Oral Reproduction of Stories II Dr. Mehdi Nowruzi [Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document. Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document.] Gathered by: Mojgan Fathzadeh
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Oral Reproduction of Stories II Dr. Mehdi Nowruzi
[Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document. Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document.]
Gathered by:
Mojgan Fathzadeh
UNIT 27: ALL THE YEARS OF HER LIFE
Morely Callaghan
"All the years of her life" was a short story
about the love a mother had for her son. The son
did not appreciate his mother until the night his
actions caused her emotional collapse, as he
realized the depth of her affection.
As the story began, Sam Carr, the owner of a
drugstore, asked his young employee, Alfred
Higgins, if there might be some items in his
pockets. Alfred immediately sensed that
something is wrong. Mr. Carr claimed that Alfred Had taken two tubes of
toothpaste, a compact and a lipstick, but Alfred denied stealing anything.
Mr. Carr persisted in his calm tone, and eventually Alfred showed the
stolen items and put them on the counter. Mr. Carr called Alfred's mother
and explained the unfortunate situation for her. They waited in the quiet
darkness of the store for Alfred's mother to arrive.
Finally, Mrs. Higgins arrived. She bore an elegant composure in spite
of the circumstances. She placed her hand on Mr. Carr's arm and asked
what his intentions were. Mr. Carr had planned to phone the police, but
Mrs. Higgins calmly requested Mr. Carr to choose advice instead of
punishment. Mr. Carr who was impressed by the calm manner of Alfred's
mother, relented and did not call the police and let Alfred go home with
her. He and Mrs. Higgins parted as if they had been good friends.
At home, Mrs. Higgins chastised Alfred for his bad behavior and sent
him to bed with a warning not to mention the incident to his father. In his
bedroom, Alfred could hear the sounds of his mother making tea in the
kitchen and he walked quietly toward her and was stopped by what he saw.
His mother trembled as she tried to pour the hot water for tea she was so
distressed. Her face was old and tired and so different from the brave
countenance she displayed just a short while ago in Mr. Carr's store. Alfred
now understood what his mother had endured and he saw all the years of
her life reflected in her trembling hands.
Point of view: limited omniscient.
Theme: unconditional motherly love
Characters: Alfred, Mrs. Higgins, Sam Carr
Mrs. Higgins character: she is a clever woman. She displays a mother's devotion
to her son and used her wiles to get her son out of troubles. She offers an
unconditional motherly love. In the kitchen, it is clear that she is under great
strain. She seems to be at a breaking point. It must have taken a huge amount of
effort for her to control her emotion at the Mr. Carr's store. She seems to have two
sides of personality. At the store she is calm, friendly and devoted to his son but
once she and Alfred get in the car the cracks in her strong personality start to
show and weakness becomes apparent.
Mr. Sam Carr character: he was a shrewd man. Not easily fooled. He possessed
some patience. He does not explode in anger at Alfred but remain polite.
Climax: the moments the Mrs. Higgins attempts by changing her personality to
save Alfred from jail.
UNIT 29: THE DOLL'S HOUSE
Katherine Mansfield
The Doll’s House was a story about the
cruelty of children towards each other. Three
middle-class girls of the Burnell family, Isabel,
Kezia and Lottie, were given a beautiful doll’s
house as a present by Mrs. Hay. The house was
minutely described, with especial emphasis on a
lamp inside of it. Everybody liked the house
except Aunt Beryl because she could not stand
the smell of the paint. Kezia liked the small
lamp best.
The next morning they could not wait to
show it off to their school friends. Isabel, bossily, said she would be the
one to decide who was allowed to come and see the house as she was the
eldest. She boasted about their new doll's house and all the girls crowded
around her and flattered her. But there were two sisters from a very poor
family, the Kelveys, whom they despised and laughed at; they would not
let them saw the doll’s house. The Kelveys' mother was only a
washerwoman and their father was in prison. The parents of the other
children told them not to talk with the Kelveys because they were lower
class people.
After showing the house to all of her school friends, Kezia pursued to
show the house to the Kelvey girls. She asked her mother if the Kelveys
were allowed to see the house, but her mother only said "Certainly not".
Despite her mother's unjustified demands she invited them to come into
their yard to see the doll's house. But before they could have a good view
of the house, they were shooed out as if they were chickens by Aunt Beryl.
They were drawn in the purity of the light as Kezia.
Point of view: dramatic or objective. Narrator just describes what was happening
in the stories. None of the characters' thought had mentioned.
Theme: class discrimination (blind faiths). The school was portrayed as a melting
pot of all social classes, and the Kelveys as the lowest. The other children were
discouraged from talking to them; they were outcasts.
Major Characters: Kezia.
Conflict: conflict is between Kezia's treats toward the Kelveys in comparison to
other characters. Kezia offers an opposition to common ways of thinking. As the
two children admire the red carpet, red plush chairs and gold frames of the house,
Kezia takes an interest in the simple lamp. While others blindly follow the class
consciousness, Kezia was against conformity when she invites the Kelveys to see
the doll's house. She doesn’t see anything wrong in being friend with Kelveys.
Metaphor: the appreciation of the lamp is a metaphor. Kezia and the Kelveys are
drawn in the purity of the light to battle and ignore things based on blind faith.
UNIT 30: THE TELL-TALE HEART
Edgar Allan Poe
Plot Summary: "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person
narrative of an unnamed narrator who insists he is sane
but suffering from a disease which causes "over-
acuteness of the senses." The old man with whom he
lives has a clouded, pale, blue "vulture-like" eye which
so distresses the narrator that he plots to murder the old
man. The narrator insists that his careful precision in
committing the murder shows that he cannot possibly be
insane. For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man's room, a
process which takes him a full hour. However, the old man's vulture eye is always
closed, making it impossible to do the deed.
On the eighth night, the old man awakens and sits up in his bed. The narrator does
not draw back and, after some time, decides to open his lantern. A single ray of
light shines out and lands precisely on the old man's eye, revealing that it is wide
open. Thinking he hears the old man's heartbeat beating unusually loudly from
terror, the narrator decides to strike, smothering the old man with his own bed.
The narrator proceeds to chop up the body and conceal the pieces under the
floorboards. The narrator makes certain to hide all signs of the crime. Even so, the
old man's scream during the night causes a neighbor to call the police. The
narrator invites the three officers to look around, confident that they will not find
any evidence of the murder. The narrator brings chairs for them and they sit in the
old man's room, right on the very spot where the body was concealed, yet they
suspect nothing, as the narrator has a pleasant and easy manner about him.
The narrator, however, begins to hear a faint noise. As the noise grows louder, the
narrator comes to the conclusion that it is the heartbeat of the old man coming
from under the floorboards. The sound increases, though the officers seem to pay