FINAL PAPER

This work is presented as a requirement for Trends in American Literature subject

Presented by: Cristian Camilo Gallego Villegas 220710107 And Alex Adrian Montoya Giraldo 220822671

Jorge Hernan Arias Valencia Professor

UNIVERSITY OF CALDAS FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES MODERN LANGUAGES PROGRAM TRENDS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE MANIZALES, JUNE 14/2011

Hills Like White Elephants By Ernest Hemingway 1. The purpose of the trip is going to a big city to make an abortion surgery; Since the man doesnt want to have a child. 2. They are identified as a man and a girl because they are a couple and they are talking all the time each other, and the conversation goes around them. The nickname the man uses to call the girl is Jig. 3. The landscape represents a choice related to the conversation; it is the choice to proceed with the surgery and interrupt the pregnancy. The landscape is the idea about do something wrong. 4. The girl looked across at the hills: This represents the pause she makes in order to think about the decision shes got to make.

-The warm wind blew the bead curtain against the table: it shows that the conversation is being carrying on with serenity. -The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on: it is the hesitation on making the decision to bring the child to this world. - The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees: this shows us the path she was getting through to end up in a situation complicated or easy, to get back the life they used to have. - They sat down at the table and the girl looked across at the hills on the dry side of the valley and the man looked at her and at the table: A little moment to think, the man was looking at her in order to see what was she feeling at the moment of looking at the hills, and when the man looked at the table he tried to guess what was she thinking about the situation. - He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights: He was sort of regretting all the things they had lived before coming to this situation, he was thinking on how life would change with the decision they make.

- The woman came out through the curtains with two glasses of beer and put them down on the damp felt pads: She only wanted to continue the conversation in a calm way. - He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks but could not see the train. Coming back, he walked through the barroom. Where people waiting for the train were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train. He went out through bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him: The two bags could represent the unknown but heavy life he was going to have if the child is born, and when he didnt see the train is because he did not see the future that was waiting for him. 5. She repeated the word please because she was feeling frustration, angry of not being able to change the situation, and hysteria because he was pushing at her to make a quick decision of which she was afraid of. He left her alone at the table because the environment was a hot potato. 6. It is important because the location of the station represents that they are in the way of making an important decision, and the white hills represent the pregnancy as a state of change in their lives. 7. For whom do not know the idiom meaning of white elephant would not be able to find a relation with the story, but it really represents the sort of life they are getting through because is going to be more to lose than to gain (having the baby).

8. It falls to the realistic fiction genre since it is a story that can actually happen and is truth to life. 9. The story develops in the barroom of a rail station. Probably the Ebro River, somewhere between Barcelona and Madrid.

10. An American man - A girl - And the woman who is attending them in the bar. 11. The story began with a description of the view of the river Ebro, and the white hills beyond it, from a train station in Spain. An American man and a girl are having some beers outside the station bar as they were waiting for the train to Barcelona. The woman said to the man that the hills in the distance reminded her of "white elephants." their conversation remains stressed, and soon the man

began trying to convince the woman, Jig, to have an abortion, but he said only, if she wants to. She agreed to have the abortion, but she said that is only agreeing because she was no longer caring about herself. She expressed despair over the situation and she is feeling that all about her life is lost. She became anxious and asked him to stop talking. The woman who had been serving their drinks told them that the train was arriving soon, and the man got up and took their luggage over the train stop. When he got back to Jig, who was sitting at the table outside, she gave him a smile. He asked her if she felt better, and she answered that she never felt bad in the first place. 12. The way the writer wrote the story as a urban experience and the womans opinion is being taking into account.

Feathertop (HAWTHORNE)

1. In the New England of the seventeenth century, the witch Mother Rigby built a scarecrow to protect her garden. She decided to bring the scarecrow to life and send it into town to encourage Polly Gookin, the daughter of Judge Gookin, toward whom Mother Rigby bore an unspecified grudge. Once the stuffed man came alive, Mother Rigby gave him the appearance of a normal human being and a pipe, on which the Scarecrow had to puff to keep himself alive. Judge Gookin met the Scarecrow, whom Mother Rigby had named Feathertop. Feathertop was introduced to Polly, and the two began to fall in love. But when Polly and Feathertop gazed into a bewitched mirror, they saw Feathertop reflected as a scarecrow, not as a man. Polly was terrified and anguished, so the scarecrow came back to Mother Rigby, where he deliberately broke his pipe and collapsed in a lifeless pile. Mother Rigby reflected, and concluded not to take back into the life Feathertop.

2. Hawthorne wanted to show us how the unconscious people act for the thirst of richness and power, without caring how to get that.

Discussion Questions 1. We find similarities in the way they think about life, such as we can work to have the necessary resources to live, enough to enjoy nature and be able to maintain itself without earning so much because most of the people who earn big quantities of money spend it off foolishly. 2. Business controls the thought of people in the way as you get more you can live better than others and can be powerful since if you are more important, you may control most part of the nation and have many hardworking employers that will help you out in the way you just need to sit down and see how things are done. Besides if you want to walk through the woods half day and work the other half, you would be pointed out as a loafer, but if for the contrary you work all day long you would be recognised as a great citizen.

3. He decided to do something else than taking the job, given that the other man was going to hoard more money than him for doing almost anything, while he was going to be a sort of slave for less payment. 4. As he worked for obligation because there was not another way to get a better way of living, because of it he did several jobs but without pleasure and he expressed that at the end of the paper when he says. Do not hire a man who does you work for money but him who does for love if it.

5. Dignity of mans labour was lost because as the business controls peoples thought they work for unworthy jobs in order to get something as a payment. We totally agree with Thoreau because even nowadays we can see that people work in anything they are offered without caring their dignity, although sometimes for necessity. 6. He means that who does the things for love is not wasting his/her time, but to idle or worse is to do things for merely money. Sort of interest.

7. He could be referring to the jobs that would give people the most land, but not the most correct ones. 8. The aim of the labourer should be, not to get his living, to get a good job, but to perform well a certain work something you love doing than what you do not.

9. Thoreau was against making money in an ambitious way, because he wanted a different manner to live with consciousness getting the necessary without abusing from the others.

I Hear America Singing 1. A. The mechanics. b. The carpenter. c. The mason. d. The boatman. e. The deck-hand. f. The shoemaker. g. The hatter. h. The wood-cutter. i. The plowboy. j. The mother. k. The young wife. l. The girl. m. The day. n. The fellows. 2. The songs represent the people who do their jobs with love, enjoying what they were hired for. (This is what Thoreau was advising to the employers in the text from Life without Principle in the last paragraph, Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it...) 3. Indeed it does, because everyone enjoys what they do in life. Does not matter the domain. 4. The poem reflects the faith of democracy when people can have the freedom to choose what they want to do loving it, feeling themselves comfortable. 5. We would add the lawyers, police agents, politicians, bus and taxi drivers, the Red Cross, the civil defence and the people who fight to protect human and animal rights.

Success 1. What understands the best for succeed is the comprehension of the requires sorest need. In our opinion based on the text those who want to succeed the most are the ones who have never felt it, and successful people for the contrary do not used to value it and since it is something common for them they do not recognise it as it is. 2. What he means in the first stanza is that succeed is only sweetest for those who have really fought to achieve it, and in the following stanzas he developed this in the way that there are people who can hold a flag of victory but only few of them may give a correct definition of it, and finally are the strains of triumph what give us the motivation to seek it, feel it even for an instance. 3. Does not matter where we are or which situation we are getting through, we always think about succeed in any way.

Im Nobody! Who Are You? 1. In line 4, they makes reference to the people who like to be recognise by anyone, and admiring bog represents a place where all public characters are involved. Where there is no place for unknown people. 2. By Mr Gallego: Honestly sometimes I think that solitude is quite important in the life of a person, since you can think about anything in a clear and reasonably way, while if you are with company this could be different because your mind and thoughts are not open enough to express and coordinate the ideas that are running on your brain; besides solitude makes us analyze and see the life in a diverse perspective than if we were with anyone else. By Alex: I prefer solitude than a public life because I can interact with my superior being, nature and universe, I may know my soul in a deeper way than what I do living in society. However sometimes its quite important to life toward others in order to comprehend a bit more about our nature, our envy, angry and all the actions I cannot see living isolated. Definitely there is nothing better in this world than being alone when I want to connect myself with the universe and the true dimension, insight me. 3. Im nobody! Who are you? Dont you know yourself either? Then we are two, right? But weve got to keep it in secret Because the others would make us disappear. How sad to be known

No privacy for you For your thoughts Your life is taken away As if you were nobody for them.

Again His Voice Is At The Door 1. My face to justify, He never saw me in this life, I might surprise his eye. We talk in venture and in toss A kind of plummet strain, Each sounding shyly just how deep The others foot had been We walk. I leave my dog behind. A tender thoughtful moon Goes with us just a little way And then we are alone If we pay carefully attention in the first stanza we may notice that this love comes from a past life, just that the man has not realised about it yet, but the woman feel it, that is why she is going to justify with her face the reunion of their love, as long as the conversation goes on, the words have a deep meaning and we could say that the man is corresponding to her feelings and then in the last stanza with the moon as a witness they ended up alone. 2. He never saw me in this life I might surprise his eye For us they might mean that the love comes from a past life, or that it is an arranged first date. 3. I look on all this world containsJust his face-nothing more! In these lines we can realise that the woman looks at everywhere and the only thing she sees is his face. (The man is the centre of her universe). 4. As long as the conversation goes on, the words have a deep meaning and we could say that the man is corresponding to her feelings.

5. They are not alone since she left the dog behind and the only witness is the moon, which goes with them a little way. 6. The price that the author is willing to pay is propose to run away from everything and live alone, almost in solitude to share the eternity as angels do no matter where.