We had our 3rd presential meeting March 23
REMINDERS:
Task 1 (your profile) and Task 2 ( visiting the site on Paragraph Unity and writing a small report ) were due yesterday. But you may put them in my escaninho (sala dos professores) till midnight, Thursday
Task 3 (on Stopping by woods”is due March 30, next Tuesday
PART A:
We started task 4 in class.
Task 4 (due April 6) asks you to write a 1-2-1 essay (introduction – 2 body paragraphs – conclusion) .
In this essay you QUOTE from Griffith (see below) and exemplify with the short story by Hemingway (see below) , to talk about situational irony and attitudinal irony.
The TITLE OF YOUR ESSAY COULD BE: Situational Irony and Attitudinal Irony in Hemingway’s “A very Short Story”.
First we went through Hemingay’s “a very short story” - you may find it in one page at http://www.johnktucker.org/files/a_very_short_story.pdf
Contextualization of situational and attitudinal irony:
The story begins in Padua, Italy. There is an army camp. Before the climax of the story breaks, he and Luz go to another place in Italy too, Duomo. Then while he goes back to the front, probably again in the Boot. While he returns to his own country, the USA, on a boat from Cenova; Luz stays in Italy, Pordonone, and opens a hospital. The places mentioned in the story are these specified above.
As to the time, the author does not say which war the story mentions about. However, it can be understood from the story and Hemingway’s own experiences that this war is WWI. As the duration of the story is a year (four seasons), the exact year is probably 1918-1919. (The war ended in 1918 and the second part of the story occurs after the armistice.) Another clue for our understanding it is the First World War is that the term “the armistice”. This term is specifically used for WWI.
Historical background of the story is shaped by the war. As “he” is an American and Luz is an Italian, it is understood that they are on the side of the Entente Powers, led by France, Russia, the United Kingdom and her colonies and dominions, and later Italy and the United States. It is a “world war” and, naturally, people are hopeless and in pain. They lose their acquaintances, sometimes their parents. It is a real deppression time. People do not know why they are fighting. This brings a tumultuous psychology.
The atmosphere of the story is very dark and hopeless. It may fall anyone into the hands of deppression, because the work itself is a story of a “disintegration”. This atmosphere is actually unique to the authors of “Lost Generation”, one of whose members is E. Hemingway. Lost Generation refers to a group of American literary notables who lived in Paris and other parts of Europe from the time period which saw the end of WWI to the beginning of the Great Depression, which takes place in USA. (Hemingway is an American.)
The story is written with objective (dramatic) point of view. In this type of point of view, “though the author is the narrator, he or she refuses to enter the minds of any of the characters. The writer sees them (and lets us see them) as we would in real life. This point of view is sometimes called ‘dramatic’ because we see the character as we would the characters in a play…” (Griffith, 58) Hemingway masterly leaves the interpretation of the actions led by the characters to us. One of the reasons for this is probably the genre is “short story” –the length is limited.
In terms of ironies, two types of ironies can be observed in the work, although it is very short. One of them is “situational irony”. “In situational irony, the situation is different from what common sense indicates it is, will be, or ought to be.” (Griffith, 62) If it is applied to this story, the beginning of the work serves the reader a passionate love. It is passionate; so getting far apart is not an expected result. The other is “attitudinal irony.” It is similar to the situstional one, but “attitudinal irony results from what one person expects.” Here the sacrifice is “he”. He gets passionate love letters; so does not prepare himself to a seperation. However a short time after, he learnes that Luz thinks their relationship is only a boy and girl relationship.
http://my.opera.com/villagespunkbucket/blog/the-analysis-of-ernest-hemingway-s-a-very-short-story
This may also help:
It is also interesting that Hemingway, who was so drawn, both as a writer and a man, to war, should write a story in which the drama of war and the war injuries of his protagonist are eclipsed by the denouement of a wartime "boy-girl relationship." Just as the soldier's name is untold, so, too, are the details concerning his wounding--or at least the details of his wounding in battle. This seems to be an instance where Hemingway conflates the dangers of war and those of the world generally, suggesting a kind of equivalency between them. "He" can be wounded in battle, over there, but also over here by the duplicity of a woman; even a chance encounter in a taxi can have dire consequences.
PART B:
We studied the paragraph below and wrote one paragraph following this model, about PAYING OR NOT PAYING FUMP FEES
It has been argued that dolphin parks provide the only opportunity for much of the public to see marine mammals (Smith, 1992). Most Australians, so this argument goes, live in cities and never get to see these animals. It is claimed that marine parks allow the average Australian to appreciate our marine wildlife. However, as Smith states, dolphins, whales and seals can be viewed in the wild at a number of places on the Australian coast. In fact, there are more places where they can be seen in the wild than places where they can be seen in captivity. Moreover, most Australians would have to travel less to get to these locations than they would to get to the marine parks on the Gold Coast. In addition, places where there are wild marine mammals do not charge an exorbitant entry fee - they are free.
