SUMMARY: one summer night is about a man who was buried alive by mistake. He realized what had happened but he didn’t worry at all. Out of the tomb, two young students from a medical college and the gravedigger Jess a gigantic negro man were digging the grave to extract Henry’s “dead” body. Suddenly, Henry sat down. Everybody was terrified and both students ran away. Finally the two students and Jess met again, Henry dead body was on a long table, Jess had killed him and now he required for his pay.
COMMENTARY: I really enjoy this
story. I didn’t understand the story at first probably because the vocabulary
and grammar used are a bit complex, but after a couple of readings I got the
meaning of it. This story is frightfully entertaining. The way the author
describes the events catch the reader’s attention. It’s scary to think about
Jess behavior, but we also can learn from it that there is people like him,
people who thinks about his/her own welfare no manner others. I would recommend
this story not only for those who want to learn more vocabulary in English but
also to have a good time while reading.
Story Map:
Setting: One summer night in a
cemetery.
Where: A cemetery.
When: A dark summer night.
Major Characters: Henry
Armstrong.
Minor Characters: Two students from a medical college and
Jess a gigantic negro man.
Plot/Problem: Henry Armstrong was buried alive by mistake, three
men were digging for Henry’s body.
Event 1: Henry was buried alive.
Event 2: One summer night in the cemetery three men
started digging into the grave of Henry.
Event 3: Henry sat up, he was alive. Everybody
was terrified and the two students ran away.
Outcome: In the rear of the building there was
the lifeless body of Henry, Jess had killed him and he asked for his pay.
DEATH BY SCRABBLE by Charlie Fish.
SUMMARY: Death by scrabble is about a 42 years old man who hates
his wife. He thinks his life doesn’t have sense and he would like to be outside
doing something interesting but not in a monotonous life next to his wife. So,
how there is nothing else to do, they start playing scrabble. Suddenly the
words they play start turning into reality and the boy is anxious
to get a word like kill or die in order to finish with his wife life. But it’s happened
the opposite and all the bad feeling he has toward his wife came true but again
himself.COMMENTARY: This story is full of adjectives and detail descriptions. At first I found it kind of boring or static because all it was about the scrabble and the letters they were playing, but then when the words they play start turning into reality, it catches my attention and I couldn’t stop reading until the end. There were some words I didn’t know the meaning so I looked for them. This story teaches us several things, first that in marriage there is a point when the relationship turns monotonous, so both have to work together in order to not get divorced or live horrible routine lives. We can also see that to be negative is not the way, sometimes when we think the worst, it happens. This story is kind of weird but interesting at the same time. It’s a funny way to see reality, I enjoyed it and recommend it to everybody but especially for sarcastic people.
Story Map:
Setting: A hot Sunday afternoon.
Where: Married
couple's house.
When: A Sunday.
Major Characters: 42 years old
man.
Minor Characters: his wife.
Plot/Problem: the man hates his wife and he
wants to kill her because he thinks his life with her doesn’t have any sense.
Event 1: The man hates his wife and
marriage and he is planning how to kill her.
Event 2: They don’t have anything else to do, so they start
playing scrabble.
Event
3: The words
they play start turning into reality.
Outcome: His wife plays DEATH and it stars skating, the man falls down and his wife
just looks at him, she stays sitting down in from of him.
SUMMARY: This story is about a young man of 23 years old who saw a murder unintentionally. He saw when Don Cesareo pushed to a beggar and killed him without intention. This young man decided not to say anything about this homicide. Years later the young man saw the beggar entered Bernasconi’s house, but no one else saw him. Andrea, one of the daughters of the Bernasconi family was pregnant and had a baby whose name was Gustavo. After a while, one day Gustavo was throwing stones from the roof of his house, Don Cesareo came, he slipped and shattered His skull on the first step exactly as had happened years before to the beggar. He had returned to avenge his death and from that day Gustavo disappeared.
COMMENTARY: This story requires the reader to make interpretations about it. When I read the title, I didn’t deduce anything of what the story would be about and to be honest, it didn’t catch my attention. Then I wanted to read it after I knew a bit of what it was about during one of the discussions in class. It is the kind of story that if you start reading it you will not be able to stop until the end, the way how the author relates the story is extraordinary, he uses a witness who sees all what happens but he never says anything. The author makes us feel at some point as the witness. It is a tragic story, with little fiction but also it shows real-life situations that anyone could live. This story might have multiple interpretations, as the death of both were a coincidence or the reincarnation exists and the beggar came to avenge his death. It makes us think about our morality, what we would do if we were the witness? It was a death unintentionally but still it was a death and it unleashed worse consequences. Perhaps out of the situation we would say that we would act morally right, but we really don’t know what we would do if we were going thought a situation like that. I found this story very interesting and entertaining, I would recommend it to all kind of readers since it allows different interpretations and provides several lessons that everyone would enjoy.
Story Map:
Setting: one morning, early September, in a sixth floor apartment and Bernasconi family house.
Where: a block in a neighborhood (Bernasconi family house and Don Cesareo house)
When: Early September 1965.
Major Characters: Don Cesario and a young man.
Minor Characters: Bernasconi family (Andrea) Andreas' son: Gustavo, Beggar.
Plot/Problem: Don Cesareo got mad at the beggar and killed him unintentionally.
Event 1: The young man saw how Don Cesareo pushed a beggar and killed him by mistake. The man decided to keep the crime in secret.
Event 2: years later the young man saw somebody walking towards Don Cesario house, he thought that was the beggar but nobody else saw anything.
Outcome: finally and after some more years, one day Gustavo was playing with rocks from the roof and Don Cesario slipped and shattered his skull on the first step. Gustavo disappeared since that day.
THE STAR by Esther Claes.
SUMMARY: In this story there is a famous but capricious artist who lives enclosed in her own world. The story happens while the world is on the verge of being destroyed. The parents of the artist do their best to convince her of what was happening in the reality, but she simply shuts herself in her own world of fantasy without paying attention to her family.
COMMENTARY: I didn’t enjoy this story much. It wasn’t bad, I just dint find it interesting at all. Nevertheless, it’s important to emphasize the lesson that the story gives us. Sometimes in life we are like the famous star, we shut ourselves in and we don’t listen to others advices.
Story Map:
Setting: A house, the star bedroom.
Where: Los Angeles.
When: One day.
Major Characters: The star.
Minor Characters: Her mother and father.
Plot/Problem: The world is being destroyed. The parents of the famous young try to make her understand what is happening but it is impossible to achieve it.
Event 1: The world is about to end. The parents of the famous girl ask her to go out of her room because she is in danger.
Event 2: The parents do their best to make her understand what is happening but she shuts herself in her reality and she doesn’t pay attention to her parents.
Outcome: She shuts herself in her room and continues planning what she will do the following day as if nothing was happening.
THE MAN WHO MARRIED HIMSELF by Charlie Fish.
SUMMARY: This history is about a man who literally marries himself. He thinks the best complement is himself, so he wants to spend the rest of his life with himself. At first he feels happy, but after a while he wants to have children; obviously it was impossible to have children in his condition. So, he gets divorced, he marries a woman and has children, now he is satisfied living a life as the society and religion say that it should be.
COMMENTARY: I found this story kind of absurd but funny and interesting at the same time. I never thought about that before. It was interesting to think about how a person lives or what he/she does in case he/she decides to marry him/herself. I really enjoy reading this story. This story makes me realize that there are several things we do just because, our society and religion allow or not things and we just follow them without even asking if there is another way to do it. It also teaches us that sometimes we should be more autonomous and take our own decision without being influenced by what the culture says.
Story Map:
Setting: Not specified.
Where: Not specified.
When: One day.
Major Characters: The man and his spouse.
Minor Characters: Reverent Zatarga, his mother and father,Asian Girl, french poodle, his friends.
Plot/Problem: A man decides to marry himself because he thinks that is the best choice. Later he wants to have children but he can’t do it in his condition. He gets divorced and marry a woman.
Event 1: A man wants to marry himself and obtains the authorization from the church and his family.
Event 2: He marries himself, he goes to the honeymoon with his husband to Las Vegas and everything is perfect, he finds someone in whom trust, someone who doesn’t tell him what to do, etc.
Event 3: After lapse of time, he wants to have children, then he obtains the divorce after committing adultery.
Outcome: After a while he marries again, that time with a woman, they have children and live a happy life together.
SUMMARY: This story is about a man called John who has some bad dreams on several occasions. In the dream he is in a bar, he meets a woman and both are having fun. Suddenly, a child enters with a bucket of petrol and he throws it to John’s body. Then the child takes out a zippo and tries to light it up. John always wakes up from the dream before the child lights up the zippo, but these dreams are disturbing John. he tells it to his friends and when he finishes relating the dream, his friends say: let’s do it and they all get out of the car.
COMMENTARY:The author of this story uses descriptions that make the reader recreates the story in his/her mind. It’s full of suspense that makes you want to keep reading to know what happened with John. The text is not in a chronological order, so that the story is a bit confused in some parts.it also can become monotonous as it focused very much in the dream and at the end we find an open ending that the reader doesn’t expect. The reader waits for an outcome, it doesn’t say what happened with John, Why his friends said let's do it? Did John’s friends burn him alive? Actually, I didn’t like the end of the story but that kind of endings also allowed the reader to make inferences or let him invent his/her own outcome. The topic that treats the story is interesting since humans try to make interpretations of dreams. Perhaps, we would like some of our dreams come true, but we are terrified that nightmares come true too.
Story Map:
Setting: John’s mind.
Where: John’s mind and in a car.
When: at night.
Major Characters: John and the kid.
Minor Characters: John friends and the woman in the bar.
Plot/Problem: John tells his friends about some dreams he has been having that scare him. John dreams that he is in a bar having fun but then a child enters with a zippo and tries to burn him alive.
Event 1: John starts telling his friends about some bad dreams he has been having that scare him very much.
Event 2: In the dream John is having fun in a bar, suddenly a child appears with a bucket of petrol and he throws it in John face.
Event 3: The child takes out a zippo and tries to light it up but John always wakes up from his dream before the child burns him alive.
Outcome: after John finishes telling the dream, his friends say: let’s do it and they get out of the car.
THEY ARE MAKE OF MEAT by Terry Bisson.
SUMMARY: This is a story of two aliens who talk about a discovery. One of them tells the other that there are beings made of meat. For the other one is impossible to believe that. His friend does his best to explain to him how do they look like. Finally the other one understands and accepts something that was unbelievable for him.
COMMENTARY: This story seemed weird to me at first. After a couple of readings I understood it. at the beginning I thought the beings made out of meat were aliens because it supposed that humans make a lot of discoveries and we are more intelligent that other beings in the universe, an issue that is not true at all, we think we are the most developed race but it's because we are not able to reach other ones that for sure are more developed as us. Then I realize humans are made out of meat, and to be honest I felt so stupid when I got that. Now I was reading a story that talks how aliens make fun of us. It was kind of disappointing for a moment but then it was interesting to think about what could be the way aliens think we are. This story is easy to read because it is just a conversation between two beings. The difficult part can be how I already wrote, to accept that we are not the superiors. I really enjoyed reading this story and I would recommend to everyone who would like to make his/her mind fly away and think for a moment how could aliens look at us.
Story Map:
Setting: Vessels, Radio Signals.
Where: Somewhere in the universe.
When: Indeterminate time.
Major Characters: Two aliens.
Minor Characters: The Weddilei and the Orfolei.
Plot/Problem: Two living beings are talking about a discovery. One of them tells the other that there are beings made out of meat, but the other doesn’t believe him.
Event 1: Two living beings were talking about the existence of beings made out of meat. One relates to the other how do "they" look like.
Event 2: The one who made the discovery gives more details about how those creatures are but the other one doesn't seem convinced.
Outcome: Finally the incredulous one understands that there are beings made out of meat.
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