"'I'm going out of my mind,' said Zoё to her younger sister, Evan, in Manhattan." (pg. 353)
I used this quote because I thought it described Zoё perfectly. She is a very odd individual who is eccentric, insecure, selfish, and sarcastic. She randomly tells jokes that aren't really funny to most people, but she finds them hilarious. Zoё has a very bad taste in men as the past three men having been very boring. Someone in my small group today talked about how she is dying slowly internally. I thought this was a pretty accurate description because she acts like it and seems really awkward. When she feels uncomfortable, she uses humor as a defense mechanism. The title is something I don't understand. I know it comes from one of her jokes, but I don't find it funny at all. If someone asks for a second opinion, why would you say that they are ugly?
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Drunkard
"I found if I stood on tiptoe I could just reach Father's glass, and the idea occurred to me that it would be interesting to know what the contents were like. He had his back to it and wouldn't notice. I took down the glass and sipped cautiously." (pg. 347)
This short story was very interesting. Humor was definitely found in the story when the drunk child was yelling at the neighbors because they were laughing at him. I think there are undertones of pathos in the story because the father wants people to feel sorry for him. He was the one who had to take the drunk child home and have all the neighbors laugh at him. I saw the father as selfish though because he only cared about his own reputation. I also feel like pathos for the child is felt because his father is an alcoholic who doesn't pay attention to him. One irony in the story is that the father gets angry at the child for becoming drunk when really it is his fault for not watching his drink. The four perspectives of the boy's drunkenness are the people at the bar, his father, the neighbors, and his mother. The people at the bar didn't care about the boy; they just wanted him out of the bar because he wasn't supposed to be there. His father just wanted to get him home. The neighbors found it funny, and the mother thought it was the father's fault. A main point of this story was to show that the boy actually helped the father realize that he drank too much, and he should stop before the habit carries over to his kids.
This short story was very interesting. Humor was definitely found in the story when the drunk child was yelling at the neighbors because they were laughing at him. I think there are undertones of pathos in the story because the father wants people to feel sorry for him. He was the one who had to take the drunk child home and have all the neighbors laugh at him. I saw the father as selfish though because he only cared about his own reputation. I also feel like pathos for the child is felt because his father is an alcoholic who doesn't pay attention to him. One irony in the story is that the father gets angry at the child for becoming drunk when really it is his fault for not watching his drink. The four perspectives of the boy's drunkenness are the people at the bar, his father, the neighbors, and his mother. The people at the bar didn't care about the boy; they just wanted him out of the bar because he wasn't supposed to be there. His father just wanted to get him home. The neighbors found it funny, and the mother thought it was the father's fault. A main point of this story was to show that the boy actually helped the father realize that he drank too much, and he should stop before the habit carries over to his kids.
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