Category Archives: Yleinen

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.