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BARBARA

Through dialogue between the two main characters, the author is able to build up suspense until the ending of the story, which leaves the reader thinking. I, for one, absolutely loved the ending. At first I forgot who Barbara was but when I realized that she was Mrs. Ansley’s daughter, I was left in shock. In this story, the ending is the most important part of the story; it’s like the climax. Rather than a traditional story that builds up to a climax and then has a conclusion, “Roman Fever” has its climax in the last line of the story. Mrs. Ansley’s line is very short yet has a great impact on the reader. It ends the lifetime of competition she has had with Mrs. Slade and is a final blow in the conversation. Because the last line (“‘I had Barbara,’ she said, and began to move ahead of Mrs. Slade toward the stairway”) is so essential to the story, I would rename the story from “Roman Fever” to “Barbara”. The reader would then have to read the whole story to understand the significa
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Is the mother in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” a good mother?

Is the mother in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” a good mother? In “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother of the girl is giving her daughter advice, which is being used to both guide and criticize her at the same time. She tells her daughter how to do household chores, behave, and more. Though the mother has good intentions, this story shows the many responsibilities women are expected to have. The community seems to hold a belief that only by having domestic knowledge can a woman bring respect to the family.  The mother shows her frustration with her daughter through her advice. She believes that her daughter is destined to live an ill life, just because of the way she acts. For example, the girl squats down to play marbles (to which the mother responds “you are not a boy”). The mother seems to think that her advice will not work, constantly hinting that the girl wants to live as “the slut I have warned you against becoming”.  It seems that the idea that women must act a c
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"BARBIE-Q" SENTENCE ANALYSIS

“So what if we didn’t get our new Bendable Legs Barbie and midge and Ken and Skipper and Tutti and Todd and Scooter and Ricky and Alan and Francie in nice clean boxes and had to buy them on Maxwell Street, all water-soaked and sooty … If you dress her in her new “Prom Pinks” outfit, satin splendor with matching coat, gold belt, clutch, and hair bow included, so long as you don’t lift her dress, right?-- who’s to know.” Stylistically, these sentences (and the story as a whole) are written in short, choppy sentences that are not fully grammatically correct. These sentences reminded me of the writing style used in “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” but also of that in “My Parents’ Bedroom”. In “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” the sentences are choppy (though they’re not as choppy as those in“Barbie-Q”) and the narrator of “My Parents’ Bedroom” is also a child. The narrator uses metaphors, like “...inside we are doing loopity-loops and pirouetting” and child-like language like “You dumbbell! … Oh no
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WHY DOES THE NARRATOR OF "THE SEMPLICA-GIRL DIARIES" WANT TO BE RICH?

Why does the narrator of “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” want to be rich? The narrator of “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” makes constant references as to his being rich. The title of the story, after all, is based off of ornamental figures that are known to be owned by the wealthy. The narrator often makes it seem that he wants to be rich so he can show off his wealth because that’s the norm, but it also appears that he wants to improve his lifestyle and those of his family. When reading the story, I was wondering what his true motive was -- did he want to become rich to help his family or because everyone else is rich? Right from the start of the story, we see that the narrator, though nice enough, is materialistic. He sees love as defined by personal objects. When the bumper fell off his car, he wrote, “...then gave Eva extra ice cream, due to I had spoken harshly to her”, showing that he is providing his daughter with a materialistic apology rather than verbally apologizing to sh
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CHARACTERISTICS OF A SHORT STORY

In Octavia Butler’s “Speech Sounds”, the story deals with multiple events. First, there’s the dispute on the bus, which leads to Rye meeting Obsidian. After driving around, they later meet the man and woman who are fighting. Obsidian is shot and the man dies. Then Rye meets the children. These are multiple different events, each of which is important. This refutes Matthews’s claim that “a short story deals with … a single event”, because it doesn’t always happen. Of course, it is possible, though, for a short story to consist of a single main event. For example, in “There Will Come Soft Rains” the main event/climax is the fire at the end. Matthews also states that a short story must deal with one single character. This isn’t the case in “Speech Sounds” (or other stories we’ve read). The story is in a third-person limited point of view, following Rye, but Obsidian is another main character.  Besides them, there are the children at the end, the bus driver, and other civilians. In “T
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