OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH SHORT STORIES
OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH SHORT STORIES
MARY MANN, LITTLE BROTHER
The story portrays rural life in a little Norfolk village, in the 1890s. It describes the visit of a character (maybe spinster) to a woman who has just given birth to a stillborn baby. At first she visits the husband, Mr.Hodd, and she enters his world made up just of poverty: with his eldest boy he’s cutting turnips. The family already has twelve children, and they’re very poor. When the narrator visits Mrs.Hodd’s house, she finds out that the dead baby is not in his little bed, and his little brothers are playing with his corpse, like a doll. very attentive description, full of details (turnip-house), not useful for the story, they just portray the real aspect of countryside poor families reaction of the mother, UNMOVED, she just says that other children have toys to play with, while hers have nothing, they’re doing no harm to the baby. You notice the idea that also if he’s dead he worth some attention BUT JUST because he becomes a dreadful toy it shows the horrible things that extreme poverty can carry to
PHILIP HENSHER, DEAD LANGUAGES
The protagonist of the story is a young boy who goes away from home to go to school. His family never went to school, so he’s not used to its clothes, and to the behavior he must show. At the beginning his classmates keep making fun of him because of his accent, and he feel like he’s learning some very strange things, about a world he doesn’t conceive like his own. During the first months, he’s obliged to go the Mister’s house, to learn good manners and to do the housework. Actually, during these afternoons, he doesn’t tidy the house, but he talks with the Mistress, while the Mister is upstairs sleeping. They have very strange conversations, of which the young boy can’t fully understand the meaning. When he’s not the youngest in the school anymore, he leaves the Mister’s house, and the Mister gives him a watch. From now, he starts making fun of the couple,
MARY MANN, LITTLE BROTHER
The story portrays rural life in a little Norfolk village, in the 1890s. It describes the visit of a character (maybe spinster) to a woman who has just given birth to a stillborn baby. At first she visits the husband, Mr.Hodd, and she enters his world made up just of poverty: with his eldest boy he’s cutting turnips. The family already has twelve children, and they’re very poor. When the narrator visits Mrs.Hodd’s house, she finds out that the dead baby is not in his little bed, and his little brothers are playing with his corpse, like a doll. very attentive description, full of details (turnip-house), not useful for the story, they just portray the real aspect of countryside poor families reaction of the mother, UNMOVED, she just says that other children have toys to play with, while hers have nothing, they’re doing no harm to the baby. You notice the idea that also if he’s dead he worth some attention BUT JUST because he becomes a dreadful toy it shows the horrible things that extreme poverty can carry to
PHILIP HENSHER, DEAD LANGUAGES
The protagonist of the story is a young boy who goes away from home to go to school. His family never went to school, so he’s not used to its clothes, and to the behavior he must show. At the beginning his classmates keep making fun of him because of his accent, and he feel like he’s learning some very strange things, about a world he doesn’t conceive like his own. During the first months, he’s obliged to go the Mister’s house, to learn good manners and to do the housework. Actually, during these afternoons, he doesn’t tidy the house, but he talks with the Mistress, while the Mister is upstairs sleeping. They have very strange conversations, of which the young boy can’t fully understand the meaning. When he’s not the youngest in the school anymore, he leaves the Mister’s house, and the Mister gives him a watch. From now, he starts making fun of the couple,