English 12 Midterm exam

Plot Summary give a plot summary for Paul's case

Paul has been suspended from his high school in Pittsburgh. As the story opens, he arrives at a meeting with the school's faculty members and principal. He is dressed in clothes that are simultaneously shabby and debonair. The red carnation he wears in his buttonhole particularly offends the faculty members, who think the flower sums up Paul's flippant attitude. Paul is tall and narrow-shouldered, with enlarged pupils that remind one of a drug addict's eyes. The faculty members have a difficult time articulating their true feelings about Paul. Deep down, they believe that Paul loathes, feels contempt for, and is repulsed by them. They lash out at Paul, but he betrays no emotion. Instead, he smiles throughout the barrage of criticism. After Paul leaves, the drawing master says aloud that Paul's mother died in Colorado just after Paul was born. Privately, the drawing master remembers seeing Paul asleep one day in class and being shocked at his aged appearance. As the teachers depart, they feel embarrassed about their viciousness toward Paul. Paul goes straight to Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh, where he works as an usher. Because he is early, he goes to the Hall's gallery and looks at paintings of Paris and Venice. He loses himself in one particular painting, a "blue Rico." After changing in the dressing room, where he roughhouses with the other ushers, Paul begins to work. He is excellent at his job, performing every aspect of it with great enthusiasm. He is annoyed when his English teacher arrives and he must seat her, but he comforts himself with the knowledge that her clothes are inappropriate for so fancy a venue. The symphony begins, and Paul loses himself in the music. As he listens, he feels full of life. After the performance, he trails the star soprano to her hotel, the Schenley, and imagines vividly that he is following her inside the luxurious building. As if awaking from a dream, Paul realizes that he is actually standing in the cold, rainy street. He dreads returning to his room, with its ugly knickknacks and pictures of John Calvin and George Washington. As he reaches Cordelia Street, where he lives, Paul feels depressed and repulsed by the commonness and ordinariness of his middle-class neighborhood. Unable to face his father, Paul sneaks into the basement, where he stays awake all night imagining what would happen if his father mistook him for a burglar and shot him—or recognized Paul in time, but later in life wished that he had shot his son. The next day, Paul sits on the porch with his sisters and father. Many people are outside, relaxing. It is a pleasant scene, but Paul is disgusted by it. His father chats with a young clerk whom he hopes Paul will emulate. This clerk took his boss's advice: he married the first woman he could and began having children immediately. The only tales of business that interest Paul are those of the iron magnates' expensive adventures in Cairo, Venice, and Monte Carlo. He understands that some "cash boys" (low-level employees) eventually find great success, but he does not enjoy thinking about the initial cash-boy work. After managing to get carfare from his father by pretending that he needs to study with a friend, Paul goes to see Charley Edwards, a young actor who lets Paul hang around his dressing room and watch rehearsals. The narrator notes that Paul's mind has not been "perverted" by novels, as his teachers suspect. Rather, Paul gets pleasure solely from theater and music, which are the only things that make him feel alive. At school, Paul tells outrageous lies about his close friendships with the members of the theater company and the stars who perform at Carnegie Hall. Paul's effort to prove that he is better than his classmates and teachers winds up alienating him from them. In the end, the principal speaks with Paul's father, and Paul is forbidden to return to school, Carnegie Hall, or the theater where Charley Edwards works. The theater company's members hear about Paul's lies and find them comical. Their lives are difficult, not the glamorous dream worlds that Paul imagines. Paul takes an overnight train and arrives in New York City, where he buys expensive clothes, hats, and shoes. After purchasing silver at Tiffany's, he checks into the Waldorf, paying for his rooms in advance. The eighth-floor rooms are nearly perfect. All that's missing are flowers, which Paul sends a bellboy out to buy. The narrator explains what has happened to make all this possible: Paul got a job with Denny & Carson's, and when asked to take a deposit to the bank, he deposited only the checks and pocketed $1,000 in cash. He is using this stolen money to fund his spree in New York. After a nap, Paul takes a carriage ride up Fifth Avenue. He notices banks of flowers, bright and vibrant, protected by glass from the snow. He dines at the hotel while listening to an orchestra play the Blue Danube. He feels utterly content. The next day, Paul meets a rich boy who attends Yale. The two of them enjoy a night on the town, staying out until 7 a.m. The narrator notes that although the boys begin the evening in a happy mood, they end it in a bad one. A lovely week passes, and then Paul finds that his theft has been discovered and reported by the Pittsburgh newspapers. According to the stories, his father has paid back the $1,000 and is headed to New York to find his son. Paul enjoys one last dinner at the Waldorf. The next morning, he wakes up, hungover, and looks at the gun he purchased on his first day in New York. In the end, he takes cabs to a set of railroad tracks in Pennsylvania and leaps in front of an oncoming train. Before he dies, he recognizes "the folly of his haste" and thinks of the places that he will never see.

Literature who is the author of The Most Dangerous Game

Richard Connel

Plot Summary give a plot summary for A Rose for Emily

he story is divided into five sections. In section I, the narrator recalls the time of Emily Grierson's death and how the entire town attended her funeral in her home, which no stranger had entered for more than ten years. In a once-elegant, upscale neighborhood, Emily's house is the last vestige of the grandeur of a lost era. Colonel Sartoris, the town's previous mayor, had suspended Emily's tax responsibilities to the town after her father's death, justifying the action by claiming that Mr. Grierson had once lent the community a significant sum. As new town leaders take over, they make unsuccessful attempts to get Emily to resume payments. When members of the Board of Aldermen pay her a visit, in the dusty and antiquated parlor, Emily reasserts the fact that she is not required to pay taxes in Jefferson and that the officials should talk to Colonel Sartoris about the matter. However, at that point he has been dead for almost a decade. She asks her servant, Tobe, to show the men out. In section II, the narrator describes a time thirty years earlier when Emily resists another official inquiry on behalf of the town leaders, when the townspeople detect a powerful odor emanating from her property. Her father has just died, and Emily has been abandoned by the man whom the townsfolk believed Emily was to marry. As complaints mount, Judge Stevens, the mayor at the time, decides to have lime sprinkled along the foundation of the Grierson home in the middle of the night. Within a couple of weeks, the odor subsides, but the townspeople begin to pity the increasingly reclusive Emily, remembering how her great aunt had succumbed to insanity. The townspeople have always believed that the Griersons thought too highly of themselves, with Emily's father driving off the many suitors deemed not good enough to marry his daughter. With no offer of marriage in sight, Emily is still single by the time she turns thirty. The day after Mr. Grierson's death, the women of the town call on Emily to offer their condolences. Meeting them at the door, Emily states that her father is not dead, a charade that she keeps up for three days. She finally turns her father's body over for burial. In section III, the narrator describes a long illness that Emily suffers after this incident. The summer after her father's death, the town contracts workers to pave the sidewalks, and a construction company, under the direction of northerner Homer Barron, is awarded the job. Homer soon becomes a popular figure in town and is seen taking Emily on buggy rides on Sunday afternoons, which scandalizes the town and increases the condescension and pity they have for Emily. They feel that she is forgetting her family pride and becoming involved with a man beneath her station. As the affair continues and Emily's reputation is further compromised, she goes to the drug store to purchase arsenic, a powerful poison. She is required by law to reveal how she will use the arsenic. She offers no explanation, and the package arrives at her house labeled "For rats." In section IV, the narrator describes the fear that some of the townspeople have that Emily will use the poison to kill herself. Her potential marriage to Homer seems increasingly unlikely, despite their continued Sunday ritual. The more outraged women of the town insist that the Baptist minister talk with Emily. After his visit, he never speaks of what happened and swears that he'll never go back. So the minister's wife writes to Emily's two cousins in Alabama, who arrive for an extended stay. Because Emily orders a silver toilet set monogrammed with Homer's initials, talk of the couple's marriage resumes. Homer, absent from town, is believed to be preparing for Emily's move to the North or avoiding Emily's intrusive relatives. After the cousins' departure, Homer enters the Grierson home one evening and then is never seen again. Holed up in the house, Emily grows plump and gray. Despite the occasional lesson she gives in china painting, her door remains closed to outsiders. In what becomes an annual ritual, Emily refuses to acknowledge the tax bill. She eventually closes up the top floor of the house. Except for the occasional glimpse of her in the window, nothing is heard from her until her death at age seventy-four. Only the servant is seen going in and out of the house. In section V, the narrator describes what happens after Emily dies. Emily's body is laid out in the parlor, and the women, town elders, and two cousins attend the service. After some time has passed, the door to a sealed upstairs room that had not been opened in forty years is broken down by the townspeople. The room is frozen in time, with the items for an upcoming wedding and a man's suit laid out. Homer Barron's body is stretched on the bed as well, in an advanced state of decay. The onlookers then notice the indentation of a head in the pillow beside Homer's body and a long strand of Emily's gray hair on the pillow.

Literature who is the author of How i Met My Husband

Alice Munro

Literature who is the author of Everyday Use

Alice Walker

Literature who is the author of The Rocking Horse Winner

D. H. Lawerence

Plot Summary give a plot summary for The Most Dangerous Game

On a yacht bound for Rio de Janeiro, a passenger named Whitney points out Ship-Trap Island in the distance, a place that sailors dread and avoid. He and his friend Rainsford are big-game hunters bound for a hunting trip in the Amazon River basin. As the yacht sails through the darkness, the two men discuss whether their prey actually feels fear. Rainsford believes that the world consists only of predators and prey, although Whitney is not as certain. Noticing the jitteriness of the crew, Whitney wants to sail past the mysterious island as soon as possible. He theorizes that sailors can sense danger and that evil emanates in waves like light and sound. Whitney then decides to turn in for the night, but Rainsford opts to smoke his pipe on the afterdeck for a while. Suddenly, he hears three gunshots in the distance and moves toward the railing of the deck to investigate. Hoisting himself onto the rail to try and get a better look, Rainsford drops his pipe, loses his balance in an attempt to catch it, and accidentally plunges into the water. His cries for help go unanswered, and the yacht quickly disappears into the night. Rainsford decides to swim in the gunshots' direction. He hears the screeching sound of an animal in agony and heads straight for it, until the cries end abruptly with a pistol shot. Exhausted, Rainsford reaches the rocky shore and immediately falls into a deep sleep. He wakes the next afternoon and sets off in search of food, forced to skirt the thick growth of the jungle and walk along the shore. He soon comes to a bloody, torn-up patch of vegetation where a large animal had thrashed about. He finds an empty rifle cartridge nearby. He follows the hunter's footprints in the growing darkness and eventually comes upon a palatial chateau at the edge of a precipice that drops steeply into the rocky ocean below. At first, Rainsford thinks the chateau is a mirage, until he opens the iron gate and knocks on the door. Ivan, a burly man with a gun, answers and refuses to help Rainsford until another man, General Zaroff, appears from inside the chateau and invites Rainsford inside. Zaroff greets Rainsford warmly and has Ivan show him to a room where he can dress for dinner. The huge, lavish dining hall features numerous stuffed and mounted heads, trophies that Zaroff has brought back from his many hunting adventures around the world. As the two men eat borscht, a red Russian soup made of beets, Rainsford praises his host's specimens, remarking on how dangerous it can be to hunt Cape buffalo. Zaroff states that he now hunts far more dangerous game on his island. He recounts past hunts, from his childhood in the Crimea to hunting big game around the world, but goes on to describe how the sport eventually became too easy. Zaroff hints, however, that he has found a new kind of animal to hunt, one with courage, cunning, and reason. Rainsford's initial confusion turns to horror as he slowly realizes that the general now hunts human beings. Zaroff doesn't understand Rainsford's indignation but promises that his outrage will subside once he's begun the hunt. Rainsford declines Zaroff's invitation to join in the hunt that night and goes to bed. After a fitful night of insomnia and light dozing, the sound of a distant pistol shot awakens him in the early morning. General Zaroff reappears at the chateau at lunchtime, sad that hunting humans no longer satisfies him. He laments that the sailors he lures to the island present less and less of a challenge. Rainsford demands to leave the island at once, but the general refuses and forces Rainsford to be his new prey in the next hunt, hoping that Rainsford, as a renowned big-game hunter, will provide the challenge he seeks. Zaroff promises to set Rainsford free if he lives through the next three days. Rainsford sets off into the jungle after receiving food, clothes, and a knife from Ivan. He cuts a complicated, twisting path through the undergrowth to confuse Zaroff and then climbs a tree to wait as darkness approaches. Zaroff finds Rainsford easily but lets him escape to prolong the pleasure of the hunt. Unsettled that Zaroff found him so quickly, Rainsford runs to another part of the jungle and makes a booby-trap called a Malayan mancatcher to kill Zaroff. The trap only wounds Zaroff, who returns to the chateau and promises to kill Rainsford the following night. Rainsford runs for hours until he mistakenly steps into a bed of quicksand. He manages to wrest free, then digs a pit in the soft mud a few feet in front of the quicksand. He lines the bottom of the pit with sharp wooden stakes, covers it with foliage, and then hides in the brush nearby. One of Zaroff's hunting hounds springs the trap and plunges to his death, forcing Zaroff to return to the chateau again. At daybreak, Rainsford hears the baying of the hounds and spots Zaroff and Ivan with a small pack of hunting dogs in the distance. Rainsford fashions another trap by tying his knife to a sapling. The trap kills Ivan, but the hounds push on, cornering Rainsford at the edge of a cliff. Instead of facing the dogs, Rainsford jumps into the rocky sea below. Stunned and disappointed, Zaroff returns to his chateau. As he turns on his bedroom light, he is shocked to find Rainsford concealed in the curtains of the bed. Before they fight, Zaroff states that the dogs will eat one of them that night while the other will sleep in the comfortable bed. Rainsford later concludes that he has never slept in a more comfortable bed.

Literature who is the author of Miss Brill

Katherine Mansfield

Plot Summary give a plot summary for How I Met my Husband

A red-and-silver plane lands at the old fairgrounds across the road from the home of the Peebles, for whom Edie works. Edie's first close-up view of an airplane leads to her first encounter with romance. Edie is both eager for and rather innocent about romance. She is quite proudly aware of her blossoming womanhood, and the day after the plane lands, Edie gets the impulse to dress herself up in Mrs. Peebles's finery, put on makeup, and play the part of a sophisticated beauty while Mrs. Peebles is out for the afternoon. This is how she is discovered by Chris Watters, who is looking for a drink of cool water from the pump. Edie is embarrassed but also irresistibly attracted to the pilot when he tells her she looks beautiful. That attraction leads Edie to cross the road that same night. Chris Watters has finished giving airplane rides for the day and shares a smoke with his young visitor. Edie, concerned that Mrs. Peebles will discover her improprieties of the afternoon, convinces Watters to promise not to say anything about the dress-up episode. Her short visit reinforces her impression that she is somehow special to the friendly pilot. Their casual relationship continues as the pilot regularly stops by for drinks of water. One day Alice Kelling shows up, guided to the Peebles's place by the ever-present Loretta Bird. Edie critically notes that Alice is neither young nor pretty, that her bust looks low and bumpy, that she has a worried face, and that her engagement ring features but a single, tiny stone. That night Alice and Chris go off somewhere in her car. Much later, through the slats of her blind, Edie watches them come home. She is not unhappy to observe them get out of opposite sides of the car and walk away from each other. When Alice accompanies the Peebles on a picnic to the lake the next day, Edie bakes Chris a cake and learns that he has decided to pull up stakes and make his getaway. The visit turns into a rousing but tender farewell party. It becomes Edie's initiation in physical intimacy with a man. The pilot sensibly does not allow his urges full rein; when they say goodbye, he promises Edie that he will write to her. Later that evening, Alice discovers that her fiancé has left. To her own surprise, Edie lies for him, but also for herself, saying that Chris has flown to another nearby field. Alice becomes suspicious of this sexy young girl; in response to Mrs. Peebles's questions, Edie readily admits to intimacy with Watters. Alice explodes in rage and sobs; Loretta, cliché-loaded and always functioning as a kind of parodic Greek chorus, comments that all men are the same; and Mrs. Peebles finally discovers that, to Edie, being intimate meant kissing. Throughout the summer and well into the fall, six days a week, Edie waits at the mailbox for the promised letter, but the letter never comes. Finally, Edie's absolute faith in the promised letter crumbles and her heart turns to lead. She stops meeting the mail, for she refuses to become like so many other women who wait all their lives for something that never comes. Then, however, the mailman calls and says he has missed her. They begin to go out, and after two years become engaged. They marry, have children, and find happiness.

Plot Summary give a plot summary for The Lottery

Around ten o'clock in the morning on June 27, all the residents of a small town gather in the town square for an annual lottery. The children arrive first and begin playing games and collecting stones. Bobby Martin, Dickie Delacroix, and Harry Jones form a pile of the stones in a corner of the square. The adults of the town arrive soon after. The mothers call their children to come stand with their families. Bobby Martin, who was the first child to start collecting stones, joins his family reluctantly. Joe Summers, a childless man with a nag for a wife, conducts the lottery every year because he has the "time and energy to devote to civic activities." He arrives carrying a black, wooden box. Mr. Graves, the postmaster, arrives with him, carrying a stool. Mr. Summersplaces the box on the stool and the townspeople keep their distance from it. The box has grown worn with age, and Mr. Summers often suggests making a new one. His suggestion has thus far been ignored, since the townspeople are wary of breaking with tradition. However, Mr. Summers did convince the town to agree to fill the box with paper slips instead of the more traditional wood chips on account of the growing population. Before the lottery can start, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves must make lists denoting the heads of families and households in the town. They also list the members of each household. Mr. Graves then swears Mr. Summers in as the official of the lottery. Some of the townspeople recall that there used to be other rituals. However, they cannot agree on the exact details of most of the rituals, because most of them have changed or been discarded over time. Just as Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves are about to begin the lottery, Tessie Hutchinson rushes into the square. She says that she forgot what day it was but rushed to the square as soon as she remembered. After being reassured that the lottery has not yet started, Tessie joins her family. After Tessie settles in, Mr. Summers asks the crowd if everyone has arrived. Mr. Dunbar, who broke his leg, is absent. His wife agrees to draw for him since they do not have any sons old enough to do it. Mr. Summers asks if the Watson boy will be drawing for his family, and he nervously affirms. Mr. Summers then checks to make sure that Old Man Warner, the town's oldest resident, arrived to the square. After verifying that everyone is in attendance, Mr. Summers says the lottery can begin. Mr. Summers goes over the rules of the lottery: the head of each family draws a slip of paper, and no one is to look at their slip until everyone else has drawn. Most of the townspeople do not pay attention to Mr....

Literature who is the author of A Worn Path

Eudora Welty

Literature who is the author of Interpreter of Maladies

Jhumpa Lahiri

Literature who is the author of A&P

John Updike

Literature who is the author of The Story of the Hour

Kate Chopin

Plot Summary give a plot summary for The Story of an Hour

Louise Mallard has heart trouble, so she must be informed carefully about her husband's death. Her sister, Josephine, tells her the news. Louise's husband's friend, Richards, learned about a railroad disaster when he was in the newspaper office and saw Louise's husband, Brently, on the list of those killed. Louise begins sobbing when Josephine tells her of Brently's death and goes upstairs to be alone in her room. Louise sits down and looks out an open window. She sees trees, smells approaching rain, and hears a peddler yelling out what he's selling. She hears someone singing as well as the sounds of sparrows, and there are fluffy white clouds in the sky. She is young, with lines around her eyes. Still crying, she gazes into the distance. She feels apprehensive and tries to suppress the building emotions within her, but can't. She begins repeating the word Free! to herself over and over again. Her heart beats quickly, and she feels very warm. Louise knows she'll cry again when she sees Brently's corpse. His hands were tender, and he always looked at her lovingly. But then she imagines the years ahead, which belong only to her now, and spreads her arms out joyfully with anticipation. She will be free, on her own without anyone to oppress her. She thinks that all women and men oppress one another even if they do it out of kindness. Louise knows that she often felt love for Brently but tells herself that none of that matters anymore. She feels ecstatic with her newfound sense of independence. Josephine comes to her door, begging Louise to come out, warning her that she'll get sick if she doesn't. Louise tells her to go away. She fantasizes about all the days and years ahead and hopes that she lives a long life. Then she opens the door, and she and Josephine start walking down the stairs, where Richards is waiting. The front door unexpectedly opens, and Brently comes in. He hadn't been in the train accident or even aware that one had happened. Josephine screams, and Richards tries unsuccessfully to block Louise from seeing him. Doctors arrive and pronounce that Louise died of a heart attack brought on by happiness.

Plot Summary give a plot summary for Everyday Use

Mama decides that she will wait in the yard for her daughter Dee's arrival. Mama knows that her other daughter, Maggie, will be nervous throughout Dee's stay, self-conscious of her scars and burn marks and jealous of Dee's much easier life. Mama fantasizes about reunion scenes on television programs in which a successful daughter embraces the parents who have made her success possible. Sometimes Mama imagines reuniting with Dee in a similar scenario, in a television studio where an amiable host brings out a tearful Dee, who pins orchids on Mama's dress. Whereas Mama is sheepish about the thought of looking a white man in the eye, Dee is more assertive. Mama's musing is interrupted by Maggie's shuffling arrival in the yard. Mama remembers the house fire that happened more than a decade ago, when she carried Maggie, badly burned, out of the house. Dee watched the flames engulf the house she despised. Back then, Mama believed that Dee hated Maggie, until Mama and the community raised enough money to send Dee to school in Augusta. Mama resented the intimidating world of ideas and education that Dee forced on her family on her trips home. Mama never went to school beyond second grade. Maggie can read only in a limited capacity. Mama looks forward to Maggie's marriage to John Thomas, after which Mama can peacefully relax and sing hymns at home. When Dee arrives, Mama grips Maggie to prevent her from running back into the house. Dee emerges from the car with her boyfriend, Hakim-a-barber. Mama disapproves of the strange man's presence and is equally disapproving of Dee's dress and appearance. Hakim-a-barber greets and tries to hug Maggie, who recoils. Dee gets a camera from the car and takes a few pictures of Mama and Maggie in front of their house. She then puts the camera on the backseat and kisses Mama on the forehead, as Hakim-a-barber awkwardly tries to shake Maggie's hand. Dee tells her mother that she has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo to protest being named after the people who have oppressed her. Mama tells Dee that she was in fact named after her Aunt Dicie, who was named after Grandma Dee, who bore the name of her mother as well. Mama struggles with the pronunciation of Dee's new African name. Dee says she doesn't have to use the new name, but Mama learns to say it, although she is unable to master Hakim's name. Mama says that he must be related to the Muslims who live down the road and tend beef cattle and also greet people by saying "Asalamalakim." Hakim-a-barber says he accepts some of their doctrines but is not into farming or herding. Mama wonders whether Hakim-a-barber and Dee are married. Sitting down to eat, Hakim-a-barber states that he does not eat collard greens or pork. Dee, however, eats heartily, delighted by the fact that the family still uses the benches her father made. Hopping up, she approaches the butter churn in the corner and asks Mama if she can have its top, which had been carved by Uncle Buddy. Dee wants the dasher too, a device with blades used to make butter. Hakim-a-barber asks if Uncle Buddy whittled the "dash" as well, to which Maggie replies that it was Aunt Dee's first husband, Stash, who made it. Dee praises Maggie's memory and wraps the items. Mama grips the handle of the dasher, examining the ruts and worn areas made by her relative's hands. Dee ransacks the trunk at the foot of Mama's bed, reappearing with two quilts made by her mother, aunt, and grandmother. The quilts contain small pieces of garments worn by relatives all the way back to the Civil War. Dee asks her mother for the quilts. Mama hears Maggie drop something in the kitchen and then slam the door. Mama suggests that Dee take other quilts, but Dee insists, wanting the ones hand-stitched by her grandmother. Mama gets up and tries to tell Dee more about the garments used to make the quilts, but Dee steps out of reach. Mama reveals that she had promised Maggie the quilts. Dee gasps, arguing that Maggie won't appreciate the quilts and isn't smart enough to preserve them. But Mama hopes that Maggie does, indeed, designate the quilts for everyday use. Dee says that the priceless quilts will be destroyed. Mama says that Maggie knows how to quilt and can make more. Maggie shuffles in and, trying to make peace, offers Dee the quilts. When Mama looks at Maggie, she is struck by a strange feeling, similar to the spirit she feels sometimes in church. Impulsively, she hugs Maggie, pulls her into the room, snatches the quilts out of Dee's hands, and places them in Maggie's lap. She tells Dee to take one or two of the other quilts. As Dee and Hakim-a-barber leave, Dee informs Mama that Mama does not understand her own heritage. Kissing Maggie, Dee tells her to try and improve herself and that it's a new day for black Americans. Mama and Maggie watch the car drive off, then sit in the quiet of the yard until bedtime.

Plot Summary give a plot summary for Miss Brill

Miss Brill is a middle-aged woman who spends her days as a teacher for children and as a reader for an old man who hardly recognizes her existence. Every Sunday she wears her shabby fur coat to the French public park called Jardins Publiques. She speaks to the coat as if speaking to another person—an act that becomes the reader's first indication of her true loneliness and alienation. Miss Brill sits in the stands watching and listening to the band and to the people who sit around her in the stands and play on the grass nearby. All the things she sees and overhears fascinate her, and she is so curious as to eavesdrop on people without their knowing. This week however, a fine old man and a big old woman sitting near her do not speak, and she notices how the people in the stands with her all look kind of the same, all of them "odd, silent, nearly all old." Continuing to eavesdrop on people nonetheless, she sees a gentleman in grey and a woman who is identified by her clothing: an ermine torque. This couple makes small talk while Miss Brill thinks of what they might say, what might happen, even as she realizes the woman's hat is "shabby". However, the couple does not satisfy her, because they part ways before anything meaningfully interesting can be said. Immediately she notices an old man who nearly gets knocked down by a group of young girls. At this point Miss Brill marvels at how "fascinating" her eavesdropping is, and she begins to develop a theory that encompasses everyone in front of her. She thinks that everyone is "all on the stage", and that everyone here is an actor. She believes that she herself also plays a role in this play, an important role that would be missed were she not there to play it. She thinks about telling the old man to whom she reads: "Yes, I have been an actress for a long time." A boy and a girl take a seat in the stands, replacing the fine old man and big old woman. The boy and the girl look wealthy and in love, but are in the middle of an argument. Soon the two of them notice Miss Brill and wonder aloud why anyone would desire her presence in the park, call her a "stupid old thing", make fun of her old fur coat, and compare it to a "fried whiting" (a cooked fish). Miss Brill leaves soon after, not buying her usual slice of honey-cake on the way. When she arrives home, she puts her fur coat into its box "without looking," but "when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying."

Plot Summary give a plot summary for A Worn Path

Phoenix Jackson makes her biannual visit to Natchez, walking for half a day in December to reach the medical clinic at which she receives, as charity, soothing medicine for her grandson. Having swallowed lye, he has suffered without healing for several years. Phoenix has made the journey enough times that her path to Natchez seems a worn path. Furthermore, part of that is the old Natchez trace, a road worn deep into the Mississippi landscape by centuries of travelers returning northeast after boating down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Phoenix is the oldest person she knows, though she does not know exactly how old she is, only that she was too old to go to school at the end of the Civil War and therefore never learned to read. Mainly because of her age, the simple walk from her remote home into Natchez is a difficult enough journey to take on epic proportions. She fears delays caused by wild animals getting in her way: foxes, owls, beetles, jack rabbits, and raccoons. She comfortably reflects that snakes and alligators hibernate in December. Thorn bushes and barbed-wire fences, log bridges and hills are major barriers for her. The cornfield she must cross from her initial path to a wagon road is a maze, haunted to her nearsightedness by a ghost that turns out to be a scarecrow. She must also struggle against her tendency to slip into a dream and forget her task, as when she stops for a rest and dreams of a boy offering her a piece of cake. Her perception of these obstacles emphasizes her intense physical, mental, and moral effort to complete this journey. Despite the difficulty of her trip, she clearly enjoys her adventure. She talks happily to the landscape, warning the small animals to stay safely out of her way and showing patience with the thorn bush, which behaves naturally in catching her dress. She speaks good-humoredly of the dangers of the barbed wire. Her encounter with the "ghost" ends in a short, merry dance with the scarecrow, a celebration that she has not yet met death. Difficult and important as her trip is, she extracts pleasure from it, which further reveals the depth of goodness in her character. On the trace, a dog knocks her off her path, leaving her unable to rise until she is rescued by a young hunter. Though he helps her, he is also somewhat threatening. He is hunting quail, birds with whom she has spoken on her walk. When the hunter accidentally drops a nickel, she spots it quickly. She artfully diverts his attention by getting him to chase off the strange dog, so she can retrieve this nickel. Her behavior contrasts ironically with the hunter's. She feels guilty about taking the nickel, thinking of a bird that flies by as a sign that God is watching her. Meanwhile the hunter blusters and boasts of his skill and power. He assumes that her long and difficult walk is frivolous in intent, that she is going to town to see Santa Claus. The contrast between their perceptions and the reader's judgments tends to magnify the difficulty and the goodness of Phoenix, emphasizing especially her true courage in contrast to his foolish bravado. In Natchez, she must find her way by memory, because she cannot read, to the right building and the right office in the building in order to get the medicine. There she encounters the impatience of clinic personnel who are acutely conscious that she is a charity case. Having found the right place

Literature who is the author of The Lottery

Shirley Jackson

Plot Summary give a plot summary for Interpreter of Maladies

The Das family is in India on vacation, and Mr. Das has hired Mr. Kapasi to drive them to visit the Sun Temple. The family sits in the car, which is stopped near a tea stall. Mr. and Mrs. Das are arguing about who should take their daughter, Tina, to the bathroom, and Mrs. Das ultimately takes her. Ronny, their son, darts out of the car to look at a goat. Mr. Das, who closely resembles Ronny, reprimands him but does nothing to stop him, even when he says he wants to give the goat a piece of gum. Mr. Das tells Bobby, the younger of their two sons, to go look after Ronny. When Bobby refuses, Mr. Das does nothing to enforce his order. Mr. Das tells Mr. Kapasi that both he and his wife were born and raised in the United States. Mr. Das also reveals that their parents now live in India and that the Das family visits them every few years. Tina comes back to the car, clutching a doll with shorn hair. Mr. Das asks Tina where her mother is, using Mrs. Das's first name, Mina. Mr. Kapasi notices that Mr. Das uses his wife's first name, and he thinks it is an unusual way to speak to a child. While Mrs. Das buys some puffed rice from a nearby vendor, Mr. Das tells Mr. Kapasi that he is a middle-school teacher in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Mr. Kapasi reveals that he has been a tour guide for five years. The group sets off. Tina plays with the locks in the back of the car, and Mrs. Das does not stop her. Mrs. Das sits in the car silently and eats her snack without offering any to anyone else. Along the road, they see monkeys, which Mr. Kapasi says are common in the area. Mr. Das has him stop the car so he can take a picture of a starving peasant. Mr. and Mrs. Das quarrel because Mr. Das has not gotten them a tour guide whose car has air-conditioning. Mr. Kapasi observes that Mr. and Mrs. Das are more like siblings to their children than parents. Mr. Kapasi tells the Dases about his other job as an interpreter in a doctor's office. Mrs. Das remarks that his job is romantic and asks him to tell her about some of his patients. However, Mr. Kapasi views his job as a failure. At one time, he had been a scholar of many languages, and now he remains fluent only in English. He took the interpreting job as a way to pay the medical bills when his eldest son contracted typhoid and died at age seven. He kept the job because the pay was better than his previous teaching job, but it reminds his wife of their son's death. Mr. Kapasi's marriage was arranged by his parents, and he and his wife have nothing in common. Mr. Kapasi, seduced by Mrs. Das's description of his job as "romantic," begins fantasizing about Mrs. Das. When they stop for lunch, Mrs. Das insists that Mr. Kapasi sit with them. He does, and Mr. Das takes their picture together. Mrs. Das gets Mr. Kapasi's address so that she can send him a copy of the picture, and Mr. Kapasi begins to daydream about how they will have a great correspondence that will, in a way, finally fulfill his dreams of being a diplomat between countries. He imagines the witty things he will write to her and how she will reveal the unhappiness of her marriage. At the temple, Mrs. Das talks with Mr. Kapasi as they stare at friezes of women in erotic poses. Mr. Kapasi admires her legs and continues to dream about their letters. Dreading taking the Dases back to their hotel, he suggests that they go see a nearby monastery, and they agree. When they arrive, the place is swarming with monkeys. Mr. Kapasi tells the children and Mr. Das that the monkeys are not dangerous as long as they are not fed. Mrs. Das stays in the car because her legs are tired. She sits in the front seat next to Mr. Kapasi and confesses to him that her younger son, Bobby, is the product of an affair she had eight years ago. She slept with a friend of Mr. Das's who came to visit while she was a lonely housewife, and she has never told anyone about it. She tells Mr. Kapasi because he is an interpreter of maladies and she believes he can help her. Mr. Kapasi's crush on her begins to evaporate. Mrs. Das reveals that she no longer loves her husband, whom she has known since she was a young child, and that she has destructive impulses toward her children and life. She asks Mr. Kapasi to suggest some remedy for her pain. Mr. Kapasi, insulted, asks her whether it isn't really just guilt she feels. Mrs. Das gets out of the car and joins her family. As she walks, she drops a trail of puffed rice. Meanwhile, the children and Mr. Das have been playing with the monkeys. When Mrs. Das rejoins them, Bobby is missing. They find him surrounded by monkeys that have become crazed from Mrs. Das's puffed rice and are hitting Bobby on the legs with a stick he had given them. Mr. Das accidentally takes a picture in his nervousness, and Mrs. Das screams for Mr. Kapasi to do something. Mr. Kapasi chases off the monkeys and carries Bobby back to his family. Mrs. Das puts a bandage on Bobby's knee. Then she reaches into her handbag to get a hairbrush to straighten his hair, and the paper with Mr. Kapasi's address on it flutters away.

Plot Summary give a plot summary for The Rocking Horse Winner

The story begins with a description of Hester, who has trouble loving her three children. Hester she feels unlucky because her family is running out of money, but she cares a great deal about appearing to be wealthy. The house seems to constantly whisper, "There must be more money!" and Paul (Hester's young son) in particular becomes concerned about the family's financial situation. When he asks his mother why they don't have enough money, she explains to him they they are unlucky, and that luck is the reason people are rich. Paul claims that he is lucky, but his mother doesn't believe him, so he becomes determined to prove his luck to her. Paul obsessively and furiously starts riding his rocking-horse because he believes it can take him to luck—a habit he keeps secret from everyone else. He also talks with Bassett, the family's gardener, about horse racing and places bets on the races whenever he "knows" who will win. Paul's Uncle Oscar finds out about Paul's betting and begins betting based on Paul's recommendations, which are always correct. Paul makes an extraordinarily large amount of money, but he also becomes increasingly anxious and intense. Uncle Oscar helps Paul give some money to his mother anonymously, but the money only makes the whispering in the house worse. Instead of using it to pay off debts, Hester buys new furniture and invests in sending Paul to an elite school. Paul is more determined than ever to make the whispering stop, and he refuses to stop riding his rocking-horse, even when his mother suggests that he is too old for the toy. The Derby (a big horse race) is coming up, and Paul is obsessed with picking the winner. One night, while at a party, Hester is overwhelmed with anxiety about Paul. She calls the nurse to see how he's doing, but when the nurse offers to check on him in his room, Hester decides not to bother him until she gets home. When she finally arrives at his room, she hears a familiar yet violent noise coming from behind the door. Paul is riding his rocking-horse so hard that he and the horse are lit up in a strange light. He announces in a deep voice, "It's Malabar" and then collapses to the floor. Days later, Paul is very ill. Bassett tells Paul that Malabar (a horse's name) won the Derby, and Paul now has eighty thousand pounds. Paul is very excited to be able to prove to his mother that he is, in fact, lucky. But that night, Paul dies. Uncle Oscar suggests that Hester is better off having eighty thousand pounds instead of a strange son—but that Paul is also better off dead than living in a state where "he rides his rocking-horse to find the winner."

Plot Summary give a plot summary for A&P

Three teenage girls, wearing only their bathing suits, walk into an A&P grocery store in a small New England town. Sammy, a young man working the checkout line, watches them closely. He appraises their looks and notes even minute details about the way they carry themselves. He also speculates about their personalities and their motivation for entering the store dressed the way they are. Sammy is particularly interested in the most attractive girl, who appears to be the leader of the group. This girl, whom Sammy dubs "Queenie," has a natural grace and confidence, in addition to her beauty. As the girls roam the aisles of the A&P, they create a stir. As Sammy points out, the store is in the center of town, nowhere near the beach, where the girls' attire would attract less notice. Sammy's coworker Stokesie ogles the girls as well, joking around with Sammy as he does so. Sammy jokes along with him, but he feels the contrast between himself, still single, and the married Stokesie. Stokesie is resigned to a life of working at the A&P, whereas Sammy, although admitting that he and Stokesie are much alike, seems to feel that such a future is beneath him. As yet another of his coworkers begins to admire the girls, Sammy feels a twinge of pity for them for having compromised themselves this way, most likely without realizing it. This feeling is quickly supplanted by pure excitement as the girls choose Sammy's checkout line to make their purchase. Lengel, the store manager, approaches Sammy's checkout lane. Lengel chastises the girls for entering the store in bathing suits, citing store policy. The girls are embarrassed, and Queenie protests that her mother wanted her to come in and buy some herring snacks. In this statement, Sammy gleans insight into Queenie's life. He imagines her parents at a party, everyone dressed nicely and sipping "drinks the color of water." He thinks about his own parents' parties, where people drink lemonade or cheap beer. As the girls begin to leave the store, Sammy suddenly turns to Lengel and quits his job, protesting the way Lengel has embarrassed the girls. Sammy hopes the girls are watching him. Lengel tries to talk Sammy out of quitting, telling him that he will regret the decision later and that his quitting will disappoint his parents. Sammy, however, feels that he must see the gesture through to its conclusion, and he exits the A&P. When he reaches the parking lot, he sees that the girls are long gone. Sammy is left alone with his ambiguous feelings and a growing sense of foreboding about what life has in store for him.

Literature who is the author of Pauls Case

Willa Cather

Literature who is the author of A Rose for Emily

William Faulkner