A Clean, Well-Lighted Place response

Author's Note: This is a short response about the story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, by: Ernest Hemingway. I am comparing the two waiters from the story and explaining what the café represents.

     In the short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, by: Ernest Hemingway there are two waiters at a café that is open until 3 in the morning. There is a younger waiter who wants to get home as early as possible because he complains that his wife is waiting in bed for him and he states that 3 AM is a terrible hour to go to sleep. The older waiter understands what the old man at the café is thinking. He knows what it is like to want to stay up all night at a clean well-lighted place. The old man doesn't want to be alone in the dark, he wants to have people around him and feel secure.

     In this story I think that the young waiter symbolizes society now, and the old man and old waiter symbolize society as it should or used to be. Now society rushes through life always trying to get onto the next thing in their life, but society should just wait and take a moment to observe the beauty of what's around them. The café symbolizes everything wonderful about the world, or the things that society doesn't stop and think about. The young waiter wants to leave and get on with his life, while the older waiter understands that the old man wants to stay late at the café and adore the beauty, while staying out of the dark.

Mildred's Thoughts

Mildred’s Thoughts

In the book Fahrenheit 451, by: Ray Bradbury Guy Montag’s wife, Mildred is one of the most intriguing characters. Sometimes she just goes with the flow, but other times she acts like she knows what’s going on around her. When Mildred is surrounded by people who don’t think and just do what the government wants, she acts like one of them. When she is by herself she knows that she must get out of the terrible dystopian world in Fahrenheit 451.

In the beginning of the book Guy finds an empty bottle of sleeping pills near Mildred’s bed. Since she had recently been having trouble sleeping she was supposed to take 1 pill each night. However, she takes all 30 of the pills in one night. The next morning Mildred calmly tells Guy, “Didn’t sleep well. Feel terrible, god I’m hungry. I can’t figure it.” (18). When Mildred said this you can tell that she was trying to figure out what to tell Guy.  Then, after Guy asks her what she remembered from last night and she said, “What? Did we have a wild party or something? Feel like I’ve a hangover. God I’m hungry. Who was here?” (19). Mildred is trying to convince Guy that she doesn’t know what happened the night before. Additionally her thoughts are scattered, and you can tell that she isn’t sure what to say. Mildred symbolizes how this dystopian society lives, in fear of the government.

Another example of Mildred being unengaged and not thinking is when Guy comes home from work on page 49. He lays down on the couch and starts talking to Mildred about the day. He isn’t felling well and while Mildred goes to get him an aspirin he vomits on the rug. Immediately after he tells her, “We burnt an old woman with her books,” (49). Mildred, being the dumb citizen that she is states, “Well it’s a good thing the rug’s washable” (49). This just goes to show how the citizens are completely oblivious to the outside world.

Mildred is a very interesting character to say the least. She acts two different ways throughout the book. Sometimes acts like a normal person would. Other times she acts like a normal person in this dystopian society.

The Final Opportunity

The Final Opportunity

                The Pewaukee Pirates had worked so hard to get to the biggest stage in high school basketball: the state championship. They definitely didn’t want that opportunity go to waste. The Pirates had gone 23-1 in their in-conference games with their only loss coming to Whitnall. Although the Pirates did beat Whitnall at home, no one knew how the game would go at a neutral site. The Kohl Center was hardly neutral for the Wisconsin Badgers.

Pewaukee beat the Waterford Wolverines in the semifinals by a slim margin of 5 points. Jack Gohlke hit 4-4 free throws to seal the game off. Frustrated, the Waterford players leisurely walked across the floor to head into the locker room. While the Pirates fans celebrate, the players know they have to keep their mind on their next game against Whitnall.

The big game was today and the players filtered out of the hotel to get onto the team buses. Nothing seemed to be wrong, but Jack Gohlke and Jaeger Hoang were not on the bus. The coach was the only one to notice, but he presumed they had already gone to the arena and were just trying to warm up early. What the coach didn’t know was that two of his players had in fact decided to walk to the arena.

“I didn’t realize the Kohl Center was this far away,” complained an impatient Jaeger.

“Neither did I.” Jack replied, “I thought that is was only a 20 minute walk.”

“I think it’s already been like 20 years.” Jaeger retorted sarcastically.

“I doubt it has been that long. We probably only have like 10 minutes to go.” Jack answered. All of a sudden Jack thought that he saw a group of angry Whitnall fans down an alley. He asked Jaeger, “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“Never mind,” Jack responded not wanting to sound frightened.

“What were you talking about?” Jaeger asked.

“Well I thought that I saw a group of deranged Whitnall fans.” Jack stated.

“Wow, you have issues.” Jaeger acknowledged as he laughed hysterically at Jack’s comment. They continued to walk down the street, and Jack kept peeking into alleys making sure that there weren’t any Whitnall fans looking to cause some trouble. Nervously, Jack started sprinting down the alley, with a heart beating at the speed of light, while Jaeger had to hustle to keep up.

“Let’s just get to the arena and suit up.” Jack said in a panicky tone.

“Calm down.” Jaeger replied in a voice that wasn’t quite as calm as he would have liked. Focusing on the game, Jaeger tried to slow Jack down so that he wouldn’t be so afraid of his own hallucinations so that he would be ready to go. Achieving the state championship goal would require a great amount of focus and concentration.

“Okay, I think we are almost there.” Jack stated as he finally slowed down.

Considering the circumstances, Jack and Jaeger should have been very nervous about what was around that corner, but the two of them were very good at handling these kind of circumstances. As they turned the corner they saw… the Kohl Center.

Irritating was the word that came to Jaeger’s mind when he thought about this experience with Jack. He was bored out of his mind the whole time and thought that they should’ve taken the bus along with the rest of the squad. Finally, they could relax and prepare for the biggest game of their high school career.

Quote from Fahrenheit 451

"Didn't sleep well. Feel terrible, god I'm hungry. I can't figure it." Mildred said this after Guy asked her how she slept last night. He knew that she took all 30 of the sleeping pills last night. Guy suspects that Mildred was trying to commit suicide, and he is trying to figure out why. This quote symbolizes their awkward relationship and the fact that they probably shouldn't be married.

Unfocused and Un-Concentrated

Author’s Note: In this piece I tried to create a mood describing Artemis Fowl from the book Artemis Fowl 7: The Arctic Incident with figurative language; such as similes, metaphors, etc. Then I analyzed the short description in an essay format.

Unfocused and Un-concentrated

                Artemis is a shadow of his old self. He is now focused on numbers and has extreme OCD. He is normally smarter than Einstein, but now he has the attention span of a nat. While he is focused on numbers, he thinks anything that has to do with 4 is deadly, and 5 is lucky enough to get him out of a jam. Additionally, Artemis always acted affectionately while addressing accomplished fairies.  Now he is as soft as a child’s blanket although he used to be as hard as a rock.

Unfocused and Un-concentrated (Essay)

                Have you ever considered using figurative language in your writing? As you can see in the piece that I wrote above, the mood can be changed dramatically by just using a little figurative language. Figurative language is one of the best ways to get someone into and excited about your piece. Once they are into your piece they will definitely appreciate the use of even more figurative language.

                In Unfocused and Un-Concentrated the main use of figurative language includes similes and metaphors. The similes and metaphors provide the story with thought provoking comparisons, such as “He is normally smarter than Einstein, but now he has the attention span of a nat.” This metaphor references the fact that Artemis Fowl used to be one of the smartest if not the smartest person on the planet, but after he got a fairy disease he cannot focus on one thing for an extended period of time.

                Towards the end of the piece, there is an example of alliteration, “Additionally, Artemis always acted affectionately while addressing accomplished fairies.” With this example the reader gets an interesting, yet somewhat silly sentence. The main reason that alliteration is used is so that the reader can take a little break from the seriousness of the piece and enjoy a sentence or two of silly wordplay. Alliteration is also great to add a playful mood to a piece if you think it's a little dull or dreary.

                Figurative language can create a great mood in a piece. It helps you get readers engaged and interested in your piece. Once you know how to  use figurative language, you should definitely make use of it right away. If you don’t use figurative language you are like a dog chasing its tail, never making progress.