with nobody else to disturb. "It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order."
2. They do not need name. Hemingway perfectly described the characters without a name because he wanted the readers see the differences between ages. 2 men were old living in the dark with nothing and nobody else waiting for them, while the younger waiter have a wife waiting for him, meaning he was starting his life with many hoping.
. The 2 old men lived their lives already. They have nothing else to expect from life, and nobody to wait for them when they go back home. They both are afraid to be home lonely, so they like to be surround people with a lot of light.
4. The conflict of this story is an old man who wanted to end his life because he is lonely, and doesn't like to be at home by himself.
The rising action is when the already tired younger waiter who goes to serve a drink to the old man who is the last customer at the cafe.
Complications: are the comparison between an old man and a young waiter, and the similarities between the old man and an old waiter. The old man was despair who tried to end his own life. On the other hand, the young waiter cannot wait to end his work and go home where his wife was waiting for him. Like the old man, the old waiter also did not like to go home and like to stay late at the cafe because both of them need light for the night .
Climax: Is when the old waiter starts to pray and explains why he has sympathy towards to the old man. As the old man, the old waiter has lived enough to understand the meaning of life where nothing is nothing.
Falling action: The old waiter would go home and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep.
5. The theme is about an old man who is "nada" nothing at the end of his life, he only wanted to be in order in a clean place. "It was nothing that he knew too well. It was all nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was ll it needed and a certain cleanness and order".
6. Ernest Hemingway Biography: (1899-1961), born in Oak Park, Illinois, started his career as a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of seventeen. Ernest Hemingway was an established American journalist and writer. During his lifetime he wrote and had published about seven novels; six collections of short stories; and two works of non-fiction. He used to write about the darkness and pain people find daily, but without losing their dignity. Novels such as The Old Man and the Sea, and The Sun Also Rises put him as one of the top American writers.
1) As his character in the short story, Hemingway also had an example of suicide in his family. His father committed a suicide when him was only 12 years old, and Hemingway followed his father footsteps by ending his life too.
2) Hemingway's ways of life was to live deeply between the light and dark, exactly the same way his characters were in the novel. They wanted everything in order with secrets in their heart (dark) and their fears about life wanted light to not face the real life.
3) Like a soldier the minor character in the novel, Hemingway also was a soldier in the war.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Sonny's conflicts in Harlem
1. Harlem is an area located in the northern part of Manhattam. The first people to settle there was the Dutch by 1600's. After World War I to the middle of 1930 the African American population started to move in to Harlem. The white population tried to stopped the influx of blacks. White landlords made difficcult for blacks to rent housing in the area, they charged more the rents to blacks than to whites for the same apartament. Soon the area was known as the Renassaince of Harlem where flourished the jazz, musicians, poets, writers, and many others African American talents (columbia.edu).
1. Harlem is the setting Sonny grew up. He chose the wrong friends from the neighborhood. Sonny was a dreamer who wanted to scape from suffering from anything that will hurt him. Right before his mother death, Sonny was already addicted to drugs. He tried to scape joining the military, but Harlem was part of his life and inside of his soul. Harlem was the place where Sonny discovered his music talent, and his misfortune of drug addiction which was just too powerful (ucdavis.edu).
2. The African Americans have participated from every single war. The mainly motivation for the blacks enlist to military was the idea to become slave free. There are many black heroes who represented the country bravely, but the midia would expose only the whites as heroes on TV. The military would accept the blacks especially in wars while in peacetimes the whites were the favorites (nps.gov). One famous colored troop is the 369th Infantry Regiment in World War I also known as the Harlem Hellfighters. Before this event, the blacks were sent to wars only to labor work while the whites would go to fight, but the Harlem troop was determined to gain their place in the trenches showing how much they could be part of the American country (worldwarI.com).
2. Sonny knew that the Harlem streets was killing him little by little. In order to scape from the "killing streets", Sony wants to enlist to the army or navy where he could get free education and ironically feel free from his childhood house and sourrounding area (ucdavis.edu).
3. Billie Holiday's song: "A Fog Day" by George and Ira Gershwin. A foggy day, in London town. It had me low, and it had me down .I viewed the morning, with much alarm. The British Museum, had lost its charm How long I wondered, could this thing last, But the age of miracles, it hadn't past, And suddenly, I saw you standing right there And in foggy London town, the sun was shining everywhere (sing365.com).
3. The song "A Fog Day" takes place in London, but if we change the city to Harlem and it would perfectly describe Sonny's feeelings and sadness. Sonny shows that he has been through to a lot of pain, and he somehow thinks that he can find sunshine in his music and in the army.
4. Bebop started as a form of jazz in the 1940's. The protagonists of this new style of music and performance were trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. They made the songs more melodic and minimized the number of musicians in the band. They also used more swing style, but the type of songs wouldn't permit them to dance. New York was the first area where many other bands would get together in clubs to play bebop (hypermusic.com).
4. Bebop is a melodic type of song that says more about suffering and someone's pain. Sonny thought that as a black person he never would have the opportunity in American society unless something drastically would change. Sonny found his way as a musician to express his feelings and anger. In a conversation with his brother he confesses that he was using drugs and had dropped out of school, because he doesn't believe in hard work to change his life. On the other hand, his brother contested Sonny by arguing that there is another way to have a better life. The brother believed in hard work and education to succeed and one day be part of the white society (ucdavis.edu).
1. Harlem is the setting Sonny grew up. He chose the wrong friends from the neighborhood. Sonny was a dreamer who wanted to scape from suffering from anything that will hurt him. Right before his mother death, Sonny was already addicted to drugs. He tried to scape joining the military, but Harlem was part of his life and inside of his soul. Harlem was the place where Sonny discovered his music talent, and his misfortune of drug addiction which was just too powerful (ucdavis.edu).
2. The African Americans have participated from every single war. The mainly motivation for the blacks enlist to military was the idea to become slave free. There are many black heroes who represented the country bravely, but the midia would expose only the whites as heroes on TV. The military would accept the blacks especially in wars while in peacetimes the whites were the favorites (nps.gov). One famous colored troop is the 369th Infantry Regiment in World War I also known as the Harlem Hellfighters. Before this event, the blacks were sent to wars only to labor work while the whites would go to fight, but the Harlem troop was determined to gain their place in the trenches showing how much they could be part of the American country (worldwarI.com).
2. Sonny knew that the Harlem streets was killing him little by little. In order to scape from the "killing streets", Sony wants to enlist to the army or navy where he could get free education and ironically feel free from his childhood house and sourrounding area (ucdavis.edu).
3. Billie Holiday's song: "A Fog Day" by George and Ira Gershwin. A foggy day, in London town. It had me low, and it had me down .I viewed the morning, with much alarm. The British Museum, had lost its charm How long I wondered, could this thing last, But the age of miracles, it hadn't past, And suddenly, I saw you standing right there And in foggy London town, the sun was shining everywhere (sing365.com).
3. The song "A Fog Day" takes place in London, but if we change the city to Harlem and it would perfectly describe Sonny's feeelings and sadness. Sonny shows that he has been through to a lot of pain, and he somehow thinks that he can find sunshine in his music and in the army.
4. Bebop started as a form of jazz in the 1940's. The protagonists of this new style of music and performance were trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. They made the songs more melodic and minimized the number of musicians in the band. They also used more swing style, but the type of songs wouldn't permit them to dance. New York was the first area where many other bands would get together in clubs to play bebop (hypermusic.com).
4. Bebop is a melodic type of song that says more about suffering and someone's pain. Sonny thought that as a black person he never would have the opportunity in American society unless something drastically would change. Sonny found his way as a musician to express his feelings and anger. In a conversation with his brother he confesses that he was using drugs and had dropped out of school, because he doesn't believe in hard work to change his life. On the other hand, his brother contested Sonny by arguing that there is another way to have a better life. The brother believed in hard work and education to succeed and one day be part of the white society (ucdavis.edu).
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