"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe could be the least optimistic writer ever. His stories contain decay, sadness, death... never a happy ending or an optimistic point of view. The Masque of the Red Death is definitely not the exception. 

In this story, Poe tells us about a plague, "The Red Death", which made people bleed from every part of their bodies. Disgusting, horrible, but that was the story's reality. And so the prince, Prince Prospero, along with his close friends and maybe family, hid in his abbey to prevent the Red Death to take them to its hell. 

And so, everybody was there in the seven room abbey. Everybody wearing their respective masks, as it was a mascarade. Six rooms were full of color, full of life; and the left one was black and red. Terrifying. No one dared to enter into that room, and when the clock inside it hit the hour, everybody would stop doing whatever they were doing but breathing. After the clock stopped sounding, everybody would return to their activities. 

An unexpected guest, a man bleeding, with a mask that was actually not a mask, arrived, causing Prince Prospero to get angry at the joke of disguising as the "Red Death". Only that it was not a custom. It was the Red Death which walked passing every single room until it reached the black one, giving death to everyone. 

The message in this story is very clear. Death. Hiding from it. Colorful and cheerful life in the different stages of life. The last room of our lives: darkness, death, and a clock which tells the time you have left. And when you notice that time is ticking by, you get paralyzed, but then continue with your life. And finally, the most representative: Life will always end in Death, and if Death is near you, you will not be able to avoid it. Having the most powerful fortress will not make Death turn away. 

So that was a story full of allegories, full of hidden messages within its different elements, such as de Red Death itself, the rooms, the prince, the abbey, the clock... everything represented more than in their main escence. I believe it is a very enjoyable story if you can read the allegories. 

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal." Fiction, Science Fiction. The intelligence model was Hazel, Harrison's mother, who we can say has an intelligence below average. Everybody was handicapped so that they would look the same, do the same. No one better than anyone in anything. But all of this cannot be possible if there is not a mastermind behind: Diana Moon, the handicapping program directress.

Everybody is fine, nothing happens; they are used to getting punished for trying to think and do "unusual" stuff. They even agree on having handicaps. They support the equality. Specifically, George and Hazel, the main characters of our story.

Suddenly, Harrison, their son, who was taken away for having removed his handicaps, is announced on TV as a great danger for anyone who dares to cross his path. Harrison appears. He proclaims himself the emperor and frees the ballerina who was appearing in the previous show his parents were watching. She was the best ballerina for the number and kind of handicaps she was wearing. So he frees her and the music men, making them give their best, not their limited best. And so they do. Harrison and the ballerina dance and float in the air, kissing. In that moment, Diana Moon shoots them. They die. Hazel cries, but she cannot remember why. George misses the moment. Life continues.

Clear example of how excesses are not good. Even good things over their limits are not at all good. Equality made the world gray, without variety of people... it made the world a zoo, animals in their cages. Everything ruled by an absolutist and her fellow tyrants: Diana Moon. What is the purpose of having everybody limited from their capacities, from their dreams? It is a matter of control, of power, and that is what Diana Moon was. Harrison rebelled against that kind of world, wanting to break free. Revolution. He got death in exchange, and not a place in someone's memory at least, not even his parents'.

That is sad, wanting to make a world where everybody could develop a personality, develop themselves, and getting killed by a tyrant. Even though it talks about the future and an extreme situation, which obviously looks impossible to us, this story's elements show us not a very far away situation. Wanting control over all, rebellion, love, conformism, and just taking everything for granted... they are not very far away from us, and if we just look around, we will find all these.

I liked the story, and it is very interesting to read it and to think about it.

"Night" by Elie Weisel

There is so much to say about this story. Powerful, touching. The story of a teenage jew, Eliezer, during the darkest times for the world in the twentieth century: the second world war. He, as many others, was deported to the concentration camps, and lived his own terrifying story in there. He started thinking about understanding the Kabbalah, but ends up worrying about what to eat, what to do to help his father... how to survive. 

To start with, himself. How powerful it was to be wanting to devote his life to something and then having his plans changed for something he would suffer and could not complain about. Being so young, with so many plans in mind, with a wonderful family... it was just not fair, not only for him, but for every deportee and people who suffered.

The experience he had made him go even against his values. Everything he knew to be good and the faith he had in human beings was lost form the very first moment he arrived at a concentration camp. He tried to keep up the faith in something, but in the end his only wish was to survive for his father, as they loved each other. But he would end up looking at him as an obstacle rather than a reason to live. It is impressive how a mind that aims towards kindness and values ends up just worrying about its personal fate. The situations were strong, definitely.

And his dad, being almost everyone's councelor and adviser, ends up not knowing how to keep up the hope for light, for day. He almost lets himself die, instead of having the courage to continue living. Someone so admired and respected for his inner strength...

But of course I cannot know about that. It sounds so easy to tell about what one thinks should have happened, but just to imagine the situation, the people, the atmosphere... It makes me drop a tear. Those dark times are only within my mind, within what I can know it was, but I cannot think of myself in those situations. I just cannot, it is difficult to put yourself in a situation you cannot even imagine, just barely. 

Four moments in the story stay in me more than the others:

• The first one was when he sees the babies being burnt. I can just say it made me cry. My imagination flies very high. I had to stop reading for a minute. 
• Then, when some guy says that because he was strong, he was made to put his father in the furnace. Wow! That truly shocked me. I stopped reading again. I could not imagine how it would be to be in his place, having to see your dad's face craying, maybe begging, and still having to do it, to burn alive the one that gave you life and loves you. Despite being a very little part in the book, it stuck inside me. 
• When the boy plays the violin in front of the mountain of dead and nearly dead bodies. It is just amazing, a "just in movies" moment. I cannot say anything else, but that I cannot describe how wonderful it felt when reading that. Sadness, Relief, Hope, everything put together. It was truly a little heaven in the middle of hell.
• And the fourth one, when Elie looks at a mirror for the first time since he was deported and sees "a corpse looking at him". That much he had changed! He was no longer himslef and maybe it was the same terror that fills you when watching a ghost movie, or a disgusting image, that despite being tolerable in the sense that it does not blind you, it makes you not wanting to see it. Poor boy.

After reading Night, I had breakfast. I did not want to eat. There was fruit, milk, bread and eggs on my place. I was very touched by the book. And the same as the other WWII stories, it is unbelievable how they are actually true. It is a book that should be read. You feel the story and understand many things about how the concentration camps worked. 


(Sorry! I swear I tried to be breve!)

Allegories

What is an allegory? I had never thought about it, because I had never heard that word, or at least in the context we are in: Literature. What I now know by definition is that it is the meaning behind the elements in a piece of art that the author uses in order to convey a meaning, so that it can be interpreted, rather than be stated directly in the piece.

But of course everyone has dealt before with allegories, maybe not with art and neither conscious of what it was. But hidden messages... who has not done that before? Everyone has created a drawing with a meaning that nobody understands but them, or them and their close friends, family, etc. The point here is that the different elements within something that contain a meaning are allegories. 

It is important, in art for example, to have a background, to know who the author was, or maybe just the context he or she lived in. Many elements in a piece of art we can understand very easy, but it is because we have a background on it. Modern/ Contemporary art can be read easier by someone who does not have a lot of background in history, for example. This is because that person shares the same world and society with the author, so they can connect better and have communication, which is the objective of art: to tell something. 

That is why Greek or ancient art in general can be very hard to understand if there is not a proper background. The same can happen when dealing with abstract art, as its elements are very simple but convey a strong meaning. 

To my point of view, which I think many share, it is wonderful to be able to discover the message behind something and to be able to exploit that. Allegories are hidden messages waiting to be discovered. 

What is Art?

Art is one of the most difficult words to find a meaning for. Never in our times has a human found a completely fitting definition for it, so each one of us can make a contribution from our own point of view to say what art is. 

Let's start from there: point of view. Everything done with an artistic purpose has a point of view. The artists create from their experiences, their knowledge, their feelings... or everything put together. This is the reason why many people might find a piece artistic or not. 

Next thing: people. People have necessarily to decide whether one thing is art or not. So art is defined by the society, as it is a creation from humans for humans. 

But it is still difficult to decide what art is. I can say everything in this world is art, because it has a meaning. Words could be art, even though they are bad words, they are used to represent an emotion. But for example, there are these words that are used to name many things. I believe those words lost their art. So I can say that art pieces have to have their uniqueness and a meaning behind them. I could be telling that a dot in a piece of paper is art, because it has a meaning, and not because of the fact of being just a dot in the middle of nowhere.

Then we can say that everything done by we human beings, comes from our heads, our creativity. Art is meant to create, to represent reality in a way that beautifies it. This does not mean that people have to put reality into their piece just the way it is, but the way they see it. This means that they can put an element to describe something specific about their reality. We can also create art from imagination, like dragon stories or surreal paintings. Everything that does not exist begins with an existing thing, every new idea begins with an already acquired knowledge. So imagination and the way you transalte it, meaning creativity, are the basis for art.

This is why art is decided by society, because it represents a common understanding of reality, say it is  about past, present or future, the world has similar ideas, that will change over time, but that we believe is purity and beauty. If a society has specific believes, they will search beauty according to that.

In class, we came to the definition of art as a representation of reality made by human beings in an effort to create beauty to provoke an aesthetic experience. I disagree on the "in an effort" part. Sometimes art is created by accident, without wanting it to be so, but suddenly, it is art, but you did not know it. So sometimes art is an accident, caused by whatever reason, but it is art. Authors, for example, can write, but their works not be appreciated as art but until a century after or so. This is a kind of art accident. Maybe the author wrote for money or to exemplify something, but not with the purpose of causing an "aesthetic experience" in mind. This author could have had a way of seeing the world that was not appreciated by his contemporaries, but being by later generations. There can be a paintor, that in his painting, does a mistake, and feels his work is ruined; but suddenly he notices that that mistake can be an artistic adding element to his work. It is all a matter of perspective, but we all humans share a common nature that make us look at art in a very similar way, no matter the time or social class, it is being human beings that gives us the possibility to appreciate art.

The "aesthetic" experience art causes is very important. It means that you could give the piece an understanding, a meaning, and knowing that it represents something.

So art can be "A creation by human beings based on reality that is considered beauty and causes an aesthetic experience".

As an example, I can put Robert Miles, with his song "Children" (on the music player of this Blog). With this song he made the Dream Trance music genre appear. It is usually piano or saxofon music with the electronic mix. Robert Miles, from existing music genres, could put two very different ones together and create a new beautiful one. Many people do not like it, but again, it is a matter of perspective. Say it is Contemporary Art or Modern Art, but still art out of music, and it transmits the aesthetic experience. You just have to close your eyes and put play. I believe it is a fantastic genre and this, the first Dream Trance song, is my favorite of that genre.

(Just an ironic statement)

-What is A.R.T.? Let me spell it for you! A is for Aesthetic experience. R is for Representation of reality. T is for The World's understanding of it... right here in the big wide world!

If you know where I got this idea from, maybe you will understand why I call it ironic.

(Image from: superchrome.co.uk)

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1.03.01

"Witness for the Prosecution" by Agatha Christie

This is the story about a lawyer, a solicitor, trying to get his client's innocence proved. Leonard Vole is the subject judged, and Mr. Mayherne is the solicitor in charge of his case. Leonard is accused of having murdered an old lady for wanting her money. This old lady had trusted her issues to Vole, and he was supposed to have betrayed her and killed her.

The story begins with Vole telling Mayherne everything that made him conclude Vole was innocent. There were two important things that arose from this conversation: 

1. Janet Mackenzie, the maid to the old lady, hated Leonard; maybe because Mrs. French had trusted everything to a man she barely knew and not to her, her companion probably for a very long time. So even though Mackenzie hated Leonard, her word was still valid to the court.
The fact here was that Mackenzie had accused Vole for having killed Mrs. French within a certain hour. Leonard said that what Mackenzie had said was not at all true, as by the time she claimed the murder had taken place, Leonard was supposed to be already at home. 

2. As a witness to this event, he had his wife, Romaine. Leonard said that Romaine was a very devoted wife and that she would be proving that he had arrived home at the time he said. 

This led Mr. Mayherne to his continuing of his invetigation with Romaine, knowing that if she was as dovited as Loeonard had said, she would not be of much help, as a devoted wife's opinion was taken only as coverage to the accused.

And so Mayherne went with her, and found out that she actually hated her husband, and told him whatever things against Leonard. This resulted very confusing, but in the end he still believed that Leonard was innocent and that Romaine was sort of out of her mind because of her hatred to Leonard, who she even denied as her husband. 

At court, Mayherne is delivered a note with an address. He went there and found a woman who had a bunch of letters from Romaine to her lover, making her a liar in what she had said at court, and turning the case in favour of Leonard. The important letter said something about being finally happy with Leonard's arrest. With this note, the case was won by Mayherne and Leonard was set free.  

At the end, we surprisingly find that Romaine was in fact the one who had led the prosecution all the time. She had actually invented that she hated him for her argument to be convincing and put the blame on herself. All this she told to Mr. Mayherne, who was obviously astonished, as the winning of the case had not been because of his work, but because of the most unthinkable person's. A little detail he had forgotten: Romaine was an actress. That detail he could have noticed, but what he actually noticed was the habit that both the woman of the letters and Romaine had of shaking their hands. That little detail made him finally realize that they were the same woman. She had faken the letters and acted a fake hatred. She was very intelligent, and the only one who knew the terrible truth: Leonard had actually killed Mrs. French, fact that Mayherne did not believe. 

Incredible how desperate a man can be, but the fear that still makes him shake for having to tell the truth. Leonard was desperate to find a way out of jail, so he put all his faith on his wife to cover him, and yet never told the turth because all he wanted was to be free. And so he managed to fool his solicitor; and his wife, the solicitor and the court. They were both intelligent. The difference is that Leonard could fool the solicitor, but there could be anything that could reveal his lies. On the other hand, we had Romaine, who had a perfectly well structured plan and the necessary elements to make it credible and that it would work.

So Leonard Vole was not lying that much, as he said his wife was a devoted one, but he did not think about the lack of use that that argument had. 

Romaine is a very intelligent woman who could manage the problem, not letting the worries blur her intelligence and saving the man she loved from going to jail. But in the end, we do not know if she's taken to jail or not for having "lied" to the court. 

I think it is a story easy to follow in the events, as you are discovering the facts as the same time and from Mayherne's point of view. This makes you wonder if what he is thinking actually makes sense, or if there is any other possible way for getting more clues and evidence. The most shocking part of the story is when we come to know that Romaine had been the mastermind behind the case, and that she posessed all the information and knew how to handle it. 

But even though it was shocking, it does not make it the climax of the story. This is because it does not give a turn to the story, it does not tell us what happens after that, it is just the resolution. The case is solved, and what happens to the couple, to Romaine or to Mayherne is not relevant for the story we are told: "That is another story and shall be told another time". So to the main plot, what matters is wether the case is solved or not, and the point where it is decided is when the letter is read at court and Romaine has to give her defense.

I believe it is a very good story and the ending is definitely good and unexpected.

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1.03.01

"The Sun" by Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen 

anything 

in your life 

more wonderful 

than the way the sun, 

every evening, 

relaxed and easy, 

floats toward the horizon 

and into the clouds or the hills, 

or the rumpled sea, and is gone-- 

and how it slides again 

out of the blackness, 

every morning, 

on the other side of the world, 

like a red flower 

streaming upward on its heavenly oils, 

say, on a morning in early summer, 

at its perfect imperial distance-- 

and have you ever felt for anything 

such wild love-- 

do you think there is anywhere, in any language, 

a word billowing enough 

for the pleasure 

that fills you, 

as the sun 

reaches out, 

as it warms you 

as you stand there, 

empty-handed-- 

or have you too 

turned from this world-- 

or have you too 

gone crazy 

for power, 

for things? 

The poem could not be more clear. When you read verse after verse, you can visualize, and even feel what the author wrote in the poem. We people are very familiar to sunrises, sunsets, and the fact of the sun just being there. So what does this author wrote? She just made us see the beauty we all know the sun has, but that we forget to remember and appreciate because of our "busy and important" tasks that recquire our cold side rather than our sensible side.

At the end of the poem, we can all agree, because we are all not used to appreciating nature's beauty frecquently, that we are forgetting about those simple things, that just because of the fact of believing in them and feeling them, make us happier, make us calmed, relaxed, and make our problems fade away. 

The author just pulls out, with a very concrete poem, our common inner feeling of beauty, of simplicity. The sun is not a metaphore in this case, but it can be replaced with any element, like the moon, the sea, the stars, an image... Something that is there to fill us with joy, that just because of being makes us what we are: humans; and leaves aside our ambitions, our worries and problems. So what can I say? I liked the poem a lot. 

(Images from : photoshd.wordpress.com and solarpowerninja.com)

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1.03.01

"Salvador Late or Early" by Sandra Cisneros

More than a short story, this is a description of a very poor boy's life. I can say this is one of the saddest passages I have read.

It tells us about a boy, a very poor one, which never does anything interesting, useful or for himself. The same routine is repeated day after day: he wakes up, prepares a very simple breakfast for him and his little borthers, picks up his youngest brother's mess, take them to school and tell them to wait for him in the same place he left them. It also tells us that he buys milk or does favors for his mother, but in the end, he is like a lifeless poor boy which cannot do anything else in his life.

At the end of the story it says that "Salvador dissappears...". It is way too sad. Reading about this boy, who lives to survive rather than the opposite, makes us look how lucky we are to have what we have and the opportunities we get to do something useful with our lives.

When you reach the last period in the story, you feel like waking up from a dream. You really feel as if you had gone beside Salvador in his day, and then it suddenly ended. You wake up and realize in a second that the sad and miserable day that Salvador had is going to be repeated for a very long time. You cannot but feel sad for the boy. He is poor, he has got no friends, he has got a sad life, and he cannot change it. He is alone and sad. That is what moves us in the story, the connection that we have with him for not wanting his life and the fact that we do not want him to have that life. It is a really sad story, and touches you despite its short length.

http://lahistoriadeldia.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/chile-los-estudiantes-aportando-al-debate-nacional-pobreza-y-ciencias-sociales/

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1.03.01

"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury

To begin with, this story is Sci-Fi. This means, it creates "fictionary science" or develops around science that does not exist. Usually, science is associated with high technology, but it also includes topics like aliens, for example. And "There Will come Soft Rains" is not the exception to the high-tech topic, as it unfolds around an automatic house.

So the story begins with a voice alarm clock telling the date and the hour. Here is where we are transported to the future: "August, 4, 2026". And so the house continues its daily life of service to its inhabitants. It bakes breakfast, cleans itself, the alarm tells the people that they are late for their specific activities... But there's a problem... there are no people at all living in the house. This means, the house is just doing what it "knows" to do: serve. It has all the technology housewise, but maybe in its construction they were missing to include a human detector. This could be useful for family trips, so that the house could turn off and not work uselessly.

But maybe there was actually a switch for the times the family wasn't in need of the house. But why wouldn't they turn it off? Why was the house still functioning? Why would it bake breakfast for no one? We had been told that this, the best house ever, was the last one probably in all Earth. And here came the part where we are told about the family's situation. In the passage, we are told about the shadows that dust left in their patio's wall. They were the family's shadows. Where did they go? Nowhere. They had been killed by a bomb while playing outside their house. Everything had flown away and their house was what remained of society... of humankind.

At some point in the story, we can infer that because of the house being the last one in the city, humans could have moved to another planet, running away from war; a war of any type, with any reason, but war. With the passage that actually tells us about the unfortunate fate of the family, you start to feel the way the author wanted us to feel when reading it. It is important to remember that this short story was written during cold war, and that a fear for everything to be gone in a sudden was common among people. But even if it was 2000 years ago or a lot more in the future, fear for death and suffer is a characteristic in human beings. The idea of war, the idea of death, of stopping to exist is not the happiest thought that a human can develop. So with this passage we can connect to each other by knowing that we all feel in some way sad for what happened to this family, which was killed while they were happily playing.

Then we have the only alive being appearing in the story: the family's dog. He desperately searched the house for his owners, with no success. He started desperating, and the lack of company or even an alive voice, made this poor creature die. The automatic mice, which were in charge of cleaning the house, did their job and took away the corpse of the dog and incinirated him.

At this point, we can notice how lonely the dog felt, which tells us that the bomb event was recent. The dog came into the hosue desperately, probably after having heard the bomb exploded. But the strange thing about that, is that everything was "dust in the wind", but the house and the dog. Probably the dog was in his dog house, which was probably made of the same technology of the house, and so made the bomb not affect it. We do not know, but I think that is one logical possibility. And so the dog died for lack of life, he could not stand loneliness. This is just a part in the story's development, but we feel bad for the dog, and we can wonder what would have happened if one of us stayed all by ourselves in a lonely world. Maybe we would not have survived for too long for one or another reason.

During the story we are also told about a poem, and in fact it is recited to us. It was the father's favorite one and was precisely called "There will come Soft Rains", and talked about faith for war to end.  

Finally, the house has its moment. A tree falls and causes a fire, which gives "death" to the house, leaving nothing but the voice which said the date speaking: "Today is August 5, 2026." And that is how the story ends. The climax of the story and its resolution are quite close from each other. 


The part of the house being burnt represents the climax. In the exposition, we are told about what the house can do. Then we have the point of the story where we realize it is empty and why. After that, we are told some events happening in the house, including the dog. The author could have written events about the house forever, like a rat or a fly entering the house; but he decided to give an end to the house, and this was through a fire. So this is when the story stops going "up" in the mountain plot, and gives a turn to it, making the resolution be when all that remained was the voice.  

The ending probably shows us that no matter how hard we try to keep up our modern developments, nature will have its time to regenerate and charge humankind for everything we took away from her. In this case, just the fall of a tree and something as ancient as Earth itself, could remove the last vestige of humankind.

On the other hand, this could be a message for us, taking into account the time it was written in. War destroys. It does not solve conflicts, it does not have happy endings. It only destroys. And the attempts for having the best weapons, in this case bombs, could cause not only the enemy's death, but yours too. We are also told that humankind does not want war, and how in times of it we want to have soft rains coming.

I believe that, although short and without human beings as characters, it has a very clear message. The fact that the house is the main character, makes us look clearly to the effects of not having humans present, and that they actually caused what happened to the world: the end of it.

The story is simple, but with a very strong message. 

(house Image from: http://www.greatinteriordesign.com; dog: http://www.glitter-graphics.com/graphics/39299)

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1.03.01

"The Interlopers" by Saki

This is a story, which I can say in advance, will leave the reader with an enormous sensation of suspense.

It truly has a very short plot, with well-defined events and a background that gives the reader an idea of what can be happening through the characters' minds.

This short story tells the story about two enemies: Ulrich vonGradwitz and Georg Znaeym, which were not the creators of their feud. This feud, or heritage hatred had been born, as if to be said, with their grandparents, who fought for a stripe of forest. These two families where neighbours, and for three generations, had not been able to sort out their problems yet.

The setting of the story is the forest, on Ulrich's side. Time's setting is breve, as the story unfolds only in a matter of hours during night-time.

These two men were hunting for each other in the forest. The best reward for both would be to find the other and kill him. At least this was Ulrich's thought. And so Georg appeared before him. This was the perfect time to kill each other, but as civilized and well educated men, they could not shoot without some words first. (This, besides the fact that both own enormous quantities of forest, suggest the social class they belonged to).

All of a sudden there was a lot of wind and a shriek was heard. This was the sound of a tree falling, probably because of lightning that preceded a storm. This caught both under the heavy branches of the trees.

At first, they did not care a lot about being saved and going home. They cared more for their men to arrive first and save them and kill the other, which was the important part. Georg, wrestling against the weight, said that his men would save him and put that weight on Ulrich so that he would die. Then he would show his condolences to his family. Then Ulrich turned the idea in his favour. It was a complete disaster, still fighting about that.

After some time, Ulrich got his wine and, although it was difficult, drank a little bit. He offered a bit to Georg. This unexpected action would start the end of the hatred and the beginning of a friendship between both. Georg denied the offer, by still keeping his hatred towards him. Silence was all that could be heard for some time. Then another surprising act from Ulrich: he said that if Georg's men were to appear first, that he could do whatever he wanted to; but if it was his men who arrived first, Georg would be the one who would be saved first and then him. This action made Georg calm down his hate towards Ulrich and finally say that he would agree to be his friend.

All that remained in that silent night was to be rescued. They tried shouting at the same time, but it would not work... no one came to save them. Then finally they noticed a sign of life, which meant, by the number, that Ulrich's men had finally arrived. They heard the running, and Ulrich was the one who could see them coming. Georg asked if those were Ulrich's men. Ulrich answered "No". They were wolves. This is where the story ends.

I think it is a wonderful story. The characters are dynamic, specially Ulrich, as suddenly, he changes his mind towards Georg. In the beginning of the story, he was the furious one, the one who seemed to hate the most. And all of a sudden, that completely changed.

The ending is just set in the perfect place: The climax. The objectives of this story are:

• To show us the change from hate to friendship in a difficult situation.
  
• To give the reader an unexpected ending so that he or she can imagine how the story of these men is going to end. Each reader has the decision on it.
  
  

The ending is the combination of suspense and the unexpected, which makes it so wonderful, and makes the reader eager for more. Probably in the case of a movie, this would be the not-previewed ending that would make the audience ask for a second part.

I liked the story a lot, specially the ending.

(Image from: http://media.photobucket.com/image/forest%20lightning/Bea_Douglas/Forest/IMG_5584.jpg)

"The Californian's Tale" by Mark Twain

This story tells us about a guy whose origins are completely unknown for us readers thorugh the complete story. He is situated in the state of California in the aftermath of the Californian Gold Rush, which took place in 1849. 

The Gold Rush was precisely the abandon of their houses by people in other places in the actual United States to go to the actual state of California to get some of the recently found gold. This story probably tells us about the late 1860s. 

So we find our character (whose name is not provided, so will be refered as "our character" or "the narrator") walking and looking at the little cabins built by the miners who had once gone after gold and had not found it. These miners did not have the possibility to go back to their previous homes, but did not have the will to stay in there either. This can be infered by the damages and by the lack of care to their cabins.

Suddenly this man arrives to an unexpected cabin, more like a cottage. This was a delight to the eye, or in his words, "a rest to the tired eye" [because of being tired of having seen all kind of deteriorated cabins]. This cabin was well taken care of and gave a sensation more of joy than of unsatisfaction. The inhabitants probably must have found the place not a punishment as the rest of the area's inhabitants. Henry, the man of the house, let him in and gave him a really warm welcome. Our character was very pleased with the comfortance of the place.

Henry began telling him about his wife, who had been the cabin's decoration artist, and how beautiful she was. He mentioned about her soon returning home, and asked the narrator to stay to receive his wife, and that she would be really pleased with him, as she liked visitors with lots of things to talk about. It was a Wednesday, and the lady would return on Saturday. Although our character could not stay for so long, Henry talked that beautifully about his wife that he convinced him. 

The fact that Henry talks that good about his wife, can makes us think that he was kind of naïve, because he talked as if he had wanted our character to fall in love with her. He would not care if the other liked her so much without even knowing him. Henry reads a letter to the narrator and made him cry, which is a fact that could have made him fall even more for the lady. We cannot say if the narrator is in love with Henry's wife, but what we can surely say, is that he can't wait to meet her, and so is his will, that he would stay there more than he had planned. And so time seemed neverending to our character, who was always watching the tick-tack on his clock, only to find himself in that neverending wait for this lady.

Then we have the appearance of three new characters in the story, who are Henry's long-time friends: Joe, Tom, and Charlie. Henry reads the letter to them too, and they cry. 

Saturday had arrived, and the preparations for her arrival were ready. The three friends and our character along with Henry were expecting full of joy her arrival. But it starts to get late, and the three friends put Henry to sleep, for him not to suffer more. Our character asks about the lady's arrival, and he got a totally unexpected surprise. The friends' answer was "She? Poor thing, she's been dead 19 years." What a surprise he got! And so Henry's friends started explaining how their friend, each year after her death, waited for her and then, they put him to sleep so that he would not suffer. Then everything went back to its place for another year. 

This tells us about how the narrative perspective was really important in this short story. Its a character totally new to the situation and who is describing to us what he lives for the first time. So this is a we get as readers: a first time to everything, at the same time with the narrator. So we find out about Henry's insanity at the same time that the narrator does.

To me, it is a very well written short story, with an unexpected ending and which, despite of being so short, make you interested in the plot.

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What is Literature?

After having used the term for more than half of my life, it was not but until these past few days that I, along with my teacher and classmates, took the time to build and analyze a convincent definition of what literature is. This recquired our experience with it and a lot of brainstorming about it to finally reach our precious definition.

So, what is Literature? There are as many definitions for literature as opinions exist. We usually think about words like reading, writing, novels, books, stories, poetry, library, words, art, written language, feelings, thoughts... the list can be endless. The challenge now is putting all this together to build the definition. We can build our definition like this:

"Literature is the art of writing, reading or analyzing written thoughts, ideas or feelings that are put into paper with written words, or better said, language; and this forms a book with stories, poems, etc."

I think the definition itself is clear, and convincing. But I loved that, by erasing some words, we could tell everything, but with less words. So our final definition was: "Literature is the art of language."

That is it! With that definition we could tell all about it. 

I still thought about it for a minute, as it was the first time I had truly analyzed the concept, and I didn't want to buy it without self-analyzing it.

But thinking about it, what did I think Literature was? I can honestly say that I related the term with thick books, long-plotted stories or a long-developed thesis statement. But I also related it to short stories, (like Poe's) or theatre plays (Shakespeare). And also poems. For me, Literature meant the text had to have a certain level of difficulty to read, and the ideas had to be very well organized and written in a way that would not resemble an ordinary person talking. With all this, I could not have had a very concrete definition, could I? And even though I like reading and I really enjoy writing, I could not know what literature was.

So back to the final definition, it finally convinced me. (And I learnt new things, like storytelling was part of Literature.) "Literature is the art of language".

• For Literature to be called an art, it has to have a certain level of quality and beauty.
• And it definitely tells us about language, not only written but talked.

So I cannot think of a better definition than that, gifting language with beauty, and making it not the common use of it. 

I guess I wasn't that lost. 

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