“A Very Short Story”

It is a very short story which is just as same as its topic. In these few paragraphs give a deep expression to the readers. The main character Luz sounds like “lose” in English and it implies that Luz is going to lose in the end. She maintains the development of the whole story.

In the story, it says that a man who is completely falling love with Luz, and he helps her to do her duties by checking patients temperature, even though he is a patient too. This action shows how deep the man loves the girl. They are supposed to get married, “but there was not enough time for the banns.”(P3) Before the armistice, Luz sends many letters to the man; she tells him she misses him very much. However, after the armistice, Luz asks him if he can have a good job, they will get married. In this case, I believe Luz is already with the Italian man. She knows that the man cannot find the job, so she says like so. Then the man comes back to America, he knows what happens between Luz and the Italian, and they are going to get married in the spring. The man knows that Luz loses. She is not his Luz anymore, so he probably becomes alcoholic and sleeps around. That is why he gets disease from a sales girl.  

Certainly, if Luz doesn’t give too much hope to the man, it won’t happen. If she can be honest in the end, why can’t she be honest in the beginning? I think her name has another meaning which is “loser”. She may have two men at same times, but she becomes alone in the end, so she is a “loser”. We all know that having affair will hurt both the party and the victim thus. Furthermore, the man in the story is very incapable, if he loves the girl very much, he will find a good future for her, but he doesn’t. Also, after he is hurt by Luz’s betray, he doesn’t bestir himself up. This causes him has the duty-bound with getting disease to end up. All of them become a tragedy.

Response to “The Epic of Gilgamesh”

“The Epic of Gilgamesh” is a very ancient mythology. It has three parts, and the one we have read is the first part. It is about a man, Gilgamesh who is a three out of two god. He is the king of Uruk. In addition, Gilgamesh is as powerful as the real god, so he includes the most powers at that time. However, he does not care about his people, and he imposes too much stress to them.   Enkidu is a person, who is made by Aruru goddess. He has appropriate power to Gilgamesh. Then they become friends, and they are dominating Uruk together. Unfortunately, Enkidu dies. After he dies, Gilgamesh is afraid of death; he tries very hard to find a plant that has “the property of rejuvenation”. When he finds the plant, it already is taken away by a snake.

In the story, it mentions about the love from Ishtar goddess. She loves Gilgamesh, and pays court to him, but Gilgamesh refuses. Then she becomes angry, she asks his father Anu god to kill Gilgamesh or Enkidu. From the context, we can know that, love can change a person to hate; Ishtar goddess cannot have the love from Gilgamesh, so she wants him to be died even though he loved him very much. It is sarcasm, and it is very common in social live. Also, it reflects the dark side of human being’s.  In fact, the action she makes is not her fault, it is just human nature.

On the other hand, Gilgamesh wants to live for a long time in the story, so he is looking for the plant. Actually, we know that Gilgamesh is a three out of two god, and he is very powerful. However, even for him he is afraid of death. It shows a theory, although Gilgamesh is very powerful, he is still a human being, and he is going to die in someday. Moreover, great hero is not able to avoid the death, so people need to enjoy the live they have now, and accept the destiny.

In my opinion, I think it is a good opportunity to understand different type of stories. In the story, it uses lots of repetition and some difficult old fashion vocabulary. Those make this story become hard to understand the meaning.

What do you think George, Nick, Ole Anderson, Max, Al will do after the story end?

In the story, George seems to have many experiences with this kind of situation. When Max and Al threaten him to stand in the corner by shotgun, he is not afraid. He knows well how to comfort them that not to endanger him. Also, George doesn’t want to involve to this dangerous plan, so when they are gone, he asks Nick to warn Ole Anderson. Especially, in the end, he uses the towel, which ties in Nick and cook’s mouth to wipe the counter. It shows how comfortable with the situation he is now, so I think he probably will stay in the restaurant.  Unlike George, he is brave at the first time, and tries to save Ole Anderson as much as he can. However, after he has talked with Ole Anderson, he becomes afraid to involve in the situation, so he says that he is going to leave the town. For Ole Anderson, he is a strange man. In the context, “Nick looked at the big man lying on the bed” and “Ole Anderson rolled over toward the wall”, these implies that he may have some troubles in his life, and he doesn’t care about his dangerous circumstance. As Max and Al haven’t waited him in the restaurant, they will continue to look for Ole Anderson. As a result, it is possible for them to get into Ole Anderson’s place and kill him. Since Ole Anderson doesn’t care about himself, he must be going to die.      

2011-10-03

Today we did a survey for social media. I interviewed four people in the campus, and all of them are females. According to the interview, most females tend to have diarial hobbits. They prefer to write on different forms, such as blog and Twitter; most of them spend once or twice a week to write. In addition, Facebook is the most popular form of social media for them. Also, these girls usually do reflective writing once a week. In this case, there are several advantages that they have said. For example, Emma thinks that the reflective writing can helps a person to get perspective. Also, Amy says that it can help her to solve problems and not to hurt other people. In this interview, I find out that most males don’t like to write diary because I think they may not as emotional as females. There is another possible reason which is they don’t spend time on writing diary. In brief, this activity gave me a good experience to have chatter with native speakers. Even though many people were busy with their classes, there were still some people who were friendly to help me. Moreover, I think my pronunciation has some problems because there are few people who cannot understand what I have asked, and it makes me feel so embarrassed.   

Jig and Luz

                After I read both of the stories, I think “Hills like white elephants” and “A very short story” are different. The first one is writing about a girl loves the man who does not care about her. The second one is about a man is betrayed by the girl. These two stories are opposite. Also, the characters in the story are different. In “Hills like white elephants”, the main character Jig is an inexperience girl, and she is very innocent. In her world, it revolves round to the American. She can give up the child for the man because she loves him very much. On the other hand, she grows to maturity in the situation. As Jig realizes the man does not care about her, she becomes having reactions to the words which the man says. In the end, she may make the decision to break up with the man for “she was sitting at the table and smiled at him” which means the girl already eases the pain. From these contexts, we can know that the girl grows up. In “a very short story”, Luz is a negative example as a woman. The man in the story gives all of his love to her, but she just has sex with the Italian. Moreover, she says that if the man has a good career, they will get married. However, it ends up with a letter which talks about Luz’s betrayer. Luz is bad girl, but also honest girl because she tells the truth to the man.

            In my opinion, I like Jig better than Luz. I think Jig is a very cute by her reactions in the story. When she looks at the curtain or describes the mountains as white elephants, we can see how pure she is. In contrast, unlike Jig, Luz has done the thing which is same as her name “lose”, and her beavers are not forgivable. I believe she hurts the man very hard, so the man backs to the life he has before, and it is Luz’s fault.

 nice.