An Alien in America

An Alien in America

The story “Life as an Alien” is about a coloured woman. She tells how she grew up and felt as an African in America, how she found friends and what is different between her culture and the American one. She also narrates how she gets confronted with her own culture, when she is an adult.

The story is written from a first-person perspective. The narrator tells the story of his point-of-view. An example for this is: “Do they want to know where I was born, where I grew up, where I have lived as an adult, where I live now?” The story is chronically sequenced. She begins to talk about her moving to America when she was young and ends when she is an adult. The story is set in America. The story contains many flashbacks. In one flashback she remembers her childhood and what meant love to her in this time.

I think you understand the main plot even if you don’t know every word. The many flashbacks could be confusing. They are quite long and often you first need to think about their meaning to the story, before reading on. I didn’t find the story very exciting, therefore I would say that it is ok. Through the story you learn many things about the life of the African girl in America and you could maybe empathize better with her and imagine how aliens  feel. Because of this I think that teenagers would like the story.

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Voila

Blog Entry-“Voila”, by Debbie Rigaud

Briefly: The short story takes place in a local hospital, where a teenager called Simone is waiting with her aunt for her consultation. They have to wait for a very long time. In the meantime they meet different people. The girl has to translate, because her aunt doesn’t speak English so well.

Character: Simone, a 15 years old girl, loves to spend time with her grandaunt, who doesn’t speak English, just Creole. In the story both characters are static.

Point of view: The story is presented in first-person perspective. It is based on the 'we' and 'I' point of view and in this case it is the protagonist, Simone. You know every detail, every feeling and every action of the main character.

Plot: The story begins with a flashback. The protagonist thinks back about the time with her great-aunt. At breakfast she got distracted by tiny particles floating in the beam of light entering the window. For her this was the most magical thing she has ever seen. But her aunt told her to warn for the tiny, everyday miracles in progress. “Ma Tante” was really like a mother to her.

Setting: The time doesn’t play an important role. Season, weather or any other setting are not relevant in understanding the author’s intent. However, the pivotal point is that we know the location. The story takes place in a local hospital for most of the time.

Tone: The two completely different characters affect the tone of the story.

My first impression was it will be very difficult to read an English text with some words in French and Creole. But later I realized that I can understand the story, also when you don’t speak these languages. Debbie Rigaud has developed her own style of speech and hence this text seems authentic and unique. I also love to explore relationship dynamics between the young and elderly. The teenager has a close bond with her old “Ma Tante”. And, if you ask me, I'm sure other teenagers can learn of elder people who gained experiences in their life.

Marie-Estelle Gastberger 7B

Who deserves it?

"Everyday Use" is a story written by Alice Walker. The story is about the relationship between a mother and her two daughters, but the main theme deals with if it is worth being considered in somebody's will, especially who deserves it and who doesn't.

The mother and the younger daughter, Maggie, are waiting for Dee, the older daughter, to visit them. She comes with her boyfriend, Asalamalakim. They eat together and afterwars Dee begins to look throughthings in the house she would like to have. She finds a quilt and would like to have it too, but the mother gives it to Maggie. Therefore Dee gets mad and departs with her boyfriend.

The story takes place in the house and the yard. The  mother seems to care about the appearance of the house because they cleared the yard and the house before Dee arrives. Inside the house, there are a lot of significant objects which have a personal meaning to the main characters. For example, the benches that the father made for them when they could not afford any money to buy chairs, or the quilt that later gets the point of contention between mother and daughter.

The characters are indirectly described and the main characters are the mother, Maggie and Dee. However, the mother is the first-person narrator of the story. The story is written in past tense and there are some flashbacks.

The mother is very unfeminine and uneducated; she says about herself, "I am a large big-boned woman, with rough, man-working hands." Moreover, there is Maggie. She is the youngest and seems to be very conservative and scared of her bigger sister, but also envious. Dee is the complete opposite of both. She is big-headed, bullish and gets everything she wants. The reader gets the impression that she doesn't really like her family because she left them, and she even changed her name. Dee is the only one in her family who had the privileg to attend school.

The story of Alice Walker is really sweeping because you can easily put yourself in the mother's shoes. At the beginnig, it is a little bit difficult for the reader to understand, but if you read it twice you get fascinated of the story. I would recommend the story to everyone because i think it is very nice to read. Although it seems a little bit sad, it has a lovely ending.

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The Dream

Danny Santiago’s “The Somebody” is a short story about a young man by the name of Chato de Shamrock from the Eastside of old Los Angeles, who quits school and wants to become a famous writer. He writes on buildings, fences and sidewalks to receive attention and his dream is to become famous in L.A.. Santiago shines a light on everyday struggles and hardships in the less fortunate parts of world, such as ghettos and slums.

The story is written from the first person perspective of Chato, so it is easier for us to step into his shoes and we are being led through the hardships of the young man’s tale as he runs from the Sierra Street gang and turns his back on people that want to help him. The reason why Chato wants to be famous in L.A. is because he has felt lonely ever since his gang broke up and the members moved away. He also feels like he receives a lack of attention and is disregard at home. He even adopted the pseudonym last name ‘Shamrock’ in order not to be traced back to his family. Chato’s loneliness forces him to depend only on himself and leads to his determination to start fresh.

It is a very interesting short story which instantly gripped my attention and I found it very interesting. I believe teenagers would like this short story because it makes them appreciate the positive things in their life, it really is an eye-opening story. It is well written and one immediately feels drawn into it.

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The Life as a Unfashionable Guy

The Life as a Unfashionable Guy

Gary Soto’s “The Jacket” is a short story about a young boy who deals with life as a not very fashionable guy. The reader accompanies the boy in a period of his life.

The mother of the boy buys him a new unfashionable jacket. Because of that nobody likes him but he has to wear it for three years. He hopes so much that he will get a new one when it is broken but his mother has no money to buy a new one.

The story is written in the first-person perspective and this, I think, makes the story easy to understand because then you can always follow his point of view. The plot is rather boring and chronological sequenced. There is no flashback and no climax in the story. The only thing you know about the setting is that the story takes place in the USA. But it is not necessary to know that.

The main character is a boy, who is eleven or twelve years old. He is in the sixth grade. The reader doesn’t know his name. He is not one of the “cool” kids, because he is not as fashionable as the other students. The boy´s character isn´t dynamic because he doesn´t change through the story.

All you know about the mother is that she has a bad taste in clothes, buys cheap clothes and always has steamed-up glasses because she cooks very often.

The multicultural aspect is that the author, Gary Soto, is from Mexico. He worked at a field when he was young and when his father died his family had struggle to find work. He immigrated to America to study.

All in all, the short story is well written but a little bit boring and the characters are flat. However, the story is easy to read and you understand the theme the first time you read it. I wouldn’t recommend the story because in my opinion it is too boring.

These are just my thoughts. What do you think about the story?

342 words

Together  we are less excited!                                                                              

There are two students waiting to audition for the Talent Show. One is an Asian  girl, the other is a white boy. One is tuning a violin and the other has got a paper containing notes for a stand-up comedy act. Guess, which one is which?

The short story "Talent Show" by Cherry Cheva, is about an Asian girl and a white boy who were waiting to audition for the Talent Show at their school. Both were very nervous about their performances. It's surprising that the Asian girl has got the notes for the stand-up comedy act and the white boy is playing the violin because the stereotype of many people is that Asian children are usually playing the violin. They have not talked to each other but the boy thinks that the girl is really cute.

The main characters in this story are Gretchen, the Asian girl, and Josh, the white boy. Both characters are static and round. The tale is told by one of the characters in the story, so the story is written in first-person perspective. The author might have taken this point of view because if a character tells the story it's more authentic. Josh is the protagonist in his short story. We also know the thoughts and feelings of Josh and we don't know the thoughts and feelings of Gretchen. We do not know the setting of the story but we know that the Talent Show takes place at a high-school.

I liked the main characters in the story. They were sympathetic and also humorous. The short story was easy to read and interesting. However, I also think that this story would be more suitable for children in the age of twelve to fourteen because it is very easy to understand the story and younger children might be more interested in this short story than older children.

These are just my thoughts of the story, what are yours? You can leave your thoughts in a comment.

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In the Heart of the Rotting Slum

Spiro Athanas “A Bag of Oranges” is a short story about a young Greek boy who deals with being a foreigner. The reader learns about the boy’s daily routine.

Together with his father Stavro the boy named Nikos buys some things including a bag of oranges at a market. They go home by bus and meet the rest of the family so that the reader gets to know something about their family life. In the end something surprising happens to the father.

Since the story is written in third-person limited perspective everything that happens unexpectedly for the boy also happens unexpectedly for the reader. This causes - even though just light - suspense. The plot is rather boring and chronologically sequenced. There’s one flashback in the short story: on the seventh page Nikos tells about “Aunt” Aphrodite, who is a fortune teller. Aphrodite herself is a little bit lost in the story. She forecasts that something bad will happen and it actually does in the end of the story but the author dedicates her only a few sentences. The setting doesn’t play an important role; the city in which the story takes place could be any city in the world except a Greek city obviously because the Greek family is foreign in this country.

Nikos, the main character, is ten years old. He is innocent, shy and naive, which is appropriate for his age. This is shown for example by the way he describes the market as “a magic farm indomitably growing and prospering in the heart of the rotting slum.” The boy’s character is very dynamic and his thoughts and feelings change a lot according to the change in the story. At first, he tells the reader that he is proud of his father but as the father acts in an embarrassing way in the bus when he tries to pick up the oranges Nikos had lost before and the people in the bus laugh at them he feels ashamed and says that he hates him. But later he realizes how stupid it was of him to say this and he explains how much he loves his father no matter what other people think of him.

Stavro is placid and proud of his nation. The way he greets his daughter when he comes home and how he treats his son shows that he is a loving father.

All in all, the short story is well written and the characters are round. However, the story itself is a bit confusing because you can’t really figure out the main theme when reading it for the first time. Do you share my opinion?