"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" F. Scott Fitzgerald

Plot

The narrator tells us at the beginning of the story that he is going to tell us some "astonishing history," and that Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button are expecting a baby. That "baby," however, is not an infant, but an old man, which creates the conflict of the novel. This leads us into the rising action where everyone, including his father, is shocked and appauled by this strange occurance. There is further complication when Benjamin realizes at 12 years of age that he is getting younger. The climax of the novel is unclear, possibly when he meets and marries Hildegarde, when he serves time in the army, or the beginning of his time in college at Harvard. These are all times in his life where he is successful and people appreciate him. After he graduated, everything seemed to go downhill, which would be the resolution. He keeps getting younger and younger, which makes him more dependent on people. His son Roscoe considers him an embarrassing burden. Eventually, the story is concluded when he dies at about 70 years old where he would look like a newborn infant. No questions are really answered about how he dies, whether a woman becomes pregnant, he just disappears, or he dies in his body as a newborn.



Point of View

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is told in the first person point of view. The only real evidence of this is on the first page in the first and second paragraphs where he says, "At present, as so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one" and "I shall tell you what occurred, and let you judge for yourself." After these two instances, he never uses the first person pronoun of I, so one might assume that it was told in third person limited point of view. Since the narrator knows so much about Benjamin's life, one may infer that he was a friend of the family or something of that matter. However, throughout the story, he seems to keep his feelings out. He never really shows sympathy or disdain, but just tells the story. The narrator seems to be old and not up to date when he says things, such as "so I am told."



Characterization

There are only four main characters discussed in the short story: Benjamin, Roger, and Roscoe. Their roles and personalities shift throughout the story. At the beginning of the story Roger, Benjamin's father, is appauled and embarrassed that his son was born as a 70 year old man. He does everything in his power to make him "normal" or at least camaflouge as best as possible. However, when Benjamin gets older in actual age, but younger in body, his father starts to get along with him and actually enjoy his company. He takes Benjamin with him to social outings where he seems to be proud of his son. At one of these social events, Benjamin meets his future wife, Hildegarde. At the very beginning of their relationship, he is smitten by her, but eventually loses his love for her as she becomes older and more lackluster, and he gets younger and more popular. Hildegarde is one of the minor characters in the story, because not much is told about her. They do, however, have a son together when they were happily married at the beginning. Roscoe is born as a "normal" child, but not much is said about him when he was younger. In the end when Benjamin is in the body of a young child, Roscoe considers him a burden and is mad at him for not acting his age when he has to take care of him. At the beginning of the short story, Benjamin seems content and tries to please his father. As he gets younger, he gets more arrogant and haughty. But as he heads into adolescence, he becomes innocent.



Setting

The story takes place in Baltimore, Maryland from 1860-1930. Therefore, Benjammin was born at the during the Civil War. Although nothing is really mentioned about it, the world is drastically changing just as Benjamin is. On the other hand, the fact that the story takes place in Baltimore is important, because social status is crucial there. It is said that the Button's "held an enviable position, both social and financial in ante-bellum Baltimore." This explains why Roger was so disgraced by the birth of his son as a 70 year old man, because he had a reputation to uphold, and he didn't want this strange occurance to blemish it.



Theme
The main theme of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is isolation and trying to fit in. Throughout the story, Benjamin engages in many group activites that pertain to his age at the time. He joins the army, plays on the football team, and goes to dances. All of these things require interaction with people of the same age group. It seems as though he insists in partaking in these activities to try to fit in, but eventually it singles him out even more. As he grows younger, he is unable to participate in these endeavers, which isolates him. The fact that he is aging backwards makes it impossible to make true friends that he can keep throughout his life. Relationships are crucial in life, and he doesn't even have a healthy relationship with his own son. This fact of the story is quite sad.

"Miss Brill" Katherine Mansfield

At the beginning of the story, Miss Brill thinks about how she is glad that she had gotten out her fur. She touches it admiringly as if she is proud to be wearing it. I think it makes her feel beautiful, and she wants other to view her "character" as this beautiful woman. All of these hopes are shot when she is purposely overhearing a young couples conversation about her. The boy refer to her as "that stupid old thing," and asks why she doesn't keep her "silly old mug at home." No doubt, that was hard for her to hear, but it gets worse. The girl comments on her fu-fur, saying that it is "exactly like a fried whiting." I didn't know what that meant, so I looked it up and it said that it was a type of fried fish. One can only imagine her dissappointment. Upon hearing this news, she heads home and regrets to get her piece of pie that she gets every Sunday, because she is so upset. When she gets home, she takes it off and puts it back in the box that she had got it in and thinks she hears it crying. This crying illustrates how upset she is by the girls comment. It is as if the fur piece is saddened by her newfound embarrassment to wear it now.

"Once Upon a Time" Nadine Gordimer

In "Once Upon a Time," the narrator is told that she must write a children's novel, because every author "ought to write at least one story for children." The narrator does not want to do this, but does so anyway, which explains the reason for the satirical tone of the story she writes. The story starts by explaining how there was a wife and a husband that loved each other very much, and they had a son that they loved very much, and he had a dog and cat that he loved very much, and they all lived happily ever after. This is her way of incorporating aspects of a children's story to her piece. Then she begins telling her story of how this family is afraid of burglars so they keep increasing the security on their house, adding in little parts about the family, such as when the mother reads her son a bedtime story from a book that his grandmother had bought for him. Ironically, in the bedtime story, the brave prince had jumped over a thicket of thorns to save his princess, and in trying to imitate the prince, the boy trys to jump over the wall they had just covered with razor blade coils in their latest attempt to keep burglars away. When the little boy does this, he is caught by the blades and dies.

"A Worn Path" Eudora Welty

The minor characters in "A Worn Path" play an important role in characterizing Phoenix Jackson. Her first encounter is with a young, white hunter. He helps her up and advises her to head home. Upon her refusal, he makes a racist comment about how old colored people would never miss the chance to see Santa Claus and lets her go. Next, she asks a lady on the street to lace and tie her shoes for her. The lady seems a little annoyed by her, but obeys her request. Finally, she gets to the doctor's office and the attendent asks her why she is there and for her information. Phoenix doesn't reply, and the attendent gets angry, asking, "Are you deaf?" Then a nurse comes out and recognizes Phoenix. She calmly tells the attendent that she is there to pick up medication for her sick grandson. But when the nurse asks about her grandson and she doesn't reply, the nurse tells her that she must not waste their time. Phoenix claims that her memory had escaped her, but reassures that she won't forget again when the nurse seems nervous. Still, the nurse gives Phoenix the medication. I think that all of the characters are somewhat irked by her, but let her go on with her life as long as she is capable of doing so, and they are willing to help her out if she needs it.

"Eveline" James Joyce

Eveline leads a busy, work-filled life where she is always taking care of something, and then a sailor comes along and offers to take her away with him. This is her chance to escape, and she has many reasons to accept this offer. Throughout the entirety of her life, her father has been an abusive figure that always has something negativc to say. Her mother died when she was younger; therefore, she is left with the responsibility to take care of the house and family when she gets home from her day job. She works at the Stores with a boss that is never happy and always nagging. When contemplating whether she should stay or go, she begins thinking about the night that her mother passed. Her mother repeated the the phrase, "Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!" In Gaelic, this phrase is translated to either "the end of pleasure is pain" or "the end of the song is raving madness." Either way, this vision haunted her and pushed her to want to leave even more. All of these present circumstances make it desirable for her to leave home.

"Hunters in the Snow" Tobias Wolff 2

I thought that these three men: Kenny, Frank, and Tub are a quite peculiar group of friends. At first, Kenny and Frank seem to have an alliance and gang up to make fun of Tub. At this point, I felt bad for Tub, because I thought that he was being betrayed by his friends. Then later when Tub shoots Kenny, Frank told him he would have done the same thing. I think that this shows that Frank felt obliged to agree with Kenny, because he knew his secret of being in love with the babysitter and did not want him to tell anyone, which gave me the sense that Kenny is not a trustworthy person. While on the way to the hospital, Frank and Tub stop at a bar, then a tavern and just left their bullet wounded friend in the bed of the truck to suffer and slowly but surely die. I found this particularly odd, because I would never do that to anyone I know, let alone, one of my good friends. Then when Tub declares that he lost they directions, they shrug it off because they think they remember, but they are not sure. This further exemplifies my thought that they are terrible friends. Then after they leave the tavern, they take the blankets from Kenny, because he is unable to hold them on top of himself under his conditions, because they are cold. They sicken me. Finally the last paragraph repeats how Frank keeps telling Kenny to say that he is "going to the hospital," but really he is not, because they took a different turn a long way back. This makes me wonder if they consciously took the wrong turn or if it was an accident. Either way it could have been avoided if they had gone back to get the directions or hadn't have stopped in the first place. They are awful friends.

"Hunters in the Snow" Tobias Wolff

Tub may be considered a stock character on the surface: a cartoon-like obese man who is the butt of other people's jokes, but details throughout the story help make Tub into a fully realized individual. First of all, I think that we start to see part of Tub's character when he is upset by his friends' jokes about his weight. Usually the stock character just takes the insults, but Tub gets mad and tells them to stop. Then, I would have never guessed that Tub would shoot Kenny when he has the fear that Kenny was going to shoot him. I would think that he would be too afraid to actually shoot his friend. This shows that he is a round character with feelings and emotions, because I think that he only shot Kenny out of fear. Later, we see Tub having a moment with Frank and finally admitting that he doesn't have a gland problem, but just likes to eat. I saw this as a resolution to Tub's problems; he just needed to be honest and have someone to trust and talk to. We also see Tub's compassion when he accepts Frank's secret of being in love with the town babysitter. Tub is actually a complex, round character when we pay attention to the details of the story.

"Everyday Use" Alice Walker

I think that the mother's refusal to let Dee have the quilts indicates a permanent change in character. She had been dealing with Dee's difficulties since she was young, and finally she just exploded. Dee used to be embarrassed of her heritage and wanted nothing to do with it, but when she found this new man, Asalamalakim, she changed her mind, not only her mind, but her name as well: Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. When Dee was younger she hated their old house, and I got the feeling that she caused the fire to burn it down when it says that she just stood by the tree and watched, while the mother thought she might as well dance around the ashes. Now she is taking pictures, making sure that the house is in every picture. I don't think that Dee has truly changed, but is putting on a show for Asamalakim so that he will like her. And I think that the mother knows this. When Dee rhetorically asks if she can have the churn top and the dasher, she is just trying to impress her man, and her mother doesn't appreciate it, but she lets her have it, because she really doesn't have a choice. Then "Wangero" asks if she can have the quilts, and her mother snatches them out of her hand and gives them to Maggie, her daughter that has always been down to earth and deserved the quilts in her opinion. I think that this was the break-through point for the mother. She was finally asserting her independence from her daughter's every want and desire.

"Bartleby the Scrivener" Herman Melville

At the beginning of the "short" story, the narrator is glad to have a new copyist, which he considers to be, in contrast to Turkey and Nippers, calm. He is stunned when he first asks Bartleby to help him and is replied to with the answer, "I would prefer not to." He doesn't know what to do, but decides that he must finish his work and think about it at another time. On multiple occasions, when the narrator asks Bartleby to help he gets the same response, "I would prefer not to." In a state of outrage and uncertainty, he asks his other employees what they think of that response, and, at different times, Turkey and Nippers both get angry and say that Bartleby needs to leave or offer to beat him up. The narrator is very confused and intrigued by Bartleby's behavior, but does nothing about it. He just allows him to constantly reject his requests and get away with it. Eventually, Bartleby refuses to even copy anymore and just occupies the building at all times. He makes it his home, the place where he sleeps. Even under these conditions, the only thing the narrator does is ask him to leave, and when he "prefer(s) not to" he just lets him live there. I think that for some reason the narrator feels some sort of loyalty and duty towards Bartleby. He feels bad for him, because he has no family or friends that he has ever mentioned and must be lonely. When Bartleby still doesn't leave after given his 6-day notice, the narrator's only reasonable solution is to move his business and leave Bartleby there. The narrator is curious about Bartleby's whereabouts after the move, until one day when the new occupant of the building comes to complain about how Bartleby still won't leave. Once again, the narrator takes it upon himself to try to convince him to leave, even offering him the opportunity to live with him until they find other means of living space. Bartleby refuses as before, and eventually, the new occupants call the police and have him removed. In this case, the narrator goes to the jail to see him where Bartleby accuses him of being the reason that he was taken there. Still, the narrator is not mad at Bartleby, but wants to help him. He goes back to the jail for the second time and finds him dead. I think that the narrator thought of Bartleby as a responsibility of his. He kept mentioning the bible and the commandments, which indicates that he is a religious man. He thought it was his duty to help Bartleby once he became involved in his live, because he had no one else.

"A Rose for Emily" William Faulkner 2

I think that using the first person plural narrator was effective, because it allowed us to get the collected thoughts of many townspeople. If it was just one person, we probably would not recieve as much detail. I feel like the narrator is the gossiping women of the town. It reminds me of the room mom's in grade school that knew everything about everyone else's lives. Another attribute we received from the first person plural narrative is suspense. If it was told in first person, we would know what she was thinking and exactly when she did the things she did. I actually think that would be an extremely interesting/creepy piece to read. Another interesting point of view to read this story from would be from the first person perspective of the "Negro." I am assuming that he knew what Emily did, but we never actually get knowledge of whether he did or not. It said that he never talked to anyone, so it would be intriguing to get to look inside of his mind, because there must be so many thoughts running through it.

"A Rose for Emily" William Faulkner

I actually did anticipate the end of story, because there were clues throughout the story that helped me foreshadow this event. When Emily's father died, she denied his death, and only broke down and let people from town take his body when they were about to resort to law. This gives us the idea that she is not accepting of death, or maybe she just doesn't care if someone dies; she just thinks that everything should continue as normal. Then one day, Homer Barron just leaves without a word to anyone. This caused me to suspect that he really didn't leave, and then when she goes and buys arsenic, it led me to believe that she killed him. Another thing that led me to this conclusion is when on page 287, it says "...Homer himself had remarked -- he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elk's Club -- that he was not a marrying man." Even with this obvious knowledge, she bought "a man's toilet in silver, with the letters H. B. on the piece... [and] a complete outfit of men's clothing." This meant that she was not going to let his homosexuality stop her from marrying him. Taking all of this into account, I was not surprised when I read the ending of the story, still creeped out, but not surprised.

"Interpreter of Maladies" Jhumpa Lahiri

I believe there is great significance in Mrs. Das asking for Mr. Kapasi's address, then later losing it. It represents the relationship between the two characters. At the beginning of the story Mrs. Das shows interest in Mr. Kapasi's job as an interpreter for a doctor in his town, which causes Mr. Kapasi to feel important. This feeling of importance made him feel appreciated, and he never felt appreciated by his wife. Later that day, Mrs. Das asked him for his address, and he was worried that he had written it down wrong and he would never recieve the picture she had promised him. He began imagining them as sort of pen pals that would discuss their lives through letters. This idea pleased him, until later that evening when she told him her secret of one of her children not being her husband's. I feel that this idea sickened him, because, earlier that day, he was loving the attention that she had been giving him. It made him feel that his infatuation was a sin, and he could have been the father of another child that Mr. Das thought was his own. So when the address flew out of her purse that night, he was not upset by it at all. In a way, I think he was relieved, which suggests the resolution that one should not covet the lives of others, but accept their own.

"How I Met My Husband" Alice Munro

When looking at Chris Watters as a potential husband for Edie, I feel that he would never satisfy her needs. He's not ready to settle down; he's always on the move. I got the sense that there were many more Alice Kelling's around the world that thought they were one day going to marry Chris. He seems like the "player" type that makes empty promises that he knows he'll never keep, but the girls always believe him. Edie and Chris had only met on two separate occasions and had one "intimate" night (in her mind). There is no way that she could have real feelings of love for him; it had to be infatuation if anything. Even though it seemed to me that she was settling with the mailman, he was a much better candidate for a husband than Chris would ever be. From the very little information we got about him, I got the feeling that he really cared about her and thought that she was amazing, which is how all men should feel about their women.