Republic of the Philippines

ILOILO STATE COLLEGE OF FISHERIES

DUMANGAS CAMPUS
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Dumangas, Iloilo Reg. No. 78Q13035

MAJOR 8- LITERARY CRITICISM

First Semester SY 2018-2019
Stephanie Arsenio Dr. Etchel B. Palma
Discussant Professor
STORIES WITH LITERARY CRITICISM

THE NECKLACE

The Necklace”, by Guy de Maupassant, is an excellent short

story about discontentment. The story is about a woman, named
Mathilide, who wanted things she couldn’t have because she did
not have the money to buy them. She was invited to a ball, so
she had to buy a “proper” dress. Then she also said she needed a
necklace so she went to her friend to borrow one. She borrowed
an expensive diamond necklace and went to the ball, but she lost
it. She then had to buy a new identical one making them in debt
and poor. Years later she finds out that the necklace she
borrowed was a fake and that they bought a real one. If she
never had been discontent with what she had she would have never
borrowed the necklace and lost it. Conflict and Situational
Irony helped to convey Maupassant’s theme of “Being discontent
can bring you problems.”

Conflict made the theme able to be represented throughout the

short story. In the short story it states, “She suffered
intensely, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every
luxury” (pg.1). This is an example of internal conflict because
it involves with feelings. Mathilide wanted things that she
couldn’t have. It says she suffered, so when she wanted
luxurious things it caused her pain. Her discontentment caused
her to take actions later in the story that caused her to make
problems. This supported the theme of discontentment. Another
example of conflict is Mathilide did not have a dress to wear to
the ball (pg.2). She did not have a “proper” dress, so she “had”
to spend money on a new dress. This is both external and
internal conflict because clothes are an appearance, and she
also felt inside that she needed a better dress. When they spent
the money for the dress it was hard because they have financial
trouble. She was discontent of the dress she had, so she bought
a new and more expensive one. The internal and external
conflicts of the short story supported the theme by making
problems from discontentment.

Situational Irony made the story have a plot twist which

affected the theme. In the short story Mathilide said, “I-I-I
have not Mme. Forester’s diamond necklace” (pg.4). This is an
example of situational irony because it means she lost the
necklace. The situation this put them in was ironic because she
was just having fun at the ball and now she lost a very
expensive necklace. Her being discontent caused her to borrow
the necklace which she lost. Another example was that the
necklace was a fake and worth barely anything (pg.5). They had
gone into debt for nothing. The necklace was a fake, so now Mme.
Forester has a real, expensive necklace that Mathilide had to
buy. It was a false necklace that she lost. The irony is that
they bought a necklace that was a real one when they only lost a
fake one. Being discontent with their situation caused them to
replace the fake necklace with a real one for a lot more money.
The situational irony showed the problems that came from
discontentment.

Guy de Maupassant put together a well written short story.

He used two effective literary terms. He used conflict to
support the plot and situational irony to make plot twists that
gave the story dynamics. He needed to use these because he had
to give a backbone to the story which is the theme. There were
also more literary terms used in this story, but these two were
the most prevalent. Guy de Maupassant used situational irony and
conflict to represent theme of discontentment.
 THE STORY OF AN HOUR

"The Story of an Hour" is a short story in which Kate

Chopin, the author, presents an often unheard of view of
marriage. Mrs. Louise Mallard, Chopin's main character,
experiences the exhilaration of freedom rather than the
desolation of loneliness after she learns of her husband's
death. Later, when Mrs. Mallard learns that her husband,
Brently, still lives, she know that all hope of freedom is gone.
The crushing disappointment kills Mrs. Mallard. Published in the
late eighteen hundreds, the oppressive nature of marriage in
"The Story of an Hour" may well be a reflection of, though not
exclusive to, that era.

Though Chopin relates Mrs. Mallard's story, she does not

do so in first person. Chopin reveals the story through a
narrator's voice. The narrator is not simply an observer,
however. The narrator knows, for example, that Mrs. Mallard, for
the most part, did not love her husband (paragraph 15). It is
obvious that the narrator knows more than can be physically
observed. Chopin, however, never tells the reader what Mrs.
Mallard is feeling. Instead, the reader must look into Mrs.
Mallard's actions and words in order to understand what Mrs.
Mallard feels.

Mrs. Mallard is held back in her marriage. The lines of

her face "bespoke repression" (paragraph 8). When Mrs. Mallard
learns of her husband's death, she knows that there will "be no
powerful will bending her" (paragraph 14). There will be no
husband who believes he has the "right to impose a private will
upon a fellow creature" (paragraph 14). Mrs. Mallard
acknowledges that her husband loved her. Brently had only ever
looked at Mrs. Mallard with love (paragraph 13). This
information implies to the reader that Brently is not a bad man;
he simply believes that it is his right, and perhaps his
obligation as a husband, to direct Mrs. Mallard in everything
she does. When Mrs. Mallard learns of her husband's death, she
realizes that he will no longer be there to repress her; there
will be no one, save her, to direct her will. Then, in a
crushing blow, everything she has just realized and begun to
look forward to is stolen from her grasp.
 Upon learning of her husband's death, Mrs. Mallard
realizes that she is now free. She repeats the words "Free,
free, free!" (paragraph 11) and feels her body come alive. Her
pulse beats faster; her blood runs warmer; her eyes brighten
(paragraph 11). Mrs. Mallard knows that from now on she can live
for herself and no one else, that "all sort of days…would be her
own" (paragraph 19). Mrs. Mallard sees the chance to live out
the rest of her days for herself; she sees the opportunity to be
her own person. Mrs. Mallard now looks forward to a long life.
She had previously dreaded the years ahead spent under the thumb
of her husband (paragraph 19). Now, though, Mrs. Mallard is
someone who has much to look forward to and many joys to
appreciate. This opportunity is taken from her just as her
chance of freedom is taken from her when she learns that Brently
still lives. When Mrs. Mallard sees Brently walk through the
front door, the disappointment and the devastation of loss that
she suffers cause her heart to fail.

When Mrs. Mallard walks down the stairs with her sister,
she has triumph in her eyes (paragraph 20). The front door
opens, however, and Brently walks in. What effect does this have
on Mrs. Mallard? It kills her. Mrs. Mallard has, in a very short
time, realized the world is a wonderful place and that she can
live in it anyway she chooses. She gains freedom, independence,
individuality, and a whole host of things to look forward to in
life. When Brently walks in the door, though, Mrs. Mallard knows
that she will have to spend the rest of her life as no more than
his wife does, just as she had been. She knows that she will
never be free. This is too much for Mrs. Mallard to handle. Life
had been grim before, with her looking forward to the years
ahead "with a shudder" (paragraph 19). Now that Mrs. Mallard has
tasted what life might have been like without her husband, the
idea of resuming her former life is unbearably grim. When Mrs.
Mallard sees that her husband still lives, she dies, killed by
the disappointment of losing everything she so recently thought
she had gained.

Mrs. Louise Mallard experiences the exhilaration of freedom

after she learns of her husband's death in "The Story of an
Hour". Later, when Mrs. Mallard learns that her husband still
lives, she know that all hope of freedom is gone. The crushing
disappointment kills her. The oppressive nature of marriage in
"The Story of an Hour" may well be a reflection of, though not
exclusive to the late eighteen hundreds.

GONE WITH THE WIND

Gone with the Wind, one of the best-selling novels of all

time, is the story of the beautiful, headstrong daughter of a
wealthy plantation owner who, when reduced to poverty and
hardship in the wake of Union general William Tecumseh Sherman’s
destruction of the countryside, uses her femininity to regain
her lost wealth. Having at last attained this goal, she is
unable to hold the one man she really loves.

A historical romance of prodigious proportions, this first

novel by a then-unknown author went through twelve printings
within two months of publication. Its 1,037 pages have
enthralled millions, and the sales in a single year exceeded two
million copies. The novel has been translated into more than two
dozen languages and, even after many years, sales have continued
at a pace brisk enough to please any publisher. The motion
picture version lives up to Hollywood’s superlatives.

The unprecedented success of Margaret Mitchell’s only novel

may be attributed to a combination of the author’s style—a
sustained narrative power combined with remarkable character
delineation—and the universality of her subject: the struggle
for survival when the life to which one is accustomed is
abruptly swept away. In spite of the fast-moving narrative, one
is aware of this underlying thread.

Perhaps the most lasting impression one gets from the novel,
however, is the skill with which Mitchell handles her
characterizations. Scarlett O’Hara is, without question, one of
the most memorable characters in fiction. So lifelike did she
become in the public mind that the producers of the motion
picture preferred not to risk an established actress in the role
and thus be accused of miscasting. For this reason, among others
(including the reaping of enormous publicity in the “search for
Scarlett”), Vivien Leigh was chosen.

The story of Scarlett alone would be reason enough for a

best seller; many books have achieved such fame on far less.
This daughter of Irish temper and French sensibilities displays
emotions, many of them unladylike, that grip the reader. One
follows her intense, futile love for Ashley Wilkes, her spiteful
marriage to Charles Hamilton, her opportunistic stealing of her
sister’s fiancé, Frank Kennedy, and her grasping arrangement of
convenience with Rhett Butler. One is sometimes appalled at her
callous use of her sex to gain her ends; one looks in vain for
some sign of lofty ideals in this woman; and yet, in spite of
all of this, one finds laudable her will to survive and her
contempt for her conquerors. She is a feminist and a romantic
heroine at the same time. Those who would disparage her do so at
the risk of belittling themselves, as envious schoolchildren
might in making fun of the most popular girl in the school.

Three other characters stand out, admirably drawn but not

quite inspiring the amount of interest created by Scarlett.
Rhett Butler, dissolute son of Charleston blue bloods, is a
cynical, materialistic blockade runner who consorts openly with
the enemy and scoffs at patriotic ideals. Forceful and
masculine, he is accustomed to taking what he wants. His one
unfulfilled desire is the love of Scarlett, and this frustration
finally breaks his spirit. When at last, after several years of
unhappy marriage, he gains her love as Ashley fails her, Rhett,
a bitter, fleshy drinker, has already reached his decision to
leave her.

Ashley, the weak-willed object of Scarlett’s misguided

passion, depicts the impractical idealist dependent on a
stronger will to solve life’s problems for him. When Scarlett
observes his unstable reaction to his wife’s death, she is
finally able to see him as he really is. Shorn of his cavalier
manners and the aura of courtly romance she has bestowed upon
him, he becomes an ineffectual weakling in her eyes, and the
sterility of her love for him is at last apparent.

Melanie, in a way a winner despite her death at the end of

the novel, finds happiness and tranquility in her devotion to
her insecure husband. Reticent, ladylike, saccharine, but
intellectually attuned to Ashley, there is never any question
that she, not Scarlett, should be Ashley’s wife.

High-spirited Scarlett is sixteen years old when the Civil

War begins. She fancies herself in love with Ashley, the
sensitive, sophisticated son at a neighboring plantation, but he
does not acknowledge her love. Upon the announcement of his
engagement to his soft-spoken cousin Melanie Hamilton, Scarlett
impetuously marries Melanie’s brother Charles, to that surprised
young man’s pride and delight. Less than a year later, Scarlett
is a war widow and an unwilling mother. Leaving her father’s
plantation, Tara, in the middle of a war, Scarlett travels to
Atlanta to stay with her dead husband’s relatives. Later, as
Atlanta is besieged by Sherman’s troops, Scarlett returns home
to Tara, crossing the battle lines at night in a wagon provided
by Rhett. With her are Melanie and Ashley’s day-old son, whom
Scarlett delivered as guns sounded in the distance. She returns
to find her home in ruins and her family nearly destroyed. These
events shape the character of Scarlett, and they explain the
hardness and avarice that prompt many of her actions. For
example, she is determined to hold on to Tara, and when the
carpetbaggers arbitrarily levy an extra three-hundred-dollar
tax, with the expectation of taking over the property for unpaid
taxes, Scarlett unhesitatingly marries store owner Frank
Kennedy, who is engaged to her sister Suellen. He dutifully pays
the three-hundred-dollar tax.

Mitchell’s art makes such reprehensible acts seem normal

under the circumstances, for the author brings readers along the
same harsh road Scarlett has traveled. Once Scarlett learns the
law of war, her native abilities come into their own. Borrowing
money from Rhett, she buys and successfully operates a sawmill
and soon is financially secure. When Frank is killed by
occupation troops, she marries Rhett, who has amassed half a
million dollars during the war as a blockade runner. Even the
birth of a child, Bonnie Blue, does not bring happiness to this
union, however, because of the love for Ashley to
which Scarlett absurdly clings. Rhett, always jealous of her
contrary emotion, is unable to cope. Ironically, Rhett overcomes
his love for Scarlett just as she discovers that it is he, not
Ashley, whom she loves. When she tries to tell him this, Rhett
announces brusquely that she is too late, that he is leaving her
forever. There is no mistaking the finality of his words, but,
characteristically, Scarlett, the self-confident schemer, does
not accept them as such. Gone with the Wind is not a happy book.
There are flicks of humor, but, for the most part, a deadly
seriousness pervades the novel, and in the end the callous,
grasping cynicism of the leading characters mocks them and,
properly, leaves them with an empty loneliness. Gone with the
Wind will remain a memorable work of literature not only because
Scarlett O’Hara embodies some of the most admirable, if not
respectable, qualities of human behavior but also because it
chronicles a period and culture of American history that have
become mythic in their proportions.

Upon its publication in 1936, Gone with the Wind became an

immediate best-seller. Before it even hit the bookstores, it was
named as a Book of the Month main selection. In six months it
sold a record-breaking one million copies and was well on its
way to becoming the best-selling novel in history. To date it
has outsold every other book except the Bible. The fervor it
created extended to Mitchell herself, who quickly found that she
could not leave home without fans begging her for autographs.
Newspaper publishers and magazine editors offered her amazing
sums for anything she would care to write for them. Hundreds of
fan letters arrived at her home each day and her phone rang off
the hook. Gone with the Wind was a national phenomenon.

Early reviews of the work spanned a wide range of opinions,

but most were favorable. Many critics praised Mitchell for her
attention to historical detail, her vivid characterization, and
ear for dialogue. She was lauded as a gifted storyteller who
held her readers spellbound. Edwin Granberry of the New York
Sun compared her talent to that of the great Russian and English
panoramic novelists, a comparison that other reviewers would
draw as well. Herschell Brickell of the New York Post declared
it the best novel written about the Civil War and its aftermath;
furthermore, he predicted that Gone with the Windwould find a
permanent place in American literature.

FOOTNOTE TO YOUTH

1. Who is/are the character/s in the story?

The lead character in this story is Dodong, A young
seventeen year old farmer which his mind could not properly
process
what’s right from wrong surrounding on his upcoming marriage to
Teang
. Teang is Dodong’s bride to be, a short girl with straight
glossy hair and who is also as young as he.
Dodong’s Parents,His Father who is also a farmer albeit more
silent than his own son he also has tooth decay and His Mother
who does all of the household work. Blas who is Dodong’s
curious first son and Lucio the supposed suitor of Teang. Other
characters include
the Carabao, the worm and Dodong’s other six children.

2. How were the characters characterized?

They were usually characterized surrounding the perspective
of Dodong who tries to analyze the feelings of the people around
him. Dodong was characterized as a hard-Working farmer but also
couldn’t properly distinguish right from wrong. Dodong’s
eagerness and forcefulness to marry is an example of how his
decision making skills haven’t come yet into full bloom. Teang
was noted to be brown,
pretty, and emotional she was said to secretly have a second
suitor, the older Lucio but instead chose Dodong due to his
younger age. The Father was characterized to be silent, hard
working, and afraid to visit the dentist due to his tooth decay.
The Mother was noted to be weak but would strive to support her
family. Blas is characterized under his development within the
story from an innocent baby to an eighteen year old teenager.
Animals were also characterized, the carabao was referenced to
be loyal and dumb and the worm was noted to be annoying.
Characterization of the story also relates to aging where time
was fast paced and the environment for the characters which was
the province also helps serves for the characters physical
struggles and emotional dispositions.
3. If you were the author the author, how would you revise the
story? Would you change the descriptions given? If Yes or No.
Explain.
No, I would not revise the story. Why? Well if I was the
author I would be already happy by making a relatable story that
has meaning such as Footnotes to youth which shows that
teenagers should make second decisions in life before planning
to do the desired objective. If I would change any single
description in the story then I would give more importance to
the animals, sure they can be useless but they can make
statements or references to the modern day life. I shall make
the story as intact as possible the animals won’t have
interference within the story as a whole but they can help
relate to the topic/ theme of the story.
4.Are the characters in the story the same as the people today?
Explain.
Yes definitely, Dodong, Teang, and Blas showed that we
should be aware of our decisions and to help consult our parents
due to the situations they are into now. I noticed that that
there has been an increase of teenage pregnancies and this
should be taken into action, since this story is entitled
‘Footnote to Youth’ due to the worm squirming on the foot of
Dodong it shows that sometimes life can be annoying and when
shaking that annoyance of by solving problems it can help in
your development as a whole. Yet how did the worm reach his
foot? I could presume that Dodong was careless. Dodong’s parents
showed skepticism to Dodong as their child such as some parents,
if they couldn’t find their child they would wonder what
happened to them and on Dodong’s part like most of us teens,we
would worry about being busted. Teang also is a reference to
heartbreak when choosing someone be sure you are in a mature
enough age and you analyze his/her flaws many people right now
are just curious and don’t take into consideration what would
happen next. The character of Lucio showed that due to having an
appropriate age you could have enough understanding to discern
from what’s right and what’s wrong,Jose references Lucio to the
readers about how Older people can have better decision making
abilities because for people as young as Dodong their brain is
still developing. Therefore, I conclude, that Jose intended to
relate the characters of his story to his own environment to
prove that he could show the teenagers right now to not marry at
a young age.
5. How do you think the author came up with that story?
He must have come up with that story because of the
environment he was experiencing that time. Jose must have
analyzed the increase of poverty (the 7 children of Dodong and
Teang), teenage marriage and its outcome (The decisions of
teenagers in their late stages and how Teang worn out due to
both of them unaware of what would happen afterwards), and
carelessness (Dodong avoiding eye contact and what would happen
from what he has done and letting Blas marry). He must want to
address that story to the teens and it’s noteworthy because
since we are fourth years right now and the increase of peer
pressure from having a girlfriend/boyfriend. It was entitled a
Footnote to the youth because it was for us teenagers to rethink
our decisions.