Zeroing in on Science Friction

Background » From Physics to Fiction

As a physics major in the 1960s, Goshgarian and a few friends were drawn to their English professor, the late James Hensel, whom he calls “the teacher of all teachers.” Goshgarian named a character in Elixir for Hensel, and another is named for former WPI president Harry P. Storke.

“We were literature geeks in an otherwise science geeky kind of place,” Goshgarian says. “In the afternoon, after classes were out, we would meet up in Jim Hensel’s office to talk about everything from Charles Dickens to Tolstoy to Albert Einstein.” The young Goshgarian put his writing talents to use as an editor of Tech News and the Peddler, and started an offbeat humor magazine called Absolute Zero.

“I was reading science fiction by the pound,” he says. By his sophomore year, Goshgarian knew that he would work with words rather than atoms. “I liked words. I could see them and manipulate them. I could not see atoms, didn’t quite believe in them.” After earning a master’s degree and doctorate in English, he joined the English faculty at Northeastern University.

In the early 1970s Goshgarian’s department head challenged him to create a new elective to boost enrollment. He saw his chance to teach quality science fiction as a reputable literary form. Some 30 years later, his courses are popular and well-respected, although parents occasionally balk, “My child is taking what?” In addition to science fiction, Goshgarian teaches a detective fiction class and has developed courses in horror fiction and modern bestsellers. He also offers a graduate-level creative writing seminar.

Required reading for Goshgarian’s classes ranges from Edgar Allen Poe to Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clark and Dean Koontz. A centerpiece of the science fiction curriculum is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Discussions are supplemented with movies and guest speakers, which have included best-selling authors Stephen King, Tess Gerritsen, Robert B. Parker and Michael Palmer.

Goshgarian wants his writing students to learn “the ability to look at another person’s writing the way a carpenter looks at a house–to study the architecture of it, the freshness of the language, the narrative thrust that keeps the story going. And to see that the bones have flesh on them, that you have characters who are interesting and aren’t cardboard cut-outs.

“My goal is to make them better readers, too. That’s the secret of good writing. We do a lot of close reading. That’s what Jim Hensel taught me, way back at Worcester Tech.”

The Penalty of Death

– H.L. Mencken

Analysis

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At last, a writer who fully understands that all society wants from the justice system is “a healthy letting off of steam” (Mencken). In his satirical essay The Penalty of Death, H.L. Mencken, through use of humor, exaggeration, and mocking euphemisms and anecdotes, satires America’s use of capital punishment. His essay attacks in particular the purpose of the death penalty and the public’s light treatment of “hanging a man (or frying or gassing him)” (Mencken). Mencken’s informal essay is persuasive in the sense that it is satire and uses irony to support his thesis.

Should The Penalty of Death be taken literally, the thesis would explicitly be: “What I contend is that one of the prime objects of all judicial punishments is to afford the same grateful relief (a) to the immediate victims of the criminal punished, and (b) to the general body of moral and timorous men” (Mencken). As a satire however, Mencken ridicules this statement as he supports it, and therefore his thesis is implicit, expressing his criticism of the American treatment of the death penalty. Mencken speaks satirically in the essay as an upstanding citizen patriotically supporting his country’s justice system while, also patriotically, offering helpful suggestions to improve it. The syntax is kept simple and many colloquialisms and clichés are used to give the speaker a personal, conversational voice. Mencken writes mainly for the pro-death penalty audience, as this “patriotic” perspective is exaggerated to the point where it mocks these advocates. This tone is achieved through exaggeration, such as the first “argument against capital punishment” that is discussed, saying “that hanging a man…is degrading to those who have to do it and revolting to those who have to witness it” (Mencken). Mencken does not mention the obvious arguments against the death penalty, such as a person’s right to life, instead exaggerating the American priority on a person’s own comfort. Also contributing to the sarcastic, mocking tone is euphemism, such as the repeated use of “katharsis” as a blatant replacement for “revenge”.

The essay is structured at first in a problem-solution form. Mencken wastes no time refuting the two “arguments against capital punishment” that open the essay, and offers his satirical thesis about “grateful relief” as a solution to the problem of the death penalty’s apparent uselessness. The “grateful relief” solution is, of course, ironic; it implies that that absurd goal is the only real reason that American uses the death penalty. Through example, he supports his argument of katharsis until arriving at the issue of a prisoner’s lengthy stay on death row. Here, Mencken’s true intentions start to emerge as he begins sympathize with the condemned criminals. He describes how it is unjust that “a murderer, under the traditional American system, is tortured for what, to him, must seem a whole series of eternities” (Mencken). Now that the criminal is being viewed as human again, the Mencken’s moral argument of whether the death penalty is right becomes apparent. This ends the essay with the message that all people should be treated ethically, which is effective after the completion of four or five paragraphs that claim the death penalty is not ethical. The essay’s abrupt end, without any sort of conclusion, may be jarring to the reader but also ensures that the reader is actively thinking about Mencken’s final message when the essay is put down.

In these final paragraphs, Mencken uses strong imagery such as being “tortured…a whole series of eternities” as an appeal to pathos and ethos, stimulating the reader’s emotions and sense of ethics. While this appeal to pathos closes the essay on a serious note, the rest of the satire appeals mostly to ethos and logos. Logos is present everywhere, particularly in Mencken’s refute of an executioner’s misery and his introduction of katharsis as a reason for the penalty, which he, in sarcasm and irony, supports heavily. As the essay is a satire, ethos is called on in nearly every point Mencken makes, as he suggests “you’re not anything like the people I’m mocking, are you?”

The Penalty of Death is very effective in its delivery of Mencken’s opinions. Mencken’s sense of humor makes it clear from the beginning what he intends to discuss and how he will do it, and his detailed support of his satirical thesis “katharsis” makes his message enjoyable as well as informative. His satirical voice is believable as pro-death penalty American, but his meaning is clearly driven home when the essay, like the life of a doomed prisoner, is ended before its natural close. As Mencken suggests, maybe the judicial system needs a new “healthy letting off of steam”.

A Day in the Life of “Salaryman”

– John Burgess

Background (With the compassion of 2 different stories)

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A slave is a person who works extremely hard under a horrible condition. He also needs to work for a long time but with very limited benefit. In George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell says that the dishwasher is a slave. However, is not salary-man in “A Day in the Life of Salary-man” by John Burgess also a slave? Actually, the answer is no. In my opinion, dishwasher is a slave, but salary-man is not.

First of all, their working hours are distinctly different. According to Orwell, George works from seven in the morning until a quarter past nine at night for six days a week. Sometimes he has to go to work on his off day too. Differently, salary-man only works from ten past nine in the morning till seven in the evening for only five days, and he does not need to work on his off days. The lunch break of Salary-man and dishwasher are different too. As George says, “This was our slack time-only relatively slack, however, for we had only ten minutes for lunch, and we never got through it uninterrupted” (Orwell 64). In contrast, salary-man has much more time than dishwasher during the lunch break. The salary-man does more things during this break than the dishwasher does. Over lunch, “they talk of their passion, golf…… At lunch, salary-man sometimes manages to stop into a driving range on the roof of a building near his company……” (Burgess 255). Moreover, salary-man and dishwasher’s lives after work are totally different. For dishwasher, he has nothing to do after work because he has only few hours left and not even enough for sleeping. Nevertheless, the salary-man has a good life after work. He may have been included in a dinner at a nearby restaurant and enjoy his moment.

And the writer thus, compares and tabulates a single day life in the story by giving the following distinct background in the lines that follows.

Di Grasso: A Tale of Odessa

–  Issac Bable

Summary

Because this brief work is a sophisticated commentary on the nature of art as well as “just a story,” it is all the more interesting for the reader to know that it is the last work Isaac Babel published in his lifetime, before he fell victim to Stalinist justice. Although the exact circumstances of Babel’s arrest in 1939 are not known, it is believed that he was charged with espionage, a patently contrived accusation; he was executed in 1941. The Jewish author, whose collections of stories were often reprinted during his lifetime, was “rehabilitated” after the death of Joseph Stalin—and his stories were reprinted again.

“Di Grasso” ostensibly focuses its attention on the Jewish theatrical world of prewar Odessa (about 1908), where one learns that the narrator as a boy of fourteen has recently “come under the sway” of the “tricky” ticket scalper Nick Schwarz and his “enormous silky handle bars.” Without looking further into the relationship between the boy and the older man who is his “boss,” the narrator instead describes (entertainingly) almost the entire action of a very bad play being newly performed by a traveling troupe of Italian actors. In this play, a “city slicker” named Giovanni temporarily lures the daughter of a rich peasant away from her betrothed—a poor shepherd played by the Sicilian actor Di Grasso. Di Grasso pleads with the girl to pray to the Virgin Mary—a huge, garish, wooden statue of whom is on the stage—but to no avail. In the last act, when Giovanni has become insufferably arrogant, Di Grasso suddenly soars across the stage, plunges downward onto Giovanni, bites through his throat, and sucks out the gushing blood—as the curtain falls.

Recognizing a hit when he sees one, Schwarz rushes to the box office, where he will wait all night, first in line to buy at dawn as many tickets as he can afford, for resale. The narrator shortly remarks that everyone in Theater Lane has been made happy by the new hit—except himself.

Now an entirely new story line develops. It seems that the lad has taken his father’s watch without permission and pawned it to Schwarz—who eventually grows very fond of the big gold turnip. Even after the boy pays off the pledge, Schwarz refuses to give back the watch. The boy is in continual despair, imagining his father’s wrath. He suggests that Schwarz and his father have the same character.

Then one night Schwarz and his wife, along with the boy, attend the final performance of the Italian troupe, with Di Grasso playing the shepherd “who is swung aloft by an incomprehensible power.” Schwarz’s wife, a fat and sentimental woman with “fish-like eyes,” is overwhelmed by Di Grasso’s great leap of love. She laments her own loveless life and berates her husband as they walk home from the theater with the boy trailing behind. The boy sobs openly, thinking of his father and the watch. Madam Schwarz hears the sobs and angrily forces her husband to return the watch, which he does, but not without giving the lad a vicious pinch.

The Schwarzes walk on, reach the corner, and disappear. The boy is left alone to experience ultimate happiness; he sees the world at night “frozen in silence and ineffably beautiful.”

Themes and Meanings
At an elementary level of meaning, this story reveals the hidden relationships that may exist between apparently unconnected things and events. The Italian play, with its fantastic Sicilian actor, acts powerfully on the unloved wife of the swindler Nick Schwarz—and the boy and his watch are saved.

The story becomes more interesting when the reader sees that it is precisely the power of art that is significant, rather than merely “a play.” Finally, it is not art in general that is at issue but art of great passion. Here, bad art is “transformed” by a passionate actor. Commenting on Di Grasso’s acting, the narrator insists that the Sicilian, “with every word and gesture,” confirms that there is “more justice in outbursts of noble passion than in all the joyless rules that run the world.”

Such an explicit statement, not all that common in Babel, must be taken seriously. One wonders if “joyless rules” might refer to the Soviet Union of the bleak 1930’s, and if Nick Schwarz, with his handlebar mustaches, is not intended to be seen as a pitiless Stalin figure. In any case, however, such political overtones are not the central focus of the work.

Passion in life, as in art, is a recurring motif in Babel’s writings. Often it is accompanied by violence, as in the present work—which depicts not only the murderous leap of Di Grasso but also the descent of the curtain “full of menace” and the “vicious pinch” exacted by Schwarz. If life is lived fully and passionately, some violence is inevitable.

As art influences or works itself into life (here moving Schwarz’s wife to take pity on the boy), so may life be transformed into art. Thus the boy, dizzy with happiness, sees the ordinary world of the city transformed into ineffable beauty. Here reality, art, and transcendent beauty merge in a remarkable vision. The boy’s epiphany has the character of a future writer’s first glimpse of the world beyond everyday reality (or of the way reality really is if one looks at it right).

The Hunter Gracchus

Summary

BY:Franz Kafka

In the harbour people are busy playing, drinking and selling fruits, etc. A death ship sailed to that place. The boatman anchored that ship with a rope. There was a corpse covered with the colorful silk cloth. No one was interested in that dead body. The boatman showed a great two-storied house on the left of the sea and they took the corpse to the door of that house. A small boy opened the door and they all entered. The door was shut. Flock of doves was delighted to fly around the house as if their food was inside. A woman on the boat gave some grains and the doves ate happily.  A gentleman came to the harbour and looked around gloomily. He knocked at the door. The boys opened the door and they welcomed him warmly. The boatman came there and led him to the first floor. The bearers were setting the candles on the head of the dead body. They lighted the candles but it did not give more light. The corpse looked like a hunter. The gentleman went near the corpse and put his hand on his forehead. he knelt down and started praying. All the bearers were sent out. The dead body opened the eyes suddenly and asked him who he was. The gentleman said that he was Burgomaster of Riva. The dead body said that he was hunter Gracchus. He had fallen down in the Black Forest of Germany long ago when he was hunting there. He had been dead since then. The ship missed the way and they were there. He struggled to climb the steps up to go to the heaven but all in vain. When he reached the door of the other world, he was awakened by the light and found himself on the boat. The wife of the boatman offered him the same wine. He stayed there on the wooden bed covered with a dirty shroud. His beard and hair were tied together. He heard the water hitting his ship.  The terrible fete came after his death. he was brought to a wrong place. He had performed his duty of hunter responsively before his death. It was not a fault, not a sin. No one helped him. The thought of helping him became a kind of illness that had to be cured by taking to bed. Therefore he did not ask for help in the end. Burgomaster asked him how he would stay with them in Riva. He answered that he knew nothing. The ship had last rudder and it was driven by the wind that blew in the undermost region of death.

What Is Poverty ?

Summary 
Jo Goodwin Parker

Jo Goodwin Parker in her realistic essay “What is Poverty” gives a real and graphic account of what being poor actually means on a daily basis. Parker stresses that poverty is more ugly, cruel and devastating than it is shown in newspapers.

She defines poverty as a lack – that is living without hope, better foods, medicinal care, proper sanitation and proper education. It is like an acid that destroys pride, honour, health and future. Parker’s main purpose is to show how shameful, humiliating and disgusting it is to be a poor. She wants to draw the readers’ attention to the pathetic state of poor people.

Poor people have to live a restless life looking at the dark future of their children. Poverty breaks relationships. Parker had three children. She divorced with her husband because he had lost his job and they couldn’t buy contraceptives to prevent unwanted birth. She had a job. Once she left the children under the care of their grandmother. She found her children under pitiable condition when she returned home. Her youngest son was covered with fly specks and his diaper had not been changed since morning. Her another child was playing with broken glasses and the oldest one was playing alone at the edge of a lake. She did not have enough income to admit them at a nursery school. She made 20 dollars a week and a nursery school cost 20 dollars a week for three children. Therefore she quitted her job.

Important Questions:

• How does Parker create a real and graphic account of what being poor actually means on a daily basis?
• Do you have anything more to add to her definition of poverty?
• Is “What is Poverty” a realistic essay? Discuss with reasons for your answer.
• Why did Parker quit her job?
• What is Parker’s purpose in defining poverty as she does?

The Time Factor

Summary 

Gloria Steinem

`The main thesis of Gloria Steinem’s essay “The Time Factor” is that our sense of time is partly a function of power or lack of it. Time-sense is always governed by power- either monetary power or social power. Planning ahead depends on class, sex and caste.

The rich and the middle class plan for the future generations while the poor plan for a week or a few days. Women also can not plan ahead as they are dominated by men. Even well-to-do women have to adjust their life according to the life of their husband and children. Females are powerless in the society so they also only plan for few days. They live in flux, present and uncertainty. Even some feminists only look at their painful past and do not focus on future. Women are limited to day to day existence. While men always live in dreamy future without living in the day to day present. The Blacks who are socially and culturally powerless also can not plan for the future. A black, successful journalist and critic also could not plan beyond one assignment.

Important Questions:

• How do you interpret Steinem’s thesis that your sense of time is partly a function of power, or the lack of it?”
• How does Steinem differentiate the future planning, which is ‘culturally masculine habit of planning’, to women’s plans for future in the essay?

The Day of The Dead

Summary 

BY: Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz in the essay “The Day of the Dead” presents the psychological and cultural motivations behind the popularity of fiestas in Mexico. The Mexican people celebrate fiestas with all the colors, strange costumes, dancing, fireworks, drinking, shouting and gathering together. By means of fiestas Mexican people free themselves from the monotony of life, solitude, order, rigidity, poverty and harsh reality. During fiestas, society frees itself from the laws, traditions, order and come out purified with new energy.

In certain fiestas, the very idea of order disappears, chaos comes back and sexual freedom rules. All the social, sex, caste and trade differences disappear. Fiestas are like revolution because individual dissolves in mass and forms a unity. The people reveal their hidden secrets and desires and free themselves from mental burden.

Important Questions:

• What are the Mexican attitudes towards the celebrations of life and death?
• What are the factors which make fiestas so popular in Mexico and what are the psychological and cultural motivations behind them?

Duchoux

Summary 
Guy De Maupassant

Maupassant’s story “Duchoux” is about a self-centered old man named Barone Mardiane who values position more than family. This story implies that modern civilization has separated man from his true self or nature. Modern men only crave for comfort, money and sex. They have forgotten the values of family bonds and love.

Barone Mardiane, an aristocratic old bachelor is fed up of with his monotonous life. He feels lonely and sad because he is bored with the same friends, gambling and same activities. In loneliness, he is haunted by the memory of his illegitimate son. He wishes to spend rest of his life with him and his grandchildren. In his young age, he had a short romantic relationship with the wife of governor of a colony. A son was born secretly. The mother died of tuberculosis after three years. Baron had secretly arranged for the boy’s education and marriage. Barone goes to meet his son’s house. When he reaches there, he meets a boy, lifts him and tries to kiss him. But the smell of garlic coming out from his mouth prevents him. Barone notices that everything the son has does not suit his standard. The servants are dirty, the room is dark and dirty, his son Duchoux is bald headed, shabbily dressed and even daughter-in-law is dirty and shabbily dressed. The room is filled with the odour of garlic. Though Duchoux resembled in many ways with his mother, Barone dislikes him. When the boy comes and calls Duchoux ‘father’ in a Southern tone, Barone is struck by the word. He hates the rural and uncultured environment of his son’s house and returns to Paris.

Enemies

By Anton Checkov

"Enemies" is a story written by Anton Checkov. The story suggests that grief and misery do not bring people together to share, but force them apart. Pain is egoistic. 

Kirilov is a district doctor. His six-year old son has just died of diphtheria. He stands watching his unconscious wife near the dead body. The doorbell rings and a wealthy stranger Aboguin enters begging the Doctor to come to treat his wife who is in great pain. Kirilov says that he cannot possibly leave his wife at this time. Abogin requests to treat his wife in the name of humanity. Kirilov forgets his social responsibility as
a doctor and is observed in his own pain and grief. In the other hand, Aboguin thinks that his grief is worse than the doctor's. However, after much request Kirilov unwillingly goes with Aboguin in his carriage. But when they arrive at Aboguin’s house, his wife is not at home. She pretended to be ill in order to run away with her lover. Aboguin is sad and begins to complain to Kirilov. Kirilov is angry and he does not like to hear the grief of Aboguin. He thinks that Abguin played a joke with him. They scream at one another and the doctor returns home cursing the rich people like Aboguin and forming a deep-rooted enmity towards them. 

In unhappiness, both became selfish, wicked, unjust and unable to understand each other. Pain and anxiety made them egoistic and selfish. However, we sympathize with Dr. Kirilov because his loss is greater that Aboguin's.

THE VALIANT WOMAN

– J.F. Powers

Exclusive Summary:

Set in 1944, Valiant is a woodland pigeon who wants to become a great hero someday. When he hears they are hiring recruits for the Royal Homing Pigeon Service, he immediately sets out for London. On the way, he meets a smelly but friendly pigeon named Bugsy, who joins him, mainly to get away from clients he cheated in a game of find-the pebble, and helps him sign up for the war.

Complete Summary 

The Catholic priesthood was a favorite subject of J. F. Powers. In “The Valiant Woman,” he gives a sly and witty account of an ongoing struggle between a priest and his housekeeper. This small and ironic comedy is quite successfully set off against larger and darker issues involving human needs and limitations, and the theology that guides the characters.

Quite against his inclinations, Father Firman, a celibate priest, has “married” Mrs. Stoner by passively allowing her to assume the role of his domestic partner. Unlike the suggestion buried in his name, he has been anything but firm and has steadily dwindled into the role of a husband. Without asking for these responsibilities he has allowed them to overtake him, and he can no longer in good conscience back away. He cannot divorce her, just as his religion forbids divorce. In his fantasy, a Filipino housekeeper would give him the life of freedom he craves—not sexual freedom, but freedom from responsibility in his personal life. The priest is thrust into the commitment his theology teaches, and which he has no doubt preached to others.

Although the reader need not accept any particular religious view to appreciate its argument, the story is deeply rooted in its Catholic theology. None of the three characters has an unusual spiritual gift. With her garrulous and trivial nature, Mrs. Stoner is indeed a millstone around the neck of the priest. Father Firman, although conscientious in his duties, seeks only a comfortable and trouble-free life, an ideal that Father Nulty urges on him. The author thus creates limited human beings who are confused and frustrated by their needs and fantasies. On the surface, their religion is only a social framework into which they have fallen. However, the demands of that religion make Father Firman stand larger than he ever could on his own. Husbands, as well as priests, take vows before God. Father Firman finally begins to realize that his responsibility is not simply defined by the vows he took as a priest. In becoming a “husband,” he is bound by the spirit as well as the letter of the law.

In Another Country

by Ernest Hemingway

In the fall in Milan, a group of soldiers wounded in World War I receives treatment at a hospital not far from the front. The narrator is Nick Adams, an American former football player, who has been wounded in the knee. He sits in a row of machines that exercise his leg with a middle-aged Italian officer who was once a fencing champion but who now has a withered hand. Despite the encouragement of his doctor, the Italian has no confidence in the machines.

Nick describes the group of friends he has made at the hospital: three wounded Italian officers who had planned to be a lawyer, painter, and soldier before the war, respectively. All three, like Nick, have won medals from the Italian government for their service during the war. The aspiring lawyer, in fact, has three, and is admired for it.

Another young wounded soldier tags along with Nick and his group, but has to wear a handkerchief over his face as most of it was damaged and rebuilt during the war. Nick feels a kinship with the officers because they have all, to a certain extent, been through the same experiences, and because it is safer for officers to stick together in Milan as the local people despise and taunt them.

At the same time, there is a wall between Nick and the Italians because, as he says, he received his medal for being an American, and they actually performed feats of bravery to receive theirs. Nick feels closer to the boy with the handkerchief because he was wounded before he had a chance to prove himself in the war.

As Nick returns to the hospital daily to sit in the machines that exercise his leg, the major with the withered hand teaches him Italian. One day, the major becomes angry when Nick mentions he plans to marry, saying that men must not marry because they will inevitably lose their wives. Then he apologizes to Nick, explaining that his young wife has just died.

Thereafter, each time the major returns to the hospital to use the machines, he stares out the window rather than paying any attention to his treatment.

ANALYSIS

Though its narrator is never named, “In Another Country” is widely accepted as one of Hemingway’s series of stories featuring Nick Adams, a largely autobiographical character, as the protagonist. It was based on Hemingway’s own experiences recuperating in a Milanese hospital after being wounded in World War I. This experience also gave rise to A Farewell to Arms.

Though the story begins with Nick’s relieved announcement that he and his fellow wounded soldiers are out of the war and recuperating at a military hospital, it becomes clear that they are in need of more than physical treatment in order to erase the war’s effects. Though the tone of the narration is superficially sanguine and the setting seemingly reassuring, there are strong underlying currents of dislocation, conflict, emptiness, and futility that indicate Nick has been deeply marked with more than shrapnel, and that his recovery cannot be effected by physical therapy.

Nick is alone in a foreign country and feels isolated. He states that people on the street hate officers and yell at him as he walks past. The effect of this harassment is partially offset by Nick’s association with three other officers and the boy with the handkerchief over his face. The five men, brought together by necessity, walk together through the town, and feel a certain friendship born of their status as wounded veterans. Even in this distinguished company, however, Nick is not fully accepted. He feels inferior to the three other officers with medals as they proved their bravery in battle and he received his medal merely for being an American. His citation is, in a sense, hollow, and the Italians subtly shun him for this reason. He feels that he was injured before he could prove his courage, and this gnaws at him.

Yet another source of discontent for Nick is the fact that the hospital, with its newfangled physical therapy machines, doesn’t seem to be doing any of the soldiers much good. Nick explains that the surgeons at the hospital were not able to rebuild satisfactorily the face of the boy with the handkerchief. He came from an old family and his nose was never the same after the wound and surgery, so he had to immigrate to South America after the war.

In addition, Nick strongly suggests the physical therapy machines are ineffective, both for him and for the Italian major with the withered hand. The major repeatedly voices the opinion that the machines are useless. At the end of the story, he hardly pays attention to his treatment, choosing instead to stare out the window of the hospital. The whole reason that Nick remains in Italy and associates with the people described in this story is to receive treatment at the hospital, and Hemingway implies that this treatment is futile.

What Nick and his fellow wounded truly need, many scholars have asserted, is not physical treatment but mental and emotional healing. These remedies are conspicuously absent from the story, and explain Nick’s sense of depression and isolation.

Stylistically, the story makes use of repetition to emphasize the narration. For example, in the first paragraph, which sets the tone of the story using descriptions of the landscape and fauna of Milan, Hemingway states, “It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early.” He repeats this idea with a slightly different emphasis at the end of the paragraph: “It was a cold fall and the wind came down from the mountains.” In the second paragraph, too, he states “We were all at the hospital every afternoon,” and later on he repeats, “Beyond the old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and there we met every afternoon.” This technique not only highlights the ideas Hemingway wants to drive home to the reader, but also gives the narration a sort of cyclical, complete, and self-contained feeling as the same ideas are revisited with slightly different words.

The Jar

by Luigi Pirandello: Summary and Analysis

The Jar is primarily the story of Lollo Zirafa and it is also the story of Zi' Dima and his comic plight. The action and reaction between these two stories define the meaning of the whole. Lollo Zirafa was a farmer at Primosole. That year his olive crop was very good. He thought that the five old jars would not be sufficient to hold all the oil of that harvest, so he placed an order to make a great jar. He paid four florins for the jar. The new jar was placed in the crushing shed for a few days.

 
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)

The harvesting of the olives had begun. Lollo Zirafa had been very angry because he had to supervise the men who were beating down the olives and also a number of other people who were bringing manure on the mules. He would threaten all of the workers. He would rush here and there and look about him like a wolf.

At the end of the third day's work three workers went to the crushing Shed to replace the Iadders and the poles in the shed. They were frightened when they saw the new jar in two pieces. One of them wanted to go away secretly, but the second one called Lollo Zirafa. When the farmer saw the damage, he poured his anger on the workers. He wondered who broke the jar and why. But he was sure that it was not broken when it arrived from the pottery. When the master's anger was spent, the workers suggested that he should call Zi' Dima, who would repair it as good as the new one with his marvelous cement. Zi' Dima arrived at Primosole with his equipment. He was an old man. He looked sad and dissatisfied. He always suspected that people wanted to steal the secret of his cement. He did not allow Lollo Zirafa to see it. He wanted to show him only the result. He examined the jar and the broken piece wearing his spectacles and said that the cement would hold. But Lollo Zirafa did not trust cement alone. He wanted Zi' Dima to use rivets as well. Lollo insisted on using both cement and rivets.

Zi' Dima started to make holes in the jar and in the broken piece. The more he worked, the more angry he became. After boring the holes, he cut rivets with his pliers. Then he called one of the workers to help him. He opened the tin and took the cement out. Then he began to spread it all round the broken piece and along the broken edge of the jar. Taking the pliers and the rivets he went into the jar. He asked the worker to hold the piece up and fit it closely into the jar. He put the rivets into the holes and twisted them with his pliers. In an hour the work was complete and he wanted to come out. But the neck of the jar was narrow. He had ignored the neck because he was lost in his sorrow. He could not come out without breaking the jar. The worker began to laugh. Lollo Zirafa also arrived there. He was surprised to see Zi' Dima imprisoned in the jar. It was a new case. He needed the lawyer's advice. But before he went to the city, he gave Zi' Dima five lire for the repair and also some food. The lawyer could not stop laughing when he heard this story. Then he advised Lollo Zirafa to free Zi' Dima and make him pay for the loss caused by his stupidity. But the value of the jar would be estimated by Zi' Dima himself. After this he hurriedly returned home. He found Zi' Dima happy inside the jar. Lollo Zirafa asked him the present value of the jar. And he said that Zi' Dima could come out if he paid him its present value. Zi' Dima liked to stay there, but he did not like to pay anything. Lollo Zirafa and his lawyer had not foreseen this new situation.

After Lollo had gone into the farmhouse, Zi' Dima sent one of the workers to the tavern to make the necessary purchases. The workers had planned to pass the night there. They drank and danced. Zi' Dima sang. At night Lollo Zirafa was awakened by the noise. He could not control himself. He ran down like a mad bull and pushed the jar down. It started rolling down the slope. It hit an olive tree and broke into pieces and Zi' Dima became the winner because he could come out without paying anything.

The writer’s attitude to the subject matter or tone of the story is humorous and indulgent. The writer makes us laugh at Lollo when people make him lose his temper by shouting out, "Saddle the mule" and later "Go and look up your pocket book." We laugh when Lollo starts crying when his jar is broken. We can't stop laughing like Lollo's lawyer when we find Zi' Dima imprisoned inside the jar. His unwillingness to pay and come out and his readiness to stay inside make us chuckle. The workers pass the night dancing round the jar with Zi' Dima inside and Zi' Dima also sings at the top of his voice seems to be really funny. Finally, when Lollo rushes down like a mad bull and gives the jar a push, it starts rolling down and hits an olive tree. Then Zi' Dima comes out without paying any money. It is also really wonderful.

The interplay of peculiar obsession between the main two characters Lollo Zirafa and Zi'Dime lead towards the conflict between them which finally resulted in nothing but loss. Zi' Dima had a fixed idea that his invention was really valuable. He had invented a marvelous cement. Once it had set, nobody could loosen it even with a hammer. But he seemed always dissatisfied and sad because people never regarded him an inventor. When Lollo asked him to use rivets along with the cement, he was angry and ready to give up the work. He was an obstinate fellow. He insisted on using the cement only. But he had to repair the jar as Lollo ordered him. So he was angry when he was boring the holes in the jar and in the broken piece. He was upset all the time. In his grievance he could not think that he would be confined there. Because of his obsession he had to be angry, stupid and ridiculous.

Similarly, Lollo Zirafa had a fixed idea in his mind that he was always right and other people were wrong. To prove himself right, he would quarrel with other people for every trifle. He was half-ruined because he had to spend large sums of money on court fees and lawyers' bills. In all cases he had to pay the cost of both sides. People would laugh at him for his obsession. He was quite selfish and would bully the weak workers. He would threaten them. When his jar was broken, Zi' Dima wanted to use the cement to repair the damage. But Lollo insisted on using rivets as well. When Zi' Dima was imprisoned in the jar, he gave him his wage and some food just to show that he was right. After he returned from the lawyer, he did not allow Zi' Dima to come out of the jar until he paid the present value of the jar. Like Zi' Dima he was obstinate and bad-tempered.

In conclusion, this story gives the great lesson to the readers that we should not be obsessed and should not try to prove those things which are not right in any aspects. The two characters’ obsession from the story, teach us that we should always be thoughtful, serious and should control our temper.

An Episode of War

Summary 
By: Stephen Crane

‘An Episode of War’ written by Stephen Crane presents the bitter experience of a wounded lieutenant at the war front, barracks and hospital. Crane hasn’t given name to the lieutenant but used generic name in order to show that war is bitter experience not for an individual only but for all soldiers of any nationality, place and time.

While dividing the coffee powder, the Lieutenant was mysteriously shot on his right arm by a bullet. The fellowmen gazed at him with awe and some offered him help. But lieutenant did not accept their help. Soon all his fellowmen had to take their position in the battle field, so he started walking alone towards the military hospital. On the way he met some stragglers who did not care about his wound. In the barrack, several officers came out to see him and started asking several questions. One of them noticed his wound, but without any right treatment or sympathy he tied his wound with a handkerchief. He even scolded him. Lieutenant reached hospital. He found that the hospital was mismanaged- the ambulances were stuck up in the mud and no one cared the wounded soldiers. He met a busy surgeon who behaved him in an indifferent manner. He talked to the lieutenant as if he was talking to a criminal, not to a brave soldier. Though the surgeon told that he would not amputate his hand, he found himself losing his arm. When he went to his home the family members started crying because they did not realize his bravery. Though he was a war hero, he felt himself ashamed.Thus this story shows the gap between appearance and reality. War is glorified but soldiers are treated indifferently. A brave war hero is misbehaved wherever he goes. The wound sets the lieutenant apart from his fellow soldiers. He becomes disillusioned by the war while his fellow soldiers glorify war.

The Use of Force

Summary:
Willams Carlos Williams

“The Use of Force” by William Carlos Williams shows the conflict between a doctor and his patient at one level and doctor and the parents at another level. The conflict between doctor and the patient is physical. But the conflict between doctor and parents is psychological. This story tells that use of force for benevolent purpose is ethical and justifiable.The narrator is a doctor who visits the house of Olson family. Their small daughter Mithalda has had a high fever for three days. Since no medicine worked, her parents called the doctor. Being fearful that the girl may be suffering from diphtheria, the doctor asked her parents if she had sore throat. The parents had not taken a look at her throat because they did not want to hurt her. The doctor asks Mithalda to open her mouth but suddenly the girl attacks his eyes with her nails. The doctor hates the parents when they say that doctor is a nice man and will not hurt her. Then the doctor decides to use force than to leave her die. When the doctor is about to look into her throat, her father suddenly releases her. The parents are restless and fearful that the doctor may harm her child. On next attempt he grasps the child’s head and tries to get the wooden depressor into her mouth. The girl breaks it with her molars. The child’s mouth starts bleeding. Later he forces the spoon back of her teeth and throat. He finds that she has a sore throat and is suffering from diphtheria.

Generally force is unjustifiable, but if it is used with good motives in order to save somebody’s life, it becomes a necessity. Here the basic conflict is between the doctor and the parents of the patient. Doctor uses force because of social responsibility while the parents do not want the use of force. Their love towards their child was about to cause the death of their child. The parents concentrate on the immediate pain without thinking the consequences of the deadly diseases. So the doctor loves the innocent child but finds her parents contemptible.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost, USA (1874 – 1963)

Literal Comprehension: This poem composed by Robert Frost, presents the scene of the speaker’s returning home at dusk in his own house sleigh. He stops to enjoy the peace and solitude of the occasion. The snow is falling softly. The woods are attractive. There is no other human to break the silence. But the horse finds no reason for stopping. It is growing dark. There is no house in sight and miles stretch before them. Reflecting on his horse’s impatience, the speaker agrees that he should move on to keep the commitments he has made and only then, he can sleep.

Interpretation: In this poem, the poet feels the sense of death and life. Dark, evening, solitary place, far from village or society give the sense of death. The poem tells us that we should do our work and journey to go death. The poem tells us that we should do our work and journey to go miles. Similarly, the poem also imparts us that although beauty and peace of the world and our personal burdens may interrupt us from fulfilling our duty, we should move on to fulfill our promises and responsibilities to humanity before we die. In other words, it can be thought of as a statement of man’s everlasting responsibility. A man should walk through the dark and nothingness, but he/she should not be attracted towards temptation.

Critical Thinking: This poem is a symbolic poem. Here the forest, snow etc symbolize the hardship of life. And, the horse sleep means he has many responsibilities and duties in life to do before he dies. This poem is very beautiful one. We can notice the rhyming pattern to mark its beauty. Every third line of each stanza rhymes with other three lines of the following stanzas. In the last stanza, the third line has the same rhyming pattern, which suggests that there will be no new stanza, It shows that simple words make a beautiful poem. It as a symbolic poem compares our life with the events of that evening. Like in our life there are problems, hardship but we are compelled to go ahead without stopping. Here the owner is the god because all things on the earth are created by god and he is the owner of these things but he is unseen and far from here. We have many things to complete before our death.

Assimilation: Generally, life and death poems by romantic poets are definitely interesting and beautifully composed. The analogy between life and the worldly things is very much lifelike. The poem reminds us that our life is very short but we have to do many things before our death. This world of god is very beautiful and we can enjoy a lot because he does nothing us; he has left for us. Like him, I also get a lot of inspiration from this poem. When I feel sad and unable to do anything I read this poem. This poem gives me a lesson of human life and responsibility. It makes us aware about our life and its length as well as our duties to be done before death. Like the poet, I am very much conscious about our life, duties and death.

PHAEDO

:Plato, Greece(428/427BC-348/347BC)

Literal Comprehension: 

 Phaedo is written by Plato. When Socrates was executed, Phaedo was with him. Pahedo describes the details about Socrates death. He says that Socrates was very wise and brave. He perfected to die speaking the truth of live telling a lie. He was accused of misleading the youth and causing them to hold free opinions. So, he was arrested by authority. But he wasn't executed immediately since the sacred mission to Delos hadn't been completed yet. So the execution was delayed until the arrival of the ship of Athens. When the ship came, the day of execution was fixed. One the of execution, many students

his friends and relatives came to meet him into prison. That day had also been passed in the usual Philosophical discussion for a long time. After that he went into another room. After taking bath he looked fresh. Then the prison officer came with a bowl of poison and said that Socrates had to drink it. Making the tears in his eyes, he went away. He was offered poison. Even though, he didn't changes his facial expression. Rather he command his student not to lose their hearts. Then he drank it calmly. He walked for some time. His friend started to weep and he scolded them. Finally he by down. At the end, he wished that a cock should be offered to healing god, Aselepius. In this way the bravest wisest and most upright man died.
Interpretation:

The story is trying to say us about the importance of life and death. In our death is inevitable. Everyone should die sooner or later. So, we should accept death for the sake of truth, justice and prosperity. Death for righteousness never becomes worthless. As in the story Socrates accepts the death calmly for the sake of righteousness. He thinks that dying bravely is more satisfactory than living cowardly. So, he accepts death for the sake of truth and humanity. 

Critical Thinking :

Though the story talks about death for the truth and humanity but there are many ideas which are unacceptable. In this modern age, do we believe in existence of soul and life after death? Do the modern people follow such principles of Socrates? Was Athenian government to cruel that man couldn't have the right to express the thoughts? 

Assimilation:

After reading this lesson I learnt a great moral lesson about the truth and justice. I must be bold to speak the truth. If anything is wrong. Moreover, I was coward and afraid of death. But after reading this story, I have decided to die bravely for the sake of humanity. So, I will always hold truth, Justice and righteousness. 

Piano –

David Herbert Lawrence, England (1885 – 1930)

Literal Comprehension: It was evening. A woman was playing on the piano and singing to the speaker. Her song made him think of his childhood days. When he was a little boy and would sit under the piano. The piano would make a loud unpleasant sound. He would press his mother’s feet. But she would continue playing on the piano without being disturbed and smile at her son. The speaker tried to control himself and remain with the singer in the present time. But the lady’s song was so skilful that it took him again his boyhood days. When the family would sing religious song in their warm sitting room on Sunday evening, the piano played by his mother would guide him and other family members. Now the speaker did not like the song of the woman at all, because it had completed its task by taking him to his passed days with his mother. Therefore it sounded to him like a loud noise. He wanted to forget his present manhood and wish to become a child. After this he wept openly like a child.

Interpretation: This poem may be tying to telling us that music take us back to our happy past. It may also be interpreted to mean that motherly love is superior to sensual love. The attraction of childhood makes us forget our manhood. More over “piano” is the poem about the power of memory.

Critical Thinking: I don’t agree with the speaker because being a man he wipes openly in the presents of a woman. His pride of being man does not allow him to do so. The poet has rightly observed that one can not be satisfy with the presents if he is reminded of happy past days.

Assimilation: This poem has help me to understand myself batter. A nostalgic feeling is equally found in human being. I have also desire to belong to my past. Sometime I think if I were a child’ I would not have to be worried about my present difficult time.

A Painful Case –

James Joyce (1882 – 1941)

Literal comprehension:
Mr. James Duffy, a middle aged bachelor lives an adventure less life in the beginning. But adventure comes when he meets Mrs. Emily Sinico by chance. They see each other at concert and make appointments and finally he visits her regularly at her home. Their friendship grows. He shares his intellectual life with her. She enjoys the break in her solitude (loneliness) but one night she makes the mistake of catching of his hand passionately and pressing it to her cheeks. He leaves her for ever. But four years later, Mr. Duffy reads in the paper of the lady’s death. She has been knocked down by a train in a state of intoxication (drunkenness). Mr. Duffy’s first reaction is one of hatred at such excessive drunkenness and of self-righteousness. On second thoughts however he feels uneasy and after a fit at self-pity realizes the burden of loneliness.

Interpretation:
This story tells as about loveless. It describes two painful cases: a man who denies (say “No”) love and a woman vainly search for it. It also tells us about loneliness. Lonely people fail to communicate with each other. But they realize the value of love and companionship only when it is very late.Critical Thinking:

The writer has presented the extra married love in this story and laughed at the main character because he refused such love. Living in the conservative Nepali society, we agree with James Duffy, not with the writer. How can we accept the love between married woman and a bachelor? How such a moralist did realized his mistake? How could he reel sorry for Mrs. Sinico?

Assimilation:
When I read this story I identified myself with Mrs. Sinico. I do not support her immoral love if she really wanted it. But I support her desire for friendship. Life is really lonely and hard to live if there is no one to love. In such a situation, one must have a friend. Otherwise, one become weak and starts drinking.