Riassunti e commenti di 10 racconti e 3 film., Sintesi del corso di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Riassunti e commenti di 10 racconti e 3 film. e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! Film 1: Philomena (2013) This movie talks about Martin Sismith, a journalist who just lost his job and would like to start a book about the history of Russia. In the meantime, there is the story of Philomena who confesses to her daughter that when she was young, 50 years before, in Ireland, she had had a baby, who was born in a nuns’ convent, where she was placed in custody. Here she lived in a state of segregation and imprisonment, and they took her baby away from her as well, and he was given up for adoption. When Martin meets Philomena’s daughter, who was working as a waitress at a party, she offers him to talk about Philomena’s story in order to reunite her with her son, and also to make her story known. At first the journalist was reluctant, and he didn’t want to accept this offer, but then he accepted because he needed a job. So he meets up with Philomena, and the two start investigating about her son and who he became, and where he is right now. Here we start knowing more about Philomena’s story, and many shocking details about the life of the young mothers in the nun’s convent of “Roscrea”. Philomena had given birth in an excruciating way, without painkillers, in 1952, and her son Anthony was born. She was obliged to sign a document to give up his child for adoption, but she had to keep taking care of him until he was three years old; and she had to work for the nuns in the laundry. Her best friend was also a mother of a baby named Mary; the two were friends with each other, but once a couple came to adopt Mary, in 1955, they adopted the both of them since they had become inseparable. Martin and Philomena began their research by going to the convent. The nuns appear to be kind and hospitable at first, but they say that they have no useful information, because the adoption records had been destroyed in a fire some years ago. Martin goes in a pub near the convent to ease the tension, but in the pub he hears that the fire hadn’t been a case, in fact the documents that had survived were those of the adoptions signed by the mothers; and the kids hadn’t been given to adoption, but they had been sold for a huge amount of money to high-class families, especially from the United States. Thanks to his experiences in politics, Martin has a lot of contacts in the US, and he manages to get some data. He learns that Anhtony had been adopted by the Hess family, with the name of Micheal Hess, then he became a successful lawyer. He finds out about his homosexuality, and that he had a relationship with a guy named Pete; and he also finds out about his death because of AIDS, in 1995. He tells Philomena what he had found out with reluctance, and then the two of them start looking for the people who knew him. By looking at old photographs, Martin realizes he had met Anthony / Michael at the White House, when he used to work for the BBC. They meet Mary, Micheal’s adoptive sister, who tells them their mother loved MIchael, and she tells them about Micheal’s boyfriend, Pete Olsson. However, what she says doesn’t convince nor satisfy the journalist fully. According to Mary, Michael was never really interested in his origins and never tried to find out who his real mother was. After rejecting the many attempts of meeting him by Martin, Pete accepts to meet Philomena. He lets them know that Micheal actually always thought about his past and his mother, to a point where he even went to Ireland to visit the convent and try to find out something about her. But the nuns told him that they had lost any contact with the woman. He also tells the two that Michael’s wish during the last phases of his illness was to be buried in the convent’s cemetery, hoping that his mother could find the inscription on the tomb. The story ends where it had all started: to the convent. Here Martin confronts one of the nuns who had remained alive since then, and she says she doesn’t regret anything, and that the loss of her child was the right punishment given by the God; while Martin criticizes her harshly, Philomena forgives her. She finds her son’s tomb, and reads the inscription of the tombstone. In the end she accepts the publication of the book, after many doubts throughout the story. Film 2: The Angels’ share (2012) The title refers to the “angel share”, which is the part of whisky that evaporates from the wooden barrels during maturation. The main character’s name is Robbie. He’s a young Glasgow man who’s condemned for a barbaric beating. Even if he has a long criminal record, and the act was really violent, he’s given as a condemnation 300 hours of social services, because they recognized his effort in trying to change his conduct, and also because of the fact that he’s about to become a father. After the first hours of social work, he already starts having a good relationship with Harry, responsible for the social workers, who even accompanies him to the hospital where his girlfriend, Leonie, is about to give birth. He helps him after he’s been beaten up by her relatives, who don’t want him to date her. But Leonie loves Robbie: even though she’s aware of the difficulties, she believes in the possibility of them being able to raise their child together. The other main characters besides from Robbie and Harry (who becomes a mentor figure for Robbie, especially in the world of whiskey, helping him explore his new passion); and the three friends of Robbie who become his friends throughout the movie and who help him in his plan to steal a very valuable cask of whiskey, hoping to change their lives for the better. They’re called Albert, Mo and Rhino. A beautiful friendship started consolidating in Harry’s group, and so he decides to organize an instructive trip, outside of the service hours, in a distillery in Edinburgh. When Luke is born, Leonie’s father offers Robbie some money in order to make him distance himself from his daughter, but he refuses. While Leonie tries to find a decent home for the new family with the help of family and friends, Robbie seems fatally linked to old feuds that have never died down. During the trip, we find out about Robbie’s talent as a whisky taster. He is even passed a business card by a whisky collector, Thaddeus. Then, there was the news that soon they would auction a bottle of a really high quality whisky. He studies a criminal plan, and he decides to steal part of that really precious liquid together with the three friends. With great wit Robbie manages to subtract four bottles of that whisky. He approaches Thaddeus and negotiates a sale of three bottles, in exchange for 200.000 pounds and a “real job”. Inadvertently, Albert breaks two of the four bottles during an encounter with the police. Robbie is furious, but still meets Thaddeus, and negotiates a sale for 100.000 pounds and a permanent job, and only sells one bottle. He gives the other bottle of sublime whisky to Harry. The scene cuts to show Harry coming home to find a bottle sitting on his kitchen table and an open window, with a note thanking him for giving Robbie a chance, next to a picture of the community group next to the cask. He smells the bottle and rejoices gleefully at the Malt Mill inside. After getting hired in a distillery thanks to the negotiation with Thaddeus, he sets off with Leonie and Luke in order to restart a new life far away from the quarrels he had in Glasgow. At the end, there are the temporary goodbyes of Robbie with his new friends, who, at the end, go get wasted with the money they made. THE BURNING BABY – DYLAN THOMAS The main character of this story is Rhys Rhys, a man who has a son and a daughter. Rhys falls in love with his daughter after the death of his wife. The daughter is described with words like “her hair smelt of mice”, “her teeth came over her lip”, “the lids of her eyes were red and wet”. Rhys tells her she’s more beautiful than her dead mother, and he keeps on sexualising and touching his daughter inappropriately. The daughter doesn’t understand what’s going on, and she acts in a very shy manner with her father. His son is introduced as a boy holding a dead rabbit, who has been mutilated and disintegrated. He’s playing with it and tickling it as if it was a toy. In the boy’s room it’s full of skulls and furs of dead animals. The father takes its skull away and puts it in his pocket. These are just some of the examples that show us how dysfunctional and absurd the dynamics of this family are. When Rhys Rhys rapes his daughter, his son comes in to get his rabbit back. Then the daughter becomes pregnant by her very own father, and after she gives birth to the child, Rhys Rhys takes the baby to the top of a hill and burns it, as the baby screams and cries. The final scene is also the way the whole story begins. The narration is very non-linear, the author wants to convey a sense of disturbance and corruption, especially with these continuous references to death: for example the image of the rabbit, which wasn’t really necessary for the plot, or the repetition of the word “flesh”. Also there is a strange sense of time: for example there isn’t a narration of the pregnancy, and the points of view are always shifting: sometimes we see the story from the perspective of a third narrator, others it’s the perspective of the father, and others it’s the perspective of the boy, who uses first person. The whole story is very creepy and disturbing, both for the plot and the way it’s narrated. Rhys Rhys is a vicar, but he’s sinful and corrupt, and the narration of his thoughts and impulses heavily contributes to creeping the reader out. In my opinion, also the fact that the names of the characters aren’t said contributes to their dehumanization. We notice that the author doesn’t give any information about the children. In my opinion, this is probably because he wants to “dehumanize” them: the story is made to give the reader a sense of uneasiness and disturbance, which the author gives us by telling the story also by Rhys Rhys’ point of view, which is that of a disturbed man. This brings the story to be full of words like flash or to have many references to death and rape. The environment and the way it’s described contributes to the narration, because the environment is described as very creepy, unsafe and ambiguous; it contributes to the narration by giving the reader a sense of uneasiness and discomfort. The plot is narrated with the goal of being disturbing, and the way the environment is described helps the author to create this kind of atmosphere. It also contributes because it gives us an idea of how disturbed and dysfunctional this household is. THE INVISIBLE JAPANESE GENTLEMEN – GRAHAM GREENE The narrator is sitting at a table in a restaurant, and he’s watching eight Japanese gentlemen having a fish dinner, speaking to each other in a very courteous and well-educated way, in their language; all but one of them wore glasses. Then, the narrator’s attention shifts to a woman, sitting by a window, talking to her fiancé. The couple was having a conversation about the fact that they could marry next week, and she says that they’re giving her an advance of 500 pounds. The narrator understands that the woman is a novelist, which means that she has the same profession as himself; therefore he thinks about the fact that she’s really young, and that she deserves a better life. The woman doesn’t notice that the narrator is overhearing the conversation.. She keeps talking, saying that her publisher, Dwight, made many compliments about her book. When the man asks who Dwight is, she accuses him of never listening. She explains how Dwight only wants to change the title of her book, and that she should keep him happy because he’s basically paying for their marriage. She also says that Dwight has complimented her writing skills, and said that she had a “big power of observation”. The fiancé says that his mother doesn’t believe it’s a good idea, and the girl accuses him of not wanting to be married to a novelist. He says that she isn’t one yet. In the meantime, the Japanese gentlemen had finished their fish, and with elaborate courtesy they were ordering a fresh fruit salad from the waitress.In the meantime, the girl looked at them, and looked at the narrator, also throughout the whole story, but the narrator believes she’s only “seeing her future”. The narrator says he was on the male’s mother's side, which is that writing is a “good crutch”. He wanted to warn the girl that the publisher may have lied, and that it won’t become an easy profession even as the years go by, that she’s going to have a very hard way, and that in the future she’ll be judged by performance and not by promise. She looks at the narrator and the Japanese gentlemen again. He hopes her book is not going to be successful because he doesn’t want her to become “the Mrs Humphrey Ward of her generation”. As the couple finished talking, two of the Japanese men bowed to each other. At the end, the narrator could still hear them talking while they found their coats at the back of the restaurant. The man said, ‘I wonder what all those Japanese are doing here”; and she replied ‘What Japanese, darling? Sometimes you are so evasive I think you don’t wanna marry me at all.’ Despite the girl’s publisher, Mr Dwight, said that she has an excellent sense of observation, at the end of the short story it’s revealed that she has failed to notice the eight men, while her fiancé hasn’t. The story captures a moment of observation and reflection by the narrator while sitting in a restaurant. One of the main themes may be the cultural contrast between the Japanese gentlemen at one table and the English couple at another. The Japanese gentlemen are seen as polite and courteous, engaging in a formal dinner conversation, while the British couple’s conversation is much more casual, and it revolves around their impending marriage and the woman’s writing career. This enlightens cultural differences and manners. The woman is revealed to be a novelist, and the narrator, who shares the same profession, observes her with interest. Her discussion about her book and publisher, Dwight, shows the ambitions of a young writer. The fiancé’s doubts about marrying a novelist and the woman’s optimism about her writing career reflect a contrast between ambition and realism. The narrator, siding with the fiancé, knows that the path of a writer can be tough and uncertain, and first he wishes he could warn her. The narrator contemplates how she’s going to be judged not by a promise but by her performance, hinting at the idea that success in writing demands more than just potential. The man’s comment about the Japanese gentlemen and the woman’s response show a disconnect between their perception and feelings, and therefore miscommunication in their relationship. Also, it shows how the publisher’s words about the woman having “power of observation” clearly were not true, since she was in front of the Japanese gentlemen for the whole dinner, but she didn’t even realize it, because she was too preoccupied talking about herself and her own career. Overall, the story offers a glimpse into the inner thoughts of the narrator as he observes the people around him and reflects on their lives and interactions. The main character is the narrator, who may be considered quite jealous of her youth, although he’s also being very cynical about her future career, since he believes her books aren’t going to be successful, and she’s going to have to face reality, especially when she gets older. He hopes she’s not going to be “as popular as Mrs .Humphrey Ward”, and he ironically says that she doesn’t even look like here and therefore they should put a picture of her in the back of the book, probably hinting at the fact that people would only buy her book for her appearance. The girl is very proud of herself, and she thinks she can do anything, and treats her fiancé in an entitled way. She’s too self-absorbed and can only think about her book and Mr Dwight’s compliments, even though she brags about her supposed “power of observation” which she clearly doesn’t have. The boy is more “down to earth” than his girlfriend. He’s trying to consider mor opportunities for their future lives, which include him getting a job and having a plan in case her book is not going to sell. He seems very easily subdued by the attitude of his fiancé. In the story, “Mrs Humphrey Ward” refers to Mary Augusta Ward, a prominent British novelist and writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was known for her literary works, including novels and social and political commentary. At the time, she was widely recognized and a successful author. Her name is invoked in the story as a reference to a popular and accomplished writer of the era. The narrator expresses the hope that the aspiring novelist he’s observing doesn’t become as popular as Mrs Humphrey Ward, indicating a mix of jealousy and cynicism about her potential success as a writer. The Japanese men in the story serve as a contrasting element to the English couple’s conversation and the narrator’s observations. They’re significant because they represent a cultural contrast within the restaurant scene. The Japanese gentlemen are portrayed as polite, courteous, and engaging in a formal dinner conversation, highlighting the cultural differences in manners and behavior. Their presence also underscores the theme of observation, as the narrator comments on the woman’s purported “power of observation” while she fails to notice the Japanese men throughout the whole meal. This discrepancy between the woman’s self-perception and the reality of her inattentiveness adds depths to the story and reflects the theme of miscommunication and perception in the narrative. THE HOUSE OF THE FAMOUS POET – MURIEL SPARK In the summer of 1944, the author took the train to London. Here, she met a girl, Elise, and a soldier. The author was invited by Elise to the house where she worked, as Elise explained that the master and his family were away. The author accepted as she saw her as a curiosity; she wanted to find out something deeper about her. Once they arrived at the house at the Swiss Cottage, the author got really disappointed, and she started to get bored about Elise and the house. Everything changed when she found out that it was the house of the Famous Poet: the author knew the poems and the poet very well. Elise invited some friends to the house, considering that the poet was not home for the weekend. The author feared that the poet might come home, but since she didn’t have the train to leave she decided to stay at the party. The day after the party, when the author was ready to leave, a soldier that she met on the train came to her, because he needed some cash to buy the train ticket. Instead of begging for money, he sold the author an abstract funeral. She found it a bargain, but still decided to pay the soldier. The soldier had also sold an abstract funeral to Elise and to the famous poet. Later on, the author learned that both Elise and the poet had been killed by a bomb at the poet’s house. At the end, the author reflects on how Elise and the poet had calmly allowed the soldier to sell them the notion of a funeral, thinking that one day she also will accept an abstract funeral without any complaints, like everyone else. The narration has a point of view that seems shifting, even though we always have the same person to narrate the story: the protagonist changes, and enlarges her view according to what she discovers. For instance, her perception of the house changes when she discovers it belongs to the poet. Elise is a very mundane and easy-going character: her personality seems weird in comparison to that of the narrator. The soldier is a very mysterious character, he’s always smoking and he’s very happy when people accept cigarettes from him at the very beginning, in the train. In the end, he’s the one selling abstract funerals. Death is a theme that is always present in the story, especially with the noise of the sirens that accompanies us throughout the story. But this disturbing presence escalates at the end, when the author buys the abstract funeral, and throws it away, and then she finds out that Elise and the poet are both dead, knowing they had also bought it. We could say that the soldier can be seen as a bringer of death, or even a personification of death. It’s evident that death can be considered as a real character or a personified presence in the story rather than merely an abstract concept. Several elements in the narrative support this interpretation. First of all, the role of the soldier: he appears to have a mysterious and symbolical role. At first, he seems to represent life and vitality: he offers cigarettes and engages in friendly interactions, when at the beginning he talks to the author and Elise in the train. However, he transforms into a seller of abstract funerals, a concept that is closely associated with death. This transformation can be seen as a shift from life to death. So the soldier is a character who embodies the idea of death. The abstract funerals are also a tangible representation of death within the story. They’re a concrete element involving death, and their presence reinforces the theme of death as something more than just an abstract concept. Also the sirens’ constant presence in the story creates an atmosphere of impending danger. Sirens are often associated with emergency situations, like bombings during wartime. Their presence adds to the sense of death as a constant and imminent threat. Lastly, the tragic conclusion of the story, where the author learns that both Elise and the famous poet are dead after purchasing abstract funerals, further solidifies the idea of death as an active force in the narrative. This twist reinforces the notion that death is not just an abstract concept, but a concrete presence that affects the characters’ lives. CLAP HANDS, HERE COMES CHARLIE – BERYL BAINBRIDGE This story is a realistic narrative text, and it talks about a complaining man called Charlie and his family. They go (unwillingly) to the theater to see “Peter Pan” with the tickets that were provided by the wife’s boss as a Christmas present, instead of money, which they needed more. Charlie and his wife are working people, with two grown sons (which we understand from their acting, but it’s left unsaid throughout the story). Alec is driving, and there’s also a grandson. Throughout the story we learn about the strained relationship between Charlie and his older son, Alec, and we learn about Charlie’s negative attitude towards his family and his life, and also the negative way he’s seen by the members of his family. Charlie’s family has some economical struggles, also evident by the complaints of Charlie towards their house and their condition of life. Charlie and Alec fight and argue most of the time, even though they have a house and a family, and even though it’s Christmas. To them, all of this is irrelevant, and they keep on discussing and fighting. This leads to a rupture in the family, which is also symbolized by Charlie’s death, the sustainer and father of the family. It’s Christmas, but there is no joyful atmosphere. There are only conflicts and fights caused by the father and son’s attitudes. When they’re at the theater, while Tinkerbell is dying, the audience must clap to revive her. But Charlie, in the meantime, is suffering a heart attack, and when he asks his wife for help with the energy he had left, she just shushes him, and keeps clapping in order to revive a fictional character, which leads to letting her husband die. This is an important opposition in the story. During the spectacle, while the family claps for the revival of Tinkerbell, Charlie dies of a heart attack: the moment of happiness for the revival becomes a moment of death. The story is told in present tense, so that it feels like it’s developing as we’re reading it. The theater experience itself unfolds in four stages. The first part of the story is the initial cause of the conflict: Mrs. Hisson (the mother’s boss) gives her tickets for the play, which enrages Charlie: they wanted money. Alec supports the mother instead, approving the idea of going to the theater. The second part unfolds during their arrival to the theater. As they make their way to the theater, Charlie reminisces about their past life, and revives their big old house they used to live in, filled with space and freedom, which now he barely has, and where he could stargaze in the garden or go fishing and hunting. In their current house, and in their current economic instability, he can’t even open the window because of the wind, and that house feels like a distant memory. His wife disagrees with his nostalgia, emphasizing that he was never home. The third part consists of the first three acts of the play at the theater. Initially, Charlie struggles to understand the plot and doesn’t know what’s happening. He even dislikes the play because he keeps finding details that should be fixed. He discusses these issues with Alec during the play; then he falls asleep. During the final part, which occurs in the last act of the theater experience, Charlie’s health deteriorates, leading to his death. In fact, as the family watches the play, an unexpected turn of events occurs: while the audience claps to revive Tinkerbell, he’s having a heart attack, and reaches out to his wife for help. However he’s being shushed, as she keeps clapping for the fictitious character. In the story we witness the strained relationship of Charlie and his older son, who constantly bicker and argue despite having a home, family, and it being Christmas. This ongoing conflict culminates in Charlie’s death, symbolizing the family’s fracture, with Charlie being the family’s cornerstone. This sociological short story provides insight into family dynamics and the consequences of misaligned priorities (during the holiday season). LET ME COUNT THE TIMES – MARTIN AMIS In this short story, the protagonist, Vernon, is a businessman who obsessively calculates the frequency of his sexual encounters with his wife. In fact, the short story begins with the sentence “Vernon made love to his wife three and a half times a week, and this was alright”. His office is full of calculators. When one day a powerful white computer is delivered to the accounts department, he writes and tabulates his entire sex life in endless series. Vernon’s wife is the only woman he has ever had, he loves her and likes making love to her. But when he goes on a business trip for a week everything changes. Here, he starts his so-called “sessions”. Despite his love for her and the satisfaction he derives from their intimate moments, Vernon begins to experience a crisis of masculinity. He gives space to his erotic desires and fantasies through masturbation, engaging in imaginary couplings with famous actresses and having sexual fantasies about the female characters of his book, which become ever more unhinged and wild. He starts having these sessions way too often, and it becomes an obsession. After some troubles, he suspects to be impotent, but he thinks it’s all caused by not having respected the habits he used to have with his wife. At the end, he realizes that loving his wife is enough to be happy and satisfied, without having to calculate everything. Vernon’s bizarre sexual behavior, which ultimately leads to a breakdown, is depicted in a grotesque and mocking style. The story critiques the idea of sex centered on men’s needs, portraying it as something that men do to women, and highlights the masculine pride associated with counting sexual encounters. Vernon’s struggle to reconcile his role as a loving husband with his playboy persona (that he created himself) results in anxiety and emotional turmoil. While it’s dismantled a typical model of masculinity in the story, gender roles are left largely unaltered. Vernon’s wife remains nameless and devoid of agency, depicted as the classic housewife who only exists as the passive recipient of Vernon’s actions. Despite the satire and critique of modern masculinity, the story doesn’t really offer alternatives nor challenges the prevailing male order. In essence, this short story explores the tension between traditional gender roles and the complexities of modern masculinity through the lens of one man’s obsessive calculations and sexual fantasies.