2021- Intro to Literature- Assignment PDF

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Summary

Reading Response: Old Dictionary, The Umbrella, Dish Night, The One Sitting There...

Description

In “The Old Dictionary” by Lydia Davis, the narrator takes care of the dictionary more than her own son. She is more careful and has more of an instinct to protect it against anything and anyone. She feels she shouldn’t be over nurturing to her son like she is with the dictionary. The dictionary showed significance to the story because it was the main object and was a symbol of the narrator’s nurturing and more of a mother-like side. In “The One Sitting There” by Joanna H. Wos, the main object in the story is food. The food represents her past. She is finally doing the thing that she wasn’t allowed to do growing up. It is like she is shedding off the layers of her past and feels free throwing them away. The piece of food that stood out the most was the bread. There was more of a backstory than the others. It surrounded her sister and how her parents idolized the bread due to her. In “Dish Night” by Michael Martone, the significant object in this story is the dishes. It reminds a couple of their past and their future. They can see their huge family sitting at the set table with beautiful china. When the man was at war, the only thing that was keeping him alive was her and the dishes. In Europe, he saw those dishes as his home. At the end of the story, the dishes were apart of their memory of when they first met and how they fell in love. In “The Umbrella” by Yasunari Kawabata, the object in this story is the umbrella. It symbolizes the couple’s attraction to each other. The first thing that the woman noticed about the man was that he was holding an umbrella. They were shy before going to the photographers but were confident with each other when they came out. It was like a “love at first sight” moment when she accidentally grabber his umbrella. The couple was able to stand together, under the umbrella, and start their future “as though they were a married couple” due to the umbrella. What did I learn from these stories about objects? I learned that objects are symbols for a deeper meaning. In order to write about an object, it needs to show significance to the story. The

object needs to have an impact on the story and the characters. The object can connect to anything. It can connect to a memory, the future, the love for someone, etc. In these stories, the objects are surrounded by the backstory and given their purpose. The dishes were for the couple’s love and his home when he was in the war. The bread was from the memory of her sister and how she is throwing away her past as she tosses the bread in the trash. The dictionary was the narrator’s mother-like side instead of towards her own son. The umbrella was the love between a couple; they were able to share the umbrella to keep them both dry. The focus is the object and surrounding it is the meaning and what makes it significant....