The Principles of Newspeak, from the novel 1984, by George Orwell

GEORGE ORWELL, a short biography

George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair. He drew the inspiration for this pseudonym from the River Owell and from the patron saint of England.
He was born in 1903 in India and died at the age of 46 in London as a result of tuberculosis.
His most famous books are Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm and Homage to Catalonia.
When he was one year old, his mother took him and his sisters to England. As a child, he attended a Catholic school, and later he studied at Eton, the famous boarding school for the elite. There, Aldous Huxley taught him French.
As he wasn’t a particularly good student, his parents decided he should apply to the Indian Imperial Police. He went to a training police school in India, and then he worked as a policeman there.
After contracting dengue fever, he went back to England, having spent five years in India. He decided to leave the police force and to become a writer. He started with a memoir of his days in India with a book called Burmese Days, which he managed to publish several years after: at the time his manuscript was refused by all the publishers.
In 1927 (he was 24), he went to live on Portobello Road, where you can find a plate bearing his name.
The following year he went to Paris, where he wrote some articles for Le Monde, whose editor was Henri Barbusse. After six months, he went back to England, this time so Suffolk where his parents were living. He went on trying to publish articles and sending his writings to various editors, but they were rejected.
At 29, he started working as a teacher at a boy’s secondary school in London. While working there, he was able to publish A Scullion’s Diary, a report on his visits to the London slums; then he also got published Down and Out in Paris and London, a book about his experiences in both cities. He got ill again and stopped teaching forever.
His new job was in a second-hand bookshop; there he began his novel A Clergyman’s Daughter, inspired in his days as a teacher. In the bookshop he contacted with Esperantists and with the Independent Labour Party. He also wrote literary reviews for some magazines. His book The Road to Wingan Pier was an investigation into the living conditions of the working class in the Northern England.
At the age of 33, he got married, but the same year he came to Spain to fight against the fascists, and he joined the POUM, a Trotskyist party; he fought in the Aragon Front, where he was wounded. He was taken to a hospital in Barcelona, where he witnessed the violent clashes between the Communist Party and the rest of leftist groups in May 1937. He was arrested, but he managed to escape and flee from Spain and the Stalinist agents. He told his experiences in the Spanish Civil War in his Homage to Catalonia.
Due to his serious health problems, his friends sent him to the French Morocco for recovery, but he came back before the start of the WWII.
During the war, he worked for the BBC, wrote articles for newspapers and finished Animal Farm. In 1945, he was appointed editor of the Tribune, but the following year he moved to an isolated farm to try to recover from his deteriorating health and to finish his novel Nineteen Eight-Four, which was published in 1949, some months before his death.

THE PRINCIPLES OF NEWSPEAK

The text we’re going to discuss is a kind of summary of the new language invented by George Orwell for the dystopian society depicted in the novel 1984.

But first, let’s talk a little bit about the novel. A dystopia is an imaginary place or time where people live in subhuman conditions. It’s a kind of opposite to utopia, where people live happily as in a paradise.

In the 1984 novel, the world is divided in three superstates in perpetual war with each other, but it’s a war of low intensity and the battles usually take place on the borders, and the alliances shift frequently, but none of the belligerents can achieve a definite victory, so the war never ends.

Our protagonist lives in a group of regions forming the state of Oceania under a totalitarian regime. The only political party with his leader, Big Brother, controls everything and everybody, and its ultimate objective is the absolute control of the human mind.

All the time, the regime tells its subjects that they live in the best of the worlds, but you know all are lies that everybody believes without question.

Our hero, Winston Smith, is a kind of civil servant who becomes aware of the big falsehood of the system and the tyrannical nature of the government, and wants to rebel against the establishment. He has a lover, and together they try to get in contact with the opposition, a Brotherhood whose leader is Goldstein. But the Thought Police is always watching.

The Thought Police is the most efficient police of the world, and its goal is to uncover any form of heterodoxy and suppress it. The only way to remain all the time orthodox is through Doublethink, that is, being able to think at the same time two opposite and excluding statements, i.e., “two and two is four, but sometimes two and two is five”, and genuinely believing that both are true. It isn’t hypocrisy, that is, thinking one thing and saying another, but really believing there isn’t a contradiction between both declarations.

The Party is working to maintain orthodoxy, and the way to reach this goal is the Newspeak, a new language designed to keep all the thought between the limits of goodthink. This new language will reduce all possible ambiguities eliminating unnecessary words such as synonyms or opposites, and simplifying grammar and spelling. So, the new Dictionary will contain fewer and fewer words each new edition. At the end it would be impossible to commit crimethink because the worlds to express such thoughts will no longer exist.

QUESTIONS

-How do you see the future of Humanity? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about it? Why do you think so?

-What is solipsism? Do you think reality exist out of our minds, or it's only an invention of our minds?

-In your view, are we spied and controlled all the time? According to you, is it good or bad for people?

-Our languages, are becoming poorer and poorer?

VOCABULARY

lice, root, arising, utter, telescoped, devised, rook, severed

The Last Leaf, by O. Henry

 

Film (minute 41:24)

SUMMARY

Greenwich Village was, and is, a quarter in New York where artists like to live. They could be famous artists or poor artists, but all of them strove to produce a masterpiece. However, in order to make booth ends meet, they had to do menial works, usually related to decorative arts.

In a building in this place, there lived a pair of young women, Johnsy and Sue. As most of the artists there, they had their own difficulties with money; but money wasn’t the only trouble: that year, November was very cold, and Johnsy caught a pneumonia. In the beginning of the twentieth century, a pneumonia was a serious illness and sometimes a fatal one.

The doctor visited Johnsy and gave her some remedies, but she didn’t get better, and according to the doctor, it was because she was in low spirits, she didn’t have the strength of mind to overcome her disease and she felt depressed and suspected she was going to die soon; in short, she imagined that her life depended on the number of leaves of an old ivy vine that climbed the wall opposite her window; as fewer leaves were left in the vine, less life was left for her. So, falling leaves were a kind of final countdown for her.

Sue and Johnsy had a neighbour, old Behrman. He was also a poor artist trying to start to paint what had to be his masterpiece; but he never could find the inspiration. Although he was in want all the time, he tried to help his neighbours artists and sometimes posed for them.

Sue told old Behrman about Johnsy’s illness and about her strange obsession with the falling leaves, and perhaps he thought about her strange superstition.

Well, in the end, the vine had only a leaf left. Johnsy believed it was her last hope to live: if the leaf fell, she would die; if the leaf stood stuck to the vine, she would live.

That night was windy and snowy, so her chances to live were few, and her friend wouldn't allow her to be watching the last leaf during the night.

But the next morning, the leaf was still there: it had withstood all the attacks of the tempest. And because of this, Johnsy recovered her spirits and her desire to live, and soon she felt better.

When she was a bit stronger, Sue told her a piece of bad news: her good old neighbour was found dead on the snow, on the street below their window, the night of the tempest, with his painting tools near him.

What was he doing there?

QUESTIONS

-A big question: what is art? Or better: what is art for you?

-Are you superstitious? What can be a definition of superstition? Do you know a superstition that has a scientific basis?

-Johnsy didn't have spirits to fight for her life. When a disease can be considered psychosomatic?

VOCABULARY

paid on account, gable, pewter, bishop sleeves, duffer, smote, Ducht window, jew's harp, goosey, imp, hem, daub, juniper berries

The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry

Film (minute 1:28:43) 

SUMMARY

This is a very romantic story. It’s, of course, a love story, but also a story of self-sacrifice.

A married couple lived very poorly. The husband, Jim, was a mere worker, and his wife was a housewife. They lived in a cheap flat in the big city. Christmas was near, and each one wanted to give their partner a present, but neither of them had enough money to buy the gift they would like. So, they have to contrive something to get the money. Della, the wife, wanted a chain for Jim’s pocket watch, a trinket the Jim loved very much. Jim had only a strap to hold his watch. But the chain was too expensive, and the only idea she got to get some money was selling her own hair. Della had a mass of long, beautiful hair and was very proud of it, and Jim adored it. But she sold it, and then she could buy the chain.

For his own part, Jim also had to do something to get some cash for the present he wanted to buy for Della. He also sold something he loved very much, and, with the money, he could buy a set of combs for Della's beautiful hair (here with "combs" we mean convex combs to adorn a woman’s hair, not the tools to arrange one’s hair).

But now you can imagine the wife’s disappointment when he saw her present. And until the end of the story, we won’t know what Jim had to sell to buy the combs, and, you know: having read some of O. Henry stories, we must have the suspicion that it will be another surprise.

But, besides surprises, the story has a morality. For you, what is it, this morality?

 

QUESTIONS
-What are your habits about presents? 
-What do you know about the Three Wise Men? Are they historical figures?
-And what about Santa Claus and Saint Nicholas?

-Do you think the couple of the story are being romantic or only irresponsible? Are there any other, cheaper, ways to be romantic?

-Our couple is a bit traditional. Nowadays, how can one be chivalrous without being sexist?

-What differences could you find between the original story and the film adaptation?

VOCABULARY

bulldozing, parsimony, flop down, lookout, sterling, pier-glass, hashed, fob chain, sly, truant, dog, quail, wails, tresses, singed (/singd/), manger

Extradited from Bohemia, by O. Henry

 Audiobook

Scene from La Dolce Vita

Bohemian life

SUMMARY

Miss Medora Martin, a middle-aged woman who lived happily in a village near Harmony, wanted to be an excellent painter. Although her village was beautiful and she had a fiancée, she went to New York to study art.

In the big city, she took painting lessons with professor Angelini, a former barber who had learnt his job in a dancing academy and whose teaching, as you can imagine, was very poor in quality. Nevertheless, she thought she could become a great artist.

But one day, things went awry: she didn’t get her money from home, she had to take back some pictures because the art dealer couldn’t sell them, she was hopeless about her talents, etc. So, at this moment, she was ready to give up all her illusions.

But, in the middle of her calamity, she got a lucky strike: one of her boarding house mates, a Mr Binkley, a fishmonger that was keen on art and attended meetings of people connected with the beaux arts, invited her to a café where the Broadway Bohemian artists usually meet.

Mr Binkey was admitted to the group because he had lent ten pounds to one of the artists.

These people talked and talked and talked about art and artists. And Medora immediately felt entrapped in that Bohemian atmosphere and discovered what was actually her calling: to live as a real artist.

She decided to sever all connection with her past, and immediately wrote to her suitor in the village, telling him to forget her because she was under the spell of the artistic life and had to live in the Bohemian world; so she couldn’t go back to the country anymore.

But some days after, her fiancée came to New York to take her back to Harmony. However, she said she was engulfed in Bohemia and couldn’t move. He didn’t pay attention to her wishes and told her she had to pack her things and go with him.

What did she do eventually?

 

QUESTIONS

-Who were Bastien Le Page, Gérôme, Rosa Bonheur, Giotto, Henry James, Camille, Lola Montez, Royal Mary, Zaza?

-Give some information about the Columbus Circle, the magazine Puck, Würzburger, Basilisk, St Regis decorations.

-In the text we find the sentence “We are short, and Art is long”, that is an adaptation of “Life is short, and art is long.” What is its meaning?

-And what do you know about “The die is cast”?

 

VOCABULARY

easel, brickbats, pans out, whooped, pebble grain, panhandler, pail, shucks!

The Pendulum, by O. Hernry

 

Audiobook

Text with images

SUMMARY, by Aurora Ledesma

This is the story of John Perkins and Katy, a couple who live in New York. After work, John Perkins gets out at the Eighty-First Street station in Manhattan and walks slowly towards his flat. On his way home, he is bored because he knows exactly how he is going to spend his evening.
He has been married to Katy for two years. Their life is a boring routine. It never changes. John returns home, where his wife, Katy, is waiting, and just as yesterday and the day before, she meets him at the door with a kiss which smells of cream and butter-scotch. He removes his coat and reads the evening paper. Then they sit down to dinner. It’s the same pot roast, salad and rhubarb and strawberry marmalade. After dinner, they listen to their neighbours doing the same things day after day: the fat man in the flat above starts his physical exercises, the couple who play in a vaudeville act begin to have delirium tremens, the flute player, the lady with champagne shoes and the Skye terrier…
Every night, despite Katy’s disapproval, at a quarter past eight John goes to McCloskey’s with his friends to play pool, and at ten or eleven, he would return. One evening when he comes home, he doesn’t find his wife. John is shocked by the disorder of their apartment: clothes, shoes and different belongings lying on the floor and over the chairs. She has left behind a note that she has gone to visit her sick mother. Feeling her absence, John regrets his treatment of her, and now he feels guilty. He is sorry because while he was playing pool with his friends, Katy was suffering from loneliness at home. He would take Katy out and let her have some fun when she came back.
Just then, the door opens and Katy walks in. She tells him that her mother was not seriously ill, and she had taken the train back. John Perkins looks at the clock. It is 8,15…

Some reflections

For John Perkins, the main character, life is boring. It’s all about routine, just like a pendulum with its predictable back-and-forth motion. John is also an indecisive person; this man sometimes changes his mind depending on the situation. When his routine is interrupted, John begins to question his life and his actions.

QUESTIONS

-Tell us about the possible interpretations of the title.
-Can you remember any instances (real or fictional)  of trying to be kind to other people and then, when you see the drawbacks of it, you back out?
-Is the pendulum (or the circle) an image of real life, or do you think real life is more like a line with a beginning and an ending?
-In our couple, who do you think is guiltier, the husband for not paying attention to his wife, or the wife for not going on her own account?

VOCABULARY

downtrodden, butter-scotch, four-in-hand, querulous, pool, wrapper, thrum, fling, dregs, roistering, curbed, bereft, double-dyed, dub, make it up, woo, depot

The Complete Life of John Hopkins, by O. Henry

Audiobook 

Presentation

SUMMARY

As it’s usual in O. Henry, he starts his writing with a philosophical deliberation. In our case, he reflects about the saying “No man has tasted the full flavour of life until he has known poverty, love, and war.” So we have to imagine that in our story, the author / narrator is going to demonstrate the truth of it, or at least, give an instance of it. How an ordinary man with a monotonous life can taste the full flavour of life?

John Hopkins was a very commonplace man. He had had the same tastes and the same habits for all his life. He dwelt in a normal flat with a ficus and a dog in an unobtrusive street and was married as most people. His wife was also an unimaginative woman. There wasn’t any surprise in the lives of these two people. One cannot expect anything that wasn’t monotony in their home.

Every weekday, when John Hopkins came from work, had dinner, made some trivial remarks about the day, told his wife some little change in his office or about the people there and then was quiet.

But today, he did something absolutely unusual: in the middle of a sentence, he suddenly decided to walk down to the corner to buy a cigar.

And now a series of extraordinary events took place. First, he forgot his money and couldn’t pay for the cigar, then he quarrelled with the tobacconist because the man didn’t sell on credit. Afterwards, a policeman arrived to where they were fighting and tried to arrest Hopkins, but he defended himself and run away. In his flight, he was rescued by a stranger in a car, who took him to his lady. The lady, however, wanted her cousin Walter Long, but, as the driver hadn’t been able to find him, he had brought John Hopkins instead. The lady needed a brave and strong man to throw out of her house somebody who had offended her; nevertheless, the offender, who perhaps was her husband, her brother or any family member, in a moment seized Hopkins, pinned him down and easily shoved him out of doors.

John Hopkins, once on the street, not at all confused, walked directly home. His wife greeted him with...

 

QUESTIONS

-What is your opinion about this saying: “No man has tasted the full flavour of life until he has known poverty, love and war”?

-Where are poverty, love and war in our story?

-What do you prefer: a routine life or an adventurous one? What is it better for our mental health?

-What are the benefits of a customary / everyday / trivial conversation?

-Somebody said: our troubles come of not being able to remain calmly at home all the time. What is your view about that sentence?

 

VOCABULARY

plummet, ostrich tips, mucilaginous, hornblende, grafted, joust, rebuses, took [spiritedly] to his hells, soak, winning, chowder, grouch at, scraper, kennels, check

The Fool-Killer, by O. Henry

 Audiobook

SUMMARY

Rudolph Kerner was the son of a very rich man. He wanted to be an artist, and he was in love with a beautiful working girl, so a poor girl. His father didn’t like his son’s ideas about vocation and marriage, but Kerner was stubborn as artists and lovers have to be.

However, the story begins by telling us about a bogeyman, a spirit or a ghost that people allude in order to frighten or threaten children; or parents make use of his name to make their children obey. Our bogeyman is Jesse Holmes, otherwise called the Fool-Killer, because his aim are fools; it is a terrific and bloody character.

But the core of our story is a dinner at Farroni’s. Kerner and the narrator had dinner there, and after dinner, they drank an absinthe drip. This is a kind of cocktail, and absinthe is a strong liquor: it has 65% of alcohol. The narrator got drunk and started to see strange things. He saw Jesse Holmes coming to their table and sitting with them, although he wasn’t sure if the character was real or only a product of his intoxicated imagination.

There, the Fool-Killer threatened to kill Kerner for being a fool, that is, for disdaining his father’s fortune by wanting to live the poor life of an artist and by marrying a poor girl. But Kerner doesn’t seem to see or to hear the Fool-Killer. Once this bogeyman had said his ultimatum, he went out of the restaurant. Our narrator, understanding the danger his friend was in, ran after Jesse Holmes and tried to persuade him to forgive or forget Kerner. The bogeyman yielded at last and asked him to fetch Kerner on the street. He was afraid for his friend, but Kerner thought he was only drunk; he was to take him home, when, on the street, the Fool-Killer stopped them and addressed Kerner.

What did he tell him? Did he kill him?

 

QUESTIONS

-Do you think it is necessary (or useful) to have a bogeyman to make children obey?

-In every culture, they have their own bogeyman. What can be the reason for this creation?

-According to the cliché, a real artist has to be poor. On your point of view, how true is this cliché?

 

VOCABULARY

Southrons, parlor rifle, slosh, crinkly, dipper, limned, kalsomining, street-sprinkler, jag, clay-eaters, give in

The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson, by O. Henry

 

Audiobook

SUMMARY

Dry Valley Johnson was a shepherd and had lived in the country all his life. Then, when he was 35 (or 38), he decided he wanted to change his life and live gently as a villager, so he moved to Santa Clara, a small town, and bought a house there.

Dry Valley, although he wasn’t old, was regarded as an old bachelor who had no interest in women; he even avoided their presence. However, according to the school mistress, he was handsome enough.

Short after settling in his new abode, someone gave a strawberry to taste, and, as he found the fruit astonishing, he decided to dedicate all his time and his energy to grow this plant in his garden. He prepared the ground and bought a lot of books about strawberry farming.

His garden had a picked fence around, but his neighbours were a family with a lot of children, and so possible poachers. In order to protect better his crops, he brought a long, strong whip to drive away any predator. He exercised with the weapon until he got a fine aim.

One day, when he was away from home, the children raided his garden and ate as many strawberries as they could. When he was back and saw the attack, he took his powerful whip and chased the invaders away. All of them but Panchita flew away; she was a beautiful girl of nineteen with brilliant thick black hair. Instead of running away, she kept her post and looked defiantly with a strawberry between her white teeth at Dry Valley and scorned to move, even knowing he had hit the mark with her brothers.

Dry Valley got paralysed with love. He didn’t know the feeling and was stupefied.

That vision made him change his lifestyle; now he bought the most fashionable clothes in town and an elegant and modern carriage. Afterwards, he went to his neighbours to ask a date with Panchita. Panchita said yes, and the large family were delighted with the prospect of marrying one of their children. And in order to make himself agreeable to the girl, Dry Valley tried to behave as a younger man.

But one day, after sprucing himself up, when he was at the door of Panchita’s to pick her up, he saw her disguised as himself making fun of him for her brothers, who were having a great time with the mockery. Suddenly, Dry Valley saw he had made a fool of himself pretending to be young and fashionable. He went back home, changed to his old country clothes, gave his new clothes to his cook and tried to forget all about Panchita.

The girl, seeing that her suitor didn’t come for her, went to see if something had happened to him, because all the time he had been punctual. But when Dry Valley saw Panchita, threw her out of his house, saying he regretted being caught by his infatuation and telling her keeping off him.

However, that evening, someone got through his fence and trespassed on his garden. The man was on the watch and took his sharp cracking whip…

 

QUESTIONS

-Do you know any very curious recipe (or remedy) taken from a magazine or told you by some old people?

-Why do you think that a “bachelor with a hobby” could be an encumbering (or “earthcumbering”) thing?

-“Someone gave him his first strawberry to eat, and he was done for.” This sentence carries a biblical sense. Have you experienced something that has changed your life forever?

-What do you know about the song “Strawberry Fields Forever”, by John Lennon?

-Have you ever “seen yourself in a mirror”, in the sense of our story?

-Would you give, as Faust, your soul (or something less valuable) to recover your youth? What would you give?

 

VOCABULARY

nux vomica, bay rum, range, cot, cross strains, morning glory, gourd vines, drove, fleet, mesquite thicket, weathered, hectic, jay-bird, desecrated, iver (=quiver), macaw, charter, trotter, damper, revelry, lawn, locoed, motley

The Count and the Wedding Guest, by O. Henry

Audiobook

A summary

Another summary

Power point

SUMMARY
Andy Donovan, a young man who lived in a boarding house, met a new boarder called Miss Conway and almost immediately felt in love with her. Miss Conway was a very discreet woman, but one day she appeared gorgeously dressed in mourning black. Mr Donovan got astounded seeing her so beautifully attired, but respected her grief and offered her to share her feelings and to listen to her sad story.
She told him she was on the point of marrying an Italian Count, Fernando Mazzini, but unfortunately, he had an accident and he died. The girl was unconsolably sorry, and Donovan felt pity for her. In telling her story, the girl even showed a picture of her late fiancé.

So, Donovan, even as he knew it would be a difficult enterprise for him to try to replace the charm of her dead boyfriend, after a month he succeeded in getting her love.

Once they announced their engagement, Donovan told her he was a bit worried because he had to invite a close friend of his to their wedding and didn’t know if she would like it. The man was "Big Mike" Sullivan and, although he was a very important person in New York, he had friends in all the social classes. But there was a reason why he couldn’t invite him to the wedding, and he couldn’t discover it. He asked her if she really loved him more than he loved Count Mazzini, and at that moment she went down and started to cry. Yes, she loved Donovan, but she lied about her past. So, she asked him if she would forgive her.

Who was Big Mike? What was the lie?

 

QUESTIONS

-What can it be the difference between pity and love? Have you read the novel Beware of Pity, by Stefan Zweig? (There is also a film)

-We don’t know anything about the life of the two protagonists. Can you imagine what kind of life they lived?

-Why is Big Mike important? What, according to you, was his job?

-What do you know about Mazzini? And about Tammany? P’pkispee? The Bowery, in New York?

 

VOCABULARY

unobtrusive, blighted, hop-skip-and-a-jump, hoisted, cinch, mullygrubs, stringing, livery, trousseau, locked, to the mustard, look swell, Bully girl!

Brickdust Row, by O. Henry

Audiobook

Script for a movie (a very free adaptation)

SUMMARY

Alexander Blinker, our hero, was a very rich man. His fortune came from “lands, tenements and hereditaments”. As he was a bachelor, and the summer was about to begin, he decided to go to the woods in the North to enjoy some holiday. He wanted to go immediately, but his lawyer said he had to stay in the city two days more in order to sign a thick collection of documents. He didn’t like the idea of spending two boring days more in the city, but he acknowledged the necessity of signing these documents.

To kill time, he went to one of his clubs, but seeing it was full of boring old fogies, all of a sudden, he said he would go to Coney Island. Coney Island is actually a peninsula in the South of Brooklyn, and it has a log beach and a big Fun Fair. Its visitors were usually ordinary people, not rich people as Blinker. To go there, he had to take a boat full of people looking for fun; but also, there was a pretty young woman sitting on a stool, alone. Blinker was not far from her; a puff of wind almost carried his hat away, but he grabbed it in a moment. The girl (whose name was Florence) acknowledged his gesture with a smile, thinking he was greeting her, and Blinker went and sit next to her. They began a conversation, and they introduced each other, although Blinker didn’t say he was very rich; instead, he said he was a bricklayer. Florence said she was a working girl, a milliner. And they started to like each other. Nevertheless, Florence was a bit suspicious about his name, but at least he didn’t say his name was “Smith”. They agree to visit the fun fair together, Florence acting as a Cicerone, as Blinker had never been there.

At the beginning, Blinker was a bit uncomfortable with so many people jostling around them and so many harsh lights and noises, but at the end he felt the place and the atmosphere romantic. They ride all the devices of the amusement park.

At the end, they had to go back home.

When they went aboard the boat, Blinker started to feel he was in love with Florence, and, when a steamer run into their boat and they were about to sink, he felt sure and declared his love. But she answered coldly to his passion and told him that all the men said the same; however, he tried to persuade her that he wasn’t like the other men. In answer, she told him she knew what men were like because she usually met other men she picked up on the street (she picked them up on the street because her place had no parlour, and so it was too small for inviting people). Blinker was now a bit puzzled.

In the end they landed safely but…

Did Florence accept his love? Did he tell her he was really a rich man?

 

QUESTIONS

-Do you think swearing / cursing is rude? Or does it depend on the situation? How do you vent your wrath?

-What kind of girl is Florence? Is she a kind of escort, or only a girl who wants some amusement?

-Perhaps this story reminds you of the film Pretty Woman. Would you be able to detail all the clichés this film has?

-In your opinion, is romanticism an essential feature of a good relationship?

-Can everybody change radically their way of life? For instance, can a robber become an honest man? How can do it? Or will our past never stop going after us?

 

VOCABULARY

estate, bay rum, thumb-handed, runabout, fogies, steward, roe, tittered, pier, brazenly, incog, bantering, millinery, trumpery, spangled, incorporated, drab, slip, yawed, rent, slats, bow, stern, wall flower