Running head MCDONALD’S CASE STUDY 1MCDO.docx

Running head: MCDONALD’S CASE STUDY
1
MCDONALD’S CASE STUDY
4
McDonald’s CASE STUDY
Dawn Buxton
Dr. Daniel Frost
HRM532
January 20, 2019
Introduction
The success of any company is determined by the effort which
is made by all the stakeholders to see its activities flourish.
More importantly are the programs that are put in place by the
management as they strive to be profitable and achieve their
missions and attain their vision. The strategies which are put in
place vary depending on the management, and they are often
very successful. McDonald’s like other companies were founded
with the goal of being successful and have an impact on the
community surrounding it and society at large (McDonald’s,
2019). To reach their goal, the company put in several programs
which were profit focused as well as community enhancement.

It was seeking to improve customer trust in its products while
still making profits. This paper will be focusing on discussing
the program in detail looking at several aspects which it relates.
Some areas of focus will be strengths of the program, how it led
to success, areas which it may be improved and providing two
other programs which may help the company to more
profitability in future.
Talent Managing Program
The program was started by the early management which was in
a bid to increase performance while maintaining quality. The
early years were dedicated to improving the skills of the
workers in other fields of their choice which would make them
proficient. Once they achieved the required skill, they would
transition to what they had chosen to do and quit their job at the
company. In this strategy, the company was aiming to improve
how people viewed the products it offered. The workers who
worked at the different branches before moving on to other
careers had knowledge and admiration for the products which
assured that they would return as customers and bring
colleagues from their new work environment. In a way, the
program was a marketing strategy which would successfully
market the company without putting in more investment to keep
on advertising. The main feature and aim of the program are to
equip more people with the necessary information on the
products and taste of its products before they move on to their
careers (McDonald’s, 2019).
Working at a place leads to developing a sense of belonging
which is essential and keeps a person glued to products of the
working environment. Another essential quality which the
program sought to create was gratitude among the people is
equipped with skills for their jobs and general career-path.
When one is grateful for something you have done for him or
her, they always give back by supporting your activities and
ventures as a mean of repaying the goodness you have done
them. The graduates of the program were spread among
different localities, and that offered an avenue for growth and

development of more branches of the company. Generally, the
program was a success, but it went through more than meets the
eye before it picked up and became profitable (McDonald’s,
2019).
How and why did the program start?
The company experienced losses and a period of no growth.
What was peculiar about the losses was the fact that the top
management was very competent and experienced in running the
business. This raised questions on where they were going
wrong, but the answer could not be found easily. As a result, the
leaders held an all-encompassing stakeholders meeting which
was tasked with coming up with ways to increase profits while
maintaining quality as well as benefiting the community at
large. The task was enormous, and several approaches had to be
instituted. The company had to ensure a balance between the
activities which were done globally and within the country. As
such, a balance had to be found to ensure that the quality
distributed across the world was the same, prices were not
different and that they were affordable to most of the target
population. Also, the company needed to train competent and
efficient leadership to ensure that the activities could be carried
out even better even though the current crop of leaders left due
to unforeseeable reasons or retired. The talent management
program necessitated the starting of different initiatives to boost
its performance (Goldsmith & Carter, 2009).
The company had to develop a plan which would see the
succession of all leaders to be smooth and affect the activities
of the company less. Between 2001 and 2005, the company
experienced a rough period because it was forced to change in
management three times due to the death of Chief Executive
Officer Jim Cantalupo, in 2004. Pre-existing talent and
identifying the gaps which were present the errors in the
program were identified, and measures were taken to counter
them. The need for advanced talent development and
identification was found. This necessitated the development of
the Leadership at McDonald’s Program (LAMP). It ensured the

strengthening of talent’s capabilities by giving extra training to
the employees who performed highly to boost business and help
them create a network within their peers (Goldsmith & Carter,
2009).
Moreover, a performance enhancement program which stressed
the differentiation of employees based on how they performed
their openness and tolerance to change as well as being able to
account for the results they posted. A 4-metric scale for the
grading was developed and the higher the rank one was in, the
higher credits they would get and compensation due to their
service. Also, education of leaders to lead the company was
very important. It led to the creation and running of the
McDonald’s Leadership Development Institute which was aimed
at boosting leadership. Top level leaders were cultured in this
institution which offered a place for networking. The company
also sponsored the activities of Hamburger University where
some of the employees and leaders were to be cultured and
given more knowledge on how to best run the company.
Strengths
The program succeeded due to various reasons. To begin with, it
was focused on boosting employee performance by rewarding
good results and training them to utilize their capabilities
better. Building a school to improve networking helped continue
the services and quality delivered. The leadership program
developed was not only focused on delivering leaders for the
company but a global network for rolling out leaders for a
variety of companies and focus on changing customer needs and
specific commodity requirements across different regions (Stahl
et al., 2012). Training employees and leaders ensured
McDonald’s that they would never compromise on the quality
offered. At no time did the push for success seen as an
encouragement for offering lesser quality or quantity
(Goldsmith & Carter, 2009).
Areas where improvement can be made

One of the significant features of the program is based on
grading of employees based on performance. The measures are
predefined by the management. However, that often
discriminates against those who are considered as lesser
performers and they may at times fail to work on bettering their
output. Suppose measures to boost their input are put in place
while still rewarding the best. Also, the leadership development
program is concerned with top performers who are the small
population in the company. The effect the program has can be
increased by making sure more employees are assimilated into
the platform. That guarantees more leaders and consequently
better services and performance.
Methods to encounter talent managing challenges
The most important aspect about talents management is not only
identification but the retention of what is identified as essential
personnel and may be offering a prospective brighter future
(Hancock et al., 2013). A proactive approach is the best way to
retain most of the talent. The rewarding scheme for employees
should be overhauled to reward the best while still encouraging
the rest to do better in their performance. The practice of
praising the best performers only could lead to loss of the
others who may feel they are not well appreciated for their
efforts to see the activities of the organization to prosper.
Recently a technique known as talent mapping has been
introduced and implemented with a lot of success in the field. It
involves the identification of current talent and matching it with
assumed future company needs to ensure the progress of its
business processes (Garavan et al., 2012). As of now, the
company has only been investing in current needs while
ignoring what it may require in the future. It limits the growth
of the company because the employees are not future-oriented
for they only focus on current profitability. Focusing on the
future gives an edge over the competition because one is
already prepared for what may happen and future trends of the
business and the ever-changing needs of the consumers.

Conclusion
McDonald’s has experienced vibrant growth over the years to
one of the best organisations which offers quality services and
ever-changing efforts to achieve customer satisfaction. The
programs offers a platform for growth and continued investment
in sustainability.
References
McDonald’s. (2019). Talent management: a foundation of
success. Retrieved from
https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/mcd/sustainability-
old/library/policies_programs/employee_exp/foundations_for_s
uccess.html
Garavan, T. N., Carbery, R., & Rock, A. (2012). Mapping talent
development: definition, scope, and architecture. European
Journal of Training and Development, 36(1), 5-24.
Goldsmith, M., & Carter, L. (2009). Best practices in talent
management: how the world's leading corporations manage,
develop, and retain top talent. John Wiley & Sons.
Hancock, J. I., Allen, D. G., & Pierce, C. A. (2013). A meta-
analytic review of employee turnover as a predictor of firm
performance. Journal of Management, 39(3), 573-603.
Stahl, G., Björkman, I., Farndale, E., Morris, S. S., Paauwe, J.,
Stiles, P., & Wright, P. (2012). Six principles of effective
global talent management. Sloan Management Review, 53(2),
25-42.
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Explication
• The Use of Conventional
Metaphors for Death in John
Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud”
(draft, outline, and
fi nal paper) Ch. 30, p. 958
• A Reading of Emily Dickinson’s
“There’s a certain Slant of light”
Ch. 30, p. 962
Paper-in-Progress
• Explication: The Use of
Conventional Metaphors
for Death in John Donne’s
“Death Be Not Proud”
(draft, outline, and
fi nal paper) Ch. 30, p. 958
Research Paper
• How William Faulkner’s
Narrator Cultivates
a Rose for Emily Ch. 32, p. 987
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fiction
T. Coraghessan Boyle. “Carnal Knowledge” from Without a
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Copyright © 1994 by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Used by
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Raymond Carver. “Popular Mechanics” from What We Talk
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About Michael Meyer
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at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the College

of Wil-
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authority on Henry David Thoreau, Meyer is a former president
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New Thoreau
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More Lives to
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the Ralph Henry
Gabriel Prize by the American Studies Association. He is also
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University. His other books for Bedford/St. Martin’s include
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poetry, drama,
and critical thinking and writing. Creative chapters on the
elements of litera-
ture appear at the beginning of each genre section and cover
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as character, setting, confl ict, and tone, along with plenty of
examples. Addi-
tionally, case studies on major authors, including Flannery
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literature as a living
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created in
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look into the
creative process of one of America’s most popular

contemporary poets.
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FEATURES OF L ITER ATURE TO GO
A wide and well-balanced selection of
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34 stories, 202 poems, and 12 plays represent a variety of
periods, nation-
alities, cultures, styles, and voices — from the serious to the
humorous,
and from the traditional to the contemporary. Each selection has
been
vii

viii preface for instructors
chosen for its appeal to students and for its effectiveness in
demonstrat-
ing the elements, signifi cance, and pleasures of literature.
Canonical
works by Ernest Hemingway, John Keats, Susan Glas pell, and
many others
are generously represented. In addition, there are many
contemporary
selections from writers such as Nilaja Sun, Ian McEwan, and
Tim O’Brien,
as well as a rich sampling of works by writers from other
cultures. These
selections ap pear throughout the anthology.
Many options for teaching and learning about literature
In an effort to make literature come to life for students, and the
course a plea-
sure to teach for instructors, Literature to Go offers these
innovative features:
Perspectives on literature Intriguing documents — including
critical
essays, interviews, and contextual images — appear throughout
the book
to stimulate class discussion and writing.
Connections between “popular” and “literary” culture The
poetry and
drama introductions incorporate examples from popular culture,
effectively
introducing students to the literary elements of a given genre
through what

they already know. For example, students are
introduced to the elements of poetry through
greeting card verse and song lyrics by Bruce
Springsteen and to elements of drama through
a television script from Seinfeld. Lively visuals
throughout the anthology present images that
demonstrate how literature is woven into the
fabric of popular culture and art. These images
help students recognize the imprint of literature
on their everyday lives.
Case studies that treat authors in depth Each
genre section includes a chapter that focuses
closely on a major literary fi gure. Chapters on
Flannery O’Connor, Billy Collins, and William
Shakespeare are complemented by biographi-
cal introductions (with author photographs),
critical perspectives, cultural
documents (such as letters
and draft manuscript pages),
and images that serve to con-
textualize the works. A vari-
ety of critical thinking and
writing questions follow the
selections to stim ulate stu-
dent responses. All these sup-
plementary materials engage
From Chapter 9: “A Study
of Flannery O’Connor.”
preface for instructors ix

students more fully with the writers
and their works.
An in-depth chapter on
Billy Collins — created
with Billy Collins
Collins presents fi ve of his own
poems in Chapter 20 alongside his
own insights — written specifi cally for
Michael Meyer’s anthologies — into
each work, and shares photographs
and pages from his notebooks. This
case study reinforces Meyer’s empha-
sis on poetry as a living, changing art
form. Students will enjoy the oppor-
tunity to have a major poet speak
directly to them, in Collins’s one-of-a-
kind style, about how he writes, why
he writes, and the kinds of surprises
that occur along the way.
Plenty of help with reading, writing, and research
Critical reading* Advice on how to read literature ap pears at
the begin-
ning of each genre section. Sample Close Readings of
selections, in cluding
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” (Fiction), William
Hathaway’s
“Oh, Oh” (Poetry), and Susan Glas pell’s
Trifl es (Drama), provide analyses of the
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Interpretive an notations clearly show

students the pro cess of close reading
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Index of
Terms appears at the back of the book, and a glossary provides
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study of
literature.
Kate Chopin (1851–1904)
The Story of an Hour 1894
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble,
great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the
news of her husband’s death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sen-
tences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her hus-
band’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who
had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the rail-
road disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name lead-
ing the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure
himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to
forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad
message.

Sh did h h h h d h
The title could point
to the brevity of the
story — only 23 short
paragraphs — or to the
decisive nature of what
happens in a very
short period of time.
Or both.
Mrs. Mallard’s first
name, (Louise) is not
given until paragraph
17, yet her sister
Josephine is named
immediately. This em-
phasizes Mrs. Mal-
lard’s married identity.
Given the nature of the
cause of Mrs. Mallard
death at the story’s
end, it’s worth noting
the ambiguous
description that she
“was afflicted with
a heart trouble.” Is
this one of Chopin’s
A Sample Close Reading
From Chapter 20, “A Study
of Billy Collins: The Author
Refl ects on Five Poems.”

*A reference chart on the book’s inside front cover outlines all
of the book’s help for
reading and writing about literature.
x preface for instructors
The writing and research process Five
chapters (28–32) cover every step of the
writing pro cess — from generating topics
to documenting sources — while sample
student papers model the results.
Of these chapters, three — “Writing
about Fiction” (29), “Writing about Poetry”
(30), and “Writing about Drama” (31) — focus
on genre-specifi c writing assignments.
Six sample student papers — all with
MLA-style documentation — model how
to analyze and argue about literature and
how to support ideas by citing examples.
The papers are integrated throughout
the book, as are “Questions for Writing”
units that guide students through par-
ticular writing tasks: reading and writing
responsively, developing a topic into a
revised thesis, and writing about multiple
works by an author.
Chapter 32, “The Literary Research
Paper,” offers detailed advice for fi nding, evaluating, and
incorporating
sources in a paper and includes current, detailed MLA
documentation
guidelines.
Questions for critical reading and writing Hundreds of

questions
and assignments — “Considerations for Critical Thinking and
Writing,”
“Connections to Other Selections,” “First Response” prompts,
and “Cre-
ative Re sponse” assignments — spark students’ interest,
sharpen their
thinking, and improve their reading, discussion, and writing
skills.
Literature to Go e-Book: The fi rst
electronic anthology for literature
Bedford/St. Martin’s is pleased to introduce the Literature to Go
e-Book,
the fi rst electronic anthology for the literature course. Are you
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Bonnie Katz
Professor Quiello
English 109–2

October 26, 2010
A Reading of Emily Dickinson’s
“There’s a certain Slant of light”
Because Emily Dickinson did not provide titles for her poetry,
editors
follow the customary practice of using the first line of a poem
as its title.
However, a more appropriate title for “There’s a certain Slant of
light,” one
that suggests what the speaker in the poem is most concerned
about, can be
drawn from the poem’s last line, which ends with “the look of
Death” (Dickin-
son, line 16). Although the first line begins with an image of
light, nothing
bright, carefree, or cheerful appears in the poem. Instead, the
predominant
mood and images are darkened by a sense of despair resulting
from the
speaker’s awareness of death.
In the first stanza, the “certain Slant of light” is associated with
“Win-

ter Afternoons” (2), a phrase that connotes the end of a day, a
season, and
even life itself. Such light is hardly warm or comforting. Not a
ray or beam,
this slanting light suggests something unusual or distorted and
creates in the
speaker a certain slant on life that is consistent with the cold,
dark mood that
winter afternoons can produce. Like the speaker, most of us
have seen and felt
this sort of light: it “oppresses” (3) and pervades our sense of
things when we
encounter it. Dickinson uses the senses of hearing and touch as
well as sight
to describe the overwhelming oppressiveness that the speaker
experiences.
The light is transformed into sound by a simile that tells us it is
“like the Heft
/ Of Cathedral Tunes” (3–4). Moreover, the “Heft” of that sound
-- the slow,
solemn measures of tolling church bells and organ music--
weighs heavily on
our spirits. Through the use of shifting imagery, Dickinson
evokes a kind of

spiritual numbness that we keenly feel and perceive through our
senses.
By associating the winter light with “Cathedral Tunes,”
Dickinson lets
us know that the speaker is concerned about more than the
weather. What-
ever it is that “oppresses” is related by connotation to faith,
mortality, and
Katz 1
Thesis
providing
overview of
explication
Line-by-line
explication of
first stanza,
focusing on
connotations
of words and
imagery, in
relation to
mood and
meaning of
poem as a
whole;
supported
with refer-
ences to the
text

A sample student explication on
Emily Dickinson’s “There’s a
certain Slant of light” includes
parenthetical citations and a
Works Cited page.
preface for instructors xi
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xii preface for instructors
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craft. Your
students can hear from Ha Jin on how he uses humor and
tension in his

writing, Anne Rice on how she advances plot through dialogue,
Chitra
Banerjee Divakaruni on how she writes from experience, and T.
C. Boyle
on how he creates memorable voices. Related assignments and
activities
preface for instructors xiii
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has
something to offer new and experienced instructors. Resources
include
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xiv preface for instructors
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has benefi ted from the ideas, suggestions, and
corrections of
scores of careful readers who helped transform various stages of
an evolv-
ing manuscript into a fi nished book and into subsequent
editions. I
remain grateful to those I have thanked in previous prefaces,

particularly
the late Robert Wallace of Case Western Reserve University. In
addition,
many instructors who used the eighth edition of The Bedford
Introduction
to Literature responded to a questionnaire for the book. For
their valuable
comments and advice I am grateful to Sandra Allen-Kearney,
Lincoln Park
Academy; Jon W. Brooks, Okaloosa-Walton College; David
Brumbley,
Salisbury University; Robert Caughey, Torrey Pines High
School; S. Elaine
Craghead, Massachusetts Maritime Academy; Robert W. Croft,
Gaines-
ville State College; Allen Culpepper, Manatee Community
College; Samir
Dayal, Bentley College; Cheryl DeLacretaz, Dripping Springs
High School;
Janice Forgione, Salisbury University; Bernadette Gambino,
University of
North Florida; Sinceree Renee Gunn, University of Alabama in
Hunts-
ville; Cathy Henrichs, Pikes Peak Community College; Susan
Hopkirk,
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preface for instructors xv
Middle Tennessee State University; Mary Lee Stephenson
Huffer, Lake
Sumter Community College; Michelle Green Jimmerson,
Louisiana Tech
University; Sharon Johnston, Spokane Virtual Learning/Spokane
Public
Schools; Tamara Kuzmenkov, Tacoma Community College;
Catherine
Shanon Lawson, Pikes Peak Community College; Manuel
Martinez, Santa
Fe Community College; Sarah McIntosh, Santa Fe Community
College;
Jim McKeown, McLennan Community College; Julie Moore,
Green River
Community College; Larry Moss, Young Men’s Academy for
Academic
and Civic Development at MacArthur South; Angelina Northrip-
Rivera,
Missouri State University; David Pink, Rock Valley College;
Deidre D.
Price, Okaloosa-Walton College; Katharine Purcell, Trident
Technical Col-
lege; Karin Russell, Keiser University; Holly Schoenecker,
Milwaukee Area
Technical College; Beth Shelton, Paris Junior College; Karen
Stewart,
Norwich University; John A. Stoler, University of Texas at San

Antonio;
James D. Suderman, Okaloosa-Walton College; Becky Talk;
Gregory J.
Underwood, Pearl River Community College — Forrest County
Center; and
Marva Webb, Clinton High School.
I would also like to give special thanks to the following
instructors
who contributed teaching tips to Resources for Teaching
Literature to Go:
Sandra Adickes, Winona State University; Helen J. Aling,
Northwestern
College; Sr. Anne Denise Brenann, College of Mt. St. Vincent;
Robin
Calitri, Merced College; James H. Clemmer, Austin Peay State
University;
Robert Croft, Gainesville College; Thomas Edwards, Westbrook
College;
Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Red Rocks Community College; Olga
Lyles, Uni-
versity of Nevada; Timothy Peters, Boston University;
Catherine Rusco,
Muskegon Community College; Robert M. St. John, DePaul
University;
Richard Stoner, Broome Community College; Nancy Veiga,
Modesto
Junior College; Karla Walters, University of New Mexico; and
Joseph
Zeppetello, Ulster Community College.
I am also indebted to those who cheerfully answered questions
and
generously provided miscellaneous bits of information. What
might
have seemed to them like inconsequential conversations turned
out to
be important leads. Among these friends and colleagues are

Raymond
Anselment, Barbara Campbell, Ann Charters, Karen Chow, John
Chris-
tie, Eleni Coundouriotis, Irving Cummings, William Curtin,
Patrick
Hogan, Lee Jacobus, Thomas Jambeck, Bonnie Januszewski-
Ytuarte,
Greta Little, George Monteiro, Brenda Murphy, Joel Myerson,
Rose Qui-
ello, Thomas Recchio, William Sheidley, Stephanie Smith,
Milton Stern,
Kenneth Wilson, and the dedicated reference librarians at the
Homer
Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut. I am particularly
happy to
acknowledge the tactful help of Roxanne Cody, owner of R. J.
Julia Book-
sellers in Madison, Connecticut, whose passion for books
authorizes
her as the consummate matchmaker for writers, readers, and
titles. It’s a
wonder that somebody doesn’t call the cops.
I continue to be grateful for what I have learned from teaching
my
students and for the many student papers I have received over
the years
xvi preface for instructors
that I have used in various forms to serve as good and
accessible mod-
els of student writing. I am also indebted to Stefanie Wortman
for her
extensive work on Resources for Teaching literature to go.

At Bedford/St. Martin’s, my debts once again require more
time to ack-
nowledge than the deadline allows. Charles H. Christensen and
Joan E.
Feinberg initiated The Bedford Introduction to Literature and
launched it
with their intelligence, energy, and sound advice. This book has
also ben-
efi ted from the savvy insights of Denise Wydra and Steve
Scipione. Ear-
lier editions were shaped by editors Karen Henry, Kathy Retan,
Alanya
Harter, Aron Keesbury, and Ellen Thibault; their work was as fi
rst rate
as it was essential. As development editor for Literature to Go,
Christina
Gerogiannis expertly kept the book on track and made the
journey a
pleasure to the end; her valuable contributions richly remind me
of how
fortunate I am to be a Bedford/St. Martin’s author. Stephanie
Naudin,
associate editor, energetically developed the book’s instructor’s
manual,
and Sophia Snyder, editorial assistant, gracefully handled a
variety of
editorial tasks. Permissions were deftly arranged by Kalina
Hintz, Arthur
Johnson, Martha Friedman, and Susan Doheny. The diffi cult
tasks of
production were skillfully managed by Lindsay DiGianvittorio,
whose
attention to details and deadlines was essential to the
completion of this
project. Hilly van Loon provided careful copyediting, and Laura
Dewey

and Arthur Johnson did meticulous proofreading. I thank all of
the
people at Bedford/St. Martin’s — including Donna Dennison,
who designed
the cover, and Adrienne Petsick, the marketing manager — who
helped to
make this formidable project a manageable one.
Finally, I am grateful to my sons Timothy and Matthew for all
kinds
of help, but mostly I’m just grateful they’re my sons. And for
making all
the difference, I thank my wife, Regina Barreca.
Brief Contents
Resources for Reading and Writing about Literature inside front
cover
Preface for Instructors vii
Introduction: Reading Imaginative Literature 1
FICT ION 7
The Elements of Fiction 9
1. Reading Fiction 11
2. Plot 44
3. Character 64
4. Setting 115
5. Point of View 135
6. Symbolism 178
7. Theme 199
8. Style, Tone, and Irony 223

Fiction in Depth 255
9. A Study of Flannery O’Connor 257
A Collection of Stories 277
10. Stories for Further Reading 279
POETRY 339
The Elements of Poetry 341
11. Reading Poetry 343
12. Word Choice, Word Order, and Tone 375
13. Images 399
14. Figures of Speech 412
15. Symbol, Allegory, and Irony 428
xvii
xviii brief contents
16. Sounds 447
17. Patterns of Rhythm 464
18. Poetic Forms 481
19. Open Form 507
Poetry in Depth 523
20. A Study of Billy Collins: The Author Refl ects on Five
Poems 525
21. A Thematic Case Study: Humor and Satire 550
A Collection of Poems 559
22. Poems for Further Reading 561
DR AMA 589

The Study of Drama 591
23. Reading Drama 593
24. Sophocles and Greek Drama 632
25. William Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama 687
26. Henrik Ibsen and Modern Drama 788
A Collection of Plays 849
27. Plays for Further Reading 851
CRIT ICAL THINKING AND WRIT ING 927
28. Reading and the Writing Process 929
29. Writing about Fiction 942
30. Writing about Poetry 950
31. Writing about Drama 965
32. The Literary Research Paper 973
Glossary of Literary Terms 991
Index of First Lines 1019
Index of Authors and Titles 1023
Index of Terms 1034
Contents
Resources for Reading and Writing about Literature inside front
cover
Preface for Instructors vii
Introduction: Reading Imaginative Literature 1
The Nature of Literature 1

Emily Dickinson • A NARROW FELLOW IN THE GRASS 2
The Value of Literature 3
The Changing Literary Canon 5
FICT ION 7
The Elements of Fiction 9
Reading Fiction Responsively 11
Kate Chopin • THE STORY OF AN HOUR 13
A young woman reacts to news of her husband’s death. “She
had loved him —
sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter!”
a sample close reading
An Annotated Section of Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”
15
a sample student paper
Differences in Responses to Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an
Hour” 18
Explorations and Formulas 22
A Comparison of Two Stories 28
Karen van der Zee • FROM A SECRET SORROW 28
“Shut up and listen to me! . . . He was still breathing hard and
he looked at
her with stormy blue eyes.” A young couple debates their
future, Harlequin
romance style.
Gail Godwin • A SORROWFUL WOMAN 37

What happens when you’re a wife and mother — but it turns out
that’s not
what you really wanted?
xix
xx contents
2. Plot 44
Edgar Rice Burroughs • FROM TARZAN OF THE APES 46
Two wild creatures battle over a woman. “Against the long
canines of the ape was
pitted the thin blade of the man’s knife.”
Alice Walker • THE FLOWERS 53
A young girl gathers fl owers, farther from home than usual. “It
seemed gloomy in the
little cove. . . . The air was damp, the silence close and deep.”
William Faulkner • A ROSE FOR EMILY 55
In a tale that Faulkner called a ghost story, a woman breaks
from traditions of the old
South — mysteriously and gruesomely.
3. Character 64
Charles Dickens • FROM HARD TIMES 65
“Facts alone are wanted in life.” No one can take the joy out of
learning like Dickens’s
Mr. Gradgrind.
May-lee Chai • SAVING SOURDI 69
In the Killing Fields of Cambodia, Sourdi saves her sister Nea.
Now in the U.S., Nea
wants to save her sister’s happiness.

Herman Melville • BARTLEBY, THE SCRIVENER 85
“I would prefer not to.” The classic story of the most resistant
offi ce worker in
literature.
4. Setting 115
Ernest Hemingway • SOLDIER’S HOME 117
A young man comes home from war, detached from emotion and
the values of those
who want him to make something of himself.
Fay Weldon • IND AFF, OR OUT OF LOVE IN SARAJEVO
124
“I love you with inordinate affection!” A graduate student and
her married professor
travel to the Balkans to make a decision.
A. S. Byatt • BAGLADY 131
A morning of shopping in a luxurious mall in the Far East does
not go well for
Daphne Gulver-Robinson.
Third-Person Narrator 136
First-Person Narrator 137
Anton Chekhov • THE LADY WITH THE PET DOG 139
“Anna Sergeyevna and he loved each other. . . . Fate itself had
meant them for one
another, and they could not understand why he had a wife and
she a husband.”
Alice Munro • AN OUNCE OF CURE 168
A teenage girl’s fi rst experience with a broken heart leads to
catastrophic

consequences.
contents xxi
6. Symbolism 178
Ralph Ellison • BATTLE ROYAL 184
A young black man is humiliated, bloodied, and awarded a
scholarship as he sets out
on a path toward identity and equality in a racist society.
Peter Meinke • THE CRANES 196
People make many promises to the ones they love. Sometimes,
there is no turning
back.
7. Theme 199
Guy de Maupassant • THE NECKLACE 202
All Mathilde Loisel wants is a pretty necklace for the ball.
When she borrows one from
a friend, however, things do not go as expected.
Stephen Crane • THE BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY 209
In this commentary on the Wild West, things change with the
marriage of the lone
marshal of a gunslinging town.
Dagoberto Gilb • LOVE IN L.A. 219
A man driving an unregistered, uninsured ’58 Buick dreams and
deceives on the
Hollywood Freeway.
Style 223

Tone 225
Irony 225
Raymond Carver • POPULAR MECHANICS 227
With extreme economy, Carver tells the story of a troubled
family’s tug-of-war.
Susan Minot • LUST 229
“The more girls a boy has, the better. . . . For a girl, with each
boy it’s as though a petal
gets plucked each time.” A woman chronicles her early sexual
encounters.
T. Coraghessan Boyle • CARNAL KNOWLEDGE 237
How far will a man go for love? “The turkeys must have sensed
that something was
up — from behind the long white windowless wall, there arose a
watchful gabbling.”
Fiction in Depth 255
9. A Study of Flannery O’Connor 257
A Brief Biography and Introduction 258
Flannery O’Connor • A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND 261
A southern grandmother weighs in on the “goodness” of one of
literature’s most
famous ex-convicts.
xxii contents
perspectives on o’connor
Flannery O’Connor • On the Use of Exaggeration and Distortion
274

Josephine Hendin • On O’Connor’s Refusal to “Do Pretty” 274
Claire Katz • The Function of Violence in O’Connor’s Fiction
275
Time Magazine • On A Good Man Is Hard to Find 276
A Collection of Stories 277
10. Stories for Further Reading 279
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni • CLOTHES 280
A young Indian woman sees her marriage, her move to America,
and even her
wardrobe (and a California 7-Eleven) in terms of possibility.
Nathaniel Hawthorne • THE BIRTHMARK 289
An eighteenth-century scientist seeks to obliterate imperfection.
James Joyce • EVELINE 302
How much should an obedient daughter sacrifi ce to fulfi ll her
duty to her family and
home?
Jamaica Kincaid • GIRL 306
“Always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone
else’s stomach.” A
critical mother subjects her daughter to a long list of advice.
Ian McEwan • THE USE OF POETRY 308
When a science major meets a beautiful English student, he
decides poetry might have
some use after all.
Tim O’Brien • HOW TO TELL A TRUE WAR STORY 318
“If a story seems moral, do not believe it. . . . You can tell a
true war story by its abso-
lute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.”

E. Annie Proulx • 55 MILES TO THE GAS PUMP 329
A brief, startling story of a rancher and his wife.
Mark Twain • THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY 330
Obedience is not exactly celebrated in this story about being too
good.
John Updike • A & P 334
“In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” A
teenaged Sammy makes a
gallant move that changes his life.
POETRY 339
The Elements of Poetry 341
11. Reading Poetry 343
Reading Poetry Responsively 343
Lisa Parker • SNAPPING BEANS 344
Robert Hayden • THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS 345
John Updike • DOG’S DEATH 346
contents xxiii
The Pleasure of Words 347
William Hathaway • OH, OH 348
An Annotated Version of William Hathaway’s “Oh, Oh” 348
Robert Francis • CATCH 350

a sample student analysis
Tossing Metaphors Together in Robert Francis’s “Catch” 351
Elizabeth Bishop • THE FISH 355
Philip Larkin • A STUDY OF READING HABITS 357
Robert Morgan • MOUNTAIN GRAVEYARD 358
E. E. Cummings • l(a 359
Anonymous • WESTERN WIND 360
Regina Barreca • NIGHTTIME FIRES 361
suggestions for approaching poetry 362
Billy Collins • INTRODUCTION TO POETRY 364
Poetry in Popular Forms 364
Helen Farries • MAGIC OF LOVE 366
John Frederick Nims • LOVE POEM 366
Bruce Springsteen • YOU’RE MISSING 368
Poems for Further Study 369
Alberto Ríos • SENIORS 369
Li Ho • A BEAUTIFUL GIRL COMBS HER HAIR 370
Peter Pereira • ANAGRAMMER 371
Robert Frost • DESIGN 372
Mary Oliver • THE POET WITH HIS FACE IN HIS HANDS
373

12. Word Choice, Word Order, and Tone 375
Word Choice 375
Diction 375
Denotations and Connotations 377
Randall Jarrell • THE DEATH OF THE BALL TURRET
GUNNER 378
Word Order 380
Tone 380
Katharyn Howd Machan • HAZEL TELLS LAVERNE 380
Martín Espada • LATIN NIGHT AT THE PAWNSHOP 381
Paul Laurence Dunbar • TO A CAPTIOUS CRITIC 382
Diction and Tone in Four Love Poems 382
Robert Herrick • TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF
TIME 383
Andrew Marvell • TO HIS COY MISTRESS 384
xxiv contents
Ann Lauinger • MARVELL NOIR 387
Sharon Olds • LAST NIGHT 388
Thomas Hardy • THE CONVERGENCE OF THE TWAIN 389

David R. Slavitt • TITANIC 391
Gwendolyn Brooks • WE REAL COOL 391
Joan Murray • WE OLD DUDES 392
Louis Simpson • IN THE SUBURBS 393
Emily Dickinson • SOME KEEP THE SABBATH GOING TO
CHURCH — 393
John Keats • ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 394
Poets at Play 396
Billy Collins • TAKING OFF EMILY DICKINSON’S
CLOTHES 396
Joan Murray • TAKING OFF BILLY COLLINS’ CLOTHES 397
postcard: Billy Collins • TO JOAN MURRAY 398
13. Images 399
Poetry’s Appeal to the Senses 399
William Carlos Williams • POEM 400
Walt Whitman • CAVALRY CROSSING A FORD 400
Theodore Roethke • ROOT CELLAR 401
Matthew Arnold • DOVER BEACH 402
Jimmy Santiago Baca • GREEN CHILE 404

Amy Lowell • THE POND 405
William Blake • LONDON 405
Emily Dickinson • WILD NIGHTS — WILD NIGHTS! 406
Wilfred Owen • DULCE ET DECORUM EST 407
Sally Croft • HOME-BAKED BREAD 408
John Keats • TO AUTUMN 409
Ezra Pound • IN A STATION OF THE METRO 411
14. Figures of Speech 412
William Shakespeare • FROM MACBETH (ACT V, SCENE V )
413
Simile and Metaphor 414
Margaret Atwood • YOU FIT INTO ME 414
Emily Dickinson • PRESENTIMENT — IS THAT LONG
SHADOW —
ON THE LAWN — 415
contents xxv
Other Figures 416
Edmund Conti • PRAGMATIST 416
Dylan Thomas • THE HAND THAT SIGNED THE PAPER 417
Janice Townley Moore • TO A WASP 418

J. Patrick Lewis • THE UNKINDEST CUT 420
Gary Snyder • HOW POETRY COMES TO ME 420
Ernest Slyman • LIGHTNING BUGS 421
Judy Page Heitzman • THE SCHOOLROOM ON THE SECOND
FLOOR
OF THE KNITTING MILL 421
William Wordsworth • LONDON, 1802 422
Robert Frost • FIRE AND ICE 423
John Donne • A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING
423
Linda Pastan • MARKS 425
Kay Ryan • HAILSTORM 425
Elaine Magarrell • THE JOY OF COOKING 426
15. Symbol, Allegory, and Irony 428
Symbol 428
Robert Frost • ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT 429
Allegory 431
Edgar Allan Poe • THE HAUNTED PALACE 431
Irony 433
Edwin Arlington Robinson • RICHARD CORY 433
Kenneth Fearing • AD 434

E. E. Cummings • NEXT TO OF COURSE GOD AMERICA I
435
Stephen Crane • A MAN SAID TO THE UNIVERSE 436
Bob Hicok • MAKING IT IN POETRY 437
Kevin Pierce • PROOF OF ORIGIN 437
Carl Sandburg • BUTTONS 438
Wallace Stevens • ANECDOTE OF THE JAR 438
Jim Tilley • RICHTER 7.8 439
William Stafford • TRAVELING THROUGH THE DARK 440
Alden Nowlan • THE BULL MOOSE 441
Julio Marzán • ETHNIC POETRY 442
James Merrill • CASUAL WEAR 443
xxvi contents
Robert Browning • MY LAST DUCHESS 444
William Blake • THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER 445
16. Sounds 447
Listening to Poetry 447

John Updike • PLAYER PIANO 448
May Swenson • A NOSTY FRIGHT 449
Emily Dickinson • A BIRD CAME DOWN THE WALK — 450
Galway Kinnell • BLACKBERRY EATING 452
Rhyme 453
Richard Armour • GOING TO EXTREMES 453
Robert Southey • FROM “THE CATARACT OF LODORE” 454
Sound and Meaning 457
Gerard Manley Hopkins • GOD’S GRANDEUR 457
Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) • JABBERWOCKY
458
Emily Dickinson • I HEARD A FLY BUZZ — WHEN I DIED
— 459
Robert Frost • STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY
EVENING 460
John Donne • SONG 461
Paul Humphrey • BLOW 462
Robert Francis • THE PITCHER 462
Helen Chasin • THE WORD PLUM 463
17. Patterns of Rhythm 464
Some Principles of Meter 464

Walt Whitman • FROM “SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD” 465
William Wordsworth • MY HEART LEAPS UP 468
suggestions for scanning a poem 469
Timothy Steele • WAITING FOR THE STORM 470
William Butler Yeats • THAT THE NIGHT COME 470
Alfred, Lord Tennyson • BREAK, BREAK, BREAK 471
Alice Jones • THE FOOT 472
Rita Dove • FOX TROT FRIDAYS 473
Robert Herrick • DELIGHT IN DISORDER 474
Ben Jonson • STILL TO BE NEAT 474
William Blake • THE LAMB 475
William Blake • THE TYGER 476
contents xxvii
Carl Sandburg • CHICAGO 477
Robert Frost • “OUT, OUT — ” 478
Theodore Roethke • MY PAPA’S WALTZ 479
18. Poetic Forms 481

Some Common Poetic Forms 482
A. E. Housman • LOVELIEST OF TREES, THE CHERRY NOW
482
Robert Herrick • UPON JULIA’S CLOTHES 483
Sonnet 484
John Keats • ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN’S
HOMER 485
William Wordsworth • THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US
486
William Shakespeare • SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A
SUMMER’S
DAY? 487
William Shakespeare • MY MISTRESS’ EYES ARE NOTHING
LIKE
THE SUN 487
Edna St. Vincent Millay • I WILL PUT CHAOS INTO
FOURTEEN
LINES 488
Molly Peacock • DESIRE 489
Mark Jarman • UNHOLY SONNET 489
X. J. Kennedy • “THE PURPOSE OF TIME IS TO PREVENT
EVERYTHING
FROM HAPPENING AT ONCE” 490
Villanelle 491

Dylan Thomas • DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD
NIGHT 491
Sestina 492
Florence Cassen Mayers • ALL-AMERICAN SESTINA 492
Epigram 493
Samuel Taylor Coleridge • WHAT IS AN EPIGRAM? 494
A. R. Ammons • COWARD 494
David McCord • EPITAPH ON A WAITER 494
Paul Laurence Dunbar • THEOLOGY 494
Limerick 495
Anonymous • THERE WAS A YOUNG LADY NAMED
BRIGHT 495
Laurence Perrine • THE LIMERICK’S NEVER AVERSE 495
Haiku 496
Matsuo Bash–o • UNDER CHERRY TREES 496
Carolyn Kizer • AFTER BASH
–
O 496
Sonia Sanchez • C’MON MAN HOLD ME 496
Elegy 497

Theodore Roethke • ELEGY FOR JANE 497
Brendan Galvin • AN EVEL KNIEVEL ELEGY 498
xxviii contents
Ode 499
Percy Bysshe Shelley • ODE TO THE WEST WIND 499
Baron Wormser • LABOR 502
Parody 503
Blanche Farley • THE LOVER NOT TAKEN 503
perspective
Elaine Mitchell • Form 504
Picture Poem 505
Michael McFee • IN MEDIAS RES 505
19. Open Form 507
E. E. Cummings • IN JUST- 507
Walt Whitman • FROM “I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC” 508
Louis Jenkins • THE PROSE POEM 510
Galway Kinnell • AFTER MAKING LOVE WE HEAR
FOOTSTEPS 511
Kelly Cherry • ALZHEIMER’S 512

William Carlos Williams • THE RED WHEELBARROW 513
Marilyn Nelson Waniek • EMILY DICKINSON’S DEFUNCT
513
Julio Marzán • THE TRANSLATOR AT THE RECEPTION FOR
LATIN
AMERICAN WRITERS 514
Anonymous • THE FROG 515
Julia Alvarez • QUEENS, 1963 515
Tato Laviera • AMERÍCAN 517
Peter Meinke • THE ABC OF AEROBICS 519
Found Poem 520
Donald Justice • ORDER IN THE STREETS 520
Poetry in Depth 523
20. A Study of Billy Collins: The Author Refl ects
on Five Poems 525
A Brief Biography and an Introduction to His Work 526
introduction: Billy Collins • “HOW DO POEMS TRAVEL?” 531
poem: Billy Collins • OSSO BUCO 532
essay: Billy Collins • ON WRITING “OSSO BUCO” 533
poem: Billy Collins • NOSTALGIA 534

essay: Billy Collins • ON WRITING “NOSTALGIA” 535
poem: Billy Collins • QUESTIONS ABOUT ANGELS 537
essay: Billy Collins • ON WRITING “QUESTIONS ABOUT
ANGELS” 538
poem: Billy Collins • LITANY 539
essay: Billy Collins • ON WRITING “LITANY” 540
contents xxix
poem: Billy Collins • BUILDING WITH ITS FACE BLOWN
OFF 541
perspective (interview)
On “Building with Its Face Blown Off ”: Michael Meyer
Interviews Billy
Collins 542
facsimile: Billy Collins • DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PAGE OF
“BUSY DAY” 546
suggested topics for longer papers 547
questions for writing about an author in depth 548
21. A Thematic Case Study: Humor and Satire 550
Fleur Adcock • THE VIDEO 551
John Ciardi • SUBURBAN 552
Howard Nemerov • WALKING THE DOG 552
Linda Pastan • JUMP CABLING 553

Peter Schmitt • FRIENDS WITH NUMBERS 554
Martín Espada • THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE REVISES ITS
CURRICULUM
IN RESPONSE TO CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS 555
Thomas Lux • COMMERCIAL LEECH FARMING TODAY 555
X. J. Kennedy • ON A YOUNG MAN’S REMAINING AN
UNDERGRADUATE FOR TWELVE YEARS 557
A Collection of Poems 559
22. Poems for Further Reading 561
William Blake • INFANT SORROW 561
Robert Burns • A RED, RED ROSE 561
George Gordon, Lord Byron • SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY 562
Lucille Clifton • THIS MORNING (FOR THE GIRLS OF
EASTERN
HIGH SCHOOL) 563
Samuel Taylor Coleridge • KUBLA KHAN: OR, A VISION IN
A DREAM 563
Emily Dickinson • BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR
DEATH — 565
Emily Dickinson • HE FUMBLES AT YOUR SOUL 565
Emily Dickinson • I FELT A FUNERAL, IN MY BRAIN 566
Emily Dickinson • I STARTED EARLY — TOOK MY DOG —
566

Emily Dickinson • MY LIFE HAD STOOD — A LOADED GUN
— 567
John Donne • THE APPARITION 568
John Donne • THE FLEA 568
T. S. Eliot • THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK
569
Robert Frost • MENDING WALL 573
Robert Frost • THE ROAD NOT TAKEN 574
Thomas Hardy • HAP 574
Gerard Manley Hopkins • PIED BEAUTY 575
A. E. Housman • TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG 575
xxx contents
Langston Hughes • HARLEM 576
Ben Jonson • TO CELIA 577
John Keats • LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 577
John Keats • WRITTEN IN DISGUST OF VULGAR
SUPERSTITION 579
Emma Lazarus • THE NEW COLOSSUS 579

John Milton • WHEN I CONSIDER HOW MY LIGHT IS
SPENT 580
Christina Georgina Rossetti • SOME LADIES DRESS IN
MUSLIN FULL
AND WHITE 580
Siegfried Sassoon • “THEY” 581
William Shakespeare • THAT TIME OF YEAR THOU MAYST
IN ME
BEHOLD 581
William Shakespeare • WHEN, IN DISGRACE WITH
FORTUNE AND
MEN’S EYES 581
Percy Bysshe Shelley • OZYMANDIAS 582
Alfred, Lord Tennyson • ULYSSES 582
Alfred, Lord Tennyson • TEARS, IDLE TEARS 584
Walt Whitman • WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN’D
ASTRONOMER 585
William Carlos Williams • THIS IS JUST TO SAY 585
William Wordsworth • A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL
586
William Wordsworth • THE SOLITARY REAPER 586
William Wordsworth • MUTABILITY 587
William Butler Yeats • LEDA AND THE SWAN 587

DR AMA 589
The Study of Drama 591
23. Reading Drama 593
Reading Drama Responsively 593
Susan Glaspell • TRIFLES 595
Did Mrs. Wright kill her husband? While the men investigate,
Mrs. Peters and
Mrs. Hale reach their own conclusions.
An Annotated Section of Susan Glaspell’s Trifles 606
Elements of Drama 607
Joan Ackermann • QUIET TORRENTIAL SOUND 612
Two sisters in their thirties order at a café: one a hot fudge
sundae and a Diet Coke,
the other a decaf. In short order, the conversation turns to
appetites.
Drama in Popular Forms 619
Larry David • “THE PITCH,” A SEINFELD EPISODE 622
Are our lives just a series of insignifi cant, mundane events? Of
episodes in which
nothing happens?
contents xxxi
24. Sophocles and Greek Drama 632
Theatrical Conventions of Greek Drama 633
Tragedy 636

Sophocles • OEDIPUS THE KING 639
In the greatest of the surviving Greek tragedies, a hero sets out
to discover the truth
about himself.
25. William Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama 687
Shakespeare’s Theater 689
The Range of Shakespeare’s Drama: History, Comedy,
and Tragedy 693
A Note on Reading Shakespeare 696
William Shakespeare • OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE
698
Jealousy proves to be the downfall of a Moorish general in this
tragedy of love,
betrayal, friendship, and race.
26. Henrik Ibsen and Modern Drama 788
Realism 788
Theatrical Conventions of Modern Drama 790
Henrik Ibsen • A DOLL HOUSE 792
“Yes, whatever you say, Torvald.” Can a nineteenth-century
wife break from her
dominating husband?
A Collection of Plays 849
27. Plays for Further Reading 851
Sharon E. Cooper • MISTAKEN IDENTITY 852
A Hindu lesbian and a clueless American go on a blind date.
David Henry Hwang • TRYING TO FIND CHINATOWN 857
“What — you think if I deny the importance of my race, I’m
nobody?” Two young men

have very different ideas about what makes us who we are.
Jane Martin • RODEO 864
When a closely knit community is corrupted in the name of
progress and profi t, can
it recover?
Jane Anderson • THE REPRIMAND 868
Mim and Rhona work through their professional power struggle.
Sort of.
Nilaja Sun • NO CHILD . . . 905
When Ms. Sun arrives to direct a play with the worst class in
school, her funny and
frank students are more than a little skeptical.
xxxii contents
CRIT ICAL THINKING AND WRIT ING 927
28. Reading and the Writing Process 929
The Purpose and Value of Writing about Literature 929
Reading the Work Closely 930
Annotating the Text and Journal Note Taking 930
Annotated Text 931
Journal Note 931
Choosing a Topic 932
Developing a Thesis 933
Arguing about Literature 934
Organizing a Paper 935
Writing a Draft 936

Writing the Introduction and Conclusion 937
Using Quotations 937
Revising and Editing 939
questions for writing: a revision checklist 939
Types of Writing Assignments 941
29. Writing about Fiction 942
From Reading to Writing 942
questions for responsive reading and writing 943
Analysis 945
a sample student analysis
John Updike’s “A&P” as a State of Mind 945
30. Writing about Poetry 950
Explication 952
A Sample Paper-in-Progress 953
Mapping a Poem 953
John Donne • DEATH BE NOT PROUD 954
Asking Questions about the Elements 954
a sample fi rst response
First Response to John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” 954
Organizing Your Thoughts 955

a sample informal outline
Proposed Outline for Paper on John Donne’s “Death Be Not
Proud” 956
contents xxxiii
The Elements and Theme 957
fi nal paper: a sample explication
The Use of Conventional Metaphors for Death in John Donne’s
“Death Be Not
Proud” 957
A Sample Student Explication 961
A Reading of Emily Dickinson’s “There’s a certain Slant of
light” 961
Emily Dickinson • THERE’S A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT
961
31. Writing about Drama 965
Comparison and Contrast 968
32. The Literary Research Paper 973
Choosing a Topic 974
Finding Sources 975
Electronic Sources 975
Evaluating Sources and Taking Notes 976
Developing a Thesis and Organizing the Paper 977
Revising 978

Documenting Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism 978
The List of Works Cited 980
Parenthetical References 985
a sample student research paper
How William Faulkner’s Narrator Cultivates a Rose for Emily
986
Glossary of Literary Terms 991
Index of First Lines 1019
Index of Authors and Titles 1023
Index of Terms 1034
1
THE NATURE OF LITER ATURE
Literature does not lend itself to a single tidy definition because
the mak-
ing of it over the centuries has been as complex, unwieldy, and
natural
as life itself. Is literature everything that has been written, from
ancient
prayers to graffiti? Does it include songs and stories that were
not written
down until many years after they were recited? Does literature
include the

television scripts from Seinfeld as well as Shakespeare’s King
Lear? Is litera-
ture only writing that has permanent value and continues to
move people?
Must literature be true or beautiful or moral? Should it be
socially useful?
Although these kinds of questions are not conclusively
answered
in this book, they are implicitly raised by the stories, poems,
and plays
included here. No definition of literature, particularly a brief
one, is
likely to satisfy everyone because definitions tend to weaken
and require
qualification when confronted by the uniqueness of individual
works. In
this context it is worth recalling Herman Melville’s humorous
use of a
definition of a whale in Moby-Dick (1851). In the course of the
novel, Mel-
ville presents his imaginative and symbolic whale as
inscrutable, but he
begins with a quota tion from Georges Cuvier, a French
naturalist who
defines a whale in his nineteenth-century study The Animal
Kingdom this
INTRODUCTION
Reading
Imaginative Literature
© Jerry Bauer.
Literature has been the salvation of the
damned; literature has inspired and guided

lovers, routed despair, and can perhaps . . .
save the world.
— JOHN CHEEVER
2 reading imaginative literature
way: “The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.”
Cuvier’s
description is technically correct, of course, but there is little
wisdom in
it. Melville under stood that the reality of the whale (which he
describes
as the “un graspable phantom of life”) cannot be caught by
isolated facts.
If the full meaning of the whale is to be understood, it must be
sought
on the open sea of experience, where the whale itself is, rather
than in
exclusionary definitions. Facts and definitions are helpful;
however, they
do not always reveal the whole truth.
Despite Melville’s reminder that a definition can be too
limiting and
even comical, it is useful for our purposes to describe literature
as a fiction
consisting of carefully arranged words designed to stir the
imagination.
Stories, poems, and plays are fictional. They are made up —
imagined — even
when based on actual historic events. Such imaginative writing
differs from
other kinds of writing because its purpose is not primarily to
transmit facts

or ideas. Imaginative literature is a source more of pleasure than
of infor-
mation, and we read it for basically the same reasons we listen
to music
or view a dance: enjoyment, delight, and satisfaction. Like other
art forms,
imaginative literature offers pleasure and usually attempts to
convey a
perspective, mood, feeling, or experience. Writers transform the
facts the
world provides — people, places, and objects — into
experiences that suggest
meanings.
Consider, for example, the difference between the following
factual
de scription of a snake and a poem on the same subject. Here is
Webster’s
Eleventh New Collegiate Dictionary’s definition:
any of numerous limbless scaled reptiles (suborder Serpentes
syn. Ophidia)
with a long tapering body and with salivary glands often
modified to
produce venom which is injected through grooved or tubular
fangs.
Contrast this matter-of-fact definition with Emily Dickinson’s
poetic
evocation of a snake in “A narrow Fellow in the Grass”:
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides —
You may have met Him — did you not
His notice sudden is —
The Grass divides as with a Comb — 5

A spotted shaft is seen —
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on —
He likes a Boggy Acre
A floor too cool for Corn — 10
Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot —
I more than once at Noon
Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
the value of literature 3
When stooping to secure it 15
It wrinkled, and was gone —
Several of Nature’s People
I know, and they know me —
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality — 20
But never met this Fellow
Attended, or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the Bone —
The dictionary provides a succinct, anatomical description of
what
a snake is, while Dickinson’s poem suggests what a snake can
mean. The
defi nition offers facts; the poem offers an experience. The
dictionary
would probably allow someone who had never seen a snake to

sketch
one with reasonable accuracy. The poem also provides some
vivid subjec-
tive descriptions — for example, the snake dividing the grass
“as with a
Comb” — yet it offers more than a picture of serpentine
movements. The
poem conveys the ambivalence many people have about snakes
— the
kind of feeling, for example, so evident on the faces of visitors
viewing
the snakes at a zoo. In the poem there is both a fascination with
and a
horror of what might be called snakehood; this combination of
feelings
has been coiled in most of us since Adam and Eve.
A good deal more could be said about the numbing fear that
under-
cuts the affection for nature at the beginning of this poem, but
the point
here is that imaginative literature gives us not so much the full,
fac-
tual proportions of the world as some of its experiences and
meanings.
Instead of de fining the world, literature encourages us to try it
out in our
imaginations.
THE VALUE OF LITER ATURE
Mark Twain once shrewdly observed that a person who chooses
not to
read has no advantage over a person who is unable to read. In
industri-
alized societies today, however, the question is not who reads,
because
nearly everyone can and does, but what is read. Why should

anyone
spend precious time with literature when there is so much
reading
material available that provides useful information about
everything
from the daily news to personal computers? Why should a
literary art-
ist’s imagination compete for attention that could be spent on
the firm
realities that constitute everyday life? In fact, national best-
seller lists
much less often include collections of stories, poems, or plays
than
they do cookbooks and, not surprisingly, diet books. Although
such
fare may be filling, it doesn’t stay with you. Most people have
other
appetites too.
Certainly one of the most important values of literature is that
it
nourishes our emotional lives. An effective literary work may
seem to
speak directly to us, especially if we are ripe for it. The inner
life that
good writers reveal in their characters often gives us glimpses
of some
portion of ourselves. We can be moved to laugh, cry, tremble,
dream,
ponder, shriek, or rage with a character by simply turning a
page instead
of turning our lives upside down. Although the experience itself

is imag-
ined, the emotion is real. That’s why the final chapters of a
good adven-
ture novel can make a reader’s heart race as much as a 100-yard
dash or
why the repressed love of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel
Hawthorne is painful to a sympathetic reader. Human emotions
speak a
universal language regardless of when or where a work was
written.
In addition to appealing to our emotions, literature broadens
our
perspectives on the world. Most of the people we meet are
pretty much
like ourselves, and what we can see of the world even in a
lifetime is
astonishingly limited. Literature allows us to move beyond the
inevitable
boundaries of our own lives and culture because it introduces us
to
people different from ourselves, places remote from our
neighborhoods,
and times other than our own. Reading makes us more aware of
life’s
possibilities as well as its subtleties and ambiguities. Put
simply, people
who read literature experience more life and have a keener
sense of a
common human identity than those who do not. It is true, of
course,
that many people go through life without reading imaginative
literature,
but that is a loss rather than a gain. They may find themselves
troubled
by the same kinds of questions that reveal Daisy Buchanan’s

restless,
vague discontentment in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby:
“What’ll
we do with ourselves this afternoon?” cried Daisy, “and the day
after
that, and the next thirty years?”
Sometimes students mistakenly associate literature more with
school
than with life. Accustomed to reading it in order to write a
paper or pass
an examination, students may perceive such reading as a chore
instead of
a pleasurable opportunity, something considerably less
important than
studying for the “practical” courses that prepare them for a
career. The
study of literature, however, is also practical because it engages
you in
the kinds of problem solving important in a variety of fields,
from phi-
losophy to science and technology. The interpretation of literary
texts
requires you to deal with uncertainties, value judgments, and
emotions;
these are unavoidable aspects of life.
People who make the most significant contributions to their
profes-
sions — whether in business, engineering, teaching, or some
other area —
tend to be challenged rather than threatened by multiple
possibilities.
Instead of retreating to the way things have always been done,
they bring
freshness and creativity to their work. F. Scott Fitzgerald once
astutely
described the “test of a first-rate intelligence” as “the ability to

hold two
opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the
ability
to function.” People with such intelligence know how to read
situations,
the changing literary canon 5
shape questions, interpret details, and evaluate competing points
of view.
Equipped with a healthy respect for facts, they also understand
the value
of pursuing hunches and exercising their imaginations. Reading
literature
encourages a suppleness of mind that is helpful in any
discipline or work.
Once the requirements for your degree are completed, what
ultimately
matters are not the courses listed on your transcript but the
sensibili-
ties and habits of mind that you bring to your work, friends,
family, and,
indeed, the rest of your life. A healthy economy changes and
grows with
the times; people do too if they are prepared for more than
simply filling a
job description. The range and variety of life that literature
affords can help
you to interpret your own experiences and the world in which
you live.
To discover the insights that literature reveals requires careful
reading and sensitivity. One of the purposes of a college
introduction
to literature class is to cultivate the analytic skills necessary for

reading
well. Class discussions often help establish a dialogue with a
work that
perhaps otherwise would not speak to you. Analytic skills can
also be
developed by writing about what you read. Writing is an
effective means
of clarifying your responses and ideas because it requires you to
account
for the author’s use of language as well as your own. This book
is based
on two premises: that reading literature is pleasurable and that
reading
and understanding a work sensitively by thinking, talking, or
writing
about it increases the pleasure of the experience of it.
Understanding its basic elements — such as point of view,
symbol,
theme, tone, irony, and so on — is a prerequisite to an informed
appre-
ciation of literature. This kind of understanding allows you to
perceive
more in a literary work in much the same way that a spectator at
a ten-
nis match sees more if he or she understands the rules and
conventions
of the game. But literature is not simply a spectator sport. The
analytic
skills that open up literature also have their uses when you
watch a tele-
vision program or film and, more important, when you attempt
to sort
out the significance of the people, places, and events that
constitute
your own life. Literature enhances and sharpens your
perceptions. What

could be more lastingly practical as well as satisfying?
THE CHANGING LITER ARY CANON
Perhaps the best reading creates some kind of change in us: We
see more
clearly; we’re alert to nuances; we ask questions that previously
didn’t
occur to us. Henry David Thoreau had that sort of reading in
mind when
he remarked in Walden that the books he valued most were
those that
caused him to date “a new era in his life from the reading.”
Readers are
sometimes changed by literature, but it is also worth noting that
the life
of a literary work can also be affected by its readers. Melville’s
Moby-Dick,
for example, was not valued as a classic until the 1920s, when
critics res-
cued the novel from the obscurity of being cataloged in many
libraries
(including Yale’s) not under fiction but under cetology, the
study of
whales. In deed, many writers contemporary to Melville who
were impor-
tant and popular in the nineteenth century — William Cullen
Bryant,
Henry Wads worth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell, to
name a
few — are now mostly unread; their names appear more often
on elemen-

tary schools built early in this century than in anthologies.
Clearly, liter-
ary reputations and what is valued as great literature change
over time
and in the eyes of readers.
Such changes have steadily accelerated as the literary canon —
those
works considered by scholars, critics, and teachers to be the
most impor-
tant to read and study — has undergone a significant series of
shifts.
Writers who previously were overlooked, undervalued,
neglected, or stu-
diously ignored have been brought into focus in an effort to
create a more
diverse literary canon, one that recognizes the contributions of
the many
cultures that make up American society. Since the 1960s, for
example,
some critics have reassessed writings by women who had been
left out of
the standard literary traditions dominated by male writers. Many
more
female writers are now read alongside the male writers who
traditionally
populated literary history. Hence, a reader of Mark Twain and
Stephen
Crane is now just as likely to encounter Kate Chopin in a
literary anthol-
ogy. Until fairly recently, Chopin was mostly regarded as a
minor local
colorist of Louisiana life. In the 1960s, however, the feminist
movement
helped to establish her present reputation as a significant voice
in Ameri-
can literature owing to the feminist concerns so compellingly

artic ulated
by her female characters. This kind of enlargement of the canon
also
resulted from another reform movement of the 1960s. The civil
rights
movement sensitized literary critics to the political, moral, and
aesthetic
necessity of rediscovering African American literature, and
more recently
Asian and Hispanic writers have been making their way into the
canon.
Moreover, on a broader scale the canon is being revised and
enlarged to
include the works of writers from parts of the world other than
the West,
a development that reflects the changing values, concerns, and
complexi-
ties of recent decades, when literary landscapes have shifted as
dramati-
cally as the political boundaries of much of the world.
No semester’s reading list — or anthology — can adequately or
accurately
echo all the new voices competing to be heard as part of the
mainstream
literary canon, but recent efforts to open up the canon attempt
to sensi-
tize readers to the voices of women, minorities, and writers
from all over
the world. This development has not occurred without its urgent
advo-
cates or passionate dissenters. It’s no surprise that issues about
race, gen-
der, and class often get people off the fence and on their feet.
Al though
what we regard as literature — whether it’s called great, classic,

or canoni-
cal — continues to generate debate, there is no question that
such con-
troversy will continue to reflect readers’ values as well as the
writers they
admire.
F I C T I O N
9
2. Plot 44
3. Character 64
4. Setting 115
6. Symbolism 178
7. Theme 199
The Elements

of Fiction
9
READING FICT ION RESPONSIVELY
Reading a literary work responsively can be an intensely
demanding
activity. Henry David Thoreau — about as intense and
demanding a
reader and writer as they come — insists that “books must be
read as
deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” Thoreau is
right about
the necessity for a conscious, sustained involvement with a
literary work.
Imaginative literature does demand more from us than, say,
browsing
through People magazine in a dentist’s waiting room, but
Thoreau makes
the process sound a little more daunting than it really is. For
when we
respond to the demands of responsive reading, our efforts are
usually
rewarded with pleasure as well as understanding. Careful,
deliberate
reading — the kind that engages a reader’s imagination as it
calls forth
the writer’s — is a means of exploration that can take a reader
outside
whatever circumstance or experience previously defi ned his or

her world.
Just as we respond moment by moment to people and situations
in our
lives, we also respond to literary works as we read them, though
we may
11
1
Reading Fiction
To seek the source, the impulse of a
story is like tearing a fl ower to pieces for
wantonness.
— KATE CHOPIN
What we do might be done in solitude
and with great desperation, but it tends to
produce exactly the opposite. It tends to
produce community and in many people
hope and joy.
— JUNOT DÍAZ
© Scott Lituchy/Star Ledger/
corbis.
Brought to you by LibraryPirate...
12 reading fiction
not be fully aware of how we are affected at each point along
the way.
The more conscious we are of how and why we respond to
works in par-

ticular ways, the more likely we are to be imaginatively
engaged in our
reading.
In a very real sense both the reader and the author create the
liter-
ary work. How a reader responds to a story, poem, or play will
help to
determine its meaning. The author arranges the various elements
that
constitute his or her craft — elements such as plot, character,
setting,
point of view, symbolism, theme, and style, which you will be
examin-
ing in subsequent chapters — but the author cannot completely
control
the reader’s response any more than a person can absolutely
predict
how a remark or action will be received by a stranger, a friend,
or even
a family member. Few authors tell readers how to respond. Our
sympa-
thy, anger, confusion, laughter, sadness, or whatever the feeling
might
be is left up to us to experience. Writers may have the talent to
evoke
such feelings, but they don’t have the power and authority to
enforce
them. Because of the range of possible responses produced by
imagina-
tive literature, there is no single, correct, defi nitive response or
inter-
pretation. There can be readings that are wrongheaded or
foolish, and
some readings are better than others — that is, more responsive
to a work’s
details and more persuasive — but that doesn’t mean there is

only one possible
reading of a work.
Experience tells us that different people respond differently to
the
same work. Consider, for example, how often you’ve heard
Melville’s
Moby-Dick described as one of the greatest American novels.
This, how-
ever, is how a reviewer in New Monthly Magazine described the
book when
it was published in 1851: It is “a huge dose of hyperbolical
slang, maudlin
sentimentalism and tragic-comic bubble and squeak.” Melville
surely did
not intend or desire this response; but there it is, and it was not
a singu-
lar, isolated reaction. This reading — like any reading — was
infl uenced by
the values, assumptions, and expectations that the readers
brought to
the novel from both previous readings and life experiences. The
reviewer’s
refusal to take the book seriously may have caused him to miss
the boat
from the perspective of many other readers of Moby-Dick, but it
indicates
that even “classics” (perhaps especially those kinds of works)
can generate
disparate readings.
Consider the following brief story by Kate Cho-
pin, a writer whose fi ction (like Melville’s) sometimes
met with indifference or hostility in her own time.
As you read, keep track of your responses to the cen-
tral character, Mrs. Mallard. Write down your feelings about her
in a
substantial paragraph when you fi nish the story. Think, for

example,
about how you respond to the emotions she expresses
concerning news
of her husband’s death. What do you think of her feelings about
mar-
riage? Do you think you would react the way she does under
similar
circumstances?
WEB Explore contexts
for Kate Chopin and
approaches to this story
at bedfordstmartins.com/
rewritinglit.
chopin / the story of an hour 13
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was affl icted with a heart
trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as
possible the news of her husband’s death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken
sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.
Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her.
It was he who had been in the newspaper offi ce when
intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with
Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only
taken
the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and
had
hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in

bearing the
sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same,
with a paralyzed inability to accept its signifi cance. She wept
at once,
with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the
storm of
grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She
would have
no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy
arm-
chair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion
that
haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of
trees
that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious
breath of
rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his
wares. The
notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her
faintly,
and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through
the
clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west
facing her
window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the
chair,
quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and
shook
her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in
its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke

repression
and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in
her eyes,
whose gaze was fi xed away off yonder on one of those patches
of blue
sky. It was not a glance of refl ection, but rather indicated a
suspension of
intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it,
fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and
elusive
to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching
toward her
through the sounds, the scents, the color that fi lled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning
to
recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and
she was
5
10
14 reading fiction
striving to beat it back with her will — as powerless as her two
white slen-
der hands would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped
her
slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath:
“free,
free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had
followed it

went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses
beat fast,
and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her
body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy
that
held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss
the sug-
gestion as trivial.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind,
tender
hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with
love upon
her, fi xed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter
moment a
long procession of years to come that would belong to her
absolutely.
And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for her during those coming
years; she
would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending
hers in
that blind persistence with which men and women believe they
have a
right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind
intention or
a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she
looked upon it
in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him — sometimes. Often she had not.
What
did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for
in face
of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly
recognized as the
strongest impulse of her being!

“Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to
the
keyhole, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I
beg; open
the door — you will make yourself ill. What are you doing,
Louise? For
heaven’s sake open the door.”
“Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking
in a
very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her.
Spring
days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her
own. She
breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only
yesterday she
had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s
importunities.
There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried
herself unwit-
tingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist,
and together
they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at
the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was
Brently
Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly
carrying his grip-
sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident,
and did
not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at
Josephine’s pierc-
ing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view
of his wife.

But Richards was too late.
15
20
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease
— of
joy that kills.
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING
An Annotated Section of “The Story of an Hour”
Even as you read a story for the fi rst time, you can highlight
passages,
circle or underline words, and write responses in the margins.
Subse-
quent readings will yield more insights once you begin to
understand
how various elements such as plot, characterization, and
wording build
toward the conclusion and what you perceive to be the story’s
central
ideas. The following annotations for the fi rst eleven paragraphs
of “The
Story of an Hour” provide a perspective written by someone
who had
read the work several times. Your own approach might, of
course, be
quite different — as the sample paper that follows the annotated
passage
amply demonstrates.

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was affl icted with a heart
trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as
possible the news of her husband’s death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken
sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.
Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her.
It was he who had been in the newspaper offi ce when
intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with
Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He
had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by
a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less
careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have
heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its
signifi cance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild aban-
donment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief
had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She
would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfort-
able, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down
by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and
seemed to reach into her soul.
The title could point
to the brevity of the
story — only 23 short
paragraphs — or to
the decisive nature
of what happens in
a very short period
of time. Or both.

Mrs. Mallard’s fi rst
name (Louise) is
not given until para-
graph 17, yet her
sister Josephine is
named immediately.
This emphasizes
Mrs. Mallard’s
married identity.
Given the nature of
the cause of Mrs.
Mallard’s death
at the story’s end,
it’s worth noting
the ambiguous
description that she
“was affl icted with
a heart trouble.” Is
this one of Chopin’s
(rather than Jose-
phine’s) “veiled
hints”?
When Mrs. Mallard
weeps with “wild
abandonment,”
the reader is again
confronted with
an ambiguous
phrase: she grieves
in an overwhelming
manner yet seems
to express relief at
being abandoned by

Brently’s death.
16 reading fiction
She could see in the open square before her house the
tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.
The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street
below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a dis-
tant song which some one was singing reached her faintly,
and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and
there through the clouds that had met and piled one
above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cush-
ion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob
came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who
has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines
bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now
there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fi xed
away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It
was not a glance of refl ection, but rather indicated a sus-
pension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was
waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know;
it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it,
creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the
sounds, the scents, the color that fi lled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was
beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching
to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with
her will — as powerless as her two white slender hands
would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word

escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over
under her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and
the look of terror that had followed it went from her
eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast,
and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch
of her body. . . .
Do you fi nd Mrs. Mallard a sympathetic character? Some
readers think
that she is callous, selfi sh, and unnatural — even monstrous —
because
she ecstatically revels in her newly discovered sense of freedom
so soon
after learning of her husband’s presumed death. Others read her
as
a victim of her inability to control her own life in a repressive,
male-
dominated society. Is it possible to hold both views
simultaneously, or
are they mutually exclusive? Are your views in any way infl
uenced by
your being male or female? Does your age affect your
perception? What
These 3 paragraphs
create an increas-
ingly “open”
atmosphere that
leads to the
“delicious” outside
where there are
inviting sounds
and “patches of
blue sky.” There’s
a defi nite tension
between the inside

and outside worlds.
Though still stunned
by grief, Mrs.
Mallard begins to
feel a change come
over her owing
to her growing
awareness of a world
outside her room.
What that change
is remains “too
subtle and elusive to
name.”
Mrs. Mallard’s
confl icted struggle
is described in pas-
sionate, physical
terms as if she is
“possess[ed]”
by a lover she is
“powerless” to
resist.
Once she has “aban-
doned” herself (see
the “abandonment”
in paragraph 3),
the reader realizes
that her love is to
be “free, free, free.”
Her recognition
is evident in the
“coursing blood

[that] warmed and
relaxed every inch of
her body.”
5
10
Brought to you by LibraryPirate...
about your social and economic background? Does your
nationality,
race, or religion in any way shape your attitudes? Do you have
particular
views about the institution of marriage that inform your
assessment of
Mrs. Mallard’s character? Have other reading experiences —
perhaps a
familiarity with some of Chopin’s other stories — predisposed
you one
way or another to Mrs. Mallard?
Understanding potential infl uences might be useful in
determin-
ing whether a particular response to Mrs. Mallard is based
primarily on
the story’s details and their arrangement or on an overt or a
subtle bias
that is brought to the story. If you unconsciously project your
beliefs
and assumptions onto a literary work, you run the risk of
distorting it
to accommodate your prejudice. Your feelings can be a reliable
guide

to interpretation, but you should be aware of what those feelings
are
based on.
Often specifi c questions about literary works cannot be
answered
defi nitively. For example, Chopin does not explain why Mrs.
Mallard
suffers a heart attack at the end of this story. Is the shock of
seeing
her “dead” husband simply too much for this woman “affl icted
with a
heart trouble”? Does she die of what the doctors call a “joy that
kills”
because she is so glad to see her husband? Is she so profoundly
guilty
about feeling “free” at her husband’s expense that she has a
heart
attack? Is her death a kind of willed suicide in reaction to her
loss
of freedom? Your answers to these questions will depend on
which
details you emphasize in your interpretation of the story and the
kinds of perspectives and values you bring to it. If, for example,
you
read the story from a feminist perspective, you would be likely
to pay
close attention to Chopin’s comments about marriage in
paragraph
14. Or if you read the story as an oblique attack on the
insensitivity of
physicians of the period, you might want to fi nd out whether
Chopin
WEB
more help with

close reading
Close readings of Kate Chopin’s
“The Story of an Hour,” Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman
Brown,” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”
are available at Re:Writing for Litera-
ture (www.bedfordstmartins.com/
rewritinglit). Each story is annotated
with critical interpretations and
explanations of the literary elements
at work.
www.bedfordstmartins.com/rewritinglit
www.bedfordstmartins.com/rewritinglit
18 reading fiction
wrote elsewhere about doctors (she did) and compare her
comments
with historic sources.
Reading responsively makes you an active participant in the
pro-
cess of creating meaning in a literary work. The experience that
you and
the author create will most likely not be identical to another
reader’s
encounter with the same work, but then that’s true of nearly any
experi-
ence you’ll have, and it is part of the pleasure of reading.
Indeed, talking
and writing about literature is a way of sharing responses so
that they
can be enriched and deepened.
A SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER

Running head MCDONALD’S CASE STUDY 1MCDO.docx

Running head MCDONALD’S CASE STUDY 1MCDO.docx

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