Thursday, January 21, 2010

How do “assumptions” negatively affect the outcomes of The Verb to Kill and Who, Me a Bum?

Assumptions negatively affect the outcomes of The Verb to Kill and Who, Me a Bum? By creating a false realities for the story’s characters to brew and fester in so that they are already agitated when they need to interact in the material reality.

What is the purpose of Valenzuela illustrating such explicit and riciculous assumptions of the two main characters in the short story, The Verb to Kill?


The author Valenzuela's intent in portraying the escalating, irrational, obsession with the man, by the two girls, highlights the extreme nature of assumptions.


Question: How does Ernest Hemmingway create a sense of loneliness in the story A Clean Well Lighted Place ?
Thesis: Ernest Hemmingway uses descriptive language and isolates the protagonist in his story A Clean Well Lighted Place in order to create a sense of loneliness.
Question: In "A Verb to Kill", why do the girls feel like they need to prove their courage to a complete stranger? More or less someone who might kill them in which their courage would be irrelevant?

Thesis: In the short story "A Verb To Kill", the two main characters want to prove their courage to a possible "serial killer". This is because of their want for independence from their society and family. Not only this, but they also have a desire to feel safe around a potential killer. Proving their courage to that man serves just that.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Time and Photography: Thea's post

Time and Photography is only relatable in one way. Like how cotazar describes it, a photograph is just an image of an event frozen in time. Capturing one single image takes an event going on at the time and keeps it frozen, essentially stopping time. Each photo holds mystery of what was going on at the time. Bringing perspective into our discussion once again. One person might look at a photo, see it and think that at the time something was going on, and another person might look at the same photo and think that a totally different event had just occurred. Giving each person their own original take on each photographic image. A photo only captures one single event, straight down to the last second after the shutter opens and closes. It holds no time continuum it only takes one single event and freezes it in perfection. Otherwise like in the end of Blow-Up the images would begin to come off the page.