In Katherine Brush's short story, The Birthday Party, she writes about a special occasion planned by a wife dedicated for the husband that turned into a soured night through the use of atmosphere, antecedent, and diction to achieve her purpose of a great night going wrong.
Brush uses atmosphere to achieve her purpose of setting a typical, emotional nod at the beginning, but slowly transitioning to a sour mood that could be felt. Brush describes, "...nothing conspicuous about them, nothing particularly noticeable...when it suddenly became obvious...an Occasion...violin-and-piano orchestra played "Happy...the wife beamed with shy pride..." Katherine Brush set the mood to begin with a low-profiled mood then slowly transition to a festive mood
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Brush writes, "...birthday cake, with one pink candle burning in the center. The headwaiter brought it in and placed it before the husband...and the wife beamed with shy pride over her little surprise..." Through the use of antecedent, Brush creates a "safe-space" or "comfort zone" so the readers can enjoy and pay attention to the actual reading.
On the other hand, Brush uses diction to incorporate her own feelings to the readers of the situation. Brush dictates, "...couple in their late thirties, and they looked mistakably married...The man had a round, self-satisfied face, with glasses on it..." Brush's particular word choice contributes to the lack of education or limited education woman had during these times. In the end, even though Brush's diction is simple it still captures the attention of readers of a made-up event or an actual event that occurred to a woman.
Brush uses atmosphere, antecedent, and diction throughout the short story, The Birthday Party, to get across to the viewers the events that could happen a certain way everybody hopes, but then have something completely unexpected
In order to convey her message, Brush implements the use of informal and simplistic diction. For example, she describes the couple as "unmistakably married". She continues by saying "small but glossy birthday cake" and many others. Her word choice helps describe a joyous moment. A moment where a loving wife surprises her husband with a birthday cake. However, later in the story we find that the joyous moment turns into a melancholy incident. Through her use of diction, she is able to create an image
The narrator is confined to a room with strange wall-paper. This odd wall-paper seems to symbolize the complexity and confusion in her life. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard must also deal with conflict as she must deal with the death of her spouse. At first there is grief, but then there is the recognition that she will be free. The institute of marriage ties the two women of these two short stories together. Like typical young women of the late 19th century, they were married, and during the course of their lives, they were expected to stay married. Unlike today where divorce is commonplace, marriage was a very holy bond and divorce was taboo. This tight bond of marriage caused tension in these two characters. Their personal freedom was severely restricted. For Mrs. Mallard, marriage was a curse to be reckoned with. She knew inside that her marriage was wrong, but she could not express her feelings openly. Her husband was not a bad man, but he was in the way. After hearing about her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard comments, “now there would be no powerful will bending her in that blind persistence with which men … believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature” (Chopin 72), Her husband definitely was a thorn in her
So far in this story the mood is very intense as many arguments and high stress situations have occurred. One of these high stress situations takes place during the Hershbergers’ family dinner:
Fitzgerald effectively uses metaphors to entice the reader by creating visuals of scenes through descriptions, emotions, and feelings. When Nick describes the climax of the party, he portrays the air as “alive with chatter and laughter,” and that “laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality,
At the beginning of the story, in plot “A”, John and Mary are introduced as a stereotypical happy couple with stereotypically happy lives of middle class folks. Words like “stimulating” and “challenging” are used repetitiously to describe events in thei...
The use of diction is used when Mrs. Mallard changes from the grief of her husband’s loss to that excitement when she relies
The narrator spends her young childhood drunk with love for her mother. She happily sleeps late on school holidays, follows her mother ar...
In two passages of Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, she describes a party at 124. Everyone become so full from the food that flows endlessly that they become angry at Baby Suggs extravagance. Baby Suggs thinks it was this overfullness that caused them all to not notice the coming of Schoolteacher and his sons. The narrator of one passage is Stamp Paid and he recounts to Paul D. what happened at the party – what they ate and how it made everyone feel.
In a subtle way, Brush also makes the wife’s actions selfish. Even though her husband was wrong to react in the way that he did, she was also selfish in her actions. Clearly, her husband has a shy personality because “he was hotly embarrassed” (13) in front of “such few people as there were in the restaurant” (11). Using a couple of this age (“late thirties” (1)), Brush asserts that the wife should have known her husband’s preferences and been sensitive to them. The author also uses the seemingly opposite descriptions the couple: “There was nothing conspicuous about them” (5) and the “big hat” (4) of the woman. The big hat reveals the wife’s desire to be noticed.
Most of us can easily picture a typical child's party, loud and hyper boys running about, noise and fun and screaming kids and chaos, but this party seems to be viewed differently by the mother. It is a more serious and quiet event. She sees the boys as "short men" gathering in the living room, not as children having fun. The children seems subdued to us, with "hands in pockets". It is almost as if they are waiting, as the readers are, for something of imp...
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" uses the third-person dramatic point of view to tell a story about an un-named village that celebrates a wicked, annual event. The narrator in the story gives many small details of the lottery taking place, but leaves the most crucial and chilling detail until the end: the winner of the lottery is stoned to death by the other villagers. The use of the third-person point of view, with just a few cases of third-person omniscient thrown in, is an effective way of telling this ironic tale, both because the narrator's reporter-like blandness parallels the villagers' apparent apathy to the lottery, and because it helps build to the surprise ending by giving away bits of information to the reader through the actions and discussions of the villagers without giving away the final twist.
The bleak tone of this story takes a particularly sad and disturbing tinge when the wife illustrates a scene from early on in her marriage where she tries to get her husband to satisfy her desire and provide her with mutual satisfaction, only to have him rebuke and reprimand her. In fact, the husband responds in such a particularly brusque and hysterical manner that the reader can see how traumatized the wife would have been at ...
The ballroom at the Yacht Club was decorated with deep red roses and black ribbons, the perfect combination of colors for a winter wedding. Long, tall windows covered the walls to let all the guests experience the view of the nearby ocean. Each round table was decorated with a long black underskirt cloth, a shorter bright white tablecloth, with each placemat arranged around a beautiful vase full of red roses. The wooden dance floor, full of chairs for the ceremony, took up half of the room, while the other half was occupied with 15 round tables and one rectangular Head Table. As the guests walked up the stairs to our ballroom, they would see a guest book that was decorated with pictures and captions and ready for their signatures.
Ann Beattie writes her short story “The Lawn Party” as a male narrator. Because men tend to be less emotional than women are, this makes the narrator’s point of view more believable. Although this is a story that moves from one agonizing situation to another, the lack of human emotion leaves one with a somewhat empty feeling. One could infer that the author removed all sensitivity from the narrator in an attempt to make him appear aloof, indifferent, and even somewhat callous.
In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. The relief, however, is short lived. The shock of seeing him alive is too much for her bear and she dies. The meaning of life and death take on opposite meaning for Mrs. Mallard in her marriage because she lacked the courage to stand up for herself.