Monthly Archives: marraskuu 2013

The Last Spin

Evan Hunter’s short story ”The Last Spin”, is a story about two guys, Danny and Tigo, gang members of different gangs and they’re chosen to play a game called ”russian roulette” as a compromise. They both are enemies because they belong to other gangs, but as the story goes on, they’re starting to have a friendship after many things they are talking about. It all has a dramatic ending.

The message of the story is pretty much that you can be friend almost with everyone, you don’t have to judge people for what they for example believes into. In the story the point is that even people from different gangs can be friends and no-one can tell you what you must think about someone. You must have your own opinions.

In the story there is all-knowing narrator. By reading the story you can figure out that Danny is the protagonist by noticing that there is only told what Danny feels and nothing about Tigo’s feelings.

As a conclusion, I can say that the short story about two guys playing russian roulette is really dramatic but really nice to read as it is a really gripping and touching story. It can make you think about the life of some people in other countries.

The short story I read is called Full Stop, written by Alecia McKenzie. The short story is about correspondence between Carmen and her grandmother. They talk about Carmen’s real mother, grandmothers daughter, who didn’t raise Carmen and now wants to meet her.
The protagonists are Carmen and her grandmother, and antagonists are Carmen’s husband, which they talk about in their letters, Carmen’s brother and Carmen’s real mother.
In the short story you get to know Carmen and her grandmother personally and you can notice many things of them as persons.
Grandmother is a genuine Christian. In every letter she somehow brings up her faith in God. She appeals to God’s orders when she wants Carmen to do something, ”The Lord said, be fruitful and multiply”, ”Our saviour says to forgive and forget”. Grandmother seems to be a little bit silly what it comes to hands-on things. She relies way too much on her beliefs about Christianity. She doesn’t want to put burglar bars on her windows when there’s thieves moving around in her neighbourhood. She thinks God saves her from everything. Grandmother seems also a bit selfish and arrogant. She seems to think that the only right way to do things is her way. Also when Carmen says that she and her husband aren’t having babies yet Grandmother wants them to have them right away so she can see them before she is dead (which isn’t going to happen soon, according to the text). Grandmother thinks money is a way to measure how much your close-ones cares about you, for example when Carmen’s mom wrote to her but didn’t send ’a red cent’ and was upset about it. She thinks everyone else on the Island are thieves or unreliable, and doesn’t trust them or their work.
Carmen is nothing like her grandmother. She’s much more practical and smart. She doesn’t seem to so much of Christian. She’s used to her grandmothers behaviour because she deals with it calmly and doesn’t make a big deal of it. She still really cares of grandmother in spite of her personality. Maybe only because of duty.
The burglar bars may have a symbolic meaning in the story. Maybe grandmother thinks she’s isolated from Carmen and stuck in her own home if she puts them on her windows. And if she is stuck in her home she can’t control Carmen’s life and the development of Carmen’s and her mother’s relationship.
All in all the text takes a stance on Christianity and its extremity. Carmen’s grandmother is blinded by her faith in Christianity. She thinks God saves her from everything anytime ”God will protect me from evil”. As her faith on God grows, her faith in herself decreases ”Well I’m here still holding on, praying for a better way of living myself. We just have to keep hoping that our sweet Saviour helps us take each day one at a time”.

A Christmas carol is a novel written by Charles Dickens. It’s the story of Scrooge, an old and reach man who closed in himself and gave up with enjoying life. During the story he has some adventures that make him think about his life and he finds out the best way to spend the rest of his days.

I would say that Scrooge is both the protagonist and antagonist because of his behavior and there are three spirits who come to help him to go back to the right way. The narration is really precise and helps to get into the scenes. When the ghosts come inside the room you can hear every noise and feel the fear of seeing something coming in.

This book is a classic and I liked it and although it’s just a simple story it helps to think about life and how to make right use of what you have; maybe . It has been made into a movie for children so the most of the  have been softened, and I think that’s a pity because it would be good to take part to all the adventures to understand better who the evil man becomes the real protagonist.

Pride and Prejudice was written by Jane Austen in the early 19th century, and is still really popular a novel.  The book’s main target audience is probably anyone interested in romantic English literature, and it is surprisingly anarchistic considering its publishing year. The opening almost makes the reader believe the book’s main character would be Jane who is going to get married to polite and charming Mr Bingley, but instead the author chooses smart and levelheaded Elizabeth to be the protagonist. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy’s romance can be seen also as a comment on the rigid social norms of Victorian England’s class society,  which is also the book’s setting and context.

The name ”Pride and Prejudice” comes from the moment when rational and cold Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, he has to forget his pride of being of upper social class and to forget his prejudices about members of lower class. This was quite rare in Austen’s times, so the book surprised its audience with ironic depiction of the upper class’ efforts to get married (often to ensure wealth or inheritance).

The book starts when wealthy Mr Bingley moves into Netherfield Park, and Mrs Bennet, who has five single daughters, wants to make his acquaintance, mostly to set one of her daughters to marry him, and to introduce her daughters to high society. But when one of the Bennet Sisters, Jane, dances with Mr Bingley, the interest of the rest of the sisters is drawn by handsome and even more wealthy but unpleasant and rude Mr Darcy.

The story of Pride and Prejudice is told from Elizabeth’s view, but its narrated by a third person omniscient narrator. The language is sometimes a bit complicated, mostly due to the fact the book was published in 1813. The book criticizes slightly the Victorian society norms and shallow view of marriage as a part of a business or a transaction, while maintaining its bright attitude.

Hickory Dickory Dock is a book written by Agatha Christie. Book’s protagonist is Mr Hercule Poirot who is the most famous Belgian detective. He is a little roundish man who has huge and sharp moustaches. In the beginning he is investigating ‘harmless’ thefts but then happens three murder. In the end he has a strong suspicion. And murderer’s confession letter is the last nail in his coffin.
There are a few main antagonists.

Mrs Hubbard is Miss Lemon’s sister and she looks after a student hostel. Inspector Sharpe is big and comfortable-looking man. And he is in charge of murder investigations.

This story happens in middle of London in 26 Hickory Road. The setting becomes very clearly because there is for example Inspector Sharpe who works in London police force. Agatha uses a third person omniscient narrator almost all the time. It’s easy to find because narrator tells something in past time. The book is very easy to read because you don’t need to know anything what have happened in previous books.

The Full stop is a short story written by Alecia McKenzie. It’s a story about a young women Carmen who have been abandoned by mothers that migrated to England. The story is composed as a set of letters passed between the grandmother, Grand Ma Scottie and her granddaughter Carmen who is a medical doctor in New York City. They keep writing about grandma’s healthy, how’s days past, Carmen’s mother and her brother Richie. By and by the woman starts to think about her biological mother more and more and starts to wonder why her mother abandoned her as a baby.

The protagonist in this book is a woman named Carmen. She has a husband or boyfriend by her side called Normy. She is very loving and caring, and keeps helping her grandma giving her some money enclosed every once in a while for granny’s needs.

Carmen’s grandma is very religious and lives by her own in an old house.  She’s very proud that she got to raise her daughter’s children when her daughter gave them up for grandma to take care off.

However, from time to time grandmother seems a bit hypocritical. Grandmother was the one in a first place who urged Carmen to talk with her mother. When Carmen tells that she heard her mother’s side of the story about how Carmen was taken to live with her grandma, grandmother loses her temper. Carmen is now very uncertain, which one of the stories holds the truth. Also the story behind why Richard refuses to talk with grandma is unknown which makes the story even more suspicious.

The fault in our stars written by John Green tells the story of a sixteen year-old-girl named Hazel who has a terminal cancer. She sees her life as a pointless waste of time until she meets a boy named Augustus who changes her life perspective completely.
Hazel is the first person narrator and the protagonist in the book. As a person Hazel is rather difficult because she is very sarcastic and she wants to believe that she knows everything and has seen it all in life. Those character features can also be seen as flaws or a coping mechanism, but that is exactly what makes her character so real and relatable. Cancer on the other hand can be seen as the antagonist of the story because that is the one thing that makes a negative impact to Hazel´s life throughout the book.
The biggest conflict to Hazel in the book is clearly Hazel herself because she doesn´t let herself be happy or enjoy the things that life throw her way. The conflict is resolved after many obstacles and denials when Hazel finally realizes that she is as worthy and justified for her happiness as anybody else.
The maincharacter asks herself many important and life-changing questions about life and death throughout the book. Reader finds himself wondering the same questions along the way with the character which makes the book even more of a emotional journey than it already is. The themes of the book circle around these questions, and one of the major things that the writer wants to say through the book is that our lives are limited and we should make the most with the time we have.

The book Strangers on a train is written by Patricia Highsmith and the book’s release year is 1950. It is a scary, distress and very anxious book because it is a psychological thriller and it tells about two strange men to each others who meet on a train and start doing weird and also scary things. Book’s leading character is Guy Haines and the other leading character is Charles Anthony Bruno. Bruno pulls Guy into a world of madness, death and lies with himself.

At first the leading character Guy Haines is very sweet and peaceful man but when he and Bruno start to hang out together Guys personality changes. He becomes stressful and paranoid and Bruno manipulates him all the time. Guy used to be independent but Bruno made it disappear. First Guy also hate Bruno because he kill Guys ex-wife. Bruno killed Guys ex-wife because he wants that the Guy would kill his father. As we can see Bruno is a very mentally ill.

In the book are many themes like death and payback. And of course there are negative themes in the book because it is a psychological thriller. But I think the main theme is that the people can chance. The end of a book was very melancholic. Guy did something terrible and he understood something by himself.

Narrator is a third person omniscient. That has made the book easy to read because narrator tells so well all the things. Narrator is empathising in the story and it’s not chancing in the book. The book language is also easy and words are basic glossary that anyone should know.

Written by ppeetee