Unit 1​: Growing up and relationships: is it who we are or what they have made of

us?

1) Eleven: ​it’s about a girl, Rachel, who is turning eleven years old and says that she will
start to feel that age when she’s nearing her next birthday. That day at school, her
teacher, Mrs. Price and classmate, Sylvia, say that the “ugly sweater with red plastic
buttons and a collar and sleeves all stretched out like you could use it for a jump rope” is
hers and she gets so overwhelmed about the situation that she can’t explain it doesn’t
belong to her. This is because she believes that “because she is older and the teacher,
she’s right and I’m not”. If she were older, she would be able to defend herself; but she’s
just eleven. Therefore, she is forced to put it on by her teacher while crying only for
another girl, Phyllis, to remember it was actually hers. This embarrassing situation ruins
her birthday.

2) Games at Twilight: it’s about a group of children who are playing “hide and seek”.
Once they decide who would be “it”, Ravi hides in a bathtub inside a shed full of things.
For hours, he sits there waiting for everyone to be caught so that he can go out and be the
winner. Ravi wants to desperately win the game since he has never won one and also to
show his older brother Raghu that he can be victorious, too. This shows the rivalry that
exists between the children. Yet, at dawn, he realises that for the game to finish he has to
touch the “den”. So he gets out of his hiding place and runs all the way to the house
shouting that he won, only to realise that the other children are already playing another
game, which ironically is about death, and had forgotten about him. This means a rite of
passage for Ravi: he realises that his presence is insignificant to others and that makes
him feel hopeless.

3) The thing around your neck: Akunna is a Nigerian girl who wins the American visa
lottery and gets to travel to the States, which is seen as the land of opportunities. When
she gets there, her uncle picks her up since she’s going to live with him. He explains to
her that living in America means “give and take”; even though you give up a lot, you
gain a lot, too. At first, she feels at home with her since they speak their native language
and eat their traditional food. But, one night while she’s sleeping, her uncle, who then is
revealed that is not related to her by blood, tries to rape her, saying that is what smart
woman do. After that, she leaves. In another town, she gets a job in a restaurant as a
waitress, agreeing to work “under the table” and a dollar less than the rest. She starts
educating herself in a public library because she can’t pay for University since the money
she is earning she sends it back to Nigeria. Akunna always wants to write back to her
family but doesn’t. The thing that wraps around her neck and chokes her is the anguish
she feels because everyone patronises her and being all alone. One day, at the restaurant,
a young, rich man asks her about Africa. They start to hang out a lot, because she is
afraid of his insistence, and they start to date. She gets upset when people tell him that
she cannot be his girlfriend, since she was African, and he says he understands, when he
 really doesn’t. Finally, she writes to her family, only to learn that her father died five
months ago. Therefore, she decides to leave her life in America behind and go back
¿home? This story is full of prejudice since there is a clear clash of cultures, from the
American who criticize Akunna, and from Akunna who is weary of them. Also, the
relationship between Akunna and the boy is difficult because their realities are
completely radical.

4) Cathedral: Ten years ago, during summer, the woman had no money and saw an
advertisement in the newspaper. It said that the job was about reading to a blind man
named Robert. She was hired and they became close friends. At the end of the summer,
he asked her to touch her face and the woman wrote a poem about it. She married her
childhood sweetheart, an officer, and had to move to Alabama, away from Seattle; yet,
the woman and the blind man kept in touch via tapes. After having to move so many
times, she tried to kill herself. Then, she got divorced and started dating the narrator.
The blind man’s wife died of cancer, eight years later after they had married. The
narrator thinks Beulah must have had a miserable life without being seen by her husband.
Robert, now in his late forties and with a beard, is coming to visit the narrator and his
wife. He doesn’t use a cane or dark glasses, which the narrator finds strange. This is
because everything he knows about blind people is from films, which clearly shows his
ignorance and prejudice. He also thinks blind people don’t smoke, but Robert does.
While eating, he is stunned that Robert knows where the food is. When the woman goes
upstairs, the narrator starts to feel uncomfortable while being alone with the blind man.
He offers him drinks and some dope. They are showing different cathedrals all over the
world on TV. The narrator asks Robert if he knows them. He tries to describe them to
him, pointlessly. So Robert asks him to bring paper and pen, for the narrator to draw with
Robert´s hand on his. Robert tells him to close his eyes and the man does, enjoying the
moment, knowing he was at home, but not feeling inside it anymore. At first, it can be
clearly seen that the narrator is jealous of Robert’s relationship with his wife and that that
makes him judgmental; but when they draw together, a change in the man happens
because of the bonding moment between them (epiphany). Suddenly, the narrator
understands he has stopped seeing the world the way he used to, being so supercially
critical, and starts to understand that people are more that what can be seen on the
surface, and therefore, they have to be sensed not only with the eyes, but with your heart
and soul.

5) Face: ​On the last day of the semester, the Gang of Three, made up of Martin, Mark and
Matthew; they decide to go to the fair, where Martin makes fun of a police officer, just to
prove he’s a “bad boy”. Then, they go to the Bassment Club, where “black people”
frequent. Martin drinks some alcohol, which makes him bolder than usual. After they
leave the club, they come across Apache and Pete, members of The Raiders Posse who
stole a car and were high on heroin. They offer the Gang a lift home and, while Martin
and Mark accept, Matthew refuses and walks home. During the ride, Apache is going in
 the wrong direction and the boys plead to be put down. The car crashes and it catches
fire. Pete dies and Matthew gets minor injuries, but Mark’s face is completely burned.
The doctors tell him there’s the possibility of grafts (to remove skin patches from one
part of his body to rearrange his face) but that it can only help so much. The first thing he
wants to do as soon as he wakes up is to see his face through a mirror and is shocked
with his reflection. His friends come to see him, and Matthew tells him “I told you so”.
They are awkward around him. In the hospital, he meets Anthony, a guy who was born
with severe face disfigurements and has had eight operations. He tells Martin that people
will always stare and that, no matter what changes on the outside, the inside remains the
same. At first, his girlfriend Natalie, who once told him not to judge people by what they
look like, sticks by him but, as time goes by, she starts to distance herself from him;
something Anthony told him would happen. Once he’s discharged from the hospital, he
stays home, not going out. One day, his form tutor teacher visits him, regarding what he
would like to do during the second term, but Martin says he’s going to school. There are
now two types of people: the ones who stare and talk around the subject, and the rest
who take “pity” on him. Matthew, to cheer him up, takes him to the Unity Club, run by
Reverend Sam, yet Martin doesn’t like it because he thinks “safe is boring”. The gym
teacher asks Martin to be the captain of the gymnastics team for a competition, to which
he accepts. On his way back home, some children say horrible things about Martin’s
appearance and he also sees Natalie with some other guy. During an appointment with
the doctor, Martin tells him why he’s feeling down and Dr. Owens advises him to join
the gymnastics team. He also bumps into Anthony and tells him about Natalie and invites
him to the competition, to which he agrees to go. The day of the competition, Marcia (a
girl Natalie met in the Bassment Club), Vikki (a girl who gave Martin a “get well soon”
card), Anthony, Mark and Matthew, along with his parents, were there to support him.
Unfortunately, they won third place but were disqualified in another part, for which
Martin is furious. Yet, everyone is proud of Martin, making him also proud of himself.
As repeated a few times throughout the story, “everyone needs to belong” somewhere.
There’s clearly a rite of passage after the incident: when Martin realises how people
actually are because he’s “disabled” and how he gets new friends who encourage him to
“face” life the way it is.

6) A long way down: ​The story takes place in modern-day England. The four main
characters—Martin, Maureen, JJ, and Jess—meet each other for the first time on New
Year’s Eve. The foursome unexpectedly comes together on the roof of Toppers’ House, a
popular suicide spot. Martin and Maureen arrive first and begin to talk about why they
are there. Eighteen-year-old Jess appears and rushes for the edge. Unwilling to see
someone so young kill herself, Martin grabs her and sits on her until she calms down. JJ
arrives with several pizzas, asking who called for them, but then reveals that he is also
there to jump off the roof. The four of them begin talking and agree to postpone their
suicides for six weeks, until Valentine’s Day. Over the next six weeks, the four stay in
contact and find that the urge to kill themselves is waning. They start a short-lived book
 club in which they only read books by authors who killed themselves. They get to know
each other better and find a bond in their shared misery. They soon realize that they feel
like they are unsuited to spend time with anyone but each other, given that only they
understand the depths of the misery to which they had sunk on New Year’s Eve. On
Valentine’s, they meet on the roof to discuss how they are feeling. They notice a man on
the ledge and try to talk him out of jumping, but he goes over the edge and dies. The next
morning, the four meet in a pub. Collectively, they realize they weren’t suicidal in the
same way as the man they watched died. Martin tells them he read an article by a
suicidologist who suggests that every potential suicide needs to wait ninety days and let
the crisis pass. They agree to give their lives ninety days. In the meantime, they take
Maureen on a holiday to the Canary Islands—her first since before Matty was born.
When they return, Jess stages an intervention. She invites loved ones and estranged
friends and family members to help the group move past suicide. The intervention ends
badly, with Martin mocking the handsome male nurse who is pushing Matty, all in view
of his ex-wife and two daughters. By the end of the novel, Maureen has realized that her
son is not the burden she had felt she was. An unexpected job offer helped her come to
this realization. JJ begins to play music again, although he does not reunite with his
former band. Martin begins tutoring a learning-challenged 8-year-old in reading, hoping
that sticking it out will help him regain his self-respect. Jess begins to realize that if she
can learn to see her life—and her mental illness—with clarity and honesty, there might
be hope for her future.Throughout this novel the author describes the issue of death and
suicide, not longer as a taboo, but as an ordinary topic that can come up in daily
discussions. The relationship among the four “suicidal” characters develops while they
try to find reasons to stay alive, encouraging each other not to kill themselves. This
morbid theme turns out to be funny and gets warmer when it’s evident that the fact that
they share their miserable lives is what keeps them enthusiastic about their relationship
and their life. This portrays how the sense of belonging and companionship (at least to a
group of people who have lost their sense of self worth) can rapidly make a person feel
supported, and that life has to offer too many things and rewarding experiences for
someone to miss them.

CHARACTERS​: ​Martin is a middle-aged, former morning TV personality. Disgraced after

sleeping with a 15-year-old he believed was older, he spent three months in prison and lost
his family during what erupted into a tabloid scandal. By New Year’s Eve, he has lost his
show, his self-respect, and his reasons for living. Maureen is 51 and finds the burden of
caring for her adult, disabled son, Matty, intolerable and suffocating. Jess is mentally ill and
wants to jump because her boyfriend Chas dumped her without an explanation. JJ, a
26-year-old American, was a former musician whose band broke up. His girlfriend left him at
the same time.

Unit 2​: The world and us: can we be the change that we want in the world?
7) The Phoenix: ​Lord Strawberry, a nobleman, collects birds. He goes to Arabia and finds
a phoenix, a bird that many believed extinct. It is unique, doesn’t possess nor wants a
mate and, when old, sets fire to itself and appears reborn. He takes it home to England
and forms a good relationship with it. When Lord Strawberry dies penniless because of
the World War, the aviary appears on the market. The people start a fund to move the
Phoenix to the zoo but it doesn’t raise much, so the Phoenix moves to Poldero’s Wizard
Wonderland, property of Mr. Tancred Poldero. He is happy that the bird is
low-maintenance and he was sure that it will pick up new tricks. At first, everyone is
happy to visit and the profits are good but then they fall because the Phoenix is “too
quiet, too classical”. Therefore, the new owners decide to get the bird “alight” so people
will come and pay to see it. To age it, they reduce his food, making it thinner; turn the
heating off, but he puffed out more feathers; they put another birds in its cage, but he’s so
amiable that they don’t bother him; even try alley cats. Since that didn’t work, Mr.
Poldero put the Phoenix in a cage with a sprinkler, which made him cough, and he
always jeers the bird. The day finally arrives with the media and the people expectant.
The Phoenix settles on his pyre and falls asleep, before bursting into flames that killed
everyone and everything there.

8) On her knees: Victor is a twenty-year-old law student who goes to school with wealthy
people. His father abandoned them, forcing his mum to clean houses, so that he could get
a good education. After the man left, she became obsessed with order (she gained some
kind of control over her life because of it). She has a stiff-necked working class pride,
very honest. Carol Lang has a good reputation in the suburbs, until she is accused of
stealing a pair of earrings by a householder. She goes to do the cleaning one last time
while they look for someone else to replace her. Even though Victor doesn’t like his
mother’s job because he knows that the owners of the house look down on her and don’t
pay her what she deserves, he goes to help her. The earrings that were stolen are worth
five hundred dollars, but the woman didn't even call the police, because she knows Carol
didn’t steal them. She just wants to ruin Carol´s reputation. Carol doesn´t want to leave
the house dirty since it will look like an admission of guilt. While Victor is vacuuming
the bedroom, one earring gets stuck in the machine. The owner left them on the pillow
and then swept them off as she got into bed. He, as revenge, hides them in the catbox.
When he asks his mother if she’s going to grab the money, she refuses because she says
she “values more”. This is a rite of passage for Victor since he finally understands the
kind of person his mother is. Therefore, he grabs the earrings and leaves them beside the
money. At the beginning, the narrator is prideful and looks down on her mother’s job,
but in the end he follows Carol, humbled and finally understanding her. Throughout the
story, distinction between social classes is portrayed. The mother of the narrator,
although having to deal with awful situations which disrespect her honour and herself,
manages to maintain her dignity intact. Even if we have to undergo difficult situations,
 we must stand up for what we believe and defend it till the end. That’s the only way of
not being influenced by the increasing aversions of the world.

9) To Da-duh, in Memoriam: ​The story begins with a nine-year-old kid who had reached
Barbados (by ship), where her grandmother lived, from New York. Everything looked
and smelt unfamiliar to her, including her grandmother, who had fourteen children and a
strange appearance. Her mother (Adry) hadn’t seen Da-duh (the grandmother) in fifteen
years. Da-duh prefered boys and liked their grandchildren to be “white” (fair skinned),
but the narrator and her elder sister were as black as Da-duh was. The elder sister took
after her father, but the narrator didn’t look like anyone else, so Da-duh was stunned
when she saw her, from that point, she didn’t stop holding her hand. Their relatives were
waiting in a lorry to take them to Da-duh’s house in St. Thomas. The following day,
Da-duh took her out into the ground, where there was a small orchard, canes and then,
where the land sloped down, a gully, it was like a small tropical wood. While there
journey down the gully, her grandmother didn’t stop showing off the beautiful trees and
plants which were there, saying scornfully, with great pride, that there wasn't anything
like that in New York. The girl showed her grandmother how she danced and sang, after
the performance, Da-duh gave her a penny. From then on, the girl accompanied her down
to the gully talked to her about New York, but only after Da-duh had pointed out that
there weren’t such extraordinary things like in her land. But the more Da-duh heard
about that concrete city full of machines, the more she got threatened about it (fear to the
unknown, to changes). One of the last days of their stay, Da-duh took the girl into a
deeper and more overgrown area of the gully, in which there was a n incredibly tall royal
palm that appeared to be touching the blue dome of sky. Da-duh asked her if there was
anything like that in New York, the girl, wishing she could say no, answered that there
were buildings hundred times taller than that, and told her about the Empire State.
Da-duh thought she was lying so the girl promised she would send a picture of it once
she got home. Da-duh had been trying to impress her granddaughter with the things she
knew, but having failed at that, she felt disappointed and her spirit died away, till the girl
left. By the time the girl sent the picture of the Empire State, Da-duh had died. She died
during the 1937 strike, when England sent planes flying low over the island. The girl,
being a grown-up, lived in a loft above a noisy factory. There she painted sugar canes
and palm trees across a tropical landscape, while the noise of the machines downstairs
mocked her efforts. What this short story shows is that the world keeps changing
constantly, and we must take part in that process and keep learning about new manners,
ideas and technologies so that we don’t get excluded from the world around us. Also, this
illustrates how humans have been building so many facilities and creating new
technologies, that we have gradually forgotten about the beauty of nature and the flora
and fauna which it provides.
10) ​Fahrenheit 451: ​Guy Montag is a fireman who believes he is content in his job, which
consists of burning books and the possessions of book owners. However, his look at life
changes when he meets Clarisse, a teenage girl and his new neighbor, who doesn’t act
like the rest of society. She asks him if he's happy. When he returns home to find that his
wife, Mildred, has taken a bottle full of sleeping pills, he realizes that he isn’t. Mildred
goes back to normal, talking with the “family”, which is the TV. Back at the fire station,
Montag is threatened by the Mechanical Hound, a robotic hunter that can be programmed
to track any scent. Captain Beatty tells him not to worry unless Montag has a guilty
conscience. For the next week, Montag continues to talk with Clarisse and to examine his
own life. One day, Montag asks Beatty if there was a time when firemen prevented fires,
instead of starting them. Their talk is interrupted when they receive a tip about an old
lady who has books. The woman refuses to leave her house as they douse it in kerosene,
so she burns along with the house. Mildred tells Montag that Clarisse has been killed.
Haunted by the vision of the old woman's death, and by the news of Clarisse's death,
Montag doesn't go to work the next day. Beatty visits him at home and delivers a long
lecture on the history of censorship, the development of mass media, the dumbing down
of culture and the role of firemen as society's "official censors, judges, and executors."
Beatty says it's okay for a fireman to keep a book for 24 hours out of natural curiosity, so
long as he turns it in the next day. When Beatty leaves, Montag shows Mildred twenty
books, including a Bible, that he's been hiding in the house. He feels that their lives are
falling apart and that the world doesn't make sense, and hopes some answers might be
found in the books. Montag and Mildred try to read the books, but it’s difficult. Mildred
soon gives up and insists that Montag get rid of the books so they can resume their lives.
Montag, however, remembers a retired English professor named Faber whom he met a
year ago and who might be able to help. Faber is frightened of Montag at first, but
eventually agrees to help Montag in a scheme to undermine the firemen. When Montag
returns home, his wife's friends are over watching TV. Montag loses his cool. He forces
the women to listen to him read from one of his secret books. They leave, greatly upset.
When Montag goes to work, Beatty mocks him with contradictory quotations drawn
from famous books, which point out that books are useless, elitist, and confusing.
Montag hands over a book to Beatty and is apparently forgiven. Suddenly, an alarm
comes in and they go to Montag's house. As they arrive, Mildred, the one who called
them, leaves the house and leaves in a taxi. Beatty forces Montag to burn his house and
then tells him he's under arrest. Beatty also discovers the two-way radio and says he'll
trace it to its source, then taunts Montag until the latter burns him alive. Now a fugitive
and the object of a massive, televised manhunt, Montag visits Faber, then makes it to the
river a few steps ahead of the Mechanical Hound. He floats downstream to safety. Along
some abandoned railroad tracks in the countryside, Montag finds a group of old men
whom Faber told him about—outcasts from society who were formerly academics. They
and others like them have memorized thousands of books and are surviving on the
margins of society, waiting for a time when the world becomes interested in reading
 again. Montag is able to remember parts of a book, so he has something to contribute.
Early the next morning, enemy bombers fly overhead toward the city. The war begins
and ends almost in an instant. The city is reduced to powder. Montag mourns for Mildred
and their empty life together. With Montag leading, the group of men head upriver
toward the city to help the survivors rebuild amid the ashes.

Unit 3​: Means of communication: is there any “truth” left in the Post-Truth era?

11) ​Ming’s biggest prey: ​Ming is a cat, adopted by Elaine, who is in a relationship with
Teddie. Narrated from the point of view of Ming, it can be seen the close relationship the
owner and pet have: from sleeping in her lap, to going with her wherever she goes, to
eating seafood. He says that she understands him and loves him. The same cannot be said
with Teddie, the “intruder”. Ming describes that every time Elaine isn’t looking, he
would do something against the cat. When they are on the boat, he throws the cat
overboard, who manages to hold onto the deck, but fortunately Elaine saves him, while
Teddie acts innocently. Once they return to his and his mistress’s home, he manages to
relax a bit. While he’s lying on the bed, he sees the intruder open one of Elaine’s
jewellery boxes and take out a necklace. The only other person Ming tolerates is Concha,
the maid who always feeds him his favourite food. They are sitting on the terrace when
the phone rings and Elaine goes to answer it, leaving the adversaries alone. Ming detects
Teddie is drunk, so his movements are sloppy. They begin to fight and Ming jumps
towards the man, making them both fall. The cat lands on his side while Teddie doesn’t
move. Ming recognises the smell of fear, blood and alcohol, and knows that his target is
eliminated, which pleases him. The fight made him limp a bit. When Elaine returns, she
can’t find Teddie, believing he left because of their fight that day, but then she finds him
lying motionless in the garden. After some people take the corpse away, Ming sees
Elaine put the necklace back in the box. Since the story is narrated from the point of view
of the cat, this causes the readers to sympathize with it instead of Teddie, not seeing at
first the possessiveness and jealousy Ming feels towards Elaine, considering every other
person an enemy to their relationship.

12) ​The leg of lamb: Mary Maloney is a housewife who is besotted with her husband,
Patrick, who is a detective. On Thursdays, they always eat out. But today is the
exception. When Patrick arrives home, Mary goes out of her way to serve her husband,
she is an obedient, domestic wife. But he, annoyed, confesses that he has been cheating
on her. She acts as if he said nothing and starts to prepare supper, going downstairs to
grab the frozen leg of lamb. Her husband is standing over by the window with his back to
her, so she hits him in the back of his neck with the food and he falls down on the carpet,
dead. Then, Mary, out of the shock, puts the leg of lamb in a pan and into the oven. She
tries to smile and talk as usual. She goes to the grocery shop and buys things she will
need for dinner, commenting to the shop assistant that they have decided to stay home
today. She comes back to the house, convinced that nothing happened, and when she sees
 Patrick's body lying on the floor she cries out and calls the police. Mary knows every
officer who is in her house. They ask her some questions and she tells them she was out
to buy food and when she got back, she found the corpse. They search the house to find
clues and a possible weapon, since something heavy must have been used, but they find
nothing. Finally, Mary persuades the officers to eat the leg of lamb as a favour, because
she cooked it for Patrick. As they eat, the detectives start talking about where the weapon
might be, not knowing they were eating it. This is a story about a wife who manages to
get away with the murder of her husband. This goes to show that even the most lovely
and obliging person is able to commit a violent crime under extreme circumstances.
Mary Lonely was actually relieved about being executed after what she had done, but
then she thinks about her baby and tries to avoid being catched, which she did
successfully.

13) ​Art: ​Art,​ centers around Serge’s (dermatologist) acquisition of a

two-hundred-thousand-dollar white ​painting by an obscure artist named Antrios, his two
closest friends, Marc (engineer) and Yvan (works at a stationery company​, find
themselves wrestling with the aesthetic, intellectual, and existential questions that the
essentially blank canvas raises. The painting is described as a four-by-five-foot canvas
that is completely white save for some small, barely discernible off-white stripes that run
through the middle of the canvas. Since the play is a send-up of artistic and intellectual
pretension, the meaninglessness of the painting, in its exaggerated minimalism, is
immediately evident. Onto the blank canvas the characters will project their sadness,
rage, insecurity, and ​ennui. ​Serge, whose aesthetic pretensions have been shaped and
encouraged by Marc, is very proud of his acquisition. Marc, by contrast, sees Serge’s
purchase as a twisted, ridiculous, and pathetic inversion of his own ideals about art, and
is deeply “disturbed” that Serge would spend so much on something so ostentatiously
void of meaning. He thinks Serge’s attempts to ascribe meaning or beauty to the painting
are futile, ridiculous, and upsetting. When Marc spends some one-on-one time with his
and Serge’s third wheel, Yvan, Marc warns him of how ridiculous the painting is. When
Yvan and Serge meet privately a few days later, however, Yvan finds himself deeply
affected by the painting, despite Marc’s description of it as ridiculous and devoid of
meaning. Yvan finds the colors of the painting “touching,” and describes a resonant
magnetism emanating from the canvas. The revelation that Yvan did not immediately see
the painting as ridiculous sends the fragile Marc into a tailspin. He is distressed that
Serge’s vain and vapid pretension has now affected Yvan as well, and cannot believe that
his friends—whom he’d thought had absorbed his high-minded and carefully-constructed
intellectual ideas about art—have strayed so egregiously from what he has taught them.
The ensuing fallout between the trio is less about the painting than it is about the three
old friends realizing that their ideas, values, and dreams have diverged so dramatically
that they have become unrecognizable to each other, and the men are deeply hurt by their
emotional estrangement from one another. In ​Art’s final moments, Marc reveals that the
meaningless “piece of shit” that has threatened his fifteen-year friendship with Serge
 actually does mean something to him. ​The painting, to Marc, “represents a man who
moves across a space and disappears.” Though this statement is open to interpretation,
Marc possibly sees himself as the disappearing man, and realizes that his ideals and
values have been nothing but pretension all along, and that it is time for him to reevaluate
what is meaningful and allow the pretentious parts of himself to fall away. In another
reading, it’s possible that Marc sees Serge as the disappearing man—his friend’s values
have changed so much that he has become a stranger to Marc entirely, and has
disappeared into a world Marc can’t ever fully understand. By demonstrating the ways in
which one piece of art slowly takes on different meanings for Serge, Marc, and Yvan,
Reza argues that although art has no inherent meaning in itself alone, humanity continues
to value and celebrate art because of the deep meaning it takes on when human
perspective and emotion are applied to it.

14) ​Alice in tumblrland: ​Fairy tales, mostly from Disney, are thrown into the Postmodern
era, where the lives of people revolve around technology and social media. It’s clearly
shown how the characters are affected by them, whether it’s personally or regarding
other people. For example, Peter Pan is obsessed with people liking and supporting
everything he does. It isn’t until something embarrassing happens that he decided to give
up using social media; or Beauty and the Beast, who start having problems in their
relationship because of the stereotypes that exist, such as their eating habits; there’s also
Mulan who has a sex change, and even King Arthur who is gay and in love with
Lancelot, his best friend; on the other hand, there’s Cinderella, who dreams of being a
photographer, yet is stopped by her stepmother who tells her that she will amount
nothing. So, to lift her spirits, she starts writing herself posts-it about how she’s capable
of everything she sets her mind to. And even though life is tough, she decides to keep
going. That’s how she decides to start taking a portrait of everyone in her town. In the
end, she manages to open up her own gallery. The end of the book is how she sees
herself through a mirror, seeing the woman she’d wished to become, even though her
doubts remained, that was all part of her now.

15) ​Home Truths: Adrian Ludlow is a somewhat accomplished but now mostly silent
author who's "retired" to an isolated English cottage with his wife, Eleanor. Over
breakfast one morning they agonize over, and thrill to, a newspaper interview their old
friend, screenwriter Sam Sharp, gave to an up and coming journalist, Fanny Tarrant,
who's made her reputation by eviscerating the self-absorbed celebrity subjects of her
profiles. The interview of Sam portrayed him as a really vain person who couldn't take
care of anyone else but him. However, Sam soon arrives at the cottage and asks Adrian's
help to get revenge on Ms Tarrant. Adrian will submit to an interview too, but even as
he's being profiled he'll secretly profile her and sell the resulting hatchet job to a rival
paper. Ms Tarrant turns out to be not only quite attractive and decent enough but also an
unabashed fan of Adrian's best known novel. Adrian remains guarded as he digs into her
life and eventually convinces her to try his sauna. Eleanor, who'd not wished to take part
 in these revenge, arrives home at a guilty-looking moment and, when Adrian is out of the
room, simply unloads on him to the eager journalist. In particular, she's devastating in
regards to the difficulty that his inability to duplicate the success of that early novel had
on their home lives. She tells a number of painful pent up truths, but tells them to
someone who may now share them with the whole world. In the final act, Sam and
Eleanor and Adrian, who's stopped speaking to his wife entirely, anxiously await the
arrival of the paper that will have the dreaded profile. But as they wait Ms Tarrant shows
up unexpectedly. Unbeknownst to the cottagers it's just been announced that Diana was
killed in a car accident while trying to escape the paparazzi, so no one's likely to read or
remember a profile of forgotten novelist Adrian Ludlow. Unfortunately though, Ms
Tarrant just happens to have a second piece in that morning's paper, one that's
particularly harsh towards the suddenly martyred Princess. There's also a strange
symbiosis between the celebrity and the journalist such that there's truly no such thing as
bad publicity and the supposed exposure of the ugly truths about the rich and famous
ends up being just another celebrant. And what surprises all of them, people who should
be wise to the rules of the game if anyone should, is how much they are affected by news
of Princess Diana death: As the sound of the TV news coverage became audible, Adrian
sat down on the chaise lounge to watch with the other two [Eleanor and Sam]. "I don't
know," he said. "A death can make a difference. Even the death of someone you never
knew, if it's sufficiently…” And when the papers finally come, with a story about their
own lives, they stay glued to the TV instead. The media has been increasingly
incorporated into everybody's daily life, so people usually tend to believe anything which
is shown there. This novel tries to portray the lack of privacity, of self interest that a
person suffers while being part of a community. Even when no one knew personally the
Princess, people would be mad about her death due to the fact that the media had been
talking about her for a previous long time, which can make people think, she’s part of
their lives too. Nowadays, people tend to show their gifts and virtues, because that is
what most people want to see. But it requires bravery to show your true self and not feel
embarrassed about it.

Unit 4​: Education: just another brick on the wall?

​

16) ​The fun they had: ​Taking place in 2155, two children, Margie and Tommy, are
inspecting a book, a device used by their ancestors to read. They aren’t used to using
books since everything they read is “telebooks”, where the words move instead of
staying still. Margie hates schools and the “mechanical teacher”, a machine that teaches
each child at home instead of going to a school. These teachers are specifically designed
for the child they have to teach. It has a screen where the lessons and questions appear
and a slot, where the child puts his finished homework (written in a specific code so the
teacher can easily calculate the mark). The book Tommy found is about schools centuries
before their time. They cannot believe that a person was in charge of teaching the pupils
since a man isn’t as smart as their mechanical teachers. During school hours, Margie
 thinks of the great time people had at school years before. In this story, human contact
(whether it is from the teacher or classmates) is completely lost, replaced instead by
machines. Its aim is to show the need of relationships while growing up, especially at
school, the place where most children spend their time in.

17) ​My one and only great escape: During his childhood, Michael spent four months in his
house (called "New Hall'') on the Essex coast in the centre of a village, and the rest of
the year in a boarding school where he was called Morpurgo, where he had to be
somebody else. He had two different lives, he had to adapt to survive. Every day and
night were filled with the familiarity of the place and its people and his family, it was his
home, his place. His family was formed by his elder brother and younger siblings, a
stepfather and his mum. Coming back to the boarding school was an agony for Michael
(Morpurgo). His mother took him to the train station, where he saw Sim, Simpson, his
best friend. Mr Steven (unpleasant) was there waiting for the other students. His mum
kissed him briefly and went away. Once on the train, he got a window seat so nobody
could see his face while he cried, although some boys joked at him anyway. In the other
station, a coach took the children to school, a Victorian mansion similar to a jail. While
having dinner, Major Philips ordered Michael to eat the rice pudding, which he
swallowed while crying. At that moment Porgo asked to go to the bathroom but he
escaped from the school instead. It was running and he started running, after one mile, a
car stopped next to him. An old lady offered to take him to her house, he trusted her and
got in the car. There was her dog, Jack. Once in her house, the old lady gave him a plate
of sticky buns and several cups of tea, she dried his clothes and talked about her life with
Jimmy, his husband who had been killed during the First World War. When his clothes
were dry and he had finished eating, the old lady took him back to the entrance of the
school, so nobody would know he had run away. During the trip, the lady told Michael
that her husband once told her he was always afraid, but he didn't run away from the war
because of his pals, who were afraid too, but they were always taking care of each other.
They arrived and Michael entered the school chapel and prayed before meeting someone.
Mr. Morgan (kind, who thought the best of his students) found him and told him to go to
his bedroom so nobody would notice his absence. In his bedroom, he listened to Simpson
(his friend) crying, who made him promise to take him with Porgo if he ever escaped
again, which never happened. In certain cases, while trying to educate, some teachers
forget about feelings, emotions and experiences that students might be undergoing. Not
only are knowledge and new concepts important issues to be taught, but also the sense of
belonging and companionship are fundamental values that children must be encouraged
to incorporate.

18) ​Fat pig: ​In a crowded restaurant, Helen is eating alone and offers Tom a seat at her table
when she sees him looking for one. When they start talking, he is uncomfortable with
Helen’s jokes about her appearance and is careful with what he says since he’s afraid of
offending her. But then they really hit it off and at the end he asks her on a date. A
couple of weeks later, Carter, Tom’s best friend, starts to notice the signs of Tom having
 a new girlfriend. He obnoxiously pesters him for information about the new girl and in
order to get it mentions it in front of a woman from accounting, Jeannie, who has been
seeing Tom on-and-off for a while. She gets very upset which gets Tom to admit that he
is “sort of” seeing this new woman in his life. ​Carter, not believing him, stops by the
restaurant and sees them together. He approaches them and introduces himself to Helen,
and she excuses herself to go to the restroom. While she is gone Carter thoroughly insults
her weight and calls her a lot of horrible things ('fat pig' among others), not knowing that
this is Tom’s new girlfriend. He assumes then that Tom was telling the truth about the
people coming in from Chicago and that Helen is one of his business contacts, since he
thought that Tom would never date anyone that “fat”. ​Later that week, Jeannie pays a
visit to Tom in his office. She has found out that no people from Chicago came to visit.
She demands to know what is going on with him and her and he says that he is not
interested in her and will never be again. Earlier, she and Carter had been gossiping
about the “fat cow from Chicago,” which is how Jeannie found out about the whole
thing. So once Tom says that it wasn’t a business dinner, she flips out and smacks him,
hurt that he would pick someone like Helen (an obese woman) over her. Carter looks on
and sort of apologizes for being rude about Helen, saying that he didn’t know she was his
girlfriend. He asks to see a picture and after a lot of pestering gets one from Tom. He
then proceeds to run down the hall and show everyone who laughs behind Tom's back
about the "fat pig" that he is dating. Throughout the rest of the play, Carter tries to
convince Tom that he should “stick to his own kind.” ​Meanwhile, Tom and Helen are
falling more and more in love. One day, Helen informs Tom that she has been offered a
better job in another town but she doesn’t want to leave him. She asks if she can meet his
friends, but when he is hesitant, she knows that he is ashamed of her involving her
weight. But not wanting to give her that impression, he tells her that she will meet his
friends when they have a work barbecue on the beach. The day arrives for the outing, but
once they get there they are secluded from everyone with the attendees making jokes and
ridiculing Helen's weight behind her back. Seeing that Tom is clearly embarrassed being
around her which has now led to him being ignored by everyone he knows over dating an
obese woman, Helen brings up her concerns and gives Tom an ultimatum: either accept
all of her of who she is and that includes defending her to his friends, or their relationship
cannot work. He replies that he cannot handle it and that she should take the job in the
other town. Both Tom and Helen walk away from each other, broken hearted. For a
moment, Helen says that she would change for him, using surgery to be what he wants
her to be; that is when Helen is willing to fit the stereotype she has always ignored to
satisfy her partner. This play is very critical on society’s expectations on how
somebody’s body should look, modifying the conventional ideal of beauty, especially on
women. So this novel portrays the difficulties of people outside socially acceptable
parameters.

19) ​19 Minutes: ​At the local high school, Sterling High, the story follows a routine day of
students in classes, at the gym, and in the cafeteria. Suddenly, a loud bang is heard from
the parking lot, which turns out to be a bomb set off in Matt Royston's car. As the
students are distracted by the noise, gunshots are fired. When Patrick, the only detective
on the Sterling police force, arrives at Sterling High, he searches the school to seek out
the gunman, who is alleged to be a student. After passing several dead and wounded
victims, Patrick stops and arrests the shooter, Peter Houghton, in the locker room, where
he finds two students, Josie Cormier and Matt Royston, lying on the floor surrounded in
blood. While Matt is dead, having been the only victim shot twice, Josie is not seriously
injured, but only shocked.. ​The shooting kills ten people (nine students and one teacher)
and wounds many other people. ​Throughout the book, time flashes back and forth
between events before and after the shooting. In the past, it is explained how Peter and
Josie were once close friends, due to their mothers also being friends (since Lacy helped
Alex throughout her pregnancy). Peter was frequently the target of severe bullying at
school, and Josie often stuck up for him. The friends slowly drifted apart as they got
older: Josie joined the popular crowd in order to protect her own interests, seeing her
relationship to Peter as embarrassing. The story pictures Peter as an outcast at home as
well; Peter believes his older brother Joey is favoured by their parents. Joey is a popular
straight-A student and athlete, but feels it necessary to ridicule Peter to protect his
reputation, even fabricating a story about how Peter was adopted. When Joey is killed in
a car accident, Lacy and Lewis Houghton are too upset to pay attention to their
remaining son, causing a bigger rift between Peter and his parents. ​In their sophomore
year, Josie begins dating Matt, a popular jock who leads his friends Drew and John in
bullying Peter. Matt often calls Peter "homo" and "fag," leading Peter to question his
sexual orientation (even as far as to going to a gay club where his teacher, the one he
later kills, frequents). The bullying intensifies once Matt begins dating Josie, in his
possessive efforts to keep her away from other boys. On one occasion, Peter approaches
Josie after school to try talking to her. Matt beats him up, leaving Peter humiliated in
front of the school. ​The flashbacks also reveal several subplots: the difficult relationship
between Josie and her single mother Alex, Alex's dilemma of being a judge and a
mother, Peter's escape from bullying into the world of video games, Josie's fear of falling
out of the popular crowd and her suicide back-up plan when she does, Matt's abusive
behaviour toward Josie, Josie's pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage, as well as Lewis
Houghton's hunting lessons with his son Peter. ​One month before the shooting, Peter
realizes that he has feelings for Josie, and sends her an email expressing his love.
Courtney, Josie’s “friend”, reads this email before Josie and has Drew forward it to the
entire school. Courtney then convinces Peter that Josie likes him. Peter asks Josie to join
him later during lunch, only to suffer public humiliation as Matt pulls down Peter's pants
and exposes his genitals to a cafeteria full of students. Peter's psychotic break is triggered
on the morning of the shooting when he turns on his computer and accidentally opens the
email he wrote to Josie. ​After the shooting, Peter is sent to jail while the trial proceeds.
Peter admits to killing ten people and wounding nineteen others. Jordan, Peter's defense
attorney, uses “Battered Person Syndrome” caused by severe bullying and abuse, used
commonly when women kill their abusive husbands, as a basis to convince the jury that
Peter’s actions were justified as a result of his suffering from post-traumatic stress
disorder. Jordan argues that he was in a dissociative state at the time of the shooting. In
the final stage of the trial, Josie reveals that she was the one who shot Matt the first time
in the stomach after grabbing a gun that fell out of Peter's bag. She admits later that she
did this on account of the abusive behaviour that she had endured while in a relationship
with him. Peter later fired the fatal second shot; a blow to the head. Peter promised her he
wouldn't tell anyone what she had done, and he kept this promise, happy to have Josie as
his friend again. ​Peter is sentenced to life in prison. A month afterward, Peter commits
suicide by stuffing a sock into his throat. ​At the end of the book, one year from the date
of the massacre, Josie has received a five-year sentence for shooting Matt and is
regularly visited in jail by her mother. Throughout the book, Josie never told the whole
story, instead repeating, "I can't remember." When Josie admits to shooting Matt, Peter's
sentence is reduced. This novel clearly aims at discussing how bullying, whether it is
through words or actions, affects people, especially children at school. And it’s up to
everyone, parents, teachers, friends and government; to ensure that issues like these are
addressed properly.