Keeping the “Bargain” The short story “Bargain” by A.B.Guthrie, Jr. contains suspense and irony. The story really keeps readers interested and wanting to read more. The “Bargain” definitely should be used as school material for quite a few reasons like: learning to find clues given by the author to figure things out, paying attention to small details, and teaching students to understand why the story ended the way it did along with the author’s lesson for the story. Finding clues left by the author is essential for figuring out where a story’s headed. Readers can find these clues and use them to create a hypothesis in their own mind of how the story will end. “There was Slade and here was Mr. Baumer with his bills and here I was, just as before, …show more content…
Being able to understand the minds of the characters can help people to predict actions by characters which could lead to a major event in a story. “At the last, at the crossing where I had to leave him, he remembered to say, “Better study, Al.. Is good to know how to read and write and figure.” I guess he felt he had to push me a little, my father being dead” (Bargain pg. 2). As shown in this quote from the story, there’s a detail that many overlook about Al’s father being dead. If one pays attention to all of the details, readers can fully understand that Mr. Baumer feels responsible to stay on Al and be the father figure in his life.This can really be essential to understanding the lesson being …show more content…
At the end of the story, readers learn the shocking twist that very few could see coming. Slade being dead, was it an accident or a sneaky plot? In order to know this answer, people would have to read and pay close attention. “For a flash, and no longer, I saw through the mist in his, eyes-- saw, you might say, that hilly chin repeated there, “Then ye go home, Al. Is good to know how to read” (Bargain pg. 11). As shown is this quote and many more before that, Baumer urges repeatedly that's it’s good to know how to read and write.If Slade could read,does that mean he would still be alive? This story teaches students many things that they need to know and understand about when reading material in
Source #2: Jennifer Hicks An overview of "Paul's Case," in Short Stories for Students, Gale Research, 1997.
As the story went own new clues were uncovered slowly but surely. This book really made you think you knew who the murderer was, but would then send you yet again in another direction. So, the technique used to give you clues was very effective in letting you solve the case on your journey through this murder. Ellen Raskin made is harder to find the clues than to understand the characters. This fact is a good thing because clues are suppose to be hidden, not right out in the open. On page 45 Shin Hoo muttered that the clues were jibberish, for they had to find out what they meant, because it would not be a real mystery if the clues were just given to them. Overall Ellen Raskin did a great job giving clues out to the reader so they could solve the
Objective 2: As the students engage in think, pair, share activities they will refer to the text to complete the assignment. They will learn from each other, receive feedback, and will also have a chance to engage in public speaking while discussing the story. This instructional strategy will encourage the students to reflect about the questions, share their ideas with their partner, fill out a worksheet with 5 questions, and then share their ideas with the rest of the class. Some of the questions on the worksheet will include:
In the introduction of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster sets the scene for the upcoming chapters by pointing out crucial literary devices. Through several references, it is further explained how memories, symbols and patterns help to create broader understandings throughout literary texts. Foster continues by stating that the usage of these devices establishes the advanced readers from “the rest of the crowd” (xxvii).
In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel Meminger, an orphaned little girl living in Nazi Germany, evolves partly through her numerous literary thefts. At her younger brother’s gravesite, she steals her first book, The Grave Digger’s Handbook, which teaches her not only the method to physically bury her brother, but also lets her emotionally bury him and move on. The theft of her next book, The Shoulder Shrug, from a book burning marks the start of Liesel’s awareness and resistance to the Nazi regime. As a story with a Jewish protagonist “who [is] tired of letting life pass him by – what he refer[s] to as the shrugging of the shoulders to the problems and pleasures of a person’s time on earth,” this novel prepares her both for resisting the
What the author is doing is letting the reader foreshadow. A technique which creates suspense, a vital element in any action story. The author then explained what was being hinted at;
“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is a mystery that offers great suspense and interest. This is because of the irony that Poe creates and the setting that makes a dangerous mood and foreshadows the victim’s death. In the beginning of the story, the narrator meets a man named Fortunato at an Italian carnival with the intentions for murdering him in the foreseeable future. The narrator talks with Fortunato saying, “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met,” (1). These first words spoken by the narrator show verbal irony because the narrator is not really saying that they met luckily. In fact, as I stated before, the narrator was planning this encounter, with the plan ending with Fortunato’s death. This proves to be suspenseful for the reader because they want to discover Fortunato’s actual fate while wishing they could tell Fortunato of the
Hicks, Jennifer. "Paul’s Case." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 192-209. Short Stories for Students. Gale. Web. 21 Jan. 2010.
A reason Mr. Baumer is guilty of Slades murder is, Mr. Baumer hired Slade back a little afore christmas time so Slade so he could haul his freight. Mr. Baumer had other plans like poisoning the barrel he was hauling so when Slade imbibed out of it he would die. On page 51 of the short story “Bargain” Al says” then, a month and a moiety afore christmas he hired Slade to haul his freight for him. This shows that Mr. Baumer intentionally hired Slade so he could poison his barrel and kill him. Mr. Baumer kenned Slade could not read and he capitalized on that by superseding the alcohol barrel which Slade customarily hauled and superseded with wood alcohol, a lethal poison kenning Slade would embezzle it and drink it without reading it because he could not read.. Withal Albeit
Wilson, Kathleen, ed. Short Stories for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context and Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories. Vol 2. Michigan: Gale Research, 1997.
Baumer. Mr. Baumer in the first place didn’t favor Slade, at all. This is due to Slade usually stealing from Mr. Baumer, he would always treat himself to his bosses goods along the way. Also, maybe Mr. Baumer yearned to get back at Slade after he injured him. In the story it states, “That Slade. He steal whiskey and call it evaporation. He sneak things from his load. A thief, he is. And too big for me. (372) “From behind us, Dr. King said, “I think you’ve broken this man's hand.” “Lucky for him I didn’t kill him,” Slade answered. (374) “Told me this morning to go out and locate him if I could and bring him in...like Baumer had told me to, and there was a quart of whiskey right there in the store for him if he’d come and get it.” (375) Mr. Baumer was having many problems with Slade, I believe that Baumer wanted Slade to have a taste of his own medicine, and use Slade’s disadvantages against him. Mr. Bauner himself said that Slade was too much for him to handle, also why else would Bauner ask Slade to come back and work for him, denying the fact that Slade would most likely steal liquor from him. All in all, there are two sides to the death of Slade. The different sides of the story are that Slade might have caused his own death, or Mr. Baumer caused his death. After reading this short story and analyzing the case, I have come to a conclusion that Mr. Baumer most likely caused the death of his foe,
Hicks, Jennifer. "Paul’s Case." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 192-209. Short Stories for Students. Gale. Web. 21 Jan. 2010.
Irony can often be found in many literary works. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is masterfully written full of irony. The characters of the short story, Mrs. Mallard, Josephine, Richards, Mr. Brently Mallard, and the doctors all find their way into Chopin’s ironic twists. Chopin embodies various ironies in “The Story of an Hour” through representations of verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony.
... Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 1. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1997. 105-107.
mind and it did not exist. We are told by the narrator that he thought