INSTITUT PENDIDIKAN GURU KAMPUS PEREMPUAN MELAYU MELAKA

PROGRAM IJAZAH SARJANA MUDA PERGURUAN

PENDIDIKAN RENDAH (PPISMP AMBILAN JUN 2019)
COURSEWORK – PROJECT

TSL 1034
LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Name : NUR IFFAH KHAIRINA BINTI MUSTAPHA

NUR NABILAH HUSNA BINTI MOHD ASRI
Index no :
Identity card no : 010627-03-0502
010908-10-0036
Group/Course : TSL 1034
LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
Unit : TESL 2
Lecturer’s name : MADAM JAI SHREE BIPICHANDRA

FOR EXAMINERS USED

SUBMISSION PERCENTAG MARKS ACHIEVED
TASKS
DATE E S1 S2 S3
1.PERSONAL RESPONSE
20
PORTFOLIO
2.POETRY DRAMATISATION 5
3.CRITICAL ANALYSIS ESSAY 25
 JAMES THURBER

Full name James Grover Thurber

Born December 8, 1894
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
Died November 2, 1961 (aged 66)
New York City, U.S.
Resting Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
place
Occupation Humorist
Nationality American
Period 1929–1961
Genre short stories, cartoons, essays
Subject humor, language
Notable My Life and Hard Times
works My World and Welcome to It
"The Catbird Seat"
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
Notable Tony Award for "A Thurber Carnival" (1960)
awards
Spouse Althea Addams Thurber (1925-1935)
Helen Wismer Thurber (1935-1961)

Children Rosemary Thurber

SETTINGS OF THE STORY

In the short story of The Unicorn In The Garden, the settings can be divided into two
which is settings of places and also settings of time.

First of all, the main setting of places took place in the garden. It is where the main

incident happened. In the morning, while the husband were having breakfast, he saw a white

unicorn with a golden horn in the middle of its forehead, was eating roses in the garden. The

second time he saw the unicorn after his wife didn’t believed his story was still in the garden an

now it was browsing among the tulips. He even fed the unicorn with lily. In the end, he went

again to tell his wife about the unicorn, and his wife still didn’t believed him again. So, he went

back to the garden to find the unicorn again, but the unicorn had gone away, so he sat among

the roses and fall asleep.

The next settings of places is in the bedroom. It can be seen where as soon as the

husband saw the unicorn, he went quickly to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and

woke her up to tell his excitement about the unicorn, but her wife didn’t even believed him. She

even turned him down by saying that “unicorn is a mythical beast”. Next, the scene where the

wife called him “a booby” and said that she was going to put him in a booby-hatch also

happened in the bedroom.

The last settings of places is in the kitchen. It is where the husband cook his own

scrambled egg for his breakfast because the wife is still in a deep sleep in their bedroom.

Next, the setting of time happened on a sunny morning. It had been stated in the

beginning of the story before that the man took a breakfast on a sunny morning.

PERSONAL RESPONSES ON THE UNICORN IN THE GARDEN

Based on the short story The Unicorn In The Garden written by James Thurber, the one
thing that make us stick till the end of the story is about the creativity of the author. He was so

brilliant that he had made me fall in love with how he manipulated the story. The story tells

about a bad relationship between a husband and a wife. It is well portrayed when the wife didn’t

do her duty as a wife which was she let her husband made scrambled egg by himself in the

morning. The man who chose to glory in his existence by rising and eating, was blessed with

spectacle of a unicorn in the garden. Without thinking twice, he quickly went upstairs to the

bedroom to tell his wife. The wife thought that the husband is crazy and she even called him a

‘booby’ when he kept on insisting that there was a unicorn with a golden horn in the middle of its

forehead in the garden and it was eating roses and lilies. The wife called him a boobies because

a unicorn is only a mythical beast. So, the wife called for a psychiatrist and the police thinking

that they could brought him to the asylum. But then in the end, the author had twisted the plot of

the story and made the wife is the one who was thought to be crazy and being caught by the

police. In my own preferences, we can see the creativity of the author to attract more readers to

read the story even though the story was short but it completely fascinated the readers with its

unexpected endings.

In my opinion, there is a theme of faded love in their marriage in the short story. It is well

sparkled in their husband and wife conversation. I can conclude that both of them didn’t

understand each other. The wife seemed acting very cold and didn’t even respect him like other

wives should. In the story, the relationship between the husband and wife was not working

anymore. It can be well concluded that the wife had been waiting for a long time just to get rid of

her husband. And when he told her about the story of a unicorn with a golden horn in the middle

of its forehead was eating roses and lily in the garden. She directly knew that it was the right

time for her and she calls the police and a psychiatrist as soon as possible when she was alone.

In my own point of view, the wife is a very disagreeable person. Of course her first reaction

about the unicorn is acceptable, because seeing unicorn is a very rare cases. But I think she
could have a slow talk to her husband after his second story or maybe went out to the garden

to see if the unicorn really exists. She should do that after all because she know him better as

she is the wife and nobody know him very well.For me it is no longer forgivable for her when she

was very eager to get rid of her husband. Even though if the husband is crazy, she should not

do that and never called him a booby. He was her husband after all, the one whom she share

her laughter and her sadness before their own love faded.

Next thing that I can conclude from the story after reading it for a few times, maybe

both of them wanted to get rid of each other. Maybe both of them already feeling uncomfortable

to each other as their age of marriage was old already. From the story, we can see the bad

phase of marriage, and maybe that’s why the husband created the story about the unicorn to

make her wife believed that he was a booby. He probably was planning something brilliant to

send the wife away. As I said before, the wife who was wanting eagerly to get rid of the husband

could not let the story about the unicorn go away easily. But then, this is the part that I can say

that the husband was a very cunning person and always one step forward than his wife. That’s

why he can easily flicked the story about the unicorn upside down as he is the one who played

the major and the biggest role in both plan. Before the wife started her plan, he was already

doing his own intelligent plan.

In a nutshell, I am totally disagree with the story. I would like to stress here that a

compromise in a wedding is a must. If all of the married couple do so, there will be no more

cases such as husband cheating behind their wife, wife not respecting husband or divorce at the

early age of marriage. If I were in the position of the husbands and wives, I will try my best to

save my marriage. It is normal for a marriage couple to go through a phase where they are no

longer affectionate to each other, especially those who had been married for such a long time.

But still they had to try their very best to save their marriage. Imagine that we’d been living with

our husband or wives for almost half of our lives. Could we sent them away just like that or do
you have a heart to see your partner are now having fun with someone else and not you

anymore? Well, absolutely a big NO for me. So, as a husband and wife, we should think

maturely and wisely before we make any harsh decision so that we can save our marriage.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
 Full name William wordsworth
Born 7 April 1770
Cockermouth, Comberland, England
Died 23 April 1850 (aged 80)
Rydal , Westmorland , England
Resting St Oswold’s Church
place
Occupation Poet
Period of 6 April 1843 - 23 April 1850
working
Spouse Mary Hutchinson
Isabelle Curwen
Helen Ross
Mary Ann Dolan
Mary Gamble
Children Total 12 children

  “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 
DAFFODILS
SETTINGS
 PERSONAL RESPONSES ON POEM I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

Based on a poem that I have studied, I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud by William

Wordsworth, this is one of poems that discloses the relationship between nature and human
beings: how nature can affect one’s emotion and behavior with its motion and sound.

In the first stanza, I can assume that the poet felt too lonely based on how he described
his feeling when he passed through the hills and valleys. “Wandered” in this poem means that
feeling purposeless and directionless in general. As in, sometimes we have question like, what’s
the meaning of life actually? And what’s the point of being here in this world? I agree with this
statement as I can relate to the poet because sometimes I keep wandering around and
wondering why am I alive and being curious about it especially when I’m madly in sorrow and
mopey. But then, I believe that actually every living things or God’s creation in this world have
their own purpose even the mosquitoes which we assume that useless and got no point of being
exist in this world, have its own reason to exist.

“When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils;

Then thousand I saw at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

. At first, by reading these lines, I feel kind of peaceful, lively and spirited. In my opinion,
these lines tell us that the poet begins to feel happy and suddenly forget about his loneliness.
What does the daffodils symbolize? I think that daffodils symbolize a hope for cure and some
memories of “precious” moments that we can’t buy. Probably, the poet have a sweet memories
in his life that can help him to get rid of his loneliness away by thinking about it. The same thing
goes to me, I have a lot of exquisite moments in my life. In order to forget about those obstacles
that I need to go through in my life, I will flashback all of the beautiful moments so that I will be
as happy as a king to be calm for a second and immediately forget about it.

When the waves ‘danced” and daffodils’ out- did the sparkling waves in glee ,this continues
to give me a sense of joy and peace combined with lively action. When I close my eyes and
start to imagine the spectacular scenery of waves and daffodils, I feel kind of glee and gay just
like the poet feel about it. In this context, it shows the relationship between humans and nature.
Sometimes, we think that a human being can understand us and we can get a peaceful from
them as they will help us to overcome our problems but they can’t. However, the beautiful
nature can do that for us. For your information, usually when I’m in stress or being ‘in a hot
soup”, I will go to the beach near to my house just to see the magnificent view as it helps me to
let my hair down and automatically the troubles will not running through my mind anymore. It’s
like giving a sign and warn to my matters to “out of my mind!”, “What wealth the show to me
had brought”, it shows that the mere sight the golden daffodils somehow enriched his life and
brought wealth to him. This give me an idea that some things are too precious and worth more
than money and worldly goods that we can’t buy with a single cent for it even all, such as joy,
happiness and peaceful in our lives.

Taking everything into account, we should love the nature as it gives a lot of benefits for us
and we depend to it in this life. As for example, we even need an oxygen from trees and we also
express our feelings to the nature because they teach us how to feel calm and relax although
being surrounded with misery. So, we can’t deny that nature is the most beautiful God’s creation
to be existed in this world for us.
 CITATION

REFERENCES

 James Thurber (14 August 2019),Retrieved from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thurber

 James Thurber Biography,Life,Interesting facts,Retrieved from

www.notablebiographies.com/St-Tr/Thurber-James.html

 I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud analysis,(11 November 2008)Retrieved from

https://www.shmoop.com/wandered-lonely-cloud-daffodils/analysis.html

 The Unicorn In The Garden,(6 February 2019) Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unicorn_in_the_Garden

 The unicorn in the garden sample ,Retrieved from:

http://www.gymnasiumsteglitz.de/englisch-online/klasse11/unicorn.htm