ENGL 3324 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Ragged Dick, Hands Clean
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The novel ragged dick by horatio alger, jr. , is a story of a young man in. Nineteenth century new york, trying to make a living as a lowly boot black and surviving the streets. The main character dick is fourteen years old, has been on his own since the age of seven, and is blessed with good morals and work-ethics. The primary moral of the story is that with hard work and dedication, you can be a successful in any endeavor you put your mind to. The novel is a coming of age story about an honest young man named richard hunter, who prides himself on hard work and dedication to earn a living. He has no reservations about who he is and accepts the role in life that he has been given. Although dick is very good at his trade, he tends to spend most of his money unwisely by going to plays at barnum"s and the bowery.
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You will require at least 5 varied annotations per age with an exception of 3 annotations for the last page (commentary, summary per page, text connections, unknown words) and should identify a minimum of 5 figurative language / literary devices throughout the story. This means that you should have a minimum of 18 annotations.
You will use the cursor highlight and comment function to complete your textual annotations, being sure to clearly identify (IN ALL CAPS) what type of annotation you are doing (i.e. COMMENTARY, SUMMARY, TEXT CONNECTION, UNKNOWN WORD, LITERARY DEVICE) and then explaining why you identified it, what it means, and/or what the connection is.
| About the Author: Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was a renowned feminist author of the late 19 th century. During this period, which was also known as the Victorian Era (1837-1901), women had very little control over their own hives, and many female thinkers like Chopin fought hard for social change |
[1] 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 sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing, Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near ber It was he who had been in the newspaper office whep 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 significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's amm. 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 armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
[5] 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 cry ing his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaver.
She was young with a fair, calm facs, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but nether 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 skyy reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air
[10] 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 twa white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered ward escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, "free, freel". The vacant stare and the look of tenor 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 beld her A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She lanew 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, fixed 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 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 the lace of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strong est impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free" she kept whispering.
[15] Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louse, open the door! [ beg; open the door - you will
make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? Far heaveris sale 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 abng 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 unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richands 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 the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing ay; at Richards' quids motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
[20] When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease - of the joy that kills.
