Narrator's Persona

The story’s narrator has a significant impact on how we perceive the story’s characters. Describe the persona of the narrator in “Evacuation Order No. 19.” Analyze the effect of the narrator on readers. Use details from the story to explain your answer.

The persona of the narrator of the short story "Evacuation Order No. 19" can be described as reserved, punctual, informative, and formal. The narrator does not betray bias or feeling towards the subject and story at hand; the author of the story tries her best to keep the narrator formal and, as a result, neutral. Feelings of pain and discontent are not betrayed when it is revealed that the sign had ordered Mrs. Hiyashi to leave; emotional trauma or sadness is not revealed when White Dog is killed. The author utilizes a third-person limited point of view focusing primarily on Mrs. Hiyashi; as a result, not much emotion of the characters is revealed for the most part except for her feelings. However, because the narrator is perspective and punctual, he or she still betrays clues as to what the characters are feeling and what feelings the narrator (or the author, through the narrator) may be possessing. For instance, when White Dog is killed by Mrs. Hiyashi, it is says that she exhaled a large breath of air. By giving this minute detail, we can infer her true feelings about the mercy kill. Going along these lines, a large influence the narrator has on the readers is that he or she does not so easily release information pertaining to the characters and the story.This is where the reserved characteristic of the narrator comes in; because the narrator is reserved, only some details are spoken of that may hint at a certain character trait, but does not give it away completely. This is also important because it also allows the narrator to be unbiased for or against the issue of the internment order. An example of this is when the narrator briefly mentions that Mrs. Hiyashi does not always follow the rules, but in this case she does; and also when the son attempts to stuff his luggage with belongings, hinting at the boy's childlike and innocent personality.

This gives a unique experience for the reader. The reader is left in quiet confusion, subtle horror, and slow realization as the story progresses, and more details about the characters and the entire conflict of the story are slowly revealed. The narrator's punctuality allows for a clear rendition of events, but in contrast his/her limited point of view also gives us a limited perspective of the story. However, through these subtle means of communication through the narrator, you can feel the author's discontent towards the issue of Japanese internment.

This leaves a good reader in contemplation of the story; its characters and its course of events.

School and Community Characteristics

School and Community Characteristics


· What are the social characteristics that make up your school? These can include family relationships, as well as interaction between students and teachers.
· What are the political characteristics that make up your school? How is it governed? Who is in control? Are students able to participate in the school’s government or decision-making process?
· What are the economic characteristics that make up your community?
· What cultural groups make up your community? How have these groups influenced your community?

The social relationships in a school are like a web of relations and ties, all spun under a single roof of the school. There are interactions and a certain social contract that must exist between students, teachers, and parents, and there are the relationships that form within cliques and between friends. The relationships between students are obvious. They exist between friends that chat over lunch, and the people we choose to spend time with. Thinner relationships occur between the people who we know and are friendly with but do not know as well; and even thinner ones exist between the people whom we may act friendly towards but secretly dislike. A natural system of respect also forms within the student body based on personalities and visible strengths. Relationships between cliques are often most prominent in a school environment; the skateboarders usually hang together, the basketball jocks spend their time together, and the gamers usually spend their lunches with one another. In addition, apart from the relationships that exist between students, a triangular relationship also exists between teachers, parents, and students. The system is based on a set of naturally occurring laws within the school community.

The school is characterized as a hierarchy. Students are classified on the lowest possible level of the hierarchal pyramid. They don't have much of a say in how the school is run; they can, however, provide suggestions through the Student Council for approval, and help arrange and carry out school events. Teachers compose the second level of the hierarchy, and our head of the school, Mrs. Pamela, is at the top of the pyramid; whatever she thinks becomes law. Though each level has significantly more power and authority over the other, each level of the hierarchy is dependent upon the other.

The community that I live in is mostly composed of lower to upper middle-class Taiwanese people. Though I spend most of my time with these people, the town I live in is a Hakka town with relatively poor local inhabitants. Jhunan is a town based on fishing, independent farmers, and small businesses. However I never really felt at home in Jhunan or in Hsinchu, and really prefer to spend my time in Taipei City. Either that or the east coast of the island. This however defines the surroundings of which I live in.

Life-Changing Events

What events in history or in the present have forced people to change their lives completely? How do people cope with hardships that require enormous changes in their lives? Have you ever experienced an event that made a sudden and significant change in your life? If so, describe the event and how it changed your life. If not, imagine how you might react to such an event.

What events in history have forced people to make a change? That's not a hard question to answer. most of history is involving change - a change in thinking, a change in a pattern, anything that causes the status-quo to shift and the world to become altered. When the Japanese-American internment occurred in 1942, countless families of Japanese descent were force to adjust to new surroundings and later, the consequences of the internment. Households across American and the world were forced to live on limited amounts of food. Men were drafted into the armed forces, leaving families behind.

In China around this time, the Chinese Civil War raged on. To make matters worse for the citizens of the Republic of China, Japan was also launching invasions onto the Chinese mainland. The Rape of Nanking occurred in 1937 as the Second Sino-Japanese war raged on, striking fear and resentments in the hearts of many Chinese people.

When the ROC retreated to Taiwan, the native Taiwanese inhabitants felt oppressed as the government immediately took control of the island, changing their lives forever.

History is filled with life-changing moments. They also occur on a small scale to individuals.

So how do people cope to hardships associated with change? I think I have talked about this before. Most people start out with grief and self-pity. But as time goes by they begin to realize and accept the situation. Some people never leave the grief stage, while other jump ahead to quickly without realizing what they are facing.

A sudden and significant change? ... Apart from establishing myself into a religion, nothing else has happened that is totally significant. When one does happen, though, I expect myself to have a rational mindset. I will acknowledge what I am stepping into, what I am leaving. I will grieve if necessary, and make peace if necessary. The main thing, though, is to honor the past and step into the present.

Satire in “The Storyteller”

What aspects of “The Storyteller” make it a satire? What is Saki poking fun at with this story? How does he use humor and exaggeration to make his point? Support your answers with details and examples from the story.

I feel as if I have answered this already in my earlier blog posts, but here goes...

A satire is a genre of literature that takes vices, shortcomings, or other issues and hold them up to ridicule, usually with the intent of poking fun at specific individuals and society to assert their views on how the individuals or society should improve. A typical satire will contain some irony and a deep message; even the most comical and lighthearted satire will have a serious assertion and theme. It relies on exaggeration and irony to create humor, which fuels the comical side of a satirical piece of literature.

In "The Storyteller" by Saki, Saki includes aspects of exaggeration in order to oppose the subject that he is making fun of - the conservative, rigid means of upbringing children. He does this by, through the third-person omniscient perspective, showing how the aunt's ways of teaching are ineffective and her dullness and insipid personality do nothing to calm or satisfy the children. I can see this reflected in today's society; on principle, children who are forced to learn and behave against their better nature usually end up rebellious (this is a big hint on a theme that can be derived from the story). The bachelor, on the other hand, tells a captivating story that leaves all the children in awe.

This brings me to another point. Saki uses the character of the bachelor to bring to light the issue of how society insists on upbringing children to be "good" against their true nature. Saki was raised in a rigid household, and because of his hatred towards it he wrote a good number of satires about the topic; this story also includes the implication that there should be room for children to grow based on their true nature. Such a serious theme is brought up with humor. The bachelor's story is exaggerated (and as a result it is intriguing), and what basically happens is Bertha, the main character of his story, is killed as a result of her good behavior. The situational irony and the humor in which it is presented also encloses a deep issue of society.

In short, Saki's story includes the basic aspects of a satire; exaggeration, irony, and humor in order to ridicule a topic and through these methods he also bring up serious societal issues that are worth contemplating about.

Motivation for Telling a Story

In “The Storyteller,” what is the aunt’s motivation for telling the children a story? What is the bachelor’s motivation? How are their motivations similar? How are they different? How does the aunt react at the end of the bachelor’s story?

After reading "The Storyteller," the aunt's motives and the bachelor's motives for telling the story are quite plain. There are four kinds of causes, as set forth by Aristotle, which I learned last year: the material cause, the formal cause, the efficient cause, and the final cause. For this particular question regarding the motives of telling the story, I will examine the final and efficient causes. The efficient cause of something is the "moving cause", or the primary source of change. In this case, both the aunt and the bachelor have the same efficient cause for telling the story: to calm the children down and keep them quiet. This is demonstrated by clear evidence from the text and by inferring from the aunt's actions.

The final cause is something's ultimate aim or purpose. In this case, the aunt's purpose is to, through a story (deplorable and boring, but a story nonetheless) remind them the virtues of proper demeanor and good attitude. The bachelor's purpose, though, is different. He sees the aunt's belief in rigid upbringing and also sees how ludicrous and futile her attempts are to quiet the children, and his purpose of telling his story is because he wants to mess with the aunt and point out the absurdities behind her methods of teaching.

The aunt reacts to the bachelor's story by criticizing him for "undermining years of careful teaching", indicating her belief in rigid upbringing; it is this very subject that Saki criticizes and satirizes through this short story.

Omniscient Point of View

In “The Storyteller,” what do we learn about each character through the omniscient point of view? How does this choice of narrator affect the plot? How would the story be different if told by either the aunt or the bachelor from the first person point of view? What would be lost?

Saki chose to tell the story "The Storyteller" through a third-person omniscient point of view. He chose this perspective and not, say, a first-person point of view, for specific reasons. An omniscient perspective allows the reader to observe all of the developments and the events that are unfolding in the carriage, and allows us to delve into the minds of some of the characters in order for us to observe their thoughts and opinions. In addition, this specific type of perspective gives us an unbiased account of the series of events that occurs in the story.

Through the omniscient point of view, we are able to look into the thoughts of some of the characters (as the narrator permits). By utilizing the third-person omniscient perspective, the reader's view and understanding of the story is not limited towards a specific character. With this point of view, we are able to learn the thoughts and allows us to infer the personality of the bachelor. Through the third-person perspective we learn how annoyed he is with the children's constant movement, how he finds the aunt's teaching method's laughable, and his thoughts surrounding the incident afterwards. We can also learn about the aunt's thoughts; upon first impression she finds the bachelor a "hard, unsympathetic man" and cannot think of good replies to the children's constant stream of questions ("she was utterly unable to come up to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the other field").

This choice of narrator greatly affects the plot. For one thing, if the story were to be told from another point of view, such as first-person, the tone of the story would be based on the personality of the person who is telling the story. With the third-person omniscient point of view, the narrator keeps an unbiased account of the plot. If the story were to be told from another point of view, such as from the perspective of the aunt, we would be reading a story that would include dissenting opinions of the bachelor's story; if we were reading it entirely from the bachelor's perspective we would read about the bachelor's strong opposition towards the aunt's methods of quieting the children.

If the story was not told form a 3rd-person perspective, the unbiased account of the story would be lost.

Satire

Honestly speaking, if I were to list all of the things in the world that annoy me, it would exceed the maximum word limit of blogs. With that said, here are a few of my pet peeves:

• Loud music
• DVD's not in their original cases
• Excessive use of internet lingo ("LOL", "JK", etc)
• Intentionally misspelling words on the internet, esp. through online chats
• People who burp loudly and expect applause
• Crocs
• Chuck Taylor All Star shoes
• People who infringe upon personal space
• Anyone (apart from me) sitting or lying on my bed
• Spelling the word "permanent" wrong
• Girls with too much make up on
• Dying hair
• Excessive hair combing
• Those who fret and continually ask others, "How do I look?"
• Staring
• "Like..."
• Amateur waiters (or restaurants with bad service)
• People talking loudly (on the phone or otherwise) on trains, MRTs
• Doggie doo on the sidewalks
• Spam (on Facebook, email)
• People who don't rinse their dishes but put them in the sink
• Excessive trash talk during games
• Excessive dirty jokes
• Those who swagger/sneer/wear baggy clothing and low riders
• "Gangster" talk
• Talking back to respected authority (by my standards)
• People who are quixotic
• Bad grammar
• High school students using simple English
• High school students using obscure words
• Excessive swearing/cussing
• Smokers who don't take into consideration the concerns of others when they smoke in public
• People who name off long lists of what they hate

The tale of Howie

In the heart of Manhatten lived a kid by the name of Howie. Howie was quite the teenager. He was rowdy, and swore excessively, especially in public settings. He walked with a swagger and a sneer, and his normal attire consisted of what he decided was "gansta"; a large t-shirt untucked over baggy, low riding jeans that fell to his thighs. He was admired by his peers and notorious among the teachers due to his habit of backtalking. His grades suffered because he spent so much time on the internet that his spelling and grammar was slowly deteriorating. He stalked the halls during school hours, and looked quite intimidating indeed. However his stupidity could be taken for one's advantage; Howie's vocabulary consisted of a large bank of choice cuss words, but other than that he had the vocabulary capacity of a 4th grader. All one needed to do was to give a quote that sounded complex, Howie would scrunch his face to think, giving you time to slip away. The years went by like this, and his parents had grown increasingly concerned. One day the school had a fire. One of Howie's friends had left a cigarette sitting in the bathroom; it fell to the ground, lit a piece of toilet paper, and soon enough set the room on fire. The fire alarm rang, and Howie panicked. As he ran towards the door, his pants fell down lower and he tripped. His large shirt wrapped around his face and he could not see. The shirt wrapped around his head and forced the earrings deeper into his ear and his eyes watered from the pain. Cussing wildly, he stood up to start running again. Ignoring the yells coming from the surrounding teachers (mostly because he could not understand them or hear them over his swearing) he ran into a wall and fell down, quite unconscious.

Goodness

Is goodness always rewarded? In “The Storyteller,” whose version of life—the bachelor’s or the aunt’s—do you think is true to life? Why? Can you think of examples from your own life or experiences to back up your opinion?

Is the act of being good always rewarded? Well long story short, it isn't. "Goodness", the act of being good, isn't always fully appreciated in the world, especially not the world that we live in. The definition being "good" varies: being morally upright, or like the girl in the bachelor's story, doing everything right and well.
In my life, being "good" generally refers being moral, not so much about doing everything "right". From experience and observation I see that if you be the "goody two-shoes" in every situation, social interactions with others will be severely limited and others will gain a negative impression of you because of this./ The "good children" of society tend to be the loners of society because they do not know how to have fun or, in short, socialize with others. This is because society generally does not accept goodness; and neither does the harsh world that we live in. The reason for this is quite simple: it is boring.

I have morals and my religion, and I abide by the moral obligations of which I believe in for myself. However I feel that on the topic of "goodness", I tend to retain what I believe is ight, but this does not mean that I am severely caught up in doing everything that is correct and, in essence, "good"

Saki’s Purpose

In reading “The Storyteller,” the author gives us some clues about what his purpose might be. Read the following clues, and then write about how they might illustrate his purpose.
· The aunt’s story is “deploringly uninteresting.”
· The aunt keeps saying “don’t” and the children keep asking “why?”
· The children think the bachelor’s story is beautiful, but the aunt thinks it is improper.


H. H. Munro, better known as Saki, spend a large portion of his childhood living with his grandmother and aunts, housed under a straight-laced and strict environment. Due to this experience, many of his stories center around the topic of a strict upbringing, and most of the stories also involve strict aunts. These stories are often satires, poking fun at such a topic, and at the same time portraying a negative impression towards the issue. The short story "The Storyteller" is also like this.


In the story "The Storyteller", the aunt tells a story which is tasteless, lackluster, and "deplorably boring". In addition the aunt's feeble attempts to calm the children only make them more restless. When the bachelor tells his story, the story's purpose was of course to calm the children down, but the main reason was to mess with the aunt's years of careful education. I think that this story is a satire; it pokes fun at the child-raising methods of the 19 century aristocracy, especially its strictness and solemness. In addition, due to Saki's own childhood experiences, the story may be a clear portrayal of his dislike and dissatisfaction with the way that his aunts raised him. I don't blame him either; I would have hated it, since this is honestly no way to raise children. It is in the nature of children to frolic and have fun, and forcing them to obey strict statutes is cruel and unthoughtful.

Influence of Childhood

How might a writer’s childhood experiences influence his or her writing? Do you think your unique experiences in life would be a good source of inspiration for a story or book? 



A writer's childhood experiences may influence his or her writing, leaving behind a unique fingerprint that tells others of the story's individuality and personal meaning. It is during a person's childhood, and the transition between child and adult, that one gains much knowledge and basic experiences of life. This is one of the grounds of how that person's character and personality is. In addition, many people are inclined to remember certain childhood events or meaningful experiences, regardless whether good or bad. With this in mind, an author's writing may echo his own past and his feelings about the topic.


The book or story written by the author is also needed to be taken into consideration. If the story is a personal memoir or autobiography, then of course, the author's childhood experiences are resolutely presented. For example, in Barack Obama's personal memoir Dreams from my Father, Barack cites multiple childhood experiences, and these experiences are the basis for the story itself.


Apart form memoirs, other genres can also contain elements that are imprints of the author's childhood experiences. H. H. Munro, for example, often includes pompous and/or cruel aunts in his stories, an allusion to his own childhood, where he lived with his aunts. Dickens' books often referenced the separations of society, which were prominent in his past as well, and some of Shakespeare's plays also hint the experiences of his own life.


Would my experiences make a good story? Not unless you like boring novels. Each person's tale of childhood is different in one way or another, and I don't believe that my childhood would contain enough memories or interesting experiences to fill up a story. They are personal sediments, personal remembrances, that do not have a need to be shared.

Point of No Return

How do people react when they are in a situation they cannot change? Have you ever found yourself in such a situation? If so, how did you react? If not, how do you think you would react? 

Basically, I think there are two ways a person reacts to a situation in which they cannot change. The first type is the type that continues to moan, complain, or worry about the issue at hand. I'll call them the "stressers". The second type of person is the realist; knowing that nothing can be done to change the situation, he shrugs it off and accepts the circumstances. Instead of fretting and stressing, this person leaves the past behind and instead looks towards the future and the new situation that unravels around them.

These situations often occur in life. When a sudden change in a person's fortune occurs, their situation changes almost instantly. I was expecting to go down to Taichung to study after 9th grade. Then I got transferred here. Our house was broken into a month ago. I missed the train to go to Taipei three weeks ago. My friend transferred to the Philippines to study, and inevitably it meant breaking up with his girlfriend. Once, at a school spring retreat, the camp's councilor dared us to go bridge-jumping into the river below. Somehow I agreed to it, and me and a couple of other friends headed up the path to the bridge. Once there I realized the height of the bridge - easily four stories high. Naturally, I freaked. But chickening out at that point would be a disgrace to all men, and so I squared up, and after watching the councilor do a backflip, I jumped (minus the backflip).

All this is to say that we are always caught in situations, sometimes unpleasant, that we cannot change. I like to think myself as more of the realist. When something goes wrong, or a change in tides occurs, there isn't much to do but to "suck it up", "walk it off", and accept the situation as it is and focus on what is to come. There may be pain and grief, but those feelings are transitory and will pass. I know people who are "stressers" and who are realists. When those stressers talk to me about how they feel, I can sympathize and may empathize, but I also tell them that soon they will need to get over it and look at the new future in store for them.

Of course, the far extremes are also unfavorable. Those who are extremist realists usually become cold and heartless, and those who are far left stressers are emotional and vulnerable. I believe that feelings are a natural part of the human mind, and instead of ignoring pain or stress we need to acknowledge it and make peace with it. That is the healthy way.

My Favorite Stories

 Favorite Childhood Stories

• Robert Munsch classics
• Love You Forever
• Tedd Arnold books
• Huggly series
• Joanna Cole
• The Magic School Bus series
• Mark Brown
• Arthur series
• Curious George series
• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
• Toy Story
• Beauty and the Beast

These are only some of the favorite storybooks/stories from my childhood. Different stories appealed to me for different reasons. Unfortunately I cannot precisely tell you how or why these stories appealed to me as a child. However I can tell you that most books, most stories, appealed to me because I realized that they contained something deep that I could not understand, a concept that I could not draw. Stories such as Robert Munsch's (my favorite children's writer) book Love You Forever stirred emotions that I could not understand as a child; and yet this is why they appealed to me. However only a few months ago I found a copy of Love You Forever and read through it, I was deeply touched by the depth of the themes of what, at the time, was only a simple child's book.
Maybe it is also for this reason that I also read stories such as Huggly, the monster who lives in the world underneath our beds, and the antics of the mischievous monkey Curious George. Huggly's adventures base themselves around discovering the "human" world around them. Maybe it was the idea of Huggly and George's innocence and his desire for discovery; perhaps it was the theme of innocence to experience that stirred my still developing mind. Whatever it was, the idea of discovering and understanding the world around us continues to be one of my favorite themes in literature.

In addition, I want to mention one last story; the story of Beauty and the Beast was, and admittedly still is, my favorite Disney fairy tale. Why? Apart from the themes of the story, it is because the tale included elements that were accurate depictions of human nature and of love. As a child, I always thought it was ridiculous how people could fall in love at first sight; this is why other Disney stories never really appealed to me. In the tale of Beauty and the Beast, character developments and the portrayals of love are accurately portrayed. Love is built upon, and not found in seconds. People change. Such ideals intrigued me, and I could understand that such ideas were different from those told in other Disney movies. (Again, I did not understand all of this of course - I was young at the time!)

These are the reasons why such stories appealed to me.