Post by A comet crashing into Earth on May 14, 2015 15:03:07 GMT -5
I'm finishing my secondary education in about a month's time, and since it has recently been confirmed to my class that all of us are going to have an exam in Written English, I've been arranging a workshop this Saturday for us to prepare. Since the written exam always includes the option of writing a literary interpretation of a short story by a contemporary author, I've been making a list of short stories to feed those of my classmates who feel this would be a good exercise - and on this list, I've included Immediately, the first instalment in DH's Adverbs. I know (as Hermes and Dante recently clarified) that Adverbs isn't technically a short story collection, but I figured this one would work just as well as any other short story for this purposes. The assignment I've settled on so far is this:
"Write an analytical essay (800-1200 words) in which you analyse and interpret Daniel Handler's short story “Immediately”.
Part of your essay must focus on the narrator and the themes in the story.
Immediately can be found in Adverbs on pp. 1-8"
I have to assign two areas of focus, since that's a part of the assignment formula. I figured that the narrator would be interesting to write about (in that he's completely oblivious to what's actually happening, and in his generally amusing way of writing (I specifically love the first paragraph), and that 'themes' can be understood to mean both the love theme and the volcano motif - plus anything else someone might stumble upon that I just haven't noticed.
I'd have liked to include more stories from this books in the assignment (particularly since I only have three Gaimans and two Murakamis apart from this), but I'm very limited by the fact that I also have to be able to actually lend the text to whoever ends up drawing it. If anyone has any suggestions to a better story or better points of focus, I'd be glad to listen. =)
